How to Bake a Perfect Life Page 15

  “Me, too. I’m sorry to be forward, but you are still so very beautiful.”

  A rustle moves down my skin. “So are you.”

  He shakes his head, gentle smile on a generous mouth. “I have never been beautiful in all my life.” His fingers pinch mine a little. “Except to you.”

  I am not sixteen anymore. I am forty, and a mother and a business owner. I straighten, conscious of the curves baking has given my body, of the lines he must surely be able to see in my face in the bright sunlight. “That is not true.”

  He inclines his head, almost wistfully. “It is, actually. But thank you. You, on the other hand, look remarkably the same.”

  “Oh, not at all,” I protest, gesturing downward. “I’m fat.”

  “You were considerably bigger when I knew you.”

  I laugh, and it breaks up some of the airlessness I’m feeling. “I suppose I was.” Suddenly I think of Katie’s terror, ongoing as I stand here. I hold up a finger. “One second. This is not my dog.” Clomping around the side of the house, I call Katie’s name. I wait for her, then call once more.

  She comes thrashing along the bushes, sending a shower of loose lilac petals raining down on us both. As she emerges from the cool, shaded cove, she is so thin and her hair so wild that I think of some enchanted, untamed forest creature. She looks at me with such an agony of hope that I am unable to speak. I take her hand and lead her into the morning sunshine, where her smelly dog waits.

  She cries “Merlin!” and rushes to him, skidding down beside him on her knees like a baseball player diving for home plate.

  He gives a woof and a lick to her face, and then looks over her shoulder at me. I swear he winks.

  “You found him?” Katie says to Jonah.

  “He was sniffing around in my garden. Your mother was looking for him—”

  “She isn’t my mother!” Katie snatches the tie out of Jonah’s hand. “She’s not even my grandmother!”

  “Katie,” I say mildly. “There’s no reason to be rude. Take Merlin in the backyard and hose that mess off his neck. I’ll be with you in a few minutes and we’ll take him upstairs for a bath.”

  “Whatever.” She takes the tie, and then something comes over her. She looks back at Jonah. “Thank you.”

  “No problem.” As she disappears into the cave of bushes again, he says, “She’s not yours?”

  “No, she’s my daughter Sofia’s stepdaughter.” I take a breath. “It’s a long story, but I’m sorry she was rude.”

  “It’s all right.” He shrugs lightly. “You have flower petals all over you.”

  I laugh nervously and brush my shoulders, the top of my head. “Thanks.”

  “I can see this is a bad time,” he said. “But I’d love to have a cup of coffee sometime, catch up.”

  I’m captured by the faint hints of ginger and peaches that come off him. “Yes,” I say. “I would love that. I’m free after two.”

  “I’ll come back then.”

  A wistfulness pierces me as he turns to walk away. “Jonah,” I say, breath high in my chest.

  He turns, waiting.

  “Do you want some bread? It’s fresh. You should try it now.”

  He pauses, comes back. “Yes, I would like that.”

  I lead him inside, call to Heather, one of the college students who rotate the front-end shifts. “Give him a loaf of whatever bread he would like.”

  “Sure.” She smiles and whips a piece of parchment from the dispenser. “What’s your pleasure, sir?”

  Jimmy rings a bell in the kitchen. “Call later,” I say to Jonah. “I’ve gotta go.”

  By the time Katie and I get Merlin bathed and dried off, we’re both starving. We feed the dog, then Katie takes him out on a leash to poo. Afterward she leads him upstairs to sleep on her sunporch.

  When she comes back into the boulangerie kitchen, she’s had a shower and put on clean clothes, the ones we got at Target, and says, “I’m sorry I was rude to that man.”

  “Thank you for the apology, but I was a little upset with you. He did something good.”

  She bows her head. The hair, a mass of curls and waves, stands out from her head like a caramel-colored hat. “Sorry.” The word is sullen, but I’ll take it.

  Heather rushes into the kitchen. “Are we out of raisin bread already?”

  I glance at the clock. Is it only eight-thirty? “Check on the cooling racks, but if none are there, we’re out.”

  She scrambles through the racks, pulling out a handful of sourdough baguettes, still warm enough to give off a heady scent, and torpedoes of multigrain. Then she cries out as she discovers two loaves of raisin bread. “Thank goodness! It’s Mrs. Klamkein. You know how she is!” And she scurries back to her customer.

  I like hiring college students for the front, and I admit to hiring a certain wholesome, fresh-faced sort of girl for the position. It makes the breads seem more appealing if the clerk looks like she has been raised in the Swiss Alps on a diet of milk and honey. Sofia was the first, with her smooth olive skin and enormous blue eyes.

  I wish she would call me. What is she doing? It must be nearly dinnertime in Germany. She must have more information by now. “Let’s take our breakfast upstairs, shall we?”

  Katie is standing with her arms akimbo, biting her lip as she eyes the pastries left in a pile on the table for the staff. Little pains au chocolat, big flaky croissants, a few muffins of various sorts. “Can I have any of these?”

  “Of course! And I have some boiled eggs upstairs, maybe some strawberries, though they are not at their best yet.”

  She reaches for a croissant and looks it over, puts it carefully on her plate. I pluck a pain au chocolat from the pile and put it on her plate, too. “You’ll like these, trust me.”

  We carry our breakfast upstairs to the kitchen, and I pour Katie a glass of milk and start a fresh pot of coffee for myself. “I want to check email to see if Sofia has written anything.”

  “Can I check mine after you?”

  “Sure.”

  While I’m waiting for the coffee, I pull up my email and scroll through the meager offerings. A reminder from my dentist, a note from a friend in Alabama.

  And, yes, an email from Sofia. I scan through it very quickly to see if there is anything disturbing, then read aloud to Katie. “Listen. Sofia says,

  “ ‘Hi, Mom,’ ” I read aloud in the most upbeat voice I can manage. “ ‘Sorry I didn’t call, but there isn’t much to report. We’re still in Germany—we might be flown to San Antonio in a couple of days. Maybe Tuesday. I sit by Oscar’s bed and read him books, because they say that he might be able to hear me and, at any rate, it doesn’t hurt. If Katie will send me an email, I’ll read that to him, too. Tell her he is doing okay, and we will know a lot more when he wakes up. The amputation is just above the knee, and they say there are really good prosthetics now, so not to worry about that.

  “ ‘As for me, I’m doing fine, so don’t worry. There is a really great group of women here, and the nurses are excellent, and I have a cute little room, and really—the food is great! You’d be so happy to taste all these breads, I just know it.

  “ ‘Give yourself a kiss, and tell Katie I hope she’s settling in okay. Love you both, Sofia.’ ”

  While she listened, Katie has shredded the croissant into a billion tiny pieces, a fact she seems to notice only when I finish. Her face falls when she looks at it. “Dang it.”

  “That’s all right. Go get another one.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m the boss, remember?”

  The very faintest of smiles touches her mouth. “Sorry. I tear things up sometimes without even thinking about it. Once it was my friend’s Valentine’s Day card to me! She got really mad.”

  “I guess she would!”

  When she dashes downstairs, I turn to the keyboard and write, very quickly,

  Thanks for your email, sweetie. Sounds like you are very tired, so get some rest and we’ll be
okay. Katie will send you an email in a little while.

  Please find some time to call her when you can. She’s really worried and not able to express that.

  Love, Mom

  I hear Katie tromping up the stairs and hit the send button, noticing only as I do so that there is more than one set of feet on the stairs. “Your mom is here,” Katie says, gesturing. “She brought doughnuts, but I got a muffin instead. Is that okay?” She holds it, normal size but bursting with raspberries and blueberries beneath a crown of streusel, in her hand. “It just looks so great.”

  “Yes.” I smile. “That’s actually a muffin I started baking when Sofia was a teenager. She needed a fast breakfast, and that’s a good muffin for it.”

  Katie bites into it. Widens her eyes. “It’s good!” she says, mouth full.

  Lily breezes into the kitchen, wearing crisp white capris and a sleeveless green blouse with a big collar. Her earrings match, as does her green-and-white watch. “Good morning, ladies,” she says, putting the Dunkin’ Donuts box on the table. “How are things?” She breathes in deeply. “I see you made coffee. Mind if I have some?” Without waiting for me to answer, she takes a cup out of the cupboard and pours herself some coffee. “You want some, Ramona?”

  I nod, thinking suddenly of Jonah standing outside on my sidewalk this morning. It seems incredible. Miraculous, even. How is it possible that he’s living this close to me? I mean, I don’t know even a tenth of the people in that five-block radius, but still. It seems I would have noticed him.

  I wonder how his life has gone, if he has children, if he married, and think again of the whimsical flower in his pocket, his beautiful eyes. It shook me, seeing him, and as Lily pours coffee, she is hauling me out of the record store again, and the life I thought I was going to have is gone, leaving my world upside down. The emotional echo still has surprising power, and suddenly I am my sixteen-year-old self, overwhelmed and lost and clinging to the kindness of a young man far older than I.

  Smiling to myself as I stir sugar into my cup, I think, Today he didn’t seem old at all.

  Lily opens the box of doughnuts, and I think of her fury, her fear, that summer. As a mother now, I understand it—a heart broken on one’s own behalf is one thing. A heart broken for the losses of a child is a yawning sorrow that cannot be eased by anything except the happiness of the child. For a moment I am her, looking at me pregnant and hysterical, and love floods me. I press my fingers to my diaphragm, take a breath.

  Across the table, Katie is silent, peeling the boiled eggs I’d put out in a blue bowl for her. Her eyes flit from my mother to me, gathering data in a way that is much too old for her.

  “Mom,” I say. “Will you take the butter out of the fridge and bring a couple of knives?”

  She’s happy to have a task, and I have to remember this—she doesn’t move around my kitchen as if she owns it because she’s bossy. Well, only partly because she’s bossy. The real reason is that she likes feeling useful and part of things. Why do I have to be so mean about it? I am kinder to almost everyone in the world than I am to my mother. “We had an email from Sofia this morning,” I offer.

  She pulls out a chair and sits down with us. “How are things going?”

  “Don’t really have much information yet. You can email her, too, if you like. Katie, after breakfast you should send an email for Sofia to read to your dad.”

  She pulls the pain au chocolat apart, seems to remember that she doesn’t want to shred it, and puts it down. “What am I gonna say?”

  “Just tell him that you moved here, that you have a dog. Ordinary things.”

  “Cheerful things,” Lily says. “If he knows you’re okay, he can focus on getting well and coming home sooner.”

  Katie nods. “Oh. Okay. I’ll tell him about Merlin and about him jumping the fence.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah,” I say, but wave a hand to forestall a recounting right this minute. “Long story, Mom.”

  With two delicate fingers, she picks out a strawberry-frosted doughnut and puts it on the saucer she took out of the cabinet. “I’ll send her something, too. Promise. Don’t you want a doughnut, Ramona? I brought an apple fritter just for you.”

  “I’m living in a bakery, remember?”

  “You don’t make doughnuts, though, do you?”

  “No.” I take a deep breath in, blow it out.

  “Hey,” Katie says, saving me. “There was an old lady outside earlier who said you know a lot about flowers, Mrs. Gallagher. Are you Lily?”

  “I do know a lot about flowers. What would you like to know?”

  “What old lady?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. She didn’t tell me her name.” Katie gobbles the last of her muffin, brushes her fingers off. “But I think flowers are so pretty. I would like to grow some, maybe?”

  “That’s a wonderful idea!” Lily’s face lights up. “Ramona, would you mind if I take Katie to look at bedding plants this afternoon?”

  “Not at all.” Maybe I can steal a nap.

  Or have coffee with Jonah.

  RAMONA’S BOOK OF BREADS

  HEARTY BERRY STREUSEL MUFFINS

  Makes 30–32

  This is a muffin for those crazy mornings when you need calories in a hurry. The yogurt and nuts add protein, the whole grains add fiber, and the fruit adds nutrients as well as general seduction for picky children. The streusel can be left off to save calories, but, trust me, you’re better off with one good one. Serve with boiled eggs for a super-fast breakfast.

  1 cup white flour

  ½ cup spelt flour (or add another ½ cup white)

  1 cup whole-wheat flour

  1 cup oats

  1 T baking powder

  1 tsp baking soda

  ½ tsp sea salt

  1 cup honey (or raw sugar)

  1½ cups plain yogurt

  1 6-oz. container raspberry or blueberry yogurt

  ½ cup milk

  3 T canola oil

  2 tsp vanilla extract

  1 large egg

  1 cup each fresh blueberries and raspberries

  STREUSEL

  ¼ cup flour

  3 T brown sugar

  ¼ cup chopped, lightly toasted walnuts, pecans, or almonds

  1½ T butter, melted

  Prepare muffin tins with paper or oil. Prepare streusel first and set aside.

  For muffins: Mix dry ingredients well. In a separate bowl, mix all wet ingredients except berries, and beat together well. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry mix and beat firmly and quickly just until thoroughly moistened. Add berries and fold in gently. Divide batter into greased or paper-lined muffin tins and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes in the pan to set the berries, remove from pan, and cool on wire rack.

  Sofia’s Journal

  MAY 22, 20—

  STILL IN GERMANY, 7:00 P.M.

  This evening I went out walking. There are flowers everywhere, and I’m thinking about Grandma Lily and her ten million tulips and forty different kinds of dahlias. She and my grandfather went to Holland last year, and she came back with so many pictures of flowers I finally had to stop her from showing me every single one and naming the species and genus and whatever. I don’t know. I’m not a gardener. Or a cook, for that matter. Sometimes I wonder why the family gifts skipped me. I like looking at flowers and heaven knows I love eating good food, don’t get me wrong.

  Oh, I suppose I like quilting. My mother would rather have her hands cut off than knit or sew anything, but I like it. Maybe I should get some yarn and crochet while I’m talking to Oscar. It would be soothing.

  I’ve just had some supper at the hospital cafeteria—a plate of roast pork and cabbage with a very nice rye bread I should remember to tell my mother about. I ate it with butter, even though I’ve been trying hard to be good and not gain ten million pounds with this baby. But I needed something a little luxurious.

  It has been a very discouraging day. Everything
the doctors are not saying is written on their faces when they talk to me. They are pretending hope and optimism, but I can see how the mask slips the minute they turn away. They feel sorry for me.

  I have been sitting with Oscar all day, talking until I’m hoarse, reading to him when I run out of things to talk about—the newspaper, a magazine article. Tomorrow I’m going to the library to see what I can find to read aloud, chapter by chapter.

  No matter what, he’s got a long road ahead of him. He will have to learn to walk again, of course, but the burns are the thing. The blast came from the front, so his head and face and chest took the brunt of it, and I have to admit I’m afraid. It’s strange to know his face will not be the same face I have loved. Is a face who we are? I know it isn’t, but that’s how we recognize one another and ourselves, by the marker of a nose and the shape of eyes and lips and chin.

  I am worried about how he will take it, seeing that his face is ruined different.

  Until I feel calm, I can’t call my mother. She’ll pick up my terror, and I can’t stand to have her worrying, too, not about me when she has so much to deal with already.

  My entire body feels like I’ve been soundly beaten, as my grandma Adelaide used to say, so I guess I’ll finish up and go back to my room and get some sleep.

  Oh, Oscar, Oscar! I’m so sad this happened to you. I hope I can find the right words to encourage you and let you know that you are loved, no matter what. You have to live, for me and for your daughters. We need you.

  Now I’m crying and need to just get myself to bed. Tomorrow, though, I am going to get some yarn in beautiful colors.

  Enough.

  Katie

  Katie feels shy going with Lily, but the older woman is so happy to be talking flowers that Katie finds herself swept along. In Lily’s big green Nissan, they drive to a greenhouse that’s set back from the street, and the minute Katie walks inside, it seems as if everything in her whole body lets go with a sigh.

  Just inside the door, she stops. The light is a pale, soft color over the endless tables of flowers in every color and size and shape, the most beautiful thing she has seen in her entire, entire life. “Oh, my God.”