How to Bake a Perfect Life Page 22

  Twice, people stop to say hello to Jonah. One is a balding genial man who is a bassist with the symphony; another is a Celtic drummer with a long, graying ponytail and an embroidered shirt. They both nod to me politely. Jonah says, “This is my friend Ramona.”

  Meanwhile, he lays out cheese and crackers; deviled eggs; chocolate cake with frosting; three kinds of sandwiches, cut into triangles; bananas and clementines; and two glasses for the bottle of wine he has tucked away. Seeing there is still more in the depths, I say, “Whoa there, Curly. I’m worried about the bottomless pit. Are you expecting the sixth brigade to join us?”

  He chuckles. “I told you. I couldn’t stop.” With his long-fingered right hand, he picks up a deviled egg and offers it to me. “Start here. I have been told my recipe is the best.”

  For a moment I’m tempted to lean over and let him feed it to me, but I open my hand and he puts it in my palm. It’s cold, and the filling has a good strong color. It is also artfully swirled into the bowl of white. “Mmm,” I say, as I bite into it. “That really is great.”

  He has been waiting for me and now pops a whole one into his own mouth, and I find myself watching. Sun glances off his glasses, touches his long throat. I find myself rubbing a palm on my knee. He catches me looking. “Do I have egg on my face?” He wipes the corners with a cloth napkin.

  “No,” I say quietly. “What else should I try?”

  He smiles ever so slightly. “Everything.”

  “See, there you go, teasing me.” I hold the egg in my hand. “You promised to tell me your story.”

  “I did.” He opens a bottle of San Pellegrino and pours it into glasses for us. “I told you I was divorced and that I have no children. Which is true.”

  “But?”

  “But I did once. A little boy. His name was Ethan, and he was born with congestive heart failure. He died when he was five, waiting for a heart.”

  “Oh, Jonah!” I think of Sofia at five, and my eyes fill with tears. “I’m so sorry. That must have been terrible.”

  “Yes,” he says matter-of-factly. “It was the worst thing that ever happened to me.” He looks at me and seems to be choosing his words carefully. “Life is not served by staying stuck in that time, but in a way I think I’ve been standing right there for a long time. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I think so. Is that why you divorced?”

  He takes a breath, sips the sparkling water. “Yes. She took refuge in a conservative Christian church. It didn’t work for me.” He clears his throat, looks at me. “She found God. I lost him.”

  I remember standing in the record store as he struggled with the loss of his music, the way that sudden, inexplicable twist of fate ended his dream. Sometimes it feels like there’s no point. My heart splits, and I see the hollow points of connection. “It doesn’t seem fair to lose two things that you love so much.”

  He bows his head, and for a time he’s quiet. Finally he looks at me. “Exactly.”

  “How did you cope?”

  He gestures toward the food. “I started volunteering with the organization that helped us so much. I learned to meditate, to keep things very smooth and even and ordinary.”

  “That’s where the music went,” I say aloud.

  He smiles. “Yes.”

  “And women?”

  “No, not all of them.” He swallows. “But you … the other night …” He pauses. “It seemed like too much.”

  For a moment, I let hope rush through me. “And now?”

  “It’s too extraordinary that we met again. I like you.”

  “Me, too.” I feel faintly dizzy. “Like you.” I ask, “Can I try the cake first?”

  “If you wish. And, certainly, wine.” He pours a ruby red into goblets.

  “Is this allowed in a public park?”

  A single, careless shrug. “I doubt it.” He hands me a glass. “To serendipity.”

  “And picnics,” I say.

  We sip, and I choose a slice of cake and a fork. Jonah says, “So tell me about your husband.”

  I tsk. “Dane. We were not married a terribly long time. Only seven years, and I don’t think it was really meant to be.” I sigh. “He’s kind of a big personality, and I got swept up into it.”

  “Are you friendly?”

  “No. Our divorce caused a rift between me and my family.” I lick a tiny bit of frosting to wash away the bitterness I can still sometimes taste. “He was unfaithful, and I kicked him out, quit the restaurant. Sofia was in college, her first year, and I had no idea what to do with myself.” I held up a finger. “Oh, and did I mention my grandmother was sinking into dementia? Bad year, all in all.”

  “I guess!”

  The expert in me eyes the crumb of the cake, and while bread is my specialty, I can see how perfect this is—moist and dense, with a thin layer of white frosting that turns out to be white chocolate. The whole thing explodes in my mouth, chocolate upon cocoa upon vanilla. “Oh!” I put my hand in front of my mouth. “You made this?”

  He smiles. “Like it?”

  I take another bite, close my eyes, pinpoint vanilla bean and the layers of chocolate all jammed into a feathery crumb. “Wow. Yes. Fantastic.” I open my eyes, look at the cake. “There’s something … can’t quite catch it …”

  “Nutmeg.”

  “Ah. Of course. Mmm. Is it your own recipe?”

  “Now, that I can’t claim. I found it in a cookbook somewhere. Tweaked it a bit, but mostly it wasn’t mine.”

  “You are a fantastic cook. You should be a chef.”

  “No. Too much hard work.” He takes a plate from the basket—a real plate, painted blue and yellow in an ethnic pattern—and puts sandwiches and watermelon and more deviled eggs on it. “Have some supper now that you’ve had your dessert.”

  I grin.

  On the stage, the musicians begin to play. Jonah makes a plate for himself. “So what was Sofia like as a little girl?”

  “Oh, she was wonderful. Always bossing the animals around and playing school. She had this giggle that killed me every time. I was finishing high school and all my friends were dating and going to the prom, and I didn’t care. I just wanted to be with her every minute I could.” Licking frosting off the fork, I say, “God, this is so amazing.”

  A woman approaches. She’s very long-legged and glossy in the way of women who have been wealthy their entire lives. “Hello, Jonah,” she purrs. “I thought that was you.”

  His shoulders look rigid. “Hello, Alex.” His voice is calm.

  She looks at me, head to toes, and then dismisses me. She squats in front of him, showing her sleek calves and a tasteful glimpse of cleavage. “How have you been?”

  “Good. This is my friend Ramona. Ramona, this is Alex.”

  “Hello,” she says, holding out a hand with a topaz the size of a bread box on her finger. “Jonah and I have a long history.”

  “Ah. What a coincidence,” I say. “So do we. When did we meet, Jonah?”

  His smile says everything I need to know. “Twenty-five years ago.”

  “Old friends, then, huh?”

  I look at Jonah, and he looks at me. “Not exactly.”

  She shakes her hair, smiles. “Well, you know where to find me,” she says. Wiggling her fingers, she sways away.

  “Please tell me that was not one of the Real Housewives of Vail,” I say. “I would hate to think I had been rude.”

  He laughs. “Well done.”

  “A love affair that ended badly?”

  “Never even an affair. We dated a little, but she’s not … the kind of woman I like to spend time with.”

  I pluck a sandwich from my plate. “Gorgeous and rich isn’t a combination that works for you?”

  He frowns. “High maintenance. Wrong values.”

  “What are the right values?”

  “Human beings before things. Earth before consumption.” He lifts a shoulder. “Time is precious and should be respected.”

  For a mo
ment I look at him, thinking, He really is the person I thought he was all those years ago.

  Onstage, the cellist begins to play a solo. The bow strokes are long and melancholy, as if to underline Jonah’s words. Time is precious. I look at Jonah’s hands, his neck. Notes weave into the gilded evening, sailing almost visibly through the air to land in my chest, caress my throat. “What is this?” I ask.

  “This one,” he says in a rough voice, “is mine.”

  I close my eyes, overcome and embarrassed to show too much, and let the notes settle into the crooks of my arms and the bones of my spine. Tears fill my eyes and spill over. Embarrassed, I blot them with a napkin. “Sorry. It’s just so beautiful. I can’t help it.”

  “Don’t apologize. I’m touched that it moves you.” He takes my hand and pulls me closer, his thumb moving over my inner wrist. I scoot a little nearer and can hear him humming beneath the cello—not singing along but adding harmony or counterpoint. It makes me want to cover him with my body, press him into the grass, and kiss his throat. The brush of his thumb, slow and light, sends sparks leaping across my skin, and I can feel the movements beneath my hair on the nape of my neck, on my temples, beneath my arms.

  I lift his hand, his marred hand, and press it to my face. “Will you play for me someday, Jonah?”

  His breath leaves him on a sigh as he bends in to my invitation, sweeping his other arm around to create a circle that encloses us. His breath smells of chocolate as he leans to kiss me, and when his mouth touches mine, delicately at first—such full lips—my skin and brain are so tingly that I almost feel as if I will faint. I reach for him, for the brace of his shoulder, and grasp the fabric of his shirt as he—or I, or both—makes a low sound, angles his head, and our tongues touch. It feels like an act we invented this minute, something so rare and strange and incredible that I want to hang in this cello-wound moment, just touching Jonah’s tongue, for at least a year.

  But our bodies move, our lips, our tongues, exploring and breathing and sliding and swirling. We breathe. His hand is hot on the back of my neck, and I am holding too tightly to his shirt, and all my resolve to be distant and aloof and to guard myself is gone.

  I pull back to look at him. His lion eyes look down at me and we move in to kiss again, this time eye to eye. “I can’t believe I’m kissing you,” he whispers.

  “I know. It’s like a dream.”

  The music trails away behind us. He straightens, tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear. “My hands are shaking.”

  “Everything in me is shaking,” I say, and frown. It feels like too much. I think of him in the record store when we were young, asking why his dreams had been stolen. I think of the music he composed, the music played here tonight, and it is highly emotional. I think of his house, so austere, stripped clean of things to care about.

  And now our hands are shaking with emotion. Too much. I think, This is not going to be good for me, and I cannot afford to be caught in a dramatic love affair. Too many people are depending on me. I must be the center that holds.

  “Maybe,” I say, “we should play backgammon.”

  He straightens. “Yes. That’s a good idea.”

  He walks me home when the concert is over. Music unhinged me earlier, but we grounded ourselves in the game and food and laughing. Now I feel the evening coming to a close, and I need to make sure we do not take this anywhere.

  At the porch steps, I turn to look up at him, feeling suddenly without words—or maybe with too many words, all crowding in, tumbling over themselves. “Everything I’m thinking of to say sounds false.”

  He picks up my hand and kisses my knuckles. “Don’t say anything.”

  I nod. He releases me and I say, “Good night, Jonah.”

  For a moment he stands quite still. Overhead, a nightingale whistles in the trees, and moonlight filters through the branches, dappling his face, his hair. I want to take him inside and tuck him close, smooth away that sorrow I now understand, but it could ruin me.

  “Good night,” he says, and walks away.

  Inside, I sink down on the bottom stair and let the shivering take over. It feels as if I have been fighting. Bending my head, I hear the mournful sound of his sonata, and it makes me dizzy. This is better, that we should be only friends. He is too much, the feeling is too much, and if I fell from such a distance, I don’t think I could bear it.

  On legs that feel wobbly, I turn and go upstairs, to the things I can believe in. My cat. A young girl who needs me. My daughter, who might even now be writing me an email.

  But as I sink into my bed, what I think of is the way his mouth tasted, the smell of his skin. How do you stop a thing once it begins?

  STEP FOUR

  When the dough has doubled, the belly filled with carbon dioxide and madly multiplying yeasts contained by the skin of gluten, the baker must punch it down. This is not an actual fist, a true punch, but rather a deflation. Turn the dough out onto a hard surface and gently press down to let the air out. The excess carbon dioxide is gently squeezed out, and the yeasts are more fully distributed through the dough so that the loaf can be shaped and set to rise into the true shape of the bread it will become.

  Ramona

  The second time bread saved my life, I was again nursing wounds inflicted by a man.

  I didn’t date much after I had Sofia. There wasn’t time, for one thing. I was busy with school and work, and any hours I had left between those things were spent with my daughter. By the time she started kindergarten, I had saved enough to buy us a small house not far from my grandmother’s, and I was the assistant operations manager for the Gallagher Group, a job that paid well even if it was boring. It earned me a place in the family business. I had great benefits for Sofia and me. All around me, I saw people who had far less. If I hated my job, I was only one of billions, and at least mine was clean, honest work. Outside work, I was a classroom mother, I baked elaborate and beautiful things for Sofia’s parties, and I read a lot in the evenings.

  Dane came to work for the company when Sofia was seven or so, and I didn’t pay him much attention. I didn’t pay attention to any man, and that’s why they mostly left me alone. Once in a while I dated somebody for a bit, but there were always conflicts with my job or my daughter or my own finicky tastes. My mother urged me to find a husband, to be less judgmental, but it seemed to me that unless a man was on the level of the greatest soul mate of all time, the complications he would bring would be too much.

  Dane joined the Gallagher Group as general manager. A tall, charismatic man with a failed marriage behind him in California and a cheery good nature, he almost immediately raised the profits in the company by 10 percent, and by the end of two years that number was 30 percent. But it was his personality that made him such a star. He counterbalanced the Irish furies and tempests generated by my family. He had a way of smoothing even the fiercest of disagreements, easing difficult chefs and my father with the grace of a medieval diplomat. I noticed this quality first, when he managed to defuse a furious clash between my father and a distributor he felt had done him wrong. I gave him a thumbs-up in the kitchen afterward. “Good work.”

  He lifted a brow. “She speaks!”

  “Very funny,” I said, but that was the start of it. Once he found my weak spot, he pursued me in a way that was flattering and heartening. His zest for life was practically irresistible, and I was as drawn to him as everyone else in the business was. He was like a cool, burbling fountain in the midst of our tropical passions.

  He was good to me. Sofia adored him, as all children did, and he loved her in return. My parents approved. I liked him and I thought he was sexy, but here’s the thing:

  We had sex. A lot of sex.

  I was hardly a virgin, considering my status as a mother, but there I was in my mid-twenties, with every hormonal juice pumping through my system urging me to get physical and have a billion babies, and I just wasn’t.

  Dane swept me into a deliriously sexual relationship. He was
a terrific lover, as thoughtful and sensitive to the needs of a woman as he was to the emotional needs of chefs or distributors. There are some people who have a genius for giving you what you need, and Dane is one of them. He knew my grandmother loved to be flirted with. He knew my mother loved to be thought the most intelligent person in the room, that my father respected hard work and didn’t trust anyone who came from money.

  We married when Sofia was almost ten, in a ceremony with lilacs filling the air with their heady perfume. Sofia was my maid of honor, and my mother, Stephanie, and Sarah were bridesmaids. It says something that my brother was one of his groomsmen. Liam didn’t care.

  The only person who never approved was Poppy. She tried to keep it to herself, but when I announced we were going to marry, she sat me down and tried to talk sense into me. She all but said she suspected it would be impossible for Dane to be faithful, that he was not the kind of man who would make me happy for the long term, but I couldn’t hear her. I was swimming in a juicy fountain of great sex and had somehow won the approval of my family, as well. Not only that, Dane loved and cared for my daughter as his own and didn’t mind that I wasn’t interested in having more children at the moment.

  We married.

  We were happy.

  Or maybe that’s a lie. Maybe I always knew, on some subtle level, that we had struck a bargain. His income helped create a good life for my daughter—buying clothes and trips and experiences that she could not have had if I had remained a single mother. He agreeably nourished my appetites for attention and good sex and facilitated the ease between my family and me.

  In return, I never noticed that he sometimes disappeared for a very long time. That he took business trips rather a lot. That certain women seemed to dislike me for no real reason.

  I don’t know. That sounds so cynical. Maybe I did just like being married. Maybe, as hard as it is to admit it, I honestly did love him.