I clang and clatter about the kitchen nearly as loud as Tee, and the staff avoids me as I sidestep the looks they shoot one another from various corners of the room. It’s another layer of tension added to the day; no one has come out and directly asked about Jonathan’s visit, but it’s been whispered about enough, and both Xavier and Jude knew about it when I came in this morning. “You had a visitor yesterday,” Xavier said, and when I didn’t respond, he asked, “Care to talk about it?”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
And I couldn’t. Can’t. Because I haven’t the slightest idea where I stand in the midst of it all.
It’s not the show that has ensnared me. I don’t want to be on television. I want the things the show allows—the travel, the interaction with other lovers of bread, a chance to help people appreciate something simultaneously a simple staple of life for so many in the world and yet so intricate in its history, its science, its art. I think of Xavier’s words, of ego, passion—and if the difference between the two is as distinct as he seems to believe. No. They are parent and child, one birthed from the other, a chicken-and-egg scenario and it doesn’t matter which comes first. I already have Paris and Germany, my Bake-Off winnings tucked away for my trip, the one I plan to take in the unhurried weeks of February next year. Now it’s not enough with the world dangling before me.
Finally, I’m alone in the kitchen, Tee and Rebekah and Gretchen gone home for the night. I feed my starters and mix three batches of dough I’d rather Kelvin not touch, and think about how much more full I feel when Seamus comes to help. I wash my hands and, picking up the phone, scroll through the previously dialed numbers until I find his. I don’t call yet, wanting to wait until Cecelia is in bed. Instead, I take the phone upstairs with me and try to keep busy. A shower. A load of laundry. Some time paging through old cookbooks I’ve collected over the years, mostly at rummage sales or used-book stores. A few minutes of some banal movie. As soon as the microwave reads nine, I take the phone into the bedroom and close the door. “It’s me,” I say when he answers. “Do you have a minute?”
“Okay.” He sounds tired and cautious. Water runs in the background; he washes the dishes after Cecelia falls asleep.
“Jonathan Scott came yesterday to offer me a cooking show.”
“Like, a real one on that food channel?”
“Yes.”
I hear him turn off the faucet. “What did you say?”
“Nothing yet. I’m still in shock.”
“What’s Xavier think about it?”
“He doesn’t know. No one does.” I hesitate. “Except you, now.”
“Oh,” he says, and the single syllable echoes with every uncertainty both he and I have in regard to each other. Seamus is braver than I am, though. He recognizes I’ve reached out to him, and while he doesn’t understand why—I’m not certain I do either—he’s willing to be the one to expose his heart first. “I’m here, whatever you decide.”
“I know,” I say.
The line, the miles, between us bloat with silence. We’re both so unsure of it all, clumsy with our emotions. He’s been torn apart by a divorce and has a child to protect. I’m still nursing the wounds of a twelve-year-old who found her mother dead in the garage. “Then I guess I’ll let you go,” Seamus says. “You have to get up way before I do.”
“Wait. Will I see Cecelia after school again?”
“I don’t know, Liesl. I don’t want you to feel obligated to have her there.”
“I don’t. Really. I’ll miss her if she doesn’t come.” I swallow. “I’ll miss you, if I don’t see you when you pick her up.”
“Well, when you put it like that,” he says, each of his words dressed in a grin, “I guess we’ll both see you tomorrow.”
That wasn’t so hard, I think as I turn off the phone. Not hard at all.
Sixteen
We’re two magnets of the same pole, my father and I, an invisible force keeping us apart. That force is his God, an ever-increasing intrusion in our lives. He goes to the church two, sometimes three or four days a week. He hums. He reads thick, gilded-edged books in the living room, under the floor lamp, multicolored highlighters on the arm of the sofa. He tries to love me better, probing all those places I used to let him into, asking about schoolwork, friends, activities.
I want none of it. He’s allowing his God to replace my mother. It hurts less, he says over the phone; now I don’t listen at the closed door of the library but hold down the mute button and pick up the receiver in my bedroom. It’s getting better.
Not for me. I forget how to function without pain. When any moment of confusion comes, of anxiety or stress, I find the hairbrush. The leg beatings increase from once every week or two, to almost every day, sometimes twice a day. I buy a brush with a larger, flatter head and carry it with me in a purse I buy for it. I bring it to school and wait until all the girls leave the bathroom before slapping my thighs. The bruises puddle there, purple, blue, brown, green, speckled red—the colors of grapes and dried berries and wine—a large stain on each leg spreading from groin to five inches above my knee. I draw a line there, in black Sharpie, retracing every several days. My barbed wire fence, keeping the damage contained, the bruising from dripping low enough for someone else to see.
In gym class I wear bicycle shorts beneath my Umbros, the Spandex a second skin, tight and long enough to keep my self-inflicted injuries concealed even as I run the field. I’m not the only girl to make such a fashion statement, and no one pays attention to me. Most of my friends have drifted away months ago. I understand. I have the tinge of death all over me while the adolescents charging through the halls of the high school have yet to experience more trouble than forgetting their lunch money, or getting detention two afternoons in a row, or painful menstrual cramps. Their mothers never told them of grief, and they step over the pieces tumbling from my body; I can’t collect them quickly enough to keep me whole.
The gym teacher wants me to collect the cones and flags. I do, carrying them inside with a cardboard box of mesh blue and gold pinnies. She’ll give me a pass if I’m late, and I will be, lingering in the equipment room until I know the locker area is clear. The pass isn’t necessary, though—I’ve become one of the forgotten things, an unmatched sock crammed in the back of the drawer, a candy wrapper on the sidewalk. Something no one notices until it’s the only pair of socks that matches a suit worn once a year, or until the wrapper sticks to the bottom of someone’s shoe and he’s forced to peel it away and throw it in the trash. The teachers pay me no mind until grades are due, or the guidance counselor asks how I’m doing in their classes. And I do well enough to keep from drawing attention, camouflaged in the safety of the mean.
Or so I think.
As I change from my gym clothes, I hear the locker room door open and she’s watching me, Sara Kempf, cheerleader, honor student, and the most popular girl in school. We’ve not exchanged more than a mouthful of words since the beginning of the year. I’m wearing my blouse but haven’t removed the bike shorts yet. I don’t know what else to do but stare back.
It’s smart, to use your legs, she says.
I don’t know what you’re talking about, I tell her, but my entire body ignites beneath her scrutiny.
She wears her cheer uniform, complete with a Spandex undergarment beneath the skirt, not nearly as long as the shorts I wear. Carefully, she stretches the elastic hem of the shorts and lifts, exposing a slender, irritated line. A healing cut, shimmering with ointment. I got caught because I did it on my arms at first.
I don’t cut.
You do something.
I hesitate, and then remove my own shorts.
Sara doesn’t react, other than to press her perfect lips together. I talk to someone now.
A shrink.
It helps.
I see that, I say, jerking my head toward the scratch on her own thigh.
I hardly need to do it anymore.
Thanks for the PSA.
&nbs
p; Nodding, she readjusts her uniform. You can find me around, she says, if you want to, and spins to leave, her body with the control of a gymnast, the control of someone who can slide a razor blade across her own flesh and draw blood.
In three long steps I’m peering around the end of the locker wall, the bottom half of my body hidden again from her. Wait. How did you know?
She turns toward me, a Mona Lisa of a smile appearing and disappearing as quickly as the shrug of her shoulders, and, pulling the handle of the door, she leaves.
We have dinner together at Wild Rise, the three of us, and I cook. Seamus offers, but I admit I fear what he’ll serve. Cecelia tells me it’s often boxed Kraft macaroni and cheese or hot dogs. Seamus insists he can whip up food to rival Jonathan Scott, and when I look at him with something well beyond disbelief, he reminds me of the fiber tour and his spinning. “I am a man of many hidden talents. They’re just wasted on a six-year-old.”
“Daddy, I’m seven now.”
I don’t cook well either, but don’t tell him that. The bakehouse always has homemade tomato sauce around for its pizza days, a thick, roasted flavor instilled by the more than twelve hours of slow simmering upon which Tee insists. Cecelia’s new favorite food is farfalle, which she tells us tastes much better than plain ol’ spaghetti because “it just does.” And it’s cuter than spaghetti too. So I boil two boxes of semolina bows, planning to send her home with plenty of leftovers.
Cecelia sets out plates and glasses; we’re eating in the kitchen, on stools, around the proofing table. I drain the pasta and add sauce. Seamus pesters me to let him help; I give him a knife and direct him to the cooling garlic bread. He slices it with precision, each piece appearing, to the naked eye, exactly the same size. He layers them in a linen-lined basket.
“Show-off,” I say.
“I told you.”
My mother was skilled in hospitality, reveling in the details of pretty printed napkins and slices of lemon in a glass of water, and those finishing touches of ribbon and cocoa powder few think of but all see and recognize as special. I can’t be bothered to get caught up in those things. Throw the still-warm pot of food on the table—I will remember a trivet so the wood isn’t scorched—and let everyone serve themselves. But I won’t be outdone by Seamus. I spoon the farfalle into a ceramic bowl, grate on fresh parmesan, and tuck a sprig of Tee’s parsley on top.
“Ooh, pretty,” Cecelia says.
Seamus rolls his eyes.
“Let’s eat,” I tell them both.
Cecelia asks the blessing and Seamus serves her food. She asks for more, but he tells her to finish the mountain of pasta he’s given her first and have some salad.
“I only like the cucumbers and tomatoes, and there aren’t any,” she complains. “Lettuce makes me choke.”
“I can slice some cucumber for you,” I say. “Skin or no skin?”
“No skin.”
“Let Liesl eat,” Seamus says, but I’m up already, digging a cucumber from the crisper and then looking through Tee’s drawers for a peeler. I try not to disturb anything, but will hear it on Monday, I know. “Ta-da,” I say, presenting a dish of pale green rounds.
“Thank you,” Cecelia says.
“You are more than welcome.”
We listen to Cecelia chatter about first grade, how she likes it so much better than kindergarten because they don’t have to take naps anymore, and she hates to take naps at school—the floor is always cold, even through her mat, and if she’s the one on the end next to the bookcase, she wakes up with gray balls of fuzz in her hair because the bottom of her ponytail likes to sneak under the shelf while she’s sleeping.
“Your hair,” I say.
She nods, looking at me with round, serious eyes. “Sometimes it has a mind of its own.”
I shift on the stool, keeping my legs crossed, awkward in the new skirt I wear, one of three I bought last week when Seamus mentioned having dinner. All women eventually care about how they look, don’t they? I tell myself I’m a late bloomer.
“So,” Seamus says. He swallows almost his entire glass of iced tea. “Anything . . . new?”
He wants to know if I’ve decided about Jonathan Scott’s offer. I shake my head, because I haven’t. The only other person I’ve told is Xavier. When the large FedEx envelope came, I simply handed it to him and asked him to look through it. The next morning he motioned me out to the back delivery area with his eyes and, once I was with him, asked me if I was seriously considering doing the show.
“Considering? I guess I am. I don’t know how seriously, though.” I didn’t tell him that his own words taunt me, the ones he spoke on regret and ego and wanting more. A television show is the most more I could imagine. “Would you do it?”
“In an instant,” he said.
“That doesn’t help me.”
“Are you looking for a reason to say no?”
“I’m looking for someone else to give me one.”
Xavier clucked his tongue. “You won’t find it here.”
I don’t want to want the show; that’s my problem. I want to believe I’m above such things, that Wild Rise is enough for me. Seamus tells me to pray about it, and I try, but either I fall asleep while doing so or I stare at the darkened ceiling in my bedroom, hearing all manner of answers in my head, unsure if any are from God.
I poke at my noodles. Seamus stabs his; they fall from his fork and he uses his fingers to push them on again. Cecelia waves her spoon at him. “It’s easier like this,” she says.
“Real men don’t use spoons. Except for cereal. And ice cream,” he tells her.
The phone rings. After hours I will let the machine deal with it, but I’m thankful for the distraction. I reach over and snatch it from the cradle. “Hello, Wild Rise.”
“Hi, yes. I’m looking for Liesl McNamara.” A woman’s voice.
“This is she.”
There’s silence.
“Hello?” I ask.
“I’m sorry. I just can’t believe I’m talking to you. We saw you on television and we—oh, you don’t need to hear any of—”
“Who is this?”
“My name is Dana. Dana Preston. My mom thought it would be easier if I, well . . . if I did the calling. Oh, I don’t know now. She’s here. I’m going to get her to come to the phone—”
“I’m sorry, Dana. I’m in the middle of dinner now. Would it be okay if—”
“You’re my sister,” the woman blurts.
I blink. “Excuse me?”
“Well, half sister. We share a mother.”
I laugh, a part-nervous, part-annoyed titter. “That’s not possible.” Seamus looks at me, brows low. Shakes his head slightly and mouths, What’s going on? I wave him off. “My mother didn’t have any other children.”
“Not Claudia McNamara.” She says it the American way—claw, claw, Clawdia—and images of my mother’s funeral assault me. The broken trough on the floor. My broken father on the floor. Something, though, worms even deeper. “Mary Preston. My mother. Your biological mother. She was Mary Lombardi then.”
“Look, I don’t know what kind of—” I am saying words, but the woman on the other end of the line is talking over me, things about dates and towns and being too young, and will I wait a minute because some other person wants to say something but can’t because she’s crying, there’s too much crying, and finally I can’t take the roar anymore. My head is filled with sand crabs and burial urns and the crashing of the waves against my skinny seven-year-old legs.
I hang up.
“Liesl?” Seamus is on his feet, at my elbow. I blink, waver. He steadies me. “What’s going on?”
Laugh it off. Say it was a wrong number. A prank. Sit down. Finish dinner. Ignore. Bury. Let the waves come in and sweep it all away. I can’t follow any of my brain’s commands, however. For the first time in years I want a hairbrush and a locked bathroom, and five minutes to beat my thighs until my skin splits.
“Liesl?” he asks again.
“Just go.”
Cecelia hunches beneath her sweatshirt. She’s pulled the hood up and sucks the ends of the drawstring. Her hair, French braided today, won’t reach her mouth. She whimpers a little.
“No, I’ll go,” I say, shaking Seamus from my arm and finding my way upstairs to the apartment, my entire body a pulsing mass of heat and thundering blood. You look like your father’s Aunt Elinor, they told me. They showed me photos. They wiped globs of green mucus from my toddler nose, stayed up all night with me during my second-grade bout with chicken pox, fed me, clothed me. Loved me. My father taught me to drive. My mother taught me bread.
I’m in the bathroom, the hairbrush on the counter. The threeday stubble on my legs stands upright with anticipation. I look in the mirror, face pale except for two rouge-red circles on each cheek—no, deeper than red. Purple, in that bloody, recently butchered meat way. If your right eye offends you. Taking the brush in both hands, I position it over the edge of the vanity, bristles scratching the Formica as I press down with one hand on that side, with the other hand on the handle until it snaps off.
I fling both parts into the shower.
There’s a story in the Grimm Brothers’ German Tales about a poor widow whose only child dies, and it grieves the woman more than anything that this child has no shoes. Her beloved cannot be buried barefooted, so she bakes shoes of bread and puts them on the child’s feet, and the coffin is lowered into the ground. But the child will not rest, appearing again and again to its mother in anguish, and this continues until the townspeople dig the coffin from the earth and replace the shoes of bread with shoes of leather.
This is bread sin. Giving loaves to the dead is an honor. Placing it on their feet is a horror, for now they must walk upon the sacred food for eternity.
And more stories are told. A woman is turned to stone for rubbing bread on her son’s clothes. Cities sink into the sea because the people who live there use bread to block rats from leaving their holes. Even Shakespeare, in his Hamlet, writes of a baker’s daughter who, after refusing bread to the Savior, is transformed into an owl. These fables infiltrate the world over, told and retold, heightening the importance of bread to levels reserved for God himself. In Germany, the bakers won’t turn their backs to an oven, as it’s disrespectful. Loaves are not to be laid on a table without cloth or cover, so the “friend of man will not have a hard bed.” Even today, in some cultures, bread dropped on the floor is quickly retrieved and kissed, a holy apology.
Stones for Bread Page 21
