How to Bake a Perfect Life (26 page)

In the morning, turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and roll it into a rectangle that is about 8 inches long. Roll it into a loaf and tuck the ends under. Put the loaf, seam down, on a baking sheet lined with silicon or parchment and cover with oiled plastic. Let rise in a warm place until doubled.

A half hour before baking, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. To mimic the humidity of French ovens, fill a large cast-iron skillet with water and put it on the bottom rack of the oven.

Uncover the loaf and let stand for 5 minutes, then slash the top of the loaf diagonally three times and put it in the oven. Immediately turn the heat down to 375 degrees and bake for 45–55 minutes, until the loaf is golden and sounds hollow when tapped from beneath. Cool on a wire rack.

  N
early every night I wake up at some point and lie in the dark, staring at the ceiling. Sometimes I think of Sofia. Sometimes I worry about the business. I think of the baby, wondering how he or she is doing while Sofia is so stressed out. I worry that the birth will be hard on her. I was going to be there, her coach, and I’m very disappointed that it might not happen now.

I take refuge in work, getting up to bake, often finding Jimmy there already. She’s an insomniac, and the hours of a bakery suit her well. Together, we bake and talk about everything in the universe, from men and children to food to politics and music.

By the time dawn tumbles through the windows, the darkest worry is tucked away. It is the time of year I love the best, May sliding into June. My grandmother’s garden is exploding into blossom, and I love the way the light falls, illuminating valleys you never see the rest of the year; the burnished look of morning on the grass; the hot afternoons broken by dramatic thunderstorms that wash the air and give us cool, cricket-spun evenings.

It is on one of those dramatic afternoons, as clouds roll in over the mountains with menace, that my sister Stephanie shows
up at the bakery. I’m alone, refreshing the last of the starters, when she storms through the back door, letting the screen door slam behind her. She makes so much noise that I think it’s Katie and Merlin and raise my head to reprimand them.

Instead, there’s Steph, in a pair of jeans and a turquoise tank, silver jewelry around her neck and wrists and swinging from her ears. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail and she looks athletic and hearty, like an Olympic skier. “Steph!” I say in surprise, because it has been ages since we’ve spoken.

“Are you sleeping with Cat Spinuzzi?”

Of course that’s what this is about. Because she couldn’t just come and
talk
to me. She has to show up with her temper turned to scald. It’s the only way she deals with me these days. I sigh, scraping the last of the starter into a clean jar with a rubber spatula. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

It never helps for two Gallaghers to get pissy at the same time. Wars erupt that way, wars that last as long as … well, this one between my sister and me. Eight years, more or less. Since I inherited the house, which was the final nail in the coffin of our relationship. It
infuriated
her. As calmly as I can, I say, “Mom saw Cat over here a couple of weeks ago and jumped to conclusions.”

“I don’t believe you.” She crosses her arms. “I saw you with him at the Sunbird one night, had to be a year ago.”

“It’s none of your business, but what difference does it make, Stephanie? Honestly. I mean, we’re grown.”

“Is that a yes? God, I can’t believe you! You’ll do anything to get what you want.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, don’t pretend you’re not using him, just like you use everybody else!”

“That’s not true!” It’s no easy thing to keep my anger
burbling on low. “Cat’s my mentor, the person who stood in my corner when the rest of you stuck with my cheating, lying skunk of an ex-husband.”

“That was business. Dane was a hell of a manager and we were lucky to have him. He single-handedly shifted the fortunes of our company, and you know it. We couldn’t fire him, and it would have been stupid anyway.”

“First of all, he took the job our father should have given me, and
you
know it. Secondly, he didn’t single-handedly shift the fortunes of the business—I was there, too. And, third, if Dad had fired him, I wouldn’t have quit, and I could have had the position he kept.”

“It’s not always about you! You think the world is supposed to stop every time you get a hangnail, for God’s sake!”

“Actually, that
was
about me. It was my husband, my job, my rift with the family.”

“God, Ramona, when are you ever going to grow up?”

“Says the woman who is still working for her daddy!”

“I’m not working for him. We’re partners. As you would have been if you hadn’t turned your back on the restaurants.”

“Yeah, he calls you his assistant. That’s not partners.” I shake my head, trying to imagine cooling waterfalls and tinkling bells, as a therapist once suggested. “Why are we having this same stupid fight? Did you just wake up and think you had to come give me some shit, see if you could make me feel even worse than I do already? I mean, my daughter’s husband is lying in a hospital bed halfway around the world with burns over most of his body and a leg missing, and my daughter is pregnant and alone with him.”

Her mouth goes hard. I hate to say
bitter
, but that’s how she seems lately, all tight and vinegary and hard. I wonder what happened to her. What has gone wrong in her life to make her such a hard-ass? “See how you do that? Even Sofia and Oscar’s tragedy is all about Ramona.”

The barb, curved like a scimitar, curls right through my heart. “Score, Steph,” I say, and carry the jar to the dishwasher. “Anything else you want to rub into my wounds? Maybe we could get to the part where I’m a loser with men.”

“Oh, stop!”

Merlin trots into the kitchen urgently and rushes over to me, licking my hand. He sits on my foot and woofs softly at Stephanie. The gesture is so loyal and kind it brings tears to my eyes, and I bow my head to hide them. “Thanks, Merlin.”

It calms Stephanie, too. “Look, I didn’t come over here to yell at you. It just—” She shakes her head. “It just seems like you never think about anybody but yourself. Didn’t you realize that it might really upset Mom and Dad for you to have a relationship with Cat Spinuzzi?”

I close my eyes and sigh. Merlin leaning on my leg seems to bring some centering magic. “It’s over. It has been for a long time. And I didn’t plan it. It just happened. Hasn’t anything ever swept you away? Ever?”

“No.” She meets my eyes, and we both know what she’s thinking:
It ruined your life, and I’ll never let it ruin mine
.

What I want to say is that I miss her. Not this priggish, judgmental bitch, but the other side of her. The one who makes me laugh so hard I can’t talk. The one who will tell me when I should get rid of an ugly blouse. The one who walked ten billion miles with me when we were children and spun a hundred thousand fantasies.

“I don’t want to fight,” I say. “If you want to come sit on the porch and have a croissant, I’ll talk. But I’m not going to fight.”

For a long minute she stares across the space of the stainless-steel counter, and I think she might relent. Then she turns and stomps out of my kitchen.

Lost to me, still.

And I am feeling like maybe the most flawed human on the planet, riddled with as many holes as a wormy apple. It is a
feeling I have known intimately at various times in my life, but I realize it’s been mostly missing since I opened the bakery, even if my family has me on the outside.

I truly miss Sofia. Her company, her commentary on the world, her face.

The only thing I can possibly do is bake, but Merlin isn’t allowed in the bakery kitchen, so I whistle for him to come upstairs with me, and I pull out ordinary amounts of flour and yeast and water and salt. The eternal, essential ingredients for bread.

“Whatcha doing?” Katie asks, wandering in from the living room. She has her finger in a book and that sleepy look that comes from reading all day. It’s one of the things we have in common, and I gave her permission to go to the library as often as she likes. Her taste runs counter to the vampires and werewolves that are so popular right now, to sweet books set in sweeter times, like
Anne of Green Gables
and historical novels from the seventies. I’m sure her real life has been full enough of bloodsuckers and men turned to slobbering dogs.

“I think I’m going to make some cookies,” I say. “Want to help?”

“Yes! I love cookies.”

“Let’s see what we have. Chocolate chips, oatmeal, butterscotch?”

“Can we do all of them together?”

Laughter breaks through my self-pity. “Definitely.”

The tourist season is upon us at last, crowds of families trundling into town in their RVs and sedans and rent-a-cars. The motels are full, the streets busy. Over the past week we sold virtually everything we baked, and no matter how I increase the order, we run out of muffins very quickly. Both of my assistants have added a day, and Jimmy volunteered to come in on Saturday
nights, too, so we can open on Sundays. I’m going to take the service shift myself that day to save on payroll, and Katie will be my runner. She’s very excited about that, since there is some exotic dahlia my mother told her about that she wants to buy when they go to the flower show next month.

The Army flew Oscar to San Antonio earlier this week, and it makes me feel better to know Sofia is within a two- or three-hour plane ride again. She called when they arrived, talked to me and to Katie, and everyone seems to be sleeping better over this.

On Thursday afternoon, the tourist traffic has slowed enough that I take a cup of tea and a sandwich out to the front porch to go over some paperwork, while the day clerk cleans the bakery cases and polishes the glass for tomorrow. Katie is somewhere reading, as usual. It pleases me immensely that she loves books so much, and I went to the library with her the last time, finding something I could use to escape, too. At night, I’m reading before sleep again, a habit I’d lost somewhere along the way.

Now I settle on the wide Victorian porch with a cup of lemon-scented tea and a tomato and cheese sandwich on bread sliced from the last loaf of sunflower wheat. The world has taken on that hush that arrives before a thunderstorm, birds silent, traffic muffled. Clouds move ponderously over the sky, hiding the sharp blue of Colorado summer. As I eat my sandwich, I admire the shifting colors—slate and pale blue and eggplant, with the odd, distant thread of white-gold lightning. The clouds make me think of elephants or rhinos plodding over the day.

A flash of broader lightning crackles into a valley, and, as if he’s stepping through a rent in the atmosphere, Jonah comes around the corner. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since the evening at his house a couple of weeks ago. Several times I’ve thought about calling or walking by, and each time I stop myself, for a million complicated reasons.

Or, really, for one: I don’t want to be the smitten one, chasing him this time.

Now he is here, wearing a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved ivory Henley. His belly is flat, and he has a loose-limbed confidence I find very appealing. At the gate, he pauses to appreciate the flowers exploding from the earth where there was once a big gash in the landscaping, then looks up and sees me sitting there.

His expression brightens notably enough that my stomach flips—
he likes me, he likes me!
—before I remember that I don’t need anything in my life that’s volatile or exhilarating or that might turn everything upside down.

“Hello,” he says, standing at the foot of the stairs. “May I join you?”

I take his measure. Shrug as if I don’t care one way or the other. “Sure.”

He climbs the steps and sits in the chair on the other side of the table. “How are you, Ramona?”

He is close enough that I catch a waft of his scent, and it plugs directly into every lust cell in my brain.
Limbic memory
, I tell myself as awareness prickles to life on my shoulders. Memories from another me. “I’m good. Busy. How ’bout you?”

“Getting used to the new world.”

“Hmmm.” I wait. In the distance, a rumble of thunder rolls.

He’s looking at me now, his eyes touching my throat, my hair. “The light suits you. It makes your hair glitter.”

“Thank you.”

He pauses, as if considering. “There is going to be a string quartet in the park on Sunday evening. I came to see if you might like to go. With me.”

Inclining my head, I say, “I’m not sure. Honestly, I’m getting mixed messages. That’s not very comfortable.”

“Right.” He nods, takes a breath. “If you will come with me, I’ll explain.”

“If you’re involved or finishing something or whatever, I’d rather not get in the middle of that.”

His smile is wry. “Nothing like that, I promise.”

“All right. I would love that,” I say. “To go. With you.”

“Good,” he says, recovering. “I’ll bring a picnic. I’ll come over at around five and we can walk from here. How does that sound?”