How to Bake a Perfect Life Read online

  Ramona

  After the long, sick worry of the day—over Sofia and Oscar, over the whereabouts of Katie, over my chilling calculations of how much cash flow has been lost through this debacle—I find myself in the bakery kitchen at midnight. The hot-water heater was installed but, much to my vexation, the inspector did not make it here, no matter how I begged, meaning yet one more day of lost revenues.

  But I have the mother doughs, all breathing and alive, waiting for me. One by one, I take the mothers from the fridge, stir the hooch vigorously back into the sponge, throw away half, and refresh it with whatever materials it demands. The cornerstone, Adelaide’s mix, likes white flour. The one I’ve been experimenting with, a dark rye I want to mix with malt sugar and molasses, likes half white, half rye. The levains, those old-world sourdoughs, like a hint of whole wheat mixed with white, to give them some solid food.

  In the still kitchen, with darkness lying over the world outside, I stir and smell and taste the mothers, tending to their good health so their offspring will be healthy and strong, so that the sponges can grow vigorously to leaven the breads they season. Adelaide’s sponge is a stringy, powerful girl, and her acidity leaves giant holes in the bread, for that traditional sourdough look. Meditatively, I pull the elastic strings upward, watching the texture as the bands spring back down, almost like a thick rubber band. The smell is sharp.

  I cannot sell bread, but that doesn’t mean I am forbidden from making it. Choosing the Adelaide daughter, I quickly put together a sponge with salt water and white flour and put it in the mixer, with the dough hook turning.

  I am not exactly thinking as I work, though I am aware of images skittering by, like goldfish in the depths of a pond—a flash of Sofia, of Oscar, of my mother, who called to let me know she was there and had everything under control.

  It’s the picture of Katie, waiting outside the flower show with a box of blooming plants, that surfaces most insistently. When I drove up, I was furious over the worry she caused me, fury that hid the terror over what might have happened to her.

  And, in part, some of that terror stemmed from the truth about her father that I am hiding. How will it help her to know her father tried to kill himself?

  Except that I promised to tell her the truth, no matter what.

  When I pulled up to the building, she was standing against the wall in the sunshine, her skin golden, hair a mass of ringlets in toffee and yellow and gold. She had the flowers in a box in front of her, a parti-color shrub of beautiful blooms, and she was gazing down at them with a pensive expression, part astonishment and part pleasure.

  “Get in,” I said, and she hung her head but nestled the flowers carefully in the backseat before she got in the front beside me.

  For a long time, neither one of us said anything. Then she said, “Thank you for coming to get me. I would have ridden the bus back, but I didn’t want to hurt the flowers.”

  I nodded, mouth set so that I wouldn’t say anything I didn’t mean. Finally I managed, “You know that I worried about you, don’t you? I couldn’t find you, and I didn’t know where you were, and terrible things went through my mind.”

  “Like what?” She made a noise. “It’s not like there’s some big river to drown in or a lot of creepy neighborhoods or gang-bangers around.”

  I looked at her, once again realizing what her world had been, what it is now. “It takes only one bad person, Katie.”

  “I know.” She slumped.

  “Why didn’t you at least leave me a note? You always leave notes.”

  “Because I was mad, okay? You all let me down on this flower show, and it was important to me.”

  “It’s not always about you, Katie! There’s a lot going on. It was a flower show, not your only chance to go to college.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “It mattered to me,” she said.

  And neither of us said anything the rest of the way. I sent her to her room and made her put the flowers on the back porch in the shade. Her dog licked her face and cheerfully followed her upstairs, though I swear he gave me a conspiratorial look over his shoulder.

  When the dough is finished, I put it in an oiled bowl, cover it with a damp flour-sack towel, and make a pot of coffee. My dilemma ping-pongs back and forth across my brain. Tell her. Don’t tell her. Tell her. Don’t tell her.

  Ticktock, ticktock.

  Herself comes down just before five a.m. “Can I help you with anything?” she asks, all meek and mild.

  “No, thank you.”

  She leans on the counter. “What is that?”

  “Oatmeal and whole wheat with sunflower seeds.”

  “Oh.” She chews on her inner cheek. “I had a bad dream about my dad.”

  A ripple of unease disturbs the calm in the room. “What kind of dream?”

  “That he died. That he didn’t want to live.”

  Tell her. Don’t tell her.

  I shape the loaves carefully, rolling them into country rounds, my eyes on the flour. “Mmm.”

  “I’m kind of scared to see him,” she says. She’s rolling onto the outsides of her feet, then coming back to the soles, back to the outsides. Over and over. One hand is gripped around the other wrist. “I used to be really scared of this guy who was badly burned when I was little.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I say. “Tell me about him. How old were you?”

  She shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe five or six or something. He came to the grocery store by our house. He had all this pink skin that was like muscles on the outside of his body, you know?”

  The visual is acute, and I nod. For a minute I stop shaping the loaves.

  “He didn’t have any hair on the top of his head—no eyebrows, nothing—and he wore sunglasses all the time, so I think his eyes must have been bad. But the worst part was that he didn’t have a nose. It was gross.” She pauses. “I thought he was a monster. I cried whenever I saw him. What if my dad looks like that?”

  I take a breath and give her the only possible answer. “You’ll know what to do.”

  She folds her left hand into her right, and her feet come to the floor. “I’m going to plant my flowers.”

  Maybe I’ll tell her over dinner.

  Or tomorrow morning.

  • • •

  At midday, I’m rearranging the walk-ins when Katie bounces into the kitchen. “Your dad is here.”

  “My dad?”

  “Yeah.” She turns and points. “I brought him back.”

  I’m up to my elbows in bleach and rubber gloves, and I blow a lock of hair off my face. Sure enough, there’s my father, dressed in his workday uniform of black suit with white shirt. No tie in the heat of the day. He looks good. “Hey,” I say warily. “What’s up?”

  “Came by to talk to you. Got a minute?”

  “Sure.” I strip off my gloves. “You want something to drink? I can have Katie get us some tea from upstairs.”

  “That would be good. Thanks.”

  I give Katie a glance. “Will you?”

  “ ’Course.”

  He looks around. He’s never been here, because he was sulking. “You did all this design?”

  “I had help, but mostly it’s my idea, yeah.”

  He points to the oven yawning on the wall. “Wood-burning, huh?”

  I nod.

  “Smart.” He nods, too, looking around, and I can read the approval on his face. “Great kitchen, kid. Looks good.”

  “Thanks.” I point to the backyard. “Let’s go outside, huh?”

  In the years since my divorce, my father and I haven’t had much reason to have long conversations. I see him at family gatherings—at Christmas and birthdays and that kind of thing—and we exchange the usual pleasantries, but that’s about as far as it ever goes. When I was a child, he was the classic patriarch and not particularly chatty, so this is not a big change.

  But it’s weird that he’s here. “So, Dad. What’s up?”

  He wiggles his nose, a habit
born from allergies as a child. “I’ve got an offer here for you, Ramona.”

  “What? An offer for—”

  “Let me finish. Ryan told me that you have trouble.”

  “Oh, great.” He was the one I thought I could trust. “He had no right to—”

  “Ramona. Please.”

  I take a breath. Nod.

  “A lot of small businesses, especially restaurants and food service, have failed. You have resources in the family, and you don’t have to be one of them.” He takes out a manila envelope. “I’ve put together an offer. Take your time, look at it later. Maybe we can talk.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t want to do that.”

  “Ramona.” His steel-blue eyes are sharp. “Don’t let pride lead you to a fall.”

  Katie comes with the tea. My father winks at her. “I hear you’ve been planting a lot of flowers.”

  “I have. Do you want to see them?”

  “Maybe before I go. Give us a minute.”

  She nods.

  I hold the envelope in my hand, smarting. Mad at my brother. Mad at the economy. Humiliated.

  My dad drinks his tea. “I’m proud of you, Ramona. You’ve got guts.”

  “Thanks,” I say, sure he’s saying that only because my brother told him something.

  He clears his throat. “Also, I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  His mouth moves, and he keeps his gaze trained on the corn growing in the garden. “For not firing Dane. I should have. The job could have been yours.”

  “Did Ryan tell you everything? I’m going to kill him.”

  “He didn’t tell me anything. I figured it out all by myself.” Now he does look at me. His mouth twitches in amusement. “I was wrong, okay?”

  “Okay. I’ll take a look, Dad. No promises.”

  “None expected.”

  But right after his visit, the inspector arrives, and we’re finally cleared for opening. I call my employees to tell them the good news. We’ll be open for business tomorrow morning. Jimmy asks how dire things are. “Should I be looking for another job?”

  “I won’t lie.” I sigh over the phone. “It’s bad, but with a little luck we can make it up next weekend.” There is a festival that brings in tens of thousands of people, and with all the promotions I’ve done over the past few weeks and the trades I’ve made with motels and hotels in the area, surely we can make up some of it. “We’ll get our A game on and do the best we can.”

  “Yay, team.”

  “You’re my quarterback.”

  Tattooed and pierced and be-ringed, Jimmy snorts. “Whatever, Coach.”

  That’s when I take the envelope into the office and open it. There is a single sheet, outlining an offer to bring Mother Bridget’s Boulangerie under the umbrella of the Gallagher Group for a sum that would put me well out of debt. Ownership would go to the corporation, but I would be the general manager of the bakery.

  Autonomy and possible complete failure?

  Or community and possible success?

  How can I give up now? For the moment, I put the offer back into the envelope and slide it into the small wall safe.

  I’ve invited Jonah over for dinner, since I won’t have any time for the next five or six days, and it seems fitting to celebrate the green light for the bakery. As Katie and I prepare the meal, we’re listening to her favorite, Lady Gaga, and I find I like dancing around to it, singing lyrics I know by osmosis. I’ve roasted some corn in the oven and cut the kernels off into a big bowl, then sprinkled sea salt over them.

  Katie helps me toss the salad and squashes the avocados for guacamole. She, perhaps by virtue of living in El Paso, likes things much hotter than I can tolerate, and I caution her to go easy with the jalapeños.

  “Wimp,” she says, grinning.

  “I just like the roof of my mouth.”

  I slice cold roast chicken and lay it out on one of my grandmother’s plates, because I’ve been thinking of her and roast chicken was one of her favorites. Her recipe for roasting chicken is heavenly, but this is one I bought at the local organic-foods store, already cooked and studded with big flakes of black pepper. It’s been busy, and I’m not much for cooking main meals. That was always Stephanie’s great pleasure. Nibbling on tidbits of tender chicken and crackly skin, I think of the Erin again, the dated, sad look of it, the tired menu. Why hasn’t she done anything about it? It’s probably that my father is too stubborn to listen to her.

  When everything is ready, we carry it all down to the backyard, where I’ve spread a tablecloth over the table, fastened down with rocks to keep it from blowing away. Merlin is playing in the grass, tossing around a ragged toy almost as if he is playing with someone. “That is one crazy dog.”

  When Jonah arrives, he brings wine and sparkling cider, big yellow daisies, and a CD for Katie. “Thought you might like this,” he says.

  She looks at him with suspicion. “You know I don’t like classical, right?”

  He grins, plucking a tortilla chip from the ceramic bowl. “What makes you think it’s classical?”

  “That’s what you guys listen to all the time.”

  “Hardly!” I protest, and launch into the story of Jonah and the record store and the music we shared.

  “And when was that, 1980-something?” Katie asks.

  Jonah laughs. “Old school, right?” He uses the tongs to serve himself salad, wipes a little vinegar from his hands with his napkin, and says, “Just give it a try. If you don’t like it, no problem.”

  After dinner, Katie, who has been very meticulous about doing chores since yesterday, clears the table, leaving the wine. “See you lovebirds laaa-ter,” she says, and dances upstairs to read in the living room.

  “Finally,” Jonah says, and scoots closer to kiss me. His hand slides under my shirt at the back and moves in a circle that sends a shiver through my middle. Again I think, How can I be both so happy and so worried? So content and so frantic?

  But maybe that’s what life is—a mix. As we swing on the glider, I tell Jonah about Katie’s trek to the flower show, and he tells me about the composition he has been working on. “Have you baked me a loaf of bread yet?”

  “Is that what you’re working on? Something that sounds like a summer evening?”

  “With Ramona at the center.”

  “I suppose I should get busy, then.”

  “Time enough,” he says. “Time enough.”

  Katie

  When she finishes cleaning up the kitchen, Katie signs on to the Internet to play around a little. She has two new emails. One is from her mother, the same one she saw yesterday. The other is a new one, also from her mother. In the subject line is SORRY! Katie’s heart does this weird thing, a double bump.

  She opens the email.

  TO: [email protected]

  FROM: [email protected]

  SUBJECT: SORRY!

  OH HONEY, I JUST HERED THE NEWS BOUT YOUR DADDY SO SORRY. YOU’RE PRACTICALLY AN ORPHAN NOW ARENT YOU? I WISH I COULD CALL YOU AND MAKE SURE YOUR ALLRIGHT BUT YOU NOW I CAN’ T AND THAT I AM THINKING ABOUT YOU. COME SEE ME AS SOON AS YOU CAN AND ILL HUG YOU AND HUG YOU ALL BETTER. YOU KNOW YOUR MOMMA IS THE ONE YOU CAN DEPEND ON YOU CAN JUST RIDE THE BUS, RIGHT TO THE OLD PLACE, WHERE I WAS B4 AND THEN WE COULD GO WALKING IN THE PARK OR SOMETHING MAYBE GET ICE CREAM, WHICH I KNOW YOU LIKE.

  LOVE MOM

  Katie’s hands are shaking as she reads through the note a second time. What does that mean, practically an orphan? It feels like her throat is closing up, maybe so she won’t scream. She opens the first email to see if it says anything else, but it’s only the usual thing. Nothing.

  She closes her eyes. Something black buzzes right beneath her skin, at the back of her neck and down her arms.

  Don’t let him be dead.

  But of course he wouldn’t be. Ramona had promised to tell Katie the truth about her dad at all times.

  But what if …?

  A pain tears across
the top of her stomach, and she can’t even breathe right. Merlin comes over and urgently puts his head in her lap, as if he has heard some sound she didn’t even know she made. He looks at her with whiskey eyes. For a second, Katie can’t even move enough to pet him.

  What would happen to her if her dad was dead? Where would she live?

  After a long minute, she puts her hand on Merlin’s head and threads his gold ear through her fingers, like the satin on a blanket. He licks her wrist. Slowly, patiently.

  Go down and ask Ramona, a little voice in her head says, all reasonable.

  But what if they’re making out or something? They are so lovey-dovey it’s embarrassing, and although she knows they’re trying not to do anything in front of her, Katie had once accidentally seen Jonah slide his hands under Ramona’s skirt. Barf.

  She’ll just make a lot of noise going down the stairs. Standing up before she can change her mind, she says, “Come on, Merlin.”

  Ramona

  Jonah and I are swinging lazily back and forth on the glider, hardly even talking, when Katie comes crashing down the stairs and yells out, “Ramona!”

  There’s something in her voice. I straighten, taking Jonah’s hand for courage. “Here I am!”

  She is in high huff, but there’s something so wild in her eyes that I stand up, reaching for her even before she clenches her fists and cries, “Is my dad dead?”

  “No!” I bolt forward and put my hands on her thin arms. At least there is some flesh to them now. “No, he is not dead.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes. Why are you asking?”

  “My mother sent me an email and it sounded like my dad was dead, because I’m almost an orphan.”

  I look over my shoulder at Jonah, who nods imperceptibly. I should never have kept this from her. The weight of my betrayal is gigantic, even more so since the adults in her life have let her down over and over. Her dad, too. “There is something I need to tell you, Katie.”

  She slides out of my grasp, almost visibly building armor. Merlin comes and stands at her side, like a page or a bodyguard. “What?” she asks in a harsh voice.

  “There is no easy way to say this.” I gather my breath and squeeze my hands together. “He’s okay, but he tried to commit suicide.”