Chapter Five
Marshall
“How close were you to your grandmother growing up?” asked Sean as we stood together in the bakery lobby.
“Which grandmother?”
“Either of them.”
“Okay, because my dad’s mom lived in Florida, and I barely saw her. I was much closer to my mom’s mom.”
When I had gone out to the lumberyard that morning, I had found Mr. Wood sitting alone in his office playing solitaire with a deck missing one card. Sean was nowhere to be found. Mr. Wood said he was out trimming the elms at the edge of the property and asked if I would be participating in the tournament. I was still thinking over my answer when Sean came in carrying a twig in one hand (“I shaved one of the elms too close”) and asked if I would accompany him to the bakery. His grandmother was throwing a party that night—she would be turning sixty-five on Saturday—and he had ordered her a lemon-scented pull-apart coffee cake.
But when we got to the store, we found no one behind the counter. Figuring they must have stepped out for a moment, we stood at the front and waited.
“My mom’s mom lived on a ranch out in West Texas,” I said. “Me and my brothers spent so many summers there growing up. It could get really hot, but we didn’t care. We’d spend hours outside playing hide-and-seek and spraying each other with Super Soakers. Darren was always catching and trapping small animals—possums, lizards, toads, armadillos, you name it—while Curtis spent most of his time riding horses. As we got older, we would bring our girlfriends out there for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Mamaw was a fabulous baker in her own right, and during the holidays, the aroma of baked pies filled the whole house.”
“It sounds like your mamaw and my granny could have been friends,” said Sean. “Her peanut butter fudge brownies are still the best I’ve ever eaten, and she used to make a cake every Friday night up until a couple years ago when she had her stroke. That’s why I came here, because this place has a reputation for making excellent cakes. My parents always went the cheap route and bought the cruddy store-made cakes from the bakery section at Wal-Mart, the kind that taste like foam in your mouth.”
“Ugh, I hate those,” I said with a shudder. “I tried one once and swore never again. Mom would never let us eat them because she said they were filled with ‘unwholesome ingredients.’”
“Between your mom and mamaw, it sounds like you were raised right,” Sean replied. “Do you ever feel like you were born into the perfect family?”
Sometimes, it certainly felt like that. But before I could respond, the door leading into the hallway opened, and into the kitchen stepped the nerdiest-looking woman.
She was wearing a floral-patterned red and black silk shirt and a pair of faded, old blue jeans. A white-yellow apron hung loosely over her waist, tied in a double knot around her neck and covered in flour and batter. Traces of grape jelly formed purple stains around the edges. She wore a pair of black thick-rimmed glasses that reminded me irresistibly of a librarian. If she had come over and asked us to speak in our inside voices, it wouldn’t have seemed remotely out of place. She had braided her long blonde hair into a flower crown.
Strangely, my first impression was to wonder what she was doing in Summerville. Every intelligent person I had known in high school had escaped to the big cities the moment they were able. Perhaps she was a college student; she couldn’t have been any older than twenty.
As soon as she came through the door, Sean let out a low whistle. “Damn,” he murmured, just low enough that only I could hear it. I nudged him in the ribs—not because I thought there was any chance she might hear us, but because she wasn’t exactly a model. Physically, she was the opposite of what I liked in a woman: small-breasted and wide in the hips, not much taller than the counter she was standing behind. And the whole “schoolmarm/librarian” look did nothing for me. Maybe it was a different story when she took off her apron and glasses. But for now, it was hard to know what exactly Sean saw in her, unless he was whistling in sympathy.
Seeing us standing there, she stepped forward. “Can I help with you something?”
Sean spoke up, sounding oddly shy. “Yeah, I’m here to pick up a cake for my grandmother?”
“Name?”
“Wood.”
She turned and disappeared through the door again. As soon as she was gone, Sean let out a deep breath and clutched his sides.
“You know me,” he said, laughing. “I don’t usually get like that around women—but man, that girl is something else!”
I stared at him in confusion. “Are you under some kind of spell? What happened to my friend Sean?”
“Don’t know, but I can tell you where his heart is—it’s there in the back with that little gal back there. When’s the last time you saw a woman that looked like that?”
I was glad to say I didn’t see them often. “I don’t know if we’re looking at the same girl. Give me a woman who’s slender and leggy, tall enough that I can fold her under my chin and don’t have to bend down if I want to kiss her. A girl who wouldn’t look out of place onstage in a swimsuit, wearing a white sash with the name of her state on it.”
Sean glared at me as though I was insane, and for the first time, I began to wonder if I might be. “What you’re describing is passé,” he said. “It’s old hat. Guys don’t want to date supermodels anymore. Hell, even Playboy has started cashing in on the whole ‘girl-next-door’ trend. Flipping through one of its magazines now is like being on Instagram. And honestly, I kind of prefer it that way. I want the girls in my porn to look like they could be my neighbors. I want them to look like teachers and babysitters. That’s where the money’s at because I think guys have had enough of the spray-tanned, fake-boobed porn stars of yesteryear. The men of today crave something more natural and authentic.”
This was, by far, the strangest speech I had ever heard Sean give, and for a moment, I was forced to contemplate the horrible possibility that I didn’t know my friend as well as I thought I did.
There was, of course, one other possibility—that he was trolling me—but that hope was abruptly extinguished by what he said next.
“And THAT girl,” he concluded, pointing toward the back room in an emphatic gesture, “that girl DELIVERS!”
I couldn’t stand it anymore. Placing a hand on his forehead, I said, “Sean, are you okay?”
Sean glared at me in confusion, as if I was the crazy one. “Yeah, why?”
Just then, though, the door opened again, and the nerd-girl reappeared carrying the most magnificent-looking lemon pull-apart coffee cake.
“I’m actually kind of impressed we were able to get this done on time,” she said in a breathless rush, her face fervent and sweaty. “My sister and I have been swamped for the past week baking pies for the festival, and I haven’t been able to give the cakes the amount of attention I usually give them. I made an exception for this one because I love your grandmother.”
“Oh, do you know her?” asked Sean, sensing an opening for conversation.
“I do,” she said, smiling. “She comes in all the time to buy macarons and talk about cakes. She knows a lot about baking—I remember telling her jokingly that she should be behind the counter instead of me, because half the time I don’t have any idea what I’m doing, but I’m sure her cakes are lovely.”
“They are,” said Sean. “The cake she made me for my tenth birthday party is, to this day, the best cake I’ve ever eaten. Sweet Polish cherry cake with almonds in it—sometimes I still dream about that cake. What about you?”
“The best cake I’ve ever eaten?” She brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “The first year I lived with my aunt in Pittsburgh, she made me the most amazing ginger carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for my birthday. I had had such a miserable year, and I was having a hard time settling into my new home, but when she brought out that cake, I started bawling, I was so happy. Sometimes we’re so starved for love and affection that even the smallest act of kindness will send us over the edge, you know? It was just a small gesture, but I felt so loved.” She wiped a stray tear from her eye. “I’ve never forgotten it.”
We paid for the cake and left. On our way through the parking lot, Sean could barely contain himself. Motioning back toward the bakery, he said in a stage whisper, “What an intelligent and remarkable woman—kind, respectful, professional. You don’t meet girls like her every day.”
“Well, if you like her so much,” I said, “you should ask her out.”
But Sean shook his head emphatically. “Out… of… the question! A man like me is not fit to tread the ground she walks on. No, she awaits someone nobler—someone purer—someone who can give her all the things that I could never give.”
I paused at the car and turned to look back at the shop. Through the kitchen window, I could see the girl bent low pulling a pie out of the oven. Maybe it was Sean’s raving about her, or maybe it was the angle, but from out here, she didn’t look so bad. I supposed a man could get used to a face like that.
“Well, we had better get going,” said Sean, glaring at his phone. “My grandpa will not stop texting me.” With a final glance through the window, I climbed into the car, and we drove off.