The Secret of Everything

by O'Neal, Barbara

  It was pretty quiet inside, with only a few customers lingering in the booths and dotting the counters. Tessa settled at the counter with her bag, and pulled out a notebook and pen and flipped back to the list of things she remembered.

  Songs. Whole folk songs. Lots of them.

  A blond woman who seems mean (probably my mother?).

  A black-and-white dog sleeping with me (Brenna).

  A sidewalk covered with colored chalk.

  Playing jacks with another girl (boy?).

  Playing hide-and-seek in really high grass or something.

  A big field. Getting scared and lost.

  Now she added:

  A white cat.

  A “tower” room.

  Playing with a little girl in that tower.

  The house painted the “wrong” colors.

  Splashing somebody in a baby pool, completely naked.

  A shoe-box doll bed.

  She leaned her forehead into her palm and peered at the page, as if more would appear.

  “Do you want to order something, hon?” asked a waitress.

  Tessa straightened. “Oh! Yes. Do you have any cinnamon rolls left?”

  “Sorry. Wanna look at a menu?”

  “Sure.” But she didn’t. Her heart was set on a cinnamon roll. So set that, to her horror, she felt strongly as if she might cry about it. It was absurd, and she kept her head bent over the menu until the overwhelming emotion passed. “Um …”

  “Today is the day for baked French toast,” said another woman.

  Tessa looked up to find Vita standing there, all ropy leanness and kind eyes. The first time she’d been here, Vince had tried to convince her to eat the French toast. “All right, I’m game.”

  Vita put the menu back in its holder. “Coming right up.”

  In the kitchen, Vita gave the order to her cook and went back to the task she’d left, which was clearing off the stainless-steel counter in the center of the room so that she could make cinnamon rolls for the week. They were a signature item at the café, and Vita had planned to give Annie a lesson in preparing the dough this afternoon. To that end, she’d prepared two batches of dough, an hour apart, and now pulled out the ingredients for the third. She didn’t make fresh rolls every day—it would be too time consuming—but kneaded, rolled, and shaped the rolls to be frozen. They could then be pulled out, thawed, and allowed to rise a second time, and baked day by day.

  Through the pass-out window, she could see the woman from the tour company. Tessa. She reminded Vita of someone, but try as she might, Vita couldn’t bring it in. It was gestures as much as anything, the way she sighed just now and tapped her pen against the page between bursts of writing.

  Pretty, with that crazy tumble of wavy blond hair, as shiny as a child’s because she didn’t put anything on it. Or wear much makeup. Her body was lean and long-limbed, but not at all delicate. She exuded confidence and strength, even arrogance.

  And sadness. It quivered around the edges of her all the time, something a bit lost, hungry. Lonely, maybe.

  When the plate of French toast was ready, Vita carried it out herself and put down a small glass bowl of powdered sugar with a spoon. “Do you want fruit? We have some peaches from Green Gate.”

  Tessa’s head popped up. “Do they have orchards there, too?”

  “The orchard is where it all started. The Spanish brought peach trees with them, and they flourished. When the Nathan brothers came here in the late sixties, they bought the orchard and all the ranch land around it.”

  “Well, then I really should have some peaches, shouldn’t I?”

  “Be right back.” She headed into the kitchen, dished out some peaches, and popped them in the microwave for thirty seconds. While she waited for the bell to ding, she dismissed the dishwasher and the fry cook and told Annie to go smoke a cigarette before they got moving.

  “I don’t smoke,” Annie said, offended.

  “Good, then. Have a little break and stretch your legs. We’ll start the rolls in about twenty minutes.”

  Annie saluted her. Vita watched the woman go, and it seemed that even in a week she was standing straighter. That was what cooking and kindness could do for a person. Carrying the dish of peaches out to Tessa, Vita had an idea. “Do you bake?”

  “Not really,” she said, dumping all the peaches over the bread. There were shadows under her eyes and Vita wanted to smooth her brow. “I’m on the road all the time, you know?”

  “Want to help bake some cinnamon rolls this afternoon?”

  “Really?” Tessa’s eyes, a strange pale green like new spring shoots, lit up. “That would be a blast, actually. I’d love it.”

  Vita tapped the counter. “Good, then. Finish up and we’ll get started.”

  Tessa felt shy walking into the kitchen, even though Vita was leading her. “Annie,” Vita said, “this is Tessa, and she’s also going to be making rolls with us. You can wash your hands at that sink over there, Tessa.”

  Annie gave her a nod, and Tessa recognized the feline-looking woman from the graveyard behind the church. “Hi.” Vita took an iPod out of a dock. “Any suggestions?” Tessa waited to see if Annie would say anything, and when she shook her head, Tessa said, “Do you have any Crosby, Stills and Nash?”

  “Why, yes,” Vita said, raising an eyebrow. “I do.”

  “I just heard ‘Helplessly Hoping’ in the car.” A wisp of the yearning wove through her chest. She felt very unsettled today, almost dizzy.

  “I don’t have that one, but let’s see what we can do. I love it when somebody who isn’t ancient knows my music.”

  “I grew up with it,” Tessa said. “My dad’s a surfer and hippie from way back.”

  “Is that so? Where’s your dad?”

  “California.”

  Vita nodded. She put the iPod in its deck and came over to the table. “All right, ladies, we’re going to make cinnamon rolls here today. Since I knew I was going to show Annie here how to do it, I’ve already got one batch of bread dough rising, which we’ll work with in a few minutes, and I’m going to start a fresh one so you see how to do it.”

  Tessa hummed along with the music, watching as Vita illustrated the first steps of the process. “I like to give the yeast a head start,” she said, “by letting it dissolve in a little sugar water. The trick with yeast is that it’s easily killed if the temperature is wrong, so imagine you need it to feel barely warm to your fingers.” She pushed the bowl toward each of them. They took turns sticking their fingers into the water to test it, and both nodded.

  Vita measured yeast out of a large dark jar and sprinkled it over the top of the water. It piled up, then skidded into the lake and started to dissolve. Almost immediately it started to grow.

  “Cool,” Annie said.

  “It is cool,” Vita agreed. “Bread is magical.”

  Tessa breathed in the smell with pleasure, surprised at how it eased the tension in her shoulders. They found a bag to put over her cast.

  “Kneading bread is one of the most therapeutic things I know of,” Vita said. She sprinkled flour over the entire surface of the counter and slapped down the dough she had ready to go, divided into three pieces, one for each of them. “It’s going to be sticky to start with, but just keep kneading and it will get better. If it’s too sticky, dust it with a little more flour.”

  “How do you know if it’s too sticky?” Annie asked. Tessa was surprised by how beautiful her speaking voice was—low and mellifluous, almost hypnotic.

  “You’ll know,” Vita said.

  Annie shot Tessa a worried look, like, Is this scary or what? Tessa widened her eyes in agreement.

  “You knead bread by folding it,” Vita said, “and then pressing the heel of your hand into the fold, like this.” She folded, pressed, folded, pressed. “Now you guys try it.”

  Both women pulled their dough toward them and followed Vita’s lead. Tessa loved the way it felt, spongy and cold, and how it started to change under her palm
as she kneaded it. “Cool,” she said, and at almost the exact same moment, Annie said, “Awesome,” and they both laughed.

  Vita nodded. “I’m telling you, cooking is a very healing thing.” Her lean arms showed muscle as she kneaded her own dough. “Keep it steady. We have to knead this particular dough for fifteen minutes.”

  Tessa could feel the action in her biceps and forearm. “This would be a good way to build up my arm when I get this cast off.”

  “How much longer do you have to wear it?” Annie asked.

  “Three more weeks. It’s been in a cast all summer. I broke it in two places.” She punched the dough with extra force. “I’m pretty sick of it.”

  “I broke my right arm in two places,” Annie said. “It was so itchy. That was what I hated.”

  “And it’s so awkward.” Tessa flung the arm around. “So heavy!”

  “How long are you going to be in town, Tessa?” Vita asked. Her movements were smooth and rhythmic, like a Buddhist meditation, pull and turn, fold and press; pull and turn, fold and press.

  “Not sure exactly, since it will depend on how fast I get all the research done, but I’m also having a good time here. I might hang around for a couple of weeks just to enjoy myself.” She turned the dough, rolled the heel of her hand into it, turned, rolled. It felt clammy. “This morning I went to Green Gate Farms, and on Sunday I walked to the lake, but I still need to check out the other hiking trails around here and probably do the pilgrimage route to see what it’s like.”

  “What kind of hikes?” Annie asked.

  “That’s what I need to find out, really. There are tons of trails, so I guess I need to find out which ones would suit my demographic.” She stopped to pluck a glob of stuck dough from the back of her hand. “Do you know, Vita? Any suggestions?”

  “I’m a runner more than a hiker, but I’ve run on hundreds of miles of trails around here. You two should go.”

  Annie shot Tessa a shy look. “I’m not very good. I’m also not sure how far I could go.” She gave Vita a meaningful look. “If you know what I mean.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m a little hobbled at the moment myself,” Tessa said, sticking out her foot. “Still recovering from an accident. I’d love the company if you want to come along.”

  “Maybe,” she said, in a thin little voice.

  It plucked the cheerleader in Tessa’s breast, and she thought painfully of Lisa looking up to her with clear pride on her young face. Maybe she ought to make peace with that before she dragged anyone else out on a hike.

  Tessa watched as Annie kneaded her own ball of dough. She had tattoos around both wrists, in delicate beautiful colors. “Those are beautiful tattoos,” she said.

  Annie seemed pleased. “Thanks,” she said shyly. “I drew them myself.”

  “Really? Are you a tattoo artist?”

  “No. I just like to draw.”

  Tessa bent in to look closely. The design was elaborate and stylized, sophisticated. “Impressive.” She frowned. “I was noticing some guy’s tattoos the other day. Maybe I should get one. I wear so many bracelets, it would be like having permanent jewelry.”

  Annie and Vita laughed. “Think about it before you leap in, sweetie,” Vita said. “They don’t go away.”

  “Do you have a tattoo?”

  Vita paused and pulled aside her T-shirt, showing a name tattooed on her upper chest. Jesse. “He was an abuser and a bastard, and I keep it to remind me to never let a man take over my life that way again.”

  “Beautiful,” Annie said. She held up her left hand. “I had the girls in jail give me a tattoo ring on my wedding-ring finger for the same reason. Never again.”

  Tessa looked at her own bare hands, thinking how badly she’d wanted a ring from Glenn, something to tattoo her, brand her to the world as his woman. Not a diamond or jewels, just a simple gold band.

  Unity. Family.

  Vita said quietly, “How about you, Tessa? If you had a tattoo to remind you of something, what would it be?”

  She folded the bread, pressed it down, saw Lisa’s terrified face as she went under the rushing water. “I don’t know how I would symbolize it,” she said finally, “but I’d put something to remind me of the sin of hubris.”

  “What’s hubris?” Annie asked.

  “Too much pride.”

  Vita met her eyes, a glitter deep in them. “A skull and cross-bones?”

  Tessa thought of her dad, with his single earring and pirate ways. “Oh, that would be priceless, for so many reasons.”

  “Better to have too much pride,” Annie said, “than not enough.”

  Tessa looked at her, seeing the scars, the piercings, her brittle thinness. Annie met her gaze evenly. Proudly.

  “It’s a lot harder to break someone who has a lot of pride,” Vita said.

  “That’s true.” Tessa poked a finger into the dough. “Where does that come from?”

  “Good parents,” Vita said.

  “Someone to tell you that they think you’re the greatest,” Annie said.

  “I definitely had that. Have it,” Tessa said.

  “Good parents?”

  “No mom. Great dad.”

  “The surfer?” Vita asked.

  “Yeah. And he is that person, you know, who always said that I was the best, the most beautiful, the smartest. Whatever. I am the apple of his eye, and I always have known it.” The other two were looking at her with such longing that she said, “I guess I’m lucky, huh?”

  “Yes,” Vita said. “My mother was fine, but sort of ineffectual, you know? Really a prisoner of her times. My father just didn’t register girls. He spent all his energy on my brother.”

  Annie punched her dough so hard that both women looked at her. “I lived in foster homes most of my whole life. In Albuquerque, mostly.”

  “That sucks,” Tessa said.

  “It did,” Annie agreed. “It totally did.” She took a breath. “But I’m looking forward in my life, not back.”

  “Bravo,” Vita said. “It’s really all we’ve got, isn’t it?”

  Tessa said, “But if you don’t know where you’ve been, how can you know where you’re going?”

  “Oh, I know where I’ve been,” Annie said.

  Tessa felt suddenly ashamed to be poking around in her little identity angst when she’d had so much more than either of these two, when her problem was too much pride instead of not enough.

  “Are you guys ready to add the cinnamon?” Vita said.

  “Yes!”

  Vita rolled the dough out very thinly on the floured surface of the steel work space. “We need to have a fairly even rectangle,” she said, folding down a round edge and rolling her heavy marble rolling pin over it. Tessa and Annie, stationed at either end of the table, imitated her as best they could. “A little thinner, Tessa,” she said. “Very good, Annie. Get that corner a little more square. It’s not desperately important, but you’re kind of a perfectionist, so you’ll like getting it exactly right.”

  Annie smiled, a crooked half smile that made her look about twelve.

  Vita dipped a pastry brush in melted butter and brushed it over the dough until it glistened. “Cover the whole thing,” she said. “Then sprinkle the cinnamon mixture over it. It doesn’t have to be perfectly even, Annie. It’s kind of fun to have surprises.”

  Tessa found herself humming under her breath as she rolled the dough into a tight, long tube, and she stopped to listen to what it was.

  “Come all ye rolling minstrels,” she began to sing aloud, “and together we will try to rouse the spirit of the earth …”

  “Those that dance will start to dance,” sang Vita along with her.

  And Annie, too, said, “Hey, I know that song!”

  “It’s on the folk-song loop,” Vita said, nodding at her iPod dock. “Fairport Convention. It’s good music for the rush.”

  “Ah, that’s it.”

  Tessa smiled, pinching the edges of the loaf, and sang, �
��Come all ye rolling minstrels,” and the other two joined in, “and together we will try to rouse the spirit of the earth …”

  When the cinnamon rolls were baked, they sat at the table in the back of the kitchen, muscles aching, and ate them freshly out of the oven, covered in fresh butter cut in thick pats and allowed to melt into the hot bread. It was, Tessa thought, one of the best foods she had eaten in her life.

  Ever.

  When she got back to her room, Tessa tried to make notes on all the information she’d collected today, but her brain refused to do one more task. Leaving the French doors open to the late-afternoon breezes, she sprawled on the bed, flat on her belly, arms flung upward, and fell instantly asleep. She dreamed in fragments. Music and a red bike and a fire and something about pie.

  It was the wind that awakened her. It slammed with sudden and muscular strength into the day, bringing clouds that smelled of rain, gusting and bellowing, knocking over a chair on the balcony and swinging the wind chimes into a frenzy of clanging. A scatter of loose cottonwood leaves flew into the room through the open doors like giant confetti.

  Tessa rolled over to her side and looked out to the darkening sky, feeling suddenly lonely. Why had she come here? Why did she still think she had to wander all over the universe instead of picking a place to settle in?

  Partly because she didn’t really have any other job to do. Tourism had been her career for nearly sixteen years.

  She missed her father. He was the through line in her world, the one thing that stayed the same, year after year, move after move. She always missed him when she first left Santa Cruz on one of her long breaks. No one had ever “got” her like her dad, got her jokes, got it when she was cranky and tired and didn’t want to talk, or listened endlessly when she was in a mood to talk and talk and talk. She missed the dogs. Missed Peaches curled up on her bed whenever she woke up. Missed Sam’s eclectic music collection—all on CDs and vinyl, of course, since he wouldn’t buy a computer, and an iPod required a computer.

  She’d get over missing her dad again, but today the contrast of having had his easy companionship every day to being alone again made her life seem kind of pathetic. Maybe she was tired of traveling all the time. She’d be forty in three years. Maybe it was time for a change.