Not long after, Geraldine came home from the bakery one night and said to Emilia Mae, “I have a surprise for you.” She handed her an illustrated copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. “I know how much you like the movie, so I thought you ought to read the book. The pictures are beautiful, take a look.”
Emilia Mae couldn’t remember a time when her mother gave her a present when it wasn’t her birthday or Christmas. The Cowardly Lion, Tin Man, and Scarecrow agreed with her that this was a sign that her strong Dorothy personality was working. She ran her hand over the cover and slowly turned the thick gilded pages to pictures of lions, dogs, and scarecrows. The book was heavy and smelled like paste and wood. She clutched it to her chest and said: “This will always be my favorite book.”
She thought to throw her arms around Geraldine and say, “Thank you, Mommy,” but instead she mumbled, “Thank you, Mother.”
More than anything, Emilia Mae wanted to call Geraldine Mommy. She wanted to love her mother. If she loved me, I know I could love her, she thought. But with Geraldine’s severity and disapproval, Emilia Mae could never find a way in. When she was sick or scared or lonely, she’d think, “I want my mommy.” But there was never a mommy there, just a perfectly coiffed trim woman with red lipstick whose hard eyes reflected back to Emilia Mae what she thought her mother saw: a chubby girl, with unkempt curly hair and her father’s pallor.
Emilia Mae longed to have her mother stroke her cheek, touch her in the soothing way that mothers touched their children, but Geraldine didn’t seem interested in those things. Emilia Mae thought her mother was pretty. She knew how to get things done. She could be funny. People noticed her. She was all those things, but she wasn’t a mommy. Emilia Mae took The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to her room and learned more about Dorothy, who lived on the sun-bleached prairies of Kansas with her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em. Aunt Em, she read, had once been a young pretty wife, but the sun and wind “had taken the sparkle from her eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her cheeks and lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled, now.”
That night, she discussed it with the Oz brothers. Maybe Aunt Em was sad. New Rochelle wasn’t sun-bleached, but the Tin Man said that there were other things that could take away a person’s sparkle and glow. Emilia Mae thought about this for a long time. Maybe her mother was sad, too, because she had a daughter who was boring, who never really said very much. The Scarecrow suggested she could change all that. How she could talk up more, be braver. The Cowardly Lion said that if Dorothy was brave enough to face the Wicked Witch of the West, surely Emilia Mae could try harder to make a good impression. To be noticed. Emilia Mae agreed. Her mother would like to have a daughter who got noticed.
Earle always tried to give Emilia Mae enough love for both him and Geraldine, but by the time she was a teenager, the girl had taken her sadness inside and locked the door. On weekends, she helped Geraldine and Earle out at Shore Cakes. She unloaded deliveries, swept up, and carried pans of cakes and rolls from the baking room to the store. One morning a little girl pointed to a butterscotch square behind the glass shelf and started crying that she wanted it. The girl’s mother took out her purse and counted out her change. She didn’t have enough money. The girl cried harder. Geraldine must have seen what happened. She went over to the mother and said, “We’ve just started making those squares, and I’d love to know how children like them. Mind if I use your daughter as a guinea pig?”
Geraldine handed the girl a butterscotch square and said, “I hope you like this, sweetheart, I made it just for you.”
Emilia Mae had never heard her mother use that tone of voice with her. Geraldine had never called her own daughter “sweetheart.” It made Emilia Mae want to shake her mother and cry out, “I’m a sweetheart, too!” She had noticed how her mother elongated her neck and batted her eyes at the male customers and spoke in a sweet, condescending voice to the women. The only way she could think of to punish her was to act just the opposite. “All that stupid small talk, ‘how are you,’ ‘you look pretty today,’” she told her mother. “It gets you nowhere. If someone wants an apple pie, I’m happy to tell them everything about the apple pie but I don’t see why I have to also discuss the weather or their new shoes.”
Geraldine rubbed her neck. “You know, Emilia Mae, we’re selling more than cakes and bread here, we’re selling at-mos-phere, a happy, welcoming at-mos-phere.”
Emilia Mae rolled up her sleeves. “You’ve got the good looks and personality, so you handle the at-mos-phere,” she said. “I’ll take care of the cakes and bread.”
Geraldine smiled at her daughter. “Holy moly,” she said. “You’re starting to sound like me.”
Emilia Mae and the Oz brothers took that as a sign that she was making inroads.
After the first semester of ninth grade, Emilia Mae’s English teacher wrote on her report card: Emilia Mae is an excellent student, but she keeps to herself. She seems to be an unhappy child. May I schedule a conference with the school social worker?
Geraldine tried to hold back her anger when she read those words but could feel her brow furrowing. “I’m going to tell that Mrs. Morris a thing or two,” she told Earle.
“What can you say?” he asked. “At least she’s an excellent student, but right now, Emilia Mae is an unhappy child. There’s no denying that. It’s a phase. Let it be.”
“Earle, Emilia Mae is not just an unhappy girl. She’s a loner who’s carrying around an extra ten pounds on her body. She doesn’t need a social worker; she needs to quit eating and make some friends. This is about discipline, not some fancy social worker.”
When he’d first met Geraldine, Earle had found her fieriness and passion exciting. She was so different from everyone else he knew. It never dawned on him that someday “fiery and passionate” would scorch his marriage and family. He’d thought they’d have a big family, three or four kids, but after Emilia Mae, he knew there’d be no more. By now, her anger and disappointment had worn him down, and he began stretching his hours at the bakery, leaving Emilia Mae and Geraldine to themselves.
“Alright, suit yourself,” he said. “Go see her teacher, but I’m telling you, it’s going to amount to nothing.”
The next afternoon, Geraldine marched into Mrs. Morris’s empty classroom. “You absolutely may not schedule a conference with the school social worker,” she insisted. “Emilia Mae is not an unhappy girl. She comes from a happy, churchgoing family. Unfortunately, she was born with a difficult nature. Nothing a social worker can do about that. Nature is nature and comes with the package. My husband, Earle, has an outgoing nature. I myself am a people person by nature.”
Was that surprise she saw in Mrs. Morris’s eyes?
School and the bakery: that was Emilia Mae’s life until, one day in December of her fifteenth year, the first thing resembling a miracle blew her way.
Sam Bostwick, the owner of the Neptune Inn, the oldest—and only—inn in the area, walked into Shore Cakes and pulled Geraldine aside. “I have a favor to ask. I’m looking for a charwoman for the inn, someone to clean the rooms, help serve the meals, and keep the place in order, an able-bodied young girl. I’m getting a little long in the tooth to do this by myself. I’ll pay handsomely and provide free room and board. If you happen to know somebody, I’d be much obliged if you’d pass along her name to me.”