Alice Bliss (4 page)

Of course people started asking to buy Mrs. Piantowski’s bread. But Gram and Mrs. Piantowski were already pushing it given that a home kitchen was supplying a restaurant. Strictly against board of health rules, and nobody wants to get the board of health involved, with regulations and testing and surprise inspections. Until it turns out the board of health inspector is one of their best customers. In fact, Charlie Prophett eats breakfast at The Bird Sisters five days a week and is often seen knocking on the door and begging them to open up on Monday and Tuesday, too. So far he has managed to control himself and not walk up on Mrs. Piantowski’s porch on the days the restaurant is closed. But there are bets on how long it will be before he’s knocking on her door to say, “Just a piece of toast, Mrs. Piantowski. Or two or three, if you don’t mind.”

There are people in Belknap who dream about Mrs. Piantowski’s bread. Maybe some people even dream about Mrs. Piantowski. She has dark brown eyes and long reddish hair that she wears pulled back or piled on top of her head, and she has lots of freckles on her nose, chest, and arms. She always wears colors, wonderful rich colors, and skirts and sweaters and sometimes a scarf twisted in her hair. She’s not exactly pretty, but she has this bearing; it’s almost regal. Maybe it’s her height, maybe it’s her very straight spine and her very straight nose and her no nonsense way of speaking. Maybe it’s that nobody knows her first name.

Gram knows but she’s not telling. Some men have tried to flirt with Mrs. Piantowski, and women try to get friendly, but she just sails on by. Maybe she’s got everything she needs with eight kids and twentytwo different kinds of bread up her sleeve.

Alice’s job is to pick up the bread every Saturday and Sunday morning at quarter of six and then help Gram with whatever prep work still needs to be done at the restaurant. Even though every other teenager in America is still asleep. Even though Alice sometimes wonders how she gets roped into this stuff. On the other hand, Alice has never met anyone who can say no to Gram.

She used to use Ellie’s red Radio Flyer wagon until neighbors complained about the noise as she squeaked and bumped her way along the sidewalks in the predawn. Then Gram got her a rubber wheeled grocery basket like the ones old ladies use in metropolitan areas. Alice feels ridiculous, but at least now she’s quiet.

It’s exactly quarter of six Sunday morning when Alice arrives at the backdoor to Mrs. Piantowski’s. She leaves the cart on the porch and knocks softly before turning the knob and walking in. The youngest baby is sitting in a bouncy chair on the kitchen table looking around with her big, dark green, and very grave eyes. There are two dozen loaves wrapped and ready to go and Mrs. Piantowski is pulling twelve more out of the double oven.

“Hi, Alice.”

“Hi, Mrs. Piantowski.”

“Snowing?”

“Not yet.”

Mrs. Piantowski works at the stove. She is brushing the loaves with a blend of sugar and cardamom.

“I’m running a little late. You’re going to need to take these right in the pans. Can you bring me the pans on your way home later today?”

“Sure.”

Usually all the loaves are stacked and ready to go, and then she and Mrs. Piantowski pack the cart together: coolest loaves on the bottom, warmest ones on top. Alice understands that this is probably about allowing the loaves to cool without getting soggy, but it also creates this heady perfume as she walks down the street. She imagines the fresh bread smells wafting like a banner over her head—the best advertising imaginable.

“What’s that spice?”

“Cardamom.”

“Smells good.”

There’s never much chat with Mrs. Piantowski. She’s not exactly unfriendly; she just doesn’t talk much. Maybe she doesn’t know how difficult it is for a fifteen-year-old to initiate a conversation. Maybe with eight kids of her own she cherishes the quiet of these earlymorning hours and is not willing to sacrifice the silence to talk to one more child.

But Mrs. Piantowski’s quiet today has more to do with the fact that her husband has taken to leaving their bed to wander through the house like a refugee from his own life. Isaac will not say they have too many children, he would never say that. Instead he turns away from her, leaves their bed in the darkest hours, only to return when her alarm sounds at three a.m. It is a new dance they do each night, a dance of sleep and wakefulness and loneliness, instead of the old dance of love.

But these aches recede as she steps into her kitchen, lights the stove, puts an apron and the kettle on, and sets the first batch of dough to rising.

Alice doesn’t mind the quiet. It gives her a chance to experience Mrs. Piantowski’s kitchen. There’s eight of everything: eight hooks on the wall for coats, eight hooks above for hats, eight stools around the table, which is set for eight for breakfast. Everything is spotless; nothing is out of place. Alice thinks Mrs. Piantowski must either be a drill sergeant or the most persuasive person on the planet.

The baby starts to fuss.

“Can I pick up the baby?”

“She’s fine.”

Alice crosses to the baby.

“I never met anyone named Inga before,” she says, extending a finger, which the baby grabs.

“My grandmother’s name.”

“Hi, Inga,” Alice whispers, and lays her hand against Inga’s cheek.

Eyes closed, Alice inhales the baby smells and the baking smells; the yeast and the sugar and.. . .

“Go ahead.”

“What?”

“You’ve held a baby before?”

“Sure.”

She releases the Velcro holding Inga in place and scoops her up in her hands, remembering to support her head as she pulls her close against her body. Alice and Inga engage in a long staring contest until Inga’s nose wrinkles and she sneezes. Laughing, Alice is rewarded with one of Inga’s smiles. Alice sways with the baby, her weight transferring from foot to foot, and then she starts to dance with the baby, right there in the kitchen. Not too fast, not too jittery; just a slow swirl and glide, anything to keep Inga smiling.

Mrs. Piantowski starts to sing. In a foreign language. What is that, Polish? The song is halfway between a lullaby and a lament. Why would you sing this song to a baby? It’s so sad, Alice thinks, it could make you cry. And then Mrs. Piantowski starts to clap and before you know it she is dancing; hitching up her apron and her skirt and doing something fancy with her feet as she continues to sing. The song changes from a whisper to a shout and Inga loves it; with each change in tone, each surprise, Inga turns her head to watch her mother and smiles her toothless smile.

Alice looks back and forth between the two of them, baby Inga laughing, Mrs. Piantowski’s face shining in the warm kitchen, and wonders, did this ever happen in her life, with her mother?

She must be looking famished because Mrs. Piantowski pours her a big glass of milk and sets a cinnamon bun on a plate. Then she hands her a cloth napkin and invites her to sit down. She waves away Alice’s worry about being late and takes baby Inga from her. This is too much. Mrs. Piantowski is a completely different species from Alice’s own mother.

Alice doesn’t realize how fast she’s eating until she looks up and catches Mrs. Piantowski grinning.

“Good?” she asks.

“The best ever,” Alice replies, before she gulps down her milk and slides off the stool to head out the door into the predawn darkness on her way to deliver bread to The Bird Sisters.

“Mom? Mom! Are you up? Get a move on!”

The Monday following Angie’s surprise birthday party, which Matt and the girls had carefully pre-planned and executed with help from Gram and Uncle Eddie, Angie does not feel like getting up or going to work. When Alice calls up to her, she’s still in bed, still feeling devastated and idiotic that the promised phone call with Matt never came through, even though she waited up almost all night, just in case. And it’s ridiculous, really. How many times does she have to be reminded that his time is not his own anymore?

The girls, with Gram’s help, gave her a silk scarf to replace the one she tossed out the window. They made her favorite cake, angel food stuffed with strawberries and whipped cream, Gram cooked Angie’s favorite dinner, even Uncle Eddie came through with a basket of spring bulbs. Matt had wrapped up the far too expensive French perfume she loves and left it with Alice for safekeeping. Why did it all make her feel so sad and so incredibly angry and so stupidly childish all at the same time? Angie feels like a yo-yo; the simplest things set her off. It’s exhausting. And she doesn’t even like birthdays.

“Five more minutes!”

Downstairs Ellie is half asleep in her cereal, her braids dragging in the milk. Alice is trying to find her sneakers, air out the armpits of her dad’s button-down blue shirt, which she has worn for three solid weeks now and refuses to wash, and scavenging for enough change so Ellie can buy milk at lunch. Oh yes, and packing the sandwiches: sliced bananas on graham crackers.

“Mom, we’re out of bread!” Alice shouts up the stairs. “And peanut butter. And jam! Again,” she mutters under her breath as she returns to the kitchen.

“Get creative,” Angie shouts from the bedroom.

The bananas keep sliding off the graham crackers when Alice tries to fit them into the sandwich bags.

“Don’t put that crap in my lunch box.”

“You can’t say crap.”

“It’s like big tall letters flashing over my head when I open my lunch box: fucked up family!”

“Ellie!”

“What? You say it!”

“Not when I was in second grade!”

“I want lunch money. Not this stupid excuse for a sandwich!”

“I’ll ask Gram.”

“Yeah. She could set up a lunch fund. And a clothing fund and she could drive us to the supermarket to stock up on food and—”

“Okay, you ready?” Alice asks, handing Ellie her lunch box.

“You can’t go to school in that,” Ellie says.

“Let’s get a move on.”

“Dad’s shirt? Again? Does Mom know?”

“What do you care?”

“It doesn’t fit.”

“So?”

“Aside from the fact you’re not cool, I think you’re starting to smell, Alice. You could at least wash that stupid shirt.”

“I aired it out last night.”

“That’s not enough.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“You need to burn it.”

“Henry’s gonna be here any minute.”

“Maybe Gram would take you shopping. New jeans, new . . .”

“I’m all set. C’mon.”

“Okay, but I’m not walking next to you and I’m definitely not holding hands with you. Not even at the crosswalk.”

“Whatever.”

“I’m reaching my limit with you, Alice. Just so you know.”

God, she sounds just like Angie, Alice thinks.

 

Matt’s been gone almost six weeks. He’s in the last days of training at the mobilization center with his army reserve unit. The reservists have been kept pretty much in lockdown conditions at Fort Dix: no time off, no time off the base, and very little contact with home. Supposedly this is all preparation for being deployed. It’s very strange for Angie and Alice and Ellie. He’s gone but not gone; and there’s no coming home at this point, not until his one-year tour of duty is done.

Everything is different with Matt gone. Same house, different air, different space inside the rooms. Angie is impatient and irritable; she’s working at the insurance company more than ever, and on top of that, she brings work home. It’s like she doesn’t really want to be at home at all so she piles on the work and makes the kitchen table a second office. That way she has a good excuse to be distracted and tense all the time. She’s pretty much dropped the ball on domestic duties and says she’s “not interested in eating right now.” So Alice does her best with spaghetti most nights and occasionally macaroni and cheese and lots of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Ellie is spending inordinate amounts of time with her friend Janna and even manages to get herself invited for dinner several nights a week. Alice is spending too much time alone in the house every afternoon. She wants to be there in case the phone rings but it never does.

Angie was starting to let herself go for a bit but yanked herself right back from the edge with an iron hand. She got a new haircut and renewed her fitness commitment, swimming half an hour three days a week after work. The housework and the cooking are not so high on her list of priorities, but the personal appearance thing has become very important. Alice thinks her mom secretly likes the fact that stress and worry have finally made it possible for her to drop those last pesky ten pounds. She is slipping back into some pre-Ellie clothes. Okay, so it’s natural to think your mother is a total idiot at this age, but when your dad’s out of the picture it’s hard to have your mother quite so strange and foreign. It’s a little disconcerting, the sudden lack of parents. Or, to be honest, when nobody prefers you. When you are not anybody’s special somebody. This is when it would be nice to have a dog.

 

Alice doesn’t know, can’t know, what Angie is going through. Angie, who can’t sleep at night or if she does fall asleep, wakes with a start to the unfamiliar silence that is Matt’s absence. They have been together since their sophomore year in college; in eighteen years they have slept apart on very rare occasions. Angie wonders whether it is even possible to sleep without him.

In the middle of the night she haunts the house and the closets, running her hands over his jackets and shirts, feeling inside the pockets of his coats for coins, or keys, or penny nails, or anything at all that he has touched.

She’s having trouble concentrating at the office, and she’s terrified of losing her job. With Matt gone she’s suddenly aware of every bill, every little possible repair. It feels like the Camry might need new brakes, and she knows they’re due for two new tires. All the things that Matt would take care of or that they would discuss and decide together now tick through Angie’s mind like an endless scroll.