A Long Line of Cakes

by Deborah Wiles

  He softened his voice for his people.

  “It will be better when we are gone and down the road.”

  And then Emma made a decision of her own. From deep inside herself she made her stand.

  “I won’t go down the road,” she said, “unless I can say good-bye to Ruby first.” She shivered as an army of ­anxious prickles raced across her shoulders and down her back.

  “Me, neither,” said Ben. He swallowed and stood up straight. He was tall for his age and almost eye-to-eye with his father.

  Ben’s bravery buoyed Emma.

  “You’ll have to pick me up and force me into the car.”

  “Emma!” said her mother.

  “You’ll have to catch me first,” said Ben, equally emboldened.

  “Yeah!” said the rest of the Cake boys in unison.

  “Well,” said Leo. There were a lot more of them than there were of him. But that wasn’t the point. He looked at the earnest faces of his wife and children in the last of the predawn light. Then a clutch of crows called and swooped from the tall pines in the woods and it was morning. Just like that.

  Leo Cake made a decision. He narrowed his eyes and used his most serious voice.

  “Do you promise you’ll behave after we go to this garden and say good-bye? Do you promise—all of you!—you’ll get back in the car and go down the road without complaint?”

  “Yes,” said Emma immediately, emphatically.

  “And I’ll say good-bye to House while Emma says good-bye to Ruby,” said Ben. “He lives close to this garden. It won’t take any time.”

  Then Ben addressed his brothers.

  “I’m the oldest,” he said with authority, separating himself from his brothers for good. “When you each get to be twelve, you can say good-bye to your friends in person, too. Got it?”

  Jody, Van, and Roger stared at Ben, unhappy but subdued.

  “And Gordon, I’ll take you with me to say good-bye to Honey. Because you’re the baby.”

  Gordon sniffed and beamed. Arlouin put him down.

  The first yellow sun rays winked off the side mirror of the Ford Econoline. The sun pushed itself up and awake and began to sweep up the remains of the night’s fog.

  “We’re decided, then,” said Leo with relief. “Everybody back in the car. Emma, show me where this garden is.”

  The Ford Econoline van left the sandy lane, turned onto the dirt road that bordered the ball fields, passed the Tolbert Twins’ house and Cleebo’s house, and came to the intersection that housed the Methodist church, the Baptist church, and all the dead Methodists and Baptists.

  “Goodness,” said Arlouin.

  “We passed two cemeteries on the way here!” chorused Jody and Van.

  “We’re going the wrong way,” whined Roger.

  “Keep going,” said Emma.

  Soon they came to another intersection, another dirt road. Pine forest grew on all sides of them.

  “This is the middle of nowhere,” said Leo. But something felt familiar here, even though, to the unpracticed eye, it was just pine forest and dirt road.

  “Turn left,” said Ben.

  A curve left, a curve right, and there it was, on the left in a huge clearing.

  Norwood Boyd’s house.

  “This is it,” said Emma. The lump in her throat felt too big to swallow. She took a deep breath.

  “Here?” asked Leo. His voice had a catch in it.

  “Whoa!” said Jody and Van and Roger in unison.

  “We were here yesterday!” said Gordon.

  “Yes, we were,” said Emma, although it felt like a ­million years ago.

  Leo turned off the dirt road and onto the orange-­pebbled driveway that led to the tall iron gates. He stopped the car before he reached them.

  “Can you drive all the way in, Daddy?” asked Emma. “I can’t see the garden. I can’t tell if Ruby is here.”

  But Leo had put the car in park. He left the engine running and got out of the car without saying a word. His every nerve was alive and alert. He staggered as if his legs weren’t sure how to pick themselves up and take step after step, as if his mind were disconnected from his body.

  “Shhh,” said Arlouin, although no one in the car had moved or said a word. All eyes were on Leo Cake as he stood in front of the open gates and buckled softly to his knees, as if his legs had now decided to stop working altogether.

  Arlouin opened her car door and moved in her own ­hesitant way toward her husband. “Leo? What is it? Is it your heart?”

  It was.

  Leo Cake buried his face in his hands. The Ford Econoline erupted in a spray of Cakes leaping from the car and rushing to their father, shouting and barking and circling him in a show of protection.

  “Daddy?” Emma got to him first. She skidded to her knees in front of Leo, clasped his wrists, and gently pulled her father’s strong baker’s hands from his stalwart, itinerant face.

  “Daddy?”

  Leo Cake looked with bewilderment into the anxious faces of his wife and children and then again at the ornately carved gates and the turreted weathered house beyond the gates.

  “I need a minute,” he said, a hoarse croak in his voice. “I’m fine. I need a few minutes, that’s all.”

  Things happened quickly after that.

  The chicken-tractor-school-bus-portable-chicken-coop arrived with Miss Eula behind the wheel, waving and hollering for Leo to move his car. Cakes scattered out of the way. Emma grabbed Gordon while Jody, Van, Roger, and Arlouin helped Leo inside the gates. Leo sat heavily on an immense old tree stump and stared at the house with its eight majestic silver maples protecting it, their branches waving in the now-insistent morning breeze.

  Ben ran for the Ford Econoline. “I’ve got it!”

  “Since when have you been driving?” shouted Arlouin.

  Ben gave his mother a let’s talk about it later wave, drove the van through the gates, and chose a spot on the grass near the house to park it.

  Arlouin turned her attention to her husband. “Leo?”

  “I just want to sit here a minute,” he said, breathless. “Maybe many minutes.”

  Arlouin patted on Leo. “Take all the time you need, dear,” she said. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Daddy?” repeated Emma. She felt she shouldn’t have been so insistent, so pushy, back at the bakery. Gordon, in Emma’s arms, knew this wasn’t the time to cry. He watched his father closely and breathed for him, in and out.

  Leo gave Emma a pat. “I’m fine, Girl Scout,” he said. He took Gordon from Emma and hugged him. “I’m fine,” he told his youngest son. “Run and play a minute and let me get my breath back.”

  Arlouin shooed her children away with “Let your daddy rest!” and sat down to share the stump with her husband. She took his hand in hers and squeezed it. He squeezed back. Whatever was happening with Leo, it was something big and Arlouin would stay with him.

  Spiffy, Alice, Bo-Bo, and Hale-Bopp streaked into the woods, where there were more skunks, possums, raccoons, foxes, deer, and squirrels than they would have time to chase. More pinecones than they would be able to chew. More rain puddles than they would have time to splash through. Dog heaven.

  Miss Eula tooted her horn as she steered the portable chicken coop through the iron gates and around the side of the house to where the garden lay waiting.

  “You Cake boys!” called Miss Eula. She was wearing a pink flowered muumuu and a ridiculously floppy straw hat. “Come help us!”

  Ruby tumbled out of the chicken tractor behind her grandmother. “Yeah!” she yelled. “Come help us!” She was wearing a straw hat, too. “Where’s Emma?”

  Emma had left her mother and father on the wide stump at the gate and was headed toward the chicken tractor along with her brothers. But she took a detour first.

  “All Cakes on Deck!” called Ben, and immediately his brothers began to help roll chicken wire where it was needed, including around the volunteer tomato plants. Miss E
ula showed them how to do it, and Ruby supervised, while keeping an eye out for Emma. Where was she?

  House Jackson showed up with Cleebo. They both wore baseball caps and had their gloves under their arms.

  “Hey!” yelled Ben. “Great!”

  Cleebo grinned wide as House waved a greeting with his good arm. “I thought we could use the help, if we’re gonna make a garden out of this. I’m pretty much one-handed right now.”

  “So much for secrets,” snapped Ruby.

  “Secretly planning, publicly doing,” said Ben. “I figured it out.” He blushed. Ruby blushed back.

  “Good, good!” said Miss Eula. “House, there’s a shovel, a rake, a hoe, and some garden gloves in the bus. Go get them, please. Take Ruby with you—she can help and she knows where they are. And get my apron! It’s got the clippers and scissors and what-have-yous in the pockets!”

  Cleebo puffed up and began boasting immediately. “I’ve been here before! Ask House! I know things about this place!”

  “Great,” said Ruby. That braggart Cleebo. “You can take over from me!”

  “Go find your friend,” Miss Eula said to Ruby. “Come here, Cleebo Wilson.” Cleebo groaned but did as he was told. Miss Eula sent Ben to the chicken tractor with House.

  While the boys and Miss Eula quickly made the garden ready for the chickens, who were complaining loudly inside their bus, Ruby found Emma on the back porch of Norwood Boyd’s house. Emma hugged Ruby fiercely when she saw her. It was a spontaneous, impulsive hug. Ruby hugged her back and shrugged off the backpack she was wearing.

  “I’m so glad to see you!” Ruby said. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t come. When I dropped off the note this morning, I saw your van packed to the gills and I was sure you were leaving.”

  “We are leaving,” said Emma.

  Ruby sighed. Without speaking, the two friends sat themselves next to each other on the top step of the porch.

  “Miss Eula says we’re gonna make a garden here, either way,” said Ruby. “She says it’s a good use of an old space that needs refreshing, and Mr. Butterfield thinks it’s a great idea.”

  “He does?”

  “Yes!” said Ruby. “Mr. Butterfield wrote Mr. Norwood’s will, and he says this is a perfect idea. He called it the symphony true.”

  Ruby shrugged in a that’s-that way, so Emma did, too.

  “I should be helping,” said Emma. “I just wanted to say good-bye to the house first. Then I’ll say good-bye to your chickens.”

  “This old house is a real mess,” said Ruby. She took off her straw hat and shoved her unruly hair out of her face. “I don’t know why you got so attached to it.”

  “It spoke to me,” Emma replied truthfully. “I can’t explain it. Just like you can’t explain why you think my brother is cute.”

  “I do not!”

  “Do too.”

  “I’ve course-corrected!” sputtered Ruby.

  “And I’ve flown to the moon!”

  A temperate breeze cooled their faces as the sunshine got busy warming the day. It would be another steamy one.

  “As boys go, House is kinda cute, too,” said Emma.

  Ruby hooted. He was. “I brought you something,” she said. “I made it after I left you your mail.” She unzipped her backpack and pulled out a package wrapped in brown paper and tied with a piece of twine.

  “Really?” said Emma, touched. “Thank you!”

  “Open it first,” directed Ruby. “Then thank me. Profusely.”

  Emma untied the twine, opened the package, and pulled out a box filled with blank paper, stamped envelopes addressed to Ruby, and a sharpened number two pencil with a rubber eraser affixed to the top.

  “Oh,” Emma said. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Profusely,” repeated Ruby.

  Emma laughed. She would miss this girl.

  “I know you like drawing,” Ruby went on. “So you don’t even have to write words! Just draw me something to tell me what’s happening, put it in one of these envelopes, find a post office or a mailbox to stick it in, and I’ll get it! Be sure to sign it. I’ll write you back, if you send me an address. I’m a great letter writer.”

  “I see,” said Emma. And she did. She wanted to hug Ruby again, but something told her that one hug a day—or maybe a year—was Ruby’s limit.

  A cheer rose from the direction of the garden and both girls ran to see what it was about after tucking Emma’s present back inside Ruby’s backpack and leaving it on the porch.

  Eight chickens scrambled down the ramp at the back of the school bus—which was now inside the garden—and were happily and greedily chomping and pecking and scratching in the garden that had been prepared for them.

  Leo and Arlouin were no longer on their stump. A green pickup truck crunched onto the pebbles and drove up the driveway, bobbled over a pile or two of spent kudzu, and came through the open iron gates. In the back bed, sitting on cushions and securely fastened so it wouldn’t slide, was an enormous full-sheet sheet cake, enough to feed one hundred people.

  Sitting in the driver’s seat of the truck was Jerome Fountainbleu. “I came to the café to apologize and saw the cake!” he hollered out his open windows to no one and everyone. Behind Jerome was a caravan of cars and trucks slowly turning into the pebbled lane and driving across the front yard’s freshly washed stubble of grass. The cars and trucks scattered the grasshoppers and crickets and parked under the trees, near the garden, next to the woods, wherever they could find a space.

  “Good garden of peas,” said Ruby. “I didn’t think he was gonna do it!”

  “What is this?” asked Emma.

  “There were so many people in town so early this ­morning—it was weird,” said Ruby. “Mr. Fountainbleu ran at the chicken wagon like a mad dog running down Main Street, and when we stopped for him, he said, ‘You’re their landlord! Where did they go?’ and Miss Eula told him to follow her, she was heading for Norwood Boyd’s.”

  Emma raised her eyebrows and watched the procession. People piled out of their cars. They pulled folding tables and chairs from truck beds, and began setting them up on the front lawn of Mr. Norwood Boyd’s home, laughing and telling old stories, shouting one-two-three lift! and whoa there! and back up! and a little help here! and watch your toes!

  “I’ll be right back,” said Ruby. “Let me check on the chickens.”

  I’ve got freshly pressed napkins! came from a prepared soul and for pity’s sake from a certain crotchety soul and bless your heart! bless your heart! from one intrepid pie-­baking soul.

  This place, Emma thought. This place.

  They were all here. They had all come. And they had brought cake.

  Melba Jane tapped on Emma’s shoulder, and Emma swung around with a start to face her. She had never seen Melba without Finesse.

  “I just wanted to say hey.”

  “Hey,” said Emma. She was sure the surprise showed on her face.

  “We’ve got something in common,” Melba told her. Then she gestured to her sisters and brothers tumbling from her mother’s car. There were five of them. The tallest one ran to Melba shouting, “Score! Score! Score!”

  “I’m the oldest,” Melba said as George tugged on his sister’s sundress. “And I’ve got to babysit. I just wanted to say hi.”

  Before Emma could answer her, Melba shoved a piece of paper into Emma’s palm. “A coupon,” she said. “For one free haircut at Locks by Leila. That’s my mom’s beauty parlor just outside of town. It’s next to our house. Come anytime.”

  Emma smiled. “Thank you, Melba Jane.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Melba said breezily as she ran to help her mother. Now that Emma was leaving this town, there really was a friend bonanza.

  Jerome Fountainbleu stood in the front yard and cried, “Leo! Arlouin! Cakes! I’m so very sorry!” There was no answer.

  Ruby ran back to Emma. “What did I miss?”

  Emma stuck her coupon in her shorts pocket. “Nothing
much,” she said. “I can’t find my parents.”

  “Please don’t leave!” Jerome Fountainbleu implored, shouting over the heads of the growing crowd. “I was remiss! I don’t know what came over me! I’m not that kind of man—really I’m not!”

  “He most certainly is,” said Miss Mattie Perkins as she and a host of others opened folding chairs and placed them at tables. “Sometimes he goes temporarily insane. We try not to hold it against him.”

  “We are all temporarily insane at one time or another,” sniffed Clementine Watson.

  Miss Eula found the girls and put one hand on Ruby’s shoulder and another on Emma’s. “Come with me,” she said.

  Parting Schotz supervised Lamar Lackey and Hampton Hawes as they hoisted the sheet cake and brought it to the largest folding table. It would not fit.

  “Let’s serve it from the back of the truck,” Pip said.

  “Please forgive me!” Jerome was now bellowing, arms outstretched and a pained look on his face.

  “Hush!” yelled the crowd, but there was affectionate laughter to accompany their shouting.

  Jerome made a quarter turn with every sentence he blustered. “Look! I’ve brought all your customers and then some. We want you back! We need you! No one makes cakes the way you do! Cake is important! Like pie!”

  Finesse emerged from the crowd, eyeballed Ben, and smiled. A true artist never gives up, she told herself.

  “Frances,” said Pip, “put together some entertainment.”

  “Tout de suite, Poppy!” Finesse beamed. Ben could wait. She began to gather her dancers from the Aurora County All-Stars pageant. “Vite! Vite!”

  Pip put a hand on Ben’s shoulder and said, “Come with me, young man.” And Ben did.

  The Aurora County All-Stars spilled out of cars and trucks to the delighted cries of the Cake boys. They began a pickup game immediately in Norwood Boyd’s vast backyard, using piles of garden weeds for bases, not caring that there was an iron fence at the back of the property and the woods would swallow any hits beyond second base. Honey and Gordon positioned themselves along the third-base line and practiced twirls and jetés.

  A morning picnic was in full swing.