How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [61]
“Whatever.” She takes the tie, and then something comes over her. She looks back at Jonah. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” As she disappears into the cave of bushes again, he says, “She’s not yours?”
“No, she’s my daughter Sofia’s stepdaughter.” I take a breath. “It’s a long story, but I’m sorry she was rude.”
“It’s all right.” He shrugs lightly. “You have flower petals all over you.”
I laugh nervously and brush my shoulders, the top of my head. “Thanks.”
“I can see this is a bad time,” he said. “But I’d love to have a cup of coffee sometime, catch up.”
I’m captured by the faint hints of ginger and peaches that come off him. “Yes,” I say. “I would love that. I’m free after two.”
“I’ll come back then.”
A wistfulness pierces me as he turns to walk away. “Jonah,” I say, breath high in my chest.
He turns, waiting.
“Do you want some bread? It’s fresh. You should try it now.”
He pauses, comes back. “Yes, I would like that.”
I lead him inside, call to Heather, one of the college students who rotate the front-end shifts. “Give him a loaf of whatever bread he would like.”
“Sure.” She smiles and whips a piece of parchment from the dispenser. “What’s your pleasure, sir?”
Jimmy rings a bell in the kitchen. “Call later,” I say to Jonah. “I’ve gotta go.”
By the time Katie and I get Merlin bathed and dried off, we’re both starving. We feed the dog, then Katie takes him out on a leash to poo. Afterward she leads him upstairs to sleep on her sunporch.
When she comes back into the boulangerie kitchen, she’s had a shower and put on clean clothes, the ones we got at Target, and says, “I’m sorry I was rude to that man.”
“Thank you for the apology, but I was a little upset with you. He did something good.”
She bows her head. The hair, a mass of curls and waves, stands out from her head like a caramel-colored hat. “Sorry.” The word is sullen, but I’ll take it.
Heather rushes into the kitchen. “Are we out of raisin bread already?”
I glance at the clock. Is it only eight-thirty? “Check on the cooling racks, but if none are there, we’re out.”
She scrambles through the racks, pulling out a handful of sourdough baguettes, still warm enough to give off a heady scent, and torpedoes of multigrain. Then she cries out as she discovers two loaves of raisin bread. “Thank goodness! It’s Mrs. Klamkein. You know how she is!” And she scurries back to her customer.
I like hiring college students for the front, and I admit to hiring a certain wholesome, fresh-faced sort of girl for the position. It makes the breads seem more appealing if the clerk looks like she has been raised in the Swiss Alps on a diet of milk and honey. Sofia was the first, with her smooth olive skin and enormous blue eyes.
I wish she would call me. What is she doing? It must be nearly dinnertime in Germany. She must have more information by now. “Let’s take our breakfast upstairs, shall we?”
Katie is standing with her arms akimbo, biting her lip as she eyes the pastries left in a pile on the table for the staff. Little pains au chocolat, big flaky croissants, a few muffins of various sorts. “Can I have any of these?”
“Of course! And I have some boiled eggs upstairs, maybe some strawberries, though they are not at their best yet.”
She reaches for a croissant and looks it over, puts it carefully on her plate. I pluck a pain au chocolat from the pile and put it on her plate, too. “You’ll like these, trust me.”
We carry our breakfast upstairs to the kitchen, and I pour Katie a glass of milk and start a fresh pot of coffee for myself. “I want to check email to see if Sofia has written anything.”
“Can I check mine after you?”
“Sure.”
While I’m waiting for the coffee, I pull up my email and scroll through the meager offerings. A reminder from my dentist, a note from a friend in Alabama.
And, yes, an email from Sofia. I scan through it very quickly to see if there is anything disturbing, then read aloud to Katie. “Listen. Sofia says,
“ ‘Hi, Mom,’ ” I read aloud in the most upbeat voice I can manage. “ ‘Sorry I didn