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Authors: Alice Wisler

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How Sweet It Is (21 page)

BOOK: How Sweet It Is
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“There is nothing wrong with admitting you’re hurt.”

“I am fine,” I repeat, emphasizing each word.

He’s silent for a moment, then he moves and I think he’s going to leave the kitchen. But he only opens a drawer and places the spoon inside. He starts to dry a knife.

To play the devil’s advocate I say, “So, do you admit you’re hurting?” There! I feel like a kid who has pulled a prank the teacher can’t catch.

His reply is spoken from his heart, and his honesty surprises me. “I’m getting better. After she died, I didn’t want to live at first.”

I nod a few times. Oh yes, I do know just how you felt.

“Jonas was strong for me.”

“Jonas is gold.”

And then I realize Zack has those same golden characteristics. He’s so gentle, so patient, so kind. His tenderness is ripping up my insides as though he were slicing each part of my anger and bitterness with that knife he has in his hands.

I want him to put the knife down and let me fall against his chest, let the barrier collapse between us. I stare at the suds, feel my hands grow wrinkled like prunes. He is going to leave. He’s looking for a way out of the kitchen. He’ll exit my life after making me wish for things I cannot have.

I wait.

Instead of leaving, he says, “Is that coffeepot clean yet?”

“What? Uh… why?”

“So I can dry it.”

This time I let myself view his face, his smile, those two dimples wasted on a man. I grin, or try to. When I rinse the pot that has never had such a good bath in its life and hand it to him, he says, “You are not so different from the rest of us.”

Suddenly Lucas seems very far away, like a fog you drive through, and when the sun comes out, beaming and hot, you forget what the fog looked like, or how it felt to be surrounded by the mist. All you can feel is the warmth of the sun, and the sun is the only place you want to be.

I’m not sure which is more remarkable—that Zack is drying dishes next to me or that I don’t mind that my sleeves are pulled up so that parts of my scars are visible and that what caused them doesn’t seem so horrendous anymore.

When I smile at Zack this time, his eyes hold familiarity, like he knows what is going on in my mind and heart right now. Like I am not alone; he has traveled this winding, steep, narrow path, as well.

And in fact he is still trekking on it. Determined to get through, without losing himself. Without losing me.

twenty-nine

I
’ve burned my fingers in the oven many times—by accident, of course. When Chef B or any other employee at the restaurant heard my yelp, the ice pack kept in the freezer for just such an occasion was handed my way. “Be the more careful,” Chef B would say as he watched me wince with pain. “You must to use the hot pads. See? I buy new ones last Tuesday.”

I cannot imagine what it would feel like to have my feet burned on a hot stove. There are things in life I want to thrust into the Do Not Open drawer, and after doing so, conveniently forget that such a drawer exists.

I can’t push the haunting truth of what happened to Darren out of my mind.

I see him clearly in my thoughts tonight as I clean the upstairs bathroom. Darren slouched over his notebook, drawing things he never lets me see, refusing to participate. Does he draw happy pictures? I know that the poster he created for the bake sale had a fancy border and lettering that was curvy and bold. He used red, purple, and green and even drew a picture of a slice of cherry pie and a large carrot cake in one of the corners.

He’s a child, I think as I scrub the sink. Bad things have happened to him—things no child should have to face. He’s been seriously damaged. The scars on his feet are only the tip of the iceberg of what he’s really suffered.

Exhaustion covers me, and I yearn to sleep. Instead, I spray Windex on the mirror and wipe off the streaks with a paper towel. What kind of person would burn a child’s feet? I ball up the towel and throw it into the copper-colored waste can. I see Felicia with her vibrant orange hair and push down the nausea filling my throat.

I slip into bed, grateful for the soft sheets. But my mind is full and sleep doesn’t come for a long while. Eventually, I get up, sit outside on the deck; against the
wooohooo
of the owl, I write about Darren in my journal until, at last, I can welcome sleep.

————

“If only Zack didn’t affect me like he does,” I whisper to the mirror in the loft bedroom as I prepare to head over to The Center for my Wednesday afternoon class. I brush my hair, put on lip gloss, and hope I can convince at least part of me that Zack doesn’t mean anything to me. I want to push him away. If he were a recipe, I’d cut him out of the book. My reluctant-fearful side wants to drape a quilt over my head and run as far from Bryson City as Beijing, China.

Monday I avoided him as much as I could get away with. I didn’t want to make it obvious to the children; if they started to notice my lack of conversation with Zack, they’d be sure to question it. I simply didn’t engage in any talk with him except to say, “Hi” upon seeing him and to answer his question with a polite, “Yeah, my class went well today.” I smiled as often as I could; a good smile covers a multitude of insecurities. Mom taught me that.

At the end of my class yesterday, when I was listening to Bubba tell me about how he and Rhonda had a picnic on the Parkway, my eyes locked with Zack’s. Zack was helping Lisa put away some dishes and he looked over at me with a smile I can’t get out of my mind. Somehow I don’t think his action had anything to do with Lisa, or Bubba’s detailed account of the large size of the hamburgers he and Rhonda ate for lunch.

Jeannie always says that there are times when a smile seems like more than just a friendly expression. “You know, when he smiles and you feel like the sky just bursts with fireworks,” she told me.

I’m probably reading too much into this. But then, why do I try to avoid him as much as I can? Fear of what he is starting to mean to me? The lyrics to another one of Jonas’s favorite pipe-checking songs runs circles in my mind.
There ain’t no way to hide your lyin’ eyes.
Well, as long as I can keep Zack from knowing how he’s beginning to take root in my heart, I’ll be all right.

My cell phone plays Vivaldi into my thoughts.

“Hello?” says a woman’s voice.

“Yes, hello?” I don’t recognize this person.

“Is this Deena Livingston?”

“It is.”

“Then I want to order two cakes.”

I hear a dog barking with vigor in the background. I press the phone closer to my ear.

“I want the cakes for this Saturday.”

My heart is doing flips of joy. “Great, and what is your name and phone number?” I scan my desk for a pad and pen.

“My name is Mrs. Marble Angelica Gray.”

“Hello, Mrs. Gray,” I say. My first cake order and it is from the town’s cheapskate. I remember seeing her pick up several brochures at the bake sale. Maybe she thought they were coupons for dog food. “How is Sinatra?”

“Oh.” She giggles and I imagine her pink curlers bouncing. “You are good with names. He’s running around in the backyard now.”

The next thing I know I hear the panting of a beast right in my ear.

“Say hello, Sinatra,” croons the woman.

Sinatra merely yelps.

My ear will never be the same.

“So you want two cakes?” I ask over the yelps.

“Sinatra, go play,” she commands. With a clearing of her throat, she says, “Yes, I would like one chocolate and one white velvet.”

“What sizes?”

“Eight inches is fifteen dollars?” I suppose she is reading from my brochure.

“That’s right.” Will she actually pay me? I wonder. This woman is known as the one who will cheat you out of your underwear. Suddenly, my enthusiasm for getting my first cake order falls like a cake without baking powder.

“So two cakes is thirty dollars?”

“That’s right.”

After a moment of hesitation she asks, “Do I pay you when I get the cakes?”

Delivery! What’s the mountain air doing to me? I forgot about that. Am I going to cart my custom-made cakes all over the mountainside to people’s homes? Quickly, I make a decision. “These cakes will be ready for you to pick up on Saturday at nine in the morning.”

Silence on the other end.

“Hello?”

Impatiently, “Well, then, where do you live?”

I think of Jonas and the first time he gave directions to this cabin. Will those work or do I need actual street names? All these mountain bends called roads, do they have real names? I give her the best directions I can, adding that I am near Memorial Methodist Church.

“I’ll be there,” she says.

“I take cash or checks.”

“I’m sure you do.”

And no expired coupons, I want to add, but resist.

I’m ready to hang up, but Mrs. Marble Angelica Gray isn’t. “One more question.”

“Yes?”

“How will I carry my cakes home?”

What does she mean? She’ll be driving, won’t she? She can put them in her car like other people do. Confused, I ask, “What do you mean?”

“Won’t they slide all over the seats? I don’t want my leather seats covered with icing!”

“Boxes,” I say quickly. “I have cake boxes, and they’ll keep the cakes safe.”

Grunting, sounding like a pig rooting in the trough for a corncob, she says, “Are they those white boxes?”

I go over to a large box by the desk in my room that is half filled with the pastry boxes. They are flat and can be opened and assembled to hold any size cake, round or square. I look at the box on the top, as though viewing it will help me with my answer. “Yes, they’re white.”

“Do they cost more?”

“No, Mrs. Gray. The boxes come with your cake order.”

“Well. That sounds nice.”

Downstairs I hear the front door opening and the bark of another dog. “Deena! Where are you? We need to go!”

“What?” I end my conversation with Marble Gray and look over the banister at my distraught aunt and a slobbery Giovanni.

“Jonas fell off the church roof!”

“Jonas?”

“He’s been taken to the hospital.”

I grab my purse and sail down the stairs. My first cake order now seems insignificant.

“I tried to call your cell, but I just got your voicemail,” my aunt says, her voice heavy with urgency.

At the bake sale I learned that Jonas is the church plumber and sometimes spends time at the church on weekday mornings long before my classes start. But what was he doing on the roof? As we get into my aunt’s truck I ask her what happened. I sit in the back of the cab; Giovanni never gives up his cushy passenger seat for me.

She backs out of the driveway with the ease of a woman who has lived in these mountains for a long, long time. “He was getting a badminton birdie.”

“From the roof? Why did he go up there?”

“The preschool girls got the birdie stuck on the roof and asked him to get it down today. He was busy. You know Jonas. He had to check some pipes first.” She speeds down the looping road as I close my eyes. “He was admitted over an hour ago after first being in the ER. Jo-Jen got the phone call while we were playing Scrabble.”

I can’t bear to think of Jonas being in the hospital. As we pass homes, I note their roofs and think that the distance between a roof and the ground is a long one.

The next thing I know, my aunt is asking if I know how her dog got his name.

Perhaps this is a trick question, or something that has to do with Jonas? Softly, I say, “No.”

“Ah, I never told you.” She puts on her brakes when we reach the end of the road and takes a right into the heart of the town.

“I guess not.”

“Well, about six years ago, one fall, I was driving on the Parkway in my truck.”

I want to laugh at how bizarre this is. Jonas’s life could hang in the balance and my aunt uses this moment to tell me about her dog.

Regena Lorraine continues, “Mozart’s
Don Giovanni
was playing in my CD player. I was enjoying the day but feeling a bit lonely. Out of the woods came this bounding mass of fur. I stopped my truck in time, or I might have hit the happy critter. Then he walked over to my window, which was down, and licked my hands. Just jumped up and gave me a kiss. His tail was wagging, Mozart’s opera was blaring. I parked my truck, saw that there was no collar on him. I took him home, and the rest is history.”

Giovanni lets out two happy barks.

We are now at the hospital’s parking lot. “Nice story.” Then I sneeze; I am still allergic to dog fur, yet my aunt hasn’t seemed to catch on after all these months. Some dog lovers, as well as parents, just can’t grasp that not everyone adores their babies.

My aunt is still clueless about why I’m sneezing. With all the excitement of a parade, she gushes, “His name is so appropriate, Shug. The opera about Giovanni combines comedy, drama, and the supernatural. That was how that day was for me, that day I met my own Giovanni.”

————

Jonas lies sleeping on a sterile bed of white, his heart monitored by a green humming machine. Where his bandana is usually tied, is a large gauze bandage. His face is pale; an IV feeds into his arm.

Regena Lorraine pats his other arm and says, “Jonas, this is no place for you.”

BOOK: How Sweet It Is
11.96Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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