Julia's Chocolates. Cathy Lamb

going to burn in hell!”

      Aunt Lydia listened again, then laughed. “Oh, heckles! Tell them to pray for my poor soul and that I’m hoping to get saved by next Tuesday at eight o’clock, right before I out-drink Stash before our next poker game. See you tonight, love.”

      “Who was that?” I finally looked up from my stirring and took another sip of tea. Aunt Lydia tipped a bit more rum into my cup.

      “That was the minister’s wife, Lara Keene. Dear girl. She’ll be here tonight.”

      I stopped stirring, my jaw falling open. If there had been a fly in that room, it could have flown straight in, making several circles around my molars. “The minister’s wife is coming to Breast Power Psychic Night?”

      “Of course! Lara is a splendid person. Very religious. Very kind and holy.” Aunt Lydia tightened her lips. “I had to agree to only put a bit of pot in the brownies, though. Lord knows, after Bible study with that group of Bible-thumping losers, she’s going to need more than a bit of pot!”

      “I can’t—”

      “What is it?” Aunt Lydia, in a whirl as usual, started dumping the ingredients for brownies all over the huge wooden farm table that sat in the middle of the kitchen. Windows surrounding the room and two sets of French doors brought in the spring sunshine in golden columns, their rays settling on the ingredients as if in blessing.

      “I’m surprised, that’s all, that a minister’s wife would be coming.”

      “Well, she is. She comes every week. She needs a break from the preaching and screeching and likes to hang out with people who don’t use Jesus as a weapon to make others feel inferior. God. One time she dragged me to one of those Bible studies, and I swear all those women wanted to do was stand around and see who could say, ‘I’ve been blessed…I’ve been praying…the Lord has been good to me…it’s His will…’ the most number of times. It was pathetic. I’m positive God is sick to shit of them.”

      “Do…do other people in the town know that Lara comes to the Psychic Night meetings?” Sheesh. A minister’s wife at a meeting like this? In a small town?

      “Heck, no. Are you kidding?” Aunt Lydia started melting chocolate. She’s good at her chocolate desserts, but not as good as me, although she is better at every other type of dessert. “Four people know. Me, you, Katie, and Caroline. And all of us took an oath over a bottle of brandy and a cigar and swore to keep it secret. Lara needs a place where she can be herself without someone talking about all the souls in Golden who will not be saved and will be thrown into hell to burn there forever like hot dogs on a stick.”

      I contemplated burning in hell forever like a hot dog on a stick. The rum wound its way down my body. “So, what do you do in these meetings?”

      “Caroline is psychic, like I told you, and she tells us what’s going to happen to us, which makes it an official Psychic Night. Caroline only charges the women of this town a few dollars to do their readings.” Aunt Lydia, a true businesswoman, shook her head. “Although she did it for Mrs. Guzman for homemade tequila and for Dr. Tims for some of his salsa. Come to think of it, she also does readings for Terri, the postmistress, in exchange for Terri’s pies, which I think are terrible, and she does readings for Chad Whitmore, whose wife died. He takes care of their four kids and works. In exchange he gives her bacon every year from one of their pigs.

      “I have no idea how that woman makes it. She owns a tiny little home, about the size of a dollhouse, not far from here, and drives a car I swear will break down any second. Stash has had to go and get her on three different occasions.” Aunt Lydia froze for a minute. “I should tell Caroline to paint her door black to ward off diseases and seedy men. I can’t BELIEVE I forgot to tell her that. Next time she goes to the city I’ll whip on over there and paint it for her. She’ll appreciate that.”

      I imagined a woman leaving her home with a maroon-colored door and coming home to a black door. “She makes a living as a psychic?” I imagined tea leaves and cards and a woman whose face looked as if it had been shoved through a strainer, the wrinkles hardened and grooved on her cheeks. A cigarette would burn aimlessly, and I’d reach to share one short drag, then stop myself. No more smoking. I had smoked for a year, then quit. And the lust for nicotine could still turn my head.

      “I wouldn’t call it a living, my dear Julia. She ekes out a life. Barely, I think. She sells her vegetables and fruits at the farmer’s market, and she also bakes bread. Delicious bread. Bread that can almost bring you to orgasm, it’s so good. I told her to call it Orgasmic Bread, but she didn’t think that would work. She does the readings on the side. I have never met anyone as frugal as Caroline. Oh, she’s generous with a capital G, but if you gave her a piece of sackcloth, she would whip out her sewing machine and make the most beautiful curtains out of it you’ve ever seen.”

      I started to chuckle, and Aunt Lydia narrowed her eyes, but I could see a smile tugging at those full lips of hers. Sixty-three years old and her mouth was one that many a starlet had paid thousands and thousands of dollars to achieve.

      “You don’t believe she’s a real psychic, do you?” Aunt Lydia put her hands on her hips, as if ready to draw her guns.

      I didn’t roll my eyes and prided myself on that. I was back to staring at the reds swirling hotly in the pan.

      “I’m telling you, Julia, that woman has been right on the button so many times—for all of us. And she doesn’t charge for her services on Psychic Night. We try to pay her, but she won’t take a dime, so all of us, just to keep her going, drop off eggs and cookies and dinners.” Lydia shook her head back and forth like a bowling ball gone crazy. “She’s a proud one, though. Proud as a stallion who can flip all the cowboys off his back.

      “And it’s her upside-down pineapple pound cake and her carrot bread with cream cheese frosting that brings in the most money every year at the church’s auction. Every year. Sweetest woman you ever did want to meet, that’s dear Caroline. Doesn’t open up and tell us much about herself, but she is as straight and honest as my cornstalks.”

      “I’ll look forward to meeting her.” Unexpectedly, my eyes filled with tears. “Thanks for letting me come, Aunt Lydia.”

      “You’re welcome. You’ll love Psychic Night.” She had misinterpreted what I said. She walked over and gave me a big hug, smelling like vanilla and lavender and chocolate, and I buried my face in her shoulder. “Don’t cry, love! You’ve escaped a life’s prison sentence with King Prick. Prison! You might as well have worn a shirt that said ‘Inmate’ on the back. ‘Inmate of King Prick’! Aren’t you happy you’re not an inmate?”

      “I am,” I cried. “I am.” I ached. My face hurt. I’m fat. No one would marry me. Robert had wanted to, but as I couldn’t see letting my face become his punching bag for forty years, I’d bolted. Finally. And I didn’t regret it, did I? I wanted a husband, but not that much. Right?

      I pulled away from Lydia, sniffling. She went back to her brownies, extolling the virtues of feminine freedom from men, how they and they alone were responsible for the turmoil of our hormones. Then she made up a song about men with little penises.

      My stomach gnawed again at my insides as if anxiety were eating it alive, and my heart suddenly started to palpitate, seemingly bent on cruising me right into a coronary.

      I coughed, coughed again, knowing what was coming. The Dread Disease was back. I instantly felt as if I couldn’t drag enough air into my deflated lungs. My hands froze into little clenched blocks of ice while at the same time my body trembled as if a giant hand were shaking it.

      I closed my eyes in defeat, knowing I could easier stop a speeding train with my ample buttocks than stop this. Death was after my sorry hide, I knew it. I had some horrible, currently unnamed disease that would torture me for months, probably devour my insides until they collapsed into their own wormholes, and then I’d die. That was why my heart often raced as if I’d been running a marathon and why I would feel cold, then burning hot, and my hands shook like leaves on speed