“Or there’s always my parents’ apartment at the Ritz.” She sighs, as if it’s a fate worse than living in a trailer park.
Thankfully, before I’m able to examine the predicament of Kate’s having several homes to choose from while I can barely hang on to my one, my phone rings. Maybe Amy, I think. I pull it out of my front pocket. “It’s the bakery,” I say. “Give me a sec.”
“Hey-eyyyy!” Randy says excitedly. “Do you have a second?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say. “I’m headed back over there in a minute.”
“Are you sitting down?” he says. I can actually feel him smiling.
“On the floor actually,” I say, running my hand along the carpet. “What is it?”
“We got a visit this morning from a reporter.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Is this Brendan thing ever going to die?
“No, no, no. Not like that. Well, sort of not like that,” Randy says.
“Okay. Tell me.”
“The reporter was from the New York Times. They want to do a story, Waverly. Well, they are doing a story—about the bakery. Well, it’s actually kind of about Brendan. But about the bakery, too. And the muffins.”
“What?” My heart starts to flutter the way that it did when I ran my numbers the other day. “What do you mean?”
“The reporter said that she’s writing a story for the front page of the Sunday Styles section. It will be below the fold, but still, it’s the front page. Of Sunday Styles. In the New York Times. She said—I made sure to remember it exactly—she said it’s a ‘tongue-in-cheek yet thoughtful look at landmarks from political scandals—’”
“Oh, great,” I moan. I glance at Kate. She has that far-off look on her face that she had when I arrived. This time I’m grateful for it. I don’t want her hearing this.
“No, no, no. It will be good, Waverly. She said it will just be a couple of paragraphs about Maggie’s—she said she wants to include it because it’s timely—and that she’ll include the address and is mentioning the muffins.”
“I just don’t want it to come off the wrong way,” I say, carefully choosing my words so as not to pique Kate’s interest.
“Waverly, think about it,” Randy moans. “Even if it did—which it won’t—it’s the fucking New York Times. Do you know how many bakeries in this country—in this zip code—would kill to be in the New York Times?”
“You’re right, you’re right,” I say, a smile spreading on my face despite my best efforts. “You’re right.”
“Get ready, girl,” Randy says. “You’re about to become famous.”
“Ugh, doubt that,” I say. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
“So what was that about?” Kate says.
I look at her, sitting with her legs folded underneath her. How to do this? It had crossed my mind, when I was working in my office the other day, that it is kind of fucked-up that the success that’s eluded me for so long is coming out of Kate’s breakup. But then I saw the numbers and, well…I take a gulp and tell her. About everything. There’s a part of me that knows that I’m telling her because it might distract from the fact that Brendan was my unwitting publicity tool, but it’s amazing how easy it is to just confess everything after I’ve already done it once this morning, when I told Amy. Maybe this means that telling Larry won’t be so bad after all. It’s doubtful, but maybe if I keep telling myself that, it will give me the courage to go ahead and do it.
“Well, I’m glad that things are turning around for you,” she says curtly when I’m finished. There isn’t an ounce of sympathy in her voice. She scratches her nose and then hops up and brushes off her hands.
“Kate.”
“No, no,” she says sharply. “I’m glad we could help.”
Ouch.
Aside from when I was opening the bakery, I’ve never talked to Kate about money. Not like this. Why would I? It would be like trying to talk to someone in a foreign language. I routinely spend hours sitting at my desk, chewing on a pencil and typing on my calculator until I’m woozy from all of the numbers. Kate, meanwhile, probably never bothers to look at her account balances. Why would she, when getting money out of the bank must be like getting a glass of water out of a faucet; you don’t have to think about where it comes from because there’s a seemingly unlimited supply somewhere.
“Kate, please don’t be angry. I know that this is weird…all of it…If I could change the way that it’s happened, I would.”
She nods, unimpressed.
“It’s not as if people come in asking about Brendan. His name doesn’t even come up. They just want the muffins. And it’s not as if I’m milking the opportunity by selling T-shirts with Brendan’s face on them or something. I’ve turned reporters away. I’ve been completely passive about the whole thing. It just happened.”
She raises her eyebrows and nods. “Yup. But you’re not unhappy about it.”
“Kate, please. You don’t understand what it’s been like…”
She laughs. “No, I don’t. I guess I’ve been too busy watching my marriage implode.”
“Kate, that’s not fair.” I’m suddenly sweltering; it must be two hundred degrees in here. I pull off the cardigan I’m wearing over my T-shirt and take a deep breath. “I can call the reporter and tell her to take me out of the article.”
She rolls her eyes. “No, don’t. I mean, what’s one more piece of bad publicity?” She puts her hands on her head, closes her eyes, and takes a deep, long breath. “You know what? Don’t worry about it,” she says, her voice tired. “If it will help you keep Maggie’s going, it’s fine.”
“But, Kate—”
“Really, Waverly. It’s fine.”
When I get to work a little while later, Randy and Jeannette greet me with applause. “Stop, stop,” I say, shaking my head. I feel tremendously conflicted about this now.
“I gave the reporter your email address,” Randy says. “She said she’d be in touch with questions.”
I check to make sure that nothing’s burning, literally or figuratively, and that all of the customers out front are happy, and then I head back into my office. I slump into my swivel chair and click open my email. There it is: [email protected]. Her email is short and sweet:
Ms. Brown,
Sorry to miss you today. The article will appear in Sunday’s paper. I don’t know that we’ll have room, but if we can fit it, would you be up for giving us the muffin recipe? (Great, by the way, I had one when I was there earlier.) Any questions, shoot me an email.
I type out a reply with the recipe and ask whether it’s possible for her to send me a preview of the story before it runs. I start to explain that I’m a good friend of Kate Berkshire’s and that I’m sensitive to how she and Brendan are perceived, but then I delete it. If she’s read any of the press about Brendan’s outburst, then she already knows that I’m Kate’s friend. I hit “send” and swivel absentmindedly in my chair for a few minutes. I want to be excited about this, but I keep picturing the look on Kate’s face when I told her. There’s a part of me that’s angry at her for not being more understanding about the difficulty of my situation, but then I try to imagine what it’s like to be in her shoes. Her perfect snow globe of an existence has been shattered. As much as she pretends like leaving Brendan is an easy decision, it has to be horrible. I guess I’ll just have to cross my fingers and hope for the best with the article.
I pick up the phone to call Larry to tell him about the story. Now that I’ve confessed my money situation to Amy and Kate, I have to come clean with him. Today’s Thursday—I tell myself I’ll do it before the article comes out on Sunday. I start to dial his number, but then I change my mind—I should check on Amy to see how she’s doing at the house.
“I was just about to call you,” she says when she answers.
My heart leaps. “Is everything okay?” I ask anxiously.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” she says. “I’m actually…well, I’m actually at home.”
“Oh.
” Why does she sound so strange?
“Yes, at home.”
“Oh, wait. You mean your home?” I say.
“Yeah.”
“Wait—But Amy—Are you just picking up some stuff? Is Mike there? Have you called your mom?” Though I’ve stopped swiveling in my chair, I feel like I’m spinning.
“No, no. I just—I had to come home,” she says. “I called Mike this morning and we talked. We’re working it out.”
“What?” I feel like the floor’s just dropped beneath me.
“It’s hard to explain. I can’t just leave, Waverly. He’s my husband.”
“He’s your husband who beats you,” I say. Fuck what the websites say about not criticizing the abuser—someone needs to get through to her! My heart is pounding like someone is banging a drum inside my chest. A thousand drums. “Amy, I’m sorry, but you’re doing the wrong thing here. He’s going to hurt you again. It’s not safe there. You have to get out of that house. Think of what it’s doing to Emma.”
She gasps. “What it’s doing to Emma?” she says. “Do you actually think I haven’t thought about that, Waverly? How dare you.”
Fuck. I need to be the person she can lean on right now. If she pulls away from me, I might never get her back. “I’m sorry, Amy. I’m really sorry. I’m just really, really worried about you. He’s going to hit you again, Amy. You know he is.”
“Waverly, this is my home. I know how you feel about Mike—I see the way that you grit your teeth when his name comes up—and I understand it. If the tables were turned and this had happened to you, I would feel the same way. But I know my husband like nobody else does and I know his commitment to getting better, despite what’s happened over the past several days. We had a long talk this morning and he’s agreed to do the counseling. He knows now how important this is to me. Staying at your place made him realize it.”
“So you never intended to leave? This was just a way to get his attention?”
She’s quiet for a moment. “I have to look forward, Waverly. I have to be optimistic. My husband is not a monster. He’s the same man I fell for all of those years ago and he’s sick. He was abused himself. I know that he can be the guy he once was. He wants to be that, Waverly. He says as much.”
Over the years, I’ve come to discover that there are lots of people who find Amy’s particular brand of optimism to be an inherent sign of dim-wittedness. I’ve seen the patronizing way that strangers sometimes respond to her when they first meet her. Yes, her eager enthusiasm can be morning-show-host annoying, and, yes, she is more apt to want to talk about her latest get at Target than the state of the economy, but she isn’t stupid. That’s what’s so frustrating about this. The problem is that Amy is a fixer—she takes care of everyone around her and always has, trying to make life “just right,” as if it’s as easy as rubbing a stain out of the carpet. Hell, she made a career out of it. It’s one of the reasons why I love her, but now it’s as if she’s willing to sacrifice herself just to make her marriage work.
“Listen,” she says. “I know that you want me to be like Kate, to make a clean break and move on. But I’m sorry; I’m not like her—I have an actual, real marriage that’s based on love. I can’t abandon it like it’s a bad party I’m desperate to leave.”
“Amy, I know how difficult this must be for you,” I say, trying a different tactic. “And I understand how much you love Mike,” I manage, though the words stick in my throat. “But I am really, really worried about your safety. What if you and Mike made an agreement that you would stay with me temporarily, while you guys work on things?”
“Waverly, I have to be here at home to help him.”
“But Amy…”
“This is my home, Waverly. I have to be here. I know you don’t understand it, but this is where I belong.”
I slump down, dropping my head on to my desk. “Oh, Amy, I don’t feel good about this. You deserve so much more than this.”
“I know that,” she says. “And I’m going to get what I need here, at home. That’s exactly what I’m fighting for.”
I hang up reluctantly when she says that she has to go, and try to get absorbed in clearing out my email inbox. Then I start shuffling papers on my desk. Then I straighten the cookbooks on my bookshelf. I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t want to call Larry now. Kate’s pissed at me. Amy’s…I don’t know. I feel like I’ve failed all of the important people in my life.
I open my desk drawer to find a thumbtack so that I can hang next week’s schedule on the bulletin board outside my office, and as I’m fishing through the mess of junk, an old bottle of perfume comes rolling out from the back of the drawer. I’d totally forgotten that I had this. It’s one of those roller-ball-style bottles, and it’s L’Air du Temps. My mother’s fragrance. I bought it years ago on a whim, when I was at the mall, shopping for Christmas presents with Amy.
I open up the bottle and rub the fragrance on the insides of my wrists. God, it’s like aromatherapy. Mom. Ages ago, when I was in my midtwenties and still teaching, Larry and I took advantage of a President’s Day holiday and drove south to a vineyard near Charlottesville. We found a spot at the table in the tasting room, and as I slid into my chair, I immediately noticed that the woman next to me was wearing my mother’s perfume. I remember trying to concentrate on the sommelier’s dissertation about Virginia wines, but my eyes were welling up with tears. I eventually just had to leave the room. Too many memories were closing in on me: how we would wave at each other by curling one finger as she was closing my door after she tucked me in at night, how she loudly sang along whenever a Linda Ronstadt song came on the radio, how she’d play with my hair when we watched made-for-TV movies together.
I realize that I’m absentmindedly twirling my hair, thinking about it, when Larry calls. I don’t pick up. I can’t pick up. The only person I need right now is my mom, and she’s not here.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It’s just two paragraphs. One. Two. But in the six hours since the Sunday Times hit the stands, I have had more phone calls and seen more customers than I have in years. We expected an uptick in business, of course, but not like this, and certainly not at least until Monday. I mean, who reads about a muffin in the paper and then runs right out to buy one? A lot of people, apparently, because at one point this morning, I nearly had a line out the door.
Jeannette gives me a quick squeeze as she rushes past me, where I’m—yep—making another batch. Randy keeps high-fiving me. I never told him the extent of my business issues—I worried he’d quit—but given his level of excitement over this, he must’ve known more than I thought. Looking back, I realize that it would have been impossible for him not to know that I was having serious problems, what with the phone calls from my lender, my accountant, my idiot landlord.
I’m just about to start filling muffin tins when Larry walks in, carrying a stack of newspapers. “I think it’s safe to say that business is booming!” he says to the room. Jeannette lets out a little “yee haw” as she hurries back out to the front of the store.
“This is incredible,” Larry says to me.
“Isn’t it crazy?” I say, grabbing the paper off the top of the stack. And aren’t I crazy? I think to myself. I still haven’t told Larry anything. When I got all psyched up to do it a few nights ago, even rehearsing my speech in the kitchen beforehand, he walked in from work and told me that Kyle had been fired that day. The good news is that it means that Larry’s job is probably safe. The bad news is that his good friend and colleague is out of work. He was so upset about the situation that I couldn’t bear to load him down more with my confession.
Okay, I used it as an excuse.
Larry leans over my shoulder as I find the Style section and read the article again. I’ve already almost memorized it:
Just outside of D.C., in picturesque Maple Hill, Virginia, is Maggie’s, the bakery where Brendan Berkshire, the leading candidate for the Virginia governorship, recently had an emotio
nal breakdown that was caught on video and that many D.C. Dems are happily calling the moment when his campaign jumped the shark—we’ll know for sure in the June primaries. But the real sensation is this cozy bakery, where owner Waverly Brown turns out homey baked goods, sweets, and breakfast and lunch dishes seven days a week.
The item of the moment is her doughnut muffin, a gooey piece of goodness that customers are scrambling for ever since the Politico blogger who first published the Berkshire scene mentioned that he was eating one when he shot the footage. It’s cinnamon and spice and everything nice…something that lots of people might say you don’t see enough of in this town.
“It’s pretty good, huh?” I say to Larry, studying the slightly grainy, postage-stamp-sized photo of the bakery’s facade. There wasn’t room for my recipe, but it’s just as well. The main thing is that the writer didn’t mention Kate; I’ve studied all four sentences over and over, and I can’t find a single thing for her to get pissed off about.
“It’s fantastic,” he says, softly patting my back. “I’m so proud of you.”
“I can’t believe this place!” I say, peeking out to see the crowd that’s gathered in front of the cash register. “We may as well have put a sign out front advertising free money.”
Larry laughs and shakes his head. “Those damn muffins. I mean, they’re good—don’t get me wrong—but you’ve been selling them for years.”
“I know!” I laugh. “It’s ridiculous.”
“Do you want me to stick around and help out?” Back when I first opened, Larry would often pinch-hit when I was short on staff or got into a jam.
“It’s okay. It’s Donovan’s day off, but Randy called him earlier and he said he’d come in. Let me walk you out, though.” I ask Jeannette if she can finish the batch that I’m working on, and then take Larry up to the front of the store. We weave our way through the mass of people as we go, and I thank the regulars who spot me and shout congratulatory sentiments or give me a thumbs-up from across the room.
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