Baker's Apprentice

by Judith Ryan Hendricks

  “Is that why you didn’t go home?” He finishes his wine and pours himself another glass.

  “No, actually, it’s better now. She got remarried last year. To a nice guy. She’s happy, I think.”

  “What about you?”

  “Since David and I split up, it’s mostly a nonevent. I don’t think Christmas will ever mean that much to me again.”

  He chuckles. “I mean, what about the rest of the year? Are you happy?”

  “Oh.” I shrug. “Sometimes. Things haven’t worked out quite like I planned, but…” Then I laugh. “How did we get into this discussion?”

  “I think what happens is, Turbo’s not real talkative. So when I get a chance at conversation with someone, I’m all over it.” He pours more wine in my glass, even though I’ve only drunk about a quarter of what I had.

  “Easy. I’m supposed to be making bread.”

  “Much as I like your bread, I’d rather have the company today. It’s a hard time. These holidays.” His eyes cloud up behind the wire rims of his glasses, and for one awful minute, I think he’s going to start crying.

  “I know,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

  He seems to reach somewhere inside himself and tighten the loosening grip on his emotions. “Why is it, do you suppose, that we fall in love with people and they fall in love with us, only to find out later that it’s all wrong?”

  “If I knew the answer to that, I’d be making big bucks on a radio call-in show.”

  “When Fran and I first got together, it was like…for the first time in my life, everything—even the bad stuff—had a meaning.” He finishes the wine in his glass and pours some more. “I swear I think it’s what I miss most—things making sense.” He lays his head back on the couch. “It’s the shits when they don’t anymore.”

  Again I have that sense of his being right on the edge of tears. His pain is so fresh and sharp, and so on the surface, that listening to him is like being scraped raw. I can’t help wondering what she was like. If she was worth breaking a good heart over. Then I remember what my mother said last Christmas sitting at the kitchen table: Sometimes you want something so badly that whether it’s worth it or not doesn’t matter.

  “She used to say—she said, ‘Joshua, life with you is never boring. If it ever gets boring, I’m out of here.’ And we’d laugh.” He takes another big gulp of wine. His words are getting a little soft, a little blurry around the edges, and it’s making me uncomfortable. I really want to go home and make bread, but I can’t just get up and leave. “So I guess I musta got boring. ’Cause she’s definitely outta here.”

  I run my hand over Turbo’s warm, soft head and he opens one eye to look at me. “I don’t think it means you got boring,” I say.

  He turns a little bit on the couch. “Tell me what you think. I mean, you’re a woman. What do you want? What did she want?”

  “First of all, just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I understand her. Sometimes I don’t even understand what it is that I want.” I hold my glass up to the lamp to see the light through the wine. “People change, I guess.”

  “What about your hugband…um…husband?”

  I wave my hand. “He’s ancient history. I’ve given up thinking I’ll ever figure that all out.”

  “I would’ve said you pretty much had it figured out. You seem like a pretty grounded lady to me.”

  I smile. “That’s because you don’t know me.”

  His misty blue eyes find mine. “Not as well as I’d like to.”

  I set the glass down. “Josh, I think you should stop drinking.”

  “Huh?”

  “If you want to talk, I’d like to stay and talk. But if you just want to get obliterated, you don’t need me to watch.”

  His face reddens. “So go, then.” His abrupt change of mood is startling.

  I scoot forward and stand up. Turbo gives me an annoyed look, then slithers off the couch, following me into the foyer. I put on my jacket and open the door. “I’ll take him out for a minute and then let him back in.”

  “I’ll do it. Don’t worry, I’ll do it.” His voice is thick with anger and with pain and with booze. “You just get to your bread. You just go hide out there in your kitchen with your bread.”

  I have a sense of him getting up quickly from the couch, momentum propelling him forward, and then there’s a yelp and a crash. I wheel around and Turbo’s out the door like a shot.

  “Oh, shit! Josh, are you all right?” I kneel beside him as he rubs his left shin.

  “Yeah, I’m okay. Just embarrassed as hell.” The wind whips the door, banging it against the wall. “Gotta get that silly pup inside. He’s got about as much sense as his owner.”

  “I’ll get him.” I zip up my parka.

  “Better take a cookie.” He points to a dish of bone-shaped biscuits on a small table by the door.

  In a few minutes, Turbo is getting toweled down in front of the fire while he licks the last cookie crumbs off the floor. I shift my weight from one foot to the other.

  “I guess I better get going.”

  Josh concentrates on blotting the rain from the soaked ends of the dog’s ears. “You still want some butter, help yourself. It’s in the refrigerator door.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be back with some bread later. Thanks for the wine, too.”

  He looks up at me, suddenly sober. “I’m sorry, Wyn. I didn’t mean that. About you hiding in the kitchen.”

  I smile at him. “It’s okay. I suppose it’s true. In fact, I know it is. I do hide in the kitchen. In bread.” I wrap my old scarf around my neck. “But that’s not always a bad thing.”

  twenty

  Mac

  Christmas night.

  Eleven P.M. and it’s been dark for eight hours. But his body clock still keeps to the rhythms of the last six years.

  Eleven o’clock would be peak time at Bailey’s. He’d be cueing up another tape, trading bad jokes with Kenny. He misses their easy conversation, the way they worked instinctively around each other.

  If it was Saturday night, Wyn would be there, parked on her stool at the far end of the bar, reading, nursing one glass of wine. Quiet, awkward, she never seemed to grow more comfortable about being there while he worked. She didn’t talk much, or even make eye contact. She always seemed somehow embarrassed to be hanging out there.

  But at last call, it was like throwing a switch. She came alive. She’d put the book away and her eyes would follow him as he and Kenny cleaned up, counted the money, locked up the place. When their eyes met she would smile that almost shy, secret smile that made a tightness in his chest. Made him wish sometimes that they could skip going out with Kenny and Roz, CM, and whoever else ended up tagging along to Lofurno’s or Wild Ginger or the noodle place.

  But the waiting made it even better. Knowing that soon enough they would be in his bed and she would press herself against him and he’d be breathing the scent of her. Of the bread. He loved the strength of her arms, the coil of her legs around him. Loved all the noise she made, oddly exuberant. It didn’t seem to fit with the rest of her personality, which was very controlled, and it captivated him. To know that he could make her let go, make her lose the control that she struggled so hard to maintain the rest of the time.

  He rolls over on his side, face to the wall, feeling drowsiness spreading in his limbs, sleep taking hold. Finally. He closes his eyes, the effort of it pushing him into unconsciousness.

  He sits up suddenly, wide awake, aware of another presence. The room is inky dark. “Who is it?”

  The sound of a match scraping. Light flares as the lamp’s wick catches and burns. He squints into the glare.

  “Bernie? What the hell are you doing here?” He turns, placing both feet on the floor.

  “Wow, that’s rude. You must’ve been hanging around me too long.”

  She sets the glass globe over the flame and sits down next to him on the bed.

  “I had a bad dream.” Her breath is a haze of whiske
y.

  “You can’t stay here. Let me get dressed and I’ll walk you back to the house. Did you bring a flashlight?”

  “Nope.” She smiles. “I know the way by heart. I used to play out here when I was little. This was my playhouse.” Her hand lights on his knee and travels north. He feels the chill of it right through his thermals. “You want to play house?”

  He removes her hand to her own leg. “You need to get out of here. Right now.”

  “Oh, come on. You know you want to.”

  “I don’t know any such thing. And even if I did, I wouldn’t do it. Pearl trusts me—”

  She laughs harshly. “And here I was thinking you were such a smart guy. You don’t even get it. Why do you think she brought you here? So you could patch the roof? Tend bar? Duh…You’re supposed to fall in love with me. Or at least knock me up and then marry me.”

  “Me?”

  “Well, don’t let it go to your head. The only requirements for the job are that you’re white, don’t drool at the table, and don’t drink at work.” She inches closer. “Don’t you like me? Don’t you think I’m pretty?”

  He removes her hand from his leg again, trying to ignore the stiffening in his penis. “I do like you, but not like that. It wouldn’t be good for either of us.”

  “Oh, for Chrissake. Who says it has to be good for anybody? Don’t you sometimes just want to fuck your brains out?” She slides closer. “I do.”

  “Well, I don’t. What I want is for you to get up off this bed and get your buns back to the house. Now.” The last word floats in an icy breath. He’s starting to shiver.

  Suddenly her arms lock around his neck and her mouth is on his throat. He finds himself wondering how it happened with Chris. And where and when. It’s not as if there were a lot of places to go in Beaverton for privacy. She interprets his hesitation as acquiescence and shrugs off her parka, letting it hang down from her shoulders, looking up at him.

  He grasps her wrists firmly, removes her arms. “Bernie, stop it. This isn’t going to happen.”

  Her bewilderment flares into indignation. “Goddamn you. Fucking asshole. Who the hell do you think you are? You just walk in here—”

  “Sorry, but you walked in here. Now walk back out.”

  “You’re just like all the rest of them. You come on like Mr. Sensitive—”

  “I thought we could be friends—”

  “Friends?” She spits out the word. “Men don’t want to be friends. They want to fuck. And then they want to leave.” Her face puckers with fury, and little bubbles of spit collect in the corners of her mouth. She flails suddenly, nicking his face with a fingernail.

  In a second he’s up, pulling her to her feet, gripping her arms from behind, and propelling her toward the door. She bends at the knees, digging her heels into the floor and begins to shriek. “You bastard, you piece of shit!”

  “Be quiet.”

  “I’ll tell Pearl you tried to rape me—”

  “In my room.”

  “You asked me to show you how to clean the stove—”

  “In the middle of the night? Come on, Bernie. Listen to yourself. You’ve just had a little too much to drink, that’s all. It happens. Come on, I’ll walk you—”

  She wrenches free suddenly and runs out the door, leaving him staring after her, half-convinced it was a weird dream. When he touches the nick on his face, the blood is already starting to congeal.

  “Happy Boxing Day.” He holds out a bottle of champagne to Chris. “Is that what you’re supposed to say?”

  Chris grins. “That works. How are you getting along over there?”

  The thought of last night jolts him, just before he says, “Fine.”

  Nora appears, to take his jacket and kiss his cheek. “Happy Christmas, Mac. I’m so glad you could come.”

  He stuffs his gloves in the sleeves of the parka. “It was hard fitting another party into my schedule, but, considering that I’m wearing your husband’s clothes, I thought I’d better put in an appearance.”

  She looks at the gouge on his face. “What did you do to yourself?”

  “Cut myself shaving. I think I need a new blade.”

  “You made a good job of it, all right. But you can dull the pain with some of Chris’s special French seventy-six punch. Go on into the parlor. The food’s in there.”

  Pearl May sits on the edge of a Victorian velvet chair, spine as straight as a soldier, holding a cup of punch.

  “Mac! How nice.” She holds out a hand. “It seems so silly that I have to go to someone else’s home to see you. How’s your work progressing?”

  “Very well, thanks,” he lies and smiles. His glance takes in the whole room. “Where’s Bernie?”

  “She’s resting this afternoon. She had a bad night last night.”

  He wonders if she has any idea how bad. “Sorry to hear it. How’s Emmett?”

  “Exhausted. Cranky from too much sugar. Half his toys are already broken.” She laughs. “A typical Christmas.”

  Nora comes around with a plate of small biscuits filled with ham. “These are sourdough biscuits,” she says. “Not traditional Boxing Day fare, but very traditional Yukon fare.”

  “What exactly is Boxing Day?” Mac takes a biscuit and a napkin from her.

  “Boxing Day,” Pearl May says, tilting her head to one side as if she were reciting a poem. “Boxing Day was first observed as a holiday in the mid-nineteenth century. Servants of various kinds received a Christmas box of contributions from their employers. Also, I believe poor people carried empty boxes from door to door, and the boxes were filled with food, Christmas sweets, and money.”

  “How like the Victorians,” Nora says, laughing. “Every other day of the year, they’d just as soon run their carriages over the poor sods, but on Boxing Day they toss them a few table scraps.”

  “Spoken like the sweet Irish lass that you are.” Chris gives her a kiss on the neck. “Mac, a glass of my famous French seventy-six punch.”

  “What happened to French seventy-five?”

  “Mine has a secret ingredient.”

  A sudden growl turns them all toward the hallway.

  “I know that growl,” Mac says.

  “Hi, y’all.” Rhiannon comes in, slipping out of a long, black cape. “I was too cold to wait for somebody to open the door. Jester, down. That’s a good boy. Stay.”

  The dog promptly lays his head on his paws and closes his eyes.

  “I love this cape,” Nora hugs her. “Let me take it and hang it up and you’ll never see it again.”

  “My French Lieutenant’s Woman cape. Now if I just had the Meryl Streep face and body to go with it. Hey, Pearl May. Howdy, stranger.” She presses her cold face against Mac’s.

  Over the next few hours, people come and go. Dirk from the post office and his wife, Mimi. Olivia Myles, who owns the hardware store. Her cousin Henry and his wife, Charlotte.

  Mac stands near the stove, warming his back. Drinking, eating, talking when necessary, but mostly watching and listening. It’s been almost two months since he’s been around other people for any length of time, and he vacillates between expansiveness and claustrophobia. In the end, he’s reluctant to leave.

  At some point, he settles on the couch, and Rhiannon suddenly appears beside him. “Have you been avoiding me?”

  “No. Why would I avoid you?”

  She tugs on a strand of gray hair. “I thought you might still be mad about your reading.”

  “I was never mad about it.”

  “Well, you were some kind of something.” She gives him an appraising look. “Too close to the bone, huh?”

  He tries to laugh.

  “Don’t deny it. I know what I saw. And you haven’t been back to see me since.”

  “There’s four feet of snow on the ground, Madame Blue. And I’ve been holed up working.”

  “How’s it coming?”

  He leans back against a tufted throw pillow. “What do the cards say?”
<
br />   “They say you’re spinnin’ your wheels like a tractor pull.”

  He nods slowly. The punch is starting to take him down. He looks at the liquid in the bottom of the glass. “This stuff has the same basic formula as jet fuel.”

  “I’m telling you, Mac. Make peace with your brother.”

  “It’s a bit late. He’s been dead since 1974.”

  She blinks twice. “You can still deal with it. You’re the damn writer. You figure it out.”

  He inhales deeply, suddenly exhausted. “I’ll take it under advisement. And now, I think I’ll go home while I can still walk.”

  “Well, stick to the roads. You have a flashlight?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  The moon is so bright he doesn’t really need the flashlight. He must be drunk because his brain keeps repeating the line from “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” about the moon on the crest of the new-fallen snow giving the luster of midday to objects below.

  He doesn’t know what time it is. He walks slowly, thinking of Bernie’s mother, drunk, freezing to death in the snow. He kicks at the drifts edging the snowplowed street. He can see how it happens. It’s so cold here, about twenty-two below tonight. And remote. No one would find you in time. It sounds oddly cozy.

  The lights are off in Pearl May’s house. When he starts through the trees, he turns on the flashlight. Which is probably why he doesn’t notice at first that there’s a light on in the bunkhouse. Even after he sees it, he doesn’t really notice it. It doesn’t register until he’s about to step onto the porch and he realizes that the door is open a crack. He stops himself, nearly falling over to avoid clomping on the wooden step.

  Suddenly he’s sober. He pushes the door open just a hair wider and looks in. His stomach drops. Bernie’s standing by the stove, ripping pages out of his notebook and feeding them, one at a time, into the fire. Her head jerks up when he steps into the room. Her eyes glitter like black ice.