How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [30]
“You can help me make the bread.” She took a jar filled with a noxious-looking substance off the counter. The lower half was a thick gray pillow, looking like some fungus you’d find on Mars. Poppy shook it up cheerfully, then opened it. A strong earthy smell exploded into the air.
I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not and put my hand up to my nose, just in case my stomach decided it was time to throw up. But my stomach stayed stable, and I leaned closer. “What is that?”
Poppy held it up to the light. “Magic.”
“What kind of magic?”
“It’s my own sourdough starter. I’ve been working on it for months, and I think it’s finally getting where I want it to be.”
“Grandma has a sourdough starter. She makes biscuits with it.”
“Yes, that’s from the Callahan side of the family. It’s got quite a history.” Her mouth went into a straight line. “This one is my own.”
“Oh.” I sank down at the table, feeling as if my legs had turned into rubber bands. “I’m really hungry.”
“Sorry, baby. Let me get you some lunch.”
By the time we ate sandwiches and oranges, I was nodding off at the table, and Poppy sent me upstairs to what would be my bedroom for the duration. Her room occupied the front half of the second floor, a wide-open space with a balcony overlooking the train tracks and pale grassy fields rolling toward the burly mountains. My room was in the back, tucked under the eaves, but there was a circular staircase that led to the widow’s walk on the roof. One wall of my room was lined with bookcases packed with books, all kinds of books, standing straight up and stuffed in sideways and piled in stacks on the floor. I ran my fingers over them. At least I would have time to read.
The room was stuffy, so I opened the window and the old-fashioned metal blinds, then curled up on the bed. A breeze moved into the room, carrying a faint perfume of roses. I closed my eyes, like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, and tried to wish myself home.
But I didn’t have any ruby slippers, and I couldn’t go to sleep, either. Instead, I lay there with my heart feeling like a boulder, wishing I could go back in time, back to last summer when my dad finally let me be a busgirl at the Erin Steakhouse, our main restaurant. It was so much fun. I loved wearing my uniform of black pants and white shirt and little emerald bow tie. It was an ugly uniform, not like the waitress dresses, which were classy but definitely low cut. Not as if I had anything much to put in a neckline like that—I hadn’t even had my period for very long, only since May, though it was regular right away.
Too bad.
The baby shoved my lungs up into my throat, and I had to turn over on my other side so I could breathe. Thinking about last summer, so different from this one, made me want to cry again. That was all I wanted, to go back to work at the steakhouse. Or maybe this summer I would have worked at the café out near the Pikes Peak highway, where they sold saltwater taffy in rainbow colors and chicken-fried steaks and zillions of root beer floats to tourists who were going and coming from the top of America’s Mountain.
I liked the steakhouse better. One of my jobs was to get the dining room ready, shaking out fresh green table covers over the snowy-white base layer we left on all the time. There were single carnations with their ruffled edges and sharp peppermint scent in crystal vases, so I had to go around and check them, replacing the ones that were getting spotty or brown or droopy. I made sure the table settings were perfect, with pointy napkins sitting in the middle of each place, along with two forks, a steak knife and a butter knife, one spoon to the right of the place, one at the top. The last thing we would do was light all the candles and turn the lamps in the dining room down low.
It was luxe, as my dad always said. He was famous around