The Storyteller Read online

  Mr. Weber slips the loop of the leash over his wrist and stands. "I am keeping you from going home," he says apologetically to Mary.

  "Not at all. I enjoy the company." She glances down at the old man's mug, which is still three-quarters full.

  I don't know what makes me say what I say. After all, I have plenty to do. But it has started to pour now, a torrential sheet of rain. The only vehicles in the lot are Mary's Harley and Rocco's Prius, which means Mr. Weber is either walking home or waiting for the bus. "You can stay until Advanced Transit shows up," I tell him.

  "Oh, no," Mr. Weber says. "This will be an imposition."

  "I insist," Mary seconds.

  He nods in gratitude and sits down again. As he cups his hands around the coffee mug, Eva stretches out over his left foot and closes her eyes.

  "Have a nice night," Mary says to me. "Bake your little heart out."

  But instead of staying with Mr. Weber, I follow Mary into the back room, where she keeps her biker rain gear. "I'm not cleaning up after him."

  "Okay," Mary says, pausing in the middle of pulling on her chaps.

  "I don't do customers." In fact when I stumble out of the bakery at 7:00 a.m. and see the shop filled with businessmen buying bagels and housewives slipping wheat loaves into their recycled grocery bags, I am always a little surprised to remember there is a world outside my industrial kitchen. I imagine it's the way a patient who's flatlined must feel when he is shocked back into a heartbeat and thrown into the fuss and bustle of life--too much information and sensory overload.

  "You invited him to stay," Mary reminds me.

  "I don't know anything about him. What if he tries to rob us? Or worse?"

  "Sage, he's over ninety. Do you think he's going to cut your throat with his dentures?" Mary shakes her head. "Josef Weber is as close as you can get to being canonized while you're still alive. Everyone in Westerbrook knows him--he used to coach kids' baseball; he organized the cleanup of Riverhead Park; he taught German at the high school for a zillion years. He's everyone's adoptive, cuddly grandfather. I don't think he's going to sneak into the kitchen and stab you with a bread knife while your back is turned."

  "I've never heard of him," I murmur.

  "That's because you live under a rock," Mary says.

  "Or in a kitchen." When you sleep all day and work all night, you don't have time for things like newspapers or television. It was three days before I heard that Osama bin Laden had been killed.

  "Good night." She gives me a quick hug. "Josef's harmless. Really. The worst he could do is talk you to death."

  I watch her open the rear door of the bakery. She ducks at the onslaught of driving rain and waves without looking back. I close the door behind her and lock it.

  By the time I return to the bakery's dining room, Mr. Weber's mug is empty and the dog is on his lap. "Sorry," I say. "Work stuff."

  "You don't have to entertain me. I know you have much to do."

  I have a hundred loaves to shape, bagels to boil, bialys to fill. Yes, you could say I'm busy. But to my surprise I hear myself say, "It can wait a few minutes."

  Mr. Weber gestures to the chair Mary had occupied. "Then please. Sit."

  I do, but I check my watch. My timer will go off in three minutes, then I will have to go back into the kitchen. "So," I say. "I guess we're in for some weather."

  "We are always in for some weather," Mr. Weber replies. His words sound as if he is biting them off a string: precise, clipped. "Tonight however we are in for some bad weather." He glances up at me. "What brought you to the grief group?"

  My gaze locks on his. There is a rule that, at group, we are not pressed to share if we're not ready. Certainly Mr. Weber hasn't been ready; it seems rude that he'd ask someone else to do what he himself isn't willing to do. But then again, we aren't at group.

  "My mother," I say, and tell him what I've told everyone else there. "Cancer."

  He nods in sympathy. "I am sorry for your loss," he says stiffly.

  "And you?" I ask.

  He shakes his head. "Too many to count."

  I don't even know how to respond to that. My grandma is always talking about how at her age, her friends are dropping like flies. I imagine for Mr. Weber, the same is true.

  "You have been a baker long?"

  "A few years," I answer.

  "It is an odd profession for a young woman. Not very social."

  Has he seen what I look like? "It suits me."

  "You are very good at what you do."

  "Anyone can bake bread," I say.

  "But not everyone can do it well."

  From the kitchen comes the sound of the timer buzzing; it wakes up Eva, who begins to bark. Almost simultaneously there is a sweep of approaching lights through the glass windows of the bakery as the Advanced Transit bus slows at its corner stop. "Thank you for letting me stay a bit," he says.

  "No problem, Mr. Weber."

  His face softens. "Please. Call me Josef."

  I watch him tuck Eva into his coat and open his umbrella. "Come back soon," I say, because I know Mary would want me to.

  "Tomorrow," he announces, as if we have set a date. As he walks out of the bakery he squints into the bright beams of the bus.

  In spite of what I have told Mary, I go to collect his dirty mug and plate, only to notice that Mr. Weber--Josef--has left behind the little black book he is always writing in when he sits here. It is banded with elastic.

  I grab it and run into the storm. I step right into a gigantic puddle, which soaks my clog. "Josef," I call out, my hair plastered to my head. He turns, Eva's beady little eyes poking out from between the folds of his raincoat. "You left this."

  I hold up the black book and walk toward him. "Thank you," he says, safely slipping it into his pocket. "I don't know what I would have done without it." He tips his umbrella, so that it shelters me as well.

  "Your Great American Novel?" I guess. Ever since Mary installed free WiFi at Our Daily Bread, the place has been crawling with people who intend to be published.

  He looks startled. "Oh, no. This is just a place to keep all my thoughts. They get away from me, otherwise. If I don't write down that I like your kaiser rolls, for example, I won't remember to order them the next time I come."

  "I think most people could use a book like that."

  The driver of the Advanced Transit bus honks twice. We both turn in the direction of the noise. I wince as the beams of the headlights flash across my face.

  Josef pats his pocket. "It's important to remember," he says.

  *

  One of the first things Adam told me was that I was pretty, which should have been my first clue that he was a liar.

  I met him on the worst day of my life, the day my mother died. He was the funeral director my sister Pepper contacted. I have a vague recollection of him explaining the process to us, and showing us the different kinds of caskets. But the first time I really noticed him was when I made a scene at my mother's service.

  My sisters and I all knew my mother's favorite song had been "Somewhere over the Rainbow." Pepper and Saffron had wanted to hire a professional to sing it, but I had other plans. It wasn't just the song my mother had loved, it was one particular rendition of it. And I'd promised my mother that Judy Garland would sing at her funeral.

  "News flash, Sage," said Pepper. "Judy Garland isn't taking bookings these days, unless you're a medium."

  In the end, my sisters went along with what I wanted--mostly because I framed this as one of Mom's dying wishes. It was my job to give the CD to the funeral director--to Adam. I downloaded the song from the Wizard of Oz soundtrack on iTunes. As the service began, he played it over the speaker system.

  Unfortunately it wasn't "Somewhere over the Rainbow." It was the Munchkins, performing "Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead."

  Pepper burst into tears. Saffron had to leave the service, she was so upset.

  Me, I started to giggle.

  I don't know why. It just s