How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [29]
We left the interstate at Castle Rock, where Poppy would sometimes bring me to shop at Russ’ Drug, have lunch at the B&B Café, and pick up supplies at the single tiny grocery store with its wooden floors and musty smell. A butcher chopped meat at the back, his white apron bloodstained. It made me want to never eat meat again, but Poppy said he was a good butcher and that was worth a lot. There were a few other things in town. A record store, an old-fashioned dress shop—which never had a single customer, that I could tell—and a library in an old school.
Eight miles west of Castle Rock was Sedalia, which wasn’t even really a town. There was a gas station and a café on the corner, which was often filled with rough characters, bikers and the like. Before that summer, I wasn’t allowed to go there on my own.
From Johnson’s Corner, you turned left on the highway, traveled down a handful of small blocks with old houses on them, and then finally came to Poppy’s place, which was two stories tall and ancient, with big fields around it. She had a party line—her ring was one long, one short, so you had to listen to find out who was getting phone calls—and I loved thinking of people talking about all kinds of things, right through the phone next to me, while we ate supper or drank our tea or made bread. I sometimes tried to eavesdrop, but the talkers always seemed to hear me pick up the phone, so I’d have to apologize and say I was just going to make a call.
As my mother and I drove up the gravel path to the kitchen door, Poppy came out on the porch. I could tell she was a little sad. Shame pressed down on me again, heavier by far than the belly I’d been hiding. She was short and round, with long hippie hair and a skirt made of India cotton swirling around her legs. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and it shocked me; I didn’t know any grown women who ever came out of the house without a bra, and she had rather a lot of chest.
A wave of resistance crushed me. “Mom, why can’t I stay home?”
“Because,” she said. “It’s bad for your siblings to see you pregnant. You’re the oldest. You’re supposed to be a good example.”
I wanted to cry. Beg. It was only one time! I wanted to say. Once! How was I supposed to know?
My mother nudged me, and I climbed out of the car. Behind me, she grabbed my bag and slammed the door closed. “Hello!” she called to her sister. “We made it at last.”
“I’m so glad to see you,” Poppy said, looking right at me, smiling. She came down the steps and put her arms around me, kissed my cheek. I allowed it, but her breasts squished into my chest, and it was embarrassing. She quickly moved away, only patting my arm.
My mother hugged her with more exuberance, and they rocked back and forth, both of them with closed eyes, as if they were absorbing some magic thing from each other. They were sisters and often seemed at odds to me. Everything about them was different—my mother in her slacks and short hair streaked elegantly, so that it seemed to match the liquid gold jewelry she was so fond of. Unlike Poppy, Lily was always tanned and slim and put on her makeup.
Poppy had run off to India after college in the sixties and spent six years traveling in Europe and even Africa, working when she needed to. She had cooked a thousand kinds of food all around the world, which gave her kitchen an exotic smell.
“How about a grilled cheese sandwich?” Poppy asked when my mother drove away. “I’ve got to get moving on my sourdough or put it back in the fridge.”
“I guess.”
She drew me into her kitchen, a room with big windows pouring sunlight into the sink and splashing it onto the table. A collection of blue bottles, large and small, was lined up on the windowsill. Sandwiched between them were small clay pots filled with herbs. When the sun was on