Bliss

by Hilary Fields

  “Rock on,” Aruni said, high-fiving her across the table. “I like the way you think. And as for your menu and the need for sleep—girl, you’re going to need not just your z’s but plenty of time to hang out with your new gal-pals now that you’re living in Santa Fe. What about doing like those ladies on TV do—the ones on the Food Channel that have the cupcake chain stores? Like, just only do cupcakes?”

  Sera had considered it. “Well, I still want to be around when the cupcake craze dies down—not that I think people will ever get tired of cupcakes, but a store that sells nothing else may get old. Back in New York they’ve already moved on to donuts and even ‘cronuts.’ Don’t ask me how to describe those,” she added with a smile, “but trust me, they’re delicious. Anyhow, I also want to have coffee and some savories like quiches or simple sandwiches available for people who come in throughout the day, so I can have a constant flow of customers from breakfast through teatime, you know?”

  “Totally. People are always poking their noses into our placita, asking if there’s a place they can grab a coffee and a Danish or read a newspaper and just hang out for a few minutes, instead of having to have a formal sit-down meal at some spendy tourist joint. I know I’d love to have a place to pop by and get some tea or a veggie wrap once in a while. Coffee doesn’t fit into the yoga lifestyle, but a girl does get thirsty.” She dimpled. “Speaking of which, are you gonna keep Big Mama around?”

  “I have a feeling my aunt would go into mourning otherwise,” Sera said drily.

  “Not just her,” Aruni said seriously. “All us girls. We love it, and it does wonders for our… well, you know.” She gestured below the belt. “Don’t worry. I'm sure you'll find a way to please your customers and yourself as well, whatever you decide to serve. And speaking of pleasing…” Grinning conspiratorially, she leaned even farther forward across the laminated wooden table and lowered her voice. “Pauline tells me you’ve agreed to keep the back room going. I can’t tell you what that’ll mean to the girls.”

  Hm. Her new friend seemed to be quite adamant about this “girl power” thing. “‘The girls’?” Sera asked cautiously. She had the feeling she’d just been ambushed by the real reason Aruni had invited her out to lunch.

  Aruni waited until the waitress had come over with their drink orders, pouring Sera a satisfyingly deep ceramic mug of black coffee and providing a decaf green tea for the yogini. “Y’all enjoy,” said the woman with a wink, bumping elbows with Aruni. Her Texas accent gave her away as another nonnative in a town full of transplants from other, less eclectic places. “Give a holler when y’all are ready to order. Oh, and ’Runi-baby, I’ll see you next Friday at the shindig, right?” She sashayed off, a sway in her ample hips.

  “You sure will. Thanks, Janice,” Aruni said to the waitress’s retreating back. She turned to answer Sera's question. “Yeah,” she said with exaggerated relish, practically rubbing her hands together. “The Back Room Babes.”

  Sera was getting tired of playing the straight man. “All right, lady,” she said to the woman she was already slotting into her social solar system on a tight orbit, “let me have it. What’s with these ‘Back Room Babes,’ and just how much is it going to embarrass me?”

  As Aruni explained it over delicious burgers—sans meat but rife with green chiles—the Back Room Babes were a society of local women who had come together over the past few years under Pauline Wilde’s auspices, mainly in the evenings after work and kids were squared away, to gab, commiserate, empower, and educate themselves. Drawn by the titillating sexual aids—er, “pleasure enhancements”—offered at P-HOP, but unwilling to be seen shopping during regular hours, women had begun trickling in around closing time, begging Pauline for just “one quick peek” while no one else was around to see them browse. Pauline, fired up with outrage over the shame her fellow femmes felt exploring their natural needs, had arranged special “viewing hours” and began offering talks, videos, and even workshops for the women. Though Pauline hadn’t been crazy about the group calling themselves “babes”—a feminist to the core, she wasn’t keen on infantilizing women—she’d bowed gracefully to the alliteration and rah-rah spirit of the thing. Also out of deference to their sensibilities, she’d kept the lights nice and dim, served nachos, margaritas, and lots of Big Mama kombucha, and before she knew it, she had a regular group meeting twice monthly to catch up, shoot the shit, and do their damnedest to spice up their love lives.

  “I got lured over to the back room for the first time when I heard howls and coyote yips coming across the courtyard one night while I was locking up the studio,” Aruni said. “I was a bit leery, because quite honestly it sounded like someone was throwing a Twilight convention in there with all the werewolf noises, but I had just moved out here from Chicago and I didn’t know many people. Plus,” she said with an edge to her voice, “the farkackte schmuck I had come out here following had just dumped me on my ass. And this after he begged me to drop a thriving practice in Bucktown and come out to the desert so we could meld our chakras and have babies and ohm our way happily ever after into the sunset. That shmendrik.” She shook her head in remembered disgust, quivering curls adding dimension to her indignation. “So anyway,” Aruni concluded, touching a little charm on a string around her wrist and visibly shaking off her bitterness, “I went over to investigate what all those loony women were up to, and before I knew it, I was one of them.”

  Had Sera not been born and raised in New York City, she might have had trouble following, but since she had, she mentally translated the Yiddish in her new friend’s description of her ex-boyfriend easily enough. Roughly: “Bastard of Blake-like Proportions.” Aruni’s general aura of good-natured Zen had fallen away for a moment there, and Sera had seen a bit of the tough yet wounded Chicago girl she was clearly trying to leave behind. It had the effect of endearing the yogini to her more than if Aruni had taken the breakup with enlightened good grace. She felt a twinge of outrage at any man who would ask a woman to uproot her whole life like that, only to leave her high and dry. At least it sounded like Aruni’s ex had mercifully exited the picture. For Serafina, Blake Austin was like the cat from Pet Sematary—he just kept coming back, stinkier and more psycho every time. Even a year later, he was still doing his damnedest to ruin her name. It was one of the reasons getting out of New York City had seemed so appealing.

  But she didn’t want to spend a single second of her new life dwelling on old regrets. She’d much rather focus on the possibilities of the present.

  “Wow. Sounds like the group’s really meant a lot to you.”

  “Oh, totally.” Aruni nodded emphatically. “I couldn’t imagine my life now without the girls and our little get-togethers. And pretty soon, you’ll feel the same. Not that you’ve got much choice in the matter.” She laughed. “As the owner of the former P-HOP/soon-to-be-Bliss, you’re pretty much already inducted into the club.” Aruni chucked her on the arm in a congratulatory way. “Pauline’s going to want to pass the torch on to you sooner or later. She’s not getting any younger, and I know she sees you as the carrier of her legacy. You’ll be running the whole show in no time. But don’t worry,” she continued bracingly, perhaps sensing a bit of Sera’s hesitance. “You’re gonna love the Back Room Babes, and the women are all going to love you, too. I can’t say enough about what it’s done for me to be a part of our little federation. Socially, spiritually, and especially sexually. It’s a real source of transformational opportunities, you know? And isn’t that what life’s all about?”

  A few weeks ago, Sera might have looked askance at that. But it occurred to her that, cloaked in New Age-ry as it sounded, “transformational opportunities” were exactly what she was after—what she was, in fact, betting her future on. “Well, ah, yes, I guess it is…”

  “Anyhow, our next get-together is right around the corner,” Aruni continued blithely. “You’ll be there, right?”

  “Isn’t it a bit soon for the Back Room Babes to be meeting again?” Sera
asked, surprised.

  “Soon?” Aruni said, a mystified expression crossing her mobile features.

  “For Pauline—after losing Hortencia, I mean.”

  Aruni clicked her tongue, expression clearing with understanding. “Such a senseless thing,” she murmured. “They didn’t have to part that way. Two stubborn personalities like that, though… it was bound to end in heartache.”

  Sera raised a brow inwardly. Odd way to put it…, she thought, but she couldn’t argue Pauline’s stubbornness, and from what she’d heard, Hortencia had been more than a match for her feisty aunt. What it had to do with Hortencia’s passing, however, she couldn’t fathom. “Er…”

  “Seriously, it’ll do Pauline good to get back in the swing of things,” Aruni pronounced, barreling through Sera’s bemusement. “And I know it would cheer her up to introduce you to our little club. So… you in?”

  “I doubt I can make it,” Sera hedged. “I’m going back to New York tomorrow. I have a lot of things to wrap up back East. I’ll be packing and shipping not only my personal stuff but my catering and baking equipment as well. At least, what I don’t leave behind for my assistant Carrie,” she amended. “Then I have to deal with my apartment, and there are a lot of people I need to say good-bye to. I’ll be gone all week, up until Friday,” she said apologetically. “Maybe next time.”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” Aruni said brightly. “Friday means you’ll be back just in time. And it’s a lucky thing, too, because believe me, you don’t wanna miss what’s going on next week! It’s Zozobra, and there’s no better way to experience Santa Fe than to rock out at the big Z-fest.”

  “Zozo-wha?” Sera asked.

  Aruni just shook her head mysteriously. “It’s something you have to see to believe. I don’t want to spoil the surprise. Just meet us at P-HOP—well, I guess it’s Bliss now—next Friday evening and you’ll find out. Oh, and bring your dancing shoes.” She gave a little shoulder shimmy, as if she just couldn’t wait. “Ooh, here comes Janice with dessert. Awesome.” Aruni bounced in her seat, utterly enamored with the world.

  Sera had the urge to lean over the booth and give her new friend a squeeze for being so cute, but she contented herself with a smile and mental promise to herself to bake the yogini something special, first chance she got. Perhaps a matcha green tea mousse, with a white chocolate base and a marzipan yoga teacher performing warrior pose on the top… Her mind drifted happily with sweet visions of custom confections until the reality of their dessert landed with a clink of china and the rattle of a fork before her widening eyes.

  Pie.

  Glorious pie.

  Her nose told the tale before her taste buds even got involved. Tangy, sweet, and buttery engaged in a naughty ménage à trois upon her senses, first wafting to her nostrils in sinful delight, then seducing her eyes as Sera took in the airy lightness of the crisscross crust, the perfect crystallization of sugar and caramelized filling oozing through the latticework cracks. And when she tasted the pie… The things the flavors did to her tongue were positively unspeakable—and utterly unforgettable.

  Mama, I’m home, Sera thought, and dug in with a will.

  After the ludicrously nummy slices of heaven they proceeded to consume—strawberry rhubarb for Sera and cherry with crumble crust for Aruni—Sera thought perhaps she’d need not just dancing shoes but a full day at the gym to work off the unexpected midday calories. More important, she had decided that pie had to be on her bakery’s menu. She rubbed her tummy and sighed.

  “I forget how awesome a good old-fashioned slice of pie can be,” Sera commented. “Pastry chefs in New York are always trying to one-up one another with new techniques. I’ve seen cooks concocting desserts with everything from liquid nitrogen to cigarette-smoked salt crystals. Half the time you can’t figure out whether you’re taking a bite or dismantling a fusion reactor, at some of the places I’ve worked. But this… This really hit the spot. The crust isn’t quite as flaky as mine,” she said ruminatively as she stared at the last delectable bite on her fork, “but man, that filling is just ridiculously tasty. It’s not easy to get rhubarb to cooperate this nicely, the way it just practically melts under your fork. And the strawberries. Damn, they’re good. So fresh, so tender. I wonder if I could have a word with their pastry chef…”

  Aruni choked on a sip of her decaf tea. “Um, I don’t think you’d want to do that.”

  “Really?” Sera asked, popping the last morsel in her mouth and closing her eyes to savor the taste. “Why not?”

  “Well, I happen to know they get their pies from an outside vendor and he… well, he’s not…”

  “Not what?” Sera asked when Aruni seemed reluctant to continue.

  “Not… er… nice,” Aruni finished lamely. Sera could tell she was uncomfortable bad-mouthing anyone, farkackte ex-boyfriends notwithstanding.

  “Is that right?” Sera mused, thinking of the pastry chefs she knew. Contrary to popular opinion, bakers weren’t all sugar and spice. Some of them were fire and brimstone. A bit of an attitude in a fellow pastry chef wasn’t going to put her off. “Well, I’d still like to meet the guy, talk shop for a couple minutes. Maybe I can get his name and number from the waitress…” She started to look around for Janice.

  Aruni looked alarmed, but she didn’t try to stop Sera. “I guess it can’t do any harm, but don’t say you haven’t been warned. The guy’s on a really bad karmic streak. But I suppose it may be your only chance to get a taste of these pies again, if what I heard from Janice is true.”

  Sera arched an eyebrow in question.

  “Janice told me the pie whisperer is getting fired—that’s one of the reasons I suggested we come here particularly, so we wouldn’t miss our last chance to get ’em. Apparently, he’s insulted one too many customers, and the management is sick of soothing ruffled feathers all the time. He has a bakery nearby and he caters out of it, but he keeps scaring all the customers away, and now most of the local restaurant managers are tired of his attitude, too. I heard his whole operation’s shutting down. Everything’s going up for auction next week.”

  “Huh,” Sera mused. “This pie whisperer wouldn’t be named Malcolm, by any chance?” she inquired.

  “Yeah, how’d you know, girl?” Aruni was round-eyed. “You psychic or something?”

  Sera shook her head. Santa Fe really is just a small town at heart, I guess. “Asher told me about a restaurant auction he thought I should check out. Said I should look for a guy named Malcolm, but not to take anything he says too personally.”

  “Yup, that’s the one, I’m pretty sure. Malcolm the Meanie’s putting it all up for sale.” Aruni shrugged. Then her eyes twinkled as her train of thought switched rails. “So I guess you’ve met our sexy landlord, eh?”

  “He’s your landlord, too?” Sera didn’t have to ask if they were talking about the same person.

  “Asher owns our whole placita, pretty much. At least, the buildings are his, and he leases all the shops.”

  “Wow,” Sera said. “He must be well off.” Sexy, wildly talented, and wealthy. Women must hunt him down with a spear.

  Aruni nodded. “I heard he was a world-class whatchamacall it, that instrument-making word… loo, lute-something, back in Israel.”

  “Luthier,” Sera said. “I had to ask him what it meant, too.”

  “Well, it must be pretty lu-crative, because Pauline told me one time that his violins used to go for, like, fifty K a pop.”

  Sera smiled to herself, noting Aruni sounded a bit more hard-nosed Chicagoan than woo-woo Santa Fe head. “Wonder why he gave it up,” she mused.

  “I heard it had to do with his wife,” Aruni said, looking suitably somber. “We think he’s probably divorced, or maybe even a widower. None of us really knows the story, but we all suspect there’s some terrible tragedy there.”

  Sera felt a pang, thinking of what Asher must have lost. Given the way he’d reacted in his shop earlier when she’d asked if Lupe was his wife, she had to ag
ree—something awful had happened in Asher’s past. “Who is ‘we’?” Sera wanted to know.

  “Oh, us Back Roomies. Asher comes up in conversation at our shindigs quite a lot, as you can imagine. I mean, seriously…” Aruni drew the word out like a veritable Valley Girl. “Who wouldn’t have sexual fantasies about that guy? I don’t care if you’re happily married, gay, or stark stone dead, one smile from Asher Wolf and your libido will sit up and howl.” Aruni flapped her hand as if to cool it off.

  You ain’t just whistling Dixie, Sera thought. But she declined to offer an opinion on the subject. She had decided she liked Aruni rather a lot, but she wasn’t quite ready to start sharing girlish confidences with the other woman yet. She wasn’t the type who dished about her love life with anyone.

  That’s because there’s nothing to dish up, other than a heaping plate of failure with a side of humiliation, Sera’s inner critic reminded her. In her mind’s eye, she could hear Blake’s scornful laughter, and her mouth went dry with vestigial longing for a drink. Down, girl, she ordered the little fiend that lurked in the dark corners of her mind, always ready to prey on moments of self-doubt. Time to get my butt to a meeting; remind myself I’m two thousand miles and a world of recovery away from all that negativity.

  “Not that Asher pays the slightest attention to our mooning over him,” Aruni went on, unaware of Sera’s morose musings. “He’s, like, the nicest, sweetest guy, and no way is he into guys or anything, but I’ve never seen him notice a woman in that way. Not even Lupe,” Aruni said, making the name sound as if she’d scraped it off her shoe. “And if that hussy can’t get a rise out of him, with all her cleavage plumping and ass wiggling, I doubt the rest of us have much of a shot. Whatever it was that happened to him back in Israel, it really did a number on him.” Aruni shook her curly head feelingly. “But hey, that’s what a lot of us come to Santa Fe for. To ditch the past and find our second chance. Well, those of us who didn’t follow our putz of a boyfriend out here.” She laughed unself-consciously. “Oh, I never asked. What’s your man sitch, Sera? You married? Dating? Getting over someone?”