Emilia Mae had a beaky nose and was as round as Alice was slender. Alice had a gaudy grin that people took personally; her mother rarely smiled, which people also took personally. Her mother also wore bright red, pink, or orange lipstick, depending on what she was wearing and, lately, so much pancake makeup that Alice thought her face sometimes looked wooden, but in 1953 New Rochelle, it was important that makeup matched your outfit.
Alice lived with Grandma Geraldine and Grandpa Earle in a white stucco house about a mile from the bakery. The house had an orange tiled roof that you could barely see because of the two-hundred-year-old white oak that loomed over it. Inside, it was always nighttime, even in the morning. There were three bedrooms, a kitchen, a small dining room, and a living room with a brick fireplace. Her mother worked at the bakery every day. Though she and Grandma didn’t speak all that much, her mother and Grandpa got along just fine; everyone got along with Grandpa just fine.
At night, Grandpa would tuck Alice into bed and sing to her songs he’d picked up on the radio, like “Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes” and “Vaya con Dios.” His voice was thin and almost girlish, but he could carry a tune perfectly. One night after supper, he played his new album for Alice, Ella Sings Gershwin. Alice particularly liked “Someone to Watch over Me” and had him play it three times. The next evening, after he tucked her into bed, Grandpa pulled a sheet of paper from the book he was carrying. He’d written out the lyrics and told Alice: “Put them under your pillow before you go to sleep, and they’ll seep into your memory.”
Three nights later, after Alice had listened to the song many more times, she told Earle: “It worked. I’ve learned the words by heart. Want to hear?” She was wearing a flannel pink and white nightgown with eyelet lace trim around the yoke. She sat up in bed and sang. Her voice was as sweet and pure as her open face. Earle cupped his hand over his mouth. In the realm of events in his life that made him believe there was a higher being, this angel voice coming from his granddaughter secured a place in his prayers for her and it.
When they sang together, his reedy voice blended with her sweet one in a way that seemed preordained. “We sound like the Andrews Sisters,” he said. He told her that she had a beautiful singing voice and that one day, she could become a professional musician.
Years later, when Alice listened to old Andrews Sisters records, she could hear their voices in the sisters’ harmonies. It reminded her how it was Grandpa who made her see beyond the bakery. It was also Grandpa whom she called out to when she had nightmares, and Grandpa whom she ran to first at the end of the day. He made her feel safe. She wished he were her father, but he was the next best thing.
When Alice was six, Emilia Mae went to work full-time in the bakery and brought her there on weekends. Alice’s earliest memories of the bakery were that it smelled like chocolate and butter and was always warm inside. There was always a spool of red-and-white–striped string on the counter, and Grandpa taught Alice how to loop it around the box twice on each side before tying it in a bow.
Sticky buns were Alice’s favorite. After that, she liked the crullers and red velvet cake best. The black-and-white–tiled floor was slippery. One of her favorite games was to slide across the floor with Grandpa Earle. He thought it was funny and would reach out and grab her hand, but Grandma Geraldine would scold him: “This is not a playground, Earle. You should know better than that.” Grandpa Earle would make a sad face, like it mattered that Grandma had yelled at him, but as soon as she’d leave the room, he’d put his finger over his lips and grab Alice’s hand, and off they’d go.
The game stopped when Alice was eight. Grandpa Earle said his legs were sick. Sometimes they hurt so badly he had to lean on Grandma when he walked. His hands were always cold, and sometimes the tips of his fingers turned blue. Emilia Mae would rub them until they got warm and Grandpa always said Emilia Mae had “the touch.” By then, Alice’s job was to sit on a stool behind the counter. When a customer ordered fudge cookies or buttermilk biscuits, Grandma would put them in front of Alice and let her wrap them in wax paper before she stuck them into a white cake box.
One day, while she was packing up muffins for a skinny man with brown and white shoes, the man leaned in close. “You’re a mighty cute little girl,” he said, something mean in his voice. “I’ve seen your mother and you don’t look nothing like her. It makes me wonder, who’s your father?”
Before Alice could say what she’d been taught to say, “My father’s gone,” Grandma Geraldine spoke up. “For whatever business it is of yours, and it is no business of yours, this one’s got no father. That’s just the way it is.” She stared at the man in a way that made him step back and put his hands in the air as if he were being held up.
Grandma Geraldine looked out for Alice that way. Alice knew Grandma loved her by how she’d stroke her cheek when she walked by and spoke to her in a tone that was different from the way she spoke to Emilia Mae. Oh, she could be nice to the customers when she wanted to, but Alice could hear the forced sweetness in her voice when she’d say things like, “Bless you, honey. Won’t you be my guinea pig and try these chocolate drops I just baked,” and “Please, come again, dear.” Deep down, Grandma was a good person. She was always lecturing Alice on the virtues of kindness and generosity even though, when it came to her daughter and husband, it seemed to Alice that those virtues sometimes slipped Grandma’s mind.
Grandpa Earle chatted naturally with customers. He flattered them and remembered their children’s names. He could talk about everything: politics, the new polio vaccine, The $64,000 Question. When kids came in, he gave them free sugar cookies. Like Grandpa, Alice remembered babies’ names and was up to date with what was going on in Lassie.
Customers always told Emilia Mae what a polite daughter she had, and Emilia Mae always answered, “She sure doesn’t get it from me.”
Reverend Klepper once explained to Alice: “Your mother doesn’t have a natural bakery personality. That’s why the Lord sent you. You could light up death row. You need to help her out.” She promised that she would, even though the troubling image of death row stayed with her for a long while.
By the time Alice was nine, Earle had so much pain in his bones that it was all he could do to wipe down the counter and take in money at the cash register. Alice picked up as many of his chores as she could. She scoured the bread trays, scrubbed the oven, and washed out the tubs used for the rising dough. No matter, Grandma always complained how all the work fell to her. As Earle lost weight, Geraldine would tease him in front of customers and say, “Earle’s doing a piss-poor job of advertising for Shore Cakes these days.” Her laugh was thin, and Grandpa played along with it, but Alice could tell neither of them thought it was funny. Soon, Grandpa got so sick he stopped coming to the shop.
Her mother worked full time, and Alice would come directly to the bakery from school and stay until they closed at six. Grandma spent most of her time in the baking room, leaving Alice and her mother to take care of the customers.
On the last day of fourth grade, Alice and her friend Sheryl sang “Jamaica Farewell” at the school talent show.