The Last Romantics(87)

“Hi, Noni,” Caroline said. “You look great.” Noni smiled but said nothing in return; she stepped past Caroline and into the house.

“Sorry it’s a little chaotic in here,” Caroline said. “We’re getting ready for Nathan’s party tomorrow.” Stacked lawn chairs crowded the entryway and living room; they’d been delivered that morning, but Caroline hadn’t been ready for them out back.

When Noni gave her a puzzled look, Caroline added, “His promotion? I told you about it last week. We’re having a party to celebrate.”

“Congratulations!” Noni said. “I’m so pleased for Nathan. How nice of him to host his own party.”

Caroline felt her pulse elevate. “We’ve both been working very hard for this,” she said, and then she excused herself from the room.

The kitchen was full of the insistent smell of a cooked quiche. Caroline pulled it from the oven, and her index finger slid past the pot holder and touched the hot metal of the pan. She yelped in shock, dropped the pan onto the stove top with a clatter.

“Are you okay?” her mother called from the dining room. Caroline heard a murmured comment from Danette. “Can we help?” Noni added.

“I’m fine!” Caroline called back. She sucked on her finger, the burned spot raw and tender in her mouth, and she began to cry in a hot, childish way. Why had she let her mother come here today? She should have told her to eat lunch at the airport. She should have ordered food from Pepe’s.

Danette appeared in the doorway. “Caroline, what happened?”

“I’m fine,” Caroline said. “Just a little burn.”

“Oh, dear. What a shame,” said Danette, and she reached to examine the finger. She said nothing about the tears but abruptly enveloped Caroline in another paralyzing hug, this one longer and fuller than the one bestowed at the door. This embrace went on and on, and Caroline breathed in Danette’s scent (gardenia? or was it lily?), felt the tangy, sweaty heat of her, and found it all strangely and deeply comforting. This near suffocation by her mother’s unknown friend was the most comfort she’d accepted in years.

Danette at last released her, and Caroline stepped back. “I’ll be right in with the quiche,” Caroline said, wiping at her eyes.

“No, let me,” said Danette, and she carried the dish into the dining room.

*

They ate lunch. Danette and Noni told Caroline about their plans, the hotels they’d be staying at, the sights they’d see. After clearing the quiche away, Caroline checked on the girls (still sleeping) and made coffee. Another half hour remained until she needed to pick up the table linens. She returned to the dining room with the coffee pot and mugs on a tray.

“Laurie loved, I mean loved, linzer torte,” Danette was saying. “I have to tell you, Antonia, that’s really why I put Vienna on our list. I mean, it is a beautiful city, you will just adore it, but we are going to eat us some serious amounts of linzer torte.”

“Joe’s cake is more cinnamon,” Noni said. “He never really liked sweet sweet, but my God, he could have eaten that cake breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The first time I made it for him, he ate nearly half the thing in one sitting.”

Both Noni and Danette were smiling, talking about their dead children in an easy way that made Caroline uncomfortable. It was like talking about God, like talking about love: you needed to do it with a certain amount of reverence, in hushed tones, or on your knees. Caroline didn’t care for her mother’s breeziness. Plus, Noni was wrong.

“I made that cake the first time,” Caroline said. “Remember? That Christmas, I wanted to make something new?”

Noni tilted, then shook her head. “It was Easter 1984. Joe was ten years old. You were eleven then—I don’t remember you being a baker at that age.”

“I was. I was always a baker—I always made cakes,” Caroline said, feeling irritated and righteous. “I started when I was . . . I must have been seven or eight.” Caroline began to bake during the Pause, following the recipes printed on the backs of yeast packets and sacks of flour. Renee would prepare all the family meals, but she said that dessert was too much work. Memories of scorched cookies and undercooked cakes came back to Caroline, blistered fingers, struggles to reach the oven knob. “Noni, you weren’t there when I first started,” she said. “You wouldn’t remember.”

Noni narrowed her eyes and gazed at Caroline as though she were a distant figure whom Noni was trying in vain to identify. “No, Caroline,” she said finally. “I think you’re remembering wrong. It was Easter. I made the cake.”

There was a beat of silence, and then Danette remarked with great good cheer, “Well, whoever made it, it must have been a doozy of a cake. I need to get down that recipe. Laurie was never much of a baker herself, though she did like to eat the results. That girl had a sweet tooth, just like her mother.” Danette spooned sugar into her coffee, looking to Noni with raised eyebrows. And Noni nodded once, a short downward clip of her chin, and a look of understanding passed between them.

“I need to use the bathroom,” Noni said, and left the room.

“I did make it,” Caroline said weakly to Danette. “I did.”

“It doesn’t matter. You both made it,” Danette replied. “You all made it, really. You all made that cake for Joe.”