by Dana Becker
* * *
Ten tense minutes into the meeting, Whitey looked at his watch.
“This is the second time you’ve come to me this month,” he said to Ricky. “And it’s the last time we meet. I’m a busy man. I think you know that.”
“I know,” Ricky said. “I’m busy, too.”
Whitey couldn’t help himself; he laughed. He loved when fools showed their cards to him. It made things so much easier that way. And it was not unamusing to watch them in their sad effort to bluff like tough guys.
“Well, okay,” Whitey said. “We’re both busy, so why don’t you leave now?”
Whitey began to shuffle some papers on his desk and turned his attention elsewhere. He tried to contain his smile, as he sensed Ricky, who hadn’t budged in his chair, begin fidgeting awkwardly. Whitey held him there like that, in silent torture, for a long minute. Finally, Ricky could take it no longer.
“Well, there is one thing.”
“Let me guess.”
“The girl,” said Ricky.
“Of course,” replied Whitey. “Isn’t that the reason you’re really here? You’ve created quite a mess for yourself.”
Whitey leaned back in his chair and indulged himself in a long look at Ricky. He enjoyed watching Ricky try, and fail, to control his anger.
“That’s one way of looking at it,” Ricky said. “I went to speak to the sister.”
“I don’t care. And I don’t want to hear about it.”
Ricky seethed.
“There’s nothing I can do to help you,” Whitey said. “Which I think you know.”
“I can pay.”
Whitey was no longer amused.
“Do not lie to me,” Whitey said.
“I can come up with the money.”
“This is not about money.”
“I’m not lying to you.”
“You need to go!” Whitey shouted. “Now.”
He leaned over the desk and put his face inches from Ricky’s, breathing hard.
“Go,” Whitey whispered through clenched teeth.
Ricky didn’t move. It wasn’t defiance that kept him. His legs were paralyzed. Whitey said nothing more but stared directly into his eyes, from inches away. A pall of cold fear gripped Ricky. Whitey’s gaze was like that of a predatory animal. There was nothing in his eyes that Ricky could recognize as human or sympathetic. These were the eyes of someone who had killed in cold blood. It was known that Whitey didn’t just order deaths; he went out of his way to participate in the dirty work of slaughter. It was unwise of him to do that—and yet he got his hands dirty simply because murder was something he enjoyed. Ricky knew about it. Now he saw that hunger for himself. With a slight panic rising in his lower back, he weakly mustered his legs to move. He stood up and walked out slowly, careful not to turn his back on the predator whose gaze remained fixed upon him.
As Ricky retreated, he could hear Whitey muttering, “This is the last time we meet.”
* * *
For the next week, April felt uptight. It seemed as if everyone was watching her. After the Ricky incident, Carmen wouldn’t let her out of her sight. Joseph, of course, was also watching her, for other reasons.
And Joseph’s cousins, the ones who ran the Amish diner, were growing more suspicious of Joseph and April’s relationship. At least, it seemed that way to April. She saw their looks, the way they carefully watched him as he cut out for breaks. She saw the glances they exchanged. And she saw, especially, how their suspicion was making Joseph himself feel uncomfortable around April. Sometimes he would just shake his head and continue working when April came around the diner, almost ignoring her. And even when he did take a break and went on a walk with her, he seemed more distant, more distracted.
One afternoon when April wandered over to the Amish diner, Joseph seemed more tense than she’d ever seen him.
“It’s not a good time,” he said, and turned around to walk away. April gently grasped his wrist, but he slipped out of her hold and looked around to see if anyone had seen this gesture.
“April,” he said, “you really shouldn’t.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But also . . . not sorry.”
They just stood there, looking at each other for a long moment. April could sense that something else was wrong.
“What’s the matter?” she said.
“We’re having a tough day over here,” Joseph said.
One of his aunts, who worked in the diner, had suddenly gotten very ill. And, on top of that, his aunt was the one who usually handled orders and deliveries. In her sudden absence, the diner had failed to order a large shipment of bread that they needed for a catering job that evening. Everyone was scrambling and nervous.
“I got this,” April said.
Before Joseph could reply, April marched up to Joseph’s uncle. She had watched this man from afar, with curiosity and fear: he looked like every old-time bearded American president rolled into one large frame, with a Mt. Rushmore-sized forehead deeply etched with worry wrinkles. He was the boss of the diner and was not, in April’s experience, much given to smiling. In her mind, she referred to him as Ebenezer. His actual name, it turned out, was Levi. April hadn’t ever exchanged a word with him—at worst, she was the recipient of his disapproving looks; at best, his neutral gaze. But now she was marching up to the cash register, where he was standing.
“Hey,” she said. “Uh, I mean, hello. I hear you have a bread problem.”
April watched as the man’s deep forehead wrinkles somehow deepened even further. But other than that, his expression did not change at all. Nor did he say a word. Instead he just slowly turned his gaze past April’s shoulder, to where Joseph was standing. April turned around just in time to see Joseph nod slightly and look down. She turned back to Ebenezer/Levi and saw him squint ever so slightly. She had the sudden impulse to turn around and run.
“Look, I’m not trying to cause any trouble here,” April said, “but I can help you. I work over there,” she said, pointing toward the Metropolitan Bakery. (She could tell that he knew very well who she was and where she worked.) “Tell me how much bread you guys need and we can bake it right now. We can do it supercheap. Just at cost for materials.”
April turned around to look at Joseph, who caught her eye with his dark, confident green-eyed gaze for a moment.
“I can bake it myself. Just tell me what you need and when you need it.”
The old man looked directly at April and, in a voice that was higher and gentler than she was expecting, murmured quietly, “That’s very kind of you.”
He drifted back into the kitchen and huddled with one of the older women. He scribbled something on a sheet of paper, returned to the register, and handed the slip of paper to April.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
April rushed out of the diner, intentionally brushing by Joseph on her way out, and jogged back to the bakery.
“Are you kidding me?” Carmen said, when April told her what she’d arranged. “You agreed to do what? And without asking me? Really, April?”
“Really!” April shouted back from inside the kitchen as she grabbed a rolling pin.
* * *
The bread incident—or, as Carmen called it, The Miracle of the Loaves—brought April and Joseph closer again. April, inspired, had managed to bake more than two dozen loaves of bread for the Amish diner’s event. At one point, Joseph had drifted into the bakery to check on her progress and found her running around the kitchen, covered in flour. He offered to help, and together they rolled the dough and sprinkled it with seeds and herbs. And everything they did, they did openly, because, for one brief moment, the Amish diner and Carmen’s bakery, and Joseph and April, were officially in business together. Everyone knew that Joseph and April were sharing this kitchen, and they all approved.
At one point, as Joseph, wearing a Metropolitan Bakery apron, was pulling a fresh tray of hot and crusty and perfectly browned loaves of rye out of the oven, April, de
spite everything, couldn’t help thinking to herself, Maybe this is how it could be? Why not?
That night, April was a hero to Joseph’s relatives. With her help, they came through for their catering client: everyone at the event complimented the bread and asked for the Amish diner’s business card.
Carmen was even more impressed, and grateful, when April brokered a major deal: the Amish diner would now buy its bread—for its catering events—exclusively from Metropolitan. This gave Carmen a much-needed cash flow boost—and at each event, a new opportunity to advertise all over town—just when her rent was about to go up. April had helped secure Carmen’s business for the coming year.
April was beginning to talk about taking classes in baking, so that she could be more helpful to Carmen. And when Carmen replied, “If you really want to help me, take a class in business management.” April returned the next day with a stack of informational printouts about courses in business management. April’s case manager was impressed by her sudden ambition and was reporting April’s progress to the court.
* * *
In the weeks that followed The Miracle of the Loaves, April and Joseph enjoyed an easy and comfortable rapport. Sometimes, on their breaks in the park, they would just sit silently together, enjoying each other’s company, as though this were the most natural thing in the world.
During one of these moments, sitting together on a park bench, Joseph pointed to the book poking out of her purse.
“What are you reading there?”
“Oh this? I actually just finished it this morning,” said April. “It’s just something stupid.”
“Nothing you do is stupid.”
April burst out laughing.
“Oh Joseph,” April said. “If only you knew. Here . . .” she said, taking the book out and handing it to him.
With great deliberation and intense concentration, which made April laugh, Joseph read the back cover of the book.
“Don’t read it too closely now,” April said, but Joseph, still studying the cover, didn’t seem to be listening.
“He . . . goes back in time?” he finally said.
It occurred to April that the phrase “goes back in time” wouldn’t mean anything to someone who wasn’t raised watching or reading sci-fi and who’d never heard of Back to the Future, much less watched it.
“Oh yeah,” April said. “So, like, he gets into what they call a time machine, like a little car, but instead of moving through space he goes through time.”
April looked at Joseph. He still seemed confused.
“It’s like, imagine that you get on a bus, but instead of arriving in Lancaster two and a half hours from when you departed, you arrived two hundred years earlier than you’d left.”
“Oh,” Joseph said. “It’s a strange story.”
“I told you it was stupid!”
Joseph looked at her with his big eyes and said, “I don’t think it’s stupid.”
“Maybe that’s because you’re stupid!” April said, playfully.
Joseph looked deeply hurt.
“Omigod. I’m just kidding you! You’re so serious!” April said.
But Joseph still seemed hurt. April threw her arm around his neck, and pulled herself to him, so that she could look him in the eyes. Without intending it, her lips grazed his cheek and the corner of his lips. A sudden jolt shot through her body—and Joseph’s body, too: she could feel him tense up.
“Hey,” she whispered, her forehead pressed up against his head, her lips grazing his ear as she spoke. “I don’t think you’re stupid, okay? Not even close. I think you’re the best person I’ve ever met. Not even kidding. I love . . . that you’re so serious. I I– . . . like, really like you. You know that.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the sky turn orange with sunset.
“We should go back,” Joseph said.
The words fell on April like a heavy weight. A sudden gloom settled over her. She was scared that she had offended him. That she had created a distance between them. Or worse, that she had exposed the distance that already existed between them. That she’d broken the spell that had allowed them to ignore that vast distance. And now she felt forlorn. She tasted what it would be like to lose Joseph—what it would be like, when, inevitably, she would, in fact, lose him—and it emptied her out.
They walked back to the market in total silence, which only confirmed April’s fears. With each silent step, she felt the distance between them grow. She wanted to stop walking—but what would that accomplish? She wished she could go back to the moment when they had arrived at the park, still living in the bubble of closeness that she had burst.
When they arrived at the marketplace, and it was time to say good-bye, April didn’t know what to say. She was afraid to say anything. Then Joseph reached toward her, and a spark of hope flickered within her. Joseph reached for her book, pulled it out of her purse, and said, “Can I borrow this? I’ll return it.”
April wanted to say, “Keep it forever!” But she liked the idea of him returning the book, of his placing it back into her hands, of how that exchange would feel on her skin. She liked the idea of making future plans, any plans, with him. She liked the idea of sharing something with him. A secret.
“Of course you can borrow it,” April said.
Her eyes were drawn to the book. She liked the way it looked in his strong hand. She tapped on the book gently, and, with that, immediately felt the closeness return; the bubble that she and Joseph had shared was back, fully restored. Maybe even stronger than before. April turned around, and, with a big smile on her face, disappeared back into the bakery, where Carmen, overcome with customer requests, eyed her suspiciously.
By instinct, April immediately grabbed her phone to text Rose to gossip about Joseph. And then she caught herself. The sudden recollection of Rose threw her into a sudden tailspin. She’d pushed her feelings about Rose so far down these days that when they popped up, the effect was of an ambush. Which threw her into an almost physical feeling of vertigo. These sudden flashes of Rose unsettled her to the point that she almost lost her balance. And even though these flashes happened inevitably, daily, they never startled her less for their frequency.
But now there was a new feeling: she was beginning to resent Rose. As the days went by and the emotional ambushes continued unabated, she found she was starting to blame Rose. For disappearing. And for putting her through this hell. She loved her sister more than any person on earth and she’d also been, at various points in their relationship, angrier with her than with any person on earth. It was a typical sister relationship, in that way: the love was always there but so was the capacity for deep rage. She didn’t love this about herself. She felt guilty about it. But even these feelings of guilt could be redirected into resentment toward Rose. If she felt guilt, well, that was Rose’s fault, too.
Before April returned to her work, she walked around the kitchen, ripping down the two “Missing” posters of Rose that she’d taped to the door, muttering, “God, what a drama queen.” She wouldn’t touch the posters outside, in the market and around downtown, but inside the kitchen of the bakery she decided she no longer needed to stare at that face. Or rather, to have it staring at her. As she folded up the posters and dropped them into the recycling bin, she felt an enormous weight lifted from her shoulders.
* * *
The next few weeks were some of the happiest of April’s life. She made more progress on her court-ordered program of meetings and community service. With Carmen’s help, she’d enrolled in a course on business management at Community College of Philadelphia. Fall arrived in an explosion of colorful leaves that, to April, felt like a celebration of her growing feelings. On one of their walks, Joseph reached down and took her hand in his. April was shocked. But even before her mind could register what was happening, her entire body came alive.
“Are you sure?” she said, with a big smile.
Joseph just looked ahead and nodded.
&
nbsp; “I mean, ’cause we don’t have to.”
“I want to,” Joseph said, quietly.
April stopped short, pulled Joseph’s arm down toward her, grasping him by the biceps, which was even stronger than she’d imagined. On his biceps, her hands suddenly felt small. She squeezed his arm and looked him directly in the eyes.
“What did you say?” she said, slyly. “I couldn’t quite hear you—can you say it louder?”
A small grin came over Joseph’s face.
“I said, ‘I want to.’”
“Want to what?”
“I want to,” he said, taking her hand and lifting it. “I want . . . this.”
April realized that her face was hurting from a giant smile that she couldn’t seem to tamp down.
They reached a small park and approached a bench, surrounded by a small family of geese. When they sat down on the bench, Joseph released her hand. But April wasn’t having it: she immediately grabbed his hand, placed it on her knee, and held it there. He grinned and wiggled his hand free.
“April,” he said, shaking his head. “We shouldn’t.”
This little park would become their destination of choice. They would sit on the bench, their bodies pushed up close to each other, and chat. Sometimes they would sit there for what felt like an hour, but was probably more like twenty minutes, without saying a word. Just watching the world go by together. Watching the same sweet old woman who fed the geese and talked to them as though they were her own brood. Watched the joggers, the children eating hot pretzels. They watched as with each passing day, more and more branches of the giant maple tree turned red, until one day the whole tree seemed a giant bonfire of color, emanating its own light.
On that special day, they sat on their bench, under the maple tree. They felt freer with each other than they’d ever felt, as though the tree itself were able to provide shelter from every problem in the world.
“This tree is us,” she whispered to Joseph.
“I know,” he replied.