Bread Alone (50 page)

Two steps into the tall grass, my left foot hydroplanes and sinks up to the ankle in thick black mud. Shit! My brand-new cross-trainers. I nearly fall down trying to pull my foot out. Wouldn’t that be a great scene. He walks out with—God knows who, it could be Laura in there—and here I am floundering around like a rhinoceros on a wet clay bank.

Before I can decide whether or not to bolt, the door opens partway and a face looks out. A face with button eyes and a black nose. A scruffy yellow dog of uncertain parentage wanders out. As soon as he catches my scent, he bristles and starts making that low growling noise in the back of his throat.

“You protecting me from a vicious squirrel?” A stranger steps out, dressed in running shorts and a sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off to reveal tan, muscled arms. His sun-streaked hair is pulled back in a low ponytail and he has a full beard. But his eyes are Mac’s.

He stares at me. “Wyn.” His gaze ends up on my feet. It looks like I’m wearing one black shoe and one white. “You’re all muddy.”

“As I previously pointed out, you have a gift for stating the obvious.”

Yellow Dog decides I’m okay. He bounds down the steps and starts licking my leg with his warm, sandpapery tongue. “I don’t know quite what to say,” Mac says. At least he looks pleased.

“Must be a first for you.” I bend down to scratch the dog’s ears. “Who’s this?”

“Minnie.”

“You named your dog after a mouse?”

“Not likely. ‘Minnie the Moocher.’ Cab Calloway. She’s not really mine. She just keeps me company sometimes. How did you get here?”

I look over my shoulder at CM’s Camry. “Drove to Anacortes and took the ferry over.” I pause awkwardly, then press on. “This place is so … magical. It’s not what I expected.”

“It’s great, isn’t it?” When he smiles, my stomach turns upside down.

Minnie tires of waiting for the promised run and takes off into the woods. Mac says, “I’ll get something to clean your shoe.”

I ease down on the top step and extract my foot from the gooey cross-trainer, peel off the filthy sock. He comes back with a putty knife and a rag. He sits down next to me, but not too close, takes the shoe.

Scattered high clouds stitch a tapestry of light and shadow on the meadow, sparked by summer’s last pink wild foxgloves and fluffy white seed heads of thistle. Blackbirds float in lazy spirals. The breeze is gentle and still warm, but it carries a warning of shorter days.

I rummage around for a clean, unwrinkled smile to wear. “What have you been working on?”

“Painting. Inside and out. Fixed the roof. Cleared some land and built a storage shed.” While he talks, he cleans the muck off my shoe, scraping the putty knife on the edge of the porch. “I think you’re going to have to scrub this one down.”

His expression I remember from the first time I met him. Open, direct. But no longer anonymous. I know certain telling details now. Like he can’t stand his brother and he gets one haircut a year. He likes Raymond Chandler and John Irving, Wallace Stegner and Joan Didion.
That he loves the blues and songs that tell stories. Riding the ferries just to be on the water. His favorite flavor is caramel.

“Or you could just hang out here till the mud dries. Then it’ll brush right off.”

I want to run my index finger down the muscle in his arm that contracts when he grips my shoe. “I don’t want to keep you from your run.”

He stands up. “I can always run. Come here. I want to show you something.”

He pushes the door open, and I step past him into the pleasantly musty interior.

Knotty-pine paneling makes a cheerful backdrop for the thoroughly broken-in furniture: a maroon couch, two green chairs, an old trunk with a piece of glass on top for a coffee table. Bookshelves overflow with books and board games. Rag rug. Brick fireplace.

“It’s cozy. Like a grandma’s house.”

For a minute, I almost think he might take my hand, but he turns and walks into the next room. “In here.”

The kitchen floor slants crazily away from the rest of the house. The old linoleum is cool and wrinkly under my one bare foot. There’s a vintage Wedgewood gas stove, a refrigerator, a battered wooden table and three chairs.

In the center of the table, like art on display, is a corrugated cardboard manuscript box. He’s looking at the box, not at me, so I set down my purse, reach over and lift the lid.

Accident of Birth

A novel

by

Matthew Spencer McLeod

He’s trying to look modest and self-effacing, but without success.

I smile, momentarily forgetting that I’m pissed off at him. “Oh my God, Mac. You must have worked your butt off.”

He sits on the corner of the table. “I kept thinking about what you said.”

“About what?”

“That if I thought of myself as a bartender who wrote stuff, that’s what I’d be. So I decided to try thinking of myself as a writer who needed a day job.” He gives me his little wry grin. “You want some coffee?”

“No thanks.”

I walk over to the chipped porcelain sink, glance out the window into the woods. I can hear Minnie’s squirrel-spotting aria.

“So.” He folds his arms across his chest. “Are you going to tell me why you came all the way up here? Or am I supposed to guess?”

“Why not? You made me guess.” My voice breaks embarrassingly, like a kid entering puberty. “In fact, I forgot. I’m really pissed off at you.” I turn and glare at him. “How dare you?”

He looks puzzled. “How dare I what?”

“How dare you give me that tape and then skip town like some fugitive?”

“What was I supposed to do?”

“You could have said something.”

“I could have, but I didn’t. You weren’t listening anyway.” His left hand fidgets with the pocket flap on his running shorts. “You were too busy plotting revenge against your ex, and fooling around with your brother.”

“He’s my stepbrother. Quit trying to make it sound like incest.”

“You could have said something, too, you know.”

“What was I going to say? Stop mooning around about Laura and try—”

“Laura?” He stares at me.

“Yes, Laura. You were wrecked after you saw her at that party with somebody else.”

“I wasn’t wrecked. I was half asleep from staying up all night, and then just when things started to get interesting, your brother—excuse me—your stepbrother showed up with the whole flower mart in his arms.”

“But you were all depressed and grouchy for days after that—”

He shakes his head slowly. “God, I could never tell what you were thinking. I was depressed and grouchy because I was getting so involved with you, and you obviously had other fish to fry, and I just figured it would be better if I got out of town for a while.” He eyes me accusingly. “You didn’t have to wait all summer to get in touch with me.”

“I just heard the tape yest—a few days ago.”

“Why did you wait so long?”

“Why the hell do you think?” I say crossly. “I couldn’t listen to it because I missed you.”

I love the amber flecks in his eyes that you can only see in a certain light. The way his lashes are dark at the roots but pale as moonlight at the tips. There’s a newly sunburned place across the bridge of his nose.

“I missed you,” he says, and the feeling I’ve been holding under house arrest all summer suddenly escapes, flaring up in my chest.

“Kenny said you were going up to pollute Alaska.”

“That’s the plan.” While I’m looking out the window again, he makes the three feet between us disappear. His hand is on my arm. “Why don’t you come with me?”

“McLeod, you make me cry and you’re roadkill.”

He laughs right before he kisses me. His mouth is warm, and the tip of his nose is cold against my cheek. His tongue barely brushes my mouth, like when you knock on a door, then step back politely and wait to be invited in. He smells of freshly cut pine and wood smoke and meadow grass.

I put a hand up to touch the beard.

“Too scratchy?” he says.

I try rubbing it in different directions. “I can see how it might work.”

“Come to Alaska with me. It would be so—”

“Can’t.” This is where I nearly lose it.

“Why not?”

I press my lips together. “You’re looking at the proud half owner of the Queen Street Bakery.”

“So the divorce is …?”

“Practically a fait accompli.”

He smiles. “Is that anything like a done deal?”

The second kiss is longer, more interesting. It takes me places—like flying down the sidewalk on my first ride without training wheels. Like diving into a wave off Zuma Beach. Like spotting France from 35,000 feet and knowing that somewhere down there in a maze of pink brick, the Boulangerie du Pont was waiting for me. It sets me down gently but firmly on this speck of land off the coast of Washington where mud is drying on my shoe and Mac is holding me against him in a way that leaves very little doubt as to his intentions.

When we break for air, he says, “On the other hand, fall’s probably not the best time to go to Alaska.”

“Maybe you should play it by ear,” I suggest helpfully. “At least until spring.”

There’s a pause, no more than a space between heartbeats. I feel him draw a deep breath, as if he’s about to make some monumental pronouncement, but he just winds a strand of my hair around his finger and says,

“At least.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

One of the best things about having a book published is getting to mention in print all the people who deserve more, but will have to settle for my undying gratitude. To my parents, Ruth and Doug Huggins, for their unwavering love and wild applause, beginning with those lost-dog and buried-treasure stories.

To my husband, Geoff, for literally supporting me while I labored. For rubbing my back arid holding my hand and cheerfully consuming countless pizzas and take-out Thai noodles. To Marilyn Carter for thirty-five years of bestfriendship.

Thanks to all my writing teachers—and they have been legion—but especially to Andrew Tonkovich, in whose fiction class the seed
of Bread Alone
first germinated. To my wise and generous teacher and dear friend, Jo-Ann Mapson, whose books are both inspiration and aspiration for me, and who did me the honor of recommending me to her wonderful agent. To Deborah Schneider, who is now also my wonderful agent, and with whom all things are possible. To my editor, Claire Wachtel, for her warm heart and cool eye, and for helping me tell my story to the best of my ability.

To all my writing-group friends and my book-club friends, who slogged through numerous drafts and revisions with me, particularly my writing partner Amy Wallen, for knowing how to be both brutally honest and encouraging
in the same breath. To Janet Fitch for dialogue lessons. To Rebecca Hill and Judith Guest for showing me that less is more.

To Kathryn Brown for sharing her clear-eyed perspective on California divorce law. To David Bresard, who welcomed me into his bakery and shared his experiences as a
Compagnon Boulanger du Devoir.

To all those singers and songwriters whose music still plays in my house and my car and my heart—Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Jackie Wilson, The Big O, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Richard and Linda Thompson, The Flamingos, and more.

To my bread heroes, Edward Espe Brown, Elizabeth David, Daniel Leader, Nancy Silverton, Brother Peter Rinehart. To Gunilla Norris for so eloquently articulating the connections between bread and love.

And last, but far from least, to Nancy Mattheiss and Jessica Reissman, and the women of the old McGraw Street Bakery for making my time there a feast of food and friendship.

About the Author

J
UDITH
R
YAN
H
ENDRICKS
is also the author of
Isabel’s Daughter
and
The Baker’s Apprentice.
She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

www.judihendricks.com

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ALSO BY JUDITH RYAN HENDRICKS

Isabel’s Daughter
The Baker’s Apprentice

Copyright

HARPER

Excerpt from
The Tassajara Bread Book
by Edward Espe Brown
©
1970 by Chief Priest, Zen Center, San Francisco. Reprinted by special arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, www.shambhala.com.