Union Street Bakery (9781101619292) (5 page)

“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 nurse 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

Y
our 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 quit 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.

Gold bracelets jangled on her slim wrist. “I never thought you'd come back.” And in a stage whisper added, “I thought you hated it here.”

My grin widened as I planted hands on my hips. “And yet here I am. That'll be twenty dollars.”

Margaret nudged my shoulder and grinned at Tammy. “We were lucky to get her.”

I smiled at Margaret, knowing she was lying but still grateful for the backup.

Tammy handed me a credit card. “So are you, like, baking the bread?”

“That I am.” The muscles around my smile were starting to cramp and, as I handed back the charge card and slip, I wished she'd just vanish.

As she signed, the gel tips of manicured fingers winked in the light. “Did I hear you were seeing someone in D.C.? Someone who knows whoever you were dating knows Hunter, I think.”

I was aware that Margaret's ears had perked up. “Hard to say. I dated around.”

She tucked her credit card in her Gucci wallet. “He was in finance. I thought you two had a steady thing.”

“I'm a serial dater, Tammy. And most of the guys were in finance.” Despite the dodge, I knew who she was talking about: Gordon Singletary. We'd dated for nearly a year. He'd asked me to marry him. But that was a story I'd not told my family.

Tammy tucked the bread bag in the back of the stroller. “I'll have to ask Hunter. He'll know the man's name.”

“Good luck with that.” There were parts of my life at Suburban I'd hoped to leave on the other side of the Potomac.

“You know, we really should have lunch. I'd love to catch up and hear all about your life.”

“That would be wonderful.”

Margaret coughed and it sounded a little bit like bullshit. “What a cute baby you have.”

Tammy glowed. “Her name is Katie. She's a year old.”

On cue, the kid gurgled, smiled, and revealed three teeth. Like her mom, Katie already knew how to work a crowd.

“Really cute,” I said.

Tammy and I smiled, promised to have lunch, and then I watched her push her baby out the front door.

Margaret finished restocking a tray of oatmeal cookies and closed the glass case. “What the hell kind of name is Hunter? I'm picturing a guy in a loincloth running around with a bow and arrow.” The jab was her attempt to make me feel better.

In an odd way I appreciated Margaret's words. “It's a fine name, I suppose.”

“I'd never name my kid Hunter. I mean, if you had a second boy, what would you name him? Gatherer?”

That prompted a smile. Rachel joined us just after ten thirty. She reported that the girls were off to school. She apologized for being late; she'd forgotten about a parent-teacher conference. Anna, one of the twins, had mixed it up on the playground with another kid and a meeting had been called.

The three of us continued to work. Margaret handled the register and Rachel and I filled orders. The morning quickly became a busy blur of customers, breads, and confections.

The more questions I fielded about my return, the more practiced my answers became. By eleven thirty, my story had grown from a stumbling string of mutterings to a well-crafted tale. In Margaret's and Rachel's evolved version, I had forsaken the cold corporate world because I'd come to realize my true passion: owning a small business. I'd grown up with baking so coming home proved to be the perfect fit. My sisters enhanced and embellished the fable with each telling. According to them, I'd not only left the corporate world but had turned down a West Coast job—which might have been true if I'd actually been willing to leave the area and had applied for the job when I'd heard about it.

Throughout the morning, my nervous energy demanded to be fed. Each time I took a near-empty tray back to the kitchen, I'd snuck bites and nibbles of broken buttery confections, hoping to soothe frayed nerves and a tense stomach. As I downed my tenth crumbled chocolate chip cookie, I told myself that tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow I'd be back on my rigid eating plan.

When I'd left the bakery after high school, I'd been twenty pounds overweight and hopelessly addicted to sweets. Away from my parents' home and the constant
drip-drip
of emotional water torture of waiting for Renee, however, my appetite had vanished. By spring of my freshman year of college, the twenty pounds were gone and I thought that I'd finally won whatever battle had raged inside me.

By twelve thirty, the morsels that had calmed my nerves had done little to nourish me. My stomach grumbled and I wondered if the pizza shop around the corner still delivered.

“Anybody want pizza?” I said.

Margaret handed a stickered white pie box to a woman and smiled. “It's just past noon.”