Finally, it was my turn.
“Are you the owner?” I asked the older woman behind the glass case closest to the register.
“Yes, I’m Hannah,” she said.
“I . . . I wonder,” I stumbled. My eyes blinked more quickly. Should I keep my missing daughter to myself until I found out if the bakery had something to do with what had happened to Vinni?
“Can I help you?” Hannah asked again, sounding tired but courteous.
“Yes, please, may I have a scone for here?”
“Anything to drink?”
“Tea. Thank you.”
Hannah reached into the case, her fleshy arm waving slightly in front of her. She grabbed a cellophane sheet and picked up a scone closest to the case’s sliding door.
“Just came out of the oven twenty minutes ago. George’s specialty, you know,” she said, placing the scone on a small white ceramic dish and working the register without looking up at me.
My insides shook. I looked around, pretending to be casual.
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
“Fifty-two years ago, we came over from a small town in Germany. My George and I have been baking ever since.”
“Hi, Hannah,” a voice called, as the door opened. A young girl in her early twenties walked over to the coffee bar, picked up a large paper cup, and held it under the silver urn that read HAZELNUT COFFEE.
I took my scone and headed to the hot-water urn. I listened to the sounds around me, wondering if Vinni had heard the same ones, smelled the same smells, and bitten into a doughnut like the one the little girl feasted on while she sat on her dad’s lap.
My cell phone rang, and John D’Orfini’s name popped up on the screen. I thought about not answering.
“Don’t worry. I’m sitting here quietly. I’m okay,” I said.
“Why didn’t you wait for me to go with you?”
“I told you. I’m okay. Really. It’s all okay.” I kept my voice low, talking into my lap at first, and then, gradually, as John D’Orfini spoke, I lifted my head. The three blond sisters had gone. Half of the chocolate doughnut remained on its plate.
“Did you speak with Hannah or George?” John D’Orfini asked.
“You know who they are. You know a lot more, don’t you?” I asked.
“Call me when you leave the bakery. Please don’t talk to anyone there. Don’t ask questions yet. Promise me you won’t do this. Not just yet. Promise me.”
“I can’t do that.” I hung up. The line at the cash register had dwindled down to one lone, older man. Waiting would do nothing.
I walked toward Hannah. She looked up with a smile. Her face was old, full of lived-in wrinkles around her eyes. Her white hair hung back in a loose bun sitting off-center, to the right of her neck. Tiny wisps loosened from hours of a long workday flew around her face. Her waist was thick, to match her fingers. She wore a white-bibbed apron with her full name printed in the left corner by the strap.
HANNAH MUELLER.
“Excuse me, Hannah?” I wanted her attention, but she looked up casually, unaware that what was to come might change my life and hers. “My name is Maddy. I have a daughter who’s missing.”
Hannah stopped putting the macaroon cookies in the case and looked up at me. She rested the long baking sheet on the glass countertop. The wrinkles at the corners of her eyes hardened into deeper crevices.
I caught my breath.
“Have you seen her?” I asked. I held up a picture of Vinni. Already it was sixteen months old. Vinni was sitting with her knees tucked under her on the beach blanket at Spring Haven, wearing a yellow two-piece bathing suit. Her sun-streaked hair hung loose around her face.
Hannah walked from around the counter.
“Let’s sit,” she said.
The bakery was quiet, but a strip of light held steady in front of the glass cases.
I followed Hannah to a table in the far corner, closest to the kitchen. I put the picture of Vinni on the table, and she looked at it without picking it up.
“Your daughter is a beautiful child. You must love her very much.”
“Have you seen her?” I repeated, as I leaned in across the table.
“No, I haven’t. At least, not that I can remember. So many beautiful little girls come into this bakery. I don’t think I can help you. I wish I could.”
“The police think a woman named Hilda took my child.”
Maybe I wanted it so badly that I thought I saw a hint of recognition in Hannah’s eyes flicker in and out when I said Hilda’s name.
“You are from Germany, right?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“Yes. This is true.”
“And you have many friends from Germany who now live in the neighborhood.” This wasn’t a question, but Hannah nodded anyway.
“Yes. Yes. This is my home. It has been for over fifty years. But this is very sad for you. Yes? And you want me to tell you something that will help you find your Vinni.”
My mind skipped. My ears closed and opened. Words I should have heard went missing. In the distance, a drumbeat.
“I’ve never seen your child. The police, they must be helping you . . . yes?” Her voice owned strong traces of Germany.
Hannah stayed calm as I lost words that had been pounding in my head for almost two years.
A man and a woman entered the bakery and stood quietly in front of the cookies. The man said something about how many pounds, and the woman looked over in my direction. Hannah’s chair made a screeching noise as she moved away from the table and stood to face me.
“Please . . . I wish I knew something to help you, but, as you can see, I must work now. I am sorry—so sorry.”
I had failed. John D’Orfini had warned me.
I stayed seated for a few more minutes, sipping the decaffeinated tea from the thick ceramic mug. The roasted liquid slid down my throat. Its heat reminded me I was alive. Other than that, I felt swept away by my own ineptness. I had thought all I needed was an opening—one innocent remark—and then I’d be okay. If John D’Orfini had been trying to teach me something, then maybe I had learned it. I couldn’t just plow into a situation. Hell, was I really calling Vinni’s disappearance a situation?
AS I WALKED away from the bakery with my head down, I bumped into a man standing about thirty yards away from Mueller’s front door. “Whoa, leeettle lady,” he said. “Slow down.” He emphasized the first syllable of leettle, as if a thousand letter e’s were strung together. “Excuse me,” I said, as I rushed past. He tipped his straw fedora, an odd accessory for a man wearing jeans and a black T-shirt with “Harley” scripted in green across the front. As I moved past him, the smell of an unfiltered cigarette reminded me of a guy I dated as an NYU freshman, who had a weird allegiance to thin brown cigarettes from Turkey. Their lasting aroma combined the smell of burnt toast with late-harvested corn husks. Not that I described it this way. My ex-boyfriend did.
I retraced my steps to the subway. Not more than an hour had passed. Oxygen shriveled up in my lungs as I walked into the dark subway station. The people on the train were different, but the same colors and smells permeated the atmosphere. Where could I put the hot vomit baking inside my stomach? I needed air. I wasn’t getting enough in the belly of the city.
I could hear voices from behind me getting louder. I turned around in my seat and saw four men moving slowly down the aisle among the standing passengers holding on to the silver bars. They were singing a favorite song of mine, “Up on the Roof,” a cappella. The four were a disjointed group of short, tall, and skinny men, dressed in what looked like rags from a Police Athletic Club clothes bin. They were probably in their fifties and older, but the wild thing about it was that they could sing. They could really sing.
The lead guy, the one with the mouthful of missing teeth, wore a black suede cowboy hat. In the gut of the city’s belly, they harmonized high and low, switching off solo parts like they were playing Vegas center stage. As they moved closer to my se
at, I steered my eyes away from them not to draw attention to myself. Seasoned subway riders know better than to make eye contact with strangers, especially those singing a cappella.
Just as the deep-voiced man hung onto the ooouuuu in roof, an explosion erupted in my head. I closed my eyes, fearing the loud howl might leak out into the aisle.
Jesus. Jesus. Jesus, I cried to myself. Oh God. Jesus. What is wrong with me? I rocked back and forth in my seat to the rhythm of the singing subway Motowners. My words fell in between theirs. Everything screeched to a halt in my head while I replayed the conversation with Hannah as we sat together at Mueller’s. Up on the roof: the words provided a melodramatic background for my stunning realization. They shot up and down my spine, ripping me apart.
Hannah had called her Vinni. She had said Vinni’s name without my telling her. I went over the conversation word by word, but I knew I was right. Hannah had recognized Vinni in the photo, and the flicker I had seen when I’d mentioned Hilda’s name was real. She must have wondered why I didn’t say anything. Why I didn’t jump all over her. Why I left the bakery without dragging her out the door with me. John D’Orfini was right: I wasn’t prepared for the hunt. I stayed on the train. Petrified.
TWELVE
HIS PRESENCE STARTLED ME. I HAD NO IDEA HOW LONG John D’Orfini had been standing by the console table to the left of the front door. I had just returned from a rainy walk downtown, past Union Square. The stone urns in front of the heavy doors drew me in every time I came home. In late spring, the landlord planted white narcissus. He faked the greens with plastic ivy, draping it over the edges. In summer, pink and white impatiens blossomed into voluminous domes.
“How long have you been here?” I asked, hoping John D’Orfini’s voice would not match the conflicted look in his eyes.
“About forty-five minutes. Evelyn buzzed me in. I called her after you didn’t answer your bell. She invited me upstairs, but I didn’t want to intrude.” He hesitated and looked away, like he was weighing his words before daring to say them out loud. “She cares a lot about you, Maddy.”
“Come up.” I cut him off midthought, brushed past him, and ran up the stairs.
He followed me in silence, except for the squeaky sound of his black Bostonian shoes. I unlocked the door to my apartment and pushed it wide open for John D’Orfini to walk in without hitting up against the coat rack to the right in the corner of the hallway. One of the best features of the apartment was the hallway. Vinni used to love sliding back and forth in her socks, pretending she was an acrobat on ice. Light fed through the three windows facing east in the living room. Without Vinni, her bedroom failed to reflect the northern light. Everything dimmed.
Besides the urns in front, what sold me on the apartment was that it was an elevator building and there were dark wood cabinets in the kitchen. I could fit a small table with three chairs in between the sink and the refrigerator.
Steve had wanted a doorman.
“Home means you eat in the kitchen, Steve,” I said.
“Home means you have a doorman, babe,” he shot back.
THE CREAM-COLORED walls throughout the apartment exuded silence. John D’Orfini stood at the edge of the kitchen.
“Can I get you something hot to drink?” I moved toward the stove and picked up the coffeepot, knowing that he never refused a cup of coffee.
“Sure,” he said, and then added a “thanks” as a way of mending the anger he couldn’t hide.
I opened the refrigerator and took out the ground coffee beans.
“Pretty empty refrigerator you’ve got there.”
The almost full soyannaise jar stood isolated in the corner of the middle shelf. A package of newly opened gluten-free tortilla wraps—dry as shit—sat haplessly next to a pint of ruby-red strawberries. Dr. Goodman had encouraged me to eat the lush berry on days when I felt like I was walking in cement—when putting one foot in front of the other required herculean effort.
John D’Orfini took off his lined trench coat and laid it over the back of the kitchen chair. It was too big for his trim frame and looked like it belonged to another family. My apartment hadn’t had a man’s coat in it in over five years. The sleeves looked uncomfortable dangling off the chair, away from the buttons.
Finally, he spoke. “What happened at Mueller’s? I need to know.” The knot in my stomach tightened. His thick neck stood apart from years of working out in a paramilitary regimen.
“Nothing. I mean, well, yes. Something did happen.” I turned around from the counter where I had plugged in the coffeemaker and faced John D’Orfini. The red light warned me that the water was getting hotter.
“Hannah has seen Vinni. I know it because she said her name—”
He cut me off.
“We—the FBI—have been watching Hannah and her husband, George, for a month now. I planned on telling you. You have a right to know, but I wanted to give you more information so you wouldn’t jump to conclusions.”
Is that what I’ve done? Jumped to a conclusion?
“So, my going to Mueller’s was stupid? Is that what you’re saying?” I stood up but dropped a bent knee on the chair, half balancing with my left arm on the chair’s back.
“I’m saying be careful. I know you don’t want me to tell you to back off, to stay away from the investigation, and I’m not going to do that. God knows, sometimes I’ve wanted to . . . to protect you. I just need you to listen to me when—”
“When you order me around like some child. When you tell me not to get involved. Okay, I get it. I do. But you can’t keep information from me, because I’m going to find out. I went to Mueller’s Bakery because I got sick of waiting. I don’t know how to wait any longer.”
I was tired and wet. I raised my hand for him not to speak. “Let me finish. Please,” I said. If he had picked me up right then, I would have held on to him tight and stayed in his arms. All I wanted to do was rest.
But John D’Orfini did not pick me up.
I moved past him to the counter to the left of the sink, where I kept a pad and a mug filled with pens and pencils. I dropped my head into my hands. I could feel the tendons in the back of my neck stretch as I leaned lower into the cups of my palms.
“Give me a minute,” I said.
John D’Orfini turned away and back again. “Where’s the . . .”
“Bathroom’s down the hall on the left,” I said quietly.
I picked up a small, oval-shaped mirror tucked into the corner of the counter. It had been my mother’s. The glass was centered among braided brass trim at least two inches thick. A long golden neck connected it to a pastel blue base with pink roses hand-painted by some obscure Frenchman whose name was signed across the bottom. My mother loved to pronounce it with an exaggerated French accent, rolling the r’s from deep inside her throat.
After she killed herself, all I wanted was the mirror. For years, it stayed in the bottom of a closet wherever I lived, but when I moved into the apartment with Steve, I put it in the kitchen, over the bread drawer. Vinni used to love to play with it. She’d pick it up and place it on the kitchen table at night when I was home in time to make dinner. With my back turned away from the table, I would hear her talk to her face. She told stories to the mirror, and I listened without her knowing it.
I wondered if my mother heard Vinni speak to the mirror.
Do people who kill themselves get a shot at heaven?
I SLICED A lemon and squeezed it into a mug of hot water. I heard the bathroom door open. When I looked up, I saw John D’Orfini staring at a painting of mine of three women sitting at a café table in the middle of an urban street with cars pointed in every direction. “You’ve sure got a different way of seeing the world,” he said, as he leaned back with his head resting comfortably against the wall.
He stood in the hallway as if he wanted me to come to him. An awkward silence floated between the two of us. “Are you still upset with me?” I asked, as I took slow steps in his direction, drying my hands
on a dish towel. When I got close enough, I could smell the clean scent of his shirt.
“Tell me. Have I made things worse at Mueller’s?” Tears— one at a time—fell down my cheeks and over my mouth.
I imagined that if I leaned in a bit more, the comfort of his chest would take my breath away. If he could, he would try to swallow my hurt. I was certain of it. My heart wanted to stay, but a sharp snap in my brain made me step back. We stood there, face to face, and said nothing. I broke the connection first.
John D’Orfini put his hands in his pockets like a boy. I wanted and I wanted, but I couldn’t have what I wanted.
None of it.
“Tell me something about Vinni,” he said. Silence passed between us. When I was ready, I started again.
“Vinni loved to play games.”
“Describe one.”
This was a different John D’Orfini.
“Look in the bread drawer,” I said. I stood up, and John D’Orfini walked over and opened the drawer. “Where’s the bread?” Laughing softly, he took out crayons of all sizes.
When I smiled back at him, I noticed the light from the one window shadowed the left side of his face. His eyes had softened. His cheeks flushed a bit at the top.
I explained.
“Vinni and I played a game where we made up names of new colored crayons: Apple Green, Dirty Beige, Yummy Lemon.”
I told John D’Orfini how Vinni folded her lips one on top of the other when she was inside a thought. I told him how Vinni described the colors. “Baby’s pink is clean, Mommy—like a baby, and shiny, too. But not too shiny—sort of just right. Perfect like a baby. You know, perfect like baby’s feet.”
A Matter of Chance Page 8