Union Street Bakery (9781101619292)

by Taylor, Mary Ellen

  God, please tell me this is a joke! I was not unemployed or living in my parents’ home or working in the family business. I had not gone full circle into a brick wall. Had I?

  “I know that look,” Rachel said as she slipped on her apron and tied a crisp bow in the front.

  I couldn’t even muster a fake smile this go-around. “You mean the look of blinding panic.”

  “Exactly.”

  For years I surrounded myself with people who didn’t really know me, so it was a little unnerving now to be around someone who knew me a little too well. “I won’t bolt. I made a promise. I’ll see it through.” Gritty determination laced the final words as if someone had just yanked a thorn from the bottom of my foot.

  “You know we’ve all bet on how long you’ll last.” She smiled but her eyes harbored a hint of desperation that broke my heart a little and ensured I would not run this time.

  Casually, I moved toward the small stainless sink, turned on the hot water, and pumped soap from a dispenser. I washed my hands. “No huge surprise there. Dad turns everything into a bet or a race.”

  Rachel moved beside me and washed her hands. “You do have a reputation for frequently changing jobs and boyfriends.” Her tone projected more simmering worry and fear.

  “So how do the bets look?” I grabbed a freshly laundered towel from the laundry stack, dried my hands, and tucked the towel under my tied apron strings. Through the course of the day, I’d use a dozen towels like this one, not only drying hands, but also wiping down countertops or cleaning dishes.

  “Mom says a month. Dad says two. Margaret says two days.”

  “Two days?” My older sister and I have been oil and water since day one. She was five when I was adopted, and for reasons I can’t explain she always resented my presence. “That’s wishful thinking on her part.”

  “You know Margaret. She was ruler of the house until you came along. You’ve usurped her authority at every turn.”

  “I enjoyed rattling her cage.” Even if this place burned to the ground this morning, I would stay on-site working for more than two days if only to spite Margaret.

  “You think?”

  Margaret was a problem that I didn’t have to face until seven A.M., and for now I refused to consider the battles to come. “So what kind of bet did you place?”

  “A year.”

  “That’s optimistic.” I didn’t even try to hide the surprise. If I’d bet, I’d have wagered three months, tops.

  “This is a good place for you, Daisy. You just don’t believe it yet.”

  I grunted, Henri style. “You really think I’ll last a year?”

  “I think you’ll last longer. This is where you belong.” A sheepish smile undercut her light tone. “Plus, I’ll need a good year of solid help to get myself together.”

  My mind suddenly tripped back to my first days at the bakery. It couldn’t have been long after Renee left. I’d been crying. So lost. And Rachel had gotten out of the twin bed next to mine and given me one of her Barbies to hold. I hadn’t wanted the doll. In fact, I think I threw it on the floor. But I’d never forgotten that she’d tried.

  “I don’t know if I belong but if it takes a year to get you settled, it takes a year. I said I’d stay until you found real help, and I will.”

  Damn Barbie.

  Shoving aside the sharp prick of emotion, I focused on the workroom and took a moment to look past the shine of the stainless. Neat as a pin didn’t hide the room’s age. The state-of-the-art equipment my parents had installed thirty years ago now looked dated and tired. Rode hard and put away wet came to mind. “How’s the equipment running?”

  “It gets the job done.” Rachel moved toward the large industrial refrigerator and pulled out an armload of butter.

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “Sometimes I have to tinker and cajole to keep the motor running on the big mixers, but they still keep spinning.”

  Closer inspection revealed nicks and scratches in the stainless patina. A dent in the side of the large mixing bowl was evidence that it had been dropped, and I could imagine Rachel trying to single-handedly heft the bowl. Full of dough, it easily weighed over a hundred pounds. The image fueled my guilt at not having done something earlier. “We should get someone in here to have a look at the equipment?”

  Henri grunted but did not raise his head.

  “Is that a yes or a no, Henri?” I asked.

  Rachel hoisted a thirty-pound bag of flour. “It’s a yes. But repairs cost money.”

  “It may be necessary, no matter what it costs.” I glanced at the stainless modern ovens for baking cakes, which looked to be in decent shape. But a glimpse at the brick oven was another matter. This was the oven we used to make our breads. It’s the oven that added a flavor few other bakers in the region could match. It was what distinguished Union Street Bakery Bread from the stuff on grocery store shelves.

  Chunks of mortar were missing from the oven’s sides, and the cast-iron door was rigged closed with a wooden spoon.

  In a low voice, Rachel added, “Henri says he does not want to learn how to use a new oven. He likes his oven.”

  “Does Henri not speak for himself anymore?” I whispered.

  Rachel’s gaze was so serious. “He never talks when he bakes, don’t you remember?”

  My gaze flickered from the stone oven to Henri, who’d always seemed strong. Now when he turned sideways, I could see how slim he’d become and that the perpetual hunch in his shoulders looked more like a hump.

  Henri and his stove didn’t have as much time as Rachel hoped. Like the mixer and the oven, I sensed he was hanging on only for Rachel.

  One last gulp of coffee wasn’t nearly enough fortification, but I set down the cup. “God help me, I’m going to work. You said bread first?”

  Rachel grinned. “Then bagels, cakes, and cookies.”

  • • •

  Two hours later, I stood in the center of the basement bakeshop covered in flour. My back ached from hefting bread dough from the industrial mixer that mixed forty pounds of dough at a time. The repetitive motion of forming more bagels than a single human should have to produce in a day left my fingers stiff and cramped.

  Rachel looked cool and composed as she hummed, as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Even Henri looked a bit younger and a little less hunched than he had hours ago.

  I realized that the invisible burden had been lifted from their shoulders and placed squarely on mine. Everyone really believed that my presence was going to save the day. God help us all.

  My dough-shaping efforts were a sad attempt compared to Henri’s and Rachel’s practiced efficiency. My work was the work of a novice, not a bakery savior.

  I didn’t want to be a savior. I wanted my air-conditioned office back. The office door that closed so easily. I wanted to look out the window that didn’t open and overlooked the bustling street in D.C. I wanted to run and hide. But this was my family . . . my only pack. And the idea of letting them sink terrified me more than working here.

  “This is God’s curse,” I said, tossing another round of dough on a sheet.

  Rachel arched a brow. “What do you mean? Together we move four times as fast as I did with Dad.”

  Using the back of my forearm, I brushed aside wispy strands of hair from my eyes. “I can’t believe you do this every day.”

  “It’s not so bad once you get used to it. And in time, you’ll see that all we do here has a real Zen quality.”

  The last time I’d heard talk like that was when I’d paid money for a yoga retreat. After a few hours of deep breathing and chanting, I’d slipped out the back and gone home to have a beer. “Zen. Shit.”

  Henri grunted.

  Rachel laughed and hummed as she opened the large stainless refrigerator and pulled out several
more pounds of butter so they could warm and soften before mixing. “You’ll see the art once you’ve tasted the bread. In fact, you will stop hating bread once you’ve tasted USB bread.”

  “I don’t hate bread. I love bread. I had a bagel a few months ago.” The markets had rallied and it appeared Suburban would survive. The bagel had been my mini-celebration. “Bread just doesn’t love me back.”

  “How can you say that? Of course it loves you. You’ve turned your back on bread because you are rebelling against this place.”

  “It’s not a rebellion thing. It’s a jeans-that-have-grown-too-tight-to-zip kind of thing.”

  Her eyes sparked with challenge. “Did that bagel taste as good as mine?”

  “No. Too doughy, as I remember.”

  Her gaze narrowed as she seemed to flip through the baking process. “No doubt they rushed the cooking time.”

  “I didn’t double back and question them.”

  “You should have. Always good to know what the competition is doing.”

  “They aren’t my competition.”

  “They are now.”

  Responding to that comment suggested I was really a baker, and I had not made that leap yet. “At the time, I never gave any thought to the lady behind the bagel counter or the poor slob locked in the basement grinding the bagels out.”

  Rachel’s laugh rang clear and bright. “And now you are that poor slob.”

  “I’m in hell.”

  • • •

  By seven, the earthy fragrance of freshly baked bread perfumed the shop. The front display cases burst with breads, cookies, and pies. The place was transformed from a dark cold space to a warm inviting retreat that beckoned those who passed. Rachel had done this. She had brought the sunshine.

  Rachel flipped the CLOSED sign to OPEN as I wiped the flour from my palms onto my apron. I should have been enjoying this moment of peace sandwiched between the morning baking and the rush of the day’s first customers. But butterflies chewed at my gut with ravenous voracity. At Suburban, I’d shouted down my fair share of brokers, consultants, and traders and never broke a sweat. So why was I so freaked now?

  I moved out to the patio. I opened the umbrellas, wiped off the tables and chairs, and pulled out the planter. The dewy street was quiet, but the nearby rumble of trucks and honk of horns told me the city was awake. I remembered that our first customers, if they weren’t waiting outside for us to open, arrived minutes after opening.

  Our regular customers had deep ties to the area. Many lived in the historic town houses that lined the narrow cobblestone streets or worked in the retail shops that dotted the blocks near the waterfront. A good many had grown up starting their day with Union Street Bakery bread. Dad had said the number of customers had dwindled in recent years; the lure of low-carb diets and inexpensive grocery store bread had hit USB like a one-two punch.

  I moved back into the store and stood directly behind the counter, where it felt just a little safer. I hadn’t stood behind this counter since the summer before college, seventeen years ago, and I wasn’t looking forward to doing it today. In a small community like Alexandria, comments about my return, which I’d no desire to field, would be unavoidable.

  I retied the strings of my apron and smoothed my hands over my hips as Rachel pushed through the saloon doors. “Where is Margaret? I thought she was supposed to work the front counter.”

  “You know Margaret.” Rachel, her baking done, looked relaxed and content, as if she’d had great sex. “Always late.”

  I squared an order pad with the edge of the counter and then gently drummed my fingers over the register keys. “Has she ever been on time a day in her life?”

  “Doubtful.” Rachel moved toward me, pulling off her apron. “She’ll be here soon. Until then, you can work the register just like you did back in the day.”

  “I’ve spent the better part of the last seventeen years blocking out the hours I worked in the bakery.” In my former bakery days, all I could do was dream of better places to live. “I don’t remember anything.”

  “It’s like riding a bike. You’ll pick it right back up. I’ve posted the prices by the register for quick reference. Now, I’ve got to get upstairs and wake the girls. They’re going to be late for school if I don’t.”

  Shoving aside unreasonable panic, I nodded. The girls needed their mother more than I did but that didn’t ease the tension coiling my gut. “Sure. Fine. Go. Leave me to the wolves. Where’s Henri?”

  “He left five minutes ago, three baguettes under his arm.”

  “Great.” I was alone.

  Rachel’s brow deepened with renewed tension. “Hey, if you want me to stay . . .”

  I shoved out a breath. “No, no. The girls need you. I can do this.”

  Rachel nibbled her bottom lip. “You’re sure?”

  “Very. I’m just being dramatic.”

  She nodded. “I have confidence you can man the ship.”

  “Remember my last ship, the SS Suburban, sunk.”

  Rachel grinned, and then vanished up the back staircase to her apartment.

  I stood in front of the counter, my shoulders back and my body tense. The cupcake clock on the wall behind me ticked as the cappuccino machine on the counter gurgled and hissed. I drummed my fingers and considered dashing around the counter to clean the front window. But that would mean leaving the safety of the counter, so instead I knelt down and readjusted already military-straight pastries in the case.

  Maybe no one would come right away. Maybe Margaret would show and . . .

  The bells on the front door jingled as the door opened.

  I was so relieved to hear the bells. I smiled, determined to swallow all the nasty Margaret curses I’d readied. I just wanted her here so I could escape back to the kitchen or the office.

  I stood but instead of Margaret I saw my first customer since high school back into the shop.

  She was a burly black woman wearing a white nurse’s uniform, and she was pulling a wheelchair. With practiced ease, the nurse spun the wheelchair around to reveal a very elderly woman sitting hunched forward, her head slightly bent, and her right hand drawn up in a C shape. The old woman wore a yellow dress that all but swallowed her thin frame; a pillbox hat, which covered thinned, short hair that looked as if it had just been styled, and her white gloved–hands draped a small rectangular purse. A blue crocheted throw blanketed her legs.

  I knew the old woman from back in the day, and though I couldn’t recall her name I remembered she had a taste for sweets. Cookies? Pies? No, sweet buns. A half-dozen every single Friday. But it was Monday, not Friday.

  I stood a little straighter and offered my best Rachel-esque smile. “Welcome.” The word sounded so rusty. I cleared my throat. “Welcome to Union Street Bakery.”

  The wheelchair-bound woman raised her head at the sound of my voice. She studied me as if she were sizing me up. “As I recall, you swore you’d never be caught dead behind that register again.”

  The direct clear voice didn’t jive with the withered body that looked so painfully fragile. “Excuse me?”

  The old woman’s clear, bright gaze was as powerful as her voice. “Last time I saw you here, you screamed and hollered like a baby. Said you’d never come back.”

  My last day in the bakeshop hadn’t been one of my finer moments. A woman had come into the bakery, and I’d sworn she was Renee. My Renee. As she’d sipped coffee on the sidewalk café, I kept staring, certain we shared so many similarities. Dark hair. Slim, tall build. Wide-set eyes. She even was eating sugar cookies like the ones my Renee had given me that last day.

  A bundle of nerves and tension congealed in my belly and when she rose to leave, I’d panicked, feeling I was about to lose my one and only opportunity to meet my birth mother again. I was certain she’d not recognized the three-year-old that had now morph
ed into a seventeen-year-old. So I had gathered up the courage, introduced myself, and asked her if she was my birth mother. She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind, but I’d been too emotional to read her expression and so I kept babbling.

  “I’m Daisy. And I’m still at the bakery.” I even hugged her.

  Her body stiffened like forged iron, and she anxiously glanced around looking for someone to help her. “Really, kid, I don’t know you.”

  She smelled of Chanel and fresh soap. “You left a daughter here fourteen years ago. That girl is me. I was three at the time.”

  Fear had given way to pity in the woman’s gaze as she pried herself from my arms. “Honey, I’ve never been here before. Really.”

  “My name is Daisy. I was three when you left me.”

  “No, honey,” she’d said softly. “That wasn’t me.”

  With growing horror, I’d realized my terrible blunder. Shame had burned so hot in my throat I thought I’d pass out.

  “You cried like a baby,” the old woman said.

  Refocusing on her, I exhaled the breath I’d been holding. “Really?”

  Gnarled fingers picked at the edges of the caftan. “Stirred up a real scene.”

  Mom had been summoned from the back and had crossed straight to me. As she’d apologized to the woman, she’d tried to calm me, but the more she spoke in soothing whispers, the louder I’d cried.

  “Who could just leave a kid like that?” I’d wailed into Mom’s sweatshirt.

  Carefully the woman had backed away from the table and the nearby faceless customers’ chatter had grown unnaturally silent. “I don’t know, baby. I don’t know. But it had nothing to do with you.”

  Sloppy tears rolled down my face. “It had everything to do with me.”

  I realized that day that I had been waiting for Renee since she’d abandoned me. I’d been ready to turn down offers to go to college in hopes she’d return and explain her absence in a way that excused everything. I was waiting for her to tell me she loved me.

  In that moment, I’d realized Renee was never coming back. Daily fears and hopes of seeing her had been brewing inside of me for as long as I could remember, and I knew then that if I didn’t leave, those fears and hopes would eat me alive. My survival depended on me getting out of town and away from Union Street. So I’d grabbed my scholarship to the University of Richmond and ran, swearing never to return.