The Baker's Man (3 page)

“What if she’s lonely or needs somebody to talk to? Is her mama okay?” Anna asked.

“You’re hanging by a thread right now. Her mama is fine, even better than after last week’s treatment. I just talked to Tessa today. She probably wants to whine about the pitiful date with Tommy Carpenter she had last night.”

“Tommy the Taxidermist?” Anna shuddered. “Why did she give in? He’s an odd bird.”

Lily grinned. She deposited the Coca-Cola and paper bag on the counter. “By odd bird, you really mean he’s a freak who likes to show girls his collection of dead animals. Tell her maybe tomorrow night,” Lily said, tearing off paper towels to use as napkins.

Anna texted Tessa. Then she asked Lily, “What’s in the bag?”

Lily opened the bag and revealed a half-empty bottle of rum. “Drinks are on me!”

Anna groaned. “You can’t be serious. I have to be up at five a.m. tomorrow to start baking. I haven’t had rum since that horrific incident in twelfth grade when I yakked on Becky Johnson. She
still
hasn’t forgiven me. She calls me Anna O’Barf to this day.”

Lily looped her arm through Anna’s and laughed. “Man, that was awful. Why was it so
green
? Anyway, that’s not all I brought,” she said. She dug through her shoulder bag and pulled out a DVD.

“
Pet Sematary
? No way, José. You know I hate horror movies. I’d rather burn a batch of cookies and sell them to children.”

Lily rolled her eyes as she pulled two fat tumblers down from the cabinet. “First of all, it’s impossible for you to ruin a batch of cookies. Second of all, you spend all your time holed up in the bakery or chasing Baron wherever he goes. It’s time you let your hair down,” she said and plucked the chopsticks from Anna’s hair, “and let loose for a night. Besides, I highly doubt you’ll do anything as stupid as barfing on the homecoming queen after a few glasses of rum and Coke. Humor me tonight. I haven’t felt good all day, and I need a breather.”

Lily dropped ice cubes into the tumblers, and she poured in the rum until the ice cubes rose to the tip top before splashing in the soda like a garnish. She grabbed two colored straws from Anna’s stash on the counter and gave the drinks a quick stir. “To a night of reckless fun and no yakking,” Lily said, clinking her glass against Anna’s.

“I have to work in the morning,” Anna whined. She raked her fingers through her wet hair.

“Work schmork. Drink up,” Lily said and flipped open the pizza box. “I say we eat on the couch so we can watch the movie while we dine on Pizza Hut’s finest.”

“I’m not watching this,” Anna argued. She took a tentative sip of her cocktail and scrunched up her face. “Holy guacamole, Batman, this is strong.”

Lily took a healthy bite of pizza. Mozzarella cheese stretched from the slice to her lips. “It was either this or
Sleepless in Seattle
—”

“I love that movie.”

“Yeah, I know, but we’re not watching a sappy romance tonight,” Lily said. She made a fish face and sucked her cocktail up through a bright yellow straw.

Anna carried the pizza box into the living room and placed it on the coffee table before sagging onto the couch. She sighed. “You’re right.” Watching a romantic comedy was probably a rotten idea. Her cell phone vibrated next to the pizza box, and she leaned over to grab it. “It’s a text from Baron.”

Lily squatted in front of the DVD player. She shoved her blonde curls out of her face so she could look back at Anna over her shoulder. “What’d he say?”

“‘Will stop by tomorrow on way to airport.’ And that’s it.” Anna pressed her lips together. A salty wind blew through the open kitchen window and slammed shut the top of the pizza box. Anna rubbed her hands up her arms.

“Nice, Baron, real nice. And so eloquent. He’s an idiot, Anna. He’ll come around. He knows you’re one of a kind.”

Baron was her best friend aside from Lily and Tessa; how was it possible that she felt this great divide between them now? Anna felt like she was trying to swallow two Pirouettes whole, and they were logjammed in her throat. She walked to the kitchen. Grabbing the open half of the window, she stood on her tiptoes and slid it closed. While Lily started the movie, Anna rejoined her on the couch and, ignoring the straw, tilted back her glass of rum and Coke and drained half of it.

˜˜˜˜

After the movie, Anna insisted on turning on all the lights, and when she glanced at the door that led to the staircase going down into the bakery, she thought of turning on the shop’s lights too. No need to let something undead creep around the bakery without warning.

Anna finished her third glass of rum and Coke and rubbed her temples. She blinked a few times to see if the room would come into better focus.

Lily leaned over and poked her in the arm with a giggle. “Who would you bring back from the dead?” She shoved an oatmeal cookie into her mouth.

“Are you insane? No one. Didn’t you see what happened to the little boy? What about the freaky little cat?”

Lily wagged her finger at Anna. “Come on, Anna, loosen up and play along. Would you bring back Elvis? Maybe Tom Sawyer?”

“Tom Sawyer isn’t even a real person.”

“I bet he was cute though,” Lily giggled.

“You’re toasted. I’m going to call Jakob to come pick you up.” Anna closed the pizza box and carried it to the kitchen. “You can’t bring people back to life.”

“You’re right. Pretty gross business. Too bad you can’t bring back the perfect man for yourself. Better yet, too bad you can’t
make
one.”

“I thought Baron was the right guy for me,” Anna said with a heavy sigh. She tried three times to fold the pizza box in half and shove it into the trashcan. She finally gave up and left it on the counter.

Lily propped her legs up on the coffee table. “Just think, with your baking skills, you could make someone even better than Baron. Someone just the way you wanted him to be.”

Anna shook her head and laughed weakly. “I wish.” But she wrinkled her forehead in thought as she sat on the couch and curled her legs beneath her. “Grandma Bea used to tell me she made my grandpa out of dough.”

Lily snickered. “Are you serious? Sounds like something she’d say. She could make anything. Like you.”

“I
loved
when she’d tell me the story of how she made him,” she said, leaning her head back on the cushions and closing her eyes. “When I inherited all her cookbooks, I found his recipe in the back of one of them.”

“
His
recipe?”

Anna rolled her head to the side to look at Lily and immediately regretted it. Her brain sloshed around like hot cane syrup inside her skull. She put both hands on the sides of her head to steady the swaying room. “The recipe with the ingredients for how she made Grandpa. How much flour, sugar, that sort of thing. And the secret ingredient, too,” she said.

Lily snorted into her fourth rum and Coke. “And what was the secret ingredient?”

Anna shrugged. “No idea. She kept it in a locked box and refused to ever let me touch it. Every time I asked about it, she would change the subject.”

Lily sat up and put her glass on the coffee table. “You’re serious? What was in the locked box?”

“I never opened it.”

“Where is it now?”

The scent of spicy, freshly brewed coffee wafting through the room caused Anna’s eyes to water. “Under my bed.”

Lily’s brown eyes widened. “And you never opened it? Not even after the funeral?” When Anna shook her head, Lily jumped up from the couch, swayed on her feet, and clutched her stomach. “Whoa, bad idea.” She blinked rapidly, and once she regained her balance, Lily reached for Anna and dragged her to the bedroom. “Let’s break it open.”

Anna stood beside her bed and rubbed her right temple. “I have the key.”

“How could you not have opened it?” Lily asked, tucking her loose curls behind her ears.

“I dunno. She said to never open it, so I just didn’t.” Anna knelt down beside her bed. “Geez, when I say it out loud, it sounds even lamer. Why
didn’t
I ever open it?”

Lily bounced onto the bed. “You are unbelievable. Have you ever stepped out of line, even once?”

“Yakking episode, twelfth grade. Real low point in my life.”

Lily laughed. “Open it! Open it!”

Anna opened the drawer on her nightstand and retrieved the key hanging from a blueberry-colored ribbon. She reached beneath her bed and pulled out the unassuming tin box. Rust speckled the box like splatter paint and left burnt orange smudges on her fingers. On the second attempt, the slender key slipped into the rusted lock. Dense energy pulsed from the box, through the key, and into her fingers, vibrating the bones in her hand. Her heart pounded in fierce, rapid beats, and she wished she hadn’t drunk a third glass of rum and Coke. Her head felt full of cotton candy.

When she flipped open the lid, there were yellowed letters tied together with kitchen twine sitting atop sand that sparkled like grains of golden sugar caught in the sunlight.

“Wow,” Anna breathed. She removed the letters and reached her hand out to touch the glittering substance, but Lily slapped her hand away.

“Don’t touch it.”

Anna pushed her drying hair from her face. “Why not?”

Lily slid off the bed and knelt beside her. “What the hell is that stuff? My heart feels funny. Why is it all sparkly like that?”

“Like it’s lit up from the inside? I dunno. It’s probably just some kind of special sugar.”

The golden dust sparkled and beckoned to Anna. She could feel a prickle down her spine, and the dust whispered to her.
Use me. Take me
. She stuck her fingertips into the sand and felt a rush of warmth rocket up her arm. She quickly jerked her hand back.

Lily jumped. “What happened?”

“It shocked me,” Anna said. She rubbed the palm of her hand with the thumb of her opposite hand.

Lily stared transfixed at the sand. “Where did she get this stuff?”

“No idea.” Anna lifted the letters. “Maybe the answer is in here.”

“You don’t really think Grandma Bea made your grandpa out of that stuff, do you? I mean, it sounds pretty ridiculous. You’re probably right about it being sugar,” she said, laughing, but it sounded forced, and the air around them smelled like bitter coffee grounds. “Maybe we’re drunk. Maybe the rum was spiked with something.”

Looking down at the brilliant dust, Anna began to really wonder about her grandmother’s story. “It sounds far-fetched, but what if it’s possible?” Then she laughed and closed the box. “You’re right. We’ve had too much to drink. Let me call Jakob to pick you up.”

Anna tried to stand, but Lily grabbed her arm and pulled her down. “Wait. I have a
great
idea. Let’s go downstairs, and you can make a man with this fairy dust because if anyone can make a delicious man, you can.”

Anna giggled. Then she stopped when she realized Lily was being serious. Suddenly an image of Frankenstein flitted through her brain. An oversize stomping giant with a scarred, stitched face made with the body parts of corpses lifted a moldy hand and waved. She grimaced and blinked away the vision.
Bad idea
.

Lily shook her. “You look like you’re going to be sick. Come on, get the dust, and let’s make your man. I’ll grab the rum.”

˜˜˜˜

Anna tried to smooth out the creases on her grandma’s recipe. In her neat, looping script, Beatrice had written:

Joseph O’Brien

Add the basics: Flour, castor sugar. Only the best ingredients. Half a cup of confectioner’s sugar to make him just sweet enough, but not too much. Two dashes of salt to complement the sweet. A good balance is essential. Add two and a quarter teaspoons of active yeast.

A teaspoon of vanilla extract because it goes well with just about everything. A few dabs of royal icing to make him stick and never wander away. A pinch here and there of favorite spices (basil, oregano, anise).

Two cups of warm water. Two eggs, lightly beaten. Knead the dough just long enough—very important. Kneading too long will make him hard and unbendable, like a rock in the stomach. Kneading not long enough will make him soft—too weak, too pliable, a moldable mess in the hands of everyone. Not a good man.

One tablespoon of secret ingredient.

Bake for 30 minutes at 450 degrees. Make sure to give him a name before you close the oven door. Turn off the oven, but do not open it. Leave dough in oven for two hours.

Anna looked at the tin box and the ingredients scattered across the counters. Lily sat on the island and snickered while she talked about what kind of man she would make if she could bake worth a lick.

“This is stupid,” Anna said. “I’m tired, and I’m going to have a righteous hangover in the morning, which is going to be here, oh, in just about five hours.”

Lily pointed the nearly empty bottle of rum at her. “Make the man, and make sure he’s hot. It’ll make Baron so jealous. I’m kinda looking forward to that part of this whole shenanigan. And besides, if it doesn’t work, we’ll just gorge on the dough boy later.” Then she snorted and burst into another round of giggles.

Anna rubbed her eyes. “Man, this ranks way up there on the list of the stupidest things I’ve ever done.”

She grabbed a large bowl. She tossed in a cup of sugar, then two cups of all-purpose flour and two cups of whole wheat flour. She hoped the combination would give him an even skin tone, and the completely absurd fact that she was actually giving this recipe so much thought had her grabbing the bottle of rum and taking another swig.

Anna cut open a packet of active yeast and dumped it into the bowl. Then she added a cashew-size glob of purple royal icing to the mix in order to make him loyal followed by a half cup of confectioner’s sugar in the hopes he would be somewhat romantic. She stirred in two teaspoons of salt and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. She poured canola oil into the bowl because he needed to be able to withstand the heat and not break down when life became too hot or too complicated. She measured out three cups of warm water and gently whipped two eggs into it before pouring it over the dry ingredient mixture.

“What will make him good and wholesome and kind?” she asked aloud.