A Long Line of Cakes

by Deborah Wiles

  “That’s his name?” Ruby asked. “Bo-Bo?”

  “Yes.” Emma sighed as she let the water out of the sink and filled the dog’s water bowl. “He’s the dumbest dog ever born, so we just have to love him and hope for the best.”

  So much for any more resemblance to Dismay, who had been the most noble dog ever to draw a breath, in Ruby’s opinion. Heck, in everybody’s opinion in Aurora County.

  “Who are the rest?” Ruby asked. She moved a box to the floor and situated herself on a kitchen chair. “I helped my fourth-grade teacher move into his house two years ago, and I could help you move into this one. I’m a good unpacker.”

  Emma shook her head. “We don’t need help.”

  Bo-Bo gave Emma a sloppy, smelly kiss as she gave him his water. Emma pulled out a chair from the other side of the table and plopped down on it. She was going to have to talk to this girl, she could see.

  A bat cracked in the distance and someone shouted, “You’re out!” It was a new voice to Ruby, but she knew who it belonged to. It was that boy, Ben, whom she’d just met inside Miss Mattie’s store. He might be friend material, too.

  “Do you play baseball?”

  Emma shook her head again. “I make soup. I help in the bakery.”

  “Oh.” Ruby was unimpressed. But she didn’t leave. Her friend Dove didn’t play baseball, either, and Ruby didn’t hold it against her.

  A shaggy brown dog came to Emma for some love. “This one’s Alice,” Emma said. “We found her behind a Dumpster. Then she had Bo-Bo.” Bo-Bo came back to Emma at the sound of his name and kissed her again.

  “And that one is Spiffy.” Emma pointed to an old red-and-brown dog—mostly a beagle, Ruby figured. He was still eating, and in a slow, methodical way. His belly was thick, his eyes drooped, his skin sagged, and his snout was white.

  “He doesn’t look spiffy,” Ruby commented.

  “He’s not,” said Emma. “Unless it’s time to eat.” She smiled at Spiffy and he blinked at her when she called his name. He was her favorite.

  The last of the four dogs, a long-legged, spotted blue-tick hound, laid its head in Ruby’s lap. She scratched him behind his ears. “Who’s this?”

  “That’s Hale-Bopp,” said Emma.

  “Hale-Bopp!” Ruby laughed. “Hello, Hale-Bopp.” The dog shoved his snout under Ruby’s hand, and ate her note in one big gulp. “Hey!”

  “He does that,” said Emma as the dog chewed on the paper. “Go get some water, Hale-Bopp.” The dog loped over to the water bowl.

  “Smart,” said Ruby. Now she was impressed.

  “Thirsty,” said Emma. It was too easy, making this friend. It was like riding a bike—no matter how long it’s been, you get on and you go. It was fun. She was doomed.

  “I’m … I’m not going to make a soup today, after all,” she said. “So you can go.”

  Ruby fidgeted in her chair. If there was one thing she loved, it was making a new friend, because the ­opportunity to do so was so rare. And because she was so good at it.

  “Nobody new comes here anymore,” Ruby said. “Everyone here is boring except my friend Dove, who really lives in Memphis and only comes for three weeks in the summer to visit her aunt and uncle—that’s Mr. Ishee and his wife, Tot, the ones I helped move in two years ago.”

  Ruby used to tell Dove she talked too much, but Dove’s habit had clearly rubbed off on Ruby. Now she gulped for air and breezed ahead. “Free advice: You’ll be bored to tears here without me, you’ll see. It’ll be torture. You’ll be stuck in this town with a beauty queen and a bad actress and a bunch of loony ballplayers, and when school starts next month, you won’t have one friend you can count on. You need me!”

  “I like being lonely,” Emma said breezily. “Loneliness is a virtue.”

  Ruby hooted. “Is not!”

  Despite herself, Emma laughed. She liked this girl. She could see she was going to make a friend whether she liked it or not. It was inevitable. She sighed a big, heavy sigh. Her poor heart. Her poor, poor heart.

  Ruby watched the sadness slide across Emma’s face. “Why did you change your mind about the soup?”

  Emma stood up and walked to the window. She watched the boys playing ball, shouting and laughing, getting to know their new friends. She could change her mind again. Her best soup was a chicken noodle. But she didn’t have any chicken.

  As if on cue, a fat red hen scurried across the sandy lane and pecked at the ground under the silver maple tree. Emma took it as a sign.

  “I think I will make soup!” she announced.

  This friendship might work; she’d figure out the moving parts of it later. The impulsive note she’d left in the tree was inspired, and yes, this town was the one. Yes. All she had to do was believe it.

  “Great!” said Ruby. “What kind?”

  “Chicken!” crowed Emma. She pointed out the window to the silver maple and tried a joke, her first joke with her first new friend in this new forever town. “And there’s one right down there! A stray chicken! Do you think we could catch it? My dad is good at wringing chicken necks, and chicken soup is my specialty!”

  “What?” The word curdled in Ruby’s throat. She shot from her chair so violently it fell backward and slapped the kitchen floor. In two giant leaps she was at the kitchen window, looking down at her errant chicken, Rosebud. “Chicken soup?” she managed to sputter as she pointed to her chicken.

  “What?” Emma took a step away from her new almost-friend. She was alarmed. “What is it? Do you not like chicken soup?”

  Ruby hadn’t once considered she might not like this Emma Lane Cake. She didn’t like Finesse, she tolerated Cleebo, she would never like Melba Jane, but she got along with most kids. She had been flattered to receive Emma’s invitation. But she drew the line at killing chickens—­especially her beloved Rosebud. Suddenly the room was airless, and she couldn’t breathe. She had been about to befriend a chicken murderer, when she’d already saved her chickens from just such a fate.

  “I have to go,” she gasped. She thought she might vomit.

  “Wait!” Emma said, her resolve completely melted now. “What’s happening?”

  Ruby stumbled her way over and around boxes and dogs. The dogs thundered and whirled down the steps with her. Ruby knew she should say something, but her mind wrinkled at the idea of murder. All that would come out of her mouth was a stray thought she’d had inside Miss Mattie’s store earlier, so she hurled it at Emma in a murderous tone. “Your brother is cute!”

  “What?” Now Emma was confused as well as alarmed. She ran after Ruby and stood at the top of the stairs.

  Ruby chastised herself. Your brother is cute? She’d never thought a boy was cute. What was wrong with her? She needed to go hug her chickens. She yanked at the back door and out she flew, leaving the door wide open.

  “What did I do?” Emma shouted after her. She stumbled over Spiffy and clattered down the stairs, to see what might come next.

  By the time Ruby Lavender rushed out of Emma’s house, everyone was outside but Miss Mattie and Miss Eula, who were busy with the first Saturday morning customers at the Mercantile. Somehow, there had been enough muffins for the hungry Cakes, enough for the dogs, enough for Miss Mattie’s basket by the register, and now, enough to go around for the Aurora County All-Stars, ballplayers and dancers alike. It was as if Arlouin’s muffin basket was bottomless. Maybe it was.

  “I leave you to your ball game!” Arlouin trilled as she swanned over to the Ford Econoline, where Leo Cake had just finished unloading more boxes and was now waiting to go with his wife to Bay Springs, the next town over and the county seat, where there was a Piggly Wiggly for shopping. Their list was long and they were eager to get started.

  “You boys take all these things inside when you’re done!” he shouted to the Cake boys, and they waved their agreement.

  That’s when Ruby and the Cake dogs came rushing from the back of the Cakes’ new home, with Emma on their heels.

 
“My land!” exclaimed Arlouin. “Where’s the fire?”

  “Emma and Ruby are becoming friends,” explained her husband.

  “That’s a strange way to go about it!”

  Leo Cake shrugged and opened the car door for his wife while saying in his most knowledgeable voice, “I do not pretend to understand the ways of women.”

  * * *

  As Arlouin and Leo drove away, the Cake boys surrounded their sister. Emma bobbed her head to look between them, to see where Ruby had gone, but she couldn’t find her.

  Her brothers talked all at once. Of course. Gordon had made friends with Honey. He was wearing her tutu. It had been ridiculously easy. Jody—no angel—had beaned Cleebo with a line drive to second and only Cleebo’s quick reaction with his glove had saved his life. Cleebo was recovering at Mr. Pip’s barbershop, where—for some reason—there was an ice machine. House had walked over with him. He had business with Pip anyway, and also had an appointment with Doc MacRee for his elbow and said he’d take Cleebo and Ben with him. Van had soothed everyone’s feelings with his chocolate-layer-cake voice, while Roger had whined, in his black-forest voice, that they were all going to be in big trouble when people found out Jody had smacked his line drive into Cleebo’s head on purpose. Which Jody hadn’t, Jody insisted. The game had fizzled from there.

  But the game yesterday, her brothers told her, had been tremendous. They had missed it by just hours, but they would have another one next year, and her brothers would be sure to play in it.

  We won’t be here next year, Emma thought. They always forget that. I forgot it just now, too. She kept looking for Ruby in the crowd. She winced as she thought about her misdeed, and she didn’t even know what she’d done.

  Finesse stepped in front of Emma in all her glory and introduced herself—“Bonjour, ma nouvelle amie!”—and Emma thought of Annie, only Annie did not speak French. Still, it made her lower lip quiver and started an ache in her heart.

  Melba Jane wrote Emma’s full name on her clipboard:

  Emma Alabama Lane Cake.

  “My goodness,” Melba said.

  “You might consider changing your name, like I did,” said Finesse.

  “She used to be Frances,” Melba intoned.

  “Now she’s a shampoo!” volunteered Ned Tolbert.

  “I like my name,” said Emma. Because she did.

  “Where are you from?” asked Melba Jane. “Your brothers didn’t seem to know.”

  Emma thought of her Friend Atlas. “Everywhere and nowhere,” she said. An answer that didn’t satisfy, even as Melba Jane began to write it down on her paper.

  Emma looked at this sea of potential new friends. None of them would break her heart to leave; she already knew that. There was only one she really wanted. Wasn’t it always that way?

  Gordon twirled to her and asked to be picked up. She obliged, tutu and all.

  “Come here, Sticky Buns.”

  Again she looked for Ruby Lavender.

  Ruby had disappeared.

  special edition compiled and reported by Phoebe “Scoop” Tolbert

  So much can happen in such a short time. That’s what Mr. Tolbert always says, and he is always right. In this case, WE HAVE BAKED GOODS! Not that we lack for good cooks in Aurora County, but suddenly we have a bakery across the street from the Pine View Café, and Jerome Fountainbleu is beside himself with relief. “And there were cakes! And there were pies! And the prettiest rolls that you ever did see!”

  It makes one want to belt out a chorus of “The Green Grass Grew All Around,” doesn’t it? Ahem. I digress. I have hosted my grandchildren from Pelahatchie this week, can you tell?

  Doc MacRee moved out of his old digs and into the back half of the sheriff’s department next to the barbershop owned by Parting Schotz (known colloquially, locally, as Pip). Personally, I would rather have seen Doc move into the back room of the barbershop, so as not to be tending to our little ones with chicken pox right next to our hardened criminals in the jail cells. Admittedly, we have never known a hardened criminal (or even a softened one) in Aurora County. The jail cells are full of hay right now.

  The baked goods are coming from our new neighbors in Doc MacRee’s old space! The Cake Family has been in residence for two weeks now. Or is it three? Where they came from, no one seems to know. And believe me, dear reader—you know me—I have asked.

  Walking into the Cake Café (and Bakery) (as it is called) is an olfactory delight. The aromas! There is a massive commercial kitchen in the back—it seems to have appeared out of nowhere!—and glass cases out front full of the prettiest little rolls (and cookies and muffins and toast points and corn cakes) that you ever did see. And cakes! Of course. There are old wooden tables set with pretty flowers from Evelyn Lavender’s garden that add to the ambience. The scintillating scent of a good soup fills the air along with the floury goodness on display.

  “Our business at the Pine View has tripled!” crowed Jerome Fountainbleu. “Customers must be coming from the state capital!”

  They are not.

  It is true that business is on the uptick at the Pine View, and that there are few extra citizens in Aurora County to justify the numbers. But where are these Cakes from? And—it must be asked—when they open to the public, will they pull business away from the Pine View, with their daily soup-and-sandwich offering and curated baked goods? I can envision whisking into the Cake Café to partake of a quick lunch of soup and bread, so unlike the slow-as-molasses meal service (it must be acknowledged) at the Pine View.

  Plus, at the Cake Café (I have studiously discerned) there are two parents, four dogs, five boys, and one intrepid slip of a girl always working in the back whom I cannot wait to interview. You will also want to know that my keen eye has spotted none other than Misanthrope Watkins, former baker at the Pine View, in the Cake kitchen with a rolling pin in hand.

  Stay tuned for more intrigue as I uncover it!

  Yours faithfully, PT

  Emma was weary. It takes so much work to open a bakery, and she had been at it for at least two weeks—or was it three?—toting and chopping and stirring and beating and folding and scrubbing and wondering what she had done to lose a friend before she’d even had one.

  There had been no time to find Ruby and ask. And she had talked herself into being fine with that. So why did she keep thinking about it?

  “Because it makes me angry!” she growled as she buttered muffin tins by herself in the kitchen. Why would that pushy girl suddenly turn on her and screech about her chicken soup and yell I have to go with no explanation and then run off shouting, Your brother is cute?

  Emma wanted to yell at her. You should apologize to me! What’s wrong with you?! On the other hand, Emma never wanted to see this girl again.

  And she was busy.

  “Cakes know when it’s time for All-Cakes-on-Deck!” called her mother every day when it was time to work together.

  Her brothers were good workers. As long as they were allowed an hour of riotous behavior every two hours, they were the hardest workers she knew. Even Gordon was a good helper. He washed baseboards and thresholds with a bucket of soapy water and a toothbrush, and kept calling everyone to look at his handiwork as the water got dirtier, until Emma changed it for him and brought him a new bucketful.

  Everything they needed had appeared, just as it always did. Ovens, sinks, prep tables, refrigerators, racks, carts, cake pans, muffin tins, cookie sheets, fans, bakery cases, tables, chairs, cushions for the chairs, even the sweet little vases for the old wooden tables.

  While the Cakes worked, town folks stopped in, in that polite and nosy way people did, to say welcome and to see what was happening. Arlouin and Leo gave them samples of whatever was coming out of the ovens. Cinnamon rolls, coffee cakes, cupcakes, pecan chewies, almond bars, ­sourdough bread, cheesecake, carrot cake, pineapple upside-down cake, cake-cake-cake. The Cakes were using this setup time to test their ovens and establish their kitchen flow and routines in a new s
pace. And to see what their future customers liked best. The best smells in town were coming from the Cake Café.

  Some, like Agnes Fellows, were suspicious of new people, and full of questions. “Is there some reason we need another café in town?”

  Some, like Harvey Popham, were worried about any change in their small town. “Next, I suppose we’ll have two banks, or two doctors—where will it end?”

  Jerome Fountainbleu stopped in several times, to try the red velvet cake or the dark chocolate bear claws and thank the Cakes for supplying his pies. But as week one turned into week two, his thanks got less effusive and his visits were fewer. Suddenly he wasn’t sure the town needed two cafés, either.

  Dot Land, the postmistress, came by daily for a bite of something—“for my husband, Anton!” she always said. Dot loved cake and was quite sure the town needed two cafés.

  So was Mary Wilson, who stopped in at lunch every day to sample Emma’s latest soup. The corn chowder was her favorite. This thrilled Emma—a regular customer for her soups already.

  The Aurora County kids stopped in, too, and some of them even picked up a broom or helped organize the kitchen with the boys (making a colossal mess that Emma and her mother had to undo).

  But Ruby hadn’t come, not even when her grandmother, Miss Eula, stopped by to check on her renters and bring flowers from her daughter Evelyn’s garden. Evelyn Lavender was the county extension agent, and Ruby was her only child—Emma had discovered that by scrubbing hard and listening carefully.

  So the Cake Café was the talk of Halleluia. Folks were used to coming in the back door to visit Doc MacRee, so that’s where they all showed up, but the back of the building now opened into the mammoth kitchen, so it was reserved for family comings and goings, and deliveries. After folks tried the back door, they figured it out and came to the front.

  Finesse came through the front door now, stumbling over Gordon, and followed by Spiffy, Alice, Bo-Bo, Hale-Bopp … and Melba Jane, who tried not to touch the dogs. That was impossible. The dogs loved Melba Jane, and Melba Jane hated slobber. She stood on a chair with her clipboard and hissed at the dogs until they quit ­loving her.