I slid not-so-steady hands over the apron covering my hips, and I straightened. “You were there that day.”
“I was.”
Just my luck. “You’ve a good memory.”
The comment pleased the old woman. “People think I can’t remember, but I remember it all. The body is failing but my mind is as sharp as a tack.”
Great. She’d used her super-sharp memory to recall the second worst day of my life. I cleared my throat. “What can I get for you?”
Her eyes narrowed. “You remember my name?”
“No.”
The woman grunted. “You’re young. You should remember.”
Annoyance teased the back of my skull. “I don’t remember.”
She coughed, and for a moment struggled to get her breath. The black woman leaned forward, gently patted her on the back, and whispered something in her ear, but the old woman waved her away. “Margaret always greets me by name.”
“Sorry.”
With shaking bent hands, the woman opened the retro purse and pulled out a petty-point change purse. Her hands trembled as she struggled with the purse’s clasp. Finally she clicked open the squeaky hinges and dug out a ten-dollar bill. “You said only a sucker would work behind that counter.”
I glanced at the cupcake clock on the wall: five minutes past seven. When did we close for the day? Three? “I’m only here temporarily. I’m helping my sister.”
She smoothed out the rumpled bill. “I heard you lost your job.”
“I’ll get another one.” Keep smiling. Keep smiling.
“Looks like you got one.”
When Margaret showed her pert little face I was going to kill her. Very, very slowly. “May I take your order?”
Her gaze searched the display case now crammed full of cookies, apple and strawberry tartlets, cakes, and all manner of breads. “Six of those sweet buns.”
So I was right about the sweet buns. Too bad I’d not called it out loud before she ordered. I’d always liked the look of surprise on a customer’s face when I remembered their favorites.
The nurse leaned forward. “Mrs. W., you know what the doctor says about sweets. Ain’t no good for your sugar.”
W. Wentworth. Welbourne. Williams. I couldn’t capture the name.
Mrs. W. waved her away. “I’m ninety-nine, Florence. How much longer you think I’ll live anyway? Now bag those sweet buns, Daisy.”
She spoke my name with force as if to say, I remember you. Unsettled by the sound of my name, I ducked my head, grateful for a task, and concentrated on arranging six sweet buns in a white pastry box that I carefully sealed with a gold sticker embossed with UNION STREET BAKERY. “That’ll be nine dollars.”
The old woman raised a trembling, bent hand and offered me the deeply creased bill. She wrapped bony fingers around my wrist when I reached for it. Her touch was cold, but she possessed unexpected strength. “I dreamed about you last night.”
I stiffened. “What?”
“I dreamed about you.” Clear blue eyes pierced right through my skin, making me feel as unsure as I did that last awkward day in the bakery.
Bravado stiffened my spine. “How could you have dreamed about me? You haven’t seen me in seventeen years.”
Narrow shoulders shrugged, but her gaze did not waver. “Dreams don’t worry about time. They come when they come.”
I pulled my hand free. “I’ll get your change.”
She fisted gnarled, pale fingers. “Don’t you want to know what I dreamed about?”
“No.”
“Your loss, Daisy.” Mrs. W. ripped the seal on her bakery box, lifted the lid, and pinched a piece of sweet bun. She popped it in her mouth, and for a moment closed her eyes as pure pleasure softened the lines in her face. Finally, she opened her eyes. “You were strolling down by the river with your mama and that little imaginary friend of yours. What was her name?”
My hands trembled a little as they hovered over the register keys. “What are you talking about?”
“The dream.”
“I told you I didn’t want to know.”
As if I hadn’t spoken, “What was her name?”
“I don’t remember.” Susie.
“You don’t know your mama’s name?”
“Oh, I thought you meant my little friend.” Irritation snapped. “My mother’s name is Sheila.”
“Not that mama, the other one.”
For a few long tense seconds, I was stunned. “No one knew the other one.” I cleared the rasp from my voice, which had suddenly turned unsteady. “She abandoned me.”
“I remember.” She pinched another bite of sweet bun. “I just always thought you’d remember her name.”
I’d not spoken aloud about Renee in years. “Why would I remember her name? I was three when she left.”
“Three’s old enough to remember.”
The headline in the Alexandria Gazette had read: “Abandoned Bakeshop Baby.” “You’re remembering the articles in the paper. Mom said the town talked for months about me.”
“I remember the articles. And I remember you with your mama.”
“Mrs. W.,” the old nurse said, her tone low and warning. “Best we get going. This young lady has got work to do.”
Mrs. W. waved a bent hand. “Not yet. I ain’t finished.”
How could a crazy old woman know my birth mother? Surely if she’d read the articles and seen Renee she’d have come forward to the police.
Shifting my gaze to the keys on the register, I punched buttons. In my haste, I hit the wrong keys, which required more keypunches as a fix. I tossed in a few silent curses aimed directly at Margaret before the damn register dinged and the drawer finally popped open. I dug out a single and leaned over the counter toward the lady. “One dollar is your change.”
Mrs. W.’s eyes narrowed. “I saw you. You and Mama, plain as day.”
The certainty in the old woman’s voice was more evidence of senility, I was sure. “Really?”
For a moment she closed her eyes, her breathing grew very deep, and I thought she might have nodded off. “You ate peppermint sticks by the docks.”
The peppermint reference caught me off guard because I’d always associated peppermint with Renee. I laid her change on the counter. “If you saw us, why didn’t you say something when the articles ran? The police searched everywhere for her.”
Leaving the question unanswered, she reached out, scraped the rumpled bill toward her and tucked it in the change purse nestled in her lap. “Funny I should dream about you after all this time.”
Hilarious. The tightness returned to my throat. “The police kept requesting any information. Why didn’t you come forward?”
Mrs. W. shook her head. “I didn’t have anything to say to the police.”
“Because you didn’t know my birth mother.” I needed to convince myself as much as the old lady. “You just think you remembered.”
“I knew her.”
“It’s time we get going,” the nurse said. “This young lady has her work to do.”
“You won’t forget me, Daisy,” the old woman said.
“No, I doubt I will, Mrs. W.” She’d seen to it my first day back was just as miserable as my last day had been seventeen years ago.
“Good.” With the sweet buns resting on her lap, Mrs. W. raised her hand, and her nurse turned her chair. When they reached the front door she craned her neck toward me and winked. “That dream was a sign.”
I could care less about signs. “If you really knew my birth mother why didn’t you come forward, Mrs. W.?” Anger added punch to my voice.
Her gaze clouded and her chin dropped a fraction. “Yes, it was a sign.”
Mrs. W. was like a faulty light, flickering on and off. “Did you know my birth mother?”
The nur
se shook her head. “Baby, she’s old. She’s lived so much life, sometimes past and present get all jumbled with the present. Don’t listen to her foolishness.”
The nurse’s words silenced my next question. I was arguing with a senile old woman. She was confused. Old. She had no answers. Time had muddled the reality of her past. “Sorry.”
Mrs. W. took another bite. “Signs let us know when things are gonna change.”
A few unladylike words danced in my head, begging to be spoken. “I’ve surpassed my quota of change in the last few months, Mrs. W., so I’ll pass on any more.”
Laughter sparked in her old eyes. “Baby girl, you are just warming up.”
The black woman turned the wheelchair. “That’s enough out of you, Mrs. W. Leave this poor girl alone.” The nurse pushed her toward the entrance. Despite my anger, I hurried around the counter and opened the front door. Bells jingled as the old lady and her nurse moved over the threshold. I stepped outside to make sure I wasn’t needed.
“Do you think she could be right?” I said to the nurse.
Florence shook her head. “She’s old, baby, and she’s been mighty restless lately. Just let it go. And tell your Mama we appreciated the bread last week. You got a good mama, baby, and that’s all that matters.”
As they walked away, a breeze from the river carried the thick scent of honeysuckle. I folded my arms around my chest and watched until they disappeared around the corner.
A good bit of my bluster eased as they left but without anger to fill the space, sadness filled in the creases. As I moved back toward the bakery, I had the sinking sensation that life had again turned on a dime.
Chapter Three
Your other mama. The words buzzed around my head as I stood on the sidewalk outside the bakery. The old lady couldn’t have known Renee. No one had known my birth mother. The nurse had as much said that Mrs. W. was crazy. Old. Confused. Senile.
I dug deeper into my bag of logical explanations, hoping if I scrapped out enough, my heart would stop knocking against my ribs. A stronger river breeze flapped the edge of my apron, making the well-washed white cotton flutter against my faded jeans.
According to lore, the cops had done a complete sweep of the city in search of Renee after I’d been found. They’d gone house to house and alley to alley. Police diving crews had even searched the Potomac River bottom. In the end, they’d found no trace of Renee and had concluded she hadn’t been in town long enough to make an impression on anyone.
The press had been all over the story. Everyone knew about me. It had never occurred to me that someone might have seen Renee with me and never spoken up to the police. To remain silent at such a time would have been unthinkably selfish and cruel.
And from what I could remember of Mrs. W., she had never been cruel. Prickly, yes. Outspoken, you bet. But I had flickering memories of her always making a point to ask me about school or work at the bakery.
I’d not thought much about it at the time, but now in light of her latest comment, I began to wonder if she hadn’t been nursing some guilty conscience. Maybe she had known Renee. Maybe . . .
No, no, no! Mrs. W. was confused. She was older than dirt and was born before the invention of airplanes. She’d somehow mixed the old newspaper articles up with a drama she’d seen on television or maybe another story she heard long ago. Of course, with so many memories crammed into her skull, it made sense that time would scramble and deposit them in the wrong places.
Surely Mrs. W. meant no real harm. She was just befuddled. Not everything was personal.
So why, as I stood in the open bakery door, did unshed tears clog my throat? For thirty years, I had honed and practiced the art of running and hiding from the past, and I’d almost begun to believe I’d mastered the task. But now, all that experience had abandoned me. Mrs. W.’s hapless comments had ignited an unresolved anger that now flickered and smoldered in a soul so littered with dried tinder that it threatened to erupt into an inferno.
I’d morphed back to the little girl with cookie crumbs on her skirt and a note in her pocket that read: “Take Care of My Daisy.”
“I told Mom you’d abandon us by lunchtime. I never figured you’d bolt five minutes after opening.”
My older sister Margaret’s caustic tone startled me. So lost in old, familiar worries, I’d never heard her approach. That alone was unsettling. Margaret was sneaky. I always kept my guard up around her.
Like Rachel, Margaret had a fair complexion, blond hair, albeit a little dirtier, and rosy cheeks. Margaret was short, however; her bones were thicker and sturdier than Rachel’s and calories clung to my oldest sister like rats on a drowning ship. She scowled more often than she smiled, and no one ever had used the words cheerleader and Margaret in the same sentence.
From her shoulder dangled a well-worn leather satchel purse she’d bought in Greece a decade ago. Its fringes brushed full hips clad in faded jeans tucked hastily into water-stained brown boots. The black T-shirt under her jean jacket read: THOSE WHO DO NOT REMEMBER HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT.
Shit.
I’d bet money she’d chosen that shirt on purpose. Margaret had a talent for pissing me off. Most days I’d have dreaded the anger but today I was grateful for it. In my book, furious always trumped scared.
“Glad you could join us.” I moved back into the bakery, purposely letting the door close between us.
As I walked back toward the register, the bells rattled hard as Margaret yanked open the door. “Do you always have to be such a bitch?”
“It’s what I do best.” Grateful the tremor in my gut hadn’t reached my voice, I barricaded myself safely behind the register and I smiled back at Margaret. “Get your apron on. We’ve got customers coming, Princess.”
Margaret looked over her shoulder and saw two women in suits reaching the front door. She swallowed whatever nastiness she’d readied and dashed behind the counter to dump her purse and get her apron. Margaret might be late and she might be a pain in the ass, but she understood that the customer was always, always first. It was the golden rule at Union Street Bakery. Dad and Mom had made it clear that without the customers we would all be on the street.
My sister had a PhD in history and was some big-deal kind of scholar when it came to the history of Greece, but the paycheck from this bakery buttered her bread—no pun. The current job market didn’t have much use for scholars of ancient Greek history. The best she’d been able to do was a twenty-hour-a-week job at Alexandria’s Historic Cultural Center. The job didn’t enhance her chances of landing a job teaching Greek history, nor did it pay her electric bill but it nourished her curiosity for all things old and dead. Without her income from the bakery, Margaret couldn’t have afforded her biannual trip to Greece, where she could dig in the dirt searching for her precious bones and bits of pottery. Even though she acted like she’d been doing the bakery a favor when hired, Mom had said she needed the store as much as it needed her.
For the first time in a long time, Margaret and I found ourselves drifting on the same leaky lifeboat, which required us both to bail as fast as we could if we didn’t want to sink.
And so, our quibbling tucked away, we both waited on customers side by side for the next couple of hours. My plans to slip to the back when Margaret had arrived had quickly vanished when I realized it would take both of us to service the morning customers. There were plenty of regulars but a good many folks today had stopped to see me.
“Daisy McCrae, I heard you’d come back to town, but I thought it was a lie.” The comment came from Tammy Fox, a gal I’d gone to high school with. She still had long blond hair, big green eyes, and a sinfully small waist. As preteens, we both played soccer in middle school together. She’d been the forward and I’d been the goalie. Mom took us on a tournament trip once, and I spent the whole weekend listening to people mistaking her for the McCrae and me for the friend. I q
uit soccer shortly after that trip. By the time we hit high school, I was all about making perfect grades and Tammy was all about cheerleading, showcasing her double-D breasts, and landing the quarterback.
I wasn’t a gawky teen any longer. I was grown-up and, until a couple of months ago, a career success. I knew I’d get back into finance—it was really just a matter of time. So why did I feel like I had just tripped out of middle school as I stared at Tammy, who was pushing a high-end stroller with a cute baby version of herself? Maybe because Tammy looked like she’d just stepped out of a salon and her little mini-me daughter’s fat face and goofy grin could charm just about anybody. Or maybe it was the rock on her left hand, which rivaled the sun’s brilliance.
“Yep, I’m back.” A couple hours of work and I was already getting better at faking a smile. “How are you these days, Tammy?”
She held up her left hand as if I might have missed the rock. “Married with a baby.”
“Congratulations. You must be so happy.” Margaret glanced at me, her eyes bright with amusement as if she had caught the whiff of sarcasm.
“I am.” Tammy ordered a dozen cookies and three loaves of bread for dinner with her husband, Hunter. I pictured Hunter to be tall, broad-shouldered with a lantern jaw. Tammy had always liked the big ones.
I wrapped the cookies in a box and the bread in long, slim bags. “Here ya go.”
Tammy took her goods, met my gaze, and made an attempt to look upset. “So I heard you lost your job.”
I wasn’t going to lie. That would have been beyond pathetic. But after three months of being out of work, I was getting tired of explaining what had happened at Suburban. “I did. And now I have a new one.” In that moment it felt good to know I did have a job. I might be underemployed in a temporary gig that was the last job I’d ever want, but it was a job, and I had a story.
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