Union Street Bakery (9781101619292)

by Taylor, Mary Ellen

  I picked at the edges of my burger. “Can we not talk about the letter?”

  “We need to talk about it. Mom, Dad, and Rachel are afraid of upsetting you; I, however, am not the least bit afraid.”

  That startled a laugh. “So I’ve noticed.”

  “Don’t you at least want to know if she is your birth mother?”

  “I don’t need to know her.” The words stumbled off my tongue and landed flat. “I have a mother.”

  “You can bullshit yourself but do not bullshit me. I know you love Mom, but I know you are curious about this Tammy chick.”

  “Terry.”

  “Whatever. She owes you answers. Like when your real birthday is and does cancer and stuff run in the genetic line.”

  “I’ve lived this long without that information. I can live longer without it.”

  She set down her milkshake. “I remembered when you’d cry as a kid on your birthday.”

  Tension and sadness fisted in my gut so tight it was all I could do not to double over. “Do you want to talk about the journal or not?”

  “I do. But I’m more worried about that letter.”

  “You are more worried about the letter from a stranger than a journal from the 1850s. Now who is in denial?”

  Margaret released a sigh. “It’s pointless to talk about the letter, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  She wiped her hands on her paper napkin. “Then let me first tell you what I found.”

  “The Mabel tapes.”

  “Yes. Believe it or not, I’d filed them in my office. I never file anything in its proper place because I just know where I keep stuff. But I’d filed the tapes.”

  “How many are there?”

  “About ten hours. I had a chance to listen to the first tape, which runs an hour. Want to hear a little bit?”

  “How does this relate to the journal?”

  “Wait and see.” She dug a tape recorder out from under the couch. “Ready?”

  “Hit me.”

  She hit Play.

  My grandmother was born in 1840 right here in Alexandria. She never talked much of her own childhood but she did once mention a friend of hers named Susie.

  “No shit,” I said.

  Margaret stopped the tape. “I know. I just about shit a brick when I heard it.”

  “Play on.”

  Margaret hit Play again.

  My grandmother often spoke of this young friend of hers who was a young slave, born to a slave woman from Loudoun County. The girl had heard that her mother had been a pretty woman. Fair skin, pale green eyes, and high cheekbones had turned many heads, both white and black. The slave from Loudoun was intended to be a gift for her new master’s fiancée, whom he’d be marrying within the year. At first the master had treated his slave fairly, but as the months passed his taste for the bottle became apparent. When he drank, his mood shifted from jovial to moody. They never spoke of what had happened in those early days but just after the master’s marriage to his wife, folks in town noticed the slave was with child.”

  “Read between those lines. The guy raped her,” I said.

  Margaret nodded.

  The slave gave birth to a girl, who had a healthy set of lungs and a hearty appetite. From her birth, the slave baby thrived and both mother and child often received extra looks or stares from black and white folks alike because they were so handsome. Let me also say that the mother was known in town for her baking skills and many would have gladly bought the mother for her kitchen skills but her owner had refused all offers. The master’s refusal to sell fueled all kinds of rumors that did not please his wife. After the slave mother, however, suffered her burns, folks no longer cooed but shied away from her.

  About this time the master decided to lease his slave to a local baker. No one ever had asked the slave if she wanted to work in the bakery; she was expected to obey. So the mother and her three-year-old daughter began daily treks to the bakery for a twelve-hour shift. This leasing arrangement went on for almost fourteen years and though the baker paid generously for her services, the slave woman never saw a penny of the money she earned. All earnings went to her master and his gambling debts.

  “What a dick,” I said.

  “Tough times,” Margaret said.

  Each morning before dawn, mother and child would make the three-block walk to the bakery. In the bitterly cold months, the duo would don every stitch of clothing they owned to ward off the biting winds from the Potomac. The little girl often said how she hated these mornings and how she longed to stay in her attic room nestled on her pallet under her blankets. But her mother had convinced the master to let the girl tag along so that she could learn baking skills that would one day be of great value. Mother would often say to her child that the coldest days on the street were safer than the master’s house. Only when the child became a woman herself, did she realize her mother feared her master and his wife.

  And so they made their morning predawn treks in the dark. The girl spoke of shoes that were too large and a sole that wobbled when she walked. There’d been talk of sending the boot to the cobbler but the sole was never fixed. To make the trip more arduous, the girl’s hand-me-down calico dress’s long hem was forever catching on the boardwalk’s roughest planks. So as she hurried to keep pace with her mother, she was forced to lift one foot high, hold her skirt up high, and clench her buttonless threadbare coat closed with her hand.

  “Poor kid.”

  Margaret paused the tape. “It wasn’t common to invest money in slave clothes unless they worked in the front of the house and were on display, so to speak.”

  “Shit.”

  “I know.”

  “So is it kinda weird that Mabel is talking about a slave and she had a slave journal.”

  “Interesting, isn’t it. But let’s not assume. Mabel never mentions family names in her talks with me and Alexandria was a huge slave trading port at the time so we could be dealing with two different girls.”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “We need evidence.”

  I shrugged. “What’s the deal with the boardwalk?” I said.

  “At the time there was a long boardwalk that ran along Union Street. From the boardwalk there were massive piers and warehouses, which housed all kinds of businesses. The area was a bustling place in the 1850s.” She hit Play.

  The girl often spoke of how fearful her mother was of not only her master but of whites in general. She feared being late to work, she feared ruining a batch of biscuits, and she feared saying the wrong thing. Mother and child had both heard tales of other slaves in Alexandria being sold to traders in the Deep South.

  Mabel paused; it sounded as if she took a sip of water.

  The girl, like all slaves, feared the Deep South, which was filled with cotton plantations and fancy houses. Slaves who went to the South often were subjected to backbreaking work, brutal conditions, and a drastically shortened life.

  Margaret stopped the tape and fast-forwarded it. “She talks a little about the city and the ships, and commerce of the time, the railroad, and the pressure to keep up with the Port of Baltimore before she gets back to Susie.” She hit Play again.

  When the little girl turned ten or so, the baker, a widower, reported that his own daughter had been stricken with measles. Friends and church members stayed clear of the house, fearing the illness. The slave girl’s owner, seeing an opportunity for income, proposed to the baker that Susie could sit with and tend the daughter. The baker, relieved to have a caregiver for his child, agreed and so the girl became nursemaid to a child not more than a year or two older than she. Many had believed both girls would perish but the slave girl nursed her charge with care and never got sick. Both survived, and the girls became fast friends during the months-long convalescence.

  “Help me out here.”

/>   Margaret shut off the tape. “Shoot.”

  “This girl was born to a slave but her father was a free white man. Why wasn’t she free?”

  “It was the mother’s status that mattered. If she was a slave, all her children would be slaves regardless of the father’s position.”

  “I thought that relations between master and slave went on a lot. I would think the wife of that time would accept it.”

  Margaret arched a brow. “Would you like knowing your new husband was sleeping with a teenaged girl who lived right under your roof?”

  “Point taken.”

  “History may change but emotions don’t.”

  I frowned. “How did Susie’s mother get so badly burned?”

  “Hard to say. Kitchens were a dangerous place in those days.” She sighed. “I want to dig deeper and I’m hoping the journal will tell me who owned Susie. If I can figure that out, then maybe I can link the tapes to the journal. And if I can do that . . . I might finally have a dissertation that I can sink my teeth into.”

  “What do you know about Mabel?”

  “Not much. She didn’t like talking about her life so I never pried.”

  I’d not seen Margaret this excited in a very long time. “You said there are more tapes.”

  “Yes. They don’t all have to do with the slaves, but I’ll listen again to be sure.”

  “Well, the journal is all yours. Have at it.” I’d taken the time to wrap it in cloth and then slip it into a gallon-sized zip-top bag. Preservationists likely would have cried their outrage at the book’s treatment.

  Nodding, Margaret wiped her hands again on her napkin and jeans and pulled a set of cloth gloves from her pocket. “Smart move.”

  “Do you always carry cloth gloves?”

  “Not always.” She grinned and then took the book and reverently held it between her palms. She studied the first pages. “Looks like everyday life.”

  “So no great epiphanies.”

  She arched a brow. “The epiphanies are in the everyday notes. How people lived, what they did during their regular lives is what fascinates me. I’m only concerned about the big moments in history when they affected everyday life.”

  “I don’t care about piecing history together. I just want to know what happened to Susie.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” Staring at the worn book, I tried to picture the little girl who had held it more than 150 years ago. “I just feel like I need to know—that I’m supposed to know.”

  “Supposed to know? Why?”

  Somehow talking to Margaret about my ghostly/imaginary friend sounded ludicrous. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Margaret gently turned the pages as she scanned the scripted words. “The journal only covers a year. And then it just ends.”

  “There are a lot of blank pages remaining. Why would she just stop?”

  “Back then, who knows? Maybe she died. Maybe she was sold. Could be a lot of things.” Her frown deepened as she read more. “I doubt things went well for her.”

  “Why would you say that?” I was really rooting for this kid now.

  “It was 1852. She was a slave. A female. The cards were stacked against her.”

  “Do you think you can find her?”

  Margaret sat back on her couch, her cheeks flushed with excitement. “Let me read all the entries and see what I can figure out.”

  “But you can find her.”

  “That’s one hell of a needle in the mystery haystack.”

  It wouldn’t take much to get Margaret to bite on this job. This kind of detective work was what she lived for. “So you are saying that you cannot find her?”

  Margaret stared at the journal, her gaze a mixture of excitement and joy. “Please. You are dealing with the master when it comes to this kind of stuff. I will find her.”

  • • •

  Waking ten minutes before my alarm was becoming the norm. My eyes popped open and my mind was sharp with a maddening clarity. It could just as well have been the middle of the day and I could have been sitting at my desk at Suburban. Only I was being weighed down by a sleeping bag and backstabbed by a sofa spring. Both were reminders of where I really was, and that realization drained the spark of energy from my bones. And suddenly all I wanted to do was go back to sleep.

  I blinked, rolled on my back, stared at the cracked plaster of the ceiling and practiced the deep breathing my therapist had mentioned to me on several occasions. I’d not seen Dr. Myers in five months and I did miss his calm, sane approach to life. Like so many other luxuries, he was another casualty of my job loss and vanishing benefits.

  “Daisy why do you feel like you have to fix the world?” Dr. Myers said.

  “I don’t know. I just know it needs to be fixed.”

  In and out I breathed. One. Two. Three. Seconds passed. I breathed more, but nothing happened. The clock read 3:22. One minute had passed.

  “I am the glue,” I said to Dr. Myers.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I am the one who must keep my family together.”

  “Why is it your job to keep the family together?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve always felt in charge of keeping Team McCrae on task.”

  “Margaret doesn’t fret over the details. Rachel doesn’t get mired down in this burden.”

  I shrugged. “I guess because I can’t lose another one.”

  “Another what?”

  “Another family.”

  He stared at me directly. “Daisy, you are not the reason your birth mother walked away. You could not have stopped her.”

  “Maybe if I’d been a better kid, she’d have stayed.”

  Annoyed at the thoughts, I rolled on my side, hoping to look out the window and catch a glimpse of the stars and moon. Instead of light, I saw a dark figure standing by my bed.

  I bolted upright and tensed. It was the other one. The bad one had returned.

  The figure had no defined face or structure but I knew it was a man. And though he stared toward the window, hands clasped behind his back, he was here for me. He possessed great patience . . . and great anger.

  I blinked, hoping he was the residue from a dream I’d already forgotten. He would vanish once I stopped clinging to the warmth of my bed and let the morning cold bring me to full consciousness. I shoved long fingers through my hair, cleared my throat, and stood slowly. The sleeping bag dropped away and the cold floor made my toes curl. “I’m awake now. You can go.”

  But he didn’t fade, even as a chill puckered my skin with gooseflesh. The figure didn’t turn or speak, but continued to stare, the silent sentinel. No words were uttered and I tried not to let crushing fear take root. “You are the one who was here before. You were angry.”

  He did not acknowledge my comment.

  “So you want to tell me what this is about? Or better yet, who you might be?” My hoarse whisper cut through the morning stillness and sounded a bit ridiculous.

  My bike started to rattle and shake and then fell to the ground. Books flew off the shelves.

  Stomach churning, I glanced toward the door. “What the hell is this about?”

  Silent and still, the figure continued to stare forward and without a word spoken I knew he wanted me to leave. Get out. I could almost taste his impatience.

  “When or if I leave, it will be on my terms, not yours.”

  And then in a blink, he faded, like a cloud caught in a heavy wind, scattering and fading so quickly that I would have doubted his presence if not for the tumbled bike and books.

  Heart racing, I dug fingers through my hair. No threats or declarations were needed to rattle my cage.

  I hurried toward the window where he’d stood. The air was cold and the glass icy to the touch. I padded back toward my bed and clicked
on the side lamp. I winced at the light and waited as my eyes slowly adjusted and focused. My back and shoulder ached from sleeping on the sofa and I felt scared and annoyed. The alarm on my cell shrilled and I quickly grabbed it and shut it off.

  The presence of this ghost left me with a clear message: Tread carefully.

  Chapter Ten

  Tuesday morning, Gordon stood in the center of the bike shop surrounded by dozens of unpacked boxes. The store wasn’t slated to open for a couple of weeks but at the rate he was going he’d be lucky to make the deadline. He wanted to hire help to finish with the unpacking and the stocking of inventory, but he flat-out couldn’t afford it.

  The front money he’d sunk into this business represented the last of his net worth, and he’d be damned if he’d borrow a dime to make this dream happen. He’d invested and lost fortunes in the last year. His decisions, which he’d thought so sound and solid at the time, had lost untold amounts of investors’ funds, jobs, and ultimately the company. He’d fucked up so much.

  Too many nights, he’d lain awake in bed staring at the shadows dancing on the ceiling, bargaining with God for a reprieve. Take whatever you want from me. Just get me out of this fix. You can take my sight if you can save the others. You can . . . if only . . .

  The bargaining, worrying, and gut-wrenching panic had gone on for nearly a year. And in the end, God had not swooped in and saved him. God had left him out on a limb as if to say, You made the mess so you can clean it up.

  He could argue that everyone who entered the stock market assumed risk. It wasn’t like investing in a bank account. It wasn’t safe. But after so many years of wins and gains, he, like everyone else, had forgotten just how easily and cruelly the market could turn. Too much success had allowed them all to lower their guards.

  He’d left Suburban knowing the owners could sell to buyers who could infuse enough cash in the company so that the employees would have some kind of severance and his clients’ accounts would not be completely gutted.

  He’d paid the price for his choices—both professionally and personally. He’d kept the “patient” from dying, so to speak, but the “cure” had caused untold pain and suffering that would never be forgotten.