Chapter 9 #3
Her heart was pounding so hard now that she felt dizzy, and she wasn’t quite sure why. But she decided that she would try it, regardless of how fast her heart was beating.
So she did it again, and this time, produced sparks on her own.
She turned to look at him and smiled. He was not looking at her. He had his hands on his hips, and he was looking away, muttering something.
“Zane? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Start your goddamn fire.”
When his eyes clashed with hers, there was something in them, a kind of fury that felt hot, and it scalded her down to her toes. But she was the one who was trying to start a fire, not him, so she couldn’t count on any sparks and his eyes to get things going.
She knelt down in front of the fire and began to strike the rod again. This time, she was producing sparks effortlessly.
Right into her tinder.
Pretty soon, she had it smoldering, and a few moments later, she had an actual flame.
“I did it!”
“You did,” he said.
But she felt like he wasn’t really watching.
“Now you have to tell me a book.”
“What?”
“You promised. You promised me a book title if I started the fire, and I started the fire. So now you have to tell me.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he said. “Artemis Fowl.”
“Which book is that?”
“It’s about a twelve-year-old who’s also a millionaire, and a criminal mastermind.”
“Okay, I can see why… How old were you?”
“I don’t know. Eleven?”
“Yeah, I can see that being very appealing to a boy that age. Did you read a lot?”
“A fair amount. But I did a lot of running around, too.”
“Oh yeah? Where?”
He looked away from her for a moment. “I grew up in Texas.”
When he said it, she heard the drawl, though it wasn’t very heavy. But then, it kind of clicked.
“Oh. Wow. In the country?”
“Yeah. Old ranch house.”
“So you read a lot when you weren’t running around with…”
“My brother.”
“Oh. Younger or older?”
“Younger,” he said. “Anyway. Glad you got your fire started. Looks competent.”
“Thank you. Wow. Competent. That’s a big compliment coming from you. Except, I actually think it is.”
“There is no better compliment coming from me. Though you’re more than competent at baking, I’ll give you that.”
If he were a normal person, or if this were actually what she wanted it to be, a moment where they were getting to know each other, capitalizing on the literal sparks that had just flown between them, he might ask how she got started baking, but he wasn’t, and this wasn’t, and he didn’t.
Feeling fine about that, she decided to offer up the information on her own.
“When I was little, my mom used to make the very best cinnamon rolls. She made them for every special occasion. For holidays, for birthdays, and baking was one of the skills that she lost first. I don’t know if it was actually the dementia or losing my dad that made her quit initially, but whatever it was, she just stopped.
For a couple of years, I let that be. But then I got into her recipes, and I started doing it.
I started trying to reclaim that feeling, not just for myself, but for everybody.
For Marlowe and Aiden, for my mom. I wanted somebody to do it for her, and so I did it.
Then realized that I’m actually really good at it. ”
“And modest.”
“Why be modest about the thing that I’ve devoted my whole life to? It’s only my livelihood. Why be modest about it when I charge people to eat my baked goods?”
“A very fair question.”
“Yeah. So… I… I got good at it. Then I decided to do some experimenting.”
“When did you come up with the strawberry rolls?”
“I did those for Easter one year when it was just Mom and me. She really loved them. So I started trying to perfect the recipe, get it so that it was perfect. That was when I started having fantasies about opening up my own place.”
“The strawberry rolls are my favorite. But then, fruit candy was always my favorite.”
She smiled. “Me too.”
“My brother and I used to walk down to the minute market and buy the cheapest candy they had. He always got chocolate, but I always got fruit. Skittles and Starburst, things like that.”
The image of him as a little boy walking into a store, getting a big smile on his face when he found his favorite candy, warmed her in a whole different way than how she had been warm a few minutes ago. “Where’s your brother now?”
His whole demeanor shifted. His eyes got distant, his shoulders going stiff. “I don’t know.”
She was almost ready to press him on that, but something about the look on his face made it die in the back of her throat.
Instead, she said nothing.
She just let the silence stretch between them.
“Okay, so I think that pretty well covers your lesson for the day.”
“Oh, I thought we were going to do the compass.”
“We will. But actually, we’ll do that on the camping trip.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.
I’m formulating a plan for that, but I think that it will be good.”
“It will be good. And I am going to go in blind?”
“Yep. Because that’s how survival situations are.”
“Great,” she said.
She left that encounter feeling more confused than she ever had.
But one thing was certain: her fascination was as strong as ever.