Baker's Blues

by Judith Ryan Hendricks

  “How come none of my damn books say that?”

  “I think there’s so much to know about bread, no one book can cram it all in.”

  “Can you stay here and be my personal bread guru?”

  “Unfortunately, no. Although it’s tempting. But I’ll be around another couple of weeks and I’m always ready to talk bread.”

  She laughs. “You may live to regret saying that.”

  I look over into her basket. “Have you got any extras you could sell me?”

  “No. But it happens that I have a six-pack I can give you.” She pulls a cardboard half carton out and sets it on the table. “Here on the island we barter everything.”

  “That’s not a fair exchange. I got product and all you got was a few words. Please let me pay you for the eggs.”

  “It’s not like big bucks, you know.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Okay, here’s a better idea. I need a favor, and I think you’re just the woman for the job.”

  “Okay….”

  “Would you be available to go with me tomorrow afternoon to get a tattoo?”

  For a second I think she’s kidding.

  She smiles and points to her left shoulder. “I want a chicken. Right here.”

  I laugh. “Why do you want me to go?”

  “I need someone who’s not going to faint. Plus I need someone to drive. Just in case.”

  “Where do we have to go?”

  “Friday Harbor. The Mama Said No House of Tattoos. Is that a great name? What do you think?”

  “I…are you sure you want to do this?”

  She picks up the container that holds my bubbling starter and sniffs appreciatively, eyes closed.

  “Hell, yes. I’ve been wanting to do it for a long time. We can have an early dinner afterwards at that little Mexican joint by the ferry landing—Pequeño. They have very tasty margs.”

  The tattoo artist is named Jonathan and he’s from Calgary. He’s tall with a mane of shiny brown hair halfway down his back, nice blue eyes, and a thing that looks like a #3 cake decorating tip sticking out of his face just under his lower lip. I try not to stare at it, but he says,

  “You like my labret?”

  “It’s very…shiny,” I say.

  “Titanium,” he says proudly. He looks from me to Sarah. “What I can I do for you ladies? Ear piercing?”

  Sarah leans her elbows on the counter. “I want to get inked.”

  Jonathan has superb control of his facial muscles.

  “D’you have something special in mind?”

  “What have you got in the way of chickens?”

  “Chickens.”

  “Yes. I sell eggs over on Orcas. I thought it would be kind of cool.”

  “It would indeed.” He smiles and reaches behind him for a red binder and lays it on the counter. “Not sure what I’ve got in the way of chickens. Not a lot of demand for that. See if there’s anything in here you like. If not, I can design something for you. Of course, an original design costs extra.”

  Sarah leans on the counter and starts flipping pages. Jonathan raises his eyebrows at me.

  I say, “I’m just here to share the experience.”

  He laughs. “Californian, eh?”

  “Check this out, Wyn.”

  The picture Sarah’s looking at is a woman’s back, the entire upper right quadrant of which is a fantastical bird with multi-hued feathers draping gracefully around the shoulder blade.

  “Not for me, of course,” she says. “But isn’t it amazing?”

  I nod. “Amazing.”

  “Here’s one I like.” She flips a few pages backwards. “It’s sort of big, though.”

  Jonathan comes to look over her shoulder. “I can leave off the sunflower and the fence. Just give you the sweet little chicken.”

  “Could you put ear tufts on her? Then she’ll look like an Araucana. And no comb.” She takes the pen from him and draws on the photo.

  “Oh, like mutton chops,” he says. “And lose the Mohawk. Sure, I can do that. Of course, that sort of makes it a custom design.”

  “Do you like it?” Sarah asks me.

  “Sure, but do you like it?”

  “Well, I know you have to add a couple items,” she says to him, “but you also don’t have to do the sunflower, which seems like a lot more work than a couple of little ear tufts…”

  Jonathan laughs. “That’s true, okay...you can have it at standard price. So, when would you like to have it done?”

  She hands him the notebook. “Right now.”

  He shakes his head. “That’s not how I work. You need to be certain you want a tattoo; it’s not really one hundred per cent removable and the removal process is expensive and painful, so we ask that you take a few days to think it over and then come back—”

  “Jonathan, honey…” She’s leaning over the counter now, right in his face. “I’m fifty-seven years old. I’m divorced. I’m a cancer survivor. I’ve had lots of time to think it over—’it’ meaning ‘everything.’ I know what I want. I want this tattoo. I want it today. I’d really like you to do it because I like to shop local, and plus I want to go to Pequeño’s with my friend here and have a marg afterwards, but if you don’t want to do it, I’ll get on the ferry and go to Anacortes or Seattle and get it done.”

  He looks at her. She looks at him. He opens the three-ring binder and removes the page with the chicken design. They exchange a smile.

  “I do admire a woman who knows what she wants,” he says. “Would you step into the next room?”

  Two hours later Sarah has a bloody chicken on her shoulder and a margarita in her hand. Our server, a tall skinny kid with spiked black hair and several tattoos of his own, is impressed when she tells him she’s celebrating getting inked.

  “Hey, that’s really cool. Who did it?”

  “Jonathan at Mama Said No.”

  He nods approvingly. “He’s the best. Be sure and take care of it like he says. My girlfriend’s got infected and it was, like, literally a pain in the ass. That’s so cool. Hey, your first drink’s on me.”

  He takes our food order and bops off to the kitchen.

  “I notice he was careful to specify that he was only buying my first drink.” Sarah removes a small plastic bottle from her purse, unscrews the top and tips it into her glass. “Want some?” She tilts the bottle in my direction. “Tequila. These things taste great, but they never have enough kick.”

  “No, thanks. I’m the designated driver. Does it hurt?”

  She touches the gauze patch gingerly. “No. Well, yes. But I’ve been poked and prodded and had so many needles stuck in me in the last few years, this was a piece of cake.”

  I lean back in my chair and watch her stir the extra booze into her drink. She dunks a blue corn chip into the dish of salsa and crunches it between her teeth with satisfaction. Then she notices me watching her.

  “You think I’m crazy,” she says.

  “Why would I think that?”

  “Getting a tattoo.” She laughs with her eyes closed. “I’m just so damned happy. I can do anything I want.”

  “Don’t you think that was always true?”

  “Of course. But I didn’t know it. Too bad I had to go through breast cancer to figure it out.”

  “I didn’t realize you’d had cancer,” I say. “Till you said that to Jonathan.”

  She sighs. “It was four years ago. I went to Houston that summer—which was bad enough in itself. Bill and I stayed with an old friend and I went through surgery and chemo and radiation at M.D. Anderson.”

  “Are you okay now?”

  “Yep. Just a little lopsided. Had a partial. Only one boob and one lymph node ‘involved,’ as they say. They have all these euphemisms for the various degrees of stark horror. I had a three month chemo ‘protocol,’ which sounds like some goddamn diplomatic tea party, then radiation. The worst part of the whole deal is, you forget what it’s like to feel good. As opposed to excruciatin
gly awful…or on a good day, not so bad. You forget what life was like before lab results and needles and puking your brains out and losing your hair.” She flips her ponytail. “I was a blonde before. Grew back in completely gray.”

  “Bill is your husband?”

  “Was. He pulled a Newt Gingrich. By the time I got to radiation he was history. Oh, yeah,” she says noticing my look of dismay. “I was pissed. But you know, I figured out that some people just don’t handle that kind of stuff very well.”

  At that moment our server reappears. “Don’t touch these plates, they’re super hot. How about another margarita, Ladies?”

  Sarah accepts; I order iced tea.

  “It’s interesting, people’s reactions.” She pokes at her enchiladas. “Sometimes the most unlikely people step up to the plate. My best friend on the island…Jody…it was like she disappeared off the face of the earth. I think she came over twice. But this woman I barely knew from the farmers’ market came by every afternoon to check on me, see if I needed anything. And Alex…he brought me dinner two or three times a week.” She takes a forkful of beans and blows on it. “That was almost worth getting sick for. Damn, I love Alex.” She grins. “In a strictly platonic way, of course.”

  I make designs with my fork in the dark mole sauce. “We’ve known him for years, but I never really knew him that well. He was mostly Mac’s friend.”

  “Damn, these enchiladas are good. How’s yours?”

  I nod, my mouth full.

  She sighs. “Poor Alex.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Poor Alex?”

  “He’s looking for Ms. Right,” she says. “But he keeps going for the starlets. They’re usually much too young for him. What he needs is somebody who’s closer to his own age, more experienced. Somebody who knows how to handle him.”

  “Like you,” I say.

  “Lord, no. First, I’m too old for him.”

  “Oh, come on. Five years? Six? That’s nothing. My God, you just got a tattoo. You’re a cougar, Sarah.”

  She whoops with laughter. “Thanks for the compliment, but it’s more like ten years. Anyway, it wouldn’t work,” she says flatly. “I like Alex, but there’s no spark there. For marriage to take, there has to be that chemistry. I never felt it with anyone but Bill.”

  I shake my head. “I think chemistry is overrated. It seems to me that a good solid friendship would be a lot better basis for a relationship.”

  “I can be friends with a lot of men I could never live with. There’s got to be something more compelling to make you put up with their bullshit.”

  Sarah orders dessert—fried ice cream with hot fudge sauce. While I’m sipping my decaf, she suddenly says,

  “What would your husband do if you said you were getting a tattoo?”

  I set down my cup on the damp cocktail napkin. “At the moment he probably wouldn’t care if I had my entire body tattooed with a map of the world.”

  She looks thoughtful. “That’s either really good or really bad.”

  “The latter. Mac and I are separated.”

  “I figured. You never say boo about him.”

  “It’s not official. We haven’t really talked about what might happen next. He just…moved out.”

  “Leaving you in limbo.”

  I shrug. “People keep suggesting that he’s depressed, but even if it’s true, I can’t help him. He refuses to admit there’s anything wrong. With him. He can find plenty wrong with me.”

  “That’s pretty common,” she says. “I know a thing or two about it. My mom had depression her whole life. It was really hard growing up with it. I’m sorry you have to go through that.”

  “Me too. Why couldn’t he just drive off a cliff or something?”

  She scrunches her face. “Oh, God, don’t say things like that. It’s really bad karma.”

  “I don’t mean it. It’s just…I love him.” I finish the last of my coffee and set down the empty cup. “And I just want to kick his butt.”

  Since the ferry to Orcas doesn’t leave till 10 PM, Sarah has made arrangements with her friend Jimmy to take us back on his water taxi, a retired salmon fishing boat. I help her ease into her jacket and we sit in the stern for the short, breezy ride. It’s almost seven o’clock, still full daylight.

  “How much longer will you be up here?” she asks.

  “Another couple of weeks. The house is rented out the first two weeks of August, so I’ll leave around the end of the month.”

  “I’ll be leaving about then, too. Time for my yearly checkup.”

  “In Houston?”

  “Yes. God-awful time to be in Texas. It’s like living in a sauna.”

  “How long do you have to stay?”

  She rummages in her purse and pulls out two peppermints, hands me one. “Depends on what they find. This is my fifth year since the surgery. If I’m clean, I can quit holding my breath.”

  “Will you let me know how it goes?”

  “Sure. Just give me your email. What are you going to do when you get home?”

  I bite down on the peppermint and it shatters in my mouth.

  “Depends on what I find.”

  thirteen

  Mac

  Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Sometimes you wish it would just go ahead and kill you. Like now.

  Tonight it’s more than being tired. It’s like all systems shutting down, your whole body folding neatly in on itself like a lady’s fan. But you’re afraid to sleep. Afraid of the dreams that are really memories.

  You dream about getting lost. You dream about falling. About drowning. About trying to call for help and not being able to make a sound. You dream about the floor of your house rotting away under your feet. About a long hall, the sound of someone sobbing behind a closed door. Maybe yourself. You dream about seagulls with human faces. And you dream, mostly, about a tiny silver ball, rolling off the edge of the world.

  So you do the pills to work. And pot to relax. And drink to sleep. And It doesn’t matter that none of it works anymore. You keep doing it because you don’t know how to do anything else.

  Then in the morning you crawl through the sparkling, over-chlorinated water of Alan’s pool like a child learning to move. You must swim. You cannot not swim. Because swimming makes your mind move forward…haltingly but definitely…and it’s the only thing that does.

  Then you shower. And then you get in the car and turn on the music and drive.

  The sunny morning has given way to an afternoon of lowering gray clouds and damp, heavy air, and he finds himself on the 405 heading south. Traffic crawls. He slides a CD into the changer without seeing what it is. Eric Clapton singing an old Tampa Red song, “It Hurts Me Too.” He tries to concentrate on the music and forget the fact that he’s probably number 4,892 in a line of 4,896 cars. It’ll open up once they get past the South Bay Curve, start moving again. He has some vague idea of having dinner at a restaurant in Seal Beach where he and Wyn stopped years ago on their way home from San Diego, a funky kind of road house place with a biplane for a sign. The Glide ‘er Inn. They had sand dabs. And that old fashioned salad…a wedge of iceberg lettuce with blue cheese dressing and crumbled bacon.

  Funny he should remember that when he can’t recall what he had for dinner last night—or even if he had dinner last night.

  He inches around a curve and up ahead is the silent light show—police cruisers, emergency medical, a couple of fire trucks. He weaves slowly across the lanes, exits at Century and gets back on the freeway, heading north.

  Suddenly he’s driving home in the early dusk. To what used to be his home. His house…their house…looks deserted, windows shut, blinds drawn, dark except for the fixture on the front porch, which is on a timer. He parks at the curb. He opens the door with his key, stepping over the pile of mail on the hall floor.

  Inside it’s quiet, stale smelling. The security system begins to beep. He goes into the kitchen and stares at the control panel, realizing he’s forgotten th
e code. Sixty seconds and the alarm starts screeching. Then the phone rings.

  “This is ETA Protection Services calling. We just had an alarm come through from this address. Can I ask your name, please?”

  Fortunately he does remember that. Also that the password is Brownie.

  Memories inhabit the walls. The time when they were painting the living room after they first moved in and he stepped off the ladder into a bucket of paint. She fell on the drop cloth-covered couch, laughing till tears ran down her face. The time they came back from a ski trip to Mammoth and she said she was too tired to walk up the stairs. She lay down in front of the fireplace and refused to budge. He brought the comforter and pillows off their bed and they slept in their clothes, curled up together on the living room floor. The next morning, she made hot chocolate.

  In the dining room, he puts his hand to the light switch, and the motion trips a different kind of switch. His fortieth birthday.

  Always before they would go out to dinner for his birthday or cook something at home. He didn’t mind being the sous-chef, doing all the chopping and cleaning up as they worked, while she moved like a dervish through the kitchen, throwing herbs into things, stirring, tasting, poking the chicken to see how it felt, thwacking the bread crust. It was soothing, distracting. Then when they were seated in the dining room, candles lit, rheostat turned down so low he could hardly see the food, she would give him his presents. She would open the champagne herself and pour his first, then hers and she’d raise her glass and wish him Happy Birthday. Completely without irony, he thought. Sometimes he would study her and wonder what the hell she was thinking.

  As if happy and birthday belonged in the same sentence. As if he didn’t dread the approach of that week all year, looming in mid November when the days were short and dark. The accident, then his birthday. Inextricably linked. He turned off for those days. Detached. Unplugged. Dinner was something to be gotten through, and his reward for enduring was later. After the dishes were done and the kitchen cleaned to her satisfaction, they’d take the rest of the champagne upstairs and drink it in bed and read or watch a movie until he could no longer stand not touching her.