“Those cakes sold out before I even finished them,” she said with pride.
Birdie O’Neill’s cakes made the Gerald Bakery famous. Crowds of people came to the bakery window each day to admire her whimsical creations. Sometimes they were towering layer cakes built to resemble city landmarks like Grand Central Station or St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Other times she imitated the natural world, like this strawberry basket cake. Once or twice a week, she brought a cake home to share with the neighbors. It made them one of the most popular renters in the building.
“Nice cake,” he said, picking out a ripe strawberry and popping it in his mouth.
Birdie still hadn’t gotten up from the sofa, and there was nothing on the stove for dinner. That was odd. She usually took great pride as a housekeeper. Her day started at four o’clock each morning when she headed to the bakery to start the ovens, and she finished by early afternoon, which left her plenty of time to prepare dinner. Their apartment usually smelled like heaven when he arrived home.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, since she wasn’t the sort to complain.
“I fell while lugging in a sack of flour from the wagon this morning,” she said. “It was dark, and I slipped on a loose brick.”
He closed the distance between them and hunkered down before her. “And you worked the rest of the day?”
“Don’t worry, it was nothing,” she teased while pinching his cheek. He didn’t complain. He’d finally persuaded her to stop pinching his cheek in public, but he didn’t have the heart to ask her to quit at home. “The pain went away for a while, but now it’s bad again.” She had a bandage on her forearm too.
“Did that happen when you fell?” he asked with a nod at the bandage.
“I scraped the wagon wheel on my way down. It’s nothing. Mr. Gerald patched it up as soon as I got inside.”
“Mr. Gerald ought to lug his own sacks of flour.”
“Don’t be taking that tone,” she said. “Mr. Gerald is a fine man who has always treated me well.”
Maybe, but Birdie was too old for lugging heavy sacks and tending hot ovens before the crack of dawn. No man should have to worry about his mother collapsing under the weight of a thirty-pound sack of flour.
“You can quit, Ma. I’m making decent money these days.”
“Please don’t make me point out that Mr. Gerald always pays in cash.”
Patrick looked away. When they’d first arrived from Ireland, they were so poor that Patrick had to beg on the streets. That sort of shame never fully went away, and depending on his mother for steady income was humiliating. He would start getting tougher with his clients. Some of them could afford to pay in cash, and he needed to start demanding it.
But first he needed to win the Mick Malone case.
“Ma, you’ve got to stop talking about my cases in public,” he said. “Keep quiet about the Mick Malone case. It’s important that his book gets published before the Blackstones find out about it.”
“They’ll get wind of it sooner or later,” she pointed out.
“Let it be later. The book will hit the shelves in September. The closer we get to that date without anyone knowing about it, the better our chances.”
No one in the city wanted to take on the Blackstones, but sometimes a man didn’t have much choice.
2
The Friday evening soirees at Gwen Blackstone Kellerman’s home were famous. She originally started hosting them as a way for the professors at Blackstone College to relax and unwind after a week of classes, but over the years they had grown into much more. Artists and intellectuals from across the city vied for a chance to attend her soirees, which could last until dawn. The informal gatherings became a place where professors debated new ideas and artists mingled with academics. It was said that Mark Twain was inspired to write a short story based on a conversation he had with an aging English professor in the corner of Gwen’s garden.
These weekly gatherings were Gwen’s proudest accomplishment, since she would probably never become a botany professor like she’d once hoped. Dreams of a successful marriage and motherhood had also passed her by, but her soirees made Blackstone College a thriving intellectual community.
So far tonight she had consoled a professor whose latest experiment didn’t pan out, listened to a musician play his new composition on her piano, and toasted the birth of a baby boy to a physics professor. It was a brilliant, moonlit summer evening . . . which was why the gloomy expression on the college president’s face seemed so strange.
President Matthews had been appointed two years ago and was still struggling to find his footing among this tight-knit community. He lived next door to Gwen on a tree-shaded street where most senior faculty lived. Not everyone on campus appreciated the new president, but Gwen understood the challenges he faced better than most and did her best to support him.
“Gwen, if it isn’t too much trouble, I’d like to go next door for a brief discussion,” he said.
She was in the middle of listening to a visiting professor from Japan discuss his research on undersea volcanic activity. “Can it wait a few minutes?” she asked, eager to hear more about how molten lava could occur underwater.
President Matthews shook his head. “It is a matter of some delicacy. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.”
Gwen nodded and headed across the crowded parlor toward the front door. There were sixty people here tonight. Most had spilled onto her terraced garden to enjoy the warm summer evening, but a group of the oldest professors had staked their claim to the upholstered furniture in her front room.
“Gwen, what is with this amazing tree?” a chemistry professor asked, holding up the dwarfed Himalayan cedar in its ceramic pot.
“It’s called a bonsai tree,” she said. “Professor Watanabe brought it to me as a hostess gift tonight. Isn’t it darling?”
Over the years, people had brought her flowering shrubs, herbs, and bulbs from across the world, making the two-acre garden behind her house a showpiece. It was a green-scented world where science and beauty converged. Her happiest hours were spent in the calm oasis of her garden, and she loved sharing it with the people of Blackstone College each Friday evening.
Two more people tried to intercept her before she made it outside. The gentle hum of crickets sounded in the distance as she and President Matthews walked across the lawn to his house next door. A light on the front porch glowed as he led her inside.
“You added new wallpaper,” Gwen said as she stepped into the foyer of the president’s house.
“It was my wife’s idea,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind the change.”
“Of course not. It’s your house now.”
President Matthews still seemed ill at ease whenever he invited her inside because this had once been her father’s home. Theodore Blackstone was the college’s founder and had served as its president for twenty-eight years. Gwen had been born in this house and lived here until she married Jasper and moved next door.
Or perhaps the new president’s deference to her was because of her maiden name. Everyone knew she was a Blackstone by birth, and the name tended to inspire awe, fear, and ghoulish curiosity.