Bread Alone (2 page)

As I drive and stuff French fries in my mouth, I keep sneaking looks at other drivers. Why do they all look like they know where they’re going and what to do when they get there?

Memories of blissfully empty summer days urge me into the turn lane for Zuma Beach. As I pull into the nearly empty lot, I see a black Mercedes and my breath catches. David? Wrong model, wrong license plate. What would he be doing here anyway? The sedan drives slowly past me, a red-haired woman at the wheel.

I stare at the glassy curls of the breakers while The Supremes wonder “Where Did Our Love Go?” and I wonder when. Okay. Lately, there haven’t been a lot of those television-commercial moments of tenderness or laughter or even shared objectives. But does that mean it’s over? The first bite of cheeseburger hits my stomach like a rock in an empty swimming pool. I stuff the rest of it into the bag with the cold fries.

Out of the car, slip off my pumps, slither out of my panty hose. Walk across the sun-warmed asphalt into the cold, wet sand, hugging my jacket around me. Empty lifeguard stations huddled together forlornly are the surest sign of fall in southern California. Sometimes the only sign. Down the beach, a yellow Lab dances in the froth while his well-trained owner throws sticks. Scattered surfers in black wetsuits bob on their boards, waiting for a good ride. A gray-haired man and woman in matching warm-ups walk by, holding hands. Other than that, it’s just me. An icy wavelet slaps my feet and I stand still, sinking up to my ankles. If I don’t start walking, I’ll lose my balance.

The salty wind whips my hair across my face, makes my eyes water.
I walk north, stepping over strands of seaweed, broken shells, half of a crab swarming with flies. I’ve read that when you become aware of your own impending death, your first reaction is likely to be, I
can’t die. I have tickets to the opera next week
Why is that? When we’re face-to-face with the unthinkable, why do we try to defend ourselves with trivia? When my mother came to get me out of class to tell me my father had died, my very first thought, before I got hysterical, was,
So we can’t go to Tahoe this summer?

Now as my toes curl and cramp, try to get traction in the sand, all I can think of is how disappointed my mother will be. She’s always adored David.

In her version of the story, he was the Handsome Prince who rescued me—not from a dragon, but from something even worse—from a boring existence as a high school teacher who rarely dated, and who spent vacations going on trips with other single women. He installed me in a house in Hancock Park, gave me a red sports car, beautiful clothes, expensive jewelry. All I had do was to look good, give clever parties, make the right friends, be available sexually when he wanted me, and not embarrass him. It wasn’t a lot to ask.

Okay, it’s true that I hated teaching. It’s difficult to illuminate the glories of literature to kids whose reading skills hover around the fifth-grade level. Most of them were only doing time in my classes while they waited for the surf to be up or their period to start or the 3:10 bell to ring so they could cruise Bob’s Big Boy.

It’s also true that my social life revolved mostly around my women friends—CM and Sandy and Liz. Wine tastings, ethnic restaurants, French films, art exhibits, all the standard diversions of single women. This is not to say that I didn’t date. My mother certainly doesn’t know everything.

In my reasonably extensive experience, a man’s good qualities—like warmth, honesty, generosity—are inversely proportional to his physical attractiveness. This leads me to the conclusion that great-looking guys are the biggest jerks of all, since they’ve been spoiled by every female they’ve interacted with, beginning with their mothers.

In spite of this fact, or maybe because of it, I am drawn to tall, blond, good-looking men like the proverbial moth to the flame. This, as my best friend CM is quick to point out, may be due to the fact that my father, whom I adored and who died when I was seventeen, was the tallest, blondest, fairest of them all. But he was also the last of the good guys.

It’s been almost fifteen years since he died, but I can still walk into the den at my mother’s house and expect to see him sitting in his leather chair, the paper open on his lap, a Manhattan in a sweating glass on the side table. He liked them dry with a twist of lemon. My mother had a fit when he taught me how to make them.

He taught me everything. To love books. To ride a horse English when all my friends rode western. He bought me a car with a stick shift when all my friends had automatic. He taught me to watch the Tahoe skies on still August nights, to look for the shooting stars to make wishes. How to tie a square knot, how to hit a backhand volley. How to strike a match one-handed. How to breathe when I swim. He taught me not to be afraid to open my eyes underwater. Or above it.

Most men I’ve known simply don’t measure up. Oh, there were a few I was probably not smart about. Like Mark, someone’s cousin from Del Mar, met at a wedding. Andy, the airline pilot with a wife in Dallas. A photographer with the unlikely name of Rocky Rivers. I always thought he was more interested in CM, anyway. None of them rocked my world.

Not until the night of my friend Paula’s twenty-third birthday party. I remember her grabbing me the minute I walked in.

“There’s someone you’ve
got
to meet.”

I threw my jacket on the hat rack next to the hall closet. “Why?”

“He’s tall. Taller than you.”

“So was Frankenstein.” I started down the hall toward the bathroom, but she spun me back around.

“This one’s not Frankenstein. Come on. You can thank me later.”

She physically dragged me over to the makeshift bar set up on a card table in the living room where the ne plus ultra of tall, blond, and good looking was opening a beer.

“Wyn, Dave. Dave, Wyn. ‘Bye.” She disappeared into the kitchen. I wanted to crawl under the rug, but Dave smiled and shook my hand, apologized for his hand being cold. His eyes were wide-open blue, the color of the ocean in July.

Then he said, “It’s David, not Dave, by the way. And you’re Lynn?”

“Wyn. Like Wynter.”

In those days, most guys would invariably say something like, “Wynter? I hope that doesn’t mean you’re cold.” And then they’d laugh like idiots.

But David smiled and said, “What a beautiful name. I bet your father picked it.”

That rocked me back on my heels a little.

I poured myself a glass of chardonnay and asked him where he worked. Even I had heard of Jamison, Markham & Petroff, a very hip ad agency in Beverly Hills.

“Oh, so you’re the guy who convinces people with bad credit to buy useless garbage they don’t need and can’t afford.”

He looked down modestly at his Italian loafers. “Not exactly. I just sell our services to other companies.” He paused. “But in my own small way, I help make it possible for the creative types to sell more useless garbage to sheeplike consumers with bad credit. What do you do?”

“I teach literature to kids who can’t read.”

“Sounds like a thankless job.”

“It has its benefits. Summers off and all the burnt coffee you can drink.”

“You must be pretty dedicated.”

“I’m dedicated to eating regularly.”

He looked thoughtful. “Well, you could always—”

“Wynter! Oh my God, I don’t believe this!” Mary Beth Cole, whom I hadn’t seen since graduation—and with good reason—was pushing her way through a knot of people in the hall. She fell on me as if we were twins separated at birth, then, without missing a beat, tossed her faux red hair back and held out her hand to David. Bracelets rattled up and down her arm. “Mary Cole,” she said, smiling.

I noticed him noticing the plunging front of her black halter top while she gave me a look of horror. “I heard you were teaching high school. Please tell me it’s a lie. I can’t picture you—I’m working as a location scout for a teensy little production company called Feldspar. Pay’s for shit, but I
adore
it.”

I didn’t have the energy to defend myself, knowing she didn’t give a rat’s ass anyway, and then another voice from the past screeched, “Wyn! Mary Beth! I can’t believe this! It’s like old-home week.” Susan Carmody, blonde, tan, another fugitive from UCLA. “Is CM here?” Her blue eyes swept the room.

“She’s in Baja,” I said.

Her smile revealed so many gleaming white teeth, I felt like I was in an appliance showroom in front of a row of refrigerators. She described her burgeoning career as a freelance food stylist, which seemed to be the first stop on the career path for upwardly mobile domestic arts majors. The three of them started swapping business cards; somebody hit the volume on the stereo and Boz Scaggs was belting out “Lido Shuffle.”

It seemed like a good time to disappear.

I’ve always hated the way women will trot through their paces like contestants in the Westminster dog show just to impress a man.

That night, like so many others, I ended up in the kitchen, drinking wine and gossiping with three or four friends at Paula’s pink Formica table. After a while the birthday girl appeared, shaking her head.

“What the hell are you doing in here? Why aren’t you out there lining up the rest of your life? Don’t you think he’s terrific?”

“He seems very nice.” I grabbed a handful of cheese popcorn from the bowl she was carrying.

She was still shaking her head at me. “You don’t find them like Dave on every corner, you know.”

I took a sip of chardonnay. “It’s David, not Dave, you know.”

She expelled a loud, exasperated breath, picked up a new bottle of wine, and went back to the party.

By ten-thirty, I could no longer stifle the successive yawns. I fished
my purse out from under the table and went to say good night to Paula. In the hall, I collided with David.

“You keep running away before I can get your last name. Wyn …”

“Morrison,” I said. I couldn’t believe he remembered my first name.

He told me again that his name was David (not Dave) Franklin.

“It was nice meeting you, David not Dave Franklin. But I really do need to leave.” I grabbed my jacket from the rack.

He made a point of looking at his Omega. “Do you turn into a pumpkin on the stroke of eleven?”

“Eleven-fifteen. I always like to be back in the patch by then.”

“Do you need a ride home?”

“I live upstairs.”

The heart-stopping smile. “Why don’t I walk you home?”

I looked at him, suddenly annoyed. “It’s a Y-chromosome thing, right?”

“What is?”

“The way men are only interested when you’re ignoring them.”

“I didn’t realize you were ignoring me.”

I pulled on my jacket. “Well, now you know.”

“So. Does that mean you won’t have dinner with me?”

“I have a standing rule. I don’t date men who are prettier than I am.” I turned and let myself out the door.

I was halfway up the stairs before the first twinge of regret nipped at me. For a
brief interval, I stood in front of
my own door and considered the difficulty of going back to the party. What excuse could I use? I forgot my sunglasses. Well, fine, it was pitch-dark out. I could just apologize for being so snippy. But, no. You don’t want to start off with a man by apologizing. That sets a dangerous precedent.

In the end, I gave a mental shrug, unlocked my door, and crawled into bed with my little TV.

The next day, Sunday, was one of those Raymond Chandler—esque days that L.A. gets in the fall. Dry and crackly, with a strong Santa Ana wind
driving the dust through the tiny cracks around the windows, and making firefighters nervous. The window unit in my apartment was on its last legs and it wheezed from the effort of cooling my three tiny rooms.

CM was somewhere in Baja with her latest flame; I thought about going to a movie by myself, but it didn’t seem worth the effort. I was hungry but I didn’t feel like cooking, the weather made me tired but I didn’t feel like sleeping, and I sure as hell didn’t feel like grading the thirty-seven vocabulary tests that were languishing in my briefcase.

I decided to make bread. It always makes me feel better—or at least more grounded.

I popped the plastic lid off the container that held the
chef,
the starter, and inhaled the familiar, pleasantly musty smell of a living yeast culture. This
chef had
started as a small piece of dough that I’d brought back from the bakery in Toulouse where I’d done a work/study program the summer after my sophomore year at UCLA. By this time, the original French yeasts had intermarried with the L.A. locals to the point that the dynasty was seriously compromised, but I still liked to think there was a little bit of France in every loaf.

“Souvenir”—a noun in English—the word sounds like postcards, T-shirts, cheap metal keychains with the finish flaking off In French,
souvenir
is a verb. It means “to remember.” Whenever I catch the scent of good sour starter,
je souviens,
I remember that summer in Toulouse. I remember Jean-Marc, the dark-eyed
maître boulanger,
the hot blast of the ovens, the rhythms of kneading and shaping dough. The way my breath would catch whenever Jean-Marc called me “Weentaire” in his wonderful French voice.