by Justin Sayre
I walk back to the office, where Mom is hanging another picture on the Blunder Wall. It’s one of my favorite things in the bakery, and nobody really knows about it. It’s a wall full of pictures of baking mistakes that have happened here. Mom collects them because they make her laugh. And when they happen, she says, “Isn’t that Blunderful!” Sometimes, but not always at the time of the disaster, like the dozen pecan pies that exploded and needed to be remade in two hours. That was a rough one. But the bagels that ended up looking like owls always get her. Today it’s a picture of a tart that melted.
“Hey, Ducks. Look at it. It’s a raspberry murder scene!” She smiles really big and hangs it near a photo of a cake that deflated.
Mom looks like her job. She’s a baker, so sloppy and sort of flour dirty. She’s always covered with flour. Or powder of some kind. And her hair is always back in a tight, tight ponytail with a bandanna tied on top. And her nails are always clipped. And all her T-shirts are blotched with butter or oil or eggs. You can smell the dough on her. You know what she’s making that night because you can see the stains all over her. When she smells like cinnamon or fresh berries and her fingers are stained blackish red, that means tarts and muffins and cinnamon rolls. And other times, it’s the stinging smell of rye that takes a long, hard whiff to get to the sweet part. At first it’s like salty grass. And that’s just sort of gross. It’s always different, but still it’s always her. I love that.
“Well, bread is a process, and sometimes it just goes a little wrong,” Mom says with a big laugh. “Let’s hope not tonight.”
Maybe this doesn’t sound anything like a mega piece of news or something, but for Mom, that is seriously the most important phrase in the world. It’s Everything. I guess you could call it a mantra, but I would have to Google it to make sure that’s right. It’s definitely her slogan. “Bread is a process,” she says in the morning when she gets up at five thirty. And every night when she falls asleep at the kitchen table trying to take off her shoes. It’s her excuse for not being places on time or even showing up at all. Or for missing family dinner, or the one time, when I tried to play baseball at the park. I was sort of glad she wasn’t there to see that one.
Nanny was. She said to me, “Well, at least you can run. We just have to sort out which way.”
Mom is always at the bakery. She works super hard. But the fun part is you get to taste what she does. She gets to make something good and make people feel happy. That’s pretty great. It’s another part of the secret side of the bakery, I guess. Knowing what goes into the Kamishovitches’ strawberry anniversary cake, or that the Lieberman cake is for Tim, who has a nut allergy so bad, we have to bake it last, after everything else that day, and wipe down all the tables twice, just to be safe. It’s all part of the process and the fun. And on Sunday nights, for the Big Bake, I get to help. I love that.
The other part I love is how I get to play my iPod early in the night. And whatever I want. Usually, it only lasts for one opera because my mom says, “Okay, buddy, I need something I understand. Something I can dance to, or I am going to drop.”
And then she plays Lou Reed.
And lots of David Bowie.
Or Stevie Nicks.
This Sunday, I’m going to play L’Elisir d’Amore, with Pavarotti. It’s really beautiful. It’s a comedy, but you can’t really hear the jokes. I can’t anyway. But it’s upbeat and fun, I guess. No one dies at least, and my mom seems to like that. I might even get to play another.
Right after a couple of songs Paolo says, “You listen to all this sad stuff. Doesn’t it ever make you sad?”
“No, it’s not sad,” I answer back like I’m answering someone who speaks Chinese. Can’t he hear that it’s not sad?
But then Mom asks, “But what about the one with the girl in the bag?” And Paolo smiles at her, and they sort of look at each other a bit.
“What?” I ask, as if Mom is the one speaking Chinese.
“You know, the girl in the bag. You told me about a girl who gets kidnapped in a bag and then gets brought back and crawls out of the bag . . .”
“Oh, you mean Gilda,” I answer.
“Okay. Gilda,” she says.
“That’s Rigoletto.”
“Okay, Rigoletto, but she dies in a bag, right?”
“Well, she gets out to sing her aria.”
“But then she dies, right?” Mom laughs. A laugh I’ve never heard before.
Everybody has different laughs for different things. I have this laugh for when Nanny does something so bizarre and crazy that it’s too funny to be embarrassed about. It’s loud and a little high. And I have a laugh for when Mr. Tartlin, my teacher, says something goofy about music, which makes me short of breath. And a laugh for when someone falls, anybody, no matter who, and no matter where, which is two beats. Ha-ha. Then I get worried about them.
And Mom has a few laughs too. But most of them I know. Now, with Paolo, she has a new one. It’s loud, and smiley, with lots of teeth, and it ends with a hit, usually to Paolo on the arm.
I’ve never seen this one before. And I don’t know if I’m supposed to see it now.
And Paolo says, “So she dies in a bag, little man? That’s terrible. Okay, so see what I mean, doesn’t that make you sad? That poor girl trapped in a bag, like, a sandwich bag. That’s awful.”
And Paolo puts a plastic bread bag over his head and starts making faces, I guess like he’s singing opera, but he just looks like a jerk. And Mom does the laugh again, louder.
“It’s not a sandwich bag,” I answer back.
He continues, “Okay, but that is still a terrible thing. And you listen to that? Doesn’t that make you sad?” Mom turns around on this, because she wants to see the truth. Mom, when she asks you a question she really wants the truth to, will turn around no matter what and look you right in the face to make sure that you are telling her the absolute truth, all the way from your eyeballs to your feet. She once knew I was lying about something because she saw me trying to cross my toes in a pair of sneakers.
“Well, doesn’t it?” she asks me.
“No.” Honest.
“Why not?” she asks.
“Because it’s not real. I mean, it’s an opera. It’s not like that.”
“Okay, but don’t you think that all those sad stories start to affect you? I mean, if all you ever hear from the world is about dead girls in bags or murder or suicide, don’t you think after a while that’s sort of all you think about?”
I can see that she wants an answer, a real one. That she’s about to make a decision about something, and she’s sort of asking me if I believe what she is about to do.
But I don’t.
“No,” I shoot back.
We stand there for a bit just looking at each other. And then Paolo does the bag thing again. So she turns around and laughs her new laugh at him. Paolo’s not a bad guy, so I don’t totally mind that he’s gotten his own laugh. But the joke totally didn’t deserve it. I mean, I have my laughs with Mom, I actually have two. But what did he do to deserve this so soon? I mean, is he that funny? Isn’t he making fun of me?
I want to go home. But I want to know what else is going on here. It’s another secret in the bakery.
But this one I don’t think I get to know about.
CHAPTER 4
The next morning, Ellen calls and wants to go to the park. I know I’ll go, and I even know I’ll have fun, but there’s always something in the way she tells me that makes me think, Why? Why is she calling me? What does Ellen want? I know we’re friends, best, best friends, really, but does she even like me? Or is it just that she’s gotten used to me? She barks these one- or two-word sentences like, “Park?” which is a question: “Would you like to come to the park with me?” And “Bring Water,” which is a command: “Bring Water, we will be walking around the park looking at people and will
need to stay hydrated. We will not be riding bikes.” If we were riding bikes, I would hear, “Bring Bikes.”
Even though I never know for sure about Ellen, I always end up going to the park, because in the summer in Brooklyn, the park is the best place to be. Prospect Park is this huge open park with a lake and a boathouse and a concert stage and barbecues and lots more. It’s got a lot in it. Everything in it. Honest. It’s amazing and fun and it’s just four blocks away from my house. Even without Ellen and her barks I would go.
I guess it’s that Ellen always needs to be really specific about what she’s doing and what you’re doing if you’re coming with her. Which most of the time, I am. She needs to be in charge. I know I say a lot of things about Ellen, but it’s weird because they’re all true. I’m not exaggerating at all. She makes faces, all of them. And she says things that sometimes knock the wind out of you. And sometimes, and I have never even said this to anyone in the world, but sometimes when she talks and she’s really getting angry, little bubbles of spit pop up on the side of her mouth like she’s a crazy dog with rabies. It’s super scary.
Ellen gets mad about a lot of stuff. She hates television, “Sucks,” and music, “Boring,” and movies, “Lame,” and she definitely hates people, “Idiots,” or worse, “Plankton.” Plankton has been Ellen’s favorite word for people she doesn’t like ever since we learned about them last year in Science. Plankton are super tiny fish and shrimp and bugs and things in the ocean that are so small you can’t see them at all. They get eaten by almost anything that opens its mouth underwater but mostly by whales. Whales are on the small list of things that Ellen likes.
“They’re all Plankton,” she says, looking at people lining up for a bus or kids walking in a group. Anyone, really. And I can almost see her try to open her mouth like she’s trying to swallow them whole. The braces make it look a lot worse.
I walk up the four blocks to the park to meet Ellen by the statue of Lafayette, where she will probably already be waiting for me and already mad about it. But Ellen’s sort of smiling. Or as close as she can get. And she waves a big wave, swinging her arm out really fast, like I’m getting off a plane after a long trip, or maybe it’s just a “hurry up and get over here so I can stop waving” wave. Either way, I run, just in case.
“Let’s walk,” Ellen says as she walks past me into the park. This is how it starts. I’m glad I brought the water.
The park is packed in the summer, and that’s my favorite time to watch people in Brooklyn. Watching people is the best part of living in New York, because New York has the best people. Maybe that’s the wrong thing to say. But it’s just that we have lots of different kinds of people. And everyone is interesting, or at least trying to be. When you see them, you just want to know what they are up to, so you have to watch. At least I do. Ellen doesn’t. Plankton. It’s why she can walk so fast.
Ellen walks fast for a while. Maybe she’s mad at me being late after all? I don’t know, she won’t tell me, and now she’s fifteen feet ahead of me. Maybe she needs time to cool off. By the time we get to the big open lawn, she starts to slow down a little, but I don’t know that I’m allowed to walk with her yet. She might be mad about something else. It’s hard to tell. I’ll just have to wait and find out.
It’s awful when Ellen acts like this, because no one in her family does, at all. In fact, the Feiffers are the nicest. Seriously, the nicest. Her mom and dad are both doctors, and they’re amazing. Ellen’s mom goes to Africa every year and saves babies for summer vacation, and her dad is trying to cure cancer. To cure it. Forever. And not just that, but when you see them, they are always so nice. They remember your name and everything about you, and ask if you need anything and thank you for being so great to their daughter, even though you’ve been friends with her since the third grade. I think they still thank me because they know how mean she is. They even send me a birthday card every year, and it usually has twenty dollars in it, except last year, when they bought me a star. A Star. That’s amazing.
“Twenty would have gotten us pizza,” Ellen said snarkily. But I loved it.
Even Ellen’s little sister, Hannah, is the nicest. Honest, I have never met a better five-year-old, even when I was one myself. She’s sweet and funny, and she loves Ellen so much, she gets overwhelmed by it. She’s deaf, and she makes these big faces when she signs things to you, so she has these great big smiles. Huge. Smiles so big, you can’t help but smile back. At least I can’t. Ellen tries to hate her, but it’s seriously like hating a puppy. And you can’t hate a puppy. No one can. Not even Ellen.
Halfway into the park, Ellen stops, and waits for me to catch up. Which I guess I need to do right now. I can see the spit bubbles at the side of her mouth from here. She’s getting mad and she’s trying to hold it in, but it’s not working. Some of it is leaking out. The worst part is, Ellen used to be worse than this. Last year her dad made her go to a therapist so she could learn to “use her words,” in a “quiet and reasonable manner.” Ellen’s words now start out, “You know it really makes me mad when you . . .” And then she tells you what you did that made her furious. Usually the only time you can get a complete sentence from her is when she’s “using her words.”
“You know it really makes me mad when you’re late.”
“I didn’t know we had a time set.”
And Ellen stops and thinks. I can see her thinking, and then just like that, she smiles, or as close as she can get. She’s not mad anymore. Just like that. The therapist must have worked. Very slowly she walks over to our bench and sits down with a big drop. She’s not moving. She doesn’t even need the one word to tell me that. I sit down next to her and open the water. I pass it to her first, as I guess part of our truce. And she takes a big sip and smiles. Again. Why?
“I love coming here.” Ellen says something nice, so I look around to see if the park is on fire. Nope. But something’s definitely wrong.
“I know?” I say, hoping she won’t hear the question mark.
And she says, “I’m really glad you came with me.” And I don’t know where to look. What is wrong with her? Is it even her? What’s going on? And I would usually just not say anything, but I do. Why is she glad that I’m here?
“Okay, Ellen, seriously, what is wrong with you today?” I can’t help myself.
Ellen looks over at me really slowly, and I can already see a new spit bubble forming.
“What?” she says. And I know I’ve screwed up, but I just keep going, I’m in too deep.
“You like things? You like things with me? What’s wrong with you? Are you even Ellen?”
Ellen takes a big gulp of water and stops. I’m dead. She’s going to kill me. I’ve finally pushed her over the edge. I don’t know if she’s going to spit it at me or what, but she knows that I am thinking she might, so she stares at me and waits. Waits a little longer, her cheeks filled with all that water, and then at the last moment, takes a big swallow. This time, I’m safe. I’ve been pardoned. But only for now.
“I’m just having a good day. That all right with you?” She pouts.
“Sure, I’m fine. But why?” I ask.
“I don’t know if I should tell you now.” She mean-smiles.
“You’re going to tell me. That’s why you brought me here.”
Ellen sits back on the bench and sort of tries to not be mad at that. One thing that always gets her crazy mad is when she thinks you know what she is thinking or you can tell what she is going to do. She hates that. I am definitely getting water in the face today, just not yet.
“Fine, if you know everything in the world, figure it out,” Ellen snarls at me.
“Okay, um, I don’t know.”
“I know you don’t.” Ellen pucker-smiles, which is this really gross face she makes with duck lips and a snotty sort of grin. I hate it so much, I want to take my water and go, but I have to guess now. It’s the trick of th
at ugly smile.
“Um, you’re moving to Antarctica,” I guess.
“No.” Ellen pucker-smiles.
“Hannah is?”
Ellen laughs. “I wish.”
“Tell me.”
Ellen real-smiles and snaps the rubber band of her side brace at me. “These are about to come off.”
“Really?” I smile back. That’s all? Her braces? I thought it was a much bigger deal than that. Why does she have to make me so angry and run all over this park for something so simple and nice as that? It’s not a big deal but now I get angry about it. Really angry. I want to leave angry. I don’t, I stay and listen as she tells me about the appointment and the retainer, and I’m smiling and listening, and then it hits me. I know why I’m angry, and suddenly all my anger turns to sadness. Or jealousy maybe.
When her braces come off, Ellen gets to be something different. Ellen gets to go back to school with something new about her. It probably won’t change her adjective. She’ll still be super mean, but she won’t have all that metal to make her look so terrifying. I want to be happy for her, because she is my friend, and Ellen hates her braces, even more than most things. She hates not being able to eat stuff and to always be carrying around a toothbrush. And nothing makes any of it better. So I should be happy for her. But I’m too jealous.
So I lie and say, “I’m happy for you, Ellen,” and sit on the bench and listen to more about her new me. And worry about my same old me.
For the rest of the day Ellen and I walk through the park and talk about, well, everything. I get over the braces when she starts to say something terrible about a girl in a tube top. No, braces won’t help her Mean self, or even her Sarcastic self. Somewhere around the ponds, I start to hear the Ellen that no one else gets to. She’s using more than one word now, and most of them are funny. It’s out here I remember that Ellen is great, once you get past being afraid of her, she’s hilarious. Only it takes me a little while to remember. She’s tough because she thinks that’s how she has to be. And I guess I don’t know that she’s wrong. Ellen always knows the things that no one else will tell you about. She knew about adjectives. She knows how things are supposed to go, and she’s usually only mad when they don’t. In her mind she’s thinking somebody in some way is going to be a jerk about something, so you might as well plan ahead for it. So she does. And even though I don’t like it, she’s always kind of right.