LITMIR.BIZ

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marinating in their bath of yogurt, lime juice, cumin, and coriander. Some shops would just use precooked, prepackaged chicken breasts, but that wasn’t Libby’s style. Bernie smiled as she remembered the look of outrage on her sister’s face when the food salesman from Sysco had suggested it. You’d have thought he was asking her to use vanillin instead of vanilla or margarine instead of butter.

      “I could call Amber and ask her to get the salad started,” Bernie suggested.

      Libby didn’t answer. She probably hadn’t heard her, Bernie reflected. That’s because she had her nose pressed against the limo’s window. Bernie was just about to repeat her offer but decided against it. For some reason she had no desire to talk to Libby or anyone else in Clayton’s presence. He was, she reflected, like some negative force that just sucked the fun out of things. She’d noticed that Marvin was even more nervous than he usually was when he was around him.

      The silence was beginning to get oppressive. Bernie decided it would be better to concentrate her energies on other things, so she sat back and closed her eyes and thought about how she and Libby were going to set up for the benefit at Just Chocolate.

      Just Chocolate was obviously supplying the chocolate and they were doing the wine, but she and Libby were responsible for the food part of the operation. At latest count Bree Nottingham had sold over three hundred tickets out of a possible five hundred, but Bernie was sure that by the day arrived the event would be sold out. It was the perfect Valentine’s Day event.

      She and Libby had the menu loosely worked out, but they had to refine it. And then they needed to figure out the numbers so they could phone their orders in. The benefit was only two weeks away and they needed time to prepare.

      Of course they were doing the tried and true. Platters of strawberries and tangerine sections as well as baskets full of grape clusters and melon and mango slices. They were serving three different types of chocolate cake, not including cheesecake, all of them baked in heart-shaped pans, as well as eight varieties of chocolate cookies, among them chocolate cookies with black pepper and chocolate cookies with ginger, a combination she was particularly fond of, as well as a takeoff on a Linzer tart cookie.

      Then they were making six different kinds of brownies, among them rocky road, cashew, mint, and double fudge. Just thinking about all the baking they had to do made her tired. But at least they weren’t doing pies or tarts. Those took forever.

      Less obviously, she and Libby were doing figs stuffed with almonds and chocolate, a Portuguese delicacy. They were also doing chicken mole, a Mexican chicken stew made with about twenty ingredients, including chocolate, as well as a South American beef stew that used dark chocolate as a thickening and flavoring agent. With the stews, Bernie was thinking they should serve some sort of stretch bread to sop up the sauce.

      Bernie thought again about what a tremendous amount of work they’d undertaken. They really did have to order and start baking now in order to be ready in time. At least they should. Fortunately, a lot of the stuff could be baked in advance and frozen, not that Libby would agree. Unfortunately, what with the oven and the building inspector and the construction, Bernie didn’t know how they were going to do that on top of their usual stuff, at least not if they didn’t want to work until three in the morning.

      Bernie felt a stab of panic. What if the building inspector said they had to stop working until the exhaust system was installed? He had the ability to shut them down. Maybe she could bribe him. Ha. She wouldn’t know how to even start. Or maybe Bree could talk to him and plead their case. That would work better.

      Bernie was beginning to think her mother was correct when she said, “In life it’s not what you know but who you know that counts.”

      Bernie moved her ring up and down her finger.

      Libby was right, though. It was important to go to Mrs. Vongel’s mother’s funeral, and now they’d missed it. This was all her fault. As usual. If she hadn’t taken so long putting her mascara on, they wouldn’t have been in such a hurry, and they would have noticed what the sign on the door said. She hadn’t even actually read it. She’d just seen the V and sailed right in.

      Maybe if she baked Mrs. Vongel a cake. Scratch that. Like Bree Nottingham she was a size 2. She didn’t eat, she grazed. Maybe an expensive bottle of wine? Yes. That might work. Or better yet, a good brandy. Bernie was tapping her fingers against the seat, trying to decide what kind, when she realized Libby was speaking to her.

      Bernie’s head went up.

      “What?” she asked.

      “I was just saying that we’re here.”

      “Indeed we are,” Bernie replied as they entered the front gate of the Oaks.

      “Remember good old Charlie?” Libby asked her.

      “How could I forget him?”

      “What you did was really mean.”

      “Mean?” Bernie retorted. “I was mean? What about him?”

      When she was in high school she’d come up here with Charlie Quincy and they’d made out on the bench next to Elizabeth Engel’s grave. They’d done that three times when she’d heard a moaning noise behind them. Then something that looked like a ghoul had come at her. At which point she’d done what any normal person would have. She’d spun around and clocked the thing over the head with her backpack. He’d screamed and grabbed his nose. Who knew you could break a ghoul’s nose?

      The ghoul turned out to be Chris Parker, Charlie’s pal. Charlie had hired him to scare her, figuring that he’d play the big hero and she’d be so grateful that he’d get into her pants later that evening. Ha, ha. Not happening. She’d felt a little bad about Chris’s nose, but she was really pissed at Charlie. And she’d gotten him back.

      When she’d walked out of his closet at three in the morning he’d let out the loudest shriek she’d ever heard. Maybe it was because she’d painted herself with phosphorescent paint. She glowed in the dark—except for her face, which she’d blacked out. It had been hell to get off—she’d had to scrub herself with a brush—but it was all worth it.

      Bernie smiled as she watched the limo drive up and down the meandering paths. In the spring, the place was lovely, but now it was spooky. Her counter girl, Amber, would love it. Whenever she saw a horror movie—and she saw them all—she insisted on telling everyone else in the kitchen the plot. Nothing like prepping chicken for chicken salad to a detailed description of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

      “Where are we going?” Bernie heard Libby ask as they drove by the angel holding the lantern.

      “You’ll see,” Clayton said.

      As Bernie watched they drove by the mausoleum of the founder of Longely. It was built along the lines of a Roman temple. They passed the monument to the people who died from the flu in 1918. They passed Bernie’s favorite monument, the statue of a cocker spaniel with a young man. The placard read LOVE IS ETERNAL. Then they were through the old part of the cemetery and into the new part. Here the land was much straighter and the graves were arranged in orderly rows. There were fewer statues—no angels, no dogs, no large symbols, and no mausoleums.

      “I like the old part better,” Bernie commented to Libby.

      “Pain in the ass to dig in, though,” Clayton answered. “Too many tree roots.”

      “I thought people used backhoes for that,” Bernie observed.

      “I’m talking about in the old days,” Clayton replied.

      This time Bernie was relieved to see that he didn’t turn around while he spoke. They kept driving. Now they were at the new part of the cemetery. Bernie wondered where they were going because they were coming to the end. When they got to the groundskeeper’s house, a small yellow cottage, Clayton’s father took a hard right.

      “I didn’t even know there was a road here,” Libby said to him.

      “Me neither,” Bernie agreed.

      Marvin’s

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