Chapter Two
I pulled two bottles of prosecco from the wine fridge, then raised them into the air. “Ready.”
Alicia led the way through my formal dining room and living room to the sunroom overlooking the patio, gardens, and pool, where a half dozen women I’d met at various community events and classes sat chatting.
Floor-to-ceiling windows provided abundant natural light, and the unobstructed views created a nice outdoor-living feel—without the heat and bugs.
I’d broadened my social circle a few years ago when I recognized that all my friends, Alicia aside, were handpicked by Robert.
Wives of other partners at his firm, wives of his golf buddies, women from our country club.
All people he’d met and vetted before introducing them to me.
I decided he could keep them in the divorce. I wanted people of my own.
The book club ladies ranged in age from thirty-four, twelve years my junior, to somewhere over sixty. We lived very different lives in various parts of town, but we were united in two perfect ways: our love of books and our womanhood.
Sylvia was the first to notice me enter.
She owned a small art gallery on the East Side and made more money in a day than I had in my lifetime.
“There you are,” she said, crossing long thin legs beneath her on the wide settee.
“Everything looks incredible as always. I don’t know how you find time to do all this.
We were just discussing whether or not you really make these pastries on your own.
If you have a baker, I need that name before my next gala. ”
“Thank you,” I said, setting the wine on the table beside an elaborate charcuterie spread and several long-stemmed glasses.
“It’s all me. I took a few classes at the country club.
They bring in first-class instructors, and the workshops are fabulous.
Plus, I practice more than I should.” I patted my stomach. “If you can’t tell.”
“We cannot,” Sylvia said. “I bet Robert is counting his blessings for marrying you. You must be a hit at his office. Do you pop in with these to show off? I know I would if I made magic like this in the kitchen.”
I struggled to keep my smile bright. I delivered sweets to the law firm weekly per Robert’s request, but he pretended he had no idea every time I showed my face there.
Sometimes he didn’t make time to see me, though he told me exactly when to arrive and what to bring.
He always had critique and commentary at the ready when he came home on those days.
The pastry shells were too thick, tough, or underbaked.
The recipe a little uninspired. Could have used more or less of this ingredient or that.
Robert demanded perfection in all things, but he raised the bar continuously so that I’d never hit the goal.
“I have plenty of time on my hands these days,” I said. “Now that the nest is empty.”
“Uh.” Jeannie, the youngest of our members, scanned the space around us pointedly. “Sure, but it’s one gigantic fucking nest.”
I laughed and settled on the couch beside Alicia and Jeannie.
“It’s definitely more than the two of us need.
” Everyone loved our elaborate showcase of a home.
Only Alicia and I knew the place was void of love and laughter beyond these meetings, or that every good and decent memory I made here was darkened by Robert’s shadow.
“But it feels so much cozier when you come over. Thank you for being here.”
A soft round of awws went through the little group. Then I picked up my copy of this month’s book from the coffee table, thankful for a change in subject.
“Hey.” Jeannie snapped her fingers. “That reminds me! I’ve been meaning to ask if you know about this secret baker that’s helping parents get the hoity overachieving PTA moms off their backs at school functions and fundraisers.”
Sylvia groaned. “I do not miss all that drama. It’s not a competition, for heaven’s sake.”
“Everything is a competition in elementary school,” Jeannie said. “Especially for the parents.”
Alicia slid mischievous eyes in my direction before turning them to Jeannie. “No, but please give her my number. My three boys play five sports. All I do is show up to fundraisers and bake sales. The other moms can be so cruel to those of us who only have time to pick up something on the way.”
I bit back the urge to tell them a related horror story, one that infuriated me still today.
Years ago, I’d ridden with Alicia to drop off her oldest son for football practice, on our way to visit her middle son in the hospital, following an appendectomy.
She’d cried at the sight of the cupcakes I’d baked for the nurses, because she’d forgotten to buy a dessert for her son’s practice and we were already running late.
I’d offered to run into the nearest grocer for her so she could wait with her youngest son in the car, but she told me the other moms would judge her either way.
For forgetting. Or for buying, not baking.
So she’d go empty-handed and at least gain a few extra minutes at the hospital before visiting hours ended.
As a stay-at-home mom of one child, I’d had no idea this kind of cruelty existed, or worse, that it was commonplace.
Until then, Alicia had never said a word.
I gave her the cupcakes I’d made for the nurses, and after that I’d baked for every event her busy family attended since then.
Years passed before I first traded my baked goods for cash, but the Invisible Baker was born that night in Alicia’s old minivan.
“No one will admit they’ve used her, only that they’ve heard the rumors,” Jeannie said.
“I hoped one of you had a hookup. I started buying from bakeries in neighboring towns, then transferring the goods into containers from home to pretend I made them. Nobody has time to make homemade treats anymore. We work, care for the home, carry the mental load, manage the kids, struggle through their homework, chauffeur them all over town for extracurriculars. It’s impossible.
But if you have the audacity to buy snacks instead of making them yourself, then half the other moms act like you’ve broken some code of conduct.
It makes no sense, and besides that, putting anything I baked on the fundraising table would cause the health department to shut us down. ”
I laughed, a little too loudly, and Jeannie leaned forward to glare at me playfully.
“Oh, hush over there. Not everyone can bake like you.”
I cleared my throat. “I thank the country club for all their lessons and my adult child for my free time to take those lessons. Sorry. Let us know if you have any luck finding out who this mystery baker is,” I said.
“Meanwhile, we should probably get started. What did everyone think of Butterfly Mom?”
Alicia lifted a small slice of Brie to her lips. “I enjoy living vicariously through youthful heroines, so this one was a heavy read for me.”
“I don’t know,” Jeannie said. “I’ve been a youthful heroine. It’s exhausting. I liked the meat offered here.”
Butterfly Mom was about a single mom from the 1980s trying to juggle everything women do today with the added weight of living in a society hostile to her.
Women in corporate America were treated as interlopers, secretaries, or coffee fetchers.
Single motherhood was taboo, and being divorced was often the kiss of death in social communities, but the main character of this book persevered.
“I admired her tenacity,” I said. “It took incredible strength of character not to burn everything down.”
Judy and Katie nodded from matching velvet armchairs.
I wasn’t sure whom they were agreeing with.
“Did we all like Maisy Marple?” I asked. I found the main character relatable in the extreme. I’d set the book aside often as I read, needing time to absorb and process her heartbreaking trials and difficult decisions. I admired her strength, and in the end, she got the life she’d always wanted.
Sylvia shifted in her seat while the others passed an open bottle of wine around, filling glasses. “In my opinion, she wasn’t very heroic or inspiring, and she waited too long to speak up and make a change for herself,” she said, mile-long lashes flicking with her gaze.
“But she was so realistic,” I said. No high-fantasy plots or fairy-tale romances in this read. Just one woman’s plight to protect and raise her family. “I found her incredibly relatable. Just doing her best to make lemonade out of lemons.”
“Really?” Madeline’s sculpted brows pinched together. “I thought she lived in willful denial. She lied to everyone about how she was really doing. Her friends, her family—”
“Herself,” Jeannie added.
I peered at Jeannie. “I didn’t see her that way.”
She shrugged. “It was frustrating, watching her toil unnecessarily, waiting for the stars to align before she chose happiness.”
“You can’t just choose happiness,” I protested. “As a state of mind, maybe,” I allowed, “but that wouldn’t have changed her circumstances.”
Murmurs settled in the corners of my sunroom, and a feeling of panic rushed into the following silence. I hated conflict, but I didn’t understand how Sylvia and I had read the same story and taken away such different interpretations.
Sylvia pursed her lips and leaned in my direction, sharp gaze fixed on me. “Sophie,” she said carefully. “She had to change her circumstances.”
Alicia pressed her shoulder gently to mine in an invisible show of support while I wrestled with Sylvia’s words. She’d spoken with such easy accusation, exactly like someone who’d never had to upend her entire world for personal reasons.
After the guests left, Alicia stayed to help me clean up. She packed leftover snacks into plastic containers and loaded glasses into the dishwasher.