Kitchens of the Great Midwest (28 page)

“OK,” Pat said. “So he judged? He voted?”

“Please sit down, Mrs. Prager.”

Pat, aware that everyone in the first several rows was looking at her, retreated to her row. Celeste and Barb moved down a seat to make space for her, which unfortunately meant that Pat had to sit next to Celeste for the results.

“Hey, I know that guy,” Celeste said, looking at the new guy seated at the judges’ table. “He works at 3M. He’s in my husband’s department. Oscar’s his boss.”

 • • • 

Sister Lois Freehold walked to the microphone and spoke.

Pat’s heart stuck in her throat and she clutched her knees and stared at the floor. For some reason, she remembered the time when Sam was three and tried to flush his Thomas the Tank Engine down the toilet and it got crammed in the plumbing sideways—irretrievable, unloved, pummeled with excrement. Yes, she felt like that.

“It’ll be OK,” Celeste said, touching Pat’s shoulder.

“In third place,” Sister Lois said, never lifting her eyes from the clipboard she held in her left hand, “with five points, Barb Ramstad’s Kraft caramel bars.”

The audience clapped politely. Pat took a deep breath. Five points were nothing. That meant that the voters were agreed on the top two bars, and whoever they were, they each got almost all of the votes, and it was probably very close.

“Barb Ramstad,” Sister Lois said, “please come up to claim your ten-dollar Target gift card.”

Barb smiled as she got to her feet. Celeste patted Barb on the butt, like baseball players do. Pat just said, “Congratulations, Barb,” and smiled sincerely.

Pat watched as Barb walked extra slow to the front of the tent, probably just to annoy her. Sister Lois was waiting for Barb to get her prize and ribbon before announcing the second-place winner, and that took a while, because, for Pete’s sake, they let Ross hand out the ribbons, and he didn’t know which color the third-place ribbon was, and Clarence had to come over and correct him.

“OK now, where was I?” Sister Lois asked the audience.

Pat bit her lip and clasped her hands.

Celeste put her hand on Pat’s back. It felt weird and cold, like a giant spider.

“Second place? Second place, with nine points,” Sister Lois said. “Jessica Duncan’s strawberry rhubarb bars.”

“
Yeahhhh!
” a voice shot up from the crowd, and a healthy, plump, vigorous-looking young woman with curly dyed-red hair shot up in her seat amid a chorus of cheers in her section. She wasted no time getting to the front and collecting her prize.

Pat knew right then that she’d be going home without a ribbon. It didn’t hit her as bad as she thought it would; the anticipation of this moment had been far more petrifying. Still, her chest felt hollowed out by anger. She felt a little like crying, but knew she wouldn’t. She felt Celeste’s body next to her and perceived the coldness, the heartless confidence coming off it. Celeste had been sent here to hurt her, and she was getting away with it, and Pat kneaded this again and again in her mind, pushing against the forgiveness that she was born into, the forgiveness that had given her the strength to marry Eli, and remain married, and withstand, together, the incredible hurt she received from Will and Julie,
and the sins of her own son. The forgiveness was breaking apart in the face of losing her ribbons to this harlot.

“Wow, who’s that?” Celeste said, watching Jessica Duncan jump up and down onstage after receiving her red ribbon and twenty-five-dollar Target gift card.

Pat didn’t answer. She could hardly even look at Celeste right then. Luckily, an old woman behind them spoke up. “That’s Jessica Duncan. She goes to the Methodist church.”

Pat looked at the old woman and nodded approvingly, even though Pat obviously wasn’t Methodist.

“She’s going to Juilliard in the fall. The acting school,” the old woman said, apparently a treasure trove of Jessica Duncan information.

“Wow, and she makes award-winning desserts too,” Celeste said. “Some guy is sure gonna be lucky.”

As Sister Lois approached the microphone, Pat took a deep breath.

Celeste leaned forward. “I gotta admit, I’m excited,” she said.

Pat, in her brain, pushed Celeste out of a window onto a stone courtyard, and watched as dogs ate her body.

“First place, with thirteen points,” Sister Lois said, “Patricia Prager’s peanut butter bars.”

“
Yes!
” Celeste said, raising her arms and shouting above the polite clapping in the tent. Before Pat could move or think, Celeste had thrown her arms around her, and when Pat realized what was happening and finally rose to her feet, meeting the smiling expressions of Sister Lois and the rest of the judges, Celeste held her in an embrace from behind, repeating “I knew it!” without a trace of envy or scorn in her voice, just happiness, the happiness that Pat was too stunned, in that moment, to feel.

 • • • 

Still holding her blue ribbon and seventy-five-dollar Target gift card in one hand—almost as if she was afraid they’d disappear if she set them down—Pat dished out with the other the rest of her bars, which the
judges sold for one dollar a piece, for charity. As she was setting out the last few, Clarence Peterson put a dollar on the table and took one.

“I’d pay five times as much,” he said. “You ever need your oil changed or tires rotated, I’ll accept payment in these.”

Sexy Venison put down two dollars. “One for me, and one for Rachael,” he said, passing a paper plate over to the former Runner-Up Miss Minnesota. “Truly amazing, Mrs. Prager,” he said, and in the sound of his voice and the sincere look in his eyes she understood why women fell for him, despite his reputation. It also occurred to her that this was her second time in a day being so close to washboard abs, but she had
seen
this fellow’s abs. Rachael smiled as she accepted a peanut butter bar from Sexy Venison. Looked like she was going to be the next person to see them.

“Hey, congratulations!” a little woman’s voice said.

Pat turned and saw that it belonged to Susan Smalls, extending her free arm in a half hug as she restrained her wiggly, squealing son with the other. “I’m glad one of us won something.”

“Me too,” Pat said, almost instinctually, and then realized how arrogant that sounded. “I mean, I wish both of us won. I wish you won.”

“Can I see the ribbon?” Susan asked, and as she leaned forward, her grip on her toddler loosened, and he bolted away down the length of the tent. “Connor!” she yelled, dropping her shoulder bag at Pat’s feet, muttering a quick “Watch my stuff, please,” and marching after her child.

With Susan’s back to her, Pat looked down at Susan’s canvas shoulder bag at her feet. It was pushed from the inside into an uncomfortable shape, and had creamy stains down the sides that Susan either hadn’t noticed or couldn’t be bothered to remove. As the former mother of a toddler boy, Pat recalled her own vain, useless efforts to maintain a once-strict standard of cleanliness, and the liberation of surrender.

Watching Susan’s back as she wrestled with her difficult child, Pat knelt by the dirty bag, placed her hand inside, and buried the seventy-five-dollar Target gift card deep among Susan’s things.

 • • • 

In Celeste’s fancy car on the way home, Pat sat in the back again with the empty and half-eaten trays of bars.

“You know what they were telling me, Pat,” Celeste said. “Everyone thinks you have to take your bars to the next level.”

“Oh, gosh, I don’t know,” Pat said. It sounded to her like a polite way of saying go out on top and give someone else a chance. Which was maybe a good idea.

“The State Fair has three separate contests for different kinds of bars, you know,” Barb said. “Plus another separate one for gluten-free bars.”

“Forget that,” Celeste said. “Excuse my language, but fuck the State Fair.”

Pat bristled at the sound of that word. Also, she liked the State Fair.

“You need to enter these bars in the
Petite
Noisette
contest,” Celeste continued.

“Whoa,” Barb said. “That one costs forty bucks just to enter.”

“Yeah, but first prize is five thousand dollars. And do you know what else? Pretty much everyone who finishes in the top three or four spots gets job offers from big-city professional restaurants.”

“What’s
Petite
Noisette
?” Pat asked.

“It’s a culinary lifestyle Web site,” Celeste said. “It’s the hot new thing.”

“And they’re local,” Barb said. “They’re based out of the Cities, in Loring Park.”

“Oh, nice,” Pat said, trying to remember where Loring Park was.

“If you win that one,” Barb said, “you’ll be the executive baker at some fancy restaurant in the Cities. Making sixty grand a year. Or more.”

Sixty grand was more than what Eli made.

“That wouldn’t happen if you just went to the State Fair,” Celeste said. “It’s another level altogether.”

Pat tried to think of a situation in her life where she’d ever fielded multiple offers, for anything, and nothing came to mind. Most of the time it was hard to even get one person to want her for anything. Except when it came to her bars.

“Well, maybe, I guess,” she said.

 • • • 

Eli leaned his back against the fridge, the light from the kitchen window reflecting against his shiny bald head, and took a swallow of his Grain Belt. Pat had been expecting him to be more enthusiastic at the prospect of her winning big money.

“The thing with that contest is, they should say that first prize is four thousand nine hundred and sixty bucks,” Eli said. “If they’re gonna charge you forty bucks to enter. That’s what I think.”

This wasn’t helpful. “But do you think I should enter or not?”

“Heck, I don’t know,” Eli said.

“But also, the winners get offered jobs in the Cities that pay up to sixty grand.”

“Sounds like a bait and switch to me,” Eli said. “Plus why do you want to drive an hour and back every day to work in the Cities? Maybe you’ll be making a nice income, but you gotta figure the cost of gas in the equation. And who’s gonna be taking care of things around here? There’s a lot you gotta think about.”

Pat hadn’t figured in the cost of gas. But it would be worth it. Especially if you were making up to sixty grand.

Eli crushed the beer can and set it on the kitchen counter. “Hey, where’s your Target gift card? I was gonna go pick up some charcoal briquettes for the grill.”

“I gave it away to Susan Smalls.”

“What? What’d you do that for?”

“They’re in bad shape, Eli. Her husband still hasn’t found a job.”

“Well, no kidding. The dude has PTSD so bad he can hardly tie his shoes.”

“I know, but it’s not his fault. I thought UPS wanted to hire veterans.”

“Ones who can tie their shoes,” Eli said. “And you know he can’t pick anything up with his left arm? Why on God’s green earth would you tell him to apply for a job where all you’re doing is lifting stuff all day?”

“I figured there was maybe at least an office job.”

“Look, it’s not on us to care for every wounded vet in the world. I suppose the military oughta look after its people better, but it’s not our responsibility to pick up the slack. No way in hell. They got their families to help them.”

“You know, they also have a church, and friends, and neighbors,” Pat said.

“I didn’t tell him to go to Afghanistan and get half his shoulder blown off.”

“Remember that story I told you about that woman in New York who was stabbed to death in public with a bunch of people watching, and nobody did anything? Remember how disgusted you were by that story? Well, that’s you right now. That’s you, watching, and not doing crap about it.”

Pat left the kitchen and went into her bedroom, closing the door behind her. She was glad she had given that gift card away to Susan Smalls. And she’d enter this big-city contest no matter what Eli said. And she would pray for guidance, but she wouldn’t ask the Lord forgiveness for swearing at her husband. That was gonna stand for now.

 • • • 

The next morning, on her way to volunteer at church, Pat imagined taking a right turn toward the interstate and driving to the Cities. She imagined doing something she loved, baking, and making sixty grand a year at it. And the part Eli was so mad about, the one-hour commute each way, Pat actually viewed as a blessing. Imagine, two hours a day,
totally to herself, even if she was in a car the whole time. She could get books on tape or learn Spanish. And then what? With her money she could go on a one-person trip to Spain and learn how to tango dance. She’d have an instructor named Rodrigo who’d have a crush on her, but she’d stay faithful to Eli.

The more she found out about this contest, the less intimidating it seemed. The “celebrity judges” were no one that Pat had heard of: a woman who ran a “pop-up supper club” named Eva Thorvald, a “street eats blogger” named Hyannis Jackson, a food photographer named Kermit Gamble, and a woman named Sarah Vang who owned a food truck—a food truck!—called “Pho on Wheels.” The really good chefs must’ve all said no; none of these people actually worked at a restaurant or a bakery, and one of them worked in a gosh darn food truck.

It did turn out that registering for
Petite Noisette’
s annual “Best of Bake” affair was a bit more of a rigmarole than registering to enter the County Fair, but it was nothing that Pat couldn’t handle. She needed to submit the names of two people in the food or hospitality industry willing to nominate her; calls to Aunt Jenny Sjoholm and Joe Cragg, her former manager from her waitressing days at the Perkins in River Falls, before she married Eli, secured those. A week later, the
Petite Noisette
people e-mailed her to tell her she had earned one of the fifty spots, asked for the forty-dollar entry fee, and then later sent another e-mail with a registration number and event info. And that was it. She was in.

 • • • 

Unlike most baking contests, this
Petite Noisette
one took place at eight o’clock at night, and was at a fancy-looking hotel in Minneapolis called the Millennium, and had entertainment supplied by people with the names “Qwazey” and “DJ June Gloom.” With all the attention paid to extra stuff like that, Pat reasoned, there would be less paid to the food, which would be to her advantage. In her experience, younger people didn’t bake much anymore, and she wondered if she’d start a flood of
Deer Lake ladies down to win the Best of Bake contest every year, and maybe by the time she was sixty they’d move it to a more reasonable hour.