Baker's Blues Read online

  It’s been a long time since I let myself think about having a child, but when Mac and I first got married, I thought about it a lot. The idea was never very compelling when I was married to David, but with Mac I felt differently. Everything about us seemed so right, so rock solid. For the first time in my life I was willing to make the commitment.

  I knew it would be a tough sell with him, but I was unprepared for his reaction to my (I thought) fairly low-key What would you think about maybe having a baby?.

  “Why don’t we just get divorced now and save ourselves a lot of trouble.”

  He proceeded to lay it all out for me. It was an unnecessary and dangerous complication. It would destroy everything we had together. He couldn’t believe I would even consider it. It was too much to ask of him. He’d never even expected to get married.

  I was stung by his words. Especially that last part. He made it sound like I’d tricked him into getting married. Ironic, since I would have gone on the way we were; getting married had been his idea.

  We had a rough patch after that. I was heartbroken…not so much because he didn’t want a child, but because of the way he framed it…as if by suggesting it, I’d betrayed him somehow. I went off the rails for a time, doing research on adoptions. I considered “forgetting” to take the pill and not telling him, but deep down I knew he’d leave me if I took that route. And even if he didn’t, it would fundamentally change everything that was important to me about the relationship. I had to choose.

  Now, riding the escalators, it seems everywhere I look, I see young mothers pushing strollers. Of course I wouldn’t have been a “young” mother. I was already thirty-two when Mac and I got together.

  I wander through Gap Kids, studying displays of little pink hoodies and smocked peasant blouses and miniature jeans. Wondering what Skye was like as a child. And what she’s like now.

  I go to the Hard Rock Café for a late lunch and let my grilled chicken sandwich languish on the plate till it’s cold. I leave my credit card on the table and the cute little server runs after me, hollering “Ma’m! You forgot your card.”

  I think about stopping at Whole Foods, but by this time the aisles will be clogged with skinny women in workout ensembles that cost more than my car, heading home from Pilates class. That, together with my guilt at having left Brownie alone all day, prods me towards Luna Blanca.

  What would I do without the Brown Dog? She’s always at the back door, always glad to see me, whether I’ve been gone fifteen minutes or six hours. We take our long, pokey walks to the corner and back. After dinner she sits at my feet out on the patio, and every night since Mac left, she pulls herself up the stairs to sleep on the floor by the bed. Sometimes I wake up during the night and reach down to see if she’s still there and she always is.

  It’s not a sound that wakes me; it’s pain. But as I’m sitting, groggy, on the edge of the bed, rubbing Ben-Gay into my shoulder, Brownie growls, deep in her throat. I stop rubbing and listen, imagining vandals, burglars, ax murderers.

  Brownie gets up and goes to the bedroom door, whining.

  Twice last summer we had some kids come through the alley and climb the back fence to go swimming in our pool. I pad barefoot across the hall into Mac’s office without turning on the light, and pull the drapes to one side just enough to see out.

  The underwater lights are on, and yes, someone’s in the pool. But even from up here, I can see that it’s Mac. I recognize the lazy rhythm of his strokes, the way he knifes effortlessly through the water. The dog knows him, too, and she stands on her hind legs with her front paws on the window sill, whimpering softly. I hold her head against my leg and rub her ears and tell her to hush.

  Three in the morning and he’s swimming laps.

  I want to call him, I want to go down and hold him, make him talk to me, but in a few seconds I know I’m not going to do any of that. He doesn’t want to see me or hold me or talk to me. That’s why he’s here now, not three in the afternoon.

  Two years ago in the spring, right after finishing the first draft of December Light, he got it in his head to go to Baja. We talked very little as he drove my Volvo station wagon down through Tijuana, past the lobster restaurants of El Rosario and the perpetual parties of Ensenada to a little fishing camp someone had told him about where you could stay in a palapa for fifteen bucks a night including dinner. Meals were served in an open air pavilion, always fish that had just been pulled from the water.

  The place had a solar shower—meaning black plastic bags of water that were heated by the sun—a couple of outhouses and view of the Pacific to kill for. We took our sleeping bags, bathing suits and a change of clothes, some books, a few bottles of wine, a bunch of granola bars, apples and oranges and not much else. There were only three or four other people around at any given time, and they all seemed more interested in contemplation than conversation.

  We stayed for five days, sleeping a lot, hiking a little. It was beautiful in a stark, unearthly way. The piercing blue sky devoid of clouds, the turquoise Pacific tufted with white foam, the sand, golden and shadowed. The wind blew constantly—off the ocean at night, off the desert during the day. There was a strange respite of an hour or so at dawn and again at sunset while one wind died and the other revived. I read Steinbeck’s Log from the Sea of Cortez and a few neglected issues of “Artisan Baker” and watched somewhat uneasily while Mac sat staring at the water or walked down the beach till he disappeared from my sight.

  The camp owner’s two daughters made awesome margaritas, squeezing the limes by hand and adding secret ingredients out of battered plastic bottles. The last night we sat on the beach after dinner, drinking them and watching the sun inch its way towards the sea. For the first time in weeks he was talky; we joked about seeing the Green Flash. But as it grew darker, he grew quieter.

  I was glad we were leaving in the morning. I was worried about Brownie. My mom had always kept her for us, but she and Richard were out of town, so Brownie was stuck in some posh kennel. I was anxious to get out of here, to get home and find that everything was fine.

  When I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer, I left him sitting there and went to our palapa. I hung my jeans on a peg and lay down on top of my sleeping bag, intending to go back to the beach and get him if he didn’t come soon. Instead I fell into one of my hard sleeps.

  Some time later I was startled awake, in silence and near total darkness by a breath of air, the sense of invisible motion. Only partly conscious, I whispered, “Mac…?”

  He laughed softly. “Were you expecting somebody else?”

  I mumbled some sleepy nonsense and closed my eyes again, but he nudged me towards the wall and lay down half beside me, half on top of me on the single bunk bed. His skin was chilled and damp and rimed with a thin layer of grit. When he kissed me he tasted of salt and his hair was wet. Something began to coalesce in my stomach, circling. The way a storm begins.

  “Did you go in the water?”

  “Just for a while,” he said. “Not too far out.” His mouth was on my throat and one cool hand trailed down my leg. My heart began to race, whether from desire or the thought of him out in the black Pacific with Jaws and jellyfish and riptides, I couldn’t say. I turned, putting my arm across his shoulders and realized he was completely naked. I was still a little bit drunk, and now I was scared as well as incredibly aroused.

  “One of the people in this bed has too many clothes on.” He tugged my T-shirt off over my head and without further conversation we began to make love with an urgency I barely remembered.

  By the time he pulled me on top of him, I was nearly frantic with love and lust and mingled fear, the thought of losing him in the vast dark ocean. But it was good then, better than it had been in a long time. We were going home in the morning and it would be good again…the three of us together, Mac somehow shrugging off his strangeness, reclaiming the life I wanted to believe we’d had.

  It’s mid-afternoon when I get to the bakery on Friday, ha
ving spent most of the morning waiting to see the doctor. The lunch crowd has thinned out. Only a few diehards remain, sipping espressos and reading The New York Times and Variety. I carefully avoid commenting on anyone’s work, disappearing instead into my cubbyhole and turning on the computer. For an hour or so, I answer emails and enter evaluations into employee files. I can’t do much else because I promised the doctor I’d wear this stupid nylon sling at work to remind me not to do any heavy lifting, pushing or pulling.

  Eventually I wander out to the ovens. The lingering smell of sweet roasted grain always lifts my spirits, which are currently in dire need of lifting. Lydia and Alise are bagging the day-old scones and muffins; Tyler is making up the production sheet for tomorrow while Benny and Hola clean the work tables. I look around at my employees, who are studiously not watching me, and say,

  “Anybody mind if I put some bread out?”

  A few faint chuckles.

  “Wyn, you don’t have to do that,” Cheryl says. “Let one of us—”

  “Cheryl, there’s not a loaf on this rack that weighs more than a pound and a half. I can handle it.”

  Ignoring her whipped puppy look, I wheel the cooling rack out front and begin arranging loaves on the big brass-trimmed baker’s rack I ordered from France last year. Walnut whole wheat levain, kalamata olive, raisin pecan rye, and sourdough boules.

  Tyler appears and parks her butt on the corner of a table. “What did the doctor say?”

  “He said, if it hurts, don’t do it. That’s going to be my new mantra.”

  “What else did he say?”

  “It’s most likely tendonitis. There’s a chance that there might be a small tear in the rotator cuff…”

  “So what do you have to do?”

  “The usual. Ice. Anti-inflammatories. I’m not supposed to do anything too strenuous for the next six weeks. Then if it’s not any better, I have to get an MRI.”

  “I’m not even going to say I told you so. Because that’s the kind of girl I am.”

  I fluff her bangs. “Which is why I pay you the big bucks.”

  “I think you should take some time off.”

  “I am. I’ll be on Orcas for two weeks.”

  “I know you. It’ll take you two weeks to realize you’re on vacation. Then you’ll have to turn around and come back.”

  “And your point is…?”

  “My point is, when was the last time you took any time off?”

  I pause to consider. “Last fall I went with Mac to that writers’ conference in San Francisco.”

  “Three whole days. And two years ago you went up to the island for ten days.”

  “Is your life so boring that you have to resort to reading my personnel file for entertainment?”

  “Believe me, it’s a very short read. Also not terribly entertaining. I think you need a serious vacation. Minimum six weeks.”

  I laugh. “Are you tired of defending my honor?”

  “No.” She says it straight-faced.

  “I can’t be gone for six weeks.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well…because—”

  “You think I can’t run this place without you?”

  “Of course not. In fact, you usually do, but—”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I’d be bored silly up there for six weeks.”

  “Okay, then, four weeks. Minimum.”

  “I’d go crazy—”

  “Wyn, I want to tell you something. Not as your manager, not as your little foundling. Just as your friend. You need to be away for a while. Somewhere where you won’t be trying to do too much—”

  “I’m not using my arm. Hardly at all.” Lifting the sling to make my point, I wince slightly.

  “I’m not talking about your arm.”

  When the bell over the door jingles, she looks past me and her expression changes instantly.

  “What do you want?”

  “Fine, thanks. How are you, Tyler? I’d like to talk to Wyn for minute, if it’s okay with you.”

  She glares at him, then starts towards the break room. Halfway there, she turns back. “Oh, by the way, Mac…”

  When he looks at her, she flips him off, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek.

  “I got your message,” he says to me.

  “The one from three days ago?”

  He follows me past the kitchen and into my office, pulling the door shut behind him.

  He nods at my arm, cradled like a baby in the sling. “How’s that doing?”

  “You didn’t come all the way over here from 90210 to inquire about my shoulder.”

  “I was over at the house getting some files, so I thought I’d stop by.”

  “When are you coming home?”

  Instead of answering, he picks up the piece of argillite that I use for a paperweight and rubs the quartz vein aimlessly with his thumb, then sets it down. He probably doesn’t remember that it came from Orcas. That he found it on North Beach the first weekend we spent at the cottage.

  “You said you wanted me to do something.”

  I sit down in my chair and make myself look directly at him. His hair is too long and he looks thin. “You need to get the mail and pay the bills while I’m gone. Water the inside plants. And the window screen over the kitchen sink needs to be fixed.”

  He frowns. “Where are you going?”

  “I guess it slipped your mind that we were supposed to be going to Orcas.”

  “When are you coming back?”

  “Two weeks.”

  “What about Brownie?”

  “I’m taking her with me.”

  “I thought we decided she’s too old to fly.”

  “I’m not flying.”

  “You’re driving? In the Volvo?”

  “That’s the plan. Unless you want to loan me the Death Star, of course.”

  He gives me an exasperated look, but says nothing.

  “Oh, I forgot. Your coolness quotient might be seriously compromised if you were seen driving a ‘76 Volvo wagon.”

  “That car isn’t up to a long road trip.”

  “I’ll have James check it out.” I look away and try to keep my voice steady. “You could still come with me. We could—”

  “No. I couldn’t.”

  My right hand grips the edge of my chair. “Do you hate me? Are you—is there someone—?”

  “Don’t say stupid shit.”

  “Then what’s wrong? Tell me. Make me understand.”

  “How can you not understand? I’m pissed off. I’m sick of you questioning everything I do. I don’t like being cross-examined. I’m tired of you checking up on me and going through my mail and my desk and—”

  “If you ever told me anything, I wouldn’t have to.”

  “I told you everything you needed to know—”

  “I had a right to know that you have a child—”

  “Yeah. Knowing about it really made everything great, didn’t it? Are you happy now?”

  I lean towards him. “Mac, it’s not just about being happy. I love you. People who love each other talk to each other. I’ve always had to find out the most the most important things about you from other people. What does that say about us? About our relationship?”

  “It says our relationship never depended on your knowing things about me that are none of your business,” he says calmly.

  “Does it matter to you that we might split up?”

  “Of course it matters. That doesn’t mean I can fix it. Or that you can.”

  “But you won’t even try. You’re willing to just watch it all go away. I don’t understand you.”

  “For the record,” he says, “I don’t understand you either.”

  My throat aches from the effort of control. “The difference is, you never wanted me to.”

  His hand is on the doorknob. I can’t stop him and I’m not even sure I want to. It’s like the Mac I know is already gone, leaving this cold-eyed stranger as a placeh
older.

  eight

  Orcas Island

  CM is slumped next to me, snoring softly in the throes of jet-lag. She was only home from London for forty-eight hours when I shanghaied her into coming to the island.

  So far she hasn’t been much company, losing consciousness almost before the flight to Seattle left the ground. She rallied when we landed at SEATAC, but as soon as I turned the rental car onto the I-5 she zoned out again and didn’t budge till we were parked on the ferry’s auto deck and I dragged her up to the passenger cabin. Where she promptly dozed off again, her jeans jacket serving as a pillow against the window.

  Mac was right, of course. About the Volvo. James, my ace mechanic in North Hollywood, said the car might make it up and back. Or it might not. And if anything untoward happened anywhere north of San Francisco it could be a problem getting it fixed. I love my car but I trust James.

  So, after a brief custody skirmish, Brownie went with Mac. He promised to carry her up and down the stairs to the apartment, to walk her twice a day, and to feed her on time, mixing her vitamins and a little chicken broth into her kibble.

  Still, it nearly killed me to leave her. She didn’t understand why we three weren’t together and why she was in a strange place. Or maybe that’s just my anthropomorphic projection. After all, it was me who cried when I drove away, not her.

  At last, about fifteen minutes from Eastsound, CM opens her eyes, smiles and stretches. Her first words are,

  “I’m starving.”

  “The café’s back there.” I point over my shoulder. “Don’t expect anything gourmet.”

  “Just a little snack to tide me over.” She slings her purse over one shoulder. “What do you want?”

  “See if they have a strychnine latte.”

  She waves away my ten dollar bill. “I’ll get us a surprise.”

  “Nothing you eat would surprise me.”

  “I hope you’re not going to be this crabby all week.”

  “Sorry, I’m just—”

  “Hush, child. Mama’s gonna get you something good.”