by Olivia Luck
“Geez Louise, that woman wears me out. Every week, I have to remind myself that this wedding is a massive event for Expertly Planned, and every week, she gets on my last nerve. Thanks,” she says when I place a mug in front of her.
“The good news is you’ve mastered the art of hiding your emotions. Jana has no idea she drives you up the wall with her micromanaging. That’s a win from any way you look at it.” I sip my own drink.
“What’s that look for?”
“I didn’t realize I had a look.”
“You’re frowning a little,” Violet tells me.
“Someone told me recently every emotion shows plain as day on my face. Point proven, I suppose.”
Violet’s brows draw together, her eyes darken with her mama bear protectiveness. “Who told you that?”
I wave her off. “Nothing to get upset about. It’s true, isn’t it? As soon as I started thinking that I’m too emotive, you spotted it right away. At least my face keeps me honest.”
“Who told you this?” Violet repeats, this time adding a scowl.
All of a sudden, I’m feeling protective. I don’t want my sister to think badly of Oscar. On the other hand, I don’t know how to lie. Finally, I sigh and spit out the words. “Oscar mentioned it. It sounds critical, I know, but it didn’t come out that way. It was more of an observation. Retract your claws.”
Mollified, Violet perks up. “Oh, now he’s making observations about your personality, is he? Try and tell me again that he’s not interested in you.”
Shaking my head, I rise to my feet, taking my cappuccino with me. “This is one thing you’re wrong on, sister, sister.” She follows me to the front section of the lofted space where our desks face each other.
“Okay, okay. I’ll let up on the Oscar—Iris romance. But I won’t hide that I’m excited you are developing a friendship with a man.” Violet shuts her eyes briefly. “When I first got to college, I was hesitant around guys because I thought they were all like our dad. Mean, controlling, dismissive, cruel.” Her deep blue eyes are full of remorse. I understand that scarcity. It follows me to this day. “It took a while for me to figure out that Father was an outlier.”
“Yeah,” I murmur in agreement. “The impact of our childhood is far reaching.”
Violet flings her arms wide, looking around the loft. “Look where we are now.”
“The right place.”
A month passes.
Weekly visits with Jana continue. I organize my lessons plans, attend an orientation, and generally prepare for the start of Mentoring Chicago at the end of August. Expertly Planned hosts a breast cancer awareness luncheon and organizes a wedding for a player on the Chicago Wind. I don’t see Oscar again during that time, to my dismay, but it’s probably for the best. Unrequited desire can’t be good for my burgeoning self-esteem.
I park the silver midsize SUV Violet and I share in the parking lot adjacent to Grover High School.
“Today’s the big day,” I hum to myself.
The tingles are present in my fingertips. Not the thrilling kind—more like the panicky, anxious sensations that make me rethink why I ever wanted to volunteer with high school kids in the first place. They are going to eat me alive.
“No. You can do this. You want to make a difference in these kids’ lives.” Saying the words aloud rattles me out of my anxious reverie. In the backseat, I have bags of ingredients and items for the students. I juggle all of my bags, pushing some onto my shoulder and gripping others in my hands.
“Let me help you with that.” A hand reaches out to collect some of my bags. Bruce, the bearded man from Mentoring Chicago who interviewed me, grins at me.
“Very prepared. You’re proving us right in our selection of you.”
I smile shyly at him. “Thanks for the help. Not that I’m not glad to see you, but what are you doing here?”
“Volunteer coordinators always roam around to observe our students. At Grover, there’s a cooking, not to be confused with baking, class, writing, computer science, and a few others.”
“Ah, so you’re here to make sure I don’t completely screw up. No pressure.” Bruce opens one of the windowed doors for me, and I walk ahead of him.
“Nothing like that. I have full confidence in your abilities. It’s part of the job.” His shoulder brushed against mine, and when I look his way, I realize it was an inadvertent gesture.
“I hope you’re right because I’m very nervous.”
“You are this way.” Bruce juts his chin down one hallway, and I follow dutifully alongside him. “There’s nothing to worry about. For the most part, these kids want to be here. They sign up for Mentoring Chicago and pick what programs interest them. But you already knew that from orientation.”
When we reach the double classroom, Bruce moves aside, enabling me to enter first. The room bathes in light when I flick the switches upward. In addition to the traditional desks and chairs, two full kitchens occupy the space, ideal for separating the students into two teams. We place my bags on the island in the closest kitchen. “All the tools in the drawers and cabinets are available to you, but please make sure you clean up and put them back. This is the lecture I have to give to everyone; I know you understand the rules.” He shakes his head ruefully, and I give him a sympathetic smile.
Forcing a brave smile, I say, “Your job is to remind me of the rules. I get it.”
Bruce nods. “Well, I’ll let you get to it. Maybe–” He hesitates, and I glance in his direction to find his cheeks taking a rosy sheen underneath his blond beard.
“Yes?”
“Never mind. Good luck tonight, Iris. I have to do another site visit after Grover, so I won’t see you again tonight.”
“All right. Thanks for your help with my bags and the pep talk.” Not that it erased any of my anxiety, but it was kind of him to try.
Bruce hovers a moment longer, making me uncomfortable. Finally, he leaves while I’m busy digging through the things I’ve brought. The first thing I unload is a portable speaker for my phone. I have less than an hour until my students arrive, and I need to work fast. Music from the playlist I created last night fills the classroom. All of the ingredients are in plastic containers for easy transport. I place each container in a neat line on each kitchen island and then set the recipe next to them.
As my hips sway to “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)” and I softly sing the words to myself, I lay five orange and five yellow aprons across the backs of chairs. These weren’t part of the budget from Mentoring Chicago, but I couldn’t help myself. Violet had stopped me before I used puffy paint to put each kid’s name on the apron bib.
“What’s with the corny music?” I jerk around in surprise. A gaggle of students stares at me skeptically. The one who spoke is a curvy girl with a lip curl to show her disdain of the Four Tops.
This isn’t how I wanted my first impression to go, but a bright smile still stretches across my face. They’re here! I scurry to the speakers and adjust the volume.
“I must have lost track of time. Sorry, guys. Come in, come in.” Cool air-conditioning blows from vents in the wall and the ceiling, but I’m sweating. I lift my hair off my neck and twist it into a ponytail. “The first rule of baking is to keep your hair away from the goods.”
Crickets.
Heat rushes to my cheeks as the students stare at with me indifference as they file into the room.
“Grab any seat and help yourself to an apron,” I say hastily.
“Jay-zus. What the fuck is this?” the same curvy girl grumbles under her breath.
My back snaps straight. “Second rule of baking in my classroom is no curse words,” I say lightly.
The girl glares at me reproachfully. “You ain’t our teacher.”
“N-no, but I am responsible for the next two hours. That means you listen to my rules. My name is Iris Harper, and I’ll be your instructor for this course. You can call me Iris.” Darn, my voice won’t stay firm, and the kids cle
arly see it. Two students tap away on their cell phones while one picks at her manicure. Only one young man listens attentively, hands resting on the top of his desk, eyes on me. A rush of gratitude to this boy fills me, and I’m reminded what made me want to volunteer in the first place: connections like this one.
I roll through the attendance sheet and determine that the boisterous girl is London and the rapt boy is Michael.
Clasping my hands together, I offer a tentative smile to the mostly sullen expressions. “Okay. We’ll get into the kitchen during the second half of our session, but first, I want to give you an idea of what we’ll learn here and how I’ve set up our class.”
“They said this shit wasn’t like school,” London interjects. The other students don’t chime in, but then again, no one comments against the verbose girl.
“You’re absolutely right. Our time together won’t be like school. There are no tests, no presentations, and no grades. We’re going to do our best to make this course fun, and hopefully, you’ll learn a thing or two about baking.”
London rolls her eyes, and I feel my stomach drop. “Yeah, right,” one of the other girls says with a snicker.
“Give this a shot,” I say as sternly as I can manage (which isn’t saying much). “Here’s how this course will work. You are going to learn the fundamentals of baking. We’ll do the sweets and some savories. Tonight, we are making a batch of my kitchen sink cookies.”
“What’s that?” another girl, Amber, calls out.
“The mixture of all things good in one cookie. We’ll get to that in a minute. Each week, we’ll make something different. Since there are two kitchens, we will split up into two groups. Each week, you’ll work with a different group. This is the most important part of my introduction so listen up. This is a judgment-free zone. Whatever questions you have, whatever is confusing to you, ask me. Be comfortable in this space.”
Pause. They continue to look unimpressed.
“Any questions?”
The students stare at me blankly. Shoot. Have I lost them already?
“Before we get started, one more thing. At the end of this course, you will create your own recipe.”
“How the hell are we supposed to do that?” London yelps.
“Yeah, that sounds fuckin’ hard,” Amber scowls.
Bruce said the students wanted to be here, yet none of them except Michael appears the least interested in what I am saying.
“Are you going to play that broke ass music every week?” London says.
My hands clench together into fists at my side—not because I am angry, but because I am fighting the instinct to wrap my arms around my waist in comfort. These kids are ruthless. “First, no cursing in this room. Second, by the end of this class, you will want to make your own recipes because I will show you how to do it. And if you’re lost, you’ll come to me, and I’ll help you.”
The students stare at me sullenly. Ooo-kay. Moving right along.
“Will you tell us what we’re going to be baking in advance?” Michael pipes in.
“Absolutely.” I hand out a stack of square cards, one for each student. “I buy the ingredients ahead of our meeting. That means I need to know at least a week in advance what’s on the schedule. Let’s take a look and see what you think.”
“Chicken pot pie is dinner,” Amber says.
“True enough, but we’re going to make the pie crust from scratch, and then the filling, of course. Does anyone have any objections to the schedule? Anything you want to bake that’s not listed?” More silence. I’ll take this as a little victory. They may not be engaged (yet), but at least they aren’t complaining.
“Let’s get started then. Grab your apron and come into the kitchen. Today, we’ll split into teams by color. Yellow in the kitchen farther from the door and orange is the closer one.” All except for Michael trudge into the kitchen with little enthusiasm. I stand between the kitchens to address them all. “Across the hall, there’s a cooking class. You may think we’re doing the same thing in here, but that’s not the case. In the kitchen, there are two kinds of people: cooks and bakers. For cooks, recipes are suggestions, flexible in their ingredients and proportions. For bakers, on the other hand, recipes are gospel, strict in their measurements and techniques.”
“Then how are we supposed to write our own recipes if it’s so scientific?” Michael asks. Choosing favorites is probably against some unwritten rule of teaching, but this boy is quickly becoming mine.
I give him a reassuring smile. “Let’s not worry about that quite yet. We’ll start with the basics. Rather than having me stand here and explain everything, you are going to practice the techniques in real time at your stations. For this first recipe, we are going to work together step by step. Next week, you’ll have more autonomy.”
“What’s autonomy?” Amber asks.
“It basically means I won’t make you measure things together. You’ll have the freedom to work as a group and make your own decisions. Why don’t you go to your stations and look at your recipe card? The first thing you do, no matter if you’re cooking or baking, is read the entire recipe through. There’s new vocabulary for you to learn. Do I have a volunteer to read the ingredient list?”
Michael raises his hand, and I flash him a grateful smile.
An hour later, the final batch of cookies is baking, and I’m nearly wringing my hands with anxiety. In my haste to write the syllabus, purchase ingredients, select aprons, and all the other details, I didn’t think of how to entertain the teenagers during the time everything was baking. The kids want to play on their phones and gripe about my terrible taste in music. They don’t engage with me. In fact, none of them, even Michael, gives me their attention. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this ahead of time.
So stupid!
A sharp, synchronized buzzing from both ovens sound—we put the batches in at the same time. At least the delicious scent streaming from the appliance pulls their attention from their phones and gossip. “Make sure the edges are golden brown like you did with the first tray. Then let’s transfer the finished cookies to the cooling racks.”
“Do we get to eat any now?” London chirps.
“The cool ones are ready for your consumption,” I say. The kids eagerly take the cookies, and to my blessed relief, I hear noises of appreciation.
“Iris, you got a funny way of talking.” Cookie crumbs linger around the corner of Amber’s lips when she speaks, and I move to hand her a napkin. She disregards the white paper and waits for my response.
“Yes, I suppose we do sound different. I grew up in a very strict home. My father is a pastor.” One look at the wall clock and I realize we have two minutes left in this session. “Let’s get baggies for you to take the extras home. Oh, and leave your aprons behind. I’ll wash them.”
The kids rush around the room, grabbing their treats and book bags. All of a sudden, the room is empty, leaving me with flour-sprinkled countertops to clean. A heap of crumpled aprons is piled next to the classroom door. No one said good-bye or thank you or see ya.
“Congratulations, Iris. Job well done,” I mutter sarcastically.
Oscar
Dejection hangs around her like a cape. Her shoulders crouch inward while she scrubs the countertops of one of the kitchens. I’m watching a completely different woman from the one who danced and sang to herself while she set up the room. That woman was adorable and enticing, swaying her hips to the beat of the Motown music.
Observing her unnoticed makes me feel like a voyeur, but I had no idea she was volunteering for Mentoring Chicago. When I arrived at Grover a few hours ago and saw Bruce coming from the second classroom, I stopped to talk to him. That’s when I noticed Iris bouncing around with unapologetic exuberance.
The defeat radiating from her slumped frame elicits a bizarre desire to stride into the classroom, collect her in my arms, and smooth away all the worry, rejection—hell, anything bothering her.
Where is that coming from
? Typically, I run in the opposite direction of sadness or insecurity. I have no time in my life to analyze emotion. I bulldoze through anything that bothers me and move on to the next thing.
My feet don’t get the memo. They carry me into the classroom and toward Iris. Before I know it, I’m a foot away from her, lightly touching her shoulder. I ignore the scent of sugar and vanilla that always surrounds this woman. I ignore the way my fingertips warm when my fingers meet her cotton-clad skin. “They’ll walk all over you if you don’t exert your authority.”
She yelps and, I’m an idiot, it’s the cutest sound I’ve ever heard.
What, did you lose your balls in the last two seconds?
“What are you doing here?” she asks in astonishment.
“I should probably be the one asking you that,” I say wryly. “I’ve been teaching with Mentoring Chicago for the past five years. You’re the new kid around here.” If possible, she looks even more forlorn at my words. In the past, I may have teased her, but there was never an intention to make her unhappy. Seeing her visible distress, I want to kick my own ass for causing Iris even a crumb of pain.
“They hated me. Everything I said was wrong. The music I played was ‘corny.’ The recipe schedule is boring. None of them said good-bye or even looked at me when they ran out the door. Bruce said that they wanted to be here, but only one of the students showed the least bit of interest in what I saying. What did I do wrong?” Her expression is so mournful that I can’t restrain myself from tugging the rag from her hand, pushing it aside, and pulling her to my chest. Her scent is even more intoxicating when she’s flush against my body. For a moment, she resists, but then her arms slide around my waist, and she clings to me. Every soft curve molds to my body, and I’m instantly responding. Not wanting her to get a sense of my very obvious reaction, I carefully push her away. This innocent would probably not react well to feeling the impact she has on my body.
