Union Street Bakery (9781101619292) (17 page)

By the time I'd started to rummage through the second bag, a bead of sweat had formed on my upper lip. I muttered curses until my fingers brushed my favorite simple black slacks, which I fished out. Next I hunted for a clean white shirt, which I discovered was badly wrinkled. More digging produced a black sweater to cover the worst of the wrinkles.

I brushed my damp hair out, slicked it back in a neat bun at the base of my neck, and secured it with a large clip. Makeup remained nowhere to be found so I settled on dark sunglasses.

Three months ago I'd never have dared go to work with a wrinkled shirt or a makeup-free face. But my life was no longer my own and vanity had taken a hit for Team Daisy.

“Daisy, are you ready?” Rachel called up from the second floor.

“I just need shoes.” I tossed off the lid to the box marked S
HOES
and dug out a pair of kitten heels as well as a red scarf. Shoving swollen feet already accustomed to clogs into the heels, I hurried down the stairs.

Rachel stood with my two nieces. All three looked so pulled together. Rachel had washed and dried her hair and it now curled nicely above her shoulders. She wore a black suit, a yellow silk handkerchief in the breast pocket, white knit top, hose no less, and heels. The girls sported matching yellow dresses that had white bows around the waist. White patent leather shoes and lace socks completed the look.

This was the first look I'd had of the girls since I arrived. I'd heard them run past my office door a couple of times but I'd been too busy to say hi. I'd promised myself that when Sunday came, I'd take them to the park, but they'd been playing and I'd been doing taxes. I was starting to understand now why we hadn't seen so much of Dad when we were kids.

“Boy, you girls sure do look fine,” I said.

Ellie smiled sweetly. “Thank you.”

Anna studied me with eyes that hinted of an old soul. “Your shirt is wrinkled.”

“Shh,” I said. “Don't tell Grandma.” I buttoned the sweater up to the top and looped my long scarf around my neck. “There, is that better?”

Ellie nodded yes. Anna shook her head no.

Both girls giggled, and we headed down the stairs. Halfway down, I said to Rachel, “How do you do it? You are so together.”

She smoothed her hand over her skirt. “This is the dress I wore to Mike's funeral. It's been in the closet untouched, and Mom took the girls shopping yesterday.”

The mention of Mike made me sorry I even asked about the clothes. I didn't want to upset Rachel or bring back reminders of that very dark time. The mood leading up to Mike's funeral had been so different. We'd all been numb, walking around trying not to show our sadness for Rachel's and the girls' sakes. The kids had been about three and a half and they'd not really understood what was happening though each saw the tension in their mother's eyes. By the end of that day, Ellie couldn't stop crying. And Anna had been so angry she'd refused to put on her pajamas until I'd offered a chocolate bribe.

When we'd buried Mike, a cold rain had drizzled and the February air was cold and raw. When the casket had been lowered into the ground, we'd all just turned and driven back to the bakery. All of the McCraes had sat in the front café. I'd been the one who went behind the counter, made coffee, and scrounged the cookies Mike had baked just two days earlier.

Our lives had turned on a dime. And no amount of planning on my part or Rachel's could have stopped it.

Downstairs, we found Mom, Dad, and Margaret in the front café. Margaret wore a black peasant dress with a brightly colored vest, Mom had pinned a bright blue pin to the lapel of her pantsuit, and Dad wore a red tie. Wearing a hint of color to a funeral was a McCrae family tradition. We wore black to symbolize the sadness of the life lost and the color to recognize the gifts that the departed had brought to us all. I can't say exactly what gifts Mrs. Woodrow had brought into my life but I had to concede that ninety-nine years of living was no small feat.

“Chop-chop, girls,” Dad said. He clapped his hands, winked at Ellie and Anna, and the McCrae unit departed.

While Mom, Margaret, Rachel, and the girls lagged a little behind, my normally quick pace started to put distance between us.

Dad caught up to me. “So I'm still good to see the books?”

“Two weeks.”

“Thirteen days. You gonna be ready?”

I tossed a wide grin. “I was born ready, Dad.”

He did his best to keep his tone casual. “If you don't want to wait the two weeks, we can do it tomorrow.”

“Nope. Two weeks is good.” I adjusted my scarf. “Don't you just want to let go and rest a little? If this last week has taught me anything, you deserve it.”

He snorted. “Retiring is a bit like severing an arm.”

“Letting go of the bakery? You're kidding.”

“Just wait. You'll see. It worms its way into your blood.”

“Not mine.”

He raised a brow. “What did you do on your day off?”

Frowning I glared at him. “I worked, but only because I needed to get caught up.”

He chuckled. “That's what I said at first.”

“I'm different.”

“Not so much, kiddo.”

Mom snaked up behind Dad and patted him on the back. “Tell me you are not talking about the bakery.”

“No harm in that, Sheila,” Dad said.

We walked as a group the five blocks to Christ Church. A brick-and-wrought-iron wall surrounded the prerevolutionary church and a grove a trees shaded the courtyard from the busy street. Raised beds were filled with bright flowers, and the heavy scent of boxwoods hung in the air. Sandstone grave markers eroded by time and weather dotted the yard. Margaret once said that over time many of the graves had lost their markers, and the ones that hadn't had succumbed to weather's blurring effects.

We arrived just as a very large group of mourners gathered at the back door. When they didn't move forward, Mom whispered, “I knew the church would be packed.”

“She knew everyone,” Dad said. He shifted his shoulders and his jacket stretched tight across his back. He'd had this same suit since the seventies and though Mom had bugged him about getting a new one, he refused. According to Dad, there were better things to buy. Water heaters and mixers came to mind.

Finally the group ahead was able to move inside, and we found a standing spot in the aisle near the pulpit. The church's interior was ten degrees cooler than outside.

“Does anybody see Henri?” Dad asked.

I scanned the room and spotted Henri across the room in a back pew. He stared ahead, his shoulders back and straight. “Looks like he got one of the last seats in the house.”

“Good,” Dad said. “I know his back has been bothering him.”

Gauging by the tone of Dad's voice, I sensed he knew more about Henri's health than I'd first thought. “Should I tell him we're here?”

“No,” Dad said. “He'll insist on giving his seat to Mom or one of you girls. Let's leave him be.”

The priest stood in front of the altar wearing his finest vestments, and the soft murmurs in the church ceased. Behind the priest, two dozen choir members, dressed in red robes, smiled serenely at the crowd.

“There must be two hundred people here,” Mom said.

Dad shook his head. “Honestly, I'm surprised there aren't more people.”

Including my birth mother? The thought clanged in my head as I scanned the crowd again. Did Miss Mabel really know her? Could the two women have been close enough that Renee or Terry would attend the funeral? My heart thumped a little faster, and I couldn't decide if I was angry or excited.

If we're late, the old lady won't see us.

As the minister cleared his voice and began to speak, I found myself tensing. I recognized a lot of the people. They were bakery customers, high school friends, or folks I passed regularly on the street. I could recall some names but most I couldn't have summoned without some kind of prompt.

I searched beyond the inner ring, hoping that perhaps Renee or Terry or some woman who looked like me might be standing back, perhaps even searching for me. But hats and dark glasses obscured most of the distant faces.

A breeze carried the strong fragrance of the gardenias draped around the pulpit.

A large black-and-white picture of Mabel Woodrow had been placed at the front of the church. The photo appeared to have been taken when she was in her twenties. White organza and dark curls framed a heart-shaped face and her smile enhanced a clear, direct gaze filled with energy and vitality.

According to the priest, Mabel had been born in 1914 to a working-class family. She had two older brothers, attended the area high school, and unlike her brothers, attended two years of college. In 1932, she'd married Robert Woodrow, an Alexandria man of privilege and means who had chosen the military as his career. They traveled the country, moving from military base to military base and by all accounts were a happy couple, despite the fact that their marriage was never blessed with children. At the outbreak of World War II, Robert was stationed in Italy and Mabel went to live in the Alexandria house that had been left to Robert by his parents. During a battle in northern Italy, Robert had suffered a head trauma from shrapnel, and when he returned home he was never quite the same. Mabel cared for him until he died six years later.

Mabel had lost her two brothers to heart disease in the last two decades, but she'd remained active in her nieces' and nephews' lives. Up until the last few years, she'd dedicated herself to volunteer work, splitting her time between different children's charities. Everyone, it seemed, loved her.

She'd been all but invisible to me when she'd come into the shop last Monday. I'd not seen past her wrinkled skin and gray hair or my own fears and frustrations. Now as I looked at the picture, I glimpsed an interesting woman who'd lived nearly a century in a house only three blocks from the bakery. Until this moment, all I'd known about her was that she'd liked sweet buns and could ramble about my other mother.

The choir sang “Amazing Grace,” and the piercing notes of the organ rumbled through the pipes and filled the sanctuary. The scent of gardenias weighed heavily in the stone church.

As if Margaret had heard my thoughts, she whispered, “She loved gardenias. I brought her one for her birthday last November.”

“I bet she liked that,” I said absently.

“She seemed to.” Margaret sighed, no hint of anger in her. In fact, I detected a little sadness when she said, “Beats me why she gave you that journal.”

“Me too.” I glanced out the small side window beside me at the headstones. “Do you think S or J could be buried here somewhere?”

Margaret shook her head. “I doubt S is buried here. If she were a slave and had managed to live and die in this town, she would have been buried in Freedmen's Cemetery or another African-American cemetery—and that's assuming she even died in Alexandria.”

“Where's Freedmen's Cemetery?”

“Off Washington Street. They put in a memorial park there a couple of years ago and did some archaeological work. Some of the cemetery was destroyed by development and most of the gravestones were lost.”

“What about J?”

Margaret glared at me. “Let me read the book and maybe I can figure out who J was. Then I might know. Have you even read it yet?”

“No.”

“God, Daisy why?” Her voice raised a notch.

Mom paused mid-verse and shot us both a look. We were in our thirties, accomplished for the most part, and Mom could still reduce us to two twelve-year-olds with a single glare.

I winked at Mom and joined in on the song's chorus. When Mom dropped her gaze back to her hymnal, I whispered to Margaret, “I will soon. I promise. Did you ever find your notes or tapes of your interviews with Mabel?”

“Not yet but I only have a couple of more places to look. It's odd I can't find them. I'm normally really good about organizing historical stuff.”

Mom cleared her throat. That ended all conversation.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are here today not to mourn but to celebrate the life of Mabel Ann Samson Woodrow.” For the next forty-five minutes, folks climbed up into the wineglass pulpit and shared stories about Mabel, who'd been one of the first women in the city to own a car. She'd also run for office, written for the local paper, championed literacy centers, and marched in the sixties' civil rights rallies.

She'd had such a rich and full life, and yet I'd not really
seen
her the day she'd come to the bakery. She'd been a frustrating annoyance. A guilty sigh rushed from my lungs. I couldn't do anything for Mabel but I could at least read the book she'd given me.

“Are you around this evening?” I asked Margaret.

Margaret looked toward Mom and then me. “Yeah. Why?”

“I'll bring the journal. We can read it together.”

Dark eyes brightened. “Done.”

Chapter Nine

M
argaret lived in the basement apartment located in a narrow town house on Prince Street. The building had loads of charm: windows that stretched from hardwood floors to ten-foot plaster ceilings, fireplaces with carved mantels, and rooms trimmed with ornate crown molding. The place was a sublease from some professor on sabbatical in Greece. A real find, Margaret always had said.

To me, the space was dark and dank. The low ceilings, the exposed brick walls, and the wide pine floors made the place feel cold to me, whereas they charmed Margaret. I couldn't stand that the place was below ground level and her sole street-facing window offered only views of the sidewalk and passing feet. The building, built by a sailing merchant in the eighteenth century, was loaded with history and that meant more to Margaret than the place's unbeatable rent.

As I moved down the four steps to her front door, balancing my purse in one hand and burgers and shakes in the other, it struck me that we'd both been banished—me to the attic and she to the basement.

Loud music drifted through the door. I knocked on the door. Once. Twice. By the third time, the music dropped and footsteps clicked on the interior's pine floors. Locks released and unlatched and Margaret opened the door. “I didn't think you'd ever get here. What took so long?”

Shoving the food tray into her hands, I moved past her. “I came as quick as I could. There always seem to be details in the office.”

She slurped one of the milkshakes. “Don't tell me. That business stuff gives me a headache.”

Shrugging off my jean jacket, I draped it over an overstuffed chair upholstered in a red-checked print. “Seems it gave Rachel one, too. You've both done a fine job of ignoring the business side of things.”

Margaret sat the food on a coffee table. “It's just not my thing. And I told Mom and Dad that from the beginning. Me Indian, you Chief.”

“Very funny.”

The small living room was furnished with an old couch covered in a quilt, a coffee table made out of an old door, and two red winged-back chairs. The furniture arrangement was nestled in front of an unusable brick hearth, which was filled with unlit votives and topped with a gilded mirror that caught what little light trickled down from the street. Bookshelves crammed with more books than most libraries owned stood shoulder to shoulder over a cranberry wall.

Margaret sat cross-legged on her sofa, and I took one of the wing chairs. “Thanks for the grub. I'm starving.” She unwrapped and then bit into a sandwich. “So good.”

“It's a new sandwich place on King. I'll admit to doing a little recon thinking one day they might want USB to supply their bread.”

“Thinking ahead. I like that.” She picked a pickle off the sandwich and ate it. “So, is balancing the books really that bad?”

I unwrapped my sandwich and smoothed out the wrapper. “It's a hornet's nest for sure, but I've untangled it for the most part. The tricky part will be getting us from red to black.”

“Does Dad know?”

“He does not, and don't tell him because I think I can salvage the mess.”

She dabbed a paper napkin on the corner of her mouth where a splash of mustard had parked. “I won't tell Dad a thing if you promise me one thing.”

“I'm not sure I like the sound of that.”

She met my gaze. “You need to promise that you are not going to quit.”

I hesitated, waiting for the punch line. When none came I said, “I thought you were the one who bet I wouldn't last two days.”

She slurped her shake. “Seeing as I've lost the bet, you might as well stay.” She glanced at her sandwich. “Are you thinking about leaving?”

“Believe me, it has crossed my mind many times. But no, I'm in it to win.” Setting down my sandwich, I wiped my hands, dug out the journal, and set it on the coffee table. “Here ya go.”

“I was trying to be polite and not ask but I was about to bust.”

“I guessed as much.”

Margaret set down her burger and wiped her hands on her napkin. “You read it?”

“Just a page or two.”

“How you can hold off not exploring such a treasure is beyond me. I've fantasized, plotted, and planned about sneaking into your room and reading it. What took you so long?”

I bit into my sandwich. “I've been busy.”

“It's that letter, isn't it? From that Tracy woman.”

I pulled a pickle from my burger and laid it on the wrapper I'd stretched out on the coffee table. “Her name is Terry. And I don't care about her.”

Margaret stirred her shake with her straw. “Puh-leze. I saw the look on your face. You looked like you'd been punched in the gut.”

I picked at the edges of my burger. “Can we not talk about the letter?”

“We need to talk about it. Mom, Dad, and Rachel are afraid of upsetting you; I, however, am not the least bit afraid.”

That startled a laugh. “So I've noticed.”

“Don't you at least want to know if she is your birth mother?”

“I don't need to know her.” The words stumbled off my tongue and landed flat. “I have a mother.”

“You can bullshit yourself but do not bullshit me. I know you love Mom, but I know you are curious about this Tammy chick.”

“Terry.”

“Whatever. She owes you answers. Like when your real birthday is and does cancer and stuff run in the genetic line.”

“I've lived this long without that information. I can live longer without it.”

She set down her milkshake. “I remembered when you'd cry as a kid on your birthday.”

Tension and sadness fisted in my gut so tight it was all I could do not to double over. “Do you want to talk about the journal or not?”

“I do. But I'm more worried about that letter.”

“You are more worried about the letter from a stranger than a journal from the 1850s. Now who is in denial?”

Margaret released a sigh. “It's pointless to talk about the letter, isn't it?”

“Yes.”

She wiped her hands on her paper napkin. “Then let me first tell you what I found.”

“The Mabel tapes.”

“Yes. Believe it or not, I'd filed them in my office. I never file anything in its proper place because I just know where I keep stuff. But I'd filed the tapes.”

“How many are there?”

“About ten hours. I had a chance to listen to the first tape, which runs an hour. Want to hear a little bit?”

“How does this relate to the journal?”

“Wait and see.” She dug a tape recorder out from under the couch. “Ready?”

“Hit me.”

She hit Play.

My grandmother was born in 1840 right here in Alexandria. She never talked much of her own childhood but she did once mention a friend of hers named Susie.

“No shit,” I said.

Margaret stopped the tape. “I know. I just about shit a brick when I heard it.”

“Play on.”

Margaret hit Play again.

My grandmother often spoke of this young friend of hers who was a young slave, born to a slave woman from Loudoun County. The girl had heard that her mother had been a pretty woman. Fair skin, pale green eyes, and high cheekbones had turned many heads, both white and black. The slave from Loudoun was intended to be a gift for her new master's fiancée, whom he'd be marrying within the year. At first the master had treated his slave fairly, but as the months passed his taste for the bottle became apparent. When he drank, his mood shifted from jovial to moody. They never spoke of what had happened in those early days but just after the master's marriage to his wife, folks in town noticed the slave was with child.”

“Read between those lines. The guy raped her,” I said.

Margaret nodded.

The slave gave birth to a girl, who had a healthy set of lungs and a hearty appetite. From her birth, the slave baby thrived and both mother and child often received extra looks or stares from black and white folks alike because they were so handsome. Let me also say that the mother was known in town for her baking skills and many would have gladly bought the mother for her kitchen skills but her owner had refused all offers. The master's refusal to sell fueled all kinds of rumors that did not please his wife. After the slave mother, however, suffered her burns, folks no longer cooed but shied away from her.

About this time the master decided to lease his slave to a local baker. No one ever had asked the slave if she wanted to work in the bakery; she was expected to obey. So the mother and her three-year-old daughter began daily treks to the bakery for a twelve-hour shift. This leasing arrangement went on for almost fourteen years and though the baker paid generously for her services, the slave woman never saw a penny of the money she earned. All earnings went to her master and his gambling debts.

“What a dick,” I said.

“Tough times,” Margaret said.

Each morning before dawn, mother and child would make the three-block walk to the bakery. In the bitterly cold months, the duo would don every stitch of clothing they owned to ward off the biting winds from the Potomac. The little girl often said how she hated these mornings and how she longed to stay in her attic room nestled on her pallet under her blankets. But her mother had convinced the master to let the girl tag along so that she could learn baking skills that would one day be of great value. Mother would often say to her child that the coldest days on the street were safer than the master's house. Only when the child became a woman herself, did she realize her mother feared her master and his wife.

And so they made their morning predawn treks in the dark. The girl spoke of shoes that were too large and a sole that wobbled when she walked. There'd been talk of sending the boot to the cobbler but the sole was never fixed. To make the trip more arduous, the girl's hand-me-down calico dress's long hem was forever catching on the boardwalk's roughest planks. So as she hurried to keep pace with her mother, she was forced to lift one foot high, hold her skirt up high, and clench her buttonless threadbare coat closed with her hand.

“Poor kid.”

Margaret paused the tape. “It wasn't common to invest money in slave clothes unless they worked in the front of the house and were on display, so to speak.”

“Shit.”

“I know.”

“So is it kinda weird that Mabel is talking about a slave and she had a slave journal.”

“Interesting, isn't it. But let's not assume. Mabel never mentions family names in her talks with me and Alexandria was a huge slave trading port at the time so we could be dealing with two different girls.”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“We need evidence.”

I shrugged. “What's the deal with the boardwalk?” I said.

“At the time there was a long boardwalk that ran along Union Street. From the boardwalk there were massive piers and warehouses, which housed all kinds of businesses. The area was a bustling place in the 1850s.” She hit Play.

The girl often spoke of how fearful her mother was of not only her master but of whites in general. She feared being late to work, she feared ruining a batch of biscuits, and she feared saying the wrong thing. Mother and child had both heard tales of other slaves in Alexandria being sold to traders in the Deep South.

Mabel paused; it sounded as if she took a sip of water.

The girl, like all slaves, feared the Deep South, which was filled with cotton plantations and fancy houses. Slaves who went to the South often were subjected to backbreaking work, brutal conditions, and a drastically shortened life.

Margaret stopped the tape and fast-forwarded it. “She talks a little about the city and the ships, and commerce of the time, the railroad, and the pressure to keep up with the Port of Baltimore before she gets back to Susie.” She hit Play again.

When the little girl turned ten or so, the baker, a widower, reported that his own daughter had been stricken with measles. Friends and church members stayed clear of the house, fearing the illness. The slave girl's owner, seeing an opportunity for income, proposed to the baker that Susie could sit with and tend the daughter. The baker, relieved to have a caregiver for his child, agreed and so the girl became nursemaid to a child not more than a year or two older than she. Many had believed both girls would perish but the slave girl nursed her charge with care and never got sick. Both survived, and the girls became fast friends during the months-long convalescence.

“Help me out here.”

Margaret shut off the tape. “Shoot.”

“This girl was born to a slave but her father was a free white man. Why wasn't she free?”

“It was the mother's status that mattered. If she was a slave, all her children would be slaves regardless of the father's position.”

“I thought that relations between master and slave went on a lot. I would think the wife of that time would accept it.”