Читать книгу Icing On The Cake - Laura Castoro - Страница 7

“’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.