Page 23 of The Golden Spoon
Pradyumna looks around the room, taking in the information.
“It’s incredibly lucky you got chosen. You know how hard it is to get ontoBake Week, don’t you? The odds are like one in a million,” Pradyumna says.
“It wasn’t my first time applying.” I feel myself starting to relax. I hadn’t done anything wrong, after all, hadn’t committed a crime or anything. I did get chosen for the show. “Once Betsy startedBake Weekand I read she was filming it here, I realized this was my chance. But it’s taken me ten years to get here.”
“So did you know Betsy Martin?”
“Oh yes. Of course, she was Betsy Grafton then. At the time I would have said we were friends, but that was silly. Sometimes my mother brought me to up to her room to play with her. Richard Grafton even encouraged it from time to time. The Graftons were progressive in that way, letting someone like me mingle with their daughter.But I think that there’s no way her parents would have ever let her truly be friends with me, someone so poor and from a broken home.”
“Weren’t you worried she’d recognize you?”
“Oh, it was a gamble, but I figured once you’ve lived as long as we have, cataloging a lifetime of people in your head is nearly impossible. Besides, I was just a child. I looked much different.”
“But why did you do all this?” Pradyumna sputters. It’s as enthused as I’ve seen him about anything. I take a deep breath.
“My mother, Agnes, disappeared one evening. I was only eleven years old. I waited and waited, but she just never came home. The Graftons said that she’d gone out to meet someone. And that something must have happened to her on the road to town. They even implied she might have run away. But I knew my mother would never leave me. It was just the two of us, after all. I was quickly sent away. A great-aunt who I barely knew collected me the following day. They didn’t even wait to see if she’d return, and they never allowed me back into the house. I was never able to see where my mother spent her last moments, never able to retrace her steps, to figure out what happened. Something happened, and I need to know. It has haunted me all my life.”
Pradyumna takes this in, frowning. “You thought maybe if you came back to Grafton, saw her old room, walked the halls, you could have closure?”
I nod. It feels surprisingly good to share my secret with someone. I feel lighter, almost giddy with relief. “Yes, but I also want information. I need to know what she was doing right before she disappeared.”
He plucks the photograph out of my hand again, studying it closely.
“Well, from the looks of it she was having an affair with Richard Grafton.”
I know that he is right. It’s the only explanation for the photo. “I don’t know how she could have kept it from me.”
“People do ridiculous things when they’re afraid of getting caught,” Pradyumna says. “You don’t remember seeing them together? Or maybe she told you something about him?”
“I wish there was a way for me to go back in time and ask her,” I muse. It is something I’ve wished for decades. I have so many questions.
“There has got to be a way to find out more about why she left. Maybe his wife found out and she was fired?”
“But she would have brought me with her,” I insist, knowing I’m right. There’s no way my lovely mother would just walk out on me as the Graftons implied.
“Maybe there was some reason she couldn’t mix you up in all of it,” Pradyumna says. I know he is trying not to say the other option out loud. The other, far worse and much more likely scenario: that something terrible had happened to her.
“No offense, Lottie, but you’re not going to figure anything out wandering aimlessly around the manor at night. Rich people always keep paperwork, especially in old places like these. I’m sure there must be documents, old employment records, even more photographs from that time? If we had more information, maybe we could piece it all together, create a timeline.”
I shake my head. “They’d be kept in the East Wing, though, and the East Wing was always off-limits to non-Graftons, even back then.”
“We’ll just have to find a way in.” It is dark on the other side of the room, with only the faint glow of the flashlight that I’ve propped on the bedside table. Pradyumna is leaning back again on the tiny bed, his arms tucked leisurely under his head. He is looking up into the shadows on the ceiling. I can tell he is smiling.
“We?”I’m not sure what he’s implying. Certainly, he doesn’t want to get mixed up in my family drama while he’s trying to winBake Week. “I don’t expect you to get involved with all this. It’s my past, my issues to resolve. Getting tangled up with something like this could ruin your chance to win the Golden Spoon.”
“Lottie,” Pradyumna says. “With all due respect, I think this is exactly the kind of project I need right now.”
STELLA
It is obvious to everyone that I barely scraped by today in the tent. Believe me, I’m mortified by my performance. My peach pie was burnt, nearly inedible on the bottom with a gooey filling that hadn’t had time to properly set before judging. If I hadn’t burnt my first filling, it would have turned out okay, I try to comfort myself, but I’m honestly not sure if that’s true. I cringe, remembering the look on Betsy’s face as she bit into it. The slight pause and purse of her lips in displeasure. If Gerald had stayed and finished his pies instead of storming off set, there’s no question that I would be packing up right now. I’m going to do better tomorrow. I know that I can. The thought motivates me. I dig a creased school notebook out of my bag and go to the small desk pressed up against the window of my room. I look at my shadowy reflection. My face looks sad and sunken, and my eyes are dark holes in the windowpane. I’m good at starting over. I think back on all the foster families I lived with over the years. Somehow, I never really minded the upheaval. Each time I moved with a new family, began a first day of a new school, it felt like I was given a fresh slate. I must have always held some optimism inside that my life could still surprise me. I guess I had just always hoped that things would change for the better.
I look away from the window, flipping the notebook open. I onceused these notebooks to write down ideas and take down quotes for articles I was writing, but ever since I stopped working atThe RepublicI have just used them to record my baking inspiration. I brush off today’s mistakes and start fresh. In my imagination I begin to pair different flavors so that whatever bake is announced in the morning, I’ll have a head start on my ingredients. I tap my pen on the paper as I think. I want to be inventive but not off-putting. My mind swirls with images of tarts and pastries drizzled with icing and topped with tempered chocolate. I begin to write out plans for as many desserts as I can come up with. I fill up the page with trifles, croissants, tarts, cupcakes, pavlovas, and madeleines. I want to be prepared so that no matter what dessert they throw at us tomorrow, I will have my wits about me. I won’t panic like I did today. The planning calms me, as it always does, and I lose track of time until I hear a sound outside. It is the thin murmur of a voice, barely audible through the glass. I stand up and stretch across the desk to peer outside. The light from my bedroom window casts a long rectangle of yellow light across the grass fading into the inky darkness of the woods. The rest of the lawn is dark and motionless. I don’t see or hear anything. Maybe the sound was coming from inside the house. Then I wonder if I imagined it and there was no sound at all. I do have trouble trusting my own perceptions the way I used to. When I draw back from the window, my heart is pounding, fearful. I count down in my head.Five, four, three, two, until I find myself calming down again.
I move away from the window and sit on the bed. My travel alarm clock says 11:04. I should be getting some sleep anyway. I put my notepad on the bedside table and turn off the light. The faint sound of laughter travels through the glass, and I leap out of bed, rushing to the window. Two people emerge from the woods, darting across the lawn toward the manor. One of them stumbles, leaning on the larger one. Their hands are entwined. The moonlight catches on the smaller one’s bright white-blond hair and slim shoulders. It’s Hannah, I realize with a start. Her strappy sandals dangle from the fingers of onehand. Next to her, his arm now disappearing around her small waist as if to push her along, is none other than Archie Morris. They pick up speed as they get closer, running silently across the lawn toward the manor until I am looking almost directly down on them. Archie casts a furtive glance up and I dive to the side of the window. Good thing I’d turned my light off or he’d have definitely seen me. I shiver. It felt as if he’d looked right at me. I peer out again over the edge of the curtains just as they disappear into a door in the side of the building. I stand in the darkness, heart thudding, listening for Hannah’s footsteps in the hall, the gentle click of her door coming to a close. But I hear nothing.
Day ThreeCAKE
GERALD
