How Sweet It Is - Alice J. Wisler [33]
“They’re offering a good price.”
The first cake I ever made and decorated was for Hector’s farewell. I used a recipe from an old Betty Crocker cookbook. I spent the entire evening icing it with a buttercream frosting, staying up till midnight. The Jeffersons made a big deal over the cake, saying it was tasty and moist.
I was sad to see Hector leave us. I patted her good-bye and felt like little Fern in Charlotte’s Web. It took all the strength Mr. Jefferson and Daddy had to haul Hector onto the Jeffersons’ truck. Without Hector to feed, I thought we could probably save enough to build a new barn.
The next time I baked and decorated a cake was the night before Grandpa Ernest visited. “Could you make that same cake you made for the Jeffersons?” my mother asked.
“What’s happening tomorrow night?”
“Grandpa Ernest is stopping by on his way home from Greece.”
I thought it was funny to use the phrase “stopping by.” Tifton, Georgia, is not at all a place on the way to or from anywhere. It is so out of the way that most people can’t find it even when looking for and wanting to come to the town.
Grandpa Ernest took one look at the frosted two-layered butter cake and gave me a hug. Then he told me that he’d just spent two weeks on Kos, and although beautiful in both scenery and food, nothing he had seen in the cake department came close to my cake. I was so nervous. I wondered if the taste could live up to his compliments. It must have; I found him at two in the morning helping himself to a second slice. “Ah, Deena,” he said, “you have a God-given talent.”
I smiled twice. Once because I was happy he was my grandfather. Twice because I had just decided I was going to make cakes for the rest of my life.
Of course, I may have had the God-given talent, but pride goeth before a fall, and after those first two cakes, I had a few disaster cakes. Daddy told me disasters in life produce character. I suppose I developed character when I had to rush to the store on three occasions because the cakes I made fell or crumbled. No amount of frosting slathered on could save them.
Later, I learned that every cook has a few failures tucked under her crisp white chef’s hat.
————
Grandpa Ernest’s deck holds a red canvas chair, two weather-beaten Adirondack chairs, and a gas grill, along with the hot tub I have yet to unveil. When I sit in one of the wooden chairs, I lean my head back and breathe in the delicate mountain air. The sun is coming out from behind a milky cloud, and as it warms my face, I watch a pair of sparrows flit around the limbs of two birch trees. The sloping mountain peaks within my view are brightened by the sun; they’re now the color of blueberries. It’s the first week of May. May in the mountains. That has a nice ring to it. I bet it could be set to some country music tune.
I should tour Bryson City and the surrounding area. When Dad called this morning, he said I could drive to some of the nearby attractions. He suggested a trip to the Cherokee Indian Reservation, or heading into Gatlinburg, Tennessee, via the Smoky Mountain Parkway, for a day trip. “I bet it’s real pretty this time of year,” he said.
His voice filled my heart with everything I know to be good, and I knew that I should just hop in my Jeep, buckle up, and go.
I rest my arms against the Adirondack chair’s flat, smooth arms. One day, I think—one day the thought of driving won’t make me nauseous. One day I won’t have to deal with all the post-traumatic stuff. One day I won’t care about the scars on my body. One day my days will be as beautiful as Neville Marriner’s symphony playing selections from Vivaldi. Wherever I go, I will be his “Summer” concerto.
Right now a trek in my Jeep down curvy roads into Bryson City for a stop at Ingle’s or The Center is all that I can handle.
A cardinal flies by, and his bright color makes me see only one thing—blood. Blood, fresh and dried, all over the seats of Lucas’s Mustang. I try to force away the memory of that rainy night. I wrap my arms around