Crust No One

by Winnie Archer

  She looked at me, puzzled. “What do you mean? Is he lost?”

  “No, I mean that he seems to have vanished. His son called Miguel, looking for him. He missed his delivery to Baptista’s. His ex-wife hasn’t seen him. He’s just . . . gone.” I filled her in on my day with Miguel, ending with the Alice and Michael Ryder conversation.

  “Mi’ja, he cannot be gone. He is somewhere; you just do not know where to look.”

  I reached up and grabbed the container of flour off the shelf, placing it on the counter in front of me. “True, but his family is worried about him. Miguel says that Hank has never missed a delivery .”

  Her expression clouded. “I do not think he has.”

  “I called Emmaline Davis last night and filled her in, but I feel helpless. I want to help find him.”

  “Ivy, but what can you do?”

  Olaya’s voice was soothing and immediately filled me with calm. She was right. I couldn’t do anything more than keep my eyes and ears open. I needed to focus on my tasks and let Emmaline do her job. “What I can do is bake bread,” I said. I brought the yeast and salt down from the upper shelf and turned to her. “What’s on the agenda today?”

  Her eyes were still dark, tinged with concern for Hank, but her response to my question was a chortle. “What are we not baking?”

  A coil of nerves centered in my gut. I was still a novice, but Olaya was putting a lot of trust in me to help make Yeast of Eden’s presence a success at the Winter Wonderland Festival.

  She laughed again. “Calmate, Ivy. Martina and Consuelo are coming in to help. We will get this done.”

  I nodded, tapping the pads of my fingers on the cold countertop. “Okay,” I said. “What’s first?”

  The first time I’d officially met Olaya Solis had been the day I’d taken my first baking class. She’d placed a freestanding blackboard in the corner of the kitchen and posted the baked items for the class. Now she pointed to the same chalkboard and I noticed the list of baked goods there.

  Chocolate Croissants

  Conchas

  Almond fig bread

  Mini-brioche

  Blueberry streusel muffins

  Double-chocolate muffins

  Lemon poppy-seed scones

  Cinnamon-chip scones with maple glaze

  Orange cranberry scones

  Vermont maple-oat walnut loaves

  Roasted garlic Parmesan

  Pretzel buns

  Cranberry pecan loaf

  Pretzels

  Stromboli

  My stomach dropped. “All . . .” I coughed. “All that?”

  “All that,” she confirmed. “It will be a spectacular offering of bread.”

  I got my bearings, wrapping my head around the day of baking ahead. “The line will be out the door.”

  Olaya shook her head pretty vigorously. “A lot of bread, yes.” She lowered her voice as if she were imparting a great secret. “Pero Minnie’s Bakery will be there.”

  Minnie’s Bakery had a different approach to baked goods than Yeast of Eden. It focused on cookies and cakes, with a spattering of bread. We were the opposite. Bread, bread, and more bread, with just a few sweet treats thrown into the mix. I scoffed. “Minnie’s bread isn’t any good. You know that. Cookies are fine, but people like the heartiness of bread, Olaya. You do it better than anyone I’ve ever met.”

  “True, but people, they like cupcakes. They like cookies. They like sugar.”

  “They do, but people like bread. They like your bread.” I nodded toward the chalkboard. “Minnie’s has a lot to compete with. Look at your list!”

  Olaya stood and smiled. “It is a good list,” she agreed. “Now, we should get started.”

  Which is just what we did. We baked and baked and baked. And then baked some more. The bread-shop employees handled the front of the store, coming to the back to restock the depleted display cases, but the majority of what we created was for the next day. Finally, when I thought I might drop from exhaustion, Olaya wiped her hands on a red-and-green–striped dish towel, looked around the kitchen, and nodded her head. “We are finished.”

  I heaved a relieved sigh. The array of delicacies on the four industrial racks lined with baking sheets was staggering. It felt to me as if we had enough items to feed the entire Santa Sofia community. Which, from what we’d heard, might show up at the festival tomorrow.

  “Relax tonight, Ivy,” Olaya said to me after we’d finished cleaning the mixing bowls, wiping the countertops, and putting up all the ingredients. “It will be a long day tomorrow.”

  I had the feeling that was an enormous understatement. I needed to start my day at 5:30 in the morning in order to finish the scones and muffins, the final things we needed to bake, and get everything delivered to the boardwalk. Olaya, who I knew would be here much earlier than me, had hired a small local company to set up the bread shop’s booth, complete with a black-and-white–striped canopy. She planned to string up the colorful festive cut-paper Mexican garland and paper fans and flowers, a tribute to her culture and the basis for her traditional long-rise artisanal bread baking. I knew there’d be an assortment of sugar-skull cookies thrown into the mix, as well. The booth would be beautiful and full of the best breads Santa Sofia had to offer.

  I left Yeast of Eden and headed straight home, driving my mother’s pearl-white Fiat, the one my dad had given me. Just being in it made me feel her presence.

  I drove along Maple Street, passing a Queen Anne Victorian, several craftsman-style homes, a house that, with a thatched roof, might have been right at home on an English knoll, and myriad other ancient homes, all of which had been lovingly restored. I pulled into the driveway to the right of my gabled house and into the garage. Turning off the car, I closed the garage door behind me and went into the house. Agatha greeted me from her crate with an excited yap. It had been a long day for her to be crated, too, but I knew she just checked out when I was gone, chewing her rawhide bone and sleeping peacefully.

  “Let’s go! Outside!” I freed her from the crate and she bolted out, spinning herself around in circles. “Outside!” I said again, and she scampered to the French doors leading to the backyard, sliding across the wood floors when her little paws couldn’t make purchase. Agatha was a creature of habit—and she was well-trained. Any time I came home, she spun her circles and beelined for the door. It was our little ritual.

  I swung open the door and Agatha stopped long enough to look up at me with her bulbous eyes. “Outside,” I said one more time. That was all the permission Agatha needed. She zipped past me, doing another series of spins once she got to the grass. It took her a few minutes before she spun herself to a stop, nosed around, and took care of business. I’d seen her do her little dance routine more times than I could count, but I still laughed every time. She scuttled around the yard, dodging in and out of the shrubbery, stopping every now and then to bury her flattened nostrils into whatever it was she was sniffing. She could be sweet and cuddly, cozying up to me on the couch or stretching alongside me in bed, but outside and unleashed, she could transform into the Tasmanian Devil.

  I left her to her explorations for a few minutes while I went back inside, walked to the front door, and stepped out to get the mail. A mother and young son walked on the sidewalk holding hands, waving when they saw me. A pair of bicyclists zipped by. The January air was crisp and clear and I breathed it in, letting it fill my lungs. When I was at home, it felt as if I had been transported back to a simpler, more people-oriented time period. My neighborhood in Santa Sofia hadn’t yet succumbed to the metal-mailbox cluster units so many new developments installed. We still had individualized boxes mounted to the walls of our house at the front porch. I reached into mine and withdrew the small stack of letters and the random catalog that had been delivered earlier in the day.

  I thumbed through them as I went back through the house to the yard. The Sur La Table catalog caught my attention. Ever since I’d taken up baking at Yeast of Eden, my own kitch
en had undergone a terrific transformation. I’d purchased a top-of-the-line Dutch oven, a set of stainless-steel pots and pans, cookie sheets with silicone baking mats, paring and chef’s knives, and—the pièce de résistance—a pale yellow KitchenAid mixer. Out in the backyard again, I sat down at the outdoor table and perused the catalog while Agatha expended some of her energy.

  I went straight to the baking section, mentally adding things to my wish list: A cake stand. A proofing bowl. A baguette tray. I had all the basics; now I wanted the extras. The list, I thought, could go on and on. Meeting Olaya Solis had sparked a new passion in me, and my bank account would pay the price. Working part-time at the bread shop fed my creative soul, but it didn’t do much for my pocketbook.

  No, what I needed was to get back on track. I had enough money to tide me over for a few months. Which meant I had that long to develop a plan to reinvigorate the personal-photography business I’d left behind when I’d moved back to Santa Sofia from Austin. I’d had a few odd jobs here and there. I’d shot the bread shop to create new brochures. With the tourist population in Santa Sofia, Olaya had needed to update them. The array of breads showcased made everyone’s mouth water.

  Now I was going to do the same for Baptista’s. I’d put some feelers out, thinking that maybe I could branch out and do some photography for other businesses in town. Before I could think any more about it, my cell phone rang, Mrs. Branford’s name displaying on the screen. I swiped my finger across it. “Hello there!” I said, my lips automatically curving into a grin.

  “My darling Ivy, what are you doing?”

  My smile spilled into my voice. “Right this very minute? I’m sitting in the backyard with Agatha.”

  “Good,” she said. I felt her nod, although I couldn’t say whether or not she actually did. “Come over.”

  It wasn’t an invitation: It was a command. I’d come to realize that Mrs. Branford didn’t waste time or beat around the bush. She told you what she wanted, and she usually got it. “Now?”

  “The Blackbird Ladies are here and I want to do a proper introduction. Plus,” she said, her voice dropping conspiratorially, “I heard you saw Miguel Baptista today. I want to hear all the details.”

  All the details? She sounded like a junior-high-school friend at a slumber party instead of the former teacher and elderly—albeit energetic—woman she was. “There are no details to tell. We went looking for Hank Rivera.”

  She paused for a split second before responding. “Well, I suppose you’d give me those details instead. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  Even if I’d wanted to refuse, I couldn’t have. The line went dead, so that was that. I gathered the mail and waited at the French door. “Agatha.” I patted my open hand against my thigh. “Come on, girl. Come inside.”

  She had her nose buried in a bed of flowering white alyssum, but when she heard my voice, she froze. And then, as if someone had pulled a puppet string attached to her head, she looked at me. “Come on, Agatha. Inside.”

  She looked to the flowers, and then back at me. She hesitated, spun around, and the next second she was bolting across the yard, skidding to a stop in front of me. She tilted her head back and peered up at me with her bulbous eyes. I bent down and scratched the top of her head. “Okay, let’s go.”

  Inside, I tossed the stack of bills on the table, gave Agatha a treat from the container I kept near the door, strapped her into her harness, and headed out the front. Minutes later I had climbed the steps of Mrs. Branford’s lopsided porch. I raised my hand to knock, but the door flew open before I made contact. “You made good time, dear,” Mrs. Branford said, a sparkle in her eyes. She had on her signature velour sweat suit, this one in burgundy.

  “I didn’t even stop at GO,” I said.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have your two-hundred dollars, but you can come on in. Hello, sweet Agatha,” she said, wiggling her fingers at her, but not bending down. Mrs. Branford was spritely, active, and healthy, especially for her age, but she didn’t crouch unnecessarily.

  She turned and walked toward the kitchen, her white orthotic shoes noiseless on the original hardwood floors. I followed her, stopping to breathe in the faint scent of lavender. The front room, with its overstuffed floral couch and striped armchair, had the comfort of my grandmother’s house. The longer I was back in Santa Sofia, the more connected I felt to my hometown, and Mrs. Branford had been a huge part of that connectedness. But she didn’t stop in the parlor, so neither did I. The gaggle of voices coming from the kitchen drew me in.

  Agatha and I stopped short at the archway leading to the kitchen. The Blackbird Ladies, minus their unique hats, sat at the round, slat-topped table. It was a pale olive green and naturally distressed from the years it had spent in Mrs. Branford’s kitchen. The three older women seated around it looked just as distressed.

  “Ladies, let me do a proper introduction,” Mrs. Branford said. “This is Ivy Culpepper.”

  “We aren’t senile, Penny,” said the one I remembered as Mrs. Peabody. “We met at the bread shop.”

  Of course I’d met Alice Ryder the day before, and I remembered that the one with the great posture and well-coiffed hair—the one who reminded me of Jane Fonda—as Janice Thompson. “Olaya says you’re quite the baker,” she said with a subtle smile.

  I laughed. “She’s being generous.”

  “Pshaw,” Mrs. Branford said. She had gone to the counter and pressed the on switch on the electric kettle, opened a tea bag, and waited for the water to boil. “You’re a natural.”

  “I don’t know about that. I think I still feel more comfortable with my camera than a spatula, but I do love it.” I realized as I said the words that I did love it. Being in a kitchen, particularly the bread shop’s cocina, felt right. I explained all the baking we’d done that day. “So I’m a little tired,” I finished.

  “I’m tired just thinking about it,” Mrs. Peabody said, wiping her brow with the back of her hand.

  Alice Ryder, with her short, curled mahogany hair and her tight smile, tilted her head and looked at me. “You’re quite the busy beaver, aren’t you?”

  If the other three Blackbird Ladies noticed the mocking tone in Alice’s voice, they didn’t let on. Mrs. Branford brought me a cup of tea, her hands trembling very slightly. Aside from the snowy white hair and the map of wrinkles on her face and hands, the unsteady hands were the only physical indication that she actually was in her eighties.

  “I am busy,” I agreed.

  “Miss Culpepper and Miguel Baptista paid me a visit today,” she announced, and not pleasantly.

  Whatever movements had been happening in the kitchen up until that moment suddenly stopped. The silence was piercing. The three other Blackbird Ladies slowly turned their heads to look at Alice, and then as if they’d choreographed it, they spun their heads in unison toward me. Mrs. Branford cocked one eyebrow up. Her forehead dissolved into an array of creases, the eyebrow reaching toward her tightly curled hair. “You and Miguel?”

  “Now, now, simmer down,” I said, the Texas expression I’d absorbed during my years in Austin coming out. “That’s all there is to it. I’m doing a new menu and promo photographs for him—”

  “You’re a photographer?” Janice asked. “I’d love to talk to you about my house. I’m almost done renovating and—”

  “Janice,” Alice scolded.

  Janice waggled her head slightly in a little spasm movement. She scratched under her hair behind her ear, clearly ruffled. She looked at me and I got the feeling she was sending me a silent communication, as if she understood that I needed the work and she wouldn’t forget to follow up with me on her photography needs.

  I dipped my head in a slight acknowledgment that said Later. We’d talk later.

  “Why were you with Miguel, Ivy?” Mrs. Branford asked, her eyes twinkling.

  “And why the visit to Alice?” Janice added.

  “Don’t jump to any conclusions,” I said to Mrs. Branford. “I just happ
ened to be there when Hank Rivera’s son called Mrs. Baptista. He’s worried about his dad.”

  Alice scoffed. “There’s nothing to be worried about.”

  Mabel propped her elbows on the table in front of her. “I’ve heard the rumors, Alice. Nobody’s seen him for a few days. We can’t be sure there’s nothing to worry about.”

  But Alice wasn’t buying it. “Ladies, get some sense. He’s a grown man who is perfectly capable of taking care of himself.”

  “Maybe,” Mabel said.

  Janice nodded. “Probably.”

  Alice sat back in her chair, crossed her legs, and folded her hands on her lap. “Definitely. I’ve known Hank a long time. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say he’s gone away on a vacation to clear his divorce-addled mind.”

  Janice frowned. “I don’t know, Alice. I heard business isn’t going so well for him.”

  After Penny Branford handed me my tea, she’d perched on a stool at the counter. Now she leaned forward, a hand on each knee. “You mean financial trouble?”

  Janice shrugged. “That’s what I heard. My son . . . you know he runs a boarding house in town, and they get their produce from Hank. The scuttlebutt is that some of Hank’s contracts haven’t paid.”

  Alice turned to her friend, her cheeks flushed. “Goddammit, Janice. You can’t just say something like that. That’s how rumors get started.”

  Janice recoiled, looking hurt. “Ryan told me. Someone at the senior center told him. It’s not a rumor, Alice.”

  Mabel Peabody had been quiet, but now she spoke up. “But if you don’t have personal knowledge of it, it is a rumor. You can’t just spout off gossip as if it’s the truth.”

  Janice’s lower lip trembled slightly and her eyes turned glassy at the chastisement of her friends. “Ryan is close with the people he cares for. Why would they lie to him? Maybe I didn’t hear it firsthand, but that doesn’t make it gossip.”

  I stood back, observing the dynamics between the four women. So far, Mrs. Branford had been quiet and watchful. Other than posing the question of the finances, she wasn’t weighing in on the gossip versus truth. But I knew her, and I knew she’d get in the thick of it before long. If I’d learned anything about Penelope Branford from our first and last stakeout together, it was that she was tenacious and didn’t hide that fact.