Page 29 of And Still Her Voice
“Yeah, she causes lots of pain and chaos.”
***
If heaven had a bakery, it would smell like what came wafting up from the kitchen the next morning. I got up and stepped over the mounds of blankets, careful not to crush anyone, before coming down to find Mary already up and standing amongst several young girls all busy working with dough. There were stacks of two-pound coffee cans everywhere. The kitchen felt toasty warm and my stomach somersaulted with the smell of fresh bread.
“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Mary said cheerfully, hands stuffed into a couple of oven mitts. “There’s some hot water on the kettle for some tea and there’s some honey on the table.”
“Thank you.” I walked over to the stove to pour myself a cup. I sat at the long wooden table. As I stirred in a teaspoon of honey, I watched her pull a two-pound Chock Full o’Nuts coffee can out of the oven.
“We’re making the bread today,” she said, as a brown muffin top rose from the lip of the can. “I learned how over at All Saints Church when we were helping out the Diggers. Thought I’d give it a try here.”
“The Diggers?”
“A bunch of actors who started by wanting to create a society free of money and capitalism. In the meanwhile, they’ve ended up trying to feed the hungry while also providing some medical attention to those in need,” Mary said.
“That sounds very Christian-like.”
“It’s about being a good human,” she said, turning the can upside down. A fat tube of steaming wheat bread slipped onto the table. “Voila! Get it while it’s hot.” Smiling, she removed the mitts before slicing a couple of pieces and handed one to me.
“Can I help?” I asked.
“Not on an empty stomach. Help yourself to as much as you like.”
“Thank you,” I said, and then bit into the bread, even better fresh out of the oven.
“Hi, I’m Willow,” said a young girl with a spring in her voice befitting her name, and a long slender arm used to slide over a jar of golden jam.
“Try it with honey,” another dark-haired girl named Indigo said.
I finished chewing. “Thank you, but I think it’s pretty tasty without it.”
The girls all reminded me of my sisters whom I hadn’t thought I’d miss so much.
“How many loaves are you going to make?” I asked Mary.
“This week, I’m going to shoot for around two hundred loaves. Lots of kids come up here and have nothing to eat so we provide food, not just bread.”
I looked over to the stovetop where there were more giant pots bubbling up deliciousness.
“Ready to start?” Mary asked, slapping down a mound of batter onto a floury surface. “Work it with the heels of your hands, pushing and stretching it. Keep just enough flour on the board and your hands to prevent it from sticking. Until it’s shiny and pushes back like an elastic rubber band.”
Suddenly I’m back in the kitchen with Mom. She’s trying to teach me how to make tortillas, her hands all a blur as she pats out the little ball of dough into a flat pancake. I roll mine out into the shapes of Rorschach inkblots. “What kind of Mexican are you?” Mom asks. I shrug my shoulders, grinning. “The tasty kind?”
“When you’re finished, you’ll stuff it into one of those coffee cans,” Mary said. “This whole process should take you about ten to fifteen minutes.”
I tried to do the math. So, if they made two hundred loaves, twice a week and there were five of us . . .
“The division of labor around here is pretty sexist if you ask me,” Mary said. “I have a goddamned engineering degree from Berkeley, for Chrissakes. But it’s the dudes that get to come up with the ideas while we’re tasked with most of the practical work to realize those ideas.”
Behind me, I heard a male’s voice, low, yet lush. “Yeah, we’re just out there socializing.” I turned to see a striking young Black man in a slim mustard-colored cardigan. He stepped into the kitchen and started to roll up his sleeves. “Promotin’, mixin’ and minglin’,” he said in a velvety voice as he flourished his arms, “while all y’all women are out there collectin’, mixin’ and minglin’ the food and then servin’ it up.”
“That’s right.” Mary held up a rolling pin.
“I help out the best I can, ya know,” the man said.
“Yes, I know. You’re a different sort,” Mary added with a giggle.
“And it ain’t just cuz of the color of my skin.” He rested the back of his hand on his cheek, his other hand on his hip.
