Meet Your Baker (19 page)

“You can’t do that to me. I’m part of this now, whether you like it or not.”

“Oh yes I can—and I will. If it comes down to it, I’ll move my office to the bakeshop to keep an eye on you.”

I’d forgotten that Thomas could be as stubborn as me. To appease him I agreed and followed his orders to lock the door behind him. As for keeping quiet—no way. I had a vested interest in finding out who killed Nancy. I’d just have to be stealthy about it.

Popping in my favorite Spanish CD, I kicked off my shoes and plopped on the couch. I didn’t bother with the bed. I’d be thrilled if I fell asleep at all.

It comes with the territory. Most chefs I know are night owls. They have to be. If you’re running a restaurant, your day doesn’t finish until well after midnight and that’s when the staff have all the fun. On the ship, I rarely went to bed before two
A.M.

My schedule was in constant flux on the ship. Unlike dinner service, which Carlos oversaw, every meal on the ship included some form of pastries. From muffins at breakfast to fresh bread at lunch and elaborate desserts at dinner, we worked around the clock trying to keep up with the demand for sweets.

Torte’s schedule is designed for early rising—for both the bread and the staff. Mom’s usually in bed no later than nine. I don’t need a ton of sleep. Five or six hours and I’m functional, but shifting to early morning hours was going to take some time.

I did some quick math in my head. Carlos was on leave. It would be eight in the morning in Barcelona. If I called now, I could wake Carlos before he started his day. What would I say?

Instead of placing an international call, I closed my eyes and listened to the soothing sounds of the Latin music. A few hours later the alarm on my cell phone blared. Time to make the dough.

I stumbled, half asleep, into the kitchen to make my morning coffee. Today I was determined to talk to Richard. I had to find out what that picture was all about.

After a cup of strong coffee, I made my way down the deserted early morning sidewalk to Torte. Smoke hung thick in the air. I coughed and covered my mouth as I hurried along. The sky held a haze the color of dirt. I could barely make out the streetlight a few feet away.

Without a doubt, outdoor performances would have to be canceled. When smoke became this dense, air-quality warnings were sure to be sounding. Yuck. We’d have to keep the door and windows shut tight today.

I knew just the dessert special for the day,
natillas
—a Spanish pudding. If I made it this morning, we could serve it chilled in parfait glasses at lunchtime. It would be a smooth, creamy alternative to the heavy, blanketed air.

Mom hadn’t arrived yet when I unlocked Torte’s front door, and shut it quickly behind me. I inhaled the filtered air. Time to crank on the air-conditioning.

The best way to shake off all the questions swirling in my head was to bake. I was craving
natillas
and Carlos. If I couldn’t have one at least I could make the other.

Natillas
is a staple in Spanish family cuisine and an easy custard to bake. Spanish desserts tend to be simple, often involving fresh fruit, cheese, and nuts. Carlos used to say that dessert was an excuse to drink after-dinner wine. One of his favorite indulgences was pears poached in wine. Clean, sweet, and with a punch of acidity.

He taught me how to make traditional
natillas
on the ship. It was easy to replicate, since Torte’s kitchen kept all the necessary ingredients on hand.

I wrapped an apron around my waist and removed a container of two dozen eggs from the refrigerator. Like any custard or pudding, the base consisted of eggs and milk or cream.

Mom arrived while I separated eggs and began warming milk on the stove.

“Good morning.” She planted a smooch on my cheek. Coughing a bit, she continued. “Whew, it’s horrible out there. I haven’t seen it this bad in years.” She brushed off her shoulders and ran her fingers through her hair. “I feel like I’m coated in ash.”

I nodded in agreement. “I know—it’s hard to breathe.”

She peered into the saucepan. “What do you have cooking this early?”

“Natillas.”

She removed an apron from the hooks and turned on the ovens. “Never heard of it.”

“Chefs are usually so above anything that involves baking, but this is an old family recipe I learned from Carlos.”

Mom grabbed sourdough starter from the fridge as well as pans of brownie batter she’d prepared. She placed the brownies on the island and began collecting ingredients for roll and bread dough.

“I see,” she said quietly. “Are you ready to talk about it?” She stopped measuring flour and gave me a firm look.

I dropped an egg on the floor, shattering its delicate shell and oozing its insides.

She raised her eyebrow. “Do I recall someone saying we weren’t going to walk on eggshells with each other?”

“Let me clean this up.” I hurried over to the sink and wet a paper towel. After I’d cleaned up the egg, I turned sideways, half facing Mom, half facing the stove, as I whisked egg yolks into my milk. “What do you want to know?”

“Honey, you say that like you’re in trouble or something. I want to know how you are.”

I started to brush her off with a canned response of, “I’m fine.”

She stopped me. “I want to know how you
really
are. Enough of the brave act, Juliet. I know you’re a strong woman. It’s one of the things I’m most proud of, but…” She softened her voice. “I also know that you’re hurting.”

Tears welled in my eyes. I turned toward the stove and brushed them away.

“If it helps,” she said, cutting chunks of butter, “nothing you say is going to change how I feel about you.”

I brushed another tear away and turned back to her. Half laughing, I responded, “It’s not me, it’s Carlos.”

“Okay, let’s start there. What happened?” She placed the cubes of butter in a large mixing bowl.

Stirring the mixture on the stove with one hand, I reached for a bottle of Mexican vanilla with my other hand and poured it in. The vanilla scent with undercurrents of coconut made me inhale deeply through my nose.

“I don’t even know where to start.”

Mom punched the butter in the mixing bowl with a wooden spoon and waited.

“I thought everything was great with us. We’d saved a good chunk of money and had started making lists of places where we both could see ourselves living. That wasn’t easy, you know? Carlos has his heart set on Spain and can’t see himself settling anywhere else.”

Mom nodded.

“I wasn’t ready. I don’t know if I want to live overseas. I guess maybe I feel like I’ve seen what I needed to see. There’s part of me that wants to come home.”

Adding flour and sugar to her mixture, Mom transferred the contents to one of the mixers and turned it on low.

While that hummed, I cut the heat on the stove and began whisking egg whites.

“I don’t know if we ever would have agreed.” I sighed. “At least Carlos was willing to listen to my suggestions. You know, Portland is such a foodie city these days, it seemed like a great landing spot, and of course, selfishly, I knew that would put me closer to you.”

Mom looked like she wanted to say something, but didn’t.

I’d never been able to decide where she stands on Carlos. When I first called her with the news that we got married, she sounded excited, but I detected apprehension, fear, or maybe disappointment behind it all. There was no denying that Carlos and I had been rash when we tied the knot on a romantic whim while docked at port in Marseilles three years ago.

Mom and I have really never discussed it. I didn’t think we needed to. I was sailing on cloud nine. I guess that’s not exactly true.

When I brought Carlos home for the first time, he was his usual charming self. He regaled Mom with tales from his childhood days in Spain and impressed her with his soulful cooking. Still I left wondering what she really thought. He’s older than me by a decade. She was kind and welcoming as she is with anyone she comes in contact with (minus Richard Lord) but she held back. Not enough for Carlos to notice, but I did. Her smile never reached her eyes when Carlos was around.

Did she not approve? Did she think I’d made a mistake?

I shoved those nagging questions to the background when we boarded the ship and I stepped back into my life at sea. But after our weekly Sunday phone calls, I always hung up wondering what she wasn’t saying.

Folding the egg whites into the thick, creamy mixture on the stove, I wondered if I told Mom what Carlos had done, then everything that she’d bottled up for the last few years would come spilling out. I wasn’t sure I could handle it. Not yet.

Chapter Twenty-nine

“Jules? You’re a thousand miles away.” Mom’s voice indicated that she knew exactly what I was thinking.

“I know, sorry. Can you grab the parfait glasses? This is ready.” I removed the custard from the heat.

Mom stood on her tiptoes to reach shiny parfait glasses stacked on a stainless steel shelf.

She arranged the glasses on the island and dipped her pinky into the hot pudding to taste it. “Wow.”

“Isn’t it good? It’ll be even better when it cools.”

“You’re garnishing with nutmeg and cinnamon?”

“Yep.” I dusted the tops of the glasses with the aromatic spices and placed them in the fridge to cool.

“How long do they need to chill?”

Mom could have continued to press me on Carlos. She didn’t.

We reviewed the menu and divided tasks.

I started on Brazilian cheese muffins. They’re more like a cross between a muffin and a Yorkshire pudding. The batter is made with tapioca flour, olive oil, half and half, eggs, and shredded cheese. It’s a convenient staple to have on hand because once blended, the batter will stay fresh in the refrigerator for a week. The muffins puff as they bake in greased muffin tins. Right after I remove them from the oven, I slice them open and stuff them with whatever strikes me. Today, in honor of the fires burning outside, it would be jalapeños and pepper jack cheese.

A little before six, Andy arrived. He grinned as he punched on the espresso machine. “Morning, Mrs. C., boss, did you hear the news?”

“No, Andrew.” Mom offered him a strawberry cream cheese blintz. “Do we want to know this news? Lately every piece of news has been bad.”

“Not this.” Andy munched the blintz in a single bite. “They let Mia go.”

What had changed from last night? Thomas hadn’t mentioned that.

“When?” I asked, pouring batter in muffin tins.

“Just now. She texted me right before I got here.”

Did this mean the Professor and Thomas planned to arrest Richard Lord?

“I told her to come by and give us the key back.”

Mom moved between tables, centering vases and dusting the tops. “That
is
good news. What a relief.”

Andy removed a pitcher from the minifridge under the espresso machine. “I’m gonna filter this cold brew. I think it’s going to go fast today.”

Cold-brew coffee is produced exactly as it sounds. Grounds are steeped in cold water for hours—we do ours overnight. It takes an entire bag of beans and patience, but the resulting flavor is worth the wait. You can’t create the same intense thickness and flavor with regular drip coffee or even an iced americano. My mouth watered as Andy’s batch of cold brew streamed through the filter into a clear jug.

I sped up my pace. Not only were customers due to arrive any minute, but I wanted to have time to talk to Mia alone when she arrived.

Stephanie lumbered in, fifteen minutes late. The bruise on her eye looked worse than yesterday. It wasn’t as swollen, but had turned a mixture of green and yellow.

Torte bustled with the morning rush. Regular customers flooded in the front door. Andy and Mom anticipated each order, matching names and faces with drink and pastry requests like they were on a game show.

It made me realize how much I’d missed. While I knew many of the faces from my childhood, Mom knew everyone. What’s more, she knew their kids’ names, whether they liked their sticky buns warm, and their exact drink order, down to whether or not they preferred foam on top.

“Mrs. Jones is up,” Andy called from the bar. “I need two cinnamon twists and egg bread, please.”

I watched as Mom hurried to the front counter when a four-year-old boy with spiky blond hair came in, holding his mom’s hand. He wore a Spider-man cape over his pajamas.

“Hi, Hank.” Mom bent down to greet him at eye level. “Are you ready for your morning job?”

She handed him a container of chalk and led him to the menu board. The bottom right-hand corner had a fleur-de-lis empty box that Mom reserved for her youngest customers to create their own art.

“What would you like to draw for me today?”

“A monkey!”

“Great idea, I can’t wait to see it.”

Hank scribbled in the blank space while his mom and mine stood watching.

I smiled to myself. I might know pastry. Mom knows people.

The first two hours breezed by.

It didn’t surprise me that Mom had even memorized many of the names and orders of the tourists who came in, especially folks in town for a week or more.

“You’re here for
Taming,
right?” She addressed a couple who were debating whether to try our mango sweet bread or the pear tart.

All day talk inside the bakeshop, from the townies and tourists alike, revolved around the fires. People came in choking on smoke, seeking relief from the darkened daytime sky outside.

Word spread through town that a smoke advisory was in effect. Outdoor activities were canceled and people were warned to stay indoors.

Usually tables rotate frequently, every thirty minutes or so, but with the smoke no one rushed to head back to sit inside at a hotel room. Tourists ordered second cups of coffee and stayed until lunch.

The air-conditioning chugged, as the windows sweated from the mob of guests and bread baking in the convection ovens. Even with people tugging the door shut behind them, a sooty smelled crept inside.

By lunchtime the place felt like a mosh pit, bursting at the seams.