Sweet Expectations (22 page)

She bit into the cookie. “So who are you?”

“I'm Daisy McCrae. You know my dad.”

“Frank?”

“That's right.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You worked in the bakery as a kid.”

“I did.”

“Moved to Washington, D.C., from what I remember. Big shot finance person.”

Here I'd thought I'd been invisible behind that counter, but the way this woman talked you'd have thought we were part of the same family.

“I'm not in finance anymore. I manage the bakery now.”

Frowning, she nibbled her cookie. “Why?”

“Do you want the long version or the short?” I quipped.

She chuckled. “At my age the short might be best.”

“The company I worked for went out of business. Mom and Dad needed help. It was a perfect match from the get-go.”

She stared me as if she didn't believe me but let it go. “You didn't come here to talk to me about why you moved back or to give me cookies.”

Edith leaned over. “She's pregnant. Her baby is due at Christmas.”

Sara raised a brow. “This isn't your conversation, Edith. It's mine. You get lots of visitors, and I don't.”

Edith's brows rose. “I don't see why I can't talk.”

Sara glared at the cookie clutched in Edith's hands. “Looks like you already had one of my cookies. Now go over there and wait for your son. He's never late.”

Edith took a big bite out of her cookie and moved several seats over.

Sara grunted, smiling behind her cookie. “She always is trying to horn in. She gets visitors all the time and I don't, and still she wants a piece of what I have.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Don't worry about it. I bet she was a pesky kid on the playground. People don't change.”

I was looking at a couple of old ladies and to my shame I'd not thought much about priorities. I saw old. Sitting here with Sara I could now see I'd underestimated her.

“So why are you here? I know my memory is bad but I'm pretty sure we've never formally met.”

“No, ma'am, we've not met.” I scooted to the edge of my seat. “My sister sent me here to see you.”

“Rachel or Margaret?”

“Rachel.”

“I always liked Rachel. Good woman.” Her gaze narrowed as she stared at me. “You're the adopted sister.”

The adopted sister. There was no malice behind the description, but it always needled, made me feel a little less. “That's right.”

“So, Daisy, the adopted one, what can I do for you?”

“We're renovating the bakery. Knocking out walls. We found a recipe box dating back to the 1940s.”

“Good years. I was in my late twenties and I was between my first and second husbands. I was full of piss and vinegar during the war.”

“I don't doubt it.”

She met my gaze, searching for any trace of sarcasm. “That's right. Don't you doubt it for one minute. I was a catch back in the day.”

I could have plowed on with my questions but sensed she wanted to talk. She'd already said she didn't get many visitors. The clock ticking to return to the bakery, I relaxed back in my chair.

“So what were you doing between husbands one and two?”

Her gaze twinkled. “Other than getting into a bit of trouble I was working at the torpedo factory. Making bombs. There were a lot of dames like me working in the factory then. The boys were all off to war.”

“The town was different then.”

“Not the hustle and bustle it is now, but we thought it was mighty fine. The music and the dancing. I was a USO dancer. And I was good. Cut a swing better than anyone.”

“You lived in Old Town.”

“Rented a room near your bakery on Union Street. Old lady had a boardinghouse.” She paused. “Old lady. I think Miss Carol wasn't more than fifty or fifty-five. Here I am forty years past that age.”

“My sister Rachel said you were a regular at the bakery.”

“Every morning I bought a croissant.” She scrunched her face in a smile. “So good.”

The sharpness of her memory gave me hope. “I was actually trying to find a gal who worked in the bakery about then. Her name was Jenna.” I reached in my pocket and pulled out the picture I'd found and handed it to Sara.

She studied the picture through her thick glasses. “Brings back memories, this picture does.”

“What do you remember about the bakery?”

“Well, your daddy wasn't more than one. He was a scrappy little kid who liked cookies.”

Dad's round belly came to mind. “He still eats cookies.”

“And lord what a crier he was. If someone wasn't carrying him around he was fussing.” Her eyes glinted. “I didn't like him then. He made me swear off kids. Of course that promise lasted less than a year. Met my second husband, and our son was born in forty-five.”

I laughed. “Dad said my sisters and I were enough to break a man.”

“Don't take any of his bellyaching. He was the worst.”

I tucked the nugget aside knowing one day I'd use it. “Do you remember any of the women who worked in the bakery?”

She glanced at the picture, the wrinkles in her face deepening. For a moment she didn't speak, and then she tapped her gnarled finger on Jenna's face. “I do remember her. She was a firecracker.”

I studied Jenna's smiling face and thought about the obituary in the paper. What had happened? “She met a serviceman, I think.”

Slowly Sara nodded. “She did. A fine-looking boy. Not much more than twenty-one or –two. He was Marine Infantry. Was all full of himself.”

“You remember him?”

“I remember the three of them at a USO dance. That's how they met.”

“Three of them?”

“He always traveled with his buddy. They came up on the train from Quantico whenever they could get leave. Memory serves they were training officers. Joey and Walter.”

Joey. Joey Ludenburg had signed for Walter's belongings after he'd died. I pulled out the picture of Jenna and the two men. “Which one was Walter?”

She studied the picture but after a moment shook her head. “I couldn't tell you. So many GIs then. They ran together.”

“But you remember Jenna at the dance with Joey and Walter?”

“Sure. One of them took her out for a dance and had a devil of a time letting her go to dance with the next solider. He stared at her all night. Made me realize why I divorced my first husband. He never stared at me with so much lust.”

I studied the smiling faces of the men in the photo. Both looked so happy, and I could have sworn both were in love with her. “So he loved her.”

“Well, he sure did lust after her.” She cackled. “But he did like her. Saw both those solider boys a couple of times at the bakery.”

“I read about Jenna in the paper. She died giving birth.”

For a long moment, Sara was silent as if some details escaped her. And finally she said, “There were customers who wouldn't speak to her when she was expecting. Called her bad news.”

Overwhelming sadness washed over me as if it weren't Jenna who had been hurt but me. I thought about my kid being diminished because I wasn't married to her father. Homicide came to mind when I thought about anyone hurting my kid.

“Must have been hard on her.”

“I think it was.”

“Did she have family in the area?”

“She came from the western part of the state. I don't remember where exactly but I know Alexandria wasn't her home.”

“Why did she come to Alexandria?”

“Said she wanted to see a real city. Wanted more than the country.” She broke off a piece of cookie and ate it. “And then her man died in the war and she didn't want no more parts of the city. She hated it all.”

“But she didn't go home.”

Sara folded gnarled, thickly veined hands in her lap. “Not unmarried with a baby in her belly. She told me they'd not take her.”

“She and Walter didn't get married.”

“She talked about it. I know she loved him. But if they got married, I never knew it.”

Single motherhood scared me. I didn't have Gordon, but I had family. I wasn't alone and I would make it. “Jenna had no one.”

Sara nodded. “I didn't hear about her dying right away. I was working and newly married. But a couple of weeks after the fact I came by the bakery. Mr. McCrae told me what had happened. They were all torn up.”

“What happened to the baby?”

“I suppose he went home with her kin.”

“In the western part of the state.”

“That's what I hear.”

Frustration had me scooting to the edge of my seat. “You've no idea where?”

“Well west.”

“I heard she was from Frederick County.”

“Maybe, I don't know. Honey, it's been seventy years. I think I'm doing pretty well considering.”

“You are doing great.” I shuffled through the towns in the western part of the state near Frederick County. I wished I'd paid closer attention in fifth-grade geography.

Sara nibbled her cookie, frowning as she dug through her memory. “Her daddy owned an apple farm.”

“My sister Rachel buys fresh apples from an orchard out in that area.”

“Jenna came from apple country. Said she eaten enough apples to last her a lifetime.”

“Did she ever talk about her family?”

Sara frowned. “Not much. She was too sweet a gal to say a bad word.” She cocked her head. “She did get a letter from home once. Made her cry. Explains why home might be the last place to go with a baby.”

Chapter Eighteen

Monday, 8:00
A.M.

5 days until grand reopening

Income Lost: $3,700

F
inding Jenna's baby and her lover had to take a backseat as we really rolled into high gear with reassembling the kitchen and finalizing the wine cellar room. I followed up on my liquor license and found it might be weeks before we could sell wine but at least it was in the pipeline.

Margaret's dig was delayed a day or two so she'd remained at the bakery, and my new workers, Meg and Tim, showed up right on time. Tim was grinning and though Meg had a smile on her face I sensed worry as they came into the shop and inspected the setup.

“Hi, Meg,” I said.

Rachel grinned. “The cavalry has arrived.”

The welcome seemed to allay Meg's tension. Her smile widened. She'd been worried the job might not come through. The kid was used to disappointment, which made me all the more determined to make all this work so we could afford to keep them.

While Rachel schooled Meg on the finer points of mixing dough, Tim sat on a stool and watched. He seemed content to wait until a job was handed to him. When Jean Paul asked if he could help move a piece of equipment, I'd had my doubts. But Tim stood right up, grin broadening, and hurried to help Jean Paul. The kid was strong as an ox and quickly proved to be a real help. Several times he helped Jean Paul move equipment impossible otherwise.

By the end of Meg and Tim's first day, the kitchen had been fully restored, the basement was cleaned, and Jean Paul had begun to frame off a corner of the basement for another office for me. Though I didn't love the idea of working in a basement, I really didn't like the idea of working in my apartment.

That night when I crawled upstairs to my room, exhausted, Jenna was not far behind me, dogging me up the stairs, tapping me on my shoulder and reminding me that I'd said I'd find her baby and lover.

Find him. Find him.

I flopped on my bed and lay back against the pillow. “I know what I said, Jenna. And I'll find your men. But right now I can barely see straight.”

The energy in the room shifted and some of the tension melted way. I wasn't sure if Jenna was chilling or I was too tired to care.

My eyes closed as soon as my head hit the pillow, and I was swept up into darkness. Sleep came so hard and fast I didn't dream. Blissful blackness washed over me like a wave, which I gladly rode. A year ago I'd have fought the wave but now understood the kid needed it as much as I did. Somewhere along the way I'd stopped being number one in my life. The kid had nudged to the front of the line. How many times had I seen Rachel put herself second to the girls? I'd thought she was nuts. Now, not so much.

When I woke, the room was dark save for the slash of moonlight cutting the room in half. Drool trickled from my mouth, which I swiped away as embarrassment had me glancing around the darkness. I half expected to see Margaret staring at me, laughing. But she was nowhere in sight. I was alone.

Gordon had once said he liked watching me sleep. He liked that I looked so relaxed and didn't have a white-knuckle grip on life twenty-four seven.

“Shit, I don't have a tight grip on life right now, Gordo. I am an out-of-control mess.”

I swiped my hand over my mouth one more time and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I stared at the rumpled sheets of Margaret's bed and couldn't tell if she'd come and gone or if she'd not spent the night here. I'd been so out of it when my head hit the pillow that I had no way of knowing.

Never had I slept so hard. Mom said as a kid I'd never been a good sleeper. She said she'd had to sneak upstairs on her belly because she knew I'd be in my room, hanging over the baby gate barricading me in my door, searching for her.

But last night I'd slept like the dead.

I rose and moved to the bathroom, filled a tumblerful of water and drank.

Find him.

Jenna might have allowed me to sleep but she'd not forgotten her request.

“You're a pushy broad, Jenna,” I said. “I've feelers out. What more do you want?”

I refilled the glass and moved to my computer to see if there was any bit of news that might have popped up. I scanned e-mails from suppliers and spotted one from a friend of mine I'd worked with in D.C.

Brenda. She and I had been in tough competition at the company. We both were ambitious, and we both wanted the corner office. Plenty of times we'd gone head to head and she'd made me so mad I could scream. But knowing she was chasing me in the corporate world had made me better and sharper at what I'd done.

Big D.

How goes the new Betty Crocker life? Last I heard you couldn't use an Easy-Bake oven and now you are churning out cookies and pies. Thought I'd let you know I've finally landed on my feet after six months of unemployment. As much as I loved sleeping until ten, eating too much, and building a tight relationship with Jerry Springer (we have a date everyday at five), I've been called back to the corporate world. I'll be moving to Seattle to take a job with a financial company. I think I'm the last of our core group to get back into the real world. Bill has a gig in San Francisco, Gwen is working in D.C., and Mike moved to Dallas. And of course old Roger is in China. (From what I hear he's still a douche.)

Call me. We'll grab a drink before I load up the wagon train and move west.

Bigger B.

I sat back in my chair, absently smoothing my hand over my belly. Six months since I'd been in the real world but it might as well have been a lifetime. Each day took me further and further away.

And of course old Roger is in China.

Roger. I'd been avoiding thoughts of him like the plague. I was half hoping he'd vanish from my mind, and I'd never think about him again. “Gordon, why couldn't the baby be yours?”

As much as I wanted to ignore Roger, I couldn't. Roger was my kid's biological father. And he needed to know. He'd always been a jerk, and I didn't like him but none of that mattered.

Dear Roger

I thought for a moment as I looked at the line and then deleted
Dear
.

Roger,

Been a while but I needed to touch base with you. Remember our last night before I left D.C.? Yeah, well, I don't remember much, but I do remember the basics. And the basics seem to have been enough to make a baby. I'm pregnant and the kid is yours. Baby is due at Christmas.

I'm not looking for money, but I have an obligation to tell you. If you want to contact me and find out more details I'm here.

Daisy

For long, tense seconds my index finger hovered poised over the Send key. The note had to be sent but I did not want to open this can of worms. I didn't like Roger and the idea of a lifetime of co-parenting with him made me sick to my stomach. But we had done the deed. And this was not about me but my kid. She deserved her biological history.

“Damn it.” Closing my eyes I pressed Send, watched as the bar on the send log filled, and listened to the whooshing e-mail sound as it was whisked away into cyberspace. No going back now.

I smoothed my hand over my belly and imagined Gordon wrapping his arms around me. My heart ached as I thought about losing him. “No matter what, you have me, kid. I'm not pulling a Terry. I'm not. We are in this together.”

I scanned the rest of my e-mails and almost missed the last, which was from a Teresa Miller. Teresa. Terry.

Daisy,

I apologize for the delay but work and the kids have kept me very busy.

The kids. The ones she'd kept and loved. Tension built in my chest and for a moment I had to turn away. I reminded myself she hadn't injected a hidden meaning behind the comment. There was no veiled truth. She was stating the facts of her life.

My pregnancies have all been easy. I was never sick except with my second son and the morning sickness didn't arrive until about the fourth month. It lasted about six weeks and then it was gone. My deliveries were all textbook, and my recovery was quick. You look so much like me I can't help but think you will have the same luck with your pregnancy as I had with mine.

I know you want more information about your birth father, and I wish I could give it to you. But the truth is I was sixteen when I got pregnant with you and I made a lot of bad choices during that time, including excessive drinking.

I'm not proud to admit this but I don't know your birth father's name. I wish I could give you answers, but I can't.

You've a tough road ahead of you, Daisy, but you are a tough gal. You've been a fighter since day one. Here's hoping your baby is a better napper than you were. I've found more pictures that I thought you might like, and I've sent them to you Priority Mail. Knowing your curious nature I know they will be of interest to you. I wish you the best.

Terry

I sat back in my chair feeling as if the wind had been knocked from my lungs. Tears stung, pooled, and trickled like an endlessly leaky water faucet. I didn't bother to stop them.

I wish you the best.

She was sorry for failing me but there was no mention of a future or a relationship with her grandchild or me. The kid and I were part of her past.

* * *

By late afternoon, Jean Paul had finished the drywall and spackling of my new albeit tiny office. As I stood in the rectangular room that measured ten by five, I knew I'd have to be efficient with furnishings. No sprawling or tossing stuff in piles on the floor.

The space did not have a window, but it did have a door and if I pushed my desk against the far wall, I could glance over my shoulder and see the winery and the brick oven with ease. I could also hear what was happening in the kitchen. For some reason the sound traveled right through the ceiling of my office. That was going to be good and bad.

Despite the office's shortcomings, it was done, and after I applied a coat of paint, construction could be classified as officially over.

I'd considered several colors, but in the end chose the yellow paint left over from the front of the shop. It was enough to cover my walls in two coats and best of all it was already paid for. Watching the money going out in the last week and a half had been stressful, and I was looking forward to seeing it come back into the bakery.

And so I finished the paint job and tossed out the empty paint can and paint brushes in the Dumpster. I headed up to the front of the store to hang what had been on the walls before. In the end I settled on rehanging the cupcake clock. I didn't want to rehang the posters Mike had liked, and decided to dig through the old bakery pictures and put together a collage. Another project, one I didn't need, but it made sense to celebrate the bakery's history.

I pushed through the saloon doors so I could offer my help to Rachel.

My sister stood over the large mixer and was dropping in chunks of butter while Meg watched. Meg had tied back her brown hair and wore a frown on her face as she listened to Rachel's explanations about mixing. The girl wanted to learn and as far as I was concerned that was more than half the battle.

“Did Margaret go back to her dig?” I said.

Rachel unwrapped another pound of butter and dropped it into the mixer. “No, she had an errand to run.”

Annoyance snapped. “She says she's here to work and now she's running an errand?”

Rachel shrugged. “She took the girls with her, which gives me time. That makes her a goddess in my mind.”

“Margaret and the girls. What could those three be up to?”

“My guess is it has to do with chocolate ice cream. I'm fully expecting the girls to come back covered in dirt and hyped on sugar, but at this point, I don't care as long as it it buys me an extra hour to get this dough mixed so Tim can scoop it and we can have cookies baked for Simon's party tonight.”

She met my gaze, her cheeks flushed. A lock of her hair stuck up and her mascara looked a bit smudged as if she'd been rubbing her eyes.

“Take a deep breath, Rachel,” I said.

“A deep breath?”

“We will get it all done.”

Rachel shook her head and then glanced at Meg. “Have you heard curse words before?”

Meg giggled. “Yes.”

“Well, you still might want to cover your ears because I'm about to say one.”

Meg unwrapped the next pound square of butter. “My mom says bad words. A lot. She said she used to be a nice person before she had kids.”

Rachel nodded. “And it's not that she doesn't love you. It's not that I don't love my girls. But I'm about to lose my, well, you-know-what mind.”

Meg giggled.

I saw the signs of my sister's impending breakdown. “Rachel, what can I do?” I said. “Put me to work.”

She turned on the mixer and the large paddles creamed the butter. “Meg, when it's creamy, then drop in another chunk of butter. One at a time.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

Rachel wiped her hands on her apron and motioned me toward a rack filled with trays of cookies. “These need to be iced and these need to be dunked in the chocolate. And they all need to be set back on the tray to dry.”