Faye Kellerman: The Garden Of Eden And Other Criminal Delights

The smells were incredible. Hot and yeasty doughs laden with sugar, chocolate, nuts, and cinnamon, glazed with thin white frostings. The aromas, more than the visuals, made my mouth water. We chose our fare straight from the ovens, still hot, resting on parchment paper. At first my dad made all the selections. As I got bolder, I began to make a few suggestions of my own. Sometimes he listened. Sometimes he did not.

One week there was a particular coffee-ring cake that appealed to my eye as well as to my nose. It was a typical cinnamon yeast dough topped with circles of cherries, lemon, blueberries, and apple, the fruit swimming in seas of pectin and sugar. I had to have it. Though not particularly aromatic, it appealed to my eye.

“It will never sell,” Dad said.

“But it’s pretty.”

“People buy with their noses, not with their eyes.”

“People like fruit rings,” I countered. “And if it doesn’t sell, we can take it home.”

I was the youngest in my family and the only daughter. I batted my eyelashes and Dad melted. Arriving at the store before the opening hour, I set out the coffee cakes, the cookies, the rolls, and the breads. I tidied up the plastic and paper bags. Unplugging the cord to the bread slicer, I cleaned it of yesterday’s crumbs and seeds. I plugged in the bread slicer. Then, with my duties done, I waited for the customers to come out of the starting gate.

Our first consumer came in a few minutes after the doors opened at nine. She was a forty-plus woman-Jewish, as many of our customers were-who scrutinized my baked goods. I saw her eyeing my pretty coffee ring. The artificially red cherries, the egg yolk-colored lemon filling, the blueberries, and the apples.

She scrunched up her brow. “I’ll take that one,” she stated.

My father was looking over his shoulder as I scooped the cake under my hand and placed it in a pink bakery box, tying it with bakery string.

“Bingo, skittle ball in the old pocket,” he whispered to me.

I had never heard the expression before. And Dad never used it again. But I never forgot it.

I decided to take on the job full-time during my summer vacation. It was hard work. I was on my feet most of the time, and I worked four- to eight-hour shifts. Halfway through the month of July, I experienced an epiphany. I was not going to do this for the rest of my life, putting up with cranky customers, flaky vendors, the whims of mechanical equipment, and fallen arches. I made a decision to go for an advanced educational degree. Though writing wasn’t in my sights at the time-I never had the audacity to dream I could get published-I was still a person with many options. I could be anything I wanted to be. What I wanted more than anything was to do interesting work while seated.

One morning right after the store opened, I went to the rest-room and realized, after a very startled reaction, that I had begun my menses. Enormously embarrassed, I didn’t know what to do. Sneaking off, I called my mother from a pay phone, and she came to pick me up. No stickum pads back then. We girls were inducted into the clumsy world of belts and napkins. After the problem had been secured, Mom took me back to work.

She must have said something to my dad. He came up to me with a perplexed look on his face.

“Are you okay?” he asked with the concern of those men who stayed clear of female things.

“I’m fine, Dad.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“I think you have a customer.”

“Then I’d better go help her.”

After that moment there were no more references to female things. We were just two people trying to earn an honest buck.