Alice Bliss - Laura Harrington [9]
Mrs. Piantowski makes all the bread for the restaurant, right out of her own kitchen. Mrs. Piantowski is forty-something years old, has eight kids, and wanted to make a little money on the side. She didn’t really know anything about bread when she sold Gram on this idea, so she started small, just white, wheat, and rye. But Mrs. Piantowski fell in love with bread: Portuguese sweetbread, Finnish Nisu, Swedish limpa rye with caraway and fennel seed and orange rind, anadama, sticky buns, biscuits and scones and on and on. She got her husband to move the fridge into the pantry and install a second double oven. It is a bread adventure with Mrs. Piantowski, and Gram says she’s happy to go along for the ride.
Of course people started asking to buy Mrs. Piantowski’s bread. But Gram and Mrs. Piantowski were already pushing it given that a home kitchen was supplying a restaurant. Strictly against board of health rules, and nobody wants to get the board of health involved, with regulations and testing and surprise inspections. Until it turns out the board of health inspector is one of their best customers. In fact, Charlie Prophett eats breakfast at The Bird Sisters five days a week and is often seen knocking on the door and begging them to open up on Monday and Tuesday, too. So far he has managed to control himself and not walk up on Mrs. Piantowski’s porch on the days the restaurant is closed. But there are bets on how long it will be before he’s knocking on her door to say, “Just a piece of toast, Mrs. Piantowski. Or two or three, if you don’t mind.”
There are people in Belknap who dream about Mrs. Piantowski’s bread. Maybe some people even dream about Mrs. Piantowski. She has dark brown eyes and long reddish hair that she wears pulled back or piled on top of her head, and she has lots of freckles on her nose, chest, and arms. She always wears colors, wonderful rich colors, and skirts and sweaters and sometimes a scarf twisted in her hair. She’s not exactly pretty, but she has this bearing; it’s almost regal. Maybe it’s her height, maybe it’s her very straight spine and her very straight nose and her no nonsense way of speaking. Maybe it’s that nobody knows her first name.
Gram knows but she’s not telling. Some men have tried to flirt with Mrs. Piantowski, and women try to get friendly, but she just sails on by. Maybe she’s got everything she needs with eight kids and twentytwo different kinds of bread up her sleeve.
Alice’s job is to pick up the bread every Saturday and Sunday morning at quarter of six and then help Gram with whatever prep work still needs to be done at the restaurant. Even though every other teenager in America is still asleep. Even though Alice sometimes wonders how she gets roped into this stuff. On the other hand, Alice has never met anyone who can say no to Gram.
She used to use Ellie’s red Radio Flyer wagon until neighbors complained about the noise as she squeaked and bumped her way along the sidewalks in the predawn. Then Gram got her a rubber wheeled grocery basket like the ones old ladies use in metropolitan areas. Alice feels ridiculous, but at least now she’s quiet.
It’s exactly quarter of six Sunday morning when Alice arrives at the backdoor to Mrs. Piantowski’s. She leaves the cart on the porch and knocks softly before turning the knob and walking in. The youngest baby is sitting in a bouncy chair on the kitchen table looking around with her big, dark green, and very grave eyes. There are two dozen loaves wrapped and ready to go and Mrs. Piantowski is pulling twelve more out of the double oven.
“Hi, Alice.”
“Hi, Mrs. Piantowski.”
“Snowing?”
“Not yet.”
Mrs. Piantowski works at the stove. She is brushing the loaves with a blend of sugar and cardamom.