How to Bake a Perfect Life Read online

  “Listen,” I say.

  He turns. Cocks his head.

  The world is very still. Far away, a child calls. A bird is singing in the foliage. Water drips from leaves to the ground. “Could you write music from that?”

  “Oh, yes. With you at the center. Could you bake bread from it?”

  My mind springs toward ingredients—lemons and honey and almonds. “Yes.”

  “Let’s call it a challenge, then, shall we? I’ll make music. You make bread.”

  And they all lived happily ever after, I think, smiling. “Deal.”

  In my pocket, my phone rings.

  Mom?” Sofia’s voice is thin and wavery.

  I give Jonah a glance of alarm and lift a finger, turning my back and walking toward the edge of the property. “What is it?”

  “Oh, my God, Mom,” she wails, and begins to sob. She says a jumble of words, but they’re unintelligible, and my panic is threatening to close my throat.

  “Honey, slow down. Breathe. I can’t understand you.”

  “Oscar. Tried. To. Kill. Himself.”

  I press my palm into my belly. “Oh, baby. Oh, no.”

  Jonah comes up behind me, touches my shoulders. It startles me and I turn around, shaking my head in alarm. “Wait,” I mouth. To Sofia, I say, “When did this happen? What did he do? I mean, isn’t he in intensive care?”

  “He got a bunch of pills from somebody. Nobody is talking, but it’s part of some soldier pact or something, that if one of them gets badly injured and says some magic phrase, the others will take care of them.”

  I think of Oscar, his beautiful eyes and kind heart, taking this terrible action, and I understand, really understand, how desperately badly he must be injured. “How is he now?”

  “He’s all right. They pumped his stomach and he’s asleep now.” She is choking on her tears. “I thought I was doing the right thing, I thought he’d be okay if he knew I loved him, but it’s like this is making it worse, and I’m so exhausted and strung out and he’s still not talking to me—” She breaks down and cries hard.

  I just sit on the line with her, murmuring quiet, soothing things. “Go ahead and cry it out, sweetheart. I’m right here.”

  Jonah takes my hand and gestures, pulling me to the porch. He pushes me into a chair and brings me a glass of wine, offers cheese, which he sets down on the table beside me. The light is still perfect, slanting into the grass on almost solid bars of gold lines, but nothing is beautiful when my daughter is sobbing so inconsolably. When her sobs slow a little, I say, “Did Gram get there?”

  “She’s on the way from the airport.”

  “That’s something. Do me a favor, baby.”

  “What?”

  “Lean on her. Let her take care of things—she’s good at getting results, so let her. Stop trying to hold up the whole world and go to sleep for a few days.”

  “What if he tries again, Mom?”

  What I want to say is that she can’t stop him if he really wants to kill himself. Instead, I say gently, “You have to keep yourself strong for the baby, Sofia. Exhausting yourself will hurt all of you. Oscar needs you to be strong. Have you eaten?”

  “Yes. One of the nurses brought me a Reuben a little while ago.” She laughs slightly. “My appetite doesn’t seem to be suffering in the slightest.”

  That single, rueful laugh reassures me. “Good. What I want you to do is let Gram take over when she gets there, and you go to sleep, deal?”

  “I’ll try. Are you going to tell Katie?”

  A rock thuds onto my heart. “I don’t know.” I think of her pretty haircut, her shining eyes, her normal teenage sulking.

  “She is thriving, happy, growing so strong. I hate to undermine that.”

  “She’s had enough trauma in her life, don’t you think? If he”—she chokes on the word—“dies, that’s one thing. But let her just be happy right now.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Okay, I’m going to bed. I’ll call you again tomorrow and let you know how things are going.”

  “I love you, Sofia. And you are handling all of this so well.”

  “Thanks, Mom. Love you.”

  I hang up the phone and the sun slips suddenly behind the peak, plunging the porch and yard into dusk. The colors of the flowers are subdued, as if someone turned all the internal lights to dim.

  I think of Oscar laughing and toasting Sofia at their wedding, both of them so lovely and healthy and young. I think of his smooth neck, so deeply tan, and his golden forearms, and the way he looked at my daughter, with such a fierce love and protectiveness that I knew I could trust him.

  Grief bows my head. My lungs feel squashed and I can’t quite get a breath. Jonah’s soft footsteps come across the porch. “Are you all right?”

  I shake my head, trying desperately not to break down, but I think of Katie, of Sofia and the baby she’s carrying, and of Oscar himself, so deeply in despair that he would leave them all.

  I reach for Jonah’s hand and press his knuckles into my forehead. Tears flow hard down my face—silently, at least, though I can feel my shoulders shaking. He kneels and strokes my back. Nearby, sparrows are singing in mad conversation, and it is this sound that brings me back to myself. Jonah hands me a handkerchief and I blot my eyes and nose, looking for the birds. “Where are those birds?”

  He points to a cone-shaped juniper. “The sparrow condos. There must be forty birds who live there. They love the berries.”

  “It wouldn’t suck to be a bird, would it?”

  “Summers wouldn’t be bad. Winters would be a drag.”

  I nod.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  In a weary voice, I recount the story. “My mother will be there soon, and she’ll handle everything. I just feel so terrible for him.”

  “Why don’t you drink your wine and I’ll go get Katie and we can all watch a movie after dinner?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I should go home.”

  He holds my hands, rubbing his thumbs over the heels of my palms. “If that’s what you want. But maybe you don’t have to hold up the whole world, either.”

  I half smile. “Were you eavesdropping?”

  “I was.” He stands up. “At least come have some supper now. There isn’t anything you can do for anyone else right now. You might as well let me take care of you.”

  I look at him, nod, and let him lead me inside.

  Katie

  Monday is the flower show, and Katie is so excited she wakes up very early and takes a shower so she can be ready. Ramona is downstairs in the bakery, talking to someone, and Katie heads down there. “Hi!” she says cheerfully. “Do you want me to make you some coffee?”

  Ramona is in deep conversation with a man wearing blue coveralls. He has a big toolbox and he’s working on the hot-water heater. “Thanks, hon, but I’m kind of busy right now.”

  “Okay. What time do you think we’ll leave?”

  “Leave?”

  A ripple of worry crosses Katie’s belly. “For the flower show?”

  “Oh, Katie, I forgot!” Ramona comes forward, stepping over the toolbox. “I can’t go. There’s no way. They’re installing the hot-water heater today.”

  “You promised.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” She shakes her head, waves a hand at the workman. “Sometimes, emergencies come up, Katie. That’s just how life is. Maybe he’ll finish in time and we can go before the day is over.”

  “No! That’s not fair! First Lily bailed on me, now you?”

  “I’m not bailing, Katie. My business is closed and I have to be here to supervise this!”

  “Why can’t Jimmy do it? Or Heather?”

  Ramona gets a steely look on her face, and before she even speaks, Katie knows she’s lost this round. “Go upstairs. Right now. I’ll meet you there in two minutes.”

  Katie stomps up the stairs, Merlin panting behind her, and sits down with her arms crossed. When Ramona comes around the c
orner, Katie gives her the hardest glare she can muster.

  “Oh, stop it,” Ramona snaps. “You’re acting like a two-year-old, and I’m tired of it. If I could go, you know I would take you.”

  “Everybody and everything is more important than I am,” Katie says, and she’s shocked that she actually said it out loud. “I’m sick of coming last.”

  Something odd crosses Ramona’s face, and then it’s gone. “Well, that’s hardly true, but what if I call Jonah? Maybe he would take you.”

  “Forget it!”

  Ramona stands there for a little while, and Katie sees that she looks tired. She knows that Ramona is worried about the bakery, and for one long second she feels kind of guilty. Finally Ramona says, “Suit yourself. I have to get back downstairs.”

  Katie sits there fuming for a few seconds, then she jumps up and stomps—loudly—down the back stairs to the garden. The sun is not hot yet, so she yanks out some weeds and flings them across the yard. Milo bolts out from beneath the umbrella leaves of a squash plant and leaps on them as if they’re bugs or snakes, but Katie doesn’t even laugh.

  She is mad. Doesn’t anybody care about her feelings?

  “Hey there.” The old woman looks over the fence. This morning her hair looks almost like smoke. She has a necklace with red stones around her neck, and she’s wearing an apron with little cherries all over the front of it that is just like one Ramona has. “Who are you so mad at, sugar?”

  “Everybody!” Katie growls as she yanks out a tumbleweed. Right now it is sturdy and green and the roots probably go all the way to Malaysia. It comes free with a big clump of dirt and goes sailing across the garden, where the clump slams against the fence. “Lily was supposed to take me to a flower show and she had to go see Sofia, who is in Texas. And then Ramona was supposed to take me”—she yanks on another weed—“but she has to be here for the stupid furnace guy or whatever, and she won’t go, either.” This whole weed comes up more easily than the other and doesn’t fling nearly as satisfyingly. “Nobody cares what I think about anything or that I’ve been looking forward to this for about ten years!”

  “Lily is always trying to make up for being mean to Ramona when she was pregnant.”

  “Really?” Katie straightens, holding her dirt-speckled hands at her sides. “How was she mean?”

  “She sent her away to her aunt’s house for the summer, let Ramona’s dad give her sister the job Ramona loved, and then they fought over whether Ramona should give up Sofia for adoption.” The old woman slaps her gloves together, sending a puff of dust into the air. “Between you and me, I think she feels guilty that she was so mad at Ramona for not giving her up.”

  “Because she loves Sofia so much now.”

  “Relationships are complicated. Lily was mean because her mother was mean to her.”

  “Really?”

  “Beat the holy hell out of her when she was fifteen. She has scars from it still. She never got over it, and never forgave her mother, either.”

  “That’s sad.” Katie thinks of her own mother. “I have forgiven my mother. But she never beat me, even when she was high.”

  “Remember, though, that sometimes you can love and forgive somebody, but you might still want to keep your distance.”

  “What do you know about it? You don’t even know my mother!”

  The old woman nods. “That’s true. I wasn’t speaking in particular, just in general. Maybe Lily was right not to forgive her mother, even if her mother wanted her to.”

  Katie feels that tangle of anxiety and sorrow and relief that always comes up when she thinks about her mother. Looking at a rosebush, she frowns and suddenly remembers the flower show. Maybe she’ll go on her own. She’s thirteen! She can ride the bus. Nobody cares where she is, anyway.

  “I have to go,” she says to the old lady. “See ya.”

  Ramona is still in the kitchen, talking to the workmen as they bang around inside the utility closet. Katie dashes up the back stairs quietly and fires up the computer. She’ll check Google maps to see where it is, then take a bus, which she used to do in El Paso all the time. It comes only a block away. Her dad used to always say what a great sense of direction she has, and it’s true. It’s like a map lives in her brain and she moves around it without ever losing her place.

  She collects the information she needs: the bus schedule and the address of the flower show. She can look at all the flowers and come home. For a minute she wonders if she ought to tell Ramona that’s what she wants to do, get her permission, but Ramona doesn’t care how Katie feels, so why should Katie care how Ramona feels?

  There’s an email in her inbox from her mom, but Katie leaves it for later. She feels a little guilty, but she has a plan and not much time to catch that bus. She runs upstairs, changes into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, then gathers all the money she’s saved and sticks it into her pocket.

  Merlin follows her up the stairs and then back down, and she has to scatter a bunch of treats all over the floor to get out of the kitchen without him. She slips down the front stairs and out the side door—and then she’s on the sidewalk. Free!

  When the bus comes right on time, she’s exhilarated, paying her fare and getting a transfer. “I can get to the Broadmoor on the southbound bus, right?” she asks the driver, who is an older black woman. She just nods.

  There are not many people on the bus, and whatever city Katie goes to, it always seems to be the same ones: poor people who don’t have cars, and teenagers, and disabled people who probably can’t drive. Katie sits in the middle, by the window, and thinks of herself as a brave and interesting girl, off to an adventure. In her backpack is a newspaper with the address and information on the flower show in case she gets lost, and it shows photos of a zillion kinds of flowers. She can’t wait.

  At the downtown bus station, there are a lot of homeless men shuffling along, but Katie finds an older woman and sticks close by her, as if the woman is her mother or aunt, a trick her dad taught her. She has also learned that grandma women are the ones to ask for directions, and if a bus is crowded, she can sit beside them. Race doesn’t matter—a white old woman or a black old woman or a Navajo old woman each offers the same protection.

  Now she climbs onto the second bus and thinks about Lily, far away in Texas with her dad. It makes her feel a ripple of sadness. Why does everybody get to be with her father except her? She brushes the feeling away and shows the bus driver the ad for the flower show. “Where do I get off for this?”

  He’s a middle-aged man with a crew cut, and he’s chewing gum, like a cop. “Sit right behind me and I’ll tell you.”

  She rides to a ritzy part of town and admires the mansions on big plots of grass, and then they drive around a big hotel with the mountains very close behind it. The driver says, “This is it, kid. Go right—”

  But Katie has spied the signs. “I see it!” She leaps up. “Thank you!”

  Adjusting her backpack, she hurries toward the door, and even from twenty feet away she can see flowers through the door. Her heart begins to sing, and she can’t stop smiling. The woman at the door sells her a ticket and says, “That is one happy face. We don’t usually get a lot of young people on their own.”

  Katie can’t stop looking into the room. “I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks,” she says, and takes her ticket, putting it carefully into a pocket of the backpack.

  And then it’s as if her heart is filled with helium, because she practically floats around the show. There are little tickets and giant ribbons on the award winners. Typed cards tell the genus and species and—thank heavens—common names. She writes the names of the most beautiful ones in her notebook, which Lily said would help her remember things about gardens from year to year. She falls in love with a rose that looks like a fairy collapsed in a pile of silky red and yellow and silvery skirts, and with a spray of tiny green chrysanthemums, and she loves the orchids, which look like butterflies about to take off and fly around the room.
/>   But it is the dahlias she has come to see, and when she finds the award winner—a pale peach-and-pink beauty that is bigger than her head, she starts to cry. A white-haired lady next to her says, “It’s really something, isn’t it?”

  Katie can only nod, riveted. And in that instant she doesn’t care if she gets in gigantic trouble. It’s worth it.

  For the rest of the afternoon, she takes notes and makes drawings. She asks questions and discovers that everyone wants to tell her their theories of growing. It’s like a tribe with a special language, and she feels a creeping sense of excitement. Maybe this is where she belongs. Can people have jobs growing flowers?

  All the money Ramona paid her for cleaning the bakery—which is sixty dollars, because they were at it for most of the day Friday and Saturday—isn’t a ton of money in a place like this, where she can buy tiny potted plants and special bulbs and even some books. She’s very hungry and has to buy a hot dog and a Coke, which uses up five dollars. The rest she spends all on dahlias.

  And then, because there is no way to get the box of potted plants home on the bus without hurting them, she asks a middle-aged woman close by if she has a cell phone and could dial a number for her.

  “You go ahead, sweetie.”

  Katie takes a breath and dials the phone. When Ramona picks up, she can tell she’s been hurrying. “Hello?” she says in an anxious voice.

  “Hi, Ramona. This is Katie. I came to the flower show and I know you’re really going to be mad at me, but I need a ride home. Can you come get me?”

  “You are in so much trouble.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ll be there in about a half hour. Are you okay? Is everything all right?”

  Katie feels like she might cry over that. “Yes.” Then, “Ramona?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m really sorry. It was just something I had to do.”

  “We’ll talk.”