Chapter 5
Summer wrote down the apple-cake recipe while Jonah cleared the table. Kylie put the paper into her bag and accepted a piece to take home, looking suddenly exhausted now that she had stopped trying to keep the evening bright.
“Come in after ten,” Summer told her at the door. She held out the wrapped cake. “Before that I can’t promise much conversation.”
“I will.” Kylie kissed Jonah’s cheek, then smiled at Summer and gave her a hug. “Thank you for tonight. I needed it.”
They watched her car pull away before Jonah shut the door. Summer slipped her feet out of her shoes, listening to him put the lock on behind her.
“Well,” he said, smiling at her. “I think that went all right.” He reached past her for the scarf caught in the door and hung it back on its hook.
“It did,” Summer said, and went to gather the dessert plates. Hers still had half the cake on it; she slipped it beneath the others before Jonah came in.
Jonah followed her and took the stack. “You two hardly needed me in the middle there,” he said. “I was beginning to think I should go and look at the bathroom painting.”
Summer stayed at the counter. Jonah began rinsing the plates.
“I wanted Saturday with you,” she said. “I’ve asked Macy to cover. I thought we’d sort the kitchen out and go somewhere afterward.”
He put the plates down. “You hadn’t said anything about going out.”
“I’ve asked Macy for the whole day,” Summer said. “I thought I told you.” She’d meant to, beside the kettle before he began looking for a clean shirt.
He took the roasting pan to the sink. “I can tell her I’ll need to be back by twelve.”
Summer watched water fill the pan. She could hear herself agreeing, then spending Saturday calling him while he stood in somebody else’s hallway promising to leave in a minute.
“Could you just say you can’t do the portraits?” she asked. “They’ve been in an attic for years. I don’t see why they have to come down on the one day I’ve taken off.”
He turned the tap off. “They haven’t arranged it to spoil your Saturday.”
“I didn’t say they had.” She didn’t like the neediness in her voice. She took a deep breath. “You asked what I wanted. That’s what I want.”
He stood holding the wet pan until water dripped onto his shoe. Summer waited while he found a towel. “All right,” he said. “I’ll ask Dad. He can tell Mom himself if he’s too busy.”
“Thank you,” Summer said, and took the pan. “Leave this. It’ll need soaking anyway.”
Jonah made the call in the kitchen. His mother asked two questions about the delivery, then said she’d speak to his father; Summer could hear her through the phone.
The whole thing took less than a minute.
She went to put the chicken away and found the extra bread he had bought balanced on the lettuce.
“Somewhere nice for lunch,” she said. She shut the refrigerator. “I want to sit down and have somebody bring me things for once.”
Jonah dried his hands. “Find somewhere,” he said. “I’ll book it.”
He kissed her on his way out of the kitchen. She let the pan soak until bedtime, when she found him scrubbing it with the radio on.
By half past eight on Wednesday morning, Summer had made two batches of pastry, burned one wrist, and been asked whether the ravens came in a smaller size.
She told the customer they did not come in any size, because they were not for sale, and went back to the kitchen carrying an order form Macy had left beside the register.
Someone wanted a cake for Saturday afternoon.
It was a good order, the sort she would have welcomed in February: enough people to require two tiers, with a house on top and little illuminated windows.
“I said you’d call,” Macy told her. She was weighing flour, her sleeves pushed up above her elbows. “I didn’t say yes. She wanted to know whether we could put her actual house on it.”
Summer studied the photograph clipped to the form.
The customer had printed it, which meant she had already spent time imagining the result.
There was a steep roof and a porch with three steps, a row of pumpkins beside a door that would have to be made separately and allowed to dry.
Summer could see how to do the windows with pieces of amber sugar.
She could also see herself here on Friday evening while Jonah ate alone, then back again on Saturday to finish the assembly because it would be safer than trusting it overnight.
“I can cover the shop,” Macy said. “I can’t finish that house as well.” She tapped the porch in the photograph with a floury finger, leaving a mark Summer wiped off before she could stop herself.
Summer took the form away from the mixer and called the customer. Traffic sounded behind the woman’s pleased greeting; Summer had to swallow an apology before she could begin.
“I’ve looked at your photograph,” she said. “I can’t do the house for Saturday. I could make you a single-tier cake with the same colors and the pumpkins, if that would work for you.” The woman went quiet. Summer waited, looking at the porch in the photograph.
The woman asked a few questions, then said she had rather set her heart on the house.
Summer suggested allowing more time for something similar in future, and the woman thanked her politely enough to make clear there would be no order today.
After the call, Summer kept the phone in her hand while two customers chose cookies on the other side of the glass.
She had expected saying no to feel better than this.
Mostly it felt like watching money walk down the street.
Macy came out with a tray and asked whether to keep the form. Summer told her to file it with inquiries, then put the photograph underneath so she would stop looking at the porch.
Her phone lit up beside the register a few minutes later. Jonah had called the furniture shop; they could promise Saturday morning, though not an exact hour. Under that he had written, Dad’s doing the pictures. Did you find somewhere for lunch?
Summer sent him the restaurant’s name and wrote, One o’clock, if they have a table? She put the phone down. Macy had brought another tray out, and Summer took one end to help settle it in the case before returning to the register.