“Ben, it’s not what I want for me. But for others it’s perfectly fine. Now, as much as I’d love the play by play of last night I can’t do that. Momma will come out from the kitchen and skin my hide if I chat.”
“Don’t you get a lunch break?” Ben asked.
Jamie, however, laughed at his question. “Seriously, I’d swear you’d never in your life met her momma if I didn’t know better. Marjaline Knox ain’t letting her off for lunch or to pee.”
Jamie was right. Momma would bring me a tuna salad sandwich, or something of that nature at noon. I’d have to eat it sitting right here. There were no other employees to take my place so I couldn’t step outside.
“Well, could you at least go out after work? Get an ice cream or something like that? Jerry said a bunch were swimming at the lake. We could go meet up with them.”
Since momma told me no last night there was a chance she’d let me go. “I’ll ask. I probably can. Y’all come by at four to check. Bring me a suit just in case?” I asked Jamie, more of a telling, because I knew I had a suit at her house.
The door chimed and Jamie took Ben’s arm to move him away from the counter.
“Afternoon kids,” Mrs. Peabody said as she shuffled inside the bakery. Her white hair was neatly fashioned on top of her head. The yellow sunflower-dress her staple. What the lady was known to wear. I’d seen it enough to remember. “Marjaline made any of that blueberry cobbler? Elroy was a fan of that. Thought I might get him some. Not that neither of us needs it.”
“No ma’am, not today. We have apple tarts. But if momma has the ingredients she could probably make you one. You could pick it up later in the day.”
Enthusiastically she nodded her head. “That would be just perfect. Elroy’s been out working the fields and he needs him a tooth-rottin’ sweet treat. I’m making some homemade vanilla ice cream and that cobbler would do the trick.”
“Let me go ask her,” I said. With a smile I glanced at my friends who were waiting quietly at a distance. I wished they’d leave in case momma came out. She didn’t like me visiting with friends, not during my shift anyway. But I couldn’t tell them to leave without sounding rude or haughty. They had placed me in an uncomfortable spot.
I hurried back to the kitchen, which wasn’t really far, just as momma was retrieving several hot loaves of cinnamon raisin bread. I hoped she’d take home a loaf for us. Hazel loved that stuff.
“Momma, Mrs Peabody is here and she’s wanting a blueberry cobbler. Said Mr. Peabody loved the last one and she wanted to get him a sweet treat. Reckon you can make her one? She’ll come back later and get it.”
Momma put the loaves down and waited. She glanced around and then at me. “I got what I need, I think. Them blueberry’s need to be used. Tell her it’ll be ready at three.”
Momma liked making a sell. But more than that she liked people wanting her food. It made her feel special and needed. My momma could bake better than the best, countywide and everyone knew it. I wished she had a place of her own. She ran the bakery like it was. Why wouldn’t her own be successful?
“She’ll be tickled pink,” I said. I then turned to hurry back to the store front hoping momma wouldn’t follow.
“She said she’d have you one by three. Nice and fresh from the oven.”
Mrs. Peabody clapped her hands. Her smile covered her face. “She’s a good one, that Marjaline, the solidest God ever made!”
I agreed. I really did. She was strict but the woman was precious.
Mrs. Peabody nodded to Jamie and Ben then waved to me as she left. “I’ll be back through around three. Thank you sweetie,” she said.
When the door closed behind her Jamie giggled. “Never seen a woman so happy about a cobbler.”
I shrugged and then I informed her: “you ain’t had my momma’s cobbler.”
Chapter Five
Ben pulled his old Ford truck onto the grassy hill by the lake. It had belonged to his grandfather for ten more years than Ben had been on the planet. Momma agreed to let me go as long as I was home by seven thirty to wash the supper dishes. That gave me three hours to swim and hang out with my friends.
The few that had been lucky enough to go off to college were all back for the summer. The rest of us were here working and a couple were actually getting married and starting their life in Moulton. Here, in hell, forever.
Jamie wanted that life. So I tried never to talk about how that was my biggest nightmare. It was her dream and I didn’t want to belittle that. Even if I couldn’t understand it, her dreams were hers to have.
We dropped our towels down on a clear spot and I scanned the crowd to see Marilyn Marcus tangled around Jack Harold. The ring on her hand was small, but the stone still caught the sunlight. She’d been in the bakery just last week announcing her engagement and wanting to talk to momma about making her cake. It had taken all my acting abilities to smile and pretend like what she was saying was wonderful news to me. Deep down all I could remember was that time in eighth grade when we were supposed to write down where we saw ourselves in ten years and only Marilyn and I had written down that we saw ourselves somewhere fabulous and away from Alabama. Now she was marrying a farmer’s son. Not that it was a bad thing. It was just that she wasn’t getting out. She wouldn’t walk the streets of Manhattan, or go to cocktail parties with her dream guy, her millionaire fiancé.
Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t holding on for a rich man to get me out of Moulton. I simply wanted an adventure. Let me see the world. Anything but what Marilyn was facing.
“Can you believe she’s engaged,” Jamie said, coming up beside me. She must have caught me looking their way. “I thought for sure she’d run off. Get out of town. Now that ain’t gonna happen.”
Me too. But I didn’t say that.