Baker's Apprentice

by Judith Ryan Hendricks

  There are so many things I wish I could describe for you—the wind rushing in at night to fill the darkness, the soft, purring sound of snowfall, like a big cat. (Yes, there is a sound, but you can only hear it in absolute silence.) The snow we’ve had so far is so dry it’s almost weightless. Beautiful. And the sounds of the ice on the river. I couldn’t believe it the first time I went down there with Chris after it froze up.

  He says there’s a whole language of ice talk. The moaning of new ice when you walk on it; the natives say it’s the spirits of drowned people trapped underneath. The crack of a sheet of ice, splitting after a sudden change of temperature, like a gunshot. The small ticking sounds like insects in the evening as the temperature drops. The thunder of an ice shelf breaking off in the spring. That’s one I hope to hear soon.

  Last night I saw the aurora borealis—well, I’ve actually seen it several times, but the display was spectacular last night, first yellow and green, then changing to huge, undulating bars of blue and red. Some people say you can hear them. I didn’t, but to look at them, you would expect some kind of sound. I’ve read all the scientific explanations of charged particles and magnetic waves, but as usual, the natives have the more satisfying explanation. They say it’s the light from torches carried by old souls showing the newly dead the way to heaven. Whatever else happens, I think this is what I’ll remember of this place.

  It won’t surprise you to know that I’m not doing anything for Christmas. I am, however, going to Chris and Nora’s for Boxing Day (the twenty-sixth). New Year’s Eve—don’t know. Probably nothing. Or else listening to Elvis tapes with Chris and Nora.

  Below is your birthday present. Conveniently chosen to make exchanges for size or color unnecessary.

  Warming Trend

  South by southeast a different winter waits.

  Twice as startling, half as difficult,

  But just as mysterious as this ocean of snow.

  White sky falling

  White sky filling

  The horizon—

  Erasing all but the map

  Of rivers of dark curls on white linen,

  The crimson valley between the cinnamon slopes

  The warm sandy plain tumbling down to the lush delta

  With its sweet secret cove.

  Miss you

  Mac

  It’s dark when I get home. There are no lights on and the phone is ringing. I grab it, hoping Tyler’s still asleep.

  It’s Ellen, sounding reasonably normal. “I just wanted to tell you I’m going to open in the morning.”

  “Ellen, we’re okay—”

  “Don’t argue with me. I’m feeling just good enough to be grouchy. You and Tyler need to get some rest—”

  “Tyler and I aren’t sick. You are.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “You will be if you come back too soon.”

  “I want you guys to rest up because I’m going to need you on Sunday and Monday.”

  “Oh, the refrigerator guy’s coming tomorrow morning. And…I’m sorry to report that the lower oven is dying. A slow and protracted death.”

  She groans. “Perfect. Did you call Frank?”

  “I left a message with his service to come as early tomorrow as he possibly can.”

  “Of course we’re going to have to pay overtime for all these repairs.”

  I can’t think of anything good to say. “Well, call me if you change your mind. Otherwise I’ll see you in the morning.”

  On Sunday winter gets serious, with a downpour and plunging temperatures. I can’t believe how relieved I am to see it. I switch on my bedside lamp in the early darkness and lie in bed listening to the rain and reading Mac’s letter and the poem again. He actually remembered my birthday.

  Since Tyler stayed over and worked yesterday morning, I told her I’d go in today and she could be off. I stand in the kitchen for a minute, drinking orange juice and watching the runoff from the roof splatter on the top of the garbage can underneath the window. Then I go back in my room to slip into the jeans and T-shirt that I left under the covers all night to be warmed by my own body heat. I step into my Eddie Bauer rain ducks, put on my squall jacket, twist my hair up under my Dodgers baseball cap, grab my umbrella, and head for Queen Street.

  The bakery is still quiet, just a few early birds sipping lattes and reading their papers. Someone has replaced the bell over the bakery door with this obnoxious device that plays the first line of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

  “That thing’s not going to make it through the day,” I tell Ellen.

  “Does Ms. Scrooge need a triple this morning?” She looks improbably perky.

  “A quad sounds even better.” I take off my dripping coat and hang it in back where Misha and a sleepy Kristen are moving half sheets from the ovens to the cooling racks. The spicy scent of apple-cinnamon muffins mingles with the nutty aroma of cappuccinohazelnut scones. I grab an apron and wander back out front, slipping it over my head. “Did all the equipment get fixed?”

  “Yep. The oven problem was the wiring in the temperature gauge. Frank said it’s a wonder it didn’t start a fire, it was so badly corroded.”

  “So we dodged the bullet again.”

  She bangs the brew basket to dislodge the used grounds and sets up two double espressos for me. I hunt up my favorite cup, give it a blast of steam from the frother, and set it under the spout. The rich, dark liquid from two doubles nearly fills the cup.

  “Oh, by the way,” she says without looking up from the special orders she’s flipping through, “I couldn’t find the deposit receipt from Friday. Where did you put it?”

  I pick up my espresso, blow on it, and start to take a sip, but I pause with the rim of the cup at my lips, while scenes from Friday afternoon’s chaos pass before my eyes and light up, one at a time, like a slide presentation. Maggie getting burned. The pizza. Counting the till. Paychecks. The oven. Busing the café—

  “Wyn.”

  My heart stops while my mind races ahead. The last image. Tyler standing in the doorway, grinning. Holding up Mac’s letter. The blood drains from my face.

  Ellen looks at me questioningly.

  I grip the edge of the counter, swallowing drily. I turn my back to the customers and lower my voice. “Ellen. Oh God. I forgot. Everything was going nuts and I just…forgot.”

  “You forgot what?”

  “To make the deposit.”

  We stare at each other. In the work area, Misha and Kristen are dancing around the table to “Jingle Bell Rock.”

  Ellen puts the back of her hand on her forehead as if to check for fever. “So…where’s the money?” she says quietly.

  “In the cash box.”

  It still hasn’t gotten through my thick head yet. I’m still fretting because I got so engrossed in Mac’s letter that I forgot to go to the bank, like a goddamned lovesick teenager. Slowly I tune in to reality. She had to open the cash box yesterday. If the money had been there, she would have known I didn’t make the deposit.

  “No,” she says, making every word separate and distinct, “it’s not.”

  I move through the next two hours in a haze of anger and self-recrimination, punctuated with bracing shots of disbelief. When Rose comes in, Ellen and I retire to the storeroom. She shows me where she found the cash box, which is exactly where I put it. Exactly where we always put it.

  “When I opened it up, there was only one envelope, and it had the cash for Saturday morning in it. It kills me to think that somebody who works for us, somebody we know and who…” Her voice dissipates like smoke. “Who was in here Friday?”

  “Basically everybody. I did the money as soon as we closed the doors. We still had a million things to do.”

  She looks around. “But who was in here last?”

  Suddenly it all comes together. “Maggie.” I close my eyes, shaking my head in disbelief—whether of her colossal nerve or my colossal stupidity I can’t say.

  “I let her do inve
ntory because she burned her hand. I stayed out front and cleaned up the café.” I close my eyes. “Oh God, Ellen. I’m so, so sorry. I can’t believe I’m so stupid.”

  Ellen’s barely listening. “She has to know that we would have figured out by now that it was missing.”

  “But she doesn’t know that we know it was her.”

  “Maybe.”

  “She strikes me as one of those people who’s so arrogant, they think they couldn’t possibly get caught.”

  “She strikes me as desperate,” Ellen says thoughtfully.

  “Desperate?”

  “Yeah. I mean, they’ve most likely got plenty of money. Why would she steal our paltry little deposit?”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “Look, she’s not stupid. She knows we’ll figure it out before Monday. So what does she do?”

  I shrug.

  “She runs away.”

  “Runs away?”

  “Of course. Somewhere that Mr. Wonderful can’t find her. Or won’t bother. If he’s like most abusers, he probably keeps a pretty tight grip on the purse strings, so where does she get enough to disappear? I bet you anything she’s long gone.”

  Everything she’s saying makes sense, of course. In hindsight, a lot of things make sense.

  “So…how much was there?”

  “Two…” My voice cracks. “Two thousand and some change.”

  We sigh almost in unison.

  “Do you hate me? If I were you, I’d fire my ass.”

  She gives me a rueful little smile. “Are you kidding? Without you we’d have to close the doors tomorrow.”

  “Without my mother’s money, you mean.”

  “Dumbhead. You’re the one who makes the great bread. The one who managed to tame the wild blue-haired kid. Where would we be without you?”

  “About two grand ahead. I think I’m going to throw up.”

  “Oh, stop it. This isn’t a dark-night-of-the-soul kind of screwup. It’s just a plain old everyday garden-variety screwup.”

  I shake my head. “I didn’t even tell you the worst part.”

  “Okay, tell me the worst part and then we’ll get back to work.”

  “The reason I forgot to make the deposit is…” I bite the inside of my cheek. “Tyler came over with the mail. There was a letter from Mac, and I was in such a hurry to get finished so I could read it that I just…forgot.”

  She laughs. “If it’d been me, I would’ve sat down and ripped into it right then and there.”

  “I don’t guess we have insurance.”

  “Not for that.”

  “Ellen, I’ll pay every cent of it back.”

  She shakes her head and puts her arm around my waist. “Let’s worry about it later.”

  When we break for lunch, Ellen calls Maggie’s house.

  “Oh, hi. This is Ellen Liederman at the bakery. Is Maggie available?” I watch her face. “Oh. No, that’s fine. I didn’t know when she was planning to leave and I just had a question for her. No, it’s not that important. It can wait till she’s back. Thanks. Merry Christmas.”

  She sets the phone down. “Tony says she’s gone to spend Christmas with her mother. She should be back next Saturday.”

  “You think she’s actually coming back?”

  “Not if she has any sense. I’d also be willing to bet she’s not at her mother’s. Or if she is, she’s not staying long. I’d say she’s putting as much distance as possible between her and Tony as fast as she can. At least,” she adds, “I hope she is.”

  “Yeah, because if he doesn’t kill her, I will.”

  She punches me in the arm. “Hush. I know it’s awful, but we’ll survive.”

  Christmas Day is anticlimactic for Tyler and me. We never did get around to decorating a tree, so there are no signs of the holiday except a few cards attached to the refrigerator door with magnets. The most visible indications of what the season means to us are the dust bunnies we haven’t had time to sweep up, the basket full of dirty clothes that we haven’t had time to wash, and an unnamed seasonally green flora growing in the corners of the shower.

  We have scones and coffee for breakfast and exchange presents—I got her a fuzzy scarf and matching hat, in which she looks cuter than anyone has a right to. She got me a beautiful picture book of Toulouse. I haven’t told her about Maggie yet. I know what her reaction will be, and I hate to admit that she was right, even if it was for all the wrong reasons.

  At eleven A.M. she gets dressed and goes off to spend the day with her dad and stepmother, leaving me to deal with the dust bunnies, dirty laundry, and green stuff in the bathroom. My mother calls from Gary’s to wish me a merry Christmas, and I try to act as if I’m having a cozy, quiet, and thoroughly enjoyable celebration, but I don’t think I’ve fooled her. In the background I hear the cheerleader princess shrieking with laughter, probably due to sugar shock, and a sound track of unrelenting percussion.

  “Andrew got a drum set,” she says through clenched teeth.

  My quiet little house suddenly seems like a refuge.

  When the house is clean and the last load of clothes is tumbling around in the drier, I feel the gnawings of hunger. A quick survey of the refrigerator confirms my suspicion that there’s not much around to nibble on. I think the last trip to Thriftway was a week ago. We’ve been living on pizza and frozen leftovers for a while.

  I decide to make la fouace aux noix. Hearth bread with walnuts. It’s sort of festive without being too complicated, and I can take a loaf over to Josh and Turbo. I start rummaging through the pantry. White flour. Whole wheat. Yeast and salt. The remains of a bag of walnuts. In the fridge I find milk, but no butter. Damn. You can’t make fouace without butter.

  I shrug into my parka and dash out the front door, down the drive, and across the lawn in the stinging-cold rain. I barely get my hand to the door before I hear Turbo’s early-warning guard-dog howl.

  Josh opens the door with a glass in his hand. He’s wearing baggy jeans and a WAZZU sweatshirt with a colorful array of stains and spots on it. “Hey, Wyn.”

  “Hi, you guys. Merry Christmas.” When I lean forward to kiss his cheek, he smells like bourbon.

  “Come on in. It’s cold out there.”

  I follow him into the den, which I think used to be a bedroom. The place has been transformed since the last time I saw it. He’s ripped off the fake wood paneling, given the plaster a new coat of white paint, replaced the original oak trim and doors, taken up the gross brown carpet and refinished the oak floors, installed bookcases and a leather couch and one of those coffee tables made from a slab of redwood burl. A fire flickers softly in the brick fireplace. “This is gorgeous. I can’t believe it’s the same room.”

  “Thanks.” He picks up the remote and turns off the soccer game on the television.

  “You don’t have to turn off your game. Who’s playing?”

  “I have no idea. It’s just something to focus my eyes on.” I see in my peripheral vision the bottle of Jack Daniel’s sitting on the end table, half full.

  “Let me fix you a drink—”

  “I’m not really into the hard stuff—”

  “Actually, neither am I,” he says quickly. “I have a really nice bottle of cabernet I’ve been meaning to try. I bet you’re a red wine kind of girl.”

  “Um…actually I came over to borrow a stick of butter. I know it’s sort of tacky to borrow ingredients from someone to make him a present, but…I was going to make some bread.”

  I can see him deflate.

  “But, hey, it’s Christmas. I could use a glass of wine.”

  “Great. Turb and me are about up to here with our own company. You have a seat and I’ll be right back. Oh, here, give me your jacket.”

  The second my butt meets the couch, Turbo hops up next to me and lays his head on my thigh. “Are you supposed to be up here?” I whisper. He ignores the question, closing his eyes in contentment.

  “Where’s Tyler?” Josh calls from the kitc
hen.

  “She went over to see her dad.”

  “Where’s he live?”

  “Phinney Ridge.”

  “I hope she gets back okay. They’re saying this might turn to ice tonight.”

  “Well, I guess it won’t kill her to spend the night over there. We don’t have to work again till Thursday night.”

  He reappears with two crystal wineglasses and a bottle.

  “Beautiful goblets.”

  “Yeah. They belonged to Fran’s mother.” He looks at Turbo and laughs. “All I have to do is turn my back and you co-opt the best-looking woman in the room.”

  “I didn’t know if he was allowed up, but he seemed to know what he was doing.”

  Josh pours a glass of wine and hands it to me. “Theoretically he’s supposed to be on a towel, but he keeps taking the towel and hiding it somewhere.”

  We touch our glasses together. “Merry Christmas. Again.”

  He takes a big swallow. “Well, it’s Christmas, anyway. As for the merry part, I’m not convinced.”

  “Yeah. I’m not especially fond of Christmas either. At least not since my father died.”

  “When was that?”

  “Oh, about seventeen years ago. When he was alive we used to go to Lake Tahoe for the holiday. Rented a cabin. Sometimes we had snow. It was so beautiful.”

  “Then what? After he died.”

  “After he died my mother and I never knew what to say to each other. We didn’t have a lot to talk about the rest of the time either, but Christmas was even worse. We’d just kind of tiptoe around everything, ignoring the memories, pretending that we didn’t care. Then when I was married, it was a whole different thing. Lots of parties, presents, food, wine. I think my mother was uncomfortable with that. She didn’t come around much during the holidays.”