I roll my eyes. We’ve had this discussion ten thousand times. She’s not technically working for a paycheck; this is our family business, and I expect her to help out, just like I helped my mom when I was a kid, just like my mom helped my grandmother. “I’m not explaining this to you again, Annie,” I say tightly. “Would you rather mow the lawn and do all the chores around the house?”
She stalks out, presumably heading for the bathroom on the other side of the double doors. “I hate you!” she yells back at me as she disappears.
The words hit me like a dagger to the heart, even though I remember screaming them at my own mother when I was Annie’s age.
“Yeah,” I mutter, picking up the bowl of batter and the wooden spoon she left on the counter. “What else is new?”
By seven thirty, when Annie is about to leave to walk the four blocks to Sea Breeze Junior High, all of the pastries are out and the shop is full of regulars. In the oven is a fresh batch of our Rose’s Strudel, filled with apples, almonds, raisins, candied orange peel, and cinnamon, and the scent is wafting comfortingly through the bakery. Kay Sullivan and Barbara Koontz, the two eightysomething widows who live across the street, are gazing out the window, deep in conversation, while they sip coffee at the table closest to the door. Gavin Keyes, whom I’d hired to help me make my mother’s house livable again over the summer, is at the table beside them, sipping coffee, eating an éclair and reading a copy of the Cape Cod Times. Derek Walls, a widowed dad who lives on the beach, is here with his twin four-year-olds, Jay and Merri, each of whom is licking the icing off a vanilla cupcake, even though it’s only breakfast time. And Emma Thomas, the fiftysomething hospice nurse who’d tended to my mom while she was dying, is standing at the counter, trying to choose a pastry to have with her tea.
I’m just about to pack up a to-go blueberry muffin for Emma when Annie strides past me, her coat on and her backpack slung over one shoulder. I reach out and grab her arm before she can get by.
“Let me see your face,” I say.
“No,” she mumbles, looking down.
“Annie!”
“Whatever,” she mutters. She looks up, and I see that she’s put on a fresh coat of mascara and reapplied the hideous lipstick. She also appears to have added a layer of fuchsia blush that comes nowhere near the apples of her cheeks.
“Wipe it off, Annie,” I say. “Now. And leave the makeup here.”
“You can’t take it from me,” she retorts. “I bought it with my own money.”
I glance around and realize that the shop has fallen silent, except for Jay and Merri chattering in the corner. Gavin’s looking at me with concern, and the old ladies near the door are just staring. I feel suddenly embarrassed. I know I already seem like the town failure for letting my marriage to Rob end; everyone thinks he’s perfect and I was lucky to marry him in the first place. Now I appear to be a failure at parenting too.
“Annie,” I say through gritted teeth. “Do it now. And this time, you are grounded, for disobeying me.”
“I’m staying with Dad for the next few days,” she shoots back, smirking at me. “You can’t ground me. Remember? You don’t live there anymore.”
I swallow hard. I won’t let her know that her words have hurt me. “Fantastic,” I say brightly. “You’re grounded from the moment you step into my house.”
She curses under her breath, glances around, and seems to realize that everyone’s looking at her. “Whatever,” she mutters as she heads for the bathroom.
I exhale and turn back to Emma. “I’m sorry,” I say. I realize my hands are shaking as I reach for her pastry again.
“Honey, I raised three girls,” she says. “Don’t worry. It gets better.”
She pays and leaves, then I watch as Mrs. Koontz and Mrs. Sullivan, who have been coming here since the bakery opened sixty years ago, get up and hobble out the door, each of them using a cane. Derek and the twins are getting ready to go too, so I come out from behind the counter to pick up their plates. I help button Merri’s jacket, while Derek zips Jay’s. Merri thanks me for the cupcake, and I wave as they leave.
Annie emerges from the bathroom a minute later, her face blissfully makeup free. She slams a mascara tube, a lipstick, and a pot of blush down on one of the tables and glowers at me. “There. Happy?” she asks.
“Overjoyed,” I say dryly.
She stands there for a moment, looking like she wants to say something. I’m steeling myself for some sort of sarcastic insult, so I’m surprised when all she says is, “Who’s Leona, anyway?”