The Baker's Daughter (7 page)

“Good luck studying,” said Mr. Rose. With his girls on either arm, the trio had strolled out.

Closing the door behind them, Reba caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror nailed to the back. The image seemed in such stark juxtaposition to the pretty Roses that she immediately threw on a hooded sweatshirt and burrowed in the blankets of her dorm bunk like a rock vole.

She'd always been melancholic and unsatisfied with nearly everything about herself. Thick in places that should have been thin, flat chested and too tall, she'd never fit in with the high school cheerleaders and Glee Clubbers—the little sisters of her sister's friends. At sixteen, when her
daddy died, she pulled away completely and spent her lunches and afterschool hours in the journalism room over quiet newspaper spreads and silent photographs.

During Reba's first semester in college, Deedee suggested she take up a self-improvement activity: yoga, dance, swimming, art. Make a new beginning, she'd said. Reba profiled the university boxing club instead, lacing on a pair of gloves and sparring with a trainer. Everyone on campus knew her from the photographs in the
Daily Cavalier
: her lips bulging on the mouth guard; fuzzy, dark hair matted beneath the headgear; gloves up and ready. They thought she was an anomaly coming from the Adams family. Daughter of a commemorated Vietnam veteran and great-granddaughter to one of Richmond's largest ironworks owners. Deedee had been a celebrated debutante. Rosy-cheeked and always smiling, smart and witty, she was already in law school. While Reba … Reba was scribbling in her notebook and playing dress-up with the boys. She felt she was always letting her momma and sister down.

Thus, in a sudden strange twist of reason, she resolved to emulate Sasha, learn from her and hopefully channel her sophistication. First step: veganism. She did a quick library search on the lifestyle and diet. The basics were hard to swallow. No animal products. Period. Reba decided it might be worth it to be connected to a cause, to truly stand for something, but
all
of the animal kingdom seemed radical. So she chose cows. No yogurt or cheese, butter or beef. She'd save a cow with each declined bowl of ice cream—and did so for nearly three weeks.

Then Valentine's Day arrived, and Sasha reminded her that dairy cows were sucked of their mother's milk for the production of chocolate. Sasha and her boyfriend attended a PETA “Veggie Viagra” event, while Reba stayed home.

The sadness had returned stronger than ever that night, gnawing on her insides. The hungry wolf, her daddy had called it. In bleary binges, he'd described it to her and Deedee when they were girls: how it crept after him in the daylight shadows and shredded his nights to jagged fragments. Then he'd pour himself another amber glass, sip, smile, and playfully make them swear not to mention it to their momma. They'd agreed but kept their fingers crossed behind their backs. It didn't matter either way. Momma brushed it off, “Nothing but boogeyman tales. You know better than to take anything he says seriously when he's in one of his moods. Now go to bed and sweet dreams, my girls.”

After Daddy's death, Reba discovered his medical records while helping
to clean out his office. He'd had years of electroconvulsive treatments for severe depression, and up until the very week he died, he met each Thursday with a clinical psychiatrist at the Medical College of Virginia. Dr. Henry Friedel notated that predeployment, her daddy had suffered from chronic sadness, anxiety, and feelings of hopelessness; food binges followed by periods of no appetite; insomnia; inability to make decisions; unresolved guilt; extreme high-low mood swings; and an altered sense of reality. Reading his symptom list, she'd buckled: they could've been her own. Dr. Friedel further noted that all these preexisting symptoms were withheld from army recruiters and, thus, exacerbated by combat conditions.

Alongside the file was a volume of handwritten notes from her daddy's sessions. As she was lifting it into the brown packing box, a page came loose from the metal prongs and slipped to the ground. Though it was his private business, Reba's curiosity got the better of her and she'd read:

Reba stuffed the page back in the volume and immediately wished she could turn back time—snatch the page from the floor with closed eyes. She didn't want to know her daddy's secrets. Her own memories were dark enough. She'd packed the files down deep in the box and double-taped it shut with duct tape, hoping to seal in the past and bury Daddy's wolf for good.

But alone in her dorm room that Valentine's, she could hear its lonesome howl reverberating through her skin, so she went to the neon-lit campus minimart and bought a pint of milk and the biggest box of cherry bonbons on the shelf. “He's a lucky guy,” the student cashier had remarked. Reba had nodded and smiled, “Yes, he is.” She went home and ate the whole box herself, comforted by row upon row of cherry chocolates and the thought that the cashier imagined she had someone wonderful to share them with. She drank the milk straight from the container. As a forbidden fruit, it tasted even sweeter.

Later, when the jug began to sour in their trashcan, Sasha asked what the smell was. “Soy milk,” Reba replied. “I think it was a bad batch of beans.” Sasha had studied her for a moment, then shrugged, “I had that happen once. Buy the organic kind next time. It's always good.”

Just like that, it had begun. So trivial at first. Yet over a decade later, Reba was still lying. The problem was that her lies didn't stay contained to a jug. They cultivated like mold and grew on various parts of her life, rotting the fruits of her labors.

But fabrication seemed the easiest path to reinvention. She could forget about her family and childhood: her daddy's hysterical giddiness followed by deep spells of despondency; the smell of whiskey on his breath during nightly prayers; hiding in the closet, the lace of hems of church dresses tickling her nose; Daddy limp on the floor, rope burns purpling his neck; the sound of sirens and her momma's tears; the anger and guilt she felt standing over his grave because he'd taken the easy road out, because he'd left them all alone.

She needn't be that Reba. All it took was a story, and her family was as perfect as her momma pretended them to be. Daddy was a Vietnam hero, not the haunted man who put on a smile like a colorful tie until the knot started to choke.

She never understood why her momma made up so many excuses for him. If she'd acknowledged his illness to her daughters, maybe they could've helped him, saved him from hurting himself. Maybe the three of them could've loved him enough to make him well. But whenever Reba tried to place blame, she remembered when Daddy's voice growled through the walls, her momma's soft cries, shattered glasses, and the smell of pecan pancakes in the morning. Momma always made pecan pancakes the morning after one of Daddy's bad nights. They covered up the stink of bourbon in the floorboards. Cloyingly sweet, she and Deedee would eat heaping piles, eager to please, as if they were their last meals. Momma pretended for the same reasons Reba did—it felt nice to believe the lies. The only thing Reba knew for certain was Momma loved Daddy, and love could make a person turn a blind eye to just about anything. It terrified Reba to be so handicapped.

As she grew older, the desire to flee her reality grew. Sometimes in airports or train stations or any other transient place where she'd never see the people again, Reba professed to be someone else entirely, and what frightened her most was that for those moments, she believed her own deceptions.

Once, on the train from Richmond to Washington, D.C., she struck up a conversation with the businessman beside her, introducing herself as an Olympic speed skater meeting her teammates in the capital. The businessman paid for her lunch—his pleasure to dine with an athlete of such caliber. When they parted, a sudden wave of guilt made Reba sick to her stomach. She threw up the New York strip steak in the restroom and prayed to God she wasn't certifiable—multiple personality, psychotic, or manic like her daddy.

Moving west was her solution, a clean slate. She could be anybody she wanted. She could be herself. But then, she wasn't quite sure who that was. Her first encounter with Riki had been out of character, another attempt to act the part: the brazen reporter who jumped in bed after a handful of dates and said she believed in love at first sight. In truth, she only wanted to believe. She'd hoped declaring love aloud might be the all-inclusive cure to her heartache. When it wasn't, she began to wonder if love was enough.

This was why she didn't wear the engagement ring. If she married Riki, she had two choices: become the lies forever or expose her true self and risk losing him. She wished he could simply know her without her having to explain her past. Before she could marry anybody, she had to decipher where the truth ended and her lies began.

Headlights spun round the kitchen and a minute later, the front door opened.

“Reba?” Riki called.

“I'm in here.”

He came in and turned on the light. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”

The brightness burned Reba's corneas. “I wasn't in the dark. The stove light's on.”

“Practically the dark.” He pulled change and gum wrappers from his pocket and dumped them in the empty fruit bowl on the table. “Don't turn into a vampire on me.” He kissed the top of her head, took off his border patrol jacket, and sat.

“Long day?” She knew the answer by the hollows beneath his eyes.

“We picked up a family living out of their four-door in a Walmart parking lot. Pretty sad. Processing them back to Mexico tomorrow. The youngest is an infant. He'd been sitting in dirty diapers for God knows how long.” He scratched his cheek. “It gets under your skin. The father's just trying to give his family a better place—better life.”

The daily barrage of illegal immigration stories had long ago callused Reba's compassion. While usually Riki was on the US side, lately he seemed to be championing the Mexican nationals more and more. She couldn't keep up with whom he wanted her to empathize, so she slouched on the higher fence of principle.

“Don't make yourself the bad guy,” she said. “Like you always tell me, there are rules we have to follow. Otherwise, there are consequences.” She swallowed a milk-mushy crumb that came loose from her molar. “You get dinner?” she asked, a change of subject. “I stopped off at Rudy's after my interview and have some leftovers if you're hungry.”

“How'd that go?”

“Rudy's?” She didn't want to talk about the interview. “You know I love their smoked turkey.” She got up and went to the refrigerator.

“No, the profile you're writing, Miss Sun City.”

“It was fine. I have to go back though. You sure you don't want some?” She pulled the paper take-out bag from the shelf.

“I ate. You have to go back? Why? She blew you off in person, too?”

Reba shrugged. “I'll get what I want for the story. But right now, what I really want is …” She grabbed his hand and slid it around her waist. “To stop talking. I've been talk-talk-talking all day.” She knew how to change the subject for good.

He got up and pulled her close. “Whatever you say, boss.”

She breathed easy and led him upstairs. This was one thing that was always real, and she prayed Riki felt the whole truth in it.