How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [67]
It’s my turn to incline my head. “Yes. And that’s what I remember about you—how kind you were to me. I always felt so … honored in your company.”
“I’m glad.” Again there is that moment of connection, weaving between us like the first notes of a symphony.
I break it, picking up the menu. “You know, I’m a little hungry. Would you mind if I ate something?”
“Not at all. I’ll join you.”
In the end, I sit with him over a late lunch for more than two hours. In silent agreement, our conversation is carefully superficial, about public things, nothing too dark or charged. He makes me laugh with stories about his work, and I tell him about the bakery and my cat, Milo.
As we talk, our bodies move ever so slightly closer. He bends over the table and I lean in. I find myself watching his mouth move and looking at the long line of his throat, admiring the shine of his hair in the late-afternoon sunlight. Something that has been sleeping low in my belly wakes up, stretches up my spine, spreads across my upper back.
He wears no ring, but that doesn’t always mean anything. It’s hard to ask straight out, to reveal that I might be thinking of him in that way.
Finally, the waitress apologetically asks us to leave. In surprise, I look around and see that the place is empty. “We closed an hour ago.”
I laugh, glance at Jonah. “Sorry. We’re old friends. Time got lost.”
Beyond the low iron fence, we pause. He looks down at me. “Did you marry, Ramona?”
“Yes. And divorced.”
“Ah.”
“You?”
He meets my eyes. A light is there. “The same.”
I nod, holding his gaze.
“I wonder,” he says, “if you and—Katie, is it?—would like to come to dinner sometime? I’m a good cook, I promise.”
Is Katie a chaperone or is he being kind? “I would love that. Yes.” I lift a finger. “One caveat. I get up at two in the morning, so I prefer earlier rather than later.”
“Do you have days off?”
“Sunday and Monday.”
“What about tomorrow, then? I’ll cook, and you can bring Katie and her dog, and we’ll eat on the porch. Five-thirty early enough?”
Something like hope blooms in my chest. “Yes.”
To cope with my unusual hours, my habit is to take two naps each day—a short one after the morning rush and a longer, deeper one late in the afternoon. When I get back to the house, Katie still has not returned.
Milo and I go to my north-facing bedroom and curl up on the bed. A breeze sweeps the curtains up and down in a little dance, and the air feels fresh on my tired skin. Milo covers my belly with silk and purr. I close my eyes and think of Jonah, his adult face, his still-kind eyes, and something that was missing when he was younger: an unmistakable sense of presence and power. I drift off.
That’s where I am, suspended somewhere between past and present, when a voice arrows into my consciousness.
“Ramona,” it says. “Wake up, I need to talk to you.” A hand is wrapped around mine. Struggling to surface, I say, “Jonah?” before I realize where I am. And when.
And who it is in front of me. Not Jonah, of course, but Cat. Who sits intimately on the edge of my bed, holding my hand. I bolt upright, yanking my hand away. “What are you doing? Get out of here! I told you I don’t want to talk to you.”
He tsks. “Ah, no no no. Don’t be silly. You were angry at my high-handedness, but that’s nothing to worry about. I’m sorry.” He puts his hands over his heart. “Mea culpa.”
In the cascade of quiet light coming from the windows, he looks as roguish as a pirate—which is, of course, the charm. It has been my curse to be surrounded by big personalities, starting with my father and my grandmother, then Sofia’s father, and then my ex-husband, Dane.
But I am tired of being buffeted by all of their wishes. Swinging away from Cat, I put my feet down on the floor and push my hair out of my eyes, my fingers automatically going to the end of my braid so I can brush and rebraid it. “No. You need to go.”
He hasn’t moved, and I see, unexpectedly, that he is filled with regret. I waver, feeling that familiar pluck in my chest,