by Jill Malone
“Thanks for meeting me. The agent said she’d give us half an hour to look around; she’s got an appointment at four. A staffer’s still in the kitchen, stocking the walk-in.”
Inside, Liv stood by the cash register, looking the place over: a long, narrow room with high ceilings and bad paint; on the far side of the room, a beautiful wooden bench built into the wall, eliminating the need for a second chair at the two-top tables; on the side of the table opposite the bench, a single wooden chair. Beyond the counter on which the cash register stood, a display case ran the length of this side of the room, to the doorway of the kitchen. A simple setup, maximizing space and functionality; the display cases in excellent condition, as were the table and chairs.
“The cash register is kind of awkward,” Bailey said, “at the head of the display cases like that, but it does create a nice flow to the display area. Come around this side.” On the backside of the display cases: six feet of workspace, and two well-kept espresso machines.
“The cases are in beautiful shape, and the furniture,” Liv said.
“Come see the kitchen.”
The dishwasher and the standing refrigerator needed replacing, but the ovens and walk-in were faultless. Liv checked the electrical and the plumbing and approved both. They walked back through the dining area, and outdoors again.
“New paint, a couple of new appliances, some art on the walls,” Liv said, examining the exterior of the building—red brick with two shades of yellow for the trim.
“New pots and pans, dishes, utensils,” Bailey added. “But the bathroom’s pristine, and the layout. This is such a brilliant location. This could be perfect. Just small stuff really.”
“I agree.”
“Do you? Do you agree?”
“Yeah.”
“So the speech about risk and stress?”
“I meant it; but this feels right to me. This feels like the place for you. And you’re ready for this step. I know you are.”
Bailey smiled, chewed on her lower lip. “Did she tell you about yesterday?”
Liv nodded.
“I totally fucked that up. I don’t know why even. One minute you’re telling me, Don’t do it, and the next Claire’s offering me the money to do it, and then I start insulting her—totally dismissing her proposal. I actually said it might be the worst idea I’d ever heard.”
“Talk to her.”
“She cried for like hours. If I’d kicked Simon, that might have been worse.”
“Talk to her. Bring her out here. Draw up a proposal, the two of you.”
“Liv, it was so bad. I can’t explain even. I pissed all over her. She offers me the chance to have this bakery—she practically hands it to me—and I start attacking her character. I don’t know how to fix that.”
“Talk to her. Today. Come back with me now.”
Bailey cocked her head back, stared into the sky. “Fuck me,” she muttered. They walked to the truck, climbed in.
In Simon’s room, Claire had thrown the windows wide, two fans pulsing, as she finished painting a dolphin. They’d stenciled sea creatures on the walls: a shark, a sea horse, octopus and fish, a sea star by his bed. The entire room, sunken like treasure, and framing the windows: jellyfish.
Behind her, Simon played with his engines, told a ceaseless story of adventure to himself and his engines. Afterward, she’d promised him a trip to Comstock to swim in the heated pool. When the house could no longer be scraped and painted, what would she do to occupy her day? Take up hobbies, like her mother, knitting and Pilates? Specialize in brunch after thirty-mile bike rides?
“I don’t know what to do, Simon.”
He went on playing. She stood, with her paint roller at her side, and looked around the room. Perhaps it felt a little smaller, but more intimate as well, closer and warmer.
“Do you like it?” she asked him. “Simon?” He couldn’t hear her. She envied his focus, his exclusion of the world around him. A skill he had, not only with his toys, but all his activities. Denise called it dreamy. Simon was a dreamy child. Claire’s own mother had a different name for it: willful.
In the basement sink, Claire washed the roller, and paintbrush. From the kitchen, she heard Liv’s voice. She warmed to it—Liv’s voice moored her—physical, immediate, her nipples hard instantaneously.
When she walked into the kitchen, Bailey and Liv were unwrapping their burritos, and Simon was eating chips with salsa.
“You hungry?” Liv asked.
Claire took the proffered burrito, sat between Liv and Simon. Thai carnitas with black beans in a spinach tortilla, her favorite.
“How’d the painting go?” Liv asked.
“Fine.”
They ate, examining the burritos as though they were rare artifacts.
“We have chocolate chip cookies,” Bailey ventured eventually.
“Oh,” Simon said, raising up on his knees and reaching for one.
“And I have an agenda,” Bailey said, as she handed out the cookies. At least she had the decency not to look at Liv, rather she focused on Claire as she hurried on with her speech, her tone plaintive, her excitement admirably restrained.
“I’ve walked through the café this afternoon, and I’m convinced it’d be a sound investment. Touch-up work’s all it needs. Minor really. And the café already has an established clientele, and they’re in a great location. And I’ve got a business plan—I wrote it last night—so you’ll know what I’m envisioning and that I’m serious. I’m serious, and I’d like to propose that you take a look at my business plan, and if you’re interested, we could look at the property. I’d like your opinion about it—your ideas. I’d like your input.” A moment of panic, and then Bailey closed her eyes, marshaled herself, and pressed on. “It was unforgivable, my behavior yesterday. I’m ashamed of it. I hope you won’t hold it against me. If you’d just read the business proposal, if you’d only do that, I’d be satisfied. But I get it—I totally understand—if you don’t want anything to do with this.”
“What would you name it?” Claire asked.
“I was thinking Baked. Unless you think that’s too subversive.”
“Actually I like it.”
“The Baked Bistro?” Liv asked.
“Yeah, yeah, I dig it.” Bailey said, straining forward in her chair.
“What about Fresh Baked?” Claire asked. “Is that more respectable? The Fresh Baked Bistro.”
They lobbed it around the table for a while. The energy between the three of them palpable, their cookies forgotten, and eaten surreptitiously by Simon, while the women examined Bailey’s business plan, gave suggestions, offered amendments, and finally called the agent, asked to see the café right away, that very evening.
Formalities, really: the legal papers, the money, the sale of the café, and the lease of the building space. The pleasure of money, Claire knew, was how it simplified obstacles, made getting whatever one wanted effortless, a matter of a few phone calls. When they’d toured the café, she’d trusted Liv’s opinions, believed Bailey’s enthusiasm, felt the project’s inevitability like a zygote inside her.
They’d agreed on paint, a local artist’s work they wanted to display on the walls, dishes and utensils, font and paper for the menu—listing an assortment of crepes available to be served at breakfast or lunch. Liv had purchased the new appliances on their business card, Bailey had established accounts with the vendors, and hiring had involved Bailey handpicking four people from other bakeries around town.
To Claire, standing in the kitchen at the café—ticking off deliveries from vendors on her clipboard—felt like recovery, like the end to a mournful period of uncertainty. Bailey had given Claire a draft of the menu, and Claire had made it dynamic, the flavors enticing, the items practically bursting from print to palate. Her time with her aunt, the mycology field guides, had trained her for this. She was a seeker, Claire, a woman who made curious things more curious, more appealing. Of course, her mother was right, Claire was willfu
l. She would have what she wanted.
Part Two
New-year’s girls
Twenty-two
That’s all sorted
By October, Liv had exhausted all but the most basic jobs around Claire’s stone house, and accepted a job building a master suite in the unfinished attic of a stylish Cape Cod on the South Hill. Her client, Julia Drake, a humanities professor, knew precisely what she wanted, and after she’d spelled out her wishes in copious detail, she left Liv to get on with it. Every afternoon, she appeared at the top of the stairs, and asked Liv to join her for a light meal.
As the project was in the attic, and therefore an inconvenience to no one, Liv was able to keep her tools out and avoid the time-suck of the daily cleanup and put away. Liv enjoyed this project, the parameters Julia Drake set, and the license she bestowed, and her vision for the suite as well. Drake had majored in art history, and had an exquisite sensibility.
More than the project, though, Liv appreciated the opportunity provided by Julia Drake. A chance, five long days a week, to avoid interminable discussions about flour varieties, organic spices, payroll taxes, idiotic customers, growth potential, sketchy vendors, marketing platforms, and endless tinkering with tastes and presentations. Between Claire and Bailey, meals were not mere food anymore. Everything was a dish, to be contemplated and discussed like an Eliot poem.
At least once a day, typically during the lunch rush, Liv would field a call from Café Baked (as she’d come to think of it) and some speed-talker would report a meltdown of some apparatus and demand some assistance. Sometimes Liv could help, and sometimes she gave Claire’s cell number and wished the caller good fortune. Bailey and Claire had contracted Liv, and provisioned a substantial hourly fee, to be on-call for any maintenance issue. Maintenance issue, Liv thought, had been left purposefully vague.
All at once, Liv had lost the pleasure of leisure and conversation, with either Bailey or Claire, and unless she expanded her social pool rapidly, the monoculture of bakery café bakery would ensure a grueling dry spell. She did not, at present, feel comfortable even grabbing a beer after work, as she worried she might slip into old habits on her own. A companion, she knew, kept her honest, and as she grew more bored, the bars became a more concentrated temptation.
When she had explained to Claire that she missed the freedom they’d had during the summer, Claire suggested that Liv take Simon to see a movie. Frequently, in the evening, while Claire and Bailey poured over recipes and invoices, discussed advertising campaigns and effective websites, Liv and Simon played trains, read stories, colored, or explored. Liv loved him, of course, and savored her time with him. But she could not, at present, recreate in many of the ways that she craved.
On Thursday morning, Liv told Julia Drake that she had to pick up materials at Miller’s Hardware and offered to bring back coffee. Drake had mastered the lean. She leaned whenever she talked, in doorways, against the banister, on the kitchen counter, and Liv could visualize her in the classroom, leaned against the blackboard, or the back of her desk. Brunette, perpetually clad in button-down oxfords and khaki pants, mid-forties, glasses folded in her hand and thrust like a pointer more often than worn.
“Where?” she asked, leaned against the kitchen counter, newspaper unfurled. “Café Baked?”
“You’re not supposed to call it that,” Liv said. “That’s my private nickname.”
“I mean it like you do, as an endearment.”
“Is that how I mean it?”
Drake smiled. “Yes. That’s how you mean it.”
“I’ll stop there if you like, or elsewhere if you prefer.”
“You’re too accommodating.” Drake considered, her glasses prodding her lip. “I’m fine with Café Baked. I’d like a scone, too, and a lemon bar. Let me get you money.”
“Don’t bother. I take it in trade.”
Drake laughed, slid her glasses back on. “I’m sure you do.”
Liv entered the café through the kitchen. Bailey, on her own, had five crepes going, ingredients prepped for dozens more. Every other station cleared, Bailey kept hers pristine, wiping its surface incessantly, like a mechanical tick. In the corner, the dishwasher purred. On the racks, pots and pans piled one inside the other, like Russian dolls.
“Hey you,” Bailey said. “Have they called you about the garbage disposal? Damn thing’s clogged again.”
Liv cleared the disposal, while Bailey chattered away.
“Fucking insane all morning. Peter went home with some kind of drippy contagion. I don’t know why I hire men. They are frail, every last goddamned one of them. And that bitch with the notions came in with her personal trainer. Actually, I’m glad I was here for that conversation.”
“Which one is she?”
“The bitch with the notions? Are you from the Midwest; how don’t you know this? The bitch with the notions is the one who wants us to provide comment cards, and business cards, and tells us every day who we should advertise with, and how we could improve our menu, and which suppliers we should never use et-fucking-cetera. She knows more than Nietzsche. She’s got a fucking solution for everything.”
“Right. Yeah, I’ve heard about her.”
“So today she brings in her personal trainer to get his approval of the menu, and he tells us we’re a little heavy on the carbs. I hate that woman. Maybe we need a new garbage disposal.”
“This one’s old. Just run it with plenty of water, and slowly, and it should be fine.”
“You keep saying that, and it keeps clogging.”
“Pleasure as always, Bailey.”
“Sorry,” Bailey said, adding garnish, before picking up all five plates. “Try the pumpkin bar. You’ll love it.”
Out front, every table filled, and the counters Liv had built on either side of the entryway as well, their tall stools invariably populated by small children kicking their legs as though treading water. Maybe twenty-five seated customers, in addition to the line waiting to order. Sophia, Bailey’s housemate, quite noticeably pregnant now (Claire said she was carrying the baby high) took Liv’s order and asked how her day was, and if she had any time to look at the garbage disposal.
“Maybe we should get a new one already,” she added.
“It’s just old,” Liv said, taking her order in a little box.
“My point exactly.”
“Double Americano,” Liv said, handing Drake her loot. They ate at the kitchen table, from plates she’d purchased in Florence. The kitchen austere: with lean, tall cabinets, an island, rose-colored wallpaper, and high-end appliances.
“Garbage disposal or dishwasher?” Drake asked.
“Disposal.”
“Maybe I should get a machine and we can make espresso here.”
“Tempting,” Liv said, “but think of the gossip we’d miss.”
“Eventually they’ll settle down, get their groove.”
“It’s too bad you get cell reception here. I could let it all go to voicemail.”
“They’d just call the house.”
Liv smiled, shook her head. And then, the pumpkin in her mouth so affecting that she felt her breath catch, Liv remembered an afternoon wandering through a little town in Vermont, the girl beside her radiant with love—radiant—like a fucking planet the girl glowed. Cinnamon, apple, cloves, the girl’s fingertips, the bite of her mouth, their hands raw from cold, and working outdoors, and Liv could feel it—the afternoon, the girl’s intensity.
When she looked up at Drake, for a moment she saw the girl at the market, her striped scarf, her knit cap, the jar of syrup in her hands, and Liv smiled. The ache of that day fresh on her skin, like a piercing.
“What are you grinning at?” Drake asked.
“I’m taking a Bailey tour,” Liv said. In answer to Drake’s raised eyebrows, she went on. “The pumpkin . . . took me to an afternoon in Vermont.”
“The taste, you mean? What did you call it—a Bailey tour? I love that.”
“Her food does th
at. Her baking, especially, it’s transportive.”
“You’re right,” Drake said. “It is transportive. And the afternoon in Vermont?”
Liv blushed, looked away.
“It’s okay,” Drake murmured.
“You know that time when you think you might die of it—that it’ll kill you—how much you feel, that your skin won’t be able to contain it.” Liv smiled as though her experience were a tired joke, another puppy love story. She could not say the Vermont afternoon had been an entire age—a lifetime, a reign—transformative and obliterating. She could not say how it had marked her: a thick scar in the shape of a star on her upper arm.
“You’re editing,” Drake said.
“It’s not much of a story.”
Drake said nothing, and they finished in silence. In the attic, the bandsaw whirring, Liv tried to push that Vermont afternoon from her mind, found instead the scent of wet hay, mud on their boots, a track to a barn, an old thresher. The girl had smelled musky; her nipples had a bitter taste, and discharged when she came. Taller than Liv, pale and bony, with the strange bruised look of vegetarianism beneath her eyes, she’d spoken with an Appalachian accent, a rustic music.
Simon butted a chair against the kitchen counter, and climbed up. In the mornings now, he made his own cereal, poured the milk slowly, always less than his mother poured, no longer drowning the poor Cheerios. Soon Liv would come down, and he would make her cereal too, while she made coffee. She liked bananas, torn into chunks, in her muesli.
Something was wrong. Simon knew this. But in the mornings, eating cereal with Liv, both of them at the table in their pajamas, Simon didn’t worry. After she finished her coffee, Liv would ask him if he wanted anything else, and he always said yes, and she’d make him cinnamon toast, and drink another cup of coffee.
They did it every morning as though each time it might turn out differently. They ate breakfast, performed their routine, with sincerity. Simon could rely on breakfast, just like he could rely on Liv.
