Henry's Sisters. Cathy Lamb

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      They needed to be replaced.

      This was in direct contrast to how the bakery shined when we worked here. Momma had handed us toothbrushes, sponges, brushes, and mops and made us work ’til that place was so clean you could lick the floor.

      “I knew it.” I had known it. Cecilia hadn’t wanted to tell me.

      “The bakery is dead. It’s like there’s ghosts wandering around,” Janie whispered as we stood in a ray of sunlight, dust bunnies dancing around our heads.

      “Ghosts?” I sputtered. “You’re not into ghosts.”

      “Yes, I am. I am researching them for my next book. I think they’re fascinating.”

      “They think you’re fascinating, too. In fact, they have elected you to be president of their Ghosts in Oregon Society. There’s a national convention in June. ‘Ghosts Beware’ is the headliner followed by ‘Multicultural Ghost Awareness Night’ and ‘Sensuous Ghosts: How Not to Disappear.’”

      “Stop it. I can hear the ghosts.”

      I froze to hear the ghosts. “Boo!” I shouted.

      She jumped.

      I laughed. “There’s a ghost in the booth. Gasp. He’s naked! He’s gorgeous!”

      “Then maybe you can sleep with him, Isabelle. For one night, not two. That might constitute a relationship.”

      “It’ll be ghostly sex. I’ll burn another bra and thong. My white ones.” I slung an arm around her shoulder. “Come on. I’ll cook, you sell.”

      “We’re both cooking. You sell. I don’t want to talk to all those people, and you know I don’t do raisins. When I touch them I feel like they have to be counted.”

      “I know you don’t do raisins.”

      “They’re too small.”

      “Yes, I know, Janie. Their smallness unnerves you.”

      “They’re not tasty.”

      “Right. Raisins are not tasty.”

      “They’re tight and wrinkled and shriveled. Yuck.”

      “I know. Tight, wrinkled, and shriveled is a no.”

      “Right. And they crunch sometimes. They’re rough in my mouth.” She smacked her lips.

      “You sound positively sexual, do you know that? Do you have a hidden thing for raisins?”

      “That’s disgusting.”

      “Yep. So is being unnerved by a raisin.”

      Her face set. “I’m not embarrassed to tell you that I also don’t handle hazelnuts anymore.”

      “No hazelnuts?”

      “Too thin. Poor taste.” She scrunched up her nose.

      I rolled my eyes. “Got it. I will be the raisin and hazelnut woman in this bakery.”

      “Don’t make fun of me.”

      “I’m not. You can still work with icing, right?”

      She threw up her hands in frustration. “Icing is smooth.”

      “Smooth?”

      “Yes. Plus its initial color is white.”

      “White and smooth.” I didn’t even try to put that together. “Come on, icing woman, let’s get to work.”

      At six thirty we opened our doors. Based on the shabbiness here, I did not expect a rush of people, as had happened when we were high schoolers. Back then people came by before work for coffee and treats. They came by during the day for streusel or orange bran muffins or brownies with white chocolate chips.

      The card-playing ladies came in on Tuesday night and the quilters came on Thursday. We had a Sunday church crowd and the Saturday afternoon train of people who needed treats for that night’s potlucks.

      I was surprised to see no customers, though. Zero. Nada.

      Janie turned on her east Indian music and hung up the photo of her therapist.

      We propped open the old cookbooks, most from our dad, a man who loved cooking when the demons weren’t prodding him with pitchforks, and kept baking.

      I ignored the loss I felt. I ignored the memories that swirled around and about those early dawn hours, wretchedly painful and hilariously funny, soul crushing and radiant. I did not want to dive into those memories.

      So, we baked.

      At ten o’clock, an older woman shuffled in. She left her shopping cart, piled with filled black garbage bags, outside the door. She wore a blue flowered hat, three sweatshirts, saggy jeans, and one black shoe and one brown shoe.

      “Good morning,” I said.

      She grinned. She was missing teeth.

      I brought over a menu as she sank down in a red booth.

      “Breakfast today?” I asked. I had put a white apron around my waist and my braids were back in a ponytail. I knew there was flour in them already. Wouldn’t surprise me if I had purple marzipan icing on my cheek, either.

      She shrugged her shoulders.

      “Coffee?”

      She smelled like honeysuckle and mint. I learned later that she somehow always had a plastic bottle of scented lotion with her.

      “Juice?”

      I saw a flash of confusion in her eyes, then she opened a sugar packet and tipped it into her mouth. She did it with a second one, too.

      I thought I’d leave her to her sugar. “I’ll come back in a minute.”

      I returned to icing about two dozen blue, pink, and green whale cookies.

      Ten minutes later I headed back out. “Decided yet? I have cookies in whale shapes.”

      No answer. A smile.

      About three seconds later, she leaned over and curled up on the red bench. She made a gurgling sound in her throat.

      She slept.

      “Ma’am?” I shook her shoulder softly. “Ma’am? No whale cookies?”

      A snore escaped her nose.

      We learned later her name was Belinda.

      Life had not been a whale of fun for her.

      At three o’clock, we’d been mass cooking СКАЧАТЬ