How to Bake a Perfect Life (3 page)

I put a plate of
pain au chocolat
before him, along with a blue-and-white china dish inherited from my grandmother and a snowy napkin. He likes these details, old-world and elegant. “Beautiful,” he murmurs.

The espresso is made on the stove, over the flame in a sturdy small pot, not in a machine. The pot belonged to my grandmother, and although it took a bit of mastery, I learned for Cat’s sake. As I wait for it to boil, I’m thinking in the back of my mind what to do, how to manage this new crisis, but Sofia crowds everything out. Is she in the air yet? How long will it take to get to Germany, until I know more about Oscar?

My primary fear is that they are calling her over to say goodbye to her husband. They usually ship soldiers through Germany very fast these days.

I rub the tight spot in the middle of my chest, turn the flame down beneath the pot. When it is finished, I pour it into cups and sit down with him.

After a moment I say, “It might be time to let the bakery go.”

“No, no. It’s a solid business model, Ramona. This problem with the pipes, it’s nothing.”

I look at the dark, dark coffee, shake my head. The economy has not been as terrible here as elsewhere, but it’s been bad enough, undercutting and undercutting and undercutting my business, not to mention the value of the house. And no one is giving small-business loans these days. Without an influx of cash, the business will fail.

“I need you, as my mentor, to just listen to me for a minute. Can you do that?”

“You know I can.”

“If I quit now, I won’t lose the house—and you know my family would never forgive me if that happened. We practically grew up here.”

“Your family,” he says with a shake of his head. “What have they done for you that you have to worry about what they think?”

“I would never forgive
myself
, Cat. It was my grandmother’s house. She left it to me in good faith.”

“You won’t lose the house. You’re gonna be all right.”

There must be answers, but I’m strung out from disaster and can’t see them right now. “I hope you’re right.” I take a sip of coffee, think about the long list of things that I have to get done. “Anyway, I have a lot to do, so thanks for coming, but I have to get busy.”

He carefully finishes the
pain au chocolat
, brushes his hands, and regards me silently for a moment. Once, the story goes, he was in love with my mother, but my father swept her off her feet and she married him instead. Cat opened a restaurant to compete with my father. For decades now they have jockeyed for top honors in the city. When I look at my father, sturdy and square and blessed with Paul Newman blue eyes, I see that he must have been handsome once, but I fail to know how he could have outshone Cat.

They are mortal enemies, which made it satisfying to turn to Cat as a mentor when I left the family business. What shames me is that I somehow allowed him into my bed for a time, and although I broke it off more than a year ago, he has not lost hope.

I can see in his eyes that he’s going to make the offer tonight. In a way, it would be a relief. To let go, let someone hug me, let someone else hold up the tent for a little while.

But I put up a weary hand. “You need to go.”

“All right.” He stands. “Remember, you do have a friend, Ramona. Can you do that for me?”

“I appreciate it,” I say. “Truly. Thank you for your help. I’m just worried sick about Sofia and Oscar.”

“Give it to the Blessed Mother. Sometimes there is nothing else to do.”

He is as Italian and Catholic as I am Irish and Catholic, though his faith is a big sweeping thing and mine is faint and faraway. “I’ll try.”

When he’s gone, I wander down the back stairs to the backyard that was my grandmother’s refuge. The lilacs are in bloom. Ancient bushes, some six or eight feet tall, line the old wooden fence, and the scent hangs in the air like syrup, sweet and thick. I swim through it to a bench beneath a tree. My cat, Milo, a long-legged Siamese, sidles out from a bush and winds around my feet. “Hey, you.” He mews, leaps up beside me, and lets his paws drip over the side of the bench.

I feel acutely the absence of Sofia. To get her safely off, to make her feel brave, I have kept the terrible news of the day at arm’s length, but now it floods through me, dark and immovable. Her life is forever changed, and I suspect her road will be very hard.

Bending my head, I let my tears fall. Here in this safe place, in my grandmother’s garden, I can weep freely. It often feels that my grandmother Adelaide, is with me here in the enclave she created. Sometimes I imagine I can hear her softly humming a nameless tune.

Lilacs were her favorite flower, and tonight in the warm evening, they offer respite. Taking a basket and a sturdy pair of shears from the shed, I cut great armfuls of blossoms. It’s impossible not to feel my grandmother tagging along as I do it. This was her house. This was her ritual, cutting lilacs that trailed dew and purple petals. The warm day has released their fragrance, a scent so powerful it almost seems to tint the air. I’m helpless against the dark and light blossoms, the dazzlement of their short season, the droplets of stained water that fall on my wrists.

I carry some upstairs; others I put in gigantic vases along the porch railing, where anyone who sits at the scattering of café tables can admire them while eating a croissant and drinking a coffee. I put a vaseful in Katie’s room and then one in my own bedroom, where I fall on the bed, just for a moment. As if the flowers hold some magic presence, I fall asleep, the scent caressing me like a hand, as if my grandmother is smoothing my hair away from my forehead.

RAMONA’S BOOK OF BREADS

EASY PAIN AU CHOCOLAT

This is a recipe my aunt Poppy’s best friend, Nancy, loves like crazy. She makes it the long way, which I do like, but it’s also fun to make the fast version sometimes, too.

2 sheets frozen puff pastry, thawed

1 large egg, beaten with 1 tsp water

12 oz. bittersweet chocolate (chips work fine)

sugar for dusting

Prepare a baking sheet by lining it with parchment or oiling it lightly. Cut each sheet of pastry into 12 squares and brush each with egg glaze. Then sprinkle ½ oz. of chocolate (a few chips) on each square and roll up tightly around the chocolate. Place on the baking sheet, seam down. Cover with plastic and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. Refrigerate remaining egg glaze.

Remove pastries from fridge; preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brush the tops of the pastries with remaining egg glaze, and then dust lightly with sugar and bake for about 15 minutes. Better to cool them at least a bit, or the butter taste is a little overwhelming.

Sofia’s Journal

M
AY
19, 20—

I’m writing this on the plane. I don’t know whether to call it the 19th or the 20th. It’s dark outside, but what time will I use? Middle-of-the-Atlantic time?

Everyone around me is asleep, and I’ve tried, but every time I’m just about to slide under, I think of Oscar, and my heart starts slamming into my ribs so hard that I feel like it might burst. I keep telling myself, over and over
, at least he didn’t die,
but there’s another little voice that comes after it that says
, yet.

I’m not even going to entertain that thought. What he needs from me right now is strength, courage, honor, positive energy. He needs me to be the face of faith, a hand to hold in the darkness. He needs something to hold on to—his wife, his kids, one on the way, one already here
.

Katie. Every time I think about her in that hellhole I want to throw up. I didn’t tell my mother what really went on, but I don’t even know how the kid survived—and part of that is my fault directly. I could see that there was something wrong with Lacey. Like more than the PTSD she was diagnosed with. War was hard on her, I get that, though it seemed like more than that. But how can a new wife say that about her husband’s first wife and expect
anyone to listen? I couldn’t think of a way, but there were things that bothered me. The dirt under her nails. The odd way her breath smelled. The plain fact that she was way, way too skinny, but how could I even say that? Skinny has never been my issue, which Oscar says he likes, and I honestly think he means it. He likes my curves
.

Then she was arrested for meth and it all added up. I worried even then that meth addicts don’t get over it. They just don’t. One of my girlfriends works in the emergency room at Penrose, and she says meth short-circuits something
.

Anyway. Poor Katie. I feel so bad for her
.

Ugh. We’ve been flying for five hours already and won’t land for another four. My mother made me my favorite sandwiches, cucumber and hummus on her excellent sourdough, and it is heartening to eat bread she made. I have a whole loaf in my bag, which the security people thought was very funny, but you know, being pregnant on a nine-hour flight is really not a big happy joy. My legs are all jumpy and I think it irritates the guy next to me that I keep tapping them, but I can’t help it. My back is killing me from sitting, and every hour I walk up and down the aisles to keep my ankles from swelling. I have to pee so often it’s embarrassing. One old lady with hands like cool silk reached for me as I waited in line for the restroom. “How are you doing on this long trip, Mother? Is there anything I can do for you?” It brought tears to my eyes
.

How oh how oh how, am I going to do this?

Ramona

  K
atie is due to arrive at ten-thirty this morning. There is no baking to keep me busy, since customers will not be able to make it to the front door. Henry’s crew arrives at eight on the dot—prompted, no doubt, by Cat’s influence—and once I see that they seem to be able to do their work just fine without my constant, hovering supervision from the porch, I head into the bakery to start some bread. It’s the only thing that can soothe me this morning.

My brother Ryan sends a text at ten forty-five.

The Eagle has landed. Be there in 20.

I stop to run upstairs, change my blouse, and put a little lipstick on. As I lean in to the mirror to make sure there is no color bleeding into the lip line, I’m startled to see my grandmother’s eyes staring back at me. All these years I thought I looked like my mother, but lately it is my grandmother’s face that keeps surprising me in the reflection.

I’m nervous. It’s been a long time since I’ve mothered a child. Will I remember how?

Downstairs, the bell over the front door rings. I rush down to
the bakery, coming around the corner just as Katie comes through the door, eyes too big for her face. She is very thin. Every inch of her thirteen-year-old body screams resistance—elbows crossed, hair in her face, shoulders hunched over to protect her torso. She looks as if she’s been crying, or perhaps only sleeping hard: eyes swollen, red-rimmed. I come forward with a smile I hope will reassure her. The old wooden floor squeaks under my feet. The girl looks alarmed.

“Don’t worry. It’s old but sound.” I catch my hands together to keep from reaching out. This one is a cat, and a cat needs coaxing. “I’m Ramona Gallagher. You must be Katie.”

“I thought Sofia’s mom was going to take care of me.”

“Right. That’s me.”

She scowls.

“I was pretty young when she was born.”

A nod. Her hair is a crazy tangle of curls, a naturally streaky mass of brown with copper and gold woven through. It’s too long, unkempt. My mother always says you can tell a child who is well cared for by looking at her hair and skin. Katie’s olive skin is dry, and she isn’t pretty, not yet. When she grows into the too-long limbs, she will have the grace of a swallow. Her eyes are the same light green as her father’s, and it gives me a pang, thinking of him injured, far away.

Katie has a book in her hand, a backpack slung over her shoulders, and hostility in her gaze. “I don’t want to live here,” she announces. “My mom will be getting out of jail pretty soon and then she can come get me. I don’t need anybody else to be my mom.”