Baker's Blues

by Judith Ryan Hendricks

“Honey, you better keep your voice down or we’re gonna be startin’ some big time rumors.”

  I’m laughing, so I don’t hear the door…just Mac’s voice.

  “Thanks for handling the preliminaries, Gabe. I can take it from here.”

  “Uh-oh. It’s your insanely jealous husband. I’d best be leavin’ out the back door.” He stands up with a last brush of fingertips on my toes that sends a shiver up my spine. “‘Night, Darlin’.” He gives Mac a cheery smile. “You too, Matthew.”

  I sit up, tucking my feet underneath me. “Bye, Gabe. Thanks for the foot rub.”

  Mac sits down next to me, waits for the door to close. “Having fun?”

  “More fun than watching you get drunk and act like you’re on Oprah.”

  His arm is resting on the couch behind me and I can hear the faint, impatient drumming of fingertips on leather. “I take it you’re ready to leave.”

  “I was ready an hour ago.” I stand up, wincing as I step into the shoes.

  “All you had to do was say so.”

  “It’s hard to get your attention when you’ve got a live audience.”

  He gets up, fishes in his pocket for the car keys, hands them to me.

  I drive slowly. No sudden stops or fast starts, no unnecessary lane changes. On Friday nights CHP is out in force to intercept careless revelers. We got stopped at a DUI checkpoint about six months ago. Unfortunately Mac was driving. Fortunately the judge at the hearing was Alan’s golf partner. I’ve been the designated driver ever since.

  I turn onto Pacific Coast Highway and he lowers the window, letting in the full complement of night beach smells—the salty, rusty ocean, the chill, metallic fog, smoke from beach fires.

  Whenever I pass this particular stretch of oceanfront, I’m swamped by successive waves of memory. My body relaxes a little, my grip loosens on the steering wheel and I see my seven-year-old self, wading cautiously at the waterline while my father treads water beyond the breakers. He calls me, telling me to run and dive into the swells while my mother sits on the blanket, biting her lip.

  In my head I hear that Spencer Davis song—the one they used in the California Cooler commercials—the one played endlessly at high school beach parties…I picture CM in her bikini, dancing with abandon, driving all the boys over the edge. Mac and I came here a lot when we were renting the studio apartment in Santa Monica, taking long walks in the evenings because there was no money to do anything else.

  The garage door rumbles up to admit us, then back down to enclose us. I turn the key off. There was a time, not so long ago, when we might have come together in a kiss, or sat talking for a minute, laughing about something that happened at the party, listening to the end of a song on the R & B station or just the ticking of the engine as it cooled down. Tonight we get out quickly, reluctant to be caught in the dim light of the silent garage with nothing to say. I lock the car and toss the keys to Mac.

  He pauses on the way in, reaching down to give a scratch behind the ears to Brownie, who waits patiently just inside the door to the kitchen. Of unknown parentage but unquestionable heart, once she was sleek and shiny, fast as a weasel; now she’s a bit lumpy and slow-moving. Her muzzle is gray and her eyes are beginning to cloud. She’s almost 12 years old.

  Mac disappears up the stairs, leaving me to take her out through the laundry room and into the back yard. I hug myself inside my pashmina and study the one or two visible stars while the dog snuffles her leisurely route around the perimeter till she finds a satisfactory spot to pee. Then we head back inside.

  I fill her water dish and walk around, checking windows and doors. Brownie used to sleep in our bedroom, but these days she doesn’t do stairs very well, so she usually prefers her egg-crate foam bed in a corner of the laundry room. I hear her pawing at the cover, fluffing it up, as I turn off the light.

  “Sweet dreams, Brown Dog.”

  He’s in his office across the hall from the bedroom, sitting in one of the wing back chairs, staring at the empty fireplace. There’s about an inch of amber liquid in a glass on the desk. I don’t remember if it was there earlier. I stand in the doorway for minute, then come in without invitation and settle myself on his lap. His breath smells of scotch and peanuts.

  “What is it?” I say. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  He leans his head back. “Nothing.”

  “So you’ve just been in a bad mood for the past two years.”

  “You’re the one who goes off and sulks in the library—”

  “I was not sulking. I just needed to take off my shoes.”

  “So that twit Cleveland could suck on your toes.”

  I burst out laughing. “He wasn’t sucking on my toes. He was giving me a foot rub. Come on, don’t be grouchy. I’ve been up since 4 AM. I worked a full day. Then I have to come home and get dressed up and go make happy talk with a bunch of anorexic, surgically enhanced—”

  “Wyn…you’re a snob—”

  “I’m a snob?”

  “Correct. A reverse snob. You think that people who are attractive, successful and creative must also be phony and shallow—”

  “Because they are phony and shallow.”

  “I thought you liked Alan and Sylvia.”

  “I do. It’s the other ninety-eight percent—and none of them are interested in me because I’m a baker. I do—gasp!—manual labor.”

  “So. They’re not paying attention to you. They’re not interested in bread. Which makes them phony and shallow.”

  “I’m interested in other things besides bread. I like music and art and books and movies. All they talk about at those parties is industry gossip and their new plastic surgeon and the great deal they got on a previously owned Lamborghini and going to Japanese day spas where tiny little fishes nibble the dead skin off your feet.”

  “If you hate it that much, don’t go.”

  “Doofus.” I pull back to look at him. “I go to be with you.”

  Unspoken but implicit is I go so people will know I’m with you. When your husband starts going to parties by himself, it sends a bad message.

  “Don’t do me any favors.”

  “I’m sorry…I’m just tired and my back hurts…and my feet hurt…” I lay my head on his shoulder. “Why can’t we be like we used to be?”

  “You mean poor?”

  “No. That’s not what I mean.”

  I wait for him to say that he doesn’t really like the parties either, that he just goes because Alan expects him to, that deep down underneath it all, everything still is the way it used to be.

  Finally he moves a little. “My arm’s asleep.”

  I kiss his forehead. “Let’s go to bed.”

  “You go ahead. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  This is the pattern lately, and it disturbs me. I go to bed alone, fall asleep alone, wake up alone.

  I kiss the corner of his eye, move down to his mouth. “Come hold me.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  When I stand up, he reaches for the Bose. Fiddles with the dial till he finds what he’s looking for. It’s one of those songs…a melody that’s so aching, so haunting it makes me stop in the doorway and listen.

  “What is that?”

  He answers without looking at me. “Baker’s Blues.”

  I smile. “Really?”

  “Sam Baker,” he says. “An old R & B guy.”

  “Oh.”

  Mac

  In the dream he’s climbing.

  The rock opens up before him, crashes closed behind him, like some treacherous enchanted forest. Drops of water shimmer on the wall. He clings for a minute then his fingers crawl into a crack overhead. He shifts his weight, straightens his right knee, commits to the move, and his body rises. His left foot feels the next hold through the soft sole of his shoe.

  When he reaches the overhang, he has to cut loose, pushing off the wall and swinging up and over. Just like a kid on the jungle gym, except he’s much older, and this is much highe
r, and there’s no soft pile of sand waiting below.

  His fingers are wet…not damp, but actually dripping wet. They slip off the rock and he feels himself falling. Almost with a sense of relief.

  It’s 3:20 AM.

  He knows it without having to look at the clock. For weeks he’s been waking up almost every night at the same time. Wide awake, as if he hadn’t slept at all. Knowing it’s 3:20, knowing he won’t sleep again for hours, and knowing that something is happening. Something like a barely noticeable change in the direction of the wind.

  three

  Wyn

  I could make cornbread in my sleep…crack a couple of eggs into a glass measuring cup, beat in milk and melted butter, stir the mixture into the dry cornmeal and flour, baking powder, salt. I always throw in a little brown sugar—just a tablespoon to bring out the natural sweetness of the corn. Bake it in a preheated cast iron skillet, so it gets all brown and crusty on the bottom and sides.

  I love it hot out of the oven or toasted the next morning with butter melting into it and a swipe of honey. And I love it stale and dry, crumbled into a glass of cold milk and eaten with a spoon about 11:30 at night. My father taught me that.

  “When’s lunch?” Mac stands just inside the back door in his swim trunks, rivulets of water trickling down his chest, towel slung over his shoulder, drinking a beer.

  The dog has followed him in and is methodically licking the water off his legs.

  I can’t help smiling. “So what are you two—the opening act at SeaWorld?”

  He takes a piece of tortilla chip out of the basket on the counter and flips it to Brownie, who catches it on the fly. “Actually, Flipper’s opening for us. We’re the main attraction, right BD?”

  He sets the empty bottle on the counter and pulls another IPA out of the fridge. I want to suggest that it’s too early to start drinking, but things have been pretty congenial so far this morning. So I just say,

  “I made some iced tea…”

  He gives me his slow grin. “Iced tea’s for wimps, sissies and fools. Do I have time to take a shower?”

  “You’ve got twenty minutes.”

  He brushes a cold, wet kiss on my neck as he heads for the stairs, leaving a trail of water.

  The cornbread batter sizzles in the hot skillet and I slide it into the oven, stir the bubbling chili with my oma’s old wooden spoon and wipe the sponge over the dark spatters on the stovetop. I set out placemats, flatware and napkins. Butter goes on the table, and a bottle of Tabasco, because the chili’s never hot enough for him. I toss a few more ice cubes into my tea, wondering which category I fall into—wimp, sissy or fool.

  In a few minutes the upstairs plumbing groans, signaling the end of his shower. I turn down the flame under the chili and I’m just retrieving an onion from the pantry when the doorbell chimes. The first time he heard it, Mac said it sounded like Lay-la.

  Brownie starts barking like a maniac. She may be old but she can still intimidate the occasional delivery person.

  “Brownie, no!” I point at her and she sinks obligingly to the floor, her duty completed.

  A young girl is standing on our front porch—about 17, I’d guess. My first thought is she’s canvassing the neighborhood for world peace…We want to take money out of the black hole of the Pentagon budget and use it for libraries and daycare and the environment, was how the last one put it. They want you to sign a petition, make a small donation…I always do, even though I’m pretty apolitical. They’re all so idealistic, so earnest…so adorably, appallingly naïve.

  I’m about to tell her I’ll go get my wallet, when it comes to me that she looks somehow familiar. Like a friend’s child that you haven’t seen in years. I feel like I should know her. The other thing is, they always wear jeans. It’s the world peace uniform. This girl’s wearing a dress. A green and white sundress, and cute little ballerina flats. And no clipboard.

  She smiles nervously, looking around for the dog, then back up at me. “Does Mr. McLeod live here?”

  It’s her voice—that funny, twisty, musical accent that I’ve only heard a few times in my life—that causes my brain to start firing on all cylinders, making all the connections. Suddenly I know exactly who she is, and the hair rises up on the back of my neck.

  The bottom stair creaks as Mac appears, barefoot, wearing jeans and a sun-faded Shepard Surfboards T-shirt, his hair still wet. He starts toward the kitchen, then, sensing the open door, he turns around.

  “Hello,” the girl says. Her voice is nearly a whisper. “I’m Skye.”

  He looks like a guy who’s just slammed his hand in the car door and is only belatedly becoming aware of it. It takes him a full ten seconds to say,

  “What are you doing here?”

  “My friend and I were just…I’m sorry…I just wanted to see you. I hope…” The words drift into silence as we all trade glances.

  “Wyn, this is Skye Welburne,” he says finally. “My daughter.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Her smile trembles.

  I can’t speak. I can hardly breathe. I hold tight to the doorknob because my knees feel like wet spaghetti. When you know what to look for, it’s obvious. His mouth, his eyes, the thick, straight, pale hair—she’s even got that little place at the hairline where the hair grows back instead of forward.

  “Should we sit down?” I hear my voice, sounding like a computer generated recording. “Can I get you some tea?”

  “Oh. That would be—”

  Mac suddenly takes over. “We’ll be in my office,” he says. And then to make sure I understand that I’m not included, he adds, “I’ll be down in a minute.”

  With an awkward glance back at me, she follows him up the stairs. In the kitchen, the timer is beeping.

  I turn off the chili and move it to a back burner, take the cornbread out of the oven and set it on a cooling rack. And then I stand at the sink, afraid to move, afraid the slightest misstep would send me crashing to the floor in a thousand pieces. I just stand there, inhaling the comforting, familiar scent of cornbread as if it were pure oxygen.

  Afternoon sun flashes on the surface of the pool and my eyes land on the bougainvillea tumbling over the back fence—San Diego Red is the cultivar. The graceful, drooping leaves of banana plant, the softer, silvery foliage and white blooms of rose campion. My spiky blue bachelor’s buttons, South African daisies, fragrant pinks, chocolate cosmos—annuals, that in the benevolence of the Southern California climate return year after year.

  I stand motionless for so long that Brownie comes over and lies down next to me, resting her head on my feet.

  It wasn’t sunny, but at least it wasn’t raining—rare for Seattle in March. Mac and I were strolling aimlessly through Pike Market trying to decide whether to go over to Bainbridge for a local author’s book signing or just go home and make love all afternoon. As we walked, he slipped his hand under my hair and stroked the back of my neck, putting me more in favor of the second option.

  Then it happened. We passed a young couple walking the other way. The guy was wearing a baby backpack with a child in it. I’m not good at children’s ages; this one was in that alert but pre-verbal stage. He was smiling—a fetching, toothless, drooly smile and looking all around, head bobbing like a dashboard hula dancer. And as we passed, that baby’s big blue eyes locked on mine and held them. He and I turned towards each other and he held out his arms to me, his little pink starfish hands waving.

  The whole motherhood concept that had always been so alien to me, suddenly crystallized. I looked at Mac out of the corner of my eye, but he was staring straight ahead. I knew he’d seen the baby. The whole atmosphere between us was different, everything suddenly unfocused.

  I remembered him telling me how he left New Zealand and the woman he was with there—Gillian.

  “She wanted to get married, have babies, raise sheep. I didn’t. So I left.”

  Not so fast, Mr. McLeod.

  He walks into the kitchen.

  I stand
still, watching the slight movements of flowers in the breeze, noticing for the first time a hole the size of my little finger in the window screen. He comes right behind me and puts his hands on my shoulders. I know this only because I see his reflection in the window glass. I can’t feel anything.

  “Where did she go?”

  He removes his hands. “She had a plane to catch.”

  “How long have you known?” My voice sounds shakier than I want it to.

  He steps away from me. I hear him turning on the burner under the chili.

  “Mac…?”

  “A few weeks. A month. I didn’t think she’d actually—I didn’t want you to be upset.”

  “When were you planning to tell me?”

  “Wyn, turn around. I can’t talk to your back.”

  “Apparently you can’t talk to my front, either.”

  “You wanted—you used to talk about having a baby…and I never wanted to. I felt bad that I had one with somebody else.”

  “Yes, there is that.”

  “She said she was going to…Gillian was going to terminate the pregnancy. It was legal. There were clinics. It was no big deal.”

  I look at him over my shoulder. “No big deal?”

  “You know what I mean. It wasn’t a back room thing. It was safe. Lots of women did it. I left. I didn’t know.”

  I turn now, resting the small of my back against the soapstone counter, watching him.

  “It was over before I ever met you.”

  “Except it’s not over. You’ve got a child, Mac. Present tense. She’s a person. You’re her father—”.

  “I’ve taken care of it.”

  “She’s not a parking ticket.”

  He exhales but says nothing.

  “What did you tell her?”

  I watch that little muscle working in his jaw. “I wrote her a check.”

  four

  The week slips past like a long dream, the kind where you wake up and think, oh, this is just a dream, and then settle back in where you left off. If I didn’t know better, I’d say everything was fine.