Baker's Blues

by Judith Ryan Hendricks

  “Is that one ready?” I ask.

  “I’m not sure. It seems very extensible.”

  “Let’s give it a try. By the way, what kind of pasta are we making here?”

  “Lasagne,” they say in unison.

  Good. One thing we can all agree on.

  We set up an assembly line, me feeding the dough into the machine, Jesse proudly turning the handle, and Dustin lifting the thin, eggy-gold sheets up from the other end with a surprisingly deft touch for a 12-year-old boy. We drape them onto the parchment-lined trays and I dust them lightly with flour.

  By the time Alex emerges from his office, we have produced almost a half pound of perfect lasagna sheets.

  “Wow,” he says. “Good job, dudes.”

  Jesse ignores his father’s offer of a high five. “Who were you talking to?”

  “None of your business, Sport.”

  He cuts his eyes to me. “See? Tolja it was the girlfriend.”

  I smile. “It was great meeting you guys. I’ve got to run before they ticket my car.”

  Jesse wants to know what kind of car I have and when I tell him it’s a rental sedan, he totally loses interest in me.

  Alex moves to hold the door open and as I pass, he mutters,

  “Nice exit strategy.”

  nine

  “What’s this?”

  Alex is standing on my porch holding a white bakery box. He follows me to the kitchen, sets it on the counter and tips up the lid.

  “Just to say thanks for putting up with the gang of two.”

  “Lasagne? Alex, this looks fabulous. But you didn’t have to do that. It was actually fun. I can’t remember the last time I made pasta.” I lean over the box and sniff appreciatively. “Mmm. Sit down. You want something to drink? A beer? Or would you rather have espresso?”

  “A double would be great. Get ready for work.”

  I look at him sideways. “Since when did you need to get jacked up for work?”

  “Since last week. When the guys are here it’s like having two jobs. I’m whipped. Then I had to get them ready to leave this morning and drive them down to the ferry. I don’t usually get up at 5 AM.”

  “When will they be back?”

  “They were supposed to come for the Fourth, but Alison’s parents are renting a house in Bend for the month and she wants to take them down there…”

  I heat the cups with a burst of steam, pull two doubles and set them on the table.

  “Thanks.” He picks up the espresso, holds it under his nose for a few seconds before taking a small sip.

  I pull out a chair and sit down across from him. “Anyway, they seem like really nice kids.”

  He laughs. “They’re a lot to deal with. It’s usually a long stretch between visits and they change so much I can’t keep up with them. What they’re into, who their friends are, what music is cool, the slang they use…Sometimes I look at them and it’s like I picked up the wrong kids at the ferry.”

  “Well, there’s no mistaking Jesse for anyone else’s offspring.”

  “True. Not only does he look like me, he acts like me. And it’s only going to get worse.”

  “I think he’s adorable.” I smile. “And Dustin seems very bright.”

  “Scary bright.’ God knows he didn’t get it from me. Alison’s no brain surgeon either. He’s just our teenage mutant ninja scientist. He wants to be an astrophysicist. Or so he says. Like Neil deGrasse Tyson.”

  “Good. We could use a few more like him.”

  “You know who he is?”

  “Of course. He’s practically a rock star.”

  “I never heard of him until three months ago.” He drinks some more espresso, sets down the cup and leans forward. “Okay. The lasagna was actually a bribe. The official reason for this visit. I need a favor.”

  “From me?”

  “I’m doing some classes. Six weeks. Mondays when the café is dark.”

  “Classes?”

  “Yeah. Cooking classes. Evie Campbell—she owns that little bakery on A street—she was going to teach a pastry class next Monday, but her mom’s sick and…long story short, I was hoping I could talk you into filling in as a guest instructor.”

  “Oh, Alex, I don’t think so. First of all, pastry’s not really my—”

  “Of course. I mean, I thought you could do bread.”

  “Second, I don’t like talking to a bunch of people.”

  “Not a bunch. Fifteen.”

  “That’s about fourteen over my comfort level.” I shake my head. “I’m really not good at things like that.”

  “How can you say that? I’ve heard you talk about bread,” he says. “You’ve got the knowledge, you’ve got the passion. You’d be great. Why don’t you just try it? It’s one afternoon. Three hours. How bad can it be?”

  I look past him out the French doors to the deck. “Anyway, you can’t teach anything about bread in three hours.”

  “We can go longer. Come on, do it. It’ll be fun. I did the second one today and it’s a good group. I was hoping you’d do it a week from Monday, but I can re-arrange the schedule. I’ll give you a class fee plus a percentage of the tuition. Not to mention my undying gratitude.”

  “I’m supposed to be on vacation…”

  He leans to the side, placing himself directly in my line of vision. “If you want me to grovel, I will. But with my knees, you might have to help me get back up.”

  I laugh. “Okay. I guess it won’t kill me. It gives me a week to build up my starter and get some recipes together.”

  “Awesome. I owe you.”

  “Yeah, you do. Big Time. I’ll have to think about some appropriate pay back.”

  “You should talk to Ferris about the oven if you want. He’ll be there Wednesday morning.” At the door, he turns back. “Why don’t you come down for dinner some night?” And then he’s gone.

  Right. I’m just dying to have dinner at Rafferty’s again so I can sit at a table by myself and watch all the couples on holiday whispering and laughing with their heads together and eating off each other’s plates.

  Can’t wait.

  Wednesday morning as soon as it’s light I’m downstairs in my underwear and a T-shirt rummaging in the fridge.

  My starter begins with pumpernickel flour, and the final dough contains some stone ground whole wheat as well as white flour, so the finished bread is more substantial than most country French loaves. It’s our best seller at the bakery—a rustic, wheaty tasting bread with a rugged crust. Inside it’s a creamy gold color, flecked with wheat bran and full of the irregular air holes that are the hallmark of breads made with a starter. It makes great sandwiches and fabulous toast, but I like it best simply sliced and slathered with a good salted butter.

  Finally, behind the orange juice I locate the small white plastic tub I brought with me in my carry-on bag. The lid pops when I open it, and the pleasantly musty tang assaults my nose. This is the chef I started at the Queen Street Bakery in Seattle and took with me to L.A., where it became the starter for the Bread Maven.

  I pinch off a tiny piece and put it on my tongue. The sharp acidity gives way in seconds to an earthy, nutty aftertaste, bringing a memory with it.

  I was nineteen years old. My crush on Jean-Marc passed for love and my father’s death was all I knew about pain.

  I’m standing at the work table in Jean-Marc’s boulangerie. He watches me critically, frowning at my awkward movements, admonishing, “Wynter (except he pronounced it Weentaire), the bread will tell you what to do. You know from the way it looks, the way it feels. How warm, how cold. How wet, how dry. Vous comprenez?”

  I scoop out half the creamy mixture and deposit it in the garbage. To the rest, I add water, squeezing it between my fingers till it’s a slimy liquid, then stirring in flour till the long strands of gluten pull at the spoon. I scrape it into a bowl, cover it loosely with plastic wrap and set it on the table to ferment.

  Even after all my years as a baker, I still fee
l a pang when I throw out part of a starter, but that’s how you build it and how you maintain it—by keeping just enough of the old culture to jumpstart a new one. And it still seems like some kind of magic the way a starter goes native. No matter where it comes from, the local yeasts and bacillus will take over the culture and make it their own. So the L.A. critters took over the Seattle starter and now by the end of the week this piece of the Bread Maven will become an island culture, producing bread that can only be made here.

  It’s cold on the café patio and my Southern California blood is thin. I’m inspecting the stonework oven surround and shivering in spite of my turtleneck and fleece jacket when a muddy jeep grinds to a halt and a young man climbs out wearing shorts, Teva sandals and a T-shirt. Ferris Darling grew up on the island, which explains his immunity to the damp chill. He’s worked for Alex since he was fifteen and embarrassed about his name. I remember him as a busboy, waiter, kitchen gopher, bartender…I think he was even host for a while, but Alex seems to prefer having pretty young females out front. Now he’s in his twenties, tall, but no longer skinny, with a trendy scrub of beard and a Celtic knot tattoo on his forearm. He’s never shown any interest in higher education or in leaving the island, and Alex has brought him into the kitchen.

  “God, aren’t you freezing?”

  He pulls his dark shoulder-length hair into a ponytail and grins. “Nope.”

  “Do you remember me?” I ask.

  “Sure. It’s Wyn, right? Alex said you might be coming down.”

  “He did?”

  “Yep. You get bored already?”

  “I can only take so much peace and quiet.”

  He laughs. “I hear ya. So what is it you’re looking to do?”

  “Well…I’ve been thinking I’d like to try some wood fired baking one of these days, but I have no idea how to go about it. I was hoping you might give me a crash course.”

  “I’m no baker, myself. But I can give you Fire Management 101.” He pulls the wood slab out of the oven door. “This one’s a beauty. You’re going to love it. Just a few things you need to know. And you’re going to want to get some heavy duty gloves.”

  “Well, I wasn’t planning to…I mean, I thought I’d just watch you.”

  “Only so much you can learn by watching.”

  He grabs a long-handled wire brush and pushes the cold ash and lumps of charred wood into a pile, then scoops them out with a banjo peel and deposits them into a battered metal bucket.

  “We’re starting cold,” he says, “‘cause the last time we used it was Saturday night. So we need to build a little warm-up fire first. Just raise the temperature gradually so the bricks don’t crack when we crank up the pizza fire.”

  He pulls kindling and wood from a space under the oven where it’s stored according to size, and builds a small base just inside the oven door. He lights it with a weed torch and it comes up fast; then he adds a few medium sized split logs. When it’s burning steadily he tops it off with a few larger pieces and uses the peel to push it all about a third of the way back. We both stand, staring into the oven as a wall of flame fills the space.

  “How long does it take?”

  “A few hours. For tonight I need it to be about 800 degrees.” He grins, obviously enjoying my surprised look. “A thin-crust pizza like I do cooks in about 90 seconds.”

  I feel myself smiling like a little kid. “How totally cool.”

  “I start throwing pizza about five, so I’ll be making the fire about two o’clock. Come back if you want…”

  “Thanks, I will. I have to check on my levain, then I’ll swing by the hardware store and get some gloves.”

  “You sticking around the island for a while?”

  I’m still peering into the oven.

  “It’s beginning to look that way,” I say.

  The phone’s ringing when I walk in the door. I set down my purse and pick up the receiver.

  “Wyn…” He doesn’t even wait for me to say hello.

  It’s annoying the way his voice throws me off balance as if the tectonic plates were shifting under my feet.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Brownie—”

  “Is she alright?”

  There’s a few seconds of empty airspace.

  Then, “She’s…she died.”

  I sink to a crouch on the floor, breathless, hugging my knees.

  Finally I manage, “When?”

  He says, “It was…she just went to sleep and didn’t wake up.”

  “But…what happened? She was okay when I left—she was—”

  “Wyn,” he says almost gently, “She was old.”

  “Lots of dogs are old. Lots of dogs live longer than thirteen years.” I ask again. “When?”

  “Monday night—but I—”

  “Wait a minute. Monday night? She died Monday night? Why didn’t you call me yesterday?”

  “I just found out.”

  “What the hell do you mean you just found out? Where were you?”

  “I was here. She was—I took her over to your mom’s for a few days—”

  “Why? Was she interfering with your love life?”

  “Wyn, stop it.”

  “You said you’d take care of her. You wanted to keep her, then you just couldn’t wait to dump her on my mother—”

  “I didn’t dump her—your mom—”

  “No wonder she died. She thought we’d both left her—”

  “She died because she was old. Listen, I know you’re upset…but I need to know whether you want to bury her or have her cre—”

  “Did you ask Chuck to do an autopsy?” The tears that have been collecting in my eyes reach critical mass and begin to stream down my face.

  He sighs audibly. “She’s a dog. You don’t autopsy a dog. She was old—”

  “What did Chuck say?”

  “Actually, Richard took her to the clinic—”

  “I don’t believe you.” Anger shrinks my voice to a hard whisper. “How could you not even go get her yourself?”

  “Look,” he says after a few seconds. “I feel just as bad—”

  “You do not.” I swipe my face with my arm. “You don’t feel bad. You don’t feel anything. Which is the whole goddamn problem with you and with us and with—”

  “We’re going to have to talk about this after you calm down. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “I hate you,” I say. But he’s already gone.

  Friday morning at 9:15 I’m sitting in my rented Kia in the parking lot of the Orcas Post Office with a small padded Express Mail envelope in my lap. I slit the tape with my key.

  Brownie’s tooled leather collar is cradled in bubble wrap along with a card bearing a sketch of a flop-eared mutt and a scrap of that shamelessly poignant poem by Isla Paschal Richardson.

  Inside Chuck has written, “We miss her, too.” and it’s signed by all the clinic staff.

  I sit for a few minutes absently fingering the rabies tag and Luna Blanca dog license while tears take turns rolling down my face. I knew she’d die eventually. Of course. I just never expected it to happen like this. Shouldn’t there have been some kind of warning? Maybe there was, and I missed it.

  Why did I leave her in L.A.?

  I had to rent a car anyway; why am I so stupid that it never occurred to me to rent one there and drive up? Then I could have brought her with me. Then I would have known if something was wrong. Then, even if she’d died here, and even if it was true that there was nothing I could do, at least I’d have been with her.

  One of the few things I’ve retained from 8th grade California history class:

  According to the Kato Indians, the god Nagaicho created the world. First he erected four great pillars at the corners of the sky to hold it up and to expose the earth. Then he strolled around his new world and began creating things to fill it. Man and woman were made of earth; the rivers and lakes were made by Nagaicho’s footsteps; each animal was formed and placed in its proper setting
—each animal except the dog. Nowhere in the story is there any mention of Nagaicho creating the dog. Instead, the myth begins:

  Nagaicho, the creator, set out to create the world, and he took along his dog.

  Brownie was originally supposed to be a present for Mac. He’d told me once how he wanted a dog when he was a kid, but Suzanne refused to allow any animals in the house. So on his first birthday after we moved to L.A. I went to the nearest shelter to check out the candidates. I was only going to look, of course. I thought I’d make a short list and then talk to Mac, see what kind of dog he might like.

  By the time the volunteer had walked me back through the kennels I was wrecked. Behind every gate was a face, a story, a dog who’d come there by some human carelessness or stupidity or cruelty. I wanted to take them all home.

  The volunteer was about my mother’s age. She had scraggly gray hair and a kind face with no makeup and she took the measure of me right away. When I hesitated at one pen which held a litter of squirming black puppies, she said gently,

  “They’re a lot of work at that age, so be sure you’re up for that kind of demand on your time and energy. It’s really sad when you have to bring them back.”

  She left me in a tiny room while she disappeared around the corner. In a few minutes she was back, leading a chocolate brown dog with a fine pointy nose like a collie and little floppy ears.

  “This is Brownie,” she said. “She’s probably about three years old.” She unclipped the leash from the dog’s nylon collar. “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted.” Then as an afterthought: “She’s very smart.”

  Brownie immediately demonstrated her smarts by coming over to my chair and standing on her hind legs, front paws on my knees and looking directly into my eyes. It was very like falling in love. I had no time to think about it.

  She sat primly in the passenger seat of my Volvo, looking around at the scenery with great interest, but every time I stopped at a light, she turned to fix me with that lover’s gaze, just to be certain I hadn’t developed buyer’s remorse.

  People say that rescue dogs are the best because they’re so grateful. I’m not sure whether Brownie was grateful or just clever. Whatever her take on the situation, she seemed aware that she had scored big-time, and she blended seamlessly into our lives as if filling a space that had been reserved just for her.