How Sweet It Is - Alice J. Wisler [56]
“Well?”
Like he’s talking for a commercial, he states, “Plenty of butter in there.” Looking at me intently he asks, “What do I do?”
“You pipe icing onto the top of the donut.”
“Pipes?”
“It’s a verb, not a noun.” As soon as I say this, I shake my head. Whether I’ve used pipe as a verb or noun means nothing to Jonas. When he hears pipes, he automatically feels he needs to swing his wrench and Sharpie. I take the bag from him, realizing that squeezing icing from a bag is not necessarily second nature to everybody. Even if you can operate a wrench. Placing both hands around the filled bag, I lower it to press two star shapes onto the tiny French cruller. “There!”
Jonas claps his hands together the way Miriam does when she wants the children’s attention. “My turn?” he asks, reaching for the bag.
He bends at the waist so that his nose closes in on the donut. If he moved two inches closer, his nose would be in the donut hole. Shifting from foot to foot, he squirts two dollops onto the edge of the donut. They run together. He straightens himself and glances at me.
“Good job, Jonas.”
“No. They look like a crash, not stars.”
A crash? Uh oh. “Just be steady,” I tell him, hoping my voice is encouraging. “Slowly let one star out, then move the tip a little and press out another star.”
He wipes his palms on his jeans. “Steady?” When I nod, he tries again. He lifts the bag a little lower until the tip touches the surface of the mini cruller, then quickly, he presses the bag to let out a white star of icing.
“You’re a natural.”
“My brother will love this.” He now has two dollops of frosting around the rim of the donut and one star. The top of the donut has no more room for work, so I place another donut on the counter. He adds two stars, both free from any error. He admires his work. “Not bad, huh?”
“You’re a pro.”
“Can I take this one to my brother?” He points to the second donut, gingerly picks it up, and then quickly makes his way out of the kitchen toward the hallway.
“Sure,” I say following him.
“I’ll come back another day,” he tells me, the frosted donut in one hand, the keys to his truck in the other.
“I’ll let you know when,” I say, but think to myself that Jonas comes and goes as he pleases; he operates on his own timetable.
“Not tomorrow, because I have to do work at Mrs. Dixie’s.”
“Southern Treats?” I open the front door for him and the smell of burning wood waltzes from the outside air into my hallway. I should light a fire in the fireplace, I think. Although, the last time I tried, I forgot to open the flue and had to sleep with the windows open to let out the haze of smoke.
“Mrs. Dixie makes good pie.”
“I took my brochures there,” I tell him.
“Did she tell you she wanted them? Did she take fifty?”
How does he know? “She did. She told me to put fifty on the rack by the front door.”
He smiles and his teeth glisten under my porch light. “I knew she is a good person. I told her she should take fifty.”
When he leaves, I spend several minutes feeling that contentment and satisfaction that oozes over you when you know you’ve done something right. I hope Jonas feels it, too. I smile, thinking of how he looked pressing frosting onto the donut and how the simple task made his face radiant. Then my thoughts change gears. So much for thinking that I could break into this small mountain community on my own. Jonas must have asked Mrs. Dixie to display my brochures at her restaurant. That’s why she took fifty of them. And the other stores, too. Obviously, Jonas is looking out for me.
He is a good person.
twenty-seven
Althoughthere are probably a lot of monumental events happening all over the world on this Saturday, The Center’s bake sale feels like the most important to me. The children are eager and excited. Bubba and Lisa race over to greet me when I enter the fellowship hall. Dougy and Rainy let me know about all the baked goods that have arrived so far. They want to know where my cake is. Darren cowers in the corner at a table laden with paper plates of cookies wrapped