Baker's Blues

by Judith Ryan Hendricks

  I hit send, turn off the computer and take Charles upstairs.

  It’s February 13th and we are slammed.

  Every flat surface in the bakery, including my desk, is covered with cakes and tarts, boxes and trays of cookies and cupcakes and cookie-pops—an abomination which for some unknown reason happens to be popular right now.

  In addition to treats for kids and lovers, our wholesale accounts have all ordered more breads and extra pastries for their assembly line Valentine dinners. Everyone’s working overtime, staying after their shift to help fill orders and tie red ribbons and lacy tags on things.

  Mac and I never made a big deal out of Valentine’s Day, but I’ve always turned an indulgent (and perhaps a somewhat wistful) eye on the festivities. However, at the moment I feel about as romantic as one of the pod people in Night of the Living Dead.

  It’s 4 PM and I’m trying to finish the delivery printouts so I can get back out front and help with packaging. Of course my computer is running agonizingly slow. Probably because I haven’t defragged in months. I’m sitting there watching the little hourglass and hoping it’s not going to time out when Sally comes in and hands me the mail.

  “Sorry, it’s been sitting by the register since noon and nobody even noticed.”

  “No problem. I’ll be out there as soon as I get this damned thing…” I flip through the stack in my hand, glance back at the screen just in time to see the little blue box that says my credentials have expired and I should sign in again. Grrrr.

  I flip through some more mail. Bills, magazines, ads. The very last item in the stack is a colorful mailer. The computer generated address label has my name misspelled. Winter McLeod. I look at the words for a minute before I recognize them…familiar and strange at the same time…

  …’Join Chef Alex Rafferty and Sommelière Paulette Riley as part of a small, select group to experience gastronomic highlights of Europe this spring.

  I break the little seal and open the brochure. On the left side are photos of Alex in the kitchen at Rafferty’s, Paulette with her nose stuck in a fishbowl sized goblet of red wine…perhaps she’ll drown. There are assorted photos of the café and one of Alex’s cooking class. On the facing page are photos of Europe, mostly France and Italy. Cozy tables, wine caves, door and window shots with trailing geraniums, rustic buildings, narrow streets.

  The copy details how the lucky chosen few will visit not just wonderful cafes and vineyards, but they will be the special guests of the chefs, bakers, chocolatiers, winemakers, cheesemakers, butchers—the creative artisans behind the exquisite food.

  I turn to the last page to find a handwritten note.

  Lyn—hope you can join us! We’re meeting some great bakers… Best, Paulette

  I rip the brochure in half and drop it in the trash.

  With any luck Europe will be experiencing a very cold, very rainy spring.

  At 4:30 we lock the doors and set up an assembly line in the café. I pull the shades and send Carl, our new work study baker, out for pizzas.

  Forty-five minutes later there’s a knock on the door and when Cheryl opens it expecting to see Carl, Mac walks in. Conversation stops for a minute while everyone acts like they’re not watching him come over and kiss my cheek.

  He looks around. “What’s going on?”

  “Um…Valentine’s Day.”

  “Oh. Right.” He takes my hand. “I need to show you something.”

  “Mac…I can’t leave right now.”

  “Just for a minute,” he insists. “Come on. You’ll be right back. It’s important.”

  I look around.

  “Cheryl, I’ll be back in a few minutes. When Carl brings the pizzas, you guys eat while they’re hot. We can finish up afterwards.”

  “What’s wrong?” I say as the door shuts behind us.

  He stops for a second. “Does it have to be something wrong?”

  “I just thought…I mean, you know how busy we are this week. I figured it had to be an emergency.”

  “It’s just something I wanted to show you.”

  At the corner he steers me around to the right and stops. “What do you think?”

  “About what?”

  He points.

  Parked at the curb is an El Camino. Not like the original Elky which would have been best described as a beater. This is a completely restored classic, almost a little too tricked out for my taste but unquestionably beautiful. The paint job is a pale cream, and cool turquoise. White wall tires. The bumpers look like they were spit-shined.

  “Elky Two,” he says, leaning over to kiss me. “I know it’s tomorrow, but I couldn’t wait. Happy Valentine’s Day to us.”

  I smile. “Well, you always like to stay ahead of the curve.”

  I bend to look inside at the cream and turquoise tuck-and-roll upholstery and turquoise steering wheel. A sparkly blue Lucite knob graces the stick shift.

  “Where in the world did you find it?”

  “Classic Truck Trader. It’s a ‘73…that’s as close as I could get. Ready for a test flight?”

  “Mac, I can’t. Everyone’s staying late to finish.”

  “You’re excused.”

  “Yes, but I told Cheryl—”

  “It’s taken care of. You’re cleared for take off.” He opens the door. “Come on, we’ll be late. Take off the apron. I don’t want to be seen consorting with the help.”

  When he turns the key in the ignition the truck’s engine purrs. There’s no other way to describe it.

  I can’t help laughing.

  He stops at the light and looks over at me. “What?”

  “I was just thinking about Elky Senior. How it took fifteen tries to get it started.”

  “Hey, don’t insult that truck. It was my boon companion.”

  I touch the blue dashboard. “So how come you sold it?”

  The light changes and he eases into the intersection. For a minute I think he hasn’t heard me. When he does speak, the emotion in his voice surprises me.

  “I don’t know. It was stupid. I loved that goddamned truck. That Kyle kid better be taking good care of it. He wanted it bad enough.”

  I notice we’re heading west, towards the ocean, but then he takes a sharp turn onto a narrow windy road.

  “Where are we going?”

  He just smiles. “Relax. Here.” He hands me a CD in a jewel case. Pop that in the player.”

  I open the case and lift out the disc. There’s no identification on the label except SONY. I slide it into the changer and Van Morrison booms out of the speakers. “Brown Eyed Girl.”

  We both roll down our windows and I lean my head back.

  “There’s a sweater behind the seat if you get cold,” he says, and I look over at him.

  “You’ve certainly thought of everything.”

  He says, “You have no idea.”

  Van Morrison segues into the Jaynettes’ “Sally Go Round the Roses.”

  “Wow. Haven’t heard that in a while.”

  He nods.

  The road narrows and appears to become gravel about 20 yards ahead, but before we reach the gravel he turns right and drives past a county park sign. There’s a row of parking spots in front of us, delineated by railroad ties. Beyond that is nothing. Except the silver blue Pacific Ocean, with the sun just dipping in a toe. And nothing else all the way to China.

  “Mac, this is beautiful. How come I never knew it was here?”

  “I found it a couple years ago. I used to come up here at night.”

  About this time, the next song begins. The intro is familiar but I can’t place it until Dan Fogelberg starts singing “Changing Horses.”

  My eyes fill suddenly. This is the tape he gave me when he left Seattle for Orcas Island, all the songs carefully chosen to convey feelings we’d never talked about, a story neither of us could quite believe at the time.

  He reaches for my hand. “I was wondering how long it would take you.”

  “Where did you find the
tape?”

  “I didn’t. I looked everywhere I could think of and time was getting short, so I just downloaded everything off iTunes and burned a CD.”

  “You remembered all the songs.”

  “Of course. The Baker’s Dozen.” He leans over to kiss me.

  From the storage box in the bed of the truck, comes a bottle of Champagne and two glasses. “Damn, you really did think of everything.”

  Next he pulls out a white bakery bag and hands it to me.

  “Chocolate croissants?”

  “From some joint called the Bread Maven. I tried to get some of Phoebe’s crescent rolls, but they’re out of business.”

  “As they should be.”

  He pops the cork and fills our glasses to the top and we laugh trying to lap up the overflow, and we eat our pain au chocolat and we listen to the songs rolling off the CD while the sun settles into the ocean.

  Tangled up in Blue, Coldwater Canyon, Cleaning Windows, Layla, I Only Have Eyes for You, That’s How Strong My Love Is, It Hurts Me Too, In My Life, The Dimming of the Day.

  When the music is done and the sun is gone, we climb in back with the last of the champagne in one glass. He’s brought blankets.

  “Are these to keep us warm or to protect the paint?”

  “Both.” He hands me the glass. “Remember that time…I think it was the first time we went to Orcas. We slept in the Elky in that circle of trees…”

  “We looked at the stars and made love like bunnies. Plus I got the worst backache I’ve ever had.”

  “You?” He puts his arm around my shoulders and tucks me up tight against him. “I had to sleep with my knees bent all night.”

  “Funny, I don’t remember you sleeping. Knees bent or otherwise.”

  He laughs softly and I finish the champagne.

  “We’ve never really done this,” I say.

  “Done what?”

  “Had Valentine’s Day.”

  “I never thought about it. About a lot of stuff, I guess. Birthdays. Anniversaries.”

  “It’s okay—”

  “No, it’s not. It’s just…I never could stand marking things off on the calendar like that. Every date had its own baggage. I just wanted to keep my head down. You know?”

  “Yes, I think so. Finally.”

  He reaches for an old blanket, soft from hundreds of washings, and we pull it around us against the cold breeze. It’s warm, but not as warm as the feel of him next to me.

  twenty-three

  Larchmont Village is my fantasy.

  Sometimes I take an afternoon off and wander the streets. It’s full of interesting shops in which I never buy anything, and interesting cafés in which I never eat. It’s surrounded by lovely, well-kept neighborhoods where I don’t live. I’m superstitious about it, like if I ever tried to actually interact with any of it, the whole thing would disappear in a puff of smoke.

  One day in May I’m in Blinkers, a quirky place that sells everything from hand-knit sweaters to Hello Kitty lunch boxes, and I hear my name.

  “Wynter, I thought that was you.”

  “Oh, hi, Sylvia.” I try to sound happy to see her, but she represents reality and she’s intruding on my fantasy.

  We exchange a quick hug and chat for a minute. Finally she says,

  “I’m about to die for a cup of coffee and something sweet. Please come keep me company at PQ.”

  It’s impossible to say no to Sylvia.

  At Le Pain Quotidien we sit in the back where it’s quiet, and a cute girl whose blue hair reminds me of Tyler in the old days brings us steaming lattes and small, perfect pastries.

  Sylvia takes an envelope of stevia out of her purse and drops a pinch into her cup. “Look at me. Low cal sweetener in my coffee, and a brownie.” She laughs a little, shakes her head. “So tell me. How’s Mac doing?”

  “Better. He’s writing. He’s sleeping more. Although he had to quit taking Halcion. It was giving him nightmares. He kept dreaming that a bunch of guys were walking around in our living room. And I still don’t think he’s totally convinced it was a dream.”

  She says. “Is he on an antidepressant?”

  “No. He’s afraid he won’t be able to write.”

  “Alan says his new manuscript is wonderful.”

  “What’s it about?”

  She looks at me curiously. “You haven’t seen it?”

  I shake my head. “He doesn’t show me his stuff anymore.”

  “It’s sort of a…mystery. About a guy who’s accused of murdering his wife.”

  “No wonder he wouldn’t let me see it.”

  She laughs. “He didn’t do it. The protagonist. He’s a musician and a heroin addict and he has to get straight and find the killer. Alan says it’s very gritty. And quite good.”

  “It doesn’t sound like his usual style.”

  “True. But then depression changes how you view the world. Some people are capable of using that to their advantage.” She cuts a small piece off her brownie and puts it on my plate. “And Wynter. How’s Wynter surviving?”

  I make designs in the foam on top of my latte. “I’m doing okay. Actually I’m doing better than okay. Why does that scare me?”

  She waits for me to elaborate.

  “I’m not sure how to explain it. Things are good sometimes. Most of the time, in fact. We talk a lot more. We have fun together, we laugh. He’s affectionate…he even made a big deal about Valentine’s Day, which he never did before. But every once in a while something happens…maybe something so small…”

  “Something like…?”

  I take a sip of the latte. “Well, like Valentine’s Day. On the 13th we were crazy at work, of course, and he walks into the bakery and insists I go outside and he’s bought this restored El Camino. He’s got the whole thing planned—champagne, chocolate croissants, and a CD he put together that was a copy of a tape he made for me when we first got together in Seattle. So at first I say I can’t go because the bakery’s so busy and everyone’s staying late to get everything finished, and he tells me it’s all taken care of.”

  I hesitate and she looks at me over the tops of her glasses.

  “I don’t know, maybe I just heard what I wanted to hear. He said—actually he never said it—but he led me to believe that Cheryl, my manager, knew that he was taking me out somewhere. So we go to this place overlooking the ocean and he pours the champagne and we play the music and watch the sunset and it’s all lovely and romantic…and then by the time we get back it’s almost 8 o’clock so he drops me back at the bakery so I can get my car. When I go in, Cheryl’s still there, cleaning up and it’s totally obvious that she had no idea what was going on or that I wasn’t coming back to help. She was kind of upset, and I don’t blame her.”

  “Did you ask him about it?”

  “No.” I look down at the untouched éclair on my plate.

  “It would have been like breaking the enchantment,” she says.

  I look back at her. “Exactly. But it was broken as soon as I saw Cheryl. He had to know that would happen.” I rest my elbows on the table and lean forward. “So why would he lie about something like that? And he could just as easily have done it the next night, which was actually Valentine’s Day, and the crush was over. It makes no sense.”

  She finally takes a bite of her brownie. “It could have been a test. Maybe he wanted to reassure himself that he’s more important to you than the bakery.”

  “That is so not Mac.” I set down my cup. “Do you think…is he ever going to be like he used to be?”

  “It’s impossible to say. The most likely scenario is that he’ll be fine for periods of time interspersed with episodes of depression. There’s no way to know when or how long it will last.” She pushes her plate away. “But one thing is absolutely critical that you understand. When he’s in the grip of it, he’s totally self-absorbed. He’s got to concentrate on himself just to keep going. You can be compassionate and loving, but you have to learn how to distance
yourself when he’s down in that hole.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  “Of course it is.” She looks at me sternly. “But I want to be completely truthful with you, dear. Living with a depressive is harder sometimes than being a depressive. It’s like walking through a field of sunflowers that’s also a minefield. It’s good that you have the bakery, it keeps you engaged. Take care of you. Be with friends or family. Go to a movie or a concert. Start playing tennis again. I know it’s hard. But you’re strong. You can do it. And you can always call me. I mean that.”

  She wraps the remains of her brownie in a napkin and sticks it in her purse.

  “For Alan,” she says and laughs.

  When I come in the back door I hear voices. I take off my jacket and lay it over the back of a chair, put my bag on the kitchen table.

  In the living room, Mac is sitting on the couch with two people. The guy is thirty-something, hair fashionably spiked. Expensive looking sweater with the sleeves pushed up. The woman is very young and beautiful in that plastic celebrity wannabe way. Loads of makeup. Very short skirt, high heeled boots. Nothing as obvious as cleavage, but her spandex T-neck leaves little to the imagination.

  Mac’s holding a glass with about an inch of amber liquid, obviously from the bottle of scotch on the floor next to the couch. On the coffee table is a small dish with two joints, one of which is lit. Next to the dish is a ziplock plastic bag, open at the top, like some kind of marketing display, and a packet of rolling papers. So this is a sales call. The Amway of drugs, delivered right to your door.

  I’m so angry the top of my head feels like it’s on fire.

  When Mac looks up and sees me, he says, “Hi, babe.”

  Babe?

  The young guy smiles at me. “Hi, Wyn. I’m Rob Mayer. This is Tiffany Quest.”

  At least Tiffany Quest has the grace to look slightly embarrassed. I should tell her that she’s keeping bad company, but I’m afraid of what might come out of my mouth if I start talking. So we all just look at each other while I try to decide what to do. When doing nothing emerges as the safest choice I turn around and go back to the kitchen, collect my things and take them upstairs.