How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [73]
“I know that.”
“The old-house building stuff has been more of a problem than I anticipated, but I probably could have managed that if the economy hadn’t tanked. I lost so much capital and lost value in the building and—”
He reaches for my hand. “It’s been hard for all of us, Ramona. I know so many small businesses that have gone under. It’s not your fault. What I want you to do is recognize that the answer is not to go under out of pride or stubbornness.”
“I don’t think I’m stubborn.”
He laughs. “An unstubborn Gallagher has never been born. What can I do, sis?”
“Help me brainstorm. Help me come up with ways to generate more income without a lot of extra overhead.”
“That I can do.”
By the time he leaves to open the pub, we have mapped out an entire list of possibilities. I can use the Internet to offer the breads to a different set of customers, perhaps using frozen doughs, and I’m going to brainstorm some more ideas about that with Jimmy and my Web designer.
There are a lot of intense athletes in the city. Runners who train for the Ascent to the top of Pikes Peak every summer and other extreme races at high altitudes. Cyclists who ride the mountain passes to train for their races, whatever they are. They burn a bazillion calories and need high-quality carbs. They would love my healthy breads. Ryan and I come up with two plans to get the word out to them: I’m going to look into the possibility of offering my wares at race events, and I’m also going to take Katie with me to the trailheads and offer samples.
The final idea is to open on Sundays, with a skeleton staff. I’m tired as it is, but desperate times call for desperate measures. And you don’t get into the business for the short hours.
Armed with a plan, I take a good long nap.
It will work. It has to.
Katie absolutely refuses to go to Jonah’s house. She wants to stay home and read and not talk to anyone. Maybe she wants to get online. But, really, she’s thirteen. I’m going five blocks. She deserves to be alone sometimes.
I’m somewhat disconcerted since the invitation was for two of us, but at five-thirty, I head for his house. I’ve bought a beautiful bottle of wine, tied with a ribbon, and I’m bringing one of my best loaves of bread, the rustica, made with a slow European levain. It takes three days to make this bread properly, and the taste is worth every second—the crumb filled with classic sourdough holes, the crust perfectly crisp and golden. I bake it in the wood-fired oven that was so costly and so right, and we sell dozens of loaves every day.
The light is angling deep gold over the mountains as I walk to his house. It falls in dappled patterns over the aged sidewalk, squares of crumbling concrete with grass growing between them. Impossible to avoid stepping on the cracks, but some girlhood part of me always tries, so I don’t break my mother’s back. The skirt I chose, an ethnic print in soft purples and greens, floats around my calves. My toenails are painted peach.
Stephanie and I stayed overnight with my grandmother often. She loved walking and taught both of us to love it, too. After supper, we’d amble around the neighborhood, winter or summer, and admire the gardens or the new paint. We had our favorite houses, about which we would make up stories.
Jonah’s house was a favorite with all of us. In recent years it has grown a little weary, but it boasts two things that were of particular interest to my sister and me. There is a square tower with windows looking in all directions, and a balcony juts out from the back, overlooking treetops and mountains. We thought it was wildly romantic.
The house sits on the corner of a pair of quiet backstreets, on a vast, grassy lot bound by a turn-of-the-century wrought-iron fence. As I come around the corner, I see Jonah sitting on the porch, wearing jeans and a simple long-sleeved shirt. His feet are tucked into Tevas, and