How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [127]
I shake my head. “I don’t want to do that.”
“Ramona.” His steel-blue eyes are sharp. “Don’t let pride lead you to a fall.”
Katie comes with the tea. My father winks at her. “I hear you’ve been planting a lot of flowers.”
“I have. Do you want to see them?”
“Maybe before I go. Give us a minute.”
She nods.
I hold the envelope in my hand, smarting. Mad at my brother. Mad at the economy. Humiliated.
My dad drinks his tea. “I’m proud of you, Ramona. You’ve got guts.”
“Thanks,” I say, sure he’s saying that only because my brother told him something.
He clears his throat. “Also, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
His mouth moves, and he keeps his gaze trained on the corn growing in the garden. “For not firing Dane. I should have. The job could have been yours.”
“Did Ryan tell you everything? I’m going to kill him.”
“He didn’t tell me anything. I figured it out all by myself.” Now he does look at me. His mouth twitches in amusement. “I was wrong, okay?”
“Okay. I’ll take a look, Dad. No promises.”
“None expected.”
But right after his visit, the inspector arrives, and we’re finally cleared for opening. I call my employees to tell them the good news. We’ll be open for business tomorrow morning. Jimmy asks how dire things are. “Should I be looking for another job?”
“I won’t lie.” I sigh over the phone. “It’s bad, but with a little luck we can make it up next weekend.” There is a festival that brings in tens of thousands of people, and with all the promotions I’ve done over the past few weeks and the trades I’ve made with motels and hotels in the area, surely we can make up some of it. “We’ll get our A game on and do the best we can.”
“Yay, team.”
“You’re my quarterback.”
Tattooed and pierced and be-ringed, Jimmy snorts. “Whatever, Coach.”
That’s when I take the envelope into the office and open it. There is a single sheet, outlining an offer to bring Mother Bridget’s Boulangerie under the umbrella of the Gallagher Group for a sum that would put me well out of debt. Ownership would go to the corporation, but I would be the general manager of the bakery.
Autonomy and possible complete failure?
Or community and possible success?
How can I give up now? For the moment, I put the offer back into the envelope and slide it into the small wall safe.
I’ve invited Jonah over for dinner, since I won’t have any time for the next five or six days, and it seems fitting to celebrate the green light for the bakery. As Katie and I prepare the meal, we’re listening to her favorite, Lady Gaga, and I find I like dancing around to it, singing lyrics I know by osmosis. I’ve roasted some corn in the oven and cut the kernels off into a big bowl, then sprinkled sea salt over them.
Katie helps me toss the salad and squashes the avocados for guacamole. She, perhaps by virtue of living in El Paso, likes things much hotter than I can tolerate, and I caution her to go easy with the jalapeños.
“Wimp,” she says, grinning.
“I just like the roof of my mouth.”
I slice cold roast chicken and lay it out on one of my grandmother’s plates, because I’ve been thinking of her and roast chicken was one of her favorites. Her recipe for roasting chicken is heavenly, but this is one I bought at the local organic-foods store, already cooked and studded with big flakes of black pepper. It’s been busy, and I’m not much for cooking main meals. That was always Stephanie’s great pleasure. Nibbling on tidbits of tender chicken and crackly skin, I think of the Erin again, the dated, sad look of it, the tired menu. Why hasn’t she done anything about it? It’s probably that my father is too stubborn to listen to her.
When everything is ready, we carry it all down to the backyard, where I’ve spread a tablecloth over the table, fastened down with rocks to keep it from blowing away. Merlin is playing in the grass, tossing around a ragged toy almost as if he is playing with someone. “That is one crazy dog.”
When Jonah arrives, he brings wine and sparkling cider, big yellow daisies, and a CD for Katie. “Thought you might like this,” he says.
She looks at him