How Sweet It Is (19 page)
“Next week.”
“I come next week?” He rubs his temple and produces a frown.
I look at this man who is wearing a bandana the color of Giovanni’s fur. Something inside me knows that the misunderstanding between us is not important. Standing, I say, “Let’s frost, then.” I lead the way to the kitchen. “We can practice.”
“Practice makes perfect.”
I laugh and it feels as refreshing as a cool drink on a sweltering day on the farm. “Where’s the cake?” Jonas asks, his eyes searching the counters.
“I haven’t made one,” I say.
Jonas looks confused, then blurts, “How can we frost a cake when there is no cake?”
The bake sale is not for another nine days. While the kids and I have made a few items and placed them in the freezer at The Center, I wasn’t planning to do my share of the baking until closer to the event. I do have some leftover buttercream icing in the refrigerator. So we can ice… something.
Jonas notices the bag of Krispy Kreme donuts on the top of the Kenmore. “I like donuts.”
And that’s when I decide that we’ll create top borders on mini French crullers.
Jonas watches as I open my large plastic box of decorating supplies and take out a four-inch polyester pastry bag. I fold the cuff over and adjust the plastic coupler snuggly into the tip of the inside of the bag, choose a stainless steel star tube because I think that Jonas will appreciate icing his crullers with stars tonight. He edges even closer to me as I screw a white plastic ring over the shiny tube’s base. Using a small palette, I scoop buttercream into the bag and then force the icing toward the base, trying to press out any air bubbles. I twist the top of the bag to keep the buttercream inside. To test the contraption, I squeeze a mound of icing onto the counter, forming a sugary star.
“Wow,” says Jonas. “You do fast work.” Tempted by the icing on the counter, he dabs at it and then lifts his finger to his mouth. He chews methodically.
“Well?”
Like he’s talking for a commercial, he states, “Plenty of butter in there.” Looking at me intently he asks, “What do I do?”
“You pipe icing onto the top of the donut.”
“Pipes?”
“It’s a verb, not a noun.” As soon as I say this, I shake my head. Whether I’ve used pipe as a verb or noun means nothing to Jonas. When he hears
pipes
, he automatically feels he needs to swing his wrench and Sharpie. I take the bag from him, realizing that squeezing icing from a bag is not necessarily second nature to everybody. Even if you can operate a wrench. Placing both hands around the filled bag, I lower it to press two star shapes onto the tiny French cruller. “There!”
Jonas claps his hands together the way Miriam does when she wants the children’s attention. “My turn?” he asks, reaching for the bag.
He bends at the waist so that his nose closes in on the donut. If he moved two inches closer, his nose would be in the donut hole. Shifting from foot to foot, he squirts two dollops onto the edge of the donut. They run together. He straightens himself and glances at me.
“Good job, Jonas.”
“No. They look like a crash, not stars.”
A crash? Uh oh. “Just be steady,” I tell him, hoping my voice is encouraging. “Slowly let one star out, then move the tip a little and press out another star.”
He wipes his palms on his jeans. “Steady?” When I nod, he tries again. He lifts the bag a little lower until the tip touches the surface of the mini cruller, then quickly, he presses the bag to let out a white star of icing.
“You’re a natural.”
“My brother will love this.” He now has two dollops of frosting around the rim of the donut and one star. The top of the donut has no more room for work, so I place another donut on the counter. He adds two stars, both free from any error. He admires his work. “Not bad, huh?”
“You’re a pro.”
“Can I take this one to my brother?” He points to the second donut, gingerly picks it up, and then quickly makes his way out of the kitchen toward the hallway.
“Sure,” I say following him.
“I’ll come back another day,” he tells me, the frosted donut in one hand, the keys to his truck in the other.
“I’ll let you know when,” I say, but think to myself that Jonas comes and goes as he pleases; he operates on his own timetable.
“Not tomorrow, because I have to do work at Mrs. Dixie’s.”
“Southern Treats?” I open the front door for him and the smell of burning wood waltzes from the outside air into my hallway. I should light a fire in the fireplace, I think. Although, the last time I tried, I forgot to open the flue and had to sleep with the windows open to let out the haze of smoke.
“Mrs. Dixie makes good pie.”
“I took my brochures there,” I tell him.
“Did she tell you she wanted them? Did she take fifty?”
How does he know? “She did. She told me to put fifty on the rack by the front door.”
He smiles and his teeth glisten under my porch light. “I knew she is a good person. I told her she should take fifty.”
When he leaves, I spend several minutes feeling that contentment and satisfaction that oozes over you when you know you’ve done something right. I hope Jonas feels it, too. I smile, thinking of how he looked pressing frosting onto the donut and how the simple task made his face radiant. Then my thoughts change gears. So much for thinking that I could break into this small mountain community on my own. Jonas must have asked Mrs. Dixie to display my brochures at her restaurant. That’s why she took fifty of them. And the other stores, too. Obviously, Jonas is looking out for me.
He is a good person.
A
lthoughthere are probably a lot of monumental events happening all over the world on this Saturday, The Center’s bake sale feels like the most important to me. The children are eager and excited. Bubba and Lisa race over to greet me when I enter the fellowship hall. Dougy and Rainy let me know about all the baked goods that have arrived so far. They want to know where my cake is. Darren cowers in the corner at a table laden with paper plates of cookies wrapped in cellophane. I smile at him and he produces a small nod. Charlotte is seated behind a table. Joy and Bobby haven’t arrived yet.
My making a cake to be auctioned off was Zack’s idea. I was reluctant, but the kids said that was a good idea, especially if some rich people came to the sale like they did last year.
“Where’s your cake?” Bubba asks, sounding like he hopes I haven’t forgotten it.
“It’s in my Jeep.” I pray it’s all in one piece.
The children, Miriam, Zack, several church members, and I had placed advertisements about the sale in the
Smoky Mountain Times
, at shops, restaurants, the Swain County Chamber of Commerce, the Fryemont Inn, Harrah’s Cherokee Casino and Hotel, and the library. I baked all week. I taught my classes, baked cookies and cakes with the kids, and then baked at home. My two favorite items are the cranberry bread and the banana muffins.
Last evening I baked the cake to be auctioned, and then when Jonas came over to help frost it, I made him a cup of coffee with sugar. He watched me mix shortening, confectioner’s sugar, vanilla extract, and butter as he drank the coffee. Eager to help, he kept exclaiming how large the cake was. He asked if I had any donuts that needed frosting. “They are easy,” he told me. He started to hum “Take It Easy.”
Then he said, “My brother liked the donut I brought him. He said you were society’s finest.”
“What?” I lifted my head from the three-tiered cake to note Jonas’s expression. Was he teasing me?
“Yep. My brother said, ‘That woman who taught you how to frost a donut has got to be one of society’s finest.’ ”
Jonas squeezed a few beaded dots where I told him to, admired the cake, and circled around the living room. I could see he had lost interest. I sent him home, telling him what a help he’d been. He grinned like the kids at The Center do when they know they deserve praise. I didn’t finish the final touches on the cake until long after the owl had started his solo cries in his tree.
As he enters The Center, Zack greets me with a smile, large and warm. The whites of his eyes look especially clear, like he’s had a good night’s sleep. He’s dressed in a pair of jeans and a forest-green shirt.
I smile, too. I hope it’s a decent smile; my body is sore from lack of sleep.
Bubba walks with me to my Jeep to help carry the cake. Two cars pull into the driveway, and from one steps Bobby and from the other Joy jumps out. Both drivers wave at the children and me.
“Are we late?” asks Bobby.
“No,” says Bubba. “Man, you should see all the food on the tables!”
“I hope nobody made anything gross this year.” Joy runs a comb through her curls. “Does my hair look puffy? I didn’t have time to wash it this morning. I hate it.”
I unlock the trunk of my Jeep. The cake should be fine, I think. I didn’t drive more than twenty miles per hour the whole way down here.
Bubba peers at the cream-colored cake, beaded with frosting and crowned with two candy roses. “Just beautiful,” he says.
Joy thinks he is talking about her hair. “Thanks, Bubba,” she says with a smile that makes her eyes glow.
“Thanks, Bubba.” I lift the cake from the Jeep and, ever so slowly, with the guidance of the children, walk it into the building.
————
Before the doors open to the public at eight, Zack assigns a task to each child. He reminds the kids to be polite, to nicely encourage folks to buy, and then adds that each child should make sure to thank people for buying.
Miriam has been at The Center since seven, making coffee. Robert, who teaches drama and art in the afternoon to the kids, has covered each table in the fellowship hall with a white linen tablecloth and an arrangement of daisies and lilies. Rhonda, Bubba’s social worker, also has come to help.
Charlotte accepts her post behind the table loaded with assorted cookies. As she sits in a folding chair, she asks if Miriam would like some oatmeal cookies. There are two packaged in cellophane with
$1.00
written on the sticky label. The children and I made these cookies last week in class. After they’d cooled and we’d sampled a few, we wrapped three dozen and then placed them in The Center’s kitchen freezer. Yesterday, we took them out and decided on the price. Bubba thought they should cost seven dollars for two. He said they were “the bomb.”
Now Charlotte smiles shyly at Miriam.
“Yes,” says the director. She hands Charlotte a one-dollar bill.
Charlotte takes the money, places it in a metal box on the table, and then gives the cookies to Miriam. “Thank you,” she says with a small smile.
“You do that well,” Zack compliments Charlotte.
Charlotte shakes her head, says she’s no good.
Zack tells her only insecure people can’t handle compliments, remember? He must have taught them this when I wasn’t around because this is the first time I’ve heard that line. Insecure people can’t handle compliments? I wonder which one of his psychology books holds that tidbit.
When the doors open for business, I think the whole town must be here. The fellowship hall is filled with crying babies, men, women, and adolescents. I see two men in police uniforms and three firefighters.
I look up from the money box where I’ve just placed ten dollars from a woman who purchased six cups of coffee and five plates of cookies. She told me to keep the change. There stands Marble Gray, wearing pink curlers underneath a violet scarf. She picks up one of my cake brochures, which have been placed at the table where my decorated cake proudly sits. She stuffs another brochure into her large black purse and then heads over to the food tables. She tries to get two chocolate chip cookies for the price of one. Then she picks up a sugar cookie, claiming that it’s for Sinatra. I can tell Charlotte wants to tell her to pay for it, but I shake my head and mouth, “Let it go.”
Marble meanders around the room, smiling at a few people, but no one seems interested in talking with her. Perhaps she’s cheated them all out of something at one time or another.
Jonas enters the fellowship hall; I can hear his shoes even though he is surrounded by groups of people. He shuffles in his style over to the tables covered in the sweet-smelling baked goods. “Hi,” he says to me, and then to Zack he bellows, “Hi, Buddy!” He waves his wrench.
“Hi, Jonas. Working today?” asks Zack, noting the wrench.
“No, not working. Eating.”
Jonas picks up a chocolate pie that Robert’s wife made for the sale. It is carefully wrapped in cellophane with the ingredients listed on a white label. Robert’s wife is allergic to nuts and peanut butter and feels food items should always be marked. Apparently she had a bad reaction to a cake a few years ago and ended up at Swain County Medical Center. Of course, if you can’t read too well, a label indicating that the pie has no nuts does you little good. Jonas says, “Looks yummy,” and turns to me. “Where is your cake, Deirdre?”
“Deirdre?” Rainy snorts. “He calls you that?”
Zack points to the table along the edge of the opposite wall that holds my cake and the pile of brochures next to it.
Jonas says, “I helped with decorating that.” To Zack he asks, “Do you know that putting frosting on top of a cake takes lots of being steady?”
