How Sweet It Is - Alice J. Wisler [43]
They are excited about the bake sale because they know that the more they earn there, the better food they can buy for the camping trip. Bobby wants lots of marshmallows and pancakes. Bubba hopes the hamburgers will taste like Burger King’s.
Charlotte seems a little uncertain about the trip. She wasn’t able to go last year due to a stomach virus, so while the others camped, she was at home being cared for by her sister. Charlotte doesn’t tell me this; Rainy lets me know when Charlotte leaves the kitchen to go to the restroom.
When Charlotte returns, she slinks up to me and asks, “What will cooking be like over a campfire?”
Lisa, with a strand of her brown hair in her mouth, shakes salt onto the diced potatoes we are preparing and says, “As long as the bears don’t get us and eat our food or us, we’ll be okay.”
Charlotte sinks back into her chair.
Great, I think. She finally comes out of her shell with something besides just asking to use the restroom and Lisa destroys her confidence. I want to shout lines from Oh, the Places You’ll Go. “Today is your day, Charlotte! Don’t let anyone stop you from living and succeeding at what you want to do.” But I don’t say this because the last thing I want to do is to embarrass her.
Suddenly the kitchen is filled with commotion about bears. Bubba says once he saw a man get his leg chewed off by a bear, and then Rainy says that she sees bears all the time because they live in her foster parents’ backyard. Bobby says that’s a lie, and then, calmly, I bring the class to order.
“First, we are going to talk about the bake sale,” I say. “What would y’all like to make for that?”
“We can make brownies!” Dougy says.
“Duh!” Bubba adds.
“From scratch.” Dougy smiles.
“Are you married, Miss Livingston?”
“No, dummy,” Dougy cries and hits Bobby’s large girth with a spoon.
“Of course she is. She makes white sauce for her husband for dinner every night, don’t you, Miss Livingston?” Lisa is at my side stirring the potatoes once before we put them in the oven. She uses her sweet smile.
“If we are going to make foods to sell, we need to work,” I say, hoping to change the subject. “What did y’all make last year for the bake sale?” I slide the baking tin into the oven and remove the oven mitt from my hand.
“Blueberry cookies.” Rainy offers this.
“Really?” I have never heard of blueberry cookies.
Rainy takes the sunglasses from her eyes and balances them on the top of her head. “They were squishy.”
“I liked them,” Dougy says. “I like the color blue.”
“Last year we didn’t have a cooking teacher.” Bobby pulls his shirt over his stomach. “Just some church volunteers came in to help us make those cookies.”
And after that experience with the kids, I bet they vowed never to set foot in here again.
“What are we making today again?” asks Dougy.
“Crispy potatoes.” Joy announces and then looks at the recipe card lying on the counter. “With spices.”
Bubba repeats what I stated at the beginning of class this afternoon. “The recipe is from a Spanish chef who has a fancy restaurant in Atlanta.”
“That’s right,” I say, hoping that the potatoes will turn out as good as Chef B’s.
“And we are going to love them,” says Bubba.
“Maybe even better than the fries at McDonald’s,” adds Dougy.
“Maybe even Burger King.” Bubba smiles at me, his round face looking like a potato.
Lisa takes a strand of hair from her mouth. “I just wonder why you aren’t married, Miss Livingston.”
Rainy pops her sunglasses over her eyes. “Really.”
————
Yes, I was once engaged. Engaged in June, with a wedding scheduled for sometime the following year. I wanted it to be in May, but Lucas hesitated. Now I realize that the hesitation came because of his uncertainty about marrying me, not because he couldn’t decide on the best month to wed.
June is now here; this is the month I would have been married. This is the time we would be taking off to California for our honeymoon as Mr. and Mrs. Beckley.
I study the ring