A Single Eye (28 page)

Then he demanded, “Poisoned? You think I poisoned him, don't you? I'm a known poisoner. You think I did this, don't you?”

I wanted to scream, No, of course not! It took all my control to keep eye contact and say, “Did you?”

“NO!” His shout was so loud it must have echoed all over the grounds. I was amazed the dishwashing crew didn't come running. Now it was Barry keeping our eye contact. “No!” he insisted, but in a normal voice. “Roshi took me in when I was at rock bottom. He didn't ask questions. He stuck by me; he didn't toss me out when I wandered off for weeks at a time. He didn't turn me away when I banged on his cabin door at three
A.M.
and needed to talk. He gave me space and he gave me guidance, and most of all he gave me time to get to this point where I can go back to the Cacao Royale and get some notice in the extra fine specialty chocolate field. Six years ago I thought my life was over. Without Roshi it would have been. But those years were just retooling. I would give my life for Roshi.” He slumped back shaking his head. “Why would anyone—?”

“You've been here way longer than I have. I was hoping you'd—”

“How could anyone poison him? We all eat out of the same pot and—” He stopped, mouth open. “Oh no, was it in—” He swallowed hard. “—in my cocoa? The special blend I make for him!”

I nodded.

“How could anyone—?” He took a deep breath and another, as if trying to control his emotions enough to think straight. “I made you a cup of cocoa from his special batch, that first day. It wasn't poisoned then. But doesn't matter. The cannister's right out on the counter, labeled, like an invitation. Anyone could have adulterated it.”

“You live here; you know people, so who would poison Leo? Why? Did it have something to do with the opening of the monastery?” When he shook his head in bewilderment, I tried “Or with Aeneas?”

“You're sure it's poison, not flu? Nobody would hurt Leo—okay, listen, let me think.” His gaze fell on his watch. He jumped up. “I've got to get back to the conche.” Then he sat back down, as if realizing for the first time the danger to Leo. “Listen, Darcy, I'm so exhausted I'm barely computing. I'm terrified I'll make some careless mistake with the chocolate and—But that's beside the point. Poisoning Roshi—it's beyond sense; I can't imagine. I can't deal with it. But I'm going to tell you what I know; I can do that much for Roshi. This is how things are with him. Roshi's gift is that he opens possibilities for people; then he steps back. He lets them swim or sink. He's a great teacher and he can show them how to swim, but he doesn't force anyone. And, Darcy, some people want to sink.”

“How did that play out with the people who were here at the opening?”

It was a moment before Barry nodded in comprehension. “Rob? Well, Rob's an ambitious guy. He's used to winning. Roshi lets him cherish his ambitions. Maybe he'll learn from that, but if he has he sure hasn't shown any signs of letting go. See, Darcy, to you this place looks like a hump of dirt in the woods, but the residents here have a lot invested in it. Their lives.”

Their
, not
our
, lives.

“Maureen?”

“Roshi let her think she could live here forever. He let her plant trees she'll never see mature.”

I almost said: like the red maple. But, of course, Barry meant much more than that.

“Gabe he lets wander into sesshin whenever he wants to and pretend he's here for zazen. And this guy, Justin—I'd forgotten about him till you gave him our truck. But, he's a strange one. Kept eyeing my melangeur—it was the first piece of serious equipment I had. Built at the turn of the century—He kept muttering about antiques. If the melangeur wasn't the size of a small elephant I would have worried. Strange guy. When he was at the opening he was mesmerized with the romance of Japanese monastic practice. Anyone could see Aeneas wasn't all there, but Justin didn't want to. Then when Aeneas went off, Justin just upped and left.”

“With Aeneas?”

“No, no. An hour or two after. Someone asked him to do some menial task, and he got all huffy and stormed off. But, you know I've seen these high-strung types cooking; I know them. Justin was just waiting for an excuse so he could storm out of here. He's one of those guys who does what he wants and then twists things to justify it.”

A shiver shot through me. “Like what?”

“Like taking off with the truck.”

“He did that?” I squeaked out.

He gave a great sigh. “Not back then. But he's been gone how long now? He could be near San Francisco by now.”

“Do you really think—”

“We'll know soon enough, won't we?”

He shoved himself up, the sluggish move of a man almost out of gas. But his fingers snapped against each other as he walked. I followed him down the stairs to the conche where the cocoa, vanilla, lecithin, and white sugar were mixing.

“What about you, Barry? What does Roshi let you think?”

Barry looked up from the brown mixture. “Me? Darcy, if I knew my illusions, they wouldn't be illusions. But I'll tell you this, whatever they are they're in this conche, not in the monastery grounds. I don't intend to be here next year. Whatever Roshi decides to do with this place is fine with me.”

“So, this contest you're going to this weekend, it's the same Cacao Royale?”

“The first time I'll have been back since . . . the incident. But it's entirely different now. And all I have to do is to see that it is entirely different. Roshi encouraged me.”

“But what about—”

“You mean the other competitors? Aren't they worried I'll stab them with my spatula?” Barry actually laughed. “Chocolate's a strange world.
I
was appalled at myself. But the way everyone else looked at it, any judge with a food allergy has a death wish. And to something as common as peanuts! It was a cooking event, after all. It didn't hurt my case that I had a lot of friends there and the judge was a jerk. But the real thing is that slipping the odd ingredient in a competitor's dish, well, it's done more than you'd think. And laughed about afterwards. It's like . . . well, Maureen said, it's like cooking class in a boy's prep school. Except we didn't actually throw food.”

I could feel a small smile moving my lips. It was easy to imagine Barry in a prep school, living, in fact, just like this.

“How'd the rest of the students here take it?”

“Huh? Oh, no, Maureen didn't say that here. We were in the city then, right after the contest.”

“You knew each other before you came here?” Why hadn't that possibility occurred to me?

“Yeah. We'd been together for four or five months then. In fact, I'm the reason Maureen is here. She rode along with me the weekend I drove up to ask Roshi to take me in till I got my head together. That was October. I stayed the weekend, then even after Roshi said I could come back, there was a bunch of stuff I had to take care of and I didn't get up here proper till the next April. Maureen didn't even have winter clothes, that's how little intention she had of staying here. I mean, for her, a weekend here was the same as three days at the Monterey Aquarium, or Hearst Castle. I had to send her clothes.”

“The thing was,” he said over his shoulder, “she'd had a big disappointment professionally—the director of the ballet company was a pig. Much worse than the run-of-the-mill casting couch and starvation bully. He'd betrayed her. She was a wreck when she left. I was glad to get her out of the city then. That's half the reason I brought her with me that weekend. So,
she
was surprised she stayed, but I wasn't. I mean, I knew her. But I never dreamed she'd still be here when I got back in April.”

“Did something happen at the opening that made her stay?”

He grabbed my arms, but this time imploringly. “Don't make her deal with that again. It was torture for her then.”

“Why? I mean, why more for her than the rest of you?”

“I don't know. She wouldn't talk about it, even to me. But, Darcy, Maureen is fragile. Don't push her.” He was still holding my arms. “Darcy, promise me you won't upset Maureen now.”

I kept quiet. There was no way I could ever make that kind of promise.

A bang resounded outside. I ran for the parking lot.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-THREE

T
he clappers were sounding when I stepped out of the kitchen.
Drop what you're doing. Come to work meeting!

Fat chance! I ran for the parking lot, almost falling over roots and skidding on loose gravel as I raced down the path. My eyes were on the outlet of the parking area into the road, the spot where the yellow of the hood would first be visible as the truck turned in.

The clang I'd heard had not been on the road, but in the parking lot. I didn't think about that, not until I reached the empty lot, till I had to admit there was no vehicle there except the wheelbarrow still shaking from a crash into a metal storage box. And behind it, Amber, planted, arms crossed, legs apart.

“Where is he?”

“Who?”

“Justin, of course. He's been gone all morning. I thought maybe he was sick—I
know
he wouldn't skip zazen if he could haul himself out of bed. I mean, he did an entire sesshin when he had the worst flu of his life.”

That must have delighted the people sitting next to him.

“I didn't want to burst into his dorm. I mean there are
guys
there and all. But when he didn't even come to lunch, well, I knew something happened. Where is he?”

“Checking out the truck.”

“The truck's not there!” she snapped. “You knew he was gone! Why didn't you tell me?”

Without waiting for an answer she started glaring around for her next target. I hoped she was the only one who had noticed Justin's absence. Lucky for me it was her and not Rob. He would be furious, and rightfully so, and for the third time in two days. If he hadn't been wound up in his lecture, diverted by the flock of admirers afterward he'd have registered that same zafu empty period after period. I just hoped that Justin's name wouldn't come up in work meeting. Today most people would be continuing their jobs; for them a general announcement would do. A few would be called by name for new jobs. If they weren't there everybody would know.

After work meeting, it would be smooth sailing. Justin would be back by afternoon zazen. The doctor would be here then and he would protect Leo and everything else would fall into place. I looked down and realized I had crossed my fingers. I felt better about Justin, but nowhere near certain.

“Amber,” I said, “do you remember the Jaguar Justin had after the opening ceremony?”

“Oh yeah, it was a great old car. Black, with, like, wood on the dashboard and lots of gauges and stuff. It was way cool. My mother just about had a hissy fit when I wanted to come back here with Justin in it. Damn, it would have been such a cool, cool drive. I mean it was such a pisser, you know, like suddenly I wasn't responsible enough to drive all that way with him and—”

She would have gone on grumbling with pleasure had I not interrupted. “How did he happen to get that car? That must have been quite an expensive set of wheels for a seventeen-year-old.”

“Yeah. He really lucked out. He had this uncle, see, his father's younger brother. The guy was a loser and when he scored like his third DUI his wife told him like either you get rid of that car or I'm walking. So he gave it to Justin.”

“He didn't sell it? He just gave it to him?”

“Justin figured his uncle hoped his wife would change her mind.”

“Did she?”

“Maybe, but not for a long time. He had it when he went to college.”

The clappers sounded again. Amber started to turn, but stopped and eyed me.

“Darcy?” She paused, a malicious smirk enlivening her face. “What makes you think Justin's coming back?”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Well, why would he? He can sit cross-legged anywhere. You gave him a cool old truck? He's probably halfway to San Francisco with it.”