The Sweetness of Forgetting Page 8

  “I love you, kiddo,” I murmur into her hair.

  “I love you too, Mom,” Annie says after a minute, her voice muffled against my chest. “Now could you let me go before you, like, smother me?”

  Embarrassed, I release her. “I’m not sure what to do about Mamie,” I say as she reaches for her duffel bag and swings it over her shoulder. “Maybe she’s talking nonsense.”

  Annie freezes. “What are you talking about?”

  I shrug. “Her memory’s gone, Annie. It’s awful, but that’s what Alzheimer’s is.”

  “It wasn’t gone today,” she says, and I can see the inner corners of her eyebrows beginning to point sharply downward as she furrows her brow. Her tone is suddenly icy.

  “No, but talking about these people we’ve never heard of . . . You have to admit it doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Mom,” Annie says flatly. Her eyes burn a hole in me. “You are going to Paris, right?”

  I laugh. “Sure. Then I’ll go shopping in Milan. And skiing in the Swiss Alps. Then maybe I’ll take a gondola around Venice.”

  Annie narrows her eyes. “You have to go to Paris.”

  I realize she’s serious. “Honey,” I say gently, “that’s just not practical. I’m the only one here to run the bakery.”

  “So close it for a few days. Or I’ll help out after school.”

  “Sweetheart, that’s not going to work.” I think about how close I am to losing everything.

  “But Mom!”

  “Annie, who’s to say that Mamie will even remember the conversation later?”

  “That’s why you have to go!” Annie says. “Didn’t you see how important it was to her? She wants you to find out what happened to those people! You can’t just let her down!”

  I sigh. I’d thought that Annie understood this better, that she realized how often her great-grandmother speaks nonsense. “Annie—” I begin.

  But she cuts me off. “What if this is her last chance? What if this is our last chance to help her?”

  I shrug. I don’t know what to say. I can’t possibly explain to her that we’re teetering on the edge.

  When I’m silent for a moment, Annie seems to make up her mind without me. “I hate you,” she hisses. Then she turns on her heels and stalks out of the kitchen, her duffel bag bobbing behind her. A few seconds later, I hear the front door slam. I take a deep breath and follow her outside, steeling myself for a silent drive to her father’s.

  The next morning, after a mostly sleepless night, I’m at the bakery alone, sliding a tray of giant sugar cookies into the oven, when there’s a rattling knock on the glass-paned front door. I put the oven mitts on the counter, set the timer on the oven, dust off my hands on my apron, and check my watch: 5:35 a.m. Twenty-five minutes before I open.

  As I cross from the kitchen to the sales floor, through the swinging, slatted door, I see Matt, his hand shading his eyes as he presses his face against the glass and peers in. He sees me and backs up quickly, then waves casually as if he hasn’t just left his nose print on my window.

  “Matt, we’re not open yet,” I say after I’ve turned the three locks and cracked open the front door. “I mean, you’re welcome to come in and wait, but the coffee’s not on yet, and—”

  “No, no, I’m not here for coffee,” Matt says. He pauses and adds, “But if you get some going, I’ll take a cup.”

  “Oh,” I say, checking my watch again. “Yeah, okay.” It shouldn’t take more than two minutes to grind the beans, scoop them into the coffeemaker, and push the Brew button. I hurry to do that, mentally ticking off all the other things I need to do before we open, as Matt follows me inside and pulls the door closed behind him.

  “Hope, I came over to ask what you’re going to do,” Matt says while the coffeemaker gurgles and spits its first sizzling drops into the pot.

  For an instant, I wonder how he knows about what Mamie said, but then I realize he’s talking about the bakery and the fact that the bank is apparently ready to begin proceedings to take it away from me. My heart sinks.

  “I don’t know, Matt,” I say stiffly without turning around. I pretend I’m busy with the coffee preparation. “I haven’t had a chance to work through things yet.”

  In other words, I’m in denial. That’s my general approach when things are going wrong; I simply bury my head in the sand and wait for the storm to pass. Sometimes it does. Most of the time, I only wind up with sand in my eyes.

  “Hope—” Matt begins.

  I sigh and shake my head. “Look, Matt, if you’ve come here to try to persuade me to sell to these investors of yours, I’ve already told you that I don’t know what to do yet, and I’m not ready to—”

  He cuts me off. “You’re running out of time,” he says firmly. “We need to talk about this.”

  Finally, I turn. He’s standing at the counter, leaning forward. “Okay,” I say. My chest feels tight.

  He pauses and picks an invisible speck from his lapel. He clears his throat. The smell of coffee is wafting through the air now, and because he’s making me nervous, I turn and busy myself with pouring him a cup before the maker has finished. I stir in his cream and sugar, and he takes the cup from me with a nod.

  “I want to try to persuade the investors to make you a partner,” he finally blurts out. “If they’ll take the bakery on, which we still don’t know. They need to come in, view your operations, and run your numbers. But I’m talking you up.”

  “A partner?” I ask. I decide not to mention how much it hurts to have it presented to me like a gift that I could have a share in my own family’s business. “Does that mean I’d have to come up with the money to cover a percentage of the purchase from the bank?”

  “Yes and no,” he says.

  “Because I don’t have it, Matt.”

  “I know.”

  I stare and wait for him to go on.

  He clears his throat. “What if you borrowed some money from me?”

  My eyes widen. “What?”

  “It would be more of a business arrangement, Hope,” he says quickly. “I mean, I have the credit. So what if we went into this, say, seventy-five twenty-five. Seventy-five percent ownership for you. Twenty-five for me. And you just pay me what you can every month. We could keep a piece of the bakery in your family . . .”

  “I can’t,” I say, before I’ve even had a chance to consider it. The invisible strings attached would strangle me. And as much as I hate the idea of strangers owning the majority of my bakery, it’s even worse to think of Matt having an ownership interest in it too. “Matt, it’s such a nice offer, but I can’t possibly—”

  “Hope, I’m just asking you to consider it.” He’s speaking quickly. “It’s not a big deal. I have the money. I’ve been looking for something to invest in, and this place is an institution in this town. I know you’ll turn things around soon, and . . .”

  His voice trails off, and he looks at me hopefully.

  “Matt, that means a lot to me,” I say softly. “But I know what you’re doing.”

  “What?” he asks.

  “Charity,” I say. I take a deep breath. “You feel sorry for me. And I appreciate that, Matt, I really do. It’s just—I don’t need your pity.”

  “But—” he begins, but I cut him off again.

  “Look, I’m going to sink or swim on my own, okay?” I pause and swallow hard, trying to believe I’m doing the right thing. “And maybe I’ll sink. Maybe I’ll lose everything. Maybe the investors will decide this place isn’t worth it anyhow.” I take a deep breath. “But if that happens, maybe that’s what’s meant to be.”

  His face falls. He taps his fingers on the counter a few times. “You know, Hope, you’re different,” he says finally.

  “Different?”

  “Than you used to be,” he says. “Back in high school, you wouldn’t let anything get you down. You always bounced back. That was one of my favorite things about you.”

  I don’t say anything. There’s
a lump in my throat.

  “But now, you’re ready to give up,” he adds after a moment. He doesn’t meet my eye. “I just . . . I thought you would feel differently. It’s like you’re just letting life happen to you.”

  I press my lips together. I know I shouldn’t care what Matt thinks, but the words still wound me, largely because I know he’s not trying to be cruel. He’s right; I am different than I used to be.

  He regards me for a long moment and nods. “I think your mother would be disappointed.”

  The words hurt, because they’re meant to. But at the same time, they help, because he’s dead wrong. My mother never cared about the bakery the way my grandmother did; she looked at it as a burden. She probably would have been happy to see it fail while she was still around, so that she could have washed her hands of it.

  “Maybe, Matt,” I say.

  He pulls out his wallet and takes out two dollar bills. He puts them on the counter.

  I sigh. “Don’t be silly. The coffee’s on the house.”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t need your charity, Hope,” he says. He half smiles at me. “Have a good one,” he adds. He grabs his coffee and strides quickly out the front door. As I watch the darkness wrap itself around his disappearing silhouette, I shiver.

  Annie comes and goes that morning, and once again, she’s barely speaking to me, other than to ask tightly whether I’ve had a chance to look into booking flights to Paris. By eleven in the morning, the bakery is empty, and I’m staring out the front panes at the changing leaves of Main Street. There’s a breeze today, and every once in a while, oak leaves in fiery red or maple leaves in burnt orange waft by, reminding me of graceful birds.

  At eleven thirty, with no customers, nothing left to do, and a batch of Star Pies in the oven, I log on to the old laptop that I keep behind the register—I “borrow” WiFi from Jessica Gregory’s gift shop next door—and I slowly type in www.google.com. Once there, I pause. What am I looking for? I chew my lip for a moment and enter the first name on Mamie’s list. Albert Picard.

  A second later, the search results are up. There’s an airport in France named Albert-Picardie, but I don’t think that has anything to do with Mamie’s list. I read the Wikipedia entry, nonetheless, but it’s clear that this is something else altogether; it’s a regional airport that serves a community called Albert in the Picardie region of northern France. Dead end.

  I click back and scan the other search results. There’s a Frank Albert Picard, but he’s an American attorney who was born and raised in Michigan and died in the early 1960s. That can’t be the person she’s looking for; he has no ties to Paris. A few other Albert Picards come up when I add the word Paris to my search string, but nothing seems to fit with the time Mamie lived in France.

  I bite my bottom lip and clear the search field. I type in White Pages, Paris, and after a few click-throughs, I wind up on a page titled Pages Blanches, which asks for a nom and a prénom. I know from my limited high school French that this is surname and first name, so I type in Picard and Albert, and under the blank asking Où?, I enter Paris.

  One listing comes up, and my heart skips a beat. Will it really be this easy? I jot down the number, then I erase Albert and fill in the second name on Mamie’s list: Cecile. There are eight matches in Paris, including four people listed as C. Picard. I jot down those numbers too and repeat the search with the rest of the names. Helene, Claude, Alain, David, Danielle.

  I finish with a list of thirty-five numbers. I return to Google to figure out how to call France from the United States and jot down those instructions too; I work out the overseas number for the first Picard and reach for the phone.

  I pause before I pick it up. I have no idea what international calls cost, because I’ve never had to make one before. But I’m sure it’s something just short of a fortune. I think about the check for a thousand dollars Mamie wrote to me and resolve to take the long-distance charges out of that and deposit the rest of the money back into her checking account. It’ll still be a lot cheaper than buying a ticket to Paris.

  I glance at the door. Still no customers. The street outside is empty; there’s a storm brewing, and the sky is darkening, the wind picking up. I glance back at the oven. Thirty-six minutes left on the timer. The smell of cinnamon is wafting through the bakery as I breathe in deeply.

  I dial the first number. There are a few clicks as the call connects, and then a pair of almost buzzerlike pulses. Someone picks up on the other end.

  “Allo?” a woman’s voice says.

  It suddenly occurs to me that I don’t speak more than rudimentary French. “Um, hello,” I say nervously. “I’m looking for the relatives of someone named Albert Picard.”

  There’s silence on the other end.

  I search my memory desperately for the correct French words. “Um, je chercher Albert Picard,” I attempt, knowing that’s not quite right but hoping that it conveys my point.

  “There is no Albert Picard here.” The woman speaks clear English with a heavy French accent.

  My heart sinks. “Oh. I’m sorry. I thought that—”

  “There is no Albert Picard here because he is a useless bastard,” the woman continues calmly. “He cannot keep his hands from touching all the other women. And I am done with it.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry . . .” I say, my voice trailing off because I’m not sure what else to say.

  “You are not one of these women, are you?” she asks, suddenly sounding suspicious.

  “No, no,” I say quickly. “I am looking for someone my grandmother once knew, or maybe was related to. She left Paris in the early 1940s.”

  The woman laughs. “This Albert, he is only thirty-two. And his father is Jean-Marc. So he is not the Albert Picard you search for.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. I glance down at the list. “Do you know a Cecile Picard? Or a Helene Picard? Or a Claude Picard? Or . . .” I pause. “Or a Rose Durand? Or Rose McKenna?”

  “No,” the woman says.

  “Okay,” I say, disappointed. “Thank you for your time. And I hope, um, that you work things out with Albert.”

  The woman snorts. “And I hope he gets run over by a taxi.”

  The line clicks, and I’m left holding the phone in surprise. I shake my head, wait for the dial tone, and try the next number.

  Chapter Eight

  By the time Annie comes in just before four, the Star Pies have cooled, I have tomorrow’s blueberry muffins in the oven, and I’ve called all thirty-five numbers on my list. Twenty-two of them answered. None of them knew the people from Mamie’s list. Two of them had suggested that I try calling the synagogues, which might have records of their members from that time period.

  “Thank you,” I told both of them, puzzled, “but my grandmother is Catholic.”

  Annie barely meets my gaze as she tosses her backpack behind the counter and stalks into the kitchen. I sigh. Great. We’re going to have one of those afternoons.

  “I already cleaned all the bowls and trays!” I call to my daughter as I start pulling cookies from the display case in preparation for closing in a few minutes. “We had a slow day today, so I had some extra time,” I add.

  “So did you book your trip to Paris?” Annie asks, appearing in the doorway to the kitchen with her hands on her hips. “With all this extra time you had?”

  “No, but I—” I begin, but Annie holds up her hand to stop me.

  “No? Okay. That’s all I need to hear,” she says, clearly borrowing phrasing from her father in an attempt to sound like a miniature adult. Just what I need.

  “Annie, you’re not listening,” I say. “I called all the—”

  “Look, Mom, if you’re not going to help Mamie, I don’t know what we have to talk about,” she says sharply.

  I take a deep breath. I’ve been walking on eggshells around her for the last several months, because I’ve been worried about how she’s handling the divorce. But I’m tired of being the bad guy. Especially when I�
��m not. “Annie,” I say firmly. “I’m doing everything I can to keep us afloat here. I understand that you want to help Mamie. I do too. But she has Alzheimer’s, Annie. The request she’s making isn’t logical. Now if you’ll just listen to me, I—”

  “Whatever, Mom,” she cuts me off again. “You don’t care about anyone.”

  She strides back into the kitchen, and I start to follow her, my hands clenched into fists as I struggle to control my temper. “Young lady, don’t you walk away from me in the middle of an argument!”

  Just then, the door chime dings, and I spin around to see Gavin, dressed in faded jeans and a red flannel shirt. He meets my gaze and rakes a hand through his unruly brown curls, which I distractedly realize need to be cut.

  “Um, am I interrupting something?” he asks. He glances at his watch. “Are you still open?”

  I force a smile. “Of course, Gavin,” I say. “Come in. What can I do for you?”

  He looks uncertain as he approaches the counter. “You sure?” he asks. “I can come back tomorrow if—”

  “No,” I cut him off. “I’m sorry. Annie and I were just having a . . . talk.”

  Gavin pauses and smiles at me. “My mom and I used to have lots of talks when I was Annie’s age,” he says in a low voice. “I’m sure my mom always enjoyed them.”

  I laugh, despite myself. Just then, Annie emerges from the kitchen again. “I brought you coffee,” she announces to Gavin before I can say anything. “On the house,” she adds. She shoots a glance at me, as if daring me to challenge her. Little does she know that I haven’t charged him for anything since he completed his work on our cottage.

  “Well, thank you, Annie. That’s generous,” Gavin says, taking the coffee from her. I watch as he closes his eyes and breathes in the aroma. “Boy, this smells great.”