Catherine let out a breath of relief. “Harry Potter World.”
“Would you like that?”
“Sure.” She tried to feel some level of excitement, like a doctor waiting for a monitor to stop flatlining. “That’d be great.”
“What do you think, Richard?” her mother asked her father. “Another vacation?”
“Of course. Food was excellent there, I remember. The, uh, fish and chips.” He looked up from his iPad briefly and smiled at Catherine, then went back to the screen.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” her mother said.
“Do what?”
“That.” She waved a hand at him. “That thing.”
“I’m working.”
“It’s your holiday break.”
“And of course, teachers only work nine to three on weekdays and not one second during the holidays.”
“Richard, could you not do that?”
“Grade my students’ papers? Susan—”
The doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” Catherine said at once. Maybe it would be Henry and Molly again, which wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
But it wasn’t them.
A young girl stood on the stoop, her dark hair under a white hat, her skin clear, eyes large and brown. She was holding a basket, and with her red coat against a backdrop of trees, she looked like she’d stepped out of a fairy tale.
“Amy?” Catherine said.
“Cathyyyyy!” The girl beamed up at her, stretching out her name like she always did. She’d left a blue bike lying on the walk. “I didn’t know you’d be here!”
Catherine scooped the girl into a hug, trying to pull her tight while not spilling coffee on her hair. She smelled like cinnamon.
Amy Porter lived two doors down and was at least twelve years old by now. Catherine had spent three summers watching her, from the day school got out in late May to the first day back in August. Both of her parents worked so Catherine spent nine to five-thirty with Amy, who never raced around like the other hyper neighborhood children. Amy spent her time reading or lying on her back at the pool or yawning on the couch, wrapped in a blanket as they scoured the Apple TV for something they both wanted to watch.
Amy gently pulled herself away from Catherine now but grinned up at her. “Way to dump coffee on me.”
“Please, you’re fine.”
“Hardly.” Another grin. “I made Christmas bread. Pumpkin.”
Catherine took it with her free hand. A heavy brown-orange weight covered neatly in clear wrapping and tied with silver ribbon. It smelled exactly like Amy did.
“How many did you make this year?”
“Three dozen, but that includes the mini ones too, and it’s like three of those to make one big one. You’re super lucky I gave you all a big one, ’cause the mini ones are really small.”
“Amy,” Catherine’s mother said, coming up to the door. “I was wondering when you’d drop by. You know you don’t have to do this every Christmas, though I won’t deny it’s a treat. Where’s your mother?”
“Safeway.”
Catherine suddenly realized where all the pumpkin puree must have gone. “I think they’re out of pumpkin,” she told Amy.
Her mother looked curiously at her.
Amy shrugged. “That’s fine. She needs stuffing stuff anyway. What’s even in stuffing?”
“Stuff,” Catherine said.
Easy Amy-banter felt like a sweater shrugged on, reminding her of Amy’s baking habit and her addiction to British cooking shows—both of them speaking in ridiculously exaggerated accents, trying to make savarin with Chantilly cream at three in the afternoon in August, Catherine silently debating with herself if three ounces of orange liqueur was enough to intoxicate an eleven-year-old and Amy saying, as though reading her mind, that she wouldn’t tell her mom and that they’d forgotten all about the bottle anyway, it had been in the house since New Year’s.
Catherine wasn’t entirely sure when Amy had started her Christmas bread tradition. Maybe two years ago? She went door-to-door on Christmas Eve, leaving the bread on doorsteps or in mailboxes, only ringing the bell of people she knew, but people figured it out. Some waited for her at the windows to thank her. Amy would blush on the porches, but she was proud all the same. And she also delivered her treats to the library, the police station, and the firehouse, not only on Christmas; she tried to do something for most events or holidays, even church functions, if she could manage it.
Catherine’s mother invited Amy into the kitchen and they all sat at the table, Amy tugging at her dark hair under her hat, twirling it in a distinctly teenager motion. Catherine’s mother shot a look at her dad, and he set down his iPad in a resigned manner. Amy glanced at the screen, then at Catherine.
“Did I show you I have a website?”
“No.”
“Can I—?” Amy asked Catherine’s father, who nodded at once and then stood up, murmuring something about a paper he’d left upstairs. Catherine’s mother watched him go with tight lips before following him up the stairs.
“It’s not much,” Amy admitted, swiping madly at the screen, “but I thought I should start something more official, if I want this thing to work out.”
“Impressive,” Catherine said as Amy logged into Instagram, pulling up her page: artsy baking photos, all flour dustings and eggshells. She clicked on a link below her name, and a new page popped up: The Bread You Knead: Best in West Falls, Washington.
“The title’s not done,” Amy said. “I wanted to do something called Amy’s Baking Company or something, but then there’s that crazy lady from Kitchen Nightmares and I didn’t want people to get us mixed up. Plus, I was doing bread puns, see? Too cheesy?”
Stop loafing around and try a free sample! This was next to an option to try a free mini-loaf of any flavor; six choices were listed.
“Yeah,” Amy explained. “So, they can order a mini one and if they like it they can order more. I’m charging only five dollars for each loaf, which honestly is nothing, but I think once I get a following I’ll up it, hopefully double it by the summer.”
“This,” Catherine told her, “is amazing.”
Amy beamed, cheeks almost as red as her coat. “I knew you’d get it. You always got me. My friends at school don’t. They say, Amy, I can get bread at the store in ten seconds and you can’t make PB&J on, like, lemon bread, and you’ll get fat from all the baking, yada yada.” She threw back her hair. “Whatever, though, right? People like my bread.”