How to Bake a Perfect Life Page 19

  If mixing by hand, turn the sponge onto a floured surface. Oil your hands and knead the oil, walnuts, and salt into the mix until a rough dough forms, then let stand for 30 minutes. Sprinkle dough with flour, oil your hands again, and begin to turn and fold, turn and fold the dough, adding flour a little at a time until it is less sticky. Gently knead in the cranberries and let rest for half hour.

  Dust with a little white flour if needed and form the dough into a rectangle. Put this in an oiled 2-quart container (a 4-cup glass measuring cup works well) and mark where the dough will be when doubled. Roll the dough to coat it on all sides. Cover and let rise until doubled.

  Deflate the dough, cover tightly, and let stand overnight in the fridge.

  In the morning, turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and roll it into a rectangle that is about 8 inches long. Roll it into a loaf and tuck the ends under. Put the loaf, seam down, on a baking sheet lined with silicon or parchment and cover with oiled plastic. Let rise in a warm place until doubled.

  A half hour before baking, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. To mimic the humidity of French ovens, fill a large cast-iron skillet with water and put it on the bottom rack of the oven.

  Uncover the loaf and let stand for 5 minutes, then slash the top of the loaf diagonally three times and put it in the oven. Immediately turn the heat down to 375 degrees and bake for 45–55 minutes, until the loaf is golden and sounds hollow when tapped from beneath. Cool on a wire rack.

  Nearly every night I wake up at some point and lie in the dark, staring at the ceiling. Sometimes I think of Sofia. Sometimes I worry about the business. I think of the baby, wondering how he or she is doing while Sofia is so stressed out. I worry that the birth will be hard on her. I was going to be there, her coach, and I’m very disappointed that it might not happen now.

  I take refuge in work, getting up to bake, often finding Jimmy there already. She’s an insomniac, and the hours of a bakery suit her well. Together, we bake and talk about everything in the universe, from men and children to food to politics and music.

  By the time dawn tumbles through the windows, the darkest worry is tucked away. It is the time of year I love the best, May sliding into June. My grandmother’s garden is exploding into blossom, and I love the way the light falls, illuminating valleys you never see the rest of the year; the burnished look of morning on the grass; the hot afternoons broken by dramatic thunderstorms that wash the air and give us cool, cricket-spun evenings.

  It is on one of those dramatic afternoons, as clouds roll in over the mountains with menace, that my sister Stephanie shows up at the bakery. I’m alone, refreshing the last of the starters, when she storms through the back door, letting the screen door slam behind her. She makes so much noise that I think it’s Katie and Merlin and raise my head to reprimand them.

  Instead, there’s Steph, in a pair of jeans and a turquoise tank, silver jewelry around her neck and wrists and swinging from her ears. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail and she looks athletic and hearty, like an Olympic skier. “Steph!” I say in surprise, because it has been ages since we’ve spoken.

  “Are you sleeping with Cat Spinuzzi?”

  Of course that’s what this is about. Because she couldn’t just come and talk to me. She has to show up with her temper turned to scald. It’s the only way she deals with me these days. I sigh, scraping the last of the starter into a clean jar with a rubber spatula. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no.”

  “That’s not what I heard.”

  It never helps for two Gallaghers to get pissy at the same time. Wars erupt that way, wars that last as long as … well, this one between my sister and me. Eight years, more or less. Since I inherited the house, which was the final nail in the coffin of our relationship. It infuriated her. As calmly as I can, I say, “Mom saw Cat over here a couple of weeks ago and jumped to conclusions.”

  “I don’t believe you.” She crosses her arms. “I saw you with him at the Sunbird one night, had to be a year ago.”

  “It’s none of your business, but what difference does it make, Stephanie? Honestly. I mean, we’re grown.”

  “Is that a yes? God, I can’t believe you! You’ll do anything to get what you want.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, don’t pretend you’re not using him, just like you use everybody else!”

  “That’s not true!” It’s no easy thing to keep my anger burbling on low. “Cat’s my mentor, the person who stood in my corner when the rest of you stuck with my cheating, lying skunk of an ex-husband.”

  “That was business. Dane was a hell of a manager and we were lucky to have him. He single-handedly shifted the fortunes of our company, and you know it. We couldn’t fire him, and it would have been stupid anyway.”

  “First of all, he took the job our father should have given me, and you know it. Secondly, he didn’t single-handedly shift the fortunes of the business—I was there, too. And, third, if Dad had fired him, I wouldn’t have quit, and I could have had the position he kept.”

  “It’s not always about you! You think the world is supposed to stop every time you get a hangnail, for God’s sake!”

  “Actually, that was about me. It was my husband, my job, my rift with the family.”

  “God, Ramona, when are you ever going to grow up?”

  “Says the woman who is still working for her daddy!”

  “I’m not working for him. We’re partners. As you would have been if you hadn’t turned your back on the restaurants.”

  “Yeah, he calls you his assistant. That’s not partners.” I shake my head, trying to imagine cooling waterfalls and tinkling bells, as a therapist once suggested. “Why are we having this same stupid fight? Did you just wake up and think you had to come give me some shit, see if you could make me feel even worse than I do already? I mean, my daughter’s husband is lying in a hospital bed halfway around the world with burns over most of his body and a leg missing, and my daughter is pregnant and alone with him.”

  Her mouth goes hard. I hate to say bitter, but that’s how she seems lately, all tight and vinegary and hard. I wonder what happened to her. What has gone wrong in her life to make her such a hard-ass? “See how you do that? Even Sofia and Oscar’s tragedy is all about Ramona.”

  The barb, curved like a scimitar, curls right through my heart. “Score, Steph,” I say, and carry the jar to the dishwasher. “Anything else you want to rub into my wounds? Maybe we could get to the part where I’m a loser with men.”

  “Oh, stop!”

  Merlin trots into the kitchen urgently and rushes over to me, licking my hand. He sits on my foot and woofs softly at Stephanie. The gesture is so loyal and kind it brings tears to my eyes, and I bow my head to hide them. “Thanks, Merlin.”

  It calms Stephanie, too. “Look, I didn’t come over here to yell at you. It just—” She shakes her head. “It just seems like you never think about anybody but yourself. Didn’t you realize that it might really upset Mom and Dad for you to have a relationship with Cat Spinuzzi?”

  I close my eyes and sigh. Merlin leaning on my leg seems to bring some centering magic. “It’s over. It has been for a long time. And I didn’t plan it. It just happened. Hasn’t anything ever swept you away? Ever?”

  “No.” She meets my eyes, and we both know what she’s thinking: It ruined your life, and I’ll never let it ruin mine.

  What I want to say is that I miss her. Not this priggish, judgmental bitch, but the other side of her. The one who makes me laugh so hard I can’t talk. The one who will tell me when I should get rid of an ugly blouse. The one who walked ten billion miles with me when we were children and spun a hundred thousand fantasies.

  “I don’t want to fight,” I say. “If you want to come sit on the porch and have a croissant, I’ll talk. But I’m not going to fight.”

  For a long minute she stares across the space of the stainless-steel counter, and I think she might relent. Then she turns and stomps out of my kitchen.


  Lost to me, still.

  And I am feeling like maybe the most flawed human on the planet, riddled with as many holes as a wormy apple. It is a feeling I have known intimately at various times in my life, but I realize it’s been mostly missing since I opened the bakery, even if my family has me on the outside.

  I truly miss Sofia. Her company, her commentary on the world, her face.

  The only thing I can possibly do is bake, but Merlin isn’t allowed in the bakery kitchen, so I whistle for him to come upstairs with me, and I pull out ordinary amounts of flour and yeast and water and salt. The eternal, essential ingredients for bread.

  “Whatcha doing?” Katie asks, wandering in from the living room. She has her finger in a book and that sleepy look that comes from reading all day. It’s one of the things we have in common, and I gave her permission to go to the library as often as she likes. Her taste runs counter to the vampires and werewolves that are so popular right now, to sweet books set in sweeter times, like Anne of Green Gables and historical novels from the seventies. I’m sure her real life has been full enough of bloodsuckers and men turned to slobbering dogs.

  “I think I’m going to make some cookies,” I say. “Want to help?”

  “Yes! I love cookies.”

  “Let’s see what we have. Chocolate chips, oatmeal, butterscotch?”

  “Can we do all of them together?”

  Laughter breaks through my self-pity. “Definitely.”

  The tourist season is upon us at last, crowds of families trundling into town in their RVs and sedans and rent-a-cars. The motels are full, the streets busy. Over the past week we sold virtually everything we baked, and no matter how I increase the order, we run out of muffins very quickly. Both of my assistants have added a day, and Jimmy volunteered to come in on Saturday nights, too, so we can open on Sundays. I’m going to take the service shift myself that day to save on payroll, and Katie will be my runner. She’s very excited about that, since there is some exotic dahlia my mother told her about that she wants to buy when they go to the flower show next month.

  The Army flew Oscar to San Antonio earlier this week, and it makes me feel better to know Sofia is within a two- or three-hour plane ride again. She called when they arrived, talked to me and to Katie, and everyone seems to be sleeping better over this.

  On Thursday afternoon, the tourist traffic has slowed enough that I take a cup of tea and a sandwich out to the front porch to go over some paperwork, while the day clerk cleans the bakery cases and polishes the glass for tomorrow. Katie is somewhere reading, as usual. It pleases me immensely that she loves books so much, and I went to the library with her the last time, finding something I could use to escape, too. At night, I’m reading before sleep again, a habit I’d lost somewhere along the way.

  Now I settle on the wide Victorian porch with a cup of lemon-scented tea and a tomato and cheese sandwich on bread sliced from the last loaf of sunflower wheat. The world has taken on that hush that arrives before a thunderstorm, birds silent, traffic muffled. Clouds move ponderously over the sky, hiding the sharp blue of Colorado summer. As I eat my sandwich, I admire the shifting colors—slate and pale blue and eggplant, with the odd, distant thread of white-gold lightning. The clouds make me think of elephants or rhinos plodding over the day.

  A flash of broader lightning crackles into a valley, and, as if he’s stepping through a rent in the atmosphere, Jonah comes around the corner. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since the evening at his house a couple of weeks ago. Several times I’ve thought about calling or walking by, and each time I stop myself, for a million complicated reasons.

  Or, really, for one: I don’t want to be the smitten one, chasing him this time.

  Now he is here, wearing a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved ivory Henley. His belly is flat, and he has a loose-limbed confidence I find very appealing. At the gate, he pauses to appreciate the flowers exploding from the earth where there was once a big gash in the landscaping, then looks up and sees me sitting there.

  His expression brightens notably enough that my stomach flips—he likes me, he likes me!—before I remember that I don’t need anything in my life that’s volatile or exhilarating or that might turn everything upside down.

  “Hello,” he says, standing at the foot of the stairs. “May I join you?”

  I take his measure. Shrug as if I don’t care one way or the other. “Sure.”

  He climbs the steps and sits in the chair on the other side of the table. “How are you, Ramona?”

  He is close enough that I catch a waft of his scent, and it plugs directly into every lust cell in my brain. Limbic memory, I tell myself as awareness prickles to life on my shoulders. Memories from another me. “I’m good. Busy. How ’bout you?”

  “Getting used to the new world.”

  “Hmmm.” I wait. In the distance, a rumble of thunder rolls.

  He’s looking at me now, his eyes touching my throat, my hair. “The light suits you. It makes your hair glitter.”

  “Thank you.”

  He pauses, as if considering. “There is going to be a string quartet in the park on Sunday evening. I came to see if you might like to go. With me.”

  Inclining my head, I say, “I’m not sure. Honestly, I’m getting mixed messages. That’s not very comfortable.”

  “Right.” He nods, takes a breath. “If you will come with me, I’ll explain.”

  “If you’re involved or finishing something or whatever, I’d rather not get in the middle of that.”

  His smile is wry. “Nothing like that, I promise.”

  “All right. I would love that,” I say. “To go. With you.”

  “Good,” he says, recovering. “I’ll bring a picnic. I’ll come over at around five and we can walk from here. How does that sound?”

  “Perfect.” I smile as he stands up and find myself tossing my head slightly so that my hair, which is loose, swishes down my arm. He notices.

  Over the days when he did not call, I wondered if I’d imagined a mutual attraction. But no. He gives himself away as do I. Eyes lighting on breasts, thighs, lips. The way he swallows when I push my hair away. The way he meets my eyes, not so long as to be odd but long enough to make a connection, to create a spark.

  “I have some work to do,” he says. “I’ll see you on Sunday.”

  “Yes” is all I can manage.

  Sofia’s Journal

  SAN ANTONIO

  JUNE 3, 20—

  Oscar is awake! It’s too early to call anyone, so I am writing it here.

  I couldn’t sleep, so I went to his room in the middle of the night. He was just lying there as always, the machine blipping and beeping and clicking. It hit me with a big wave of depression that it’s been three weeks since he was injured and he might not ever come out of this coma, and I need to find some people to help me decide how to manage that possibility.

  Grandma Adelaide used to always say that it was a sin to despair (though I think she did sometimes, anyway, which just goes to show that we’re all human—and she never did manage to heal her relationship with her own daughters, so I guess she had reason. My mother tried so hard to help fix that situation, but neither Grandma nor Aunt Poppy ever did really forgive her for whatever she did when they were young. Sad).

  Anyway, despair. A sin. I can’t despair is what I was telling myself. Gotta stay upbeat for Oscar and the baby but most of all for myself. I will set the tone. It feels like a lot, I won’t lie, but this is what we do for each other, isn’t it? If it was me lying in that bed, unrecognizable for my injuries, I would desperately want Oscar to be sitting there, talking to me, telling me jokes, telling me he loved me.

  I had printed out Katie’s email, and I stood close by the bed. “Good morning, Oscar!” I said. “I’m early today, but the baby was kicking me awake, so I thought I’d get some coffee and come over. Can you smell it?”

  Holding the email, I took a sip and rubbed at a foot sticking out. “There he goes aga
in, like he’s a kickboxer, Oscar!”

  It’s hard sometimes to keep doing that, talking like he can hear me. It makes me feel silly sometimes. So I held the letter from Katie. “Your daughter is sounding very happy and really grown up,” I said. “Listen to this.”

  I read him the email, trying to put lots of enthusiasm in my voice.

  And, at the end of it, nothing.

  I went to sit in my chair. And, okay, I was crying a little bit, mainly because I was homesick and sad and wanted to be back with my mother in her kitchen, watching her make bread, or with my grandma in her spectacular garden that Katie is enjoying.

  And I heard a groan from the bed! I jumped up and said, “Oscar?”

  He made another sound around all the tubes and bandages. It was hard to tell at first, but his eyes were open a very small slit. I got so excited, I ran out into the hall and got a nurse, who got a doctor, who confirmed that he is actually waking up.

  I still don’t know a lot. It’s not like he recognizes me yet or anything. They are not sure how long it will take before he’s all the way awake, but this is a start. My heart is about twenty times lighter!

  I can’t wait to call Katie.

  Ramona

  That evening Katie and I print flyers on the computer and duck out very early on Friday morning to drive up to the trailheads where I know serious runners and hikers go to train—Barr Trail, Waldo Canyon, Red Rocks Canyon.

  Taking a lesson from my aunt Poppy, I’ve made trays of samplers—mini-muffins and scones and slices of my favored breads, with little sides of butter in paper cups. As the runners come off their trails, they’re hungry and ready to eat anything. Katie holds the tray while I pass out the samples and offer a coupon. We run through our cache in no time.