Czytaj książkę: «Icing On The Cake»

Icing on the Cake
Laura Castoro

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For Drake Anthony, the newest member of the Castoro clan.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A big thanks to Scott McGehee, owner of

Boulevard Bread Company in Little Rock, Arkansas.

And a special thanks to his night crew, who let me in

on the secret life of bread making. After watching their

intensive efforts, I’ll never complain about the

cost of a loaf of artisan bread again!

Chapter 1

The Pritikin diet almost killed me. Then along came Atkins, followed by the Stillman, Scarsdale, Hollywood, ketogenic and Zone diets. The South Beach was almost my coup de grâce. I’ve fought the good fight with all. I’m a baker.

Bread is the staff of life. Who could resist the warm yeasty fragrance of something loving in the oven? Plenty, to tell by sales at the No-Bagel Emporium during the no-carb years. After years of denying themselves steaks and chops, butter and cheese, the diet nation was ready to indulge in fat, as long as no flour was involved. But the mass hysteria couldn’t last. The craze has fizzled. It’s just a matter of time before bread is king again.

Yet New Jersey is not Manhattan. New ideas, even bad-diet fads, take a while to catch on and twice as long to fade out.

The morning rush, make that amble, has slowed as a well-toned woman in a workout camisole and low-rise pants gazes longingly at my bread racks. Then she sucks in her lower lip. She said she just came in for bottled water but I sense a weakness.

Shameless panderer that I am, I lure undecided customers with generous samples. Yesterday it was palm-size ciabatta slices spread with violet-flower honey. Today it’s raspberry-almond butter spread upon chocolate sourdough.

“We were meant for bread,” I whisper over my countertop like a desperate lover. “Try it.”

She shakes her head, clutching her Nina Bucci workout bag to her chest. “I really shouldn’t.”

“Just a taste.” I push the tray an inch closer to her. “If you’re going to sin, do it for the best of reasons.”

“I suppose one nibble can’t hurt.” She looks quickly left and right in my all-but-empty store, then reaches out and snatches up the smallest cube and pops it in her mouth.

I know what to expect, the sudden widening of her eyes, the slight catch of her breath, and then that little moan of animal satisfaction. I nod and smile. “I’ll just pop a loaf in a bag for you. Pay now and pick it up on the way back from working out.”

Before she can think better of her seduction I turn to bag a loaf, only a little ashamed of myself. I’ve become a pimp, and my madam is un petit pain.

Let me explain. I’m a bread addict. My grandparents owned the Bagel Emporium in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, for fifty years. They bought it from a Jewish couple from Hoboken, who were some of the first to emigrate to the new state of Israel in 1949. Five years ago Grandpa Horace decided they were too old to carry on and left the business to me, their only grandchild, and moved to Phoenix. It was a case of perfect timing. My career in advertising with my now ex, Ted, had begun to bore me to tears. I didn’t have to think twice. I’m a Jersey girl, albeit one with a degree from a Swiss finishing school. Practicality is bred into my genes. The way I see it something that engages the five senses, makes arm-toning exercises an option and produces one of life’s oldest culinary delights is a win-win situation.

Okay, Ted hated the idea. He said that in leaving advertising for an industry requiring physical labor I was “Opting out of an upper-middle-class career for a trade with all the cachet of cosmetology.”

I consider his attitude bias. He has gluten sensitivity, which makes him swell with gas. Not a deadly reaction, just a very uncomfortable one. The sight of a floury kitchen counter is enough to send him reeling backward.

“Thanks.” My customer smiles shyly at me as she pockets her change. “I hope Rodrigo doesn’t smell chocolate bread on my breath.”

“My pleasure.” I offer her a Pez from my Snoopy dispenser. “This will keep it our little secret.”

Ted’s opinion aside, I was born to make bread. I compensate by making the best bread in the tri-state area. I have plaques on the wall that attest to the fact.

We’re an artisan bakery, which is small enough so that each worker knows the whole process of making bread, and two or three of us can make enough batches to supply the daily requirements of the store.

From the beginning, we flourished.

The location was ideal, situated on the first floor of a three-story building whose second floor is home to Five-0, a lifestyle magazine for the woman of a certain age. The third floor houses Rodrigo’s Body Salon, which caters to suburbanites with cellulite issues. Between them and street traffic, the Bagel Emporium had a readymade clientele of boomer women who no longer thought two lettuce leaves make a lunch, and health acolytes who reasoned they had earned a little sumthin’ after burning two cinnamon buns’ worth of calories. Burn two, eat one. It was a calculation they could live with, and I knew I could live on.

Within weeks of ownership, I invested in two used industrial mixers and a brand-new stone deck oven, and branched out from bagels to my personal passion: leaven bread. We make the basics like baguettes, ciabatta, pagnotta, whole wheat, rye and sourdough. But I love to experiment. Custom orders for chocolate-cherry pumpernickel and piñon-nut queso blanco con mango whole wheat garnered so many requests they quickly became store staples along with gourmet delights like bittersweet chocolate croissants, bourbon pecan cinnamon rolls and focaccia pizzas. Friends call my creations the haute couture of bread-making. Business was so good after the first year that I dropped bagels altogether, a decision appreciated by the deli down the block. Regulars nicknamed us the No-Bagel Emporium, and it stuck. Then disaster struck. Noodles, pasta and bread became the pariahs of modern life.

The bakery is definitely on the road to recovery but the bills accrued while it was on life support sucked up all my discretionary savings. The bread is better than ever, but once lost, one’s clientele is difficult to lure back. We’re a broken habit.

I glance around my store. Like me, it’s neat but showing its age. Once I wore Albert Nippon and Ferragamos. Now I dress from the Gap sale rack. The No-Bagel Emporium needs a makeover to attract new attention. But there’s already a lien on the bakery. Guess we’ll both have to make do for now.

I check the front windows for the passing of a perspective customer. The bump bump vibrations of the body-pump class sound track that filters into my shop means my customer base is focused for the moment on burning calories, not consuming them.

To console my disappointment that there is no line around the block waiting to get in there’s always the case for a cinnamon roll. One bite is all it takes to produce a smile. Its syrupy, crunchy texture cannot be bested anywhere in the tri-state area. I know because we won a taste test four years ago.

Just as I’m adjusting my mouth for the first bite, the door opens and in comes the skinniest eight-year-old I’ve ever seen. “Hey, Dupree.”

“Hey, Miz T. You got a job for me today?”

I look around until I spy a broom. “Want to sweep the front?”

He nods but sticks out his lip. “When am I gonna get a real job?”

“Sweeping is a real job.” Dupree is an entrepreneur. His parents could buy my store but Dupree likes to earn his own money, which he doesn’t waste on things like sweet rolls. So I have to think up excuses to fatten him up a bit.

“Before you start I have something else I need you to do for me.” I put my cinnamon roll on a napkin and push it toward him. “I think Shemar is slipping. Tell me if you think this cinnamon roll is up to his usual standard.”

Serious as any adult, Dupree takes it, eyeballs it and then takes a big bite.

“You need some milk, to get the full flavor experience.” I pull a half-pint carton out of my case and offer it to him with a straw.

“It’s good.” He cranks his head to one side. “Only, needs a little more cin’mon.”

“I’ll tell Shemar. Finish it, anyway, because you know I don’t like wastefulness. I’ll give you a dollar as my consultant, and your choice of a loaf when you’re done sweeping.” Wish I could pay him but I don’t want child services coming after me for violating child labor laws.

Coffee cup in hand, I scoop up the mail and head for a booth. An ominous-looking envelope from my flour distributor sits on top.

I love the tone of dunning letters.

“We are sure you have overlooked…If not rectified in thirty days we will be forced…If the remit has been mailed please ignore…”

They manage to make you feel delinquent, a failure and possibly a good egg all in the same paragraph. Oh, and very afraid for your credit record.

I scan quickly through the advertisements and catalogs, until an industry magazine with the cover line AWAKE from the No-Carb Nightmare catches my eye.

I mumble as I read it until Celia taps me on the shoulder. “You okay, Liz?”

“Listen to this. The cover article says the low-carb craze peaked last year. Yet on the very next page there’s a piece about making low-carb bread. Instead of backing us up, the industry is still trying to cover every angle.”

Celia smiles, which emphasizes the Kewpie doll contours of her face. “Those articles are written months in advance. Everyone knows bread is back.”

I nod. “You’re right. Got to think positively. Business will pick up after people sample our wares at the Fine Arts and Crafts Show. That’s only a month away.”

“So is the wedding.” My blank look must give away the need for a prompt because Celia adds, “My friend Jenna’s wedding?”

“Oh, yeah.” How could I forget the topic of every other conversation with Celia since the invitation arrived two weeks ago?

Celia pats her twice-pregnant tummy. “Can you tell I’m working out with Rodrigo twice a week?”

“Absolutely.”

Celia Martin is a former Wall Street analyst who quit three years ago because she had fertility issues to resolve. They resolved as two sets of twins born sixteen months apart. Yet even the most dedicated mommy needs a little time off. Luckily, Celia’s husband has one of those boring-sounding careers in insurance financing that earns obscene amounts of money. Thanks to him, and her two live-in nannies, she can slum two mornings a week for me, ordering and pairing cheeses with our specialty breads. Twice a month, she goes into the city to get her hair done, and pick up our custom orders from Murray’s Cheese Shop in Greenwich Village.

Working for the No-Bagel Emporium isn’t usually an ego issue for Celia. But when a girlfriend from her “firmest” years is a partner in some disgustingly attractive IPO stock-optioned company, it’s hard to say “cheese specialist” in the same top that fashion. According to Celia, Jenna was one of those friends who would steal your boyfriend and then still manage to keep your friendship by making you feel she’s done you a service by freeing you up to find “someone worthy of you.” Now, that’s just Machiavellian. No wonder the upcoming wedding has Celia feeling the need to measure up to the world she left behind. She has, by my count, bought and taken back five outfits.

“Why don’t we knock off early?” Celia waggles her perfectly arched brows at me. “Shemar can take care of the lunch crowd. Let’s go get manicures and pedicures. My treat.”

I don’t hesitate on the issue of if she can afford it. But I’m in debt up to my no-longer-waxed eyebrows.

I duck my head. “You go. I really need to stay and help out.”

“It’s not a pity bribe,” she says, reading my mind. “Think of it as girlfriend therapy. You’re doing it not to embarrass me.”

And just like that, we’re out the door, after a quick reminder to Shemar, my baker and right hand. “Don’t forget to bag up the leftovers for pickup by the soup kitchens.”

One thing a bakery like ours simply can’t do is compete with itself by selling day-old bread. It’s quite frightening the number of customers who can’t tell the difference.

“What do you mean, let’s get tanned, too?”

Celia offers me a glib smile as she maneuvers her SUV into a parking space before a strip mall tanning salon in West Orange.

“The entire time I was trying to decide between dresses the salesgirls kept saying any of the dresses would look hot if I had a tan.”

“You have to be able to tan to tan, Celia. You don’t tan.”

Her Irish porcelain skin turns strawberry. “Spray tanning doesn’t activate a body’s melanin, just changes the outmost layer of skin, so even I can tan. If I start now, I will be able to squeeze in several sessions before the wedding. Let’s try it. With your olive skin tone, you’d turn JLo honey-gold.”

“Not me. I don’t do chemical things to my body unless under a doctor’s orders.”

Celia gives me her mommy’s-disappointed-in-baby glance. “Liz, life is about the decisions we make to live passionately or passively. Where’s your passion?”

Okay, I know what this is about. Celia is like Noah, and thinks the world should be paired up. “I’m seeing someone, remember?”

“You are, to put it in your own words, nondating Harrison Buckley.”

She’s right. That relationship could be said to be living passively. Really should do something about that. When I have time.

I glance down at my feet and smile. We’ve had our toes and nails done. Celia got tips and a French manicure and pedicure. I work in dough and prefer natural short nails. However, my toes are the color of watermelon slices. The glue-on “seeds” were optional. If that’s not living dangerously I don’t know what is.

“A-hem!”

“What?”

“Tan? Now?” Celia points to a banner in the window of the tanning salon.

Change your outside to love your inside.

“I hope no one paid money for that slogan.”

One minute later Celia and I are standing in the reception area of the South Beach Day Spa and Tanning Salon. Nearby a row of girls who look young enough to be cutting class flip through teen magazines and chat. Behind the wall of glass bricks flanking the reception area, colorful shapes move through a fogged kaleidoscope.

“Did you say Mrs. Tal-bot?” The receptionist’s eyes couldn’t be wider.

I nod.

She cuts her eyes to a young woman standing nearby, who is also openly staring at me, then says, “O-kaaaay.” She pushes a button and announces, “There are a Mrs. Talbot and a Mrs. Duffy here for spray tanning appointments.”

I wonder only briefly what that was about. Too nervous to sit I survey the menu of services on the wall that includes manicures, pedicures, facials and wraps. And, of course, tanning options.

I’m just wondering what sort of “options” there are to tanning when Celia says, “Oh, that’s what I want.” She points to a menu item: Double Hot-Action Dark Tanning.

“You’re a beginner, Celia. Think Gwyneth Paltrow and Julianne Moore.”

But she’s not listening. She’s picks up a flyer and reads. “Hot Action, also known as Tropical Heat, Skin Stimulation and Tingle, uses a combination of ingredients to increase the microcirculation of the skin, which increases blood flow. The hot-action lotion uses tan-extending walnut oil to produce an instant, Intense glow.”

“Intense glow? That doesn’t even sound normal, let alone safe.”

She flashes me a grin. “We’re not here for safe. We’re here for that outside to match our adventurous insides.”

“You obviously haven’t seen the unadventurous inside of my wallet.”

“My treat!”

Before I can form another way to say N-O, a young woman, this one in a shrink-to-fit tropical-blue smock that barely covers the tops of her bronzed thighs says to me, “I’m your hostess, Lili. Follow me, please.”

She pauses in a hallway of doors and says to Celia, “Did you bring a swimsuit?”

Celia nods and produces one from the depths of a purse the size of Pennsylvania. Since the twins were born, all her purses are the size of Pennsylvania.

“You may change out of your day clothing in here into a robe and shower cap. In the shower stalls you’ll find exfoliating cleanser to use to help prepare your skin. Dry yourself really well before you put on your suit and goggles.”

When she turns to me a big fat grin stretches my face. “I can’t tan because I didn’t bring a swimsuit. Or goggles.”

“We provide goggles. You have the option of going into the spray booth in the nude.”

“Not in this lifetime.”

She gives me a quick up and down. Her expression says she agrees that my shelf life for public nudity has expired. “We have disposable paper suits available, for a small fee.”

“She’ll take it.” Celia dares me to contradict her.

In spite of my anxiety about the paint job to come, I’m enjoying the idea of more pampering. Ask any woman of any age from any walk of life: self-affirmation can be most easily accomplished by a pampered hour consumed by such things as toenail length and shades of polish.

Five minutes later Celia and I are standing in a mint-green dressing room area, having exfoliated from chin to heels, putting on our suits. The locker room is a room away, and the cubbies provided for dressing don’t have curtains for privacy. I guess the thinking is if you’re vain/proud enough to tan it, you’d want to show off what you’re working with.

“What do you think?” Celia’s swimsuit bra top is a good fit. The low-waist boxer briefs make the most of her ample hips but hold in only part of her tummy. She puts a hand on the pooched-out leftovers. “Baby-making fat. I’m thinking lipo next year, after I lose another ten pounds. Good idea?”

“Maybe.” At the moment I have worse problems.

Who decided a halter top made from what seems to be quilted paper towels could contain a real woman? One breast keeps sliding out of its triangle section while the weight of the other tests the elastic bandeau meant to stop it from slipping out underneath. The panties? It barely covers the lawful essentials. My cheeks are on their own.

Our hostess sticks her head in the door. “Okay, first one ready?”

Before I can answer, Celia’s out the door. As I fiddle with the strings that claim to adjust hip exposure, the door swings back open and two young women enter.

One glance over my shoulder reveals a pair of deeply tanned but un-sun-kissed babes in micro bikinis, the kind you only see in ads for Australian beaches or Brazilian wax jobs. They are also wearing shower caps and heels.

One holds out a slender arm to the other. “Does this look like a Brazilian tan to you?”

Her whole body is the color of maple furniture; who can tell? But I turn quickly away. They weren’t speaking to me.

I hear her companion reply, “You look a bit toasty around the edges.”

The first one sighs. “They say it will take several hours for the full effect. Still, I expected, well, you know. More.”

The way she says this, I visualize beluga on toast triangles, chilled Dom, an ocean view and live violins.

I sidestep back into one of the dressing cubicles, hoping they will just ignore me. Now, not only do I feel sallow-complexioned and under-exfoliated, even my pedicure screams amateur. I’m a self-made woman in this spa-day world.

“Oh, look, a newbie,” says one of them in a stage whisper. The reason that must be so crystal clear is because my pale June-moon posterior is turned to her.

Moving closer to me, she says, “Hi there. You will want to go slow the first time in a tanning bed. You’re really untan.”

“Thanks,” I mumble without turning around. “But I’m getting a spray job.”

“Should you tell her?” murmurs the other one. “About the, you know, uneven affects spray tans can have on aging skin. How it streaks in sagging areas?”

“No, that wouldn’t be kind.” Muffled giggles accompany this as they drift into cubicles to change out of their suits. “But I’ve seen what inconsistent coverage can do. The poor woman looked like she had a disease.”

I suspect I’m being baited, even if they are whispering, but the partition blocks the nasty look I toss in their direction.

After a moment of silence one says, “Have you bought your wardrobe for Santa Fe?”

“Not everything. It’s so hard to shop now that I’m between sizes. I saw these really cute capris at Bloomies.” Big sigh. “But they were a size four, and positively bagged in the crotch. To make up for my bad mood, I bought two pairs of Michael Kors sandals, a gold-leather flat and wedgies with turquoise stones up the front.”

“Oh m’god! I saw those. They cost a fortune.”

“That’s right. But I earn it.” There’s a muffled exchange and more giggles. “Teddy just loves my new abs.”

“Ten days at a spa in New Mexico. You’re so fricking lucky, Brandi!”

My head jerks up. Teddy? Brandi! “Oh…my…God!”

I step backward out of my cubicle just as she does, and find myself looking dazedly at a face and body that accelerates my heart. It’s…. it’s…her!

Her gaze widens, as if I’m the one who needs help because I’m gaping at her standing there in the nude. “You know, I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

That’s when I remember I’m wearing a shower cap and goggles. I hurriedly snatch off both, which is a mistake. My breasts heave and then drop, breaking the paper halter strings, so that they flop out over the top.

I reach back and grab for modesty’s sake one of the paper towelettes they gave us to dry off with. As I do, I hear a rip. The crotch of my bikini bottom pops, leaving me with two narrow triangles flapping free, fore and aft.

“Well, well. Liz.” Brandi’s lips twitch as her gaze flicks up and down my torso with mortifying interest in my wayward flesh. “It’s always…interesting to see you.”

“I—er, yeah,” I manage but she’s on the move.

“Got to run,” she says as she sashays her tiny bronze butt toward the lockers.

“Who was that?” I hear her buddy ask as they disappear around the corner. I miss the reply. But I don’t really need to hear it.

I strip off the remains of my wrecked suit with shaking hands. Of all the bad-luck, unnecessary things to happen!

I’m back in my own bra and panties when Celia reappears, which adds a second shock to the day. She looks like something that should be served up with clarified butter and lemon wedges.

“Holy cow! Celia, are you okay?”

“She’s fine. She’s just had a reaction to the tanning booster,” Lili says calmly.

Celia doesn’t look calm. She’s vibrating as if she’s got one of her new fingernail tips caught in an electric socket. “The hot-action cream said it gave maximum tanning results in the shortest possible time. I—I wanted to look—look.”

I turn to our hostess. “I thought she was going to be painted bronze. Cherry-red is not a tanning color.”

“It’s temporary,” Lili assures us with the perfect composure of a salon hostess accustomed to dealing with victims of a disastrous tanning job. “It will wear off.”

“She can’t go out in public like this,” I protest. “She looks like a frankfurter.”

“In twenty-four hours, she will look normal again.”

“Tanless?” Celia questions in alarm.

“No, just not so—”

“Boiled?” I suggest.

Lili purses her lips. “She’s not burned. Our hot-action creams simulate the same kind of heat you get from deep-heat muscle creams. Mrs. Duffy just has what we call an overt reaction. The overstimulation of blood vessels will wear off.”

I turn to Celia. “Get in the shower and wash that stuff off.”

“No!” both Celia and our hostess protest.

“She’ll lose the benefits of the spray-on tanning,” Lili explains.

“And now, because of my reaction, it will be two weeks before I can come back!” Celia’s wail touches my heart. But my brain is busy reliving humiliations of my own.

She has just reappeared, wearing a blouse knotted high under her breasts and low-rider cuffed cropped jeans that expose a long lean bronze torso with a multicolor tattooed garland centered two inches below her navel.

Lili rushes up to her to gush, “Was everything satisfactory, Mrs. Talbot?”

She shrugs. “I’m not sure. I’ll let you know.”

“Of course, Mrs. Talbot. If there’s anything I can do for you, just let me know.”

I straighten my spine as she passes. I’m in my best underwire now. It’s safe to thrust.

The corners of her mouth lift only in the corners. “I recommend next time you bring your own suit. They have designs that can work miracles with those little problem areas. Bye now.”

If I wasn’t holding in my stomach I would say something really vile.

Instead, I let her walk out the door, unchallenged.

Finally, Celia senses something is wrong. It must be the stricken look on my face. “Who was that?”

“Brandi with a ^™ over the i Talbot. The husband-snatching chickie-babe who stole my husband!”

Chapter 2

“’Night, Miz T.”

“Good night, DeVon. Desharee.” I step aside as two-thirds of the night crew troops out the front door of No-Bagel Emporium. DeVon wears camouflage and Desharee’s in skintight jeans and a cropped tee. Neither smiles but I don’t expect it. Generation Z projects a permanent bad mood. I can no longer afford trained staff so we recruit for on-the-job educating. DeVon and Desharee are two of my high school work-study-program students.

Bakers are a breed unto themselves. There are rivalries and rituals among my crew that I don’t need or try to understand. Even so, I can’t keep back a big sigh when spying the ricotta tub on the counter that acts as our “fine” box. The crew is young so we fine a quarter per cuss word to keep things polite. My grandfather didn’t believe in cussing. Must be the only male to grow to manhood in New Jersey and not cuss. So we’ve kept the tradition alive in his honor. Today there’s a five dollar bill sticking out of the ricotta tub.

“You don’t need to know about the Lincoln, Miz T.”

Shemar has poked his head out from the back. “We were breaking it down for the new guy last night. It’s all good.” He makes that sideways-fist-to-the-chest move.

But I’m unconvinced. The night shift is the heart of a bakery, when the mixing and proofing and shaping and baking are done. The proof of success is in the product.

I lift out one of the loaves of sourdough stacked in racks for the morning rush and inspect it. It’s lightly brown, the crust texture thick and craggy. One stroke of a bread knife and the still-warm yeast aroma of fresh bread rises into my nostrils. Got to be in the top three of my favorite smells. I’m an olfactory person. The right smell can send me straight into ecstasy. Whatever occurred last night, Shemar got the job done.

“Would I lie to you, Miz T?”

I look up over my shoulder with a sheepish grin to see Shemar carrying a rack of pastries. “So what was the problem?”

“The fool didn’t feed Ma before he left last night.”

I blanch. “Is she okay?”

“True that. After I was done, he won’t ever forget again.”

Even so, I rush into the back and over to a large plastic tub that contains nothing less than our secret formula for bread-making. Lifting the lid, I lean in and inhale, reassured by its vague brewery aroma.

Every artisan bakery has its own Ma, or bread starter for the uninitiated. The fermentation processes caused by microbes that occur naturally in the environment give each bakery’s Ma and the bread made from it its unique flavor and proofing properties. The rivalry among bakers over their batches of Ma is legendary.

I learned not to say Ma contains “bacteria” after a class of first graders on a field trip to a bakery stampeded out shouting, “The bread’s got a disease!”

With a gloved hand I lift a glob of Ma to test its resilience. Like any living thing Ma must be fed or it will die. We put in fresh flour and stir it several times a day. Our Ma is five years old, and counting.

“You want a chocolate croissant?”

My empty stomach growls in expectation of a backslide in my resolve to lose a few. I loooove Shemar’s chocolate croissants but, “No, thanks.”

He crosses his arms high on his chest and leans back on a slant, giving me a smirk. “Watching your shape?”

I roll my eyes but smile. “How’s Shorty doing?”

Shemar pats our oldest mixer. “Shaking her rump like she’s in a 50 Cent video. Sounds like the gears are chewing on themselves. You are going to order a new mixer, right?”

“Soon.”

Last night I tried to find a younger less-used mixer for sale online. But unless eBay is giving them away, I’m several thousand dollars short of a deal. Plus we need new tables and chairs, a better line of credit, and a new—Sigh.

“What can I do you for, Miz T?”

“Not a thing. I’m just going out front to mainline coffee until time to open.”

“So then, I’m going roll on out of here. See ya!”

Shemar heads the night crew and is the only formally trained baker and pastry chef I have. With his cornrows and FUBU styling, he looks more like a hip-hop star than a baker. Desharee once compared him to D’Angelo. He is all laid-back sultry male. He’s also a dedicated baker with a work ethic of which Trump would approve. Shemar could earn a higher wage in a larger operation but he tells me he’s happy here.

The fact that the staff relates to Shemar makes my life easier. The fact he can get my deliveries to arrive on time makes him invaluable. This is New Jersey, and it seems every transaction has a back end. Sometimes he comes to work suspiciously mellow but I give him great leeway, and he gives give me bread fit for Trump Towers.

As I straighten up a stack of long slim baguettes as part of my morning inventory of breads, I’m reminded how he saved me from falling flat on my face when I went to take part in a Career Day program at a local high school last spring.

When it was my turn for a pitch I could tell by the rise of voices talking over me that I was going to lose out to the more sexy jobs like video store attendant, where slipping a free DVD to a pretty girl looked like a better opportunity for teen mating rituals.

Fortunately, Shemar interrupted my little speech and said, “Let me hit this, Miz T.”

He plucked a long baguette from our display and stepped forward, a calm and smooth presence. Then suddenly he went into hip-hop mode. “Yo, yo, I’ma break it down for you. The boss lady, Miz T, she got a job situation with real po-ten-tial. You feeling me?” Without raising his voice he brought silence to the room.

He held up the baguette. “Making good bread with a hard crust and tender center is like making love. You gotta have the touch, aw-ite.” As he spoke he ran a hand suggestively down its long length. The way he fondled that bread had me glancing nervously at a nearby knot of teachers.

Girls giggled and made yum yum sounds while the guys punched one another and grinned.

“You a baker, you can rest easy in your crib all day, get your party on in the evening, and still be steady stackin’ ends at night. But you got to have the will to learn the skills.”

Afterward, the faculty adviser told me the school frowns on using sex to advance one’s career opportunities. But we had made an impression.

The next afternoon two young men and a young woman in a work-study program showed up at my bakery door. Over the next few days, a dozen more potential employees slouched through my door. Word on the street was we were conducting some sort of kinky sex class. A few stayed when they found out we really did make bread.

Satisfied that we are ready to open, I return to the front where I spy Mrs. Morshheimer tapping on my window, as usual, In hopes that I’ll open early. I smile but shake my head, and point to my watch. I have ten minutes and I need another cup of coffee.

I reach for a copy of Shape that a customer left behind yesterday. As soon as my eyes fall on the bikini-clad cover model I regret my choice. There was a copy of Newsweek nearby, but it’s too late.

Nothing can long block my mind from replaying the gotcha moment of her and me in the altogether naked nude.

Well, there was that string about my waist from the ripped paper panties. There now, and I thought she’d seen it all.

Until four days ago, the babe who stole my life was little more than a dim Baywatch silhouette. All I’d ever seen of her were quick glimpses because Ted has had enough sense to keep us out of the same room. Now I know up close and personal a few of the dimensions that ruined my marriage. And, boy, does she have my number!

How will I ever erase the image of her from my envious, small-minded mind?

Was I ever that slim, that firm, that everything?

They must be implants. Ted always bragged that I was a good size.

Yeah, right. Ted probably paid for them.

Get a grip! Lots of women get implants, normal, nice, non-husband stealing women.

Even so, I hate her.

It wouldn’t matter if she were ten years older instead of twelve years younger. I’d hate her if she were shorter or taller, fifty pounds overweight, or skinnier than Kate Moss at sixteen. The truth is, when your husband leaves you for another woman, you hate the woman. Period.

If that’s not modern maturity, at least it’s honest.

Sure, I’d glimpsed her a few times, most notably in shopaholic ecstasy in Short Hills Mall in the months right after my divorce, and her marriage. Once I spotted her perusing bags at Anya Hindmarch, formerly my favorite handbag store that I can not now afford. Then there she was at the launch of Burberry Brit Red at Bloomies. Personally, I thought she’d only be interested in fragrance named after Britney or JLO. Another time, while window shopping, I spied her selecting triangle thongs at Dolce & Gabbana. And at Jimmie Choos—well, you get the idea. Oh, and once I saw her buy a tie for Ted at Bernini’s and knew he must have a big event coming up because I started him on that habit of a new Bernini tie for special occasions.

In fact, the more I saw of her living what had been my life, the angrier I became. That kind of emotion can motivate a person out of bed and through many a miserable day. I didn’t realize how corrosive it was to my psyche until I scared myself straight.

It happened one dark night of the soul. I had just had my card refused for insufficient funds at a drive-thru ATM when I spied her, on foot, crossing the all but empty parking lot and…

Let’s just say I realized I could end up with a number on my chest, cramped accommodations in unpleasant company, and one hell of a wardrobe crisis if I didn’t go cold turkey on her.

I never told anyone about that night. As far as I know, she told no one about what I’d almost done. That is probably what kept me out of jail.

Looking back I can’t believe I’m capable of that kind of rage. The kind that makes the blood pump so hard and fast your veins burn and cold sweat drops the size of bumblebees pop out. Right after that I had my first panic attack. The doctor murmured something about rage turned inward and the need to get a life.

So I stopped even thinking about her. I don’t even mention her. Ever. For four years, it’s a plan that was working. Why mess with it?

A flip of my wrist and the magazine lands in the trash bin.

Mrs. Morshheimer is still leaving nose prints on my front window. And I’m supposed to meet one half of my twin daughters for lunch in SoHo.

Just before ten-thirty, I make a quick tally. We’re average for the week. That’s recent weeks. I’d like to stay and hustle the lunch crowd. But I promised Sarah, and she said it’s important.

Chapter 3

The trendy restaurant on Seventh Avenue is full of lunch hour patrons. Sarah and I are stuck in a back corner at a narrow natural wood bar, teetering on stools half the width of my rear. I’m sure I’m instantly recognizable as a member of the Bridge and Tunnel crowd, suburbanites who come into Manhattan for shopping or entertainment.

For instance, Manhattanites wave off baskets of fragrant rolls as if they were being asked to partake of boiled eel eyes. One woman’s unlined face draws tight in the corners as she refuses a basket, but her nostrils quiver from a whiff of the oven browning she denies. The frantic voice in her head may be telling her how virtuous she is, how strong-willed, how disciplined. But it’s costing her.

When our waitress approaches I nod vigorously and she places the wire breadbasket draped in white between my daughter and me.

Even so, I’m already contemplating asking for carryout before our orders arrive. At least it would cut short this “kindly meant but really I don’t have the time to argue with my eldest child” lunch. It turns out this is a health intervention of sorts.

Sarah is ten minutes older than her twin Riley, but sometimes she seems ten years older. The genetic code split right down the middle with my girls. A performance artist who uses her family as her canvas, Riley inherited the Blake family temperament, which I’m told is a quite helpful state of mind for an artist. My mother has it. Sarah and I, no. Riley, oh yeah! For the past four years most of her Sturm und Drang has been directed at her decamped father.

Sarah got all the practical, disciplined, standards coding. Everything, from her thermal reconditioned straight hair to her dove-gray suit with tasteful pin to her kitten heels, screams reserved and rational. She has managed to find a rationale for being friendly, if not friends, with Brandi while Riley’s hatred for Brandi puts my dislike in perspective. Sometimes I think Sarah is trying to make up for her twin’s lack of self-control. But we all have issues, right? This no-nonsense approach works well for her career as a paralegal. But her brand of practicality also stops her from achieving her full potential. After one smack-down with the New York bar, Sarah decided that her law degree didn’t require that she practice law. I think that she just lost her nerve, but a mother doesn’t say that to a grown child. However, at the moment, she’s lecturing me as if I’m her child.

“You need a vacation, Mom.” That’s her punch line.

“Vacation? I’m working the night shift starting tonight because my new baker walked out after a fight with Shemar over the flour-to-water ratio for making ciabatta in August. I don’t have time for a nap. Forget a vacation.”

“That is exactly why you need one. When is the last time you took time off?”

I take a deep breath. Sarah and Riley both live and work in the city so I don’t see my girls that often. I don’t want to argue. No point in mentioning my spa day. The face Sarah made when she saw my watermelon toes was priceless. “I was in Phoenix two years ago.”

“That was for Grandpa Fred’s bypass surgery.”

I reach for a plump roll, perfectly formed and weighty enough to be genuine yeast bread, and place it on my plate. “What about the weekend in Kauai three years ago?”

“Didn’t you go there as part of the New Jersey independent bakers association to broker a supply deal for macadamia nuts?”

“For my Hawaiian bread.” I nod, happy to be reminded of a past culinary victory. “The secret is the bananas. Not the—” Sarah’s frown cuts short my recipe revelation. “Okay. I’ve got it. Not long ago I spent a few days in Savannah. And before you say it was business I want you to know I took a whole day to sightsee.”

“Mom, that was four years ago and you were scoping out relocation sites in case you went into merger with that Savannah frozen-dough plant.” Sarah reaches out to touch my arm. “I’m sorry if it’s still a sore subject.”

“Just because they backed out on the deal without even a discussion? Of course not.”

Out of habit I break the roll open with a thumb through the crust, expecting a moist but lightly risen center. Instead it’s damply dense. Clearly, it baked at too high a temperature and without enough moisture.

Disappointed, I lay it aside. “Okay, so I don’t do down time well. What’s the issue?”

“Let’s see. Health? Mental regeneration? Health? Refreshment of the soul? Health? A social life? Health?”

“Enough with the health. My doctor says I’m fine.”

“Really? When was the last time you saw a doctor?”

I look up as a waiter puts my order before me, hoping to avoid the trap I dug myself by mentioning my doctor. I’ve canceled my yearly checkup three times in a row. With my small-business insurance, I need to be deathly ill to be covered.

“Look, sweetie. I do appreciate your concern but I’m doing fine.”

“What’s this you’re eating, Mom?” Sarah picks up half of my sandwich and lifts a brow. “Is that pork?”

“It’s an Italian roast pork panini with organic basil pesto. Organic, get it?”

She shudders delicately and puts it down. “At your age, pork should be a rare indulgence, not a midweek lunch.”

I hunker down in my chair as she forks the first portion of her field greens salad. “I don’t eat this sort of thing often. This just sounded good and—”

“—I’m tired and wanted to give myself a little pick-me-up,” she finishes for me. “I know that speech, Mom. You’ve used it all my life. For chocolate. For ice cream.” Sarah shakes her head. “You’re in need of far too many pick-me-ups lately.”

I gaze longingly at the lovely pork sandwich I was relishing, get instead a mental picture of myself in paper-towel bikini, and put it down. “Fine. No pork.” I snap my fingers to gain the attention of the waitress nearby. “Bring me a field greens salad. No dressing.” I turn back to Sarah. “Happy now?”

Sarah reaches to squeeze my hand. “You don’t have to tell me. I know it’s got to be hard, with Dad and Brandi announcing that they’re trying to have a baby.”

“Baby! Baby?”

Now it’s Sarah’s turn to look stricken. “I thought you knew. Oh, Mom, Brandi called me last week. She’s always wanted a child…. Oh, damn!”

“No, it’s fine.” I reach for my pork sandwich, the indulgence of which has just been justified by Sarah’s revelation. “What’s the big deal, right?”

Sarah leans forward. “I’m so sorry, Mom. She said Dad would call you before they left for their vacation in New Mexico. I should have broached the news more gently.”

I wonder if news of this sort has a gentle approach.

A sudden too-tight sensation of warmth flames up inside me. Fricking great! A hot-flash reminder that I’m rapidly leaving the baby-maker category she’s snugly in the middle of.

As I reach for my water I notice Sarah chewing her lip. “How upset are you?”

She shrugs. “I’m grown. What’s another family member, more or less?”

“And Riley?”

“Riley’s being Riley.”

Which means Riley is furious. So, on to the next bit of family news. “Dating anyone?”

“Sort of.” Sarah frowns but says nothing as I pick up my sandwich again. “He’s a commodities dealer for the state of Montana.” Her shy smile says volumes that I’m not suppose to comment on. “At the moment he’s in Great Falls for a grain growers meeting.”

“Interesting. And Riley?”

Sarah rolls her eyes.

Unlike her sister, who vets men as if she were trying to buy a condo on the Upper East Side, Riley’s man-radar tracks exclusively for Mr. Wrong. No matter their backgrounds, the men in Riley’s life are inevitably the same: emotionally unavailable, self-centered and generally relationship-phobic. She says nice men are boring. I say relationships shouldn’t have to end with dramatic statements like “Come near me again and I’ll set your hair on fire!” That one was aimed at a Goth high school boyfriend with skin the color of an altar candle and black hair that looked like an untwisted wick.

I tell her there are other types of men out there. I hope she will eventually discover this the way she discovered that a pierced tongue wasn’t worth the cost of repairing the shattered enamel of her teeth.

“What’s wrong with Riley’s new man?”

“He’s an ex-con.”

I inhale for a big whaaaat? But the exhale never comes. In fact, the involuntary inhale seems to have sucked in more than a breath. That bite of pork panini has gone down the tube, my breathing tube to be exact.

A bit of pandemonium ensues while I’m slapped on the back by my daughter and then the nearest male waiter subjects me to the very undignified Heimlich. Thankfully the sandwich dislodges after only one try, and I’m left gasping and red-faced but generally okay.

Wiping my streaming eyes, I take my seat and then manage to rasp out, “I guess you were right about pork being a killer.”

Sarah nods, her smile only at half power, and reaches for her ringing phone.

“Hello?” Her expression goes strange, her face gray, in response to whatever she hears.

Instantly, I know it’s not good. Without a word she jerks the phone from her ear and holds it out to me. “Oh, Mom!”

I take it, certain it’s Riley in some sort of jam, again.

But it’s her, Brandi with a ^™ over the i, hysterical on the other end of a lousy-reception cell phone call.

“It’s Ted—Oh, God! He like—fell!” That’s all I hear before the connection is lost.

Ted’s funeral was yesterday. I went. I owed him that much. And my girls needed me. Riley and Sarah each clutched an arm so tight the circulation all but stopped in my fingers. She was there, of course, the center of all the attention in a broad-brim hat and veil as she sobbed softly into a monogrammed handkerchief during the service. We were relegated to bystander status. This, when you think of it, Is our fate since the divorce. We are part of the past life of a passed life.

We didn’t really exchange words with her. Okay, I admit that I did find myself saying something extremely awkward like “Sorry for your loss, I mean our loss,” as we left the funeral home chapel. I didn’t wait for her reply.

It’s tragic when someone you love dies young. It’s less tragic when that someone is someone you once loved but generally got over before the ink was dry on the divorce papers. It is less than heartbreaking when that someone left you for another woman, a woman he had secretly been seeing for months and married the day after the divorce was final. And yet…

I had just started working for a PR firm in the city when I met Ted. He wanted to open his own advertising firm in northern New Jersey. Did I want to join him as a partner, business and otherwise? Maybe not the most romantic proposal in the world but it sounded stable, ordinary, something I could manage. Falling in love has always seemed overrated to me. All that Hollywood heavy-breathing exploding fireworks stuff is marketing make-believe. I should know. I first made my living in advertising.

At first we were a good team. Ted was a natural-born salesman. I was good with ideas he often took credit for. I was also good with getting things done. Ted could sell but he couldn’t make accounts balance or manage a staff. Yet give him a good pitch and he would knock it out of the park at a fashionable lunch spot, at an even more expensive dinner, or on a prohibitively steep greens-fee golf course. The unglamorous job of running the office and drafting ideas was mine. Five years into it, we were a big success. After fifteen years we were a major force in northern New Jersey advertising. But I wasn’t happy, in the marriage or the business. If I drifted into an affair of the heart, it was with bread. Being wrist-deep in dough makes me happier than anything in my life besides my girls. I can be creative and eat it, too. But Ted took the more conventional approach to adultery.

The wife seldom knows what prompts her husband to stray. The unfaithful male usually just makes life so miserable that it’s the wife who finally files for divorce. Not so for me. I didn’t know she existed until Ted left with the uncharacteristic preemptive strike of filing first. How ugly was that? There are corporate dissolutions with less toxic vapor trails than our divorce.

I’ll never forget Ted telling a judge that it was I who’d really opted out of our marriage by leaving advertising, and causing him to lose business. “Liz lost her nerve, her drive, her ambition. She gave up.”

What, was he nuts? At the time, General Mills was dangling a contract before No-Bagel Emporium for producing frozen artisan dough. That was my doing and he knew it. Ted was always about money and more money. He threatened to sue for his share of “my” bakery if I didn’t give up my interest in “his” company. His attorney claimed my leaving had cost the company. Business had fallen off so precipitously after I left that Ted was still recovering. Add to that, I’d borrowed from Talbot Advertising to pay for my new oven and mixers, while Ted had had to hire both an idea person and an office manager to replace me.

I didn’t have the time or interest to invest further in the kind of ownership fight that might scare off General Mills. I might have been good at advertising but I didn’t love it like he did. I was about to make it big on my own, and I didn’t want him along for the ride. Ted got the firm and I kept my thriving bakery.

Looking back, my choice seems like a lousy bargain. Or am I just bitter because the General Mills deal fell through?

So, how do I feel about Ted’s death?

I never wished Ted dead. Even in my worst dark days when I thought revenge had its uses, I never wished for his demise. Bankruptcy maybe, until I realized that with Sarah and Riley in high school and college ahead, I needed all the financial help I could get. Then there was that wish that all his hair might fall out overnight. Juvenile. But I can honestly say I hadn’t given Ted an ungenerous thought in years—okay, months.

I did notice with a certain satisfaction that he never looked all that healthy after we divorced. Happier, perhaps, but never healthier. He was heading for a fall. I just didn’t know how literally he’d take one.

Ted was afraid of heights. Even a quick rise in an elevator gave him the willies. He would never have gone near a ledge in all the time I knew him. But for her he went on a mountain bike trail ride in New Mexico, made the mistake of peering over the rim into the arroyo below, lost his balance and took a half gainer over the edge.

Some might say Ted had it coming. I think, wow, you just never know.