The City Baker's Guide to Country Living

by Louise Miller

  I lay down on the grass in the sun. Puffs of white clouds moved smoothly across the deepening blue sky. Salty emerged from the woods a minute later and was pawing at the grass beside my head when I heard the unmistakable scratch of a bow being drawn across fiddle strings. The sound was faint at first, the tentative pull of horsehair on metal. But I could picture fingertips twisting the little fine-tuners in the silence that followed. Then the notes of “Angeline the Baker” rang out across the field. Next came “June Apple,” then “Little Sadie,” old-time classics. I lay back down, tapping the rhythm with my feet and hands against the grass, watching the occasional hawk or crow soar by. As dusk began to creep in over the farmhouse, the tunes slowed down. The music must have been coming from the little toolshed, but it sounded as if the trees themselves were playing. When the last note ended, all I could hear was the whistle of swallows’ wings cutting through the sky.

  I was three trees deep onto the carriage trail when I heard it. Long, slow notes in a minor key dragged across the lower strings. I leaned against a thin pine and slid back down to the ground. The drone of a double stop—two strings being played together. I didn’t recognize the tune, although it felt as familiar to me as my own skin. My body grew still; not a single cell wanted to miss a note. The tune wound back to the beginning again and again, each round more mournful than the last. Salty sat down next to me, aimed his snout up to the sky, and began howling. The music stopped abruptly. I leaped to my feet.

  “Shhh, Salty, quit it!” I grabbed him by the collar and turned back into the woods, the darkness surrounding us. I strode ahead, but Old Salt kept stopping and staring back over his shoulder toward the clearing.

  • • •

  Back in the sugarhouse, after I fed Salty some kibble and warmed my hands on a cup of tea, I dragged out the black cardboard case that I had stashed under the futon. I flicked the latches and opened it for the first time in sixteen years. The banjo was out of tune, its strings dusty from years of neglect. I rubbed them with the cuff of my sleeve. My father had bought it back in the sixties, before I was born, and had kept it in pristine condition. The rim and neck were carved out of parchment-pale maple. An abalone inlay of pinecones danced down the fingerboard. Milky mother-of-pearl tuning pegs dotted the top. The wooden tone ring gave it a deep, quiet voice, like the hoot of a great horned owl. Only the head revealed how often he had played it, a dark, shiny stain under the strings where his frailing hand had worn into the clean, white surface. My left hand stretched into the chords he had taught me, the memory of them stored in my muscles, and with my right I began to strum, searching for the notes of that lonesome tune.

  • • •

  The Friday night after my first week working at the Sugar Maple I took the back road from the inn into town to meet Hannah, wanting an excuse to drive closer to the neighboring farm and hoping to hear the fiddler again. But when I drove by the long dirt drive to the little farm, the only living creatures I saw were two dairy goats, who eyed me with cold curiosity. Halfway down the mountain the shoulder widened and three cars, with their headlights still on, had pulled over on the side of the road. With a loud buzz, my cell phone sprang to life, and a moment later I heard the three sharp beeps, like an accusation, letting me know I had a new voice mail. A cell service hotspot. I gripped the steering wheel and pressed my foot on the gas before any more calls could come through.

  • • •

  The blue and yellow neon sign on the roof of the Black Bear Tavern lit up the dirt parking lot, which was packed with pickup trucks. Two bear statues, cut roughly with a chain saw, guarded a windowless door like library lions. As I pushed my way into the bar, the scents of spilled beer, cooking oil, and stale cigarette smoke greeted me. I found Hannah hunched over a table toward the back, wiping off the last patron’s crumbs with a paper napkin.

  “I hope this is what you had in mind when you asked to see ‘local color,’” she said as I slid in.

  “It’s perfect.” I had been craving a night like this, someplace dark and anonymous, away from the formality of the inn. Across from us was a long wooden bar, every stool taken by a man with a broad back sheathed in flannel. The bar was tended by an older guy with a thick red beard and a sweatshirt with a picture of wolves howling stretched over his belly. Above him hung the mounted heads of moose, deer, and elk. They looked down at the drinkers like Saint Francis and the Virgin Mother giving their blessing.

  “I’ve only been here a couple of times,” she said, dipping a napkin into her water glass and scrubbing at a sticky spot on the table. “It’s not Jonathan’s kind of place.”

  “Well, thanks for slumming it with me. I’ve spent this whole week in only three places—the inn, the sugarhouse, and the woods.”

  “The woods?” Hannah was trying hard not to laugh. I could tell by the way she pressed her lips together. “You’re becoming quite the Vermonter already.”

  I threw a balled-up napkin at her. “I have to find something to do with my time now that you’ve lured me out of the city.”

  At the far end of the room an elegant-looking man with a long blond ponytail and a white shirt tucked into neatly pressed jeans was tuning a stand-up bass.

  “Ooh, you didn’t tell me they have music here.”

  “Only on Friday nights,” said the waitress, who appeared just then. “Can I get you girls something to drink?”

  Hannah ordered a glass of grapefruit juice and I ordered a whiskey. The bar was quickly filling up. Some women were trickling in with boyfriends and husbands, while others arrived in packs, giggling and flirting with the bartender.

  “You’ll settle in soon. Have you met Alfred yet? He’s an amazing chef. And isn’t Margaret sweet?” Hannah took a long sip of juice, avoiding my eyes.

  “Sweet?” I raised my eyebrows. “Have you ever bitten into a raw cranberry?”

  “She’s just a little stern. Wait till you get to know her.”

  “If I ever do. I’ve only seen her for a total of twenty minutes this week, and all she does is ignore me or take a little jab.” I took a long sip of my drink. “I don’t know, Hann. A year is sounding a little long.”

  “You stayed at the Emerson for three.”

  “Yes, but the Emerson was . . .”

  “Exhausting?”

  “Stimulating.” I drained my glass. “And Boston might not be New York, but it has lots of things going on.”

  “Things you could never attend, because you were always at work.”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “Don’t even think about it. You made a promise.”

  “A promise isn’t a binding contract.”

  “In Guthrie it is.” Hannah twisted her wedding ring around her finger. “You have to stay.”

  “What’s up with her, anyway?”

  “Margaret?”

  I watched Hannah take a sip of her drink. “And what’s up with the juice? The last time I saw you drinking juice you had taken up jogging. And I am not going jogging with you. Don’t even ask.”

  “Would you ladies like anything to eat?” The waitress was back. Hannah ordered chicken soup and a side salad. I ordered the grilled cheese with French fries, along with another whiskey and a beer chaser.

  “I should be asking you the same thing.”

  “I’m not drinking juice.” I held up the whiskey glass. “See, nothing to worry about.”

  Hannah smirked. “I wasn’t worried. But you should keep an eye on the drinking.”

  “We’re in a bar.”

  “People notice things around here. Believe me. I’m just saying.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, have you seen her office? There’s like, a million ribbons hanging from the ceiling—”

  The crackle of a microphone sputtering to life interrupted my thoughts. The bar was packed. All the tables were full, and the spillover crowd stood in small groups laughing and talking. It see
med as if everyone knew one another, like at a high school reunion. Two other men about the same age had joined the bass player. One was dressed in a navy blue mechanic’s jumpsuit with the name Harold embroidered on the breast pocket. He was carrying a mandolin case. The other I recognized as Tom Carrigan, the dairy farmer. Tonight he looked sharp in a blue dress shirt under a black vest, guitar slung over his shoulder.

  The waitress put our plates down and disappeared into the crowd before I could ask after our drinks. I was scanning the room for her teased-up hair when I saw the bar door open. In stepped the man from the apple stand at the farmer’s market. He was dressed in jeans and a white button-down shirt under a thick knitted sweater in a shade of blue that reminded me of the sky at dusk.

  “Liv,” Hannah said.

  “Hey, Martin,” Tom called from the stage. “Want to join us?”

  Martin waved, but didn’t stop before he reached the bar, sliding onto a vacated stool at the end. Next to him stood a full-grown stuffed black bear, emitting a silent growl.

  “Livvy.”

  I wouldn’t have described him as handsome, but he looked like something you would admire in nature—like a fox or a hawk—something that would stare you straight in the eye before disappearing into the woods.

  “Livvy! Where are you?”

  “Oh. Sorry.” I turned my attention back to Hannah. “What were you saying?”

  The waitress set down three cardboard coasters and put down my beer and two glasses of whiskey.

  “I only ordered one,” I said.

  The waitress jutted her chin toward the stage. “One’s from Tom.”

  I raised my glass toward the stage, then knocked it back in one swallow.

  Hannah craned her neck. “Who were you staring at? And who’s buying you drinks?”

  “Oh, just Tom, the dairy guy. In the band. Are they any good? I wonder if they’re going to start playing soon.”

  “Livvy, I’m trying to tell you something.”

  And as if on cue, the man wearing the jumpsuit, Harold, stepped up to the mike and said, “Evening, everybody! We’re the Beagles! Your local all-Eagles cover band!” And with that the band broke into a bluegrassy version of “Peaceful Easy Feeling.”

  “What is it?” I shouted across the table.

  Hannah looked over at the band, her eyes narrow. “I’m pregnant,” she shouted back.

  “What?” I jumped up, scooted next to Hannah on her side of the booth, and threw my arms around her neck. “That’s great news!”

  Hannah leaned her head against mine. “It’s still early—only a little more than a month. We’re not telling anyone officially until the beginning of the second trimester.”

  “My lips are sealed. I can’t wait to be Auntie Mame!”

  Hannah punched me in the arm. “Now can you see why I was so excited about you and the Sugar Maple? It’s perfect that you’re here!”

  I looked at Hannah sideways. “I’m not exactly experienced in the motherhood department.”

  “I don’t need help with the mothering part, it’s just . . . ” Hannah looked over her shoulder before leaning toward me. “It’s Jonathan’s mother. She’s a total control freak. I need someone on my side.”

  Hannah, despite her earthy-crunchy appearance, is a bit of a control freak herself, but it didn’t seem like the right moment to bring this up. “Don’t worry. I’ll stake my claim on the guest room and make sure she can’t move in.”

  Hannah laughed, probably because she knew I didn’t mean it. Jonathan and I had barely managed to get through my first two weeks in Vermont without coming to blows. She pushed at my arm. “Now go back to your side and eat your French fries. I’m about to pounce on them and I’m trying not to gain too much weight.”

  I moved back to my side of the table. When I looked at the bar, Martin’s spot had been filled by the round slope of a thick-framed man. “So,” I shouted across the table, “what are you and Jonathan up to this weekend? Nest building? Picking out bassinettes? What is a bassinette, anyway?”

  “We’re carving pumpkins,” she shouted back. “Mr. Darling, who owns the funeral parlor, is trying to beat the Guinness world record for number of lit jack-o’-lanterns. Want to come?”

  I had already spent enough hours that week digging into raw squash. “I need furniture.”

  “There’s an estate sale tomorrow morning. An old patient of Jonathan’s. He thinks she might have had some good stuff.”

  It seemed wildly disturbing for your family doctor to be sizing up how good a yard sale there would be when you kicked the bucket, but I kept my mouth closed. I needed a dresser. The band started in on a new tune—could that really be “Life in the Fast Lane”?

  “I’d love to go.”

  Hannah stabbed at the romaine lettuce with her fork. “Has this been enough local color for you, Livvy? That mandolin is giving me a migraine. Let’s go back to my house.”

  “All right. Just let me pee first.” I knocked back the rest of my beer and stood up. As I weaved my way through the crowd, one thing became very clear: I was smashed. I gripped the shoulders of the bar patrons standing around me as I pushed my way toward the bathroom. After I peed, I splashed cold water on my face to fend off a slight edge of nausea. Refreshed, I stepped out of the ladies’ room, tripped over the foot of the growling black bear, and slammed into a tall, heavyset man in front of me, causing his beer to shoot up like a fountain before it crashed to the floor.

  “Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” I shouted into the man’s flannel chest. His expression went from surprise to anger to a cold curiosity.

  “I know you,” he said, his voice low and level. It sounded like an accusation.

  “You don’t,” I said, grabbing a towel off the bar and swabbing beer off of his chest.

  “You’re that bitch who took Bonnie’s job!” Flannel man’s face was getting redder. I stopped dabbing.

  “I’m sorry about the drink and your shirt, but I have no idea who Bonnie is and I haven’t taken anything.”

  I reached into my back pocket, searching for cash so I could replace his beer.

  “Where’d you come from, anyway?”

  I fished out a five and slapped it on the bar, waving at the bartender and pointing a finger at Flannel. “Boston.”

  “Fucking figures.” His eyes shrank into slits. “Think you’re so great, don’t you, slumming it up here with your purple hair.”

  “Electric Amethyst,” I said, the room getting warmer. I leaned against the bar.

  “She worked like a dog for that woman.” He leaned in closer, towering over me, his breath hot and boozy on my face. “Stupid. City. Bitch,” he spat. “So full of yourself. You think you can do any better?”

  “Stupid. Redneck. Loudmouth,” I spat back. “I bet I can.” Have I mentioned that I shouldn’t drink whiskey? It makes me belligerent. A hand reached over and pulled Flannel back upright.

  “Hey, Frank.”

  It was Martin. His voice was steady but his jaw was clenched.

  “Figures you’re out with this trash.”

  “Not now, Frank.”

  Martin put a hand gently on my back and turned me toward the door. Frank shouldered between us and leaned toward him.

  “Girls around here still not good enough for you?”

  I should have been worried about Frank, but I was too busy noticing that Martin’s eyes were the same color as his sweater.

  I felt a hand grip my elbow, and suddenly I was being led through the bar and out the front door. The night air soothed my burning cheeks. Martin sat down on the front steps, pulled out a sack of tobacco, and began to hand-roll a cigarette. I sat down next to him and leaned my throbbing head against the cool metal railing.

  “Would you roll one of those for me?”

  “Does Margaret know you smoke?” he asked as he licked
the thin white paper.

  “How do you know that I know Margaret?”

  “My mother mentioned you. I’m Martin. Dotty’s youngest.”

  I thought of Dotty’s plump figure and loose braid. He must take after his father.

  “I only smoke on special occasions.”

  “She wouldn’t approve.” He handed me a book of matches and began to roll another.

  I lit the cigarette and took a small, tentative puff. “She doesn’t seem to approve of me much anyway, so this will just confirm her general feelings. Anyway, do you have any idea what that was about?” I pointed to the bar behind us.

  “You don’t know?” Martin struck a match and drew in a long stream of smoke.

  “Apparently not.”

  “Welcome to Guthrie.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Where everybody knows everything but no one says a word.”

  We both sat staring out into the parking lot, the muffled noise of the bar escaping as a group of boys stumbled out the side door.

  “Well. Here’s your chance to break tradition.”

  “Margaret has won the Coventry County Fair apple pie contest every year since I can remember. That and every other baking contest. Mom says her family has always won. There are pictures of them hanging in the Grange Hall.”

  “The ribbons,” I said under my breath.

  “Blue ribbons? She must have hundreds of them.”

  “And three red ones,” I added, uneasily.

  “Couple years back she took second place. She’s been hiring and firing bakers ever since. At least that’s how Mom tells it. I haven’t been around. I think you might be number four.”

  “A baking contest.”