The Baker's Daughter

Chapter One

3168 FRANKLIN RIDGE DRIVE

EL PASO, TEXAS

NOVEMBER 5, 2007

Reba had called Elsie’s German Bakery every day for over a week without getting through. Each time, she was greeted by a twangy West Texan voice on the answering machine. She took a swig of orange juice to coat her voice sunny and sweet before the beep.

“Hi, this is Reba Adams from Sun City magazine. I was calling again to reach Elsie Meriwether. I left my number in my last two messages, so if you could ring me back … that’d be great. Thanks.” She hung up and threw the cordless onto the couch. “P.S. Get your head out of the oven, and pick up the damn phone!”

“Why don’t you go over there?” Riki pulled on his coat.

“Guess I don’t have a choice. My deadline is in two weeks,” Reba complained. “I thought this would be an easy, fun one to write. An hour on the phone, send the photographer to take some shots, and I’d be done. It’s just a feel-good profile.” She went to the refrigerator and eyed the caramel cheesecake Riki was saving for tonight. “Christmas-round-the-world with a local slant.”

“Uh-huh.” Riki jingled his car keys. “Well, that shouldn’t be too hard. We got Texas and Mexico—what else matters?” He smirked.

Reba rolled her eyes and wished he’d hurry up and go. The happy anticipation of his departure made her sadly nostalgic. Once upon a time, his presence had incited waves of giddiness, like she’d drunk too many glasses of wine. The smart-aleck remarks had been cute in a cowboy way; his dark looks and Spanish accent made everything feel exotic and aflame, brazen and irresistible.

While doing a story on immigration, she’d followed him around his border patrol station, barely able to keep her pen steady enough to take notes; the vibrations of his voice down her spine carried through to her fingertips like a tuning fork.

The station tour and interview ended where it began, at the entrance. “We’re just everyday guys doing our jobs,” he’d said and opened the door for her exit.

She’d nodded and stood for an uncomfortably long moment, unable to convince her feet to move out of his dark, magnetic stare.

“I may need a little more info—would you be available later?” she’d asked, and he’d promptly dictated his cell phone number.

A few weeks later, she lay naked beside him, wondering who was this woman that possessed her body. Not Reba Adams. Or at least not the Reba Adams from Richmond, Virginia. That girl would never have slept with a man after knowing him such little time. Scandalous! But this girl felt shiny new, and that was exactly what she wanted. So she had curled her body around his and leaned her chin on his tanned chest, knowing full well that she could get up and leave anytime she wanted. The power of that made her light-headed with satisfaction, but she didn’t want to leave, didn’t want him to either. There and then, she prayed for him to stay. He had, and now she felt like a migrant bird tethered to a desert rock.

She jiggled her foot anxiously. Her stomach growled.

“See you later.” Riki kissed the back of her head.

Reba didn’t turn around.

The door opened and shut, and a cool, draft of November air swept round her bare ankles. After his white-and-green US Customs and Border Protection pickup passed the front window, she pulled the shelf and to keep them perfectly symmetrical, she cut slivers from each of the three remaining pieces, then licked along the blade of the butter knife.

Midafternoon, Reba parked out front of Elsie’s German Bakery on Trawood Drive. The shop was smaller than she’d imagined. A carved wooden sign hung over the door: Bäckerei. The smell of yeasty breads and honey glazes hovered in the air despite the blustery wind sweeping round the Franklin Mountains. Reba pulled her jacket collar up under her chin. It was a chilly day for El Paso, a high of 63 degrees.

The bell over the bakery door chimed as a dark-haired woman and her son tottered out. The boy held a pretzel, studded with salt and half chewed.

“But when can we have gingerbread?” he asked.

“After dinner.” She took his free hand.

“What’s for dinner?” The boy bit into the knotted middle.

“Menudo.” She shook her head. “Eat, eat, eat. That’s all you think about.” She pulled the boy past Reba. Sweet cinnamon and allspice clung to them.

Reba marched into the shop, ready to finally get answers. A jazzy, big-band tune played overhead. A man reading the newspaper sat in the corner with a cup of coffee and a slice of stollen. A slim but sturdy woman with silver-blond hair worked deftly behind the display case, sliding a tray of crusty rolls into a basket.

“Jane! You put the sunflowers seeds in when I say to put caraway!” yelled someone from beyond the curtained doorway dividing the café from the kitchen.

“I’m with a customer, Mom,” Jane said. She pushed a graying bang behind her ear.

Reba recognized her Texan twang from the answering machine.

“What can I get you? This is the last batch of brötchen for today. It’s fresh.” She nodded to the basket.

“Thanks, but I—well, I’m Reba Adams.” She paused, but Jane showed no flicker of recognition. “I’ve left a few messages on your machine.”

“A cake order?”

“No. I’m a writer for Sun City magazine. I wanted to interview Elsie Meriwether.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I usually check the messages on Sundays, but I didn’t get around to it this past weekend.” She turned to the kitchen. “Mom, there’s someone here for you.” She tapped her fingers on the register to the beat of the jazz trumpets, then tried again. “Mom!”

A pan clattered. “I am kneading!”

Jane gave an apologetic shrug. “I’ll be right back.” She pushed through the curtains, revealing steel kitchen appliances and a wide oak baker’s table.

Reba examined the golden loaves stacked in baskets on the open shelves: Roggenbrot (Light Rye), Bauernbrot (Farmer’s Bread), Doppelback (Double-baked), Simonsbrot (Whole Grain), Black Forest, Onion Rye, Pretzels, Poppy Seed Rolls, Brötchen (Wheat Rolls). Inside a glass display case were neat rows of labeled sweets: Marzipan Tarts, Amarettis, three different kinds of kuchen (Cake: Hazelnut, Cherry-cheese, and Cinnamon-butter), Almond Honey Bars, Strudel, Stollen, Orange Quittenspeck (Quince Paste), Cream Cheese Danishes, and Lebkuchen (Gingerbread). A paper taped to the register read: “Celebration cakes to order.”

Reba’s stomach growled. She turned away from the case and focused on the willowy leaves of the dill plant by the register. You can’t, you can’t, she reminded herself, then dug in her purse for a roll of fruit-flavored Tums and popped a disk. It tasted like candy and satisfied the same.

Another pan clattered, followed by a stream of choppy German. Jane returned with fresh flour on her apron and forearms. “She’s finishing up some tarts. Cup of coffee while you wait, miss?”

Reba shook her head. “I’m fine. I’ll just take a seat.”

Jane motioned to the café tables, noticed her dusted arms, and brushed the wheat airborne. Reba sat, took out her notepad and tape recorder. She wanted to make sure to get print-worthy quotes now and avoid another trip. Jane wiped the glass case with something lavender scented, then continued to the tables around the bakery.

On the wall beside Reba hung a framed black-and-white photograph. At first glace, she thought it was Jane standing beside an older woman—Elsie, perhaps. But their clothing was all wrong. The young woman wore a long cape over a white dress, her light hair swept up in a chignon. The older woman at her side wore a traditional German dirndl embroidered with what looked to be daisies. She clasped her hands in front and gave a meek glance, while the younger cocked a shoulder to the camera and smiled wide; her eyes bright and slightly indignant to whomever behind the camera.

“My oma and mom—Christmas 1944,” said Jane.

Reba nodded to the photograph. “I can see the family resemblance.”

“That was Garmisch before the war ended. She’s never been one to talk much about her childhood. She married Dad a few years after, as soon as the military nonfraternization laws lifted. He was stationed there eighteen months with the Army Medical Corps.”

“That sounds like a good story,” said Reba. “Two people from totally different worlds meeting like that.”

Jane flicked the cleaning rag in the air. “Isn’t that the way of it?”

“What?”

“Love.” She shrugged. “Just kind of hits you—BAM.” She squirted lavender and wiped the table.

Love was the last thing Reba wanted to talk about, especially with a stranger. “So your dad’s American and your mom’s German?” She scribbled a helix on her pad and hoped Jane would simply answer her questions, not ask any more.

“Yup. Dad was Texan, born and raised.” On mentioning her father, Jane’s eyes brightened. “After the war, he put in to get stationed at Fort Sam Houston and the army gave him Fort Bliss.” She laughed. “But Dad always said anywhere in Texas was better than Louisiana, Florida, or the damned North, for God’s sake.” She shook her head, then looked up. “You ain’t got family in New York or Massachusetts or anything, right? Can’t tell by accent these days. Have to excuse me. I had a bad run-in with a Jersey pizza baker. Left a sour impression.”

“No offense taken,” said Reba.

She had a distant cousin who went to Syracuse University and ended up staying in New York for keeps. Her family couldn’t imagine how anybody could stand the cold winters and conjectured that the bitter temperature imbued itself on the people, too. Reba had only visited the Northeast a handful of times and always in the summer. She was partial to warm regions. The people in them always appeared tanned and smiling—happy.

“I’m from down south. Virginia. Richmond area,” she said.

“What’s a ’Ginia girl doing out here?”

“Lure of the Wild West.” She shrugged. “I came to write for Sun City magazine.”

“Well, shoot. They recruit that far?” Jane flipped her cleaning rag over her shoulder.

“Not exactly. I thought I’d start here and eventually make my way to California—L.A., Santa Barbara, San Francisco.” It was a dream that still made her restless with hope. Reba shifted her weight in the chair. “Two years later, I’m still here.” She cleared her throat. She was doing all the talking when what she needed was for Jane to start.

“I understand, honey.” Jane took a seat at the café table and set her lavender cleaner on the ground. “This is a border town, for sure, a transient, crossover place, but some never get to crossing. Stuck in between where they were and where they were headed. And after a few years go by, nobody can recall their original destination anyhow. So here they stay.”

“That’s quotable.” Reba tapped her pen. “But you’ve lived here awhile, correct?”

“All my life. Born at Beaumont Hospital on Fort Bliss.”

“So where are you headed if you’re already home?”

Jane smiled. “Just ’cause you’re born in a place don’t make it home. Sometimes I watch the trains go by and wish I could jump on. Watch the planes scratch the blue and wish I was inside. Mom’s always called me a daydreamer, a stargazer, a rambler—whatever I am, I wished to God I wasn’t. Dreaming doesn’t do me a bit of good.”