Baker's Blues

by Judith Ryan Hendricks

  “I need to get some work done on the house. Scatter Mac’s ashes…

  “And check in with the hottie chef.” She gives me a wicked grin. “I mean, as long as you’re going up there anyway.”

  “Alex and I are good friends.”

  “Of course.” She nibbles the inside of her cheek. “When are you going?”

  “Well…here’s my thought. And if you don’t think it’s a good—”

  “Tell me already!”

  “I decided that there’s really no need for both of us to be here all the time. Except for the holidays, maybe. So if we block out November and December that leaves ten months where we could switch off being here. What would you—”

  “Yippee! I love it!”

  “So I’m thinking I’ll go up to Orcas next month and come back in October. Then you can take some time off after the holidays. Or whenever. I mean, we can basically divide up January through October however we want. What do you think?”

  She sits back, smiling, and props one foot on the corner of my desk. “I think the longer I know you, the less annoying you are.”

  twenty-eight

  August

  I’m halfway under the kitchen sink, trying to locate the shut-off valve for the water purifier when the front doorbell chimes twice in quick succession. Charles leaps into action and I bang my head on the cabinet frame trying to intercept him.

  By the time I get to the door he’s scratching at it, barking like a dog possessed. I pick him up and open the door.

  “Hello, little scruff. Knew it was me, did you?”

  Skye is standing in the door way, her trusty roll-aboard on the ground beside her. She looks very different from the young woman who came to L.A. for her father’s memorial service last year. Her face is thin and washed out looking with hollows like bruises under her eyes. Her hair is pulled into a dirty ponytail and her clothes are wrinkled. She turns to wave off the taxi idling in my driveway.

  “What were you planning to do if I wasn’t home?”

  “My next stop was the bakery.”

  Charles squirms in my arms, so I hand him off to her and she cradles him like a baby.

  “It’s good someone’s happy to see me,” she says while he licks her face.

  “I’m happy to see you. But I hardly ever lick my visitors. And I’m shocked. What are you doing here? Why didn’t you call me?”

  A faint smile hovers around her pale mouth. “I was afraid you’d tell me to sod off.”

  I take her arm and pull her inside, shutting the door. She sets Charles down gently.

  “May I use the loo?” she says, already heading for it.

  Charles stands sentinel in the hall till she comes out and they join me in the kitchen. She’s washed her face and combed her hair and put a little blush on her cheeks.

  “Sorry to just drop out of the clouds on—are you moving house?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Moving house.” Her glance takes in the boxes stacked in various corners. “Are you leaving here?”

  “Oh.” I laugh. “I’m going up to the island. For a while. The house needs some work…”

  She walks directly to the fireplace where the tin box is sitting on the mantel. She lifts the lid slightly, then lets it back down, says nothing.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Famished. Airplane food is so foul.”

  I peel off half a dozen strips of bacon and lay them in a skillet.

  She puts away two BLT’s and a glass of Pinot Noir, followed by a large piece of Rafe’s lemon tart that I brought home for my dinner while explaining that she’s come to the States for school. She’s been accepted into the viticulture program at UC Davis.

  “That’s pretty impressive. Mac would be proud of you.”

  “Thanks,” she says, finally pushing the plate away. “I’m excited. It’s something I’ve always found rather gripping.”

  But I keep studying her. She doesn’t look like somebody who’s excited. She doesn’t act like somebody who’s about to embark on a “gripping” course of study.

  “Could I have a lie-down?” she says abruptly. “I didn’t sleep on the flight and I’m totally clapped out.”

  “Of course. You know where the guest room is. Um…I was just wondering…how long you might be—”

  “Orientation is Thursday morning, so I’ll fly up Wednesday. Is that okay?”

  It’s nearly 8 o’clock when she wanders into the kitchen wearing a nightshirt and black leggings. I’m in the middle of organizing bread files.

  “Feeling better?” I ask.

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “How about some tea?”

  “Yes. Thank you.” She sits down at the table and pulls her knees up under the nightshirt while I fill the kettle and put it on the stove, get down a mug and locate a box of Earl Gray.

  “Sugar? Milk?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  I’m starting to think that’s all she’s going to say.

  “Wyn…I’m sorry about the glass.”

  I turn with the milk carton in one hand. “What glass?”

  “The one I broke. Last time.”

  “No big deal. It was an accident.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  I close the file box and put it back in the pantry, unsure how to respond. She gets up again and goes to stand at the French doors, then comes back to the table. I sit down across from her.

  “So you came all the way from New Zealand to apologize for breaking my wineglass a year ago? You could have just emailed.”

  “I wanted to talk to you.”

  Tears brim in her eyes, and a few trickle down. She produces a pale blue handkerchief from somewhere. Most American women in their twenties probably don’t even own a handkerchief.

  “God, I’m sick of crying. Why am I so bloody stupid?”

  “What are you talking about? You’re not stupid.” I touch her hand.

  Instead of pulling away, she puts her other hand over mine and begins to weep soundlessly but steadily, like an open faucet.

  “You don’t know,” she says almost in a whisper. “You’ve no idea.”

  The kettle whistles and I disentangle myself gently to fix her tea. The hankie is proving inadequate, so I pull a dishtowel out of the drawer and set it on the table with the mug.

  “Why don’t you tell me.”

  “It’s too embarrassing.”

  “I’ve done my share of embarrassing things. More than my share, actually.”

  “Mac would be so…disappointed in me.”

  “After everything he went through he’d gotten to be pretty non-judgmental. Besides, he loved you very much. I doubt you could do anything that would—”

  She blots her face with the towel. “Oh, yes. Yes, I could. And I’ve done it.”

  “I think I’ll have a cup of tea myself.” I turn on the kettle again, get down another mug.

  She wipes the table where her tears have fallen.

  “It’s the money,” she says after I sit down. “It’s gone. Well…most of it.”

  I have to clamp my mouth shut for a few seconds. Then I ask,

  “What happened?”

  “Trevor…his divorce was finally granted. We decided to—we were opening a restaurant. In Wellington. It was… We wanted…” A few more tears spill onto the table. “We wanted it to be the best…a place that people would come to from everywhere. We were going to be married there…before the opening…so it needed to be…beautiful. We bought the tables and leather chairs. We had a bar built with a granite top and…the fine linens and china. And wonderful art and beautiful crafts, all from local artists. We hired this chef…

  “We hired him away from another place because he was the best. So we had to pay him a lot. We had to put his first year salary in a special account. In case anything happened.”

  She presses her lips together. “We hired servers. We hired a bartender…Elise. She used to work at this posh club in Auckland and she was very up on all t
he new drinks and she had lots of friends in Wellington. And she’s quite…pretty. I knew we were spending too much money…”

  “All yours, I assume.”

  She looks startled. “Yes. Of course. We had no record, so not many suppliers would extend credit. Trevor was paying child support, so he had none to spare.” She tips her mug and stares at the tea and I wait.

  “I knew we were spending pots of money, but I thought we’d be earning it back soon, and Trevor kept saying that’s just the way it is when you’re opening. You can’t skimp. Everything has to be dead flash or people lose interest before you even get started.”

  Of course he did. The prick.

  She takes a breath and lets it out slowly, seeming to shrink in the chair. “I was supposed to be planning the wedding and he was taking care of the restaurant. I wasn’t paying enough attention to all the things he was…embossed menu folders and…then one afternoon I came home early from meeting with a wine agent and found him with Elise.” Her eyes darken. Just like Mac’s did when he was angry. “In our bed.”

  “I went completely berko. I screamed and threw things and…she ran out with hardly any clothes on and someone called the police…it was awful. You know what he said? He said I was acting like a child. It was just his last fling. Before the wedding. I should think of it like a bachelor party.

  “I told him to get out of my flat. And I had new locks put on that same evening. And then… the next morning…” She takes a deep breath. “I rang the accountant. And he told me exactly what we had left. And it wasn’t enough to…it wasn’t very much.”

  “When did all this happen?”

  “It’s been about a fortnight.”

  “Does your mother know?”

  She looks at the ceiling. “I had to tell her. My cousin is my solicitor. It would have got back to her and then she would have been totally furious. Which she is anyway.”

  I drink my tea and keep silent.

  “I know I shouldn’t have run away. But I had to. I threw my mobile away so no one could ring me. Trevor’s on the line every five minutes and Derek’s threatening to come and re-arrange his face and my mother’s calling and lecturing and…I was about going mad. Colleen, my cousin, said I could leave and she could start the legal process…of course I’ll have to go back at some point, but maybe by then I’ll be able to think. I’d already been accepted at Davis for spring, but I hadn’t sent a deposit, so I called them and they said I could start fall term.” She dries the last few tears from the ends of her eyelashes and looks at me. “Today was supposed to be the wedding. Or yesterday in En Zed. So, you see, I couldn’t stay there.”

  “Do you need money?”

  “No,” she says quickly. “I’ve enough for my first year’s tuition. Then, if my marks are good, maybe I can…”

  She folds her arms on the table and pillows her head on them. “God, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  I smooth back the dirty, lank hair and resist the impulse to tell her everything will be alright.

  Charles sleeps with her and when I come downstairs in the morning the two of them are sitting on the couch. She’s still wearing the nightshirt and leggings, now decorated with dog fur, but she looks somewhat more animated.

  “Were you able to sleep?” I ask.

  “Amazingly. After my nap and my body clock getting all jumbled, I thought I’d be tossing all night.”

  “I forgot…do you eat eggs?”

  “In case you didn’t notice, I eat anything that doesn’t bite back. I’d have made coffee but I couldn’t seem to find the pot.”

  “I don’t keep it out because I usually just have a double shot.”

  While we’re eating scrambled eggs and toast, I say, “I have to go to the bakery for a few hours to catch up on some paperwork, but I could drop you at the mall or the beach. Or you could come with me if you like.”

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll just stay here with Charles. I’ve got some paperwork of my own for school that I have to hand over tomorrow when I arrive, plus some…legal stuff to send my cousin. Do you by chance have a fax?”

  “No, but there’s a Kinko’s less than a mile down the road. You can either walk down there or we can go when I get home. I won’t be late.”

  She finishes her coffee. “Actually a walk sounds lovely. May I take Charles?”

  “Of course. Just don’t take his leash down till you’re ready to walk out the door or he’ll drive you crazy in the interim—Oh…I almost forgot. There’s a box. The cleaning service found it when they were getting the house ready for the buyers. I don’t know how we missed it before, but you might want some of the things. I’ll bring it down for you before I go.”

  When I leave, she’s pounding her laptop at the kitchen table and Charles is sitting at her feet, watching her like she was a movie about dog food.

  The house smells the way I want heaven to smell. Skye’s in the kitchen and Charles is asleep in a puddle of sun.

  “I hope it’s alright. I found some things for veg soup and I made scones.”

  “It’s better than alright.” I set my purse on the counter and hang up my jacket. The box of Mac’s stuff has replaced the laptop on the table.

  “Did you have a chance to look through that? Do you want any of it?”

  “I want all of it.” She turns down the flame under the soup and peers into the oven to check the scones. Then she walks over to the box and opens the flaps. “His journals are here. And some books about music. And some photos. He wasn’t keen on snapshots, but there are a couple of him on a boat and one in some pub. And this is my favorite.” She holds it out to me.

  The hammered copper frame, a gift from my mother and Richard, is distinctive; I know exactly which photo it holds. Mac and me at the summit of Mt. Constitution on our first trip to Orcas sixteen years ago.

  My first thought is to hand it back without looking, but instead I hold it with both hands, rubbing the tarnished copper, blackening my thumbs. We look so young. So utterly and happily unaware of the future. A gorgeous 180 degree panorama spreads out behind us and we’re only looking at each other.

  “If you want it, I understand,” she says.

  “I have a copy up at the cottage,” I lie. “You keep this one.”

  Our dinner is soup and scones—true Scottish style scones—light, delicate, not too sweet. I tell her to call me if she ever wants a job as a baker.

  “Of course, you’d have to work with Tyler.”

  “She’s not such a bad lot. She and I are actually alike in some ways.”

  “What ways?”

  “I think we both feel if something’s gone wrong, there must be someone to blame.” She looks over at me. “I...was going to take the ashes. When I left last time. Except I couldn’t find them.”

  I smile. “They were in the truck.”

  “How did you know?”

  “I didn’t. I went out there after you went upstairs. Just to sit for a while, and I left them there. I guess it’s stupid, but I thought he’d like to be there.”

  “You loved him, then.”

  “I did. And I do.”

  “Will you take them to the island now?”

  “Yes.”

  “I keep thinking of things to tell him or ask him.” There’s a charged pause and then she says, “Do you believe in God or reincarnation or anything?”

  “Occasionally.”

  “My girlfriend Angela, she’s a bit woo-woo…Uncle Rory used to call her the Faerie Queen. She’s always talking about Mac being my ‘spirit guide.’ Looking after me. Now really…can you imagine Mac in full angel regalia, hovering about?”

  I can’t quite prevent a smile. “Mmm…no. But you know, every now and then I get this very strong sense of my father. It’s funny, sometimes I can’t even picture his face clearly, but—”

  “What about Mac? Do you ever…have a sense of him? Because I want to. I so want to, but there’s nothing.”

  “Maybe it takes a while.” I drink some
wine and set down the glass. “I had this dream…He was sitting at the end of my bed. We were having this sort of everyday conversation…like how are you? I’m fine. Then he said he had to tell me something. ”

  She’s very still; almost holding her breath.

  “He said I should drive the truck more. Not let it sit in the garage.”

  She smiles. “God, sounds like him. Drive the truck more. Did he say anything else?”

  “No. My alarm clock went off and that was it. I thought about it for days. I wanted to tell someone, but I couldn’t think who. To be perfectly honest, I think everyone’s tired of dealing with me.”

  Her eyes lock on mine with sudden recognition. “That’s exactly how it is, right? Nobody wants to know. Trevor wasn’t interested. Kristin won’t talk about him. My mum doesn’t care. You’re the only one I can talk to about him. I miss him so much. Does it get any easier? Will I ever get over it?”

  I pick up our dishes and take them to the sink, run water into the bowls and stand for a minute, watching the tiny debris of vegetables rise to the rim and spill over.

  “Did he ever tell you how we met?”

  “He said you used to come in the pub where he worked.”

  I laugh. “Yes, but that was later. He didn’t tell you about delivering the firewood?”

  “He never said much about Seattle.”

  I turn to look at her, to see him in her face. “I wish you could have known him then.”

  “What was he like?”

  “Amazing. So handsome. So smart. Interesting. Interested in everything. And funny. We used to laugh so much.”

  “So…it must have been difficult when he started…when he got depressed.”

  I fill the teakettle and put it on the stove.

  “Yes. Incredibly. Unbelievably.”

  One of the bulbs in the hanging lamp has burned out, so I bring the automatic lighter and two candles to the table. The flame jumps, falters, catches. I light the second candle off the first.

  “You keep trying to see the person you love. You’re so sure he’s still in there somewhere. You know none of this is his fault. But…” I sit down and look at her. “that doesn’t make it any easier to live with.”

  She says, “I’m sorry.”