Flour and Water

by Arielle Stevenson

They line up, mouths open, uncovered, naked. 

I replace my gloves, dip my hand into the bucket of powdered sugar, sweetness dusting the air. I mix in warm water, work the white clumps down until my bucket is full with smooth glaze. Pans of guava pastries, cherry hand pies, and blueberry scones cool on the speed rack. The éclairs need fresh whipped cream. The cannolis need to be filled. Flats of linzers need raspberry jam. 

The bakery sits on the corner of a brick-lined shopping plaza, high on a hill in this flat place. Suburban Florida surrounds us in 7-Elevens, Publix grocery stores, and gated communities named for the kinds of trees that used to grow there. Everything else nearby appears tame, but lush live oaks, sword ferns, saw palmettos, and pothos vines grow around the plaza. Herons hunt for lizards and minnows in the reservoir as cars stream into the parking lot. The line at the door snakes around the building; the bakery won’t open for five more minutes.

The trays of cupcakes are iced and ready for the glass cold case up front. Soon little kids will press their fingertips like polka dots on the glass, pointing to the exact cupcake they want. Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, our morning music, still loops through the space. In less than five minutes, I’ll change the music and pull the chain turning on the neon “Open” sign.

We lock eyes while you’re washing your hands between batches of sticky buns and cakes. We lock eyes while you’re folding braids of challah bread. We lock eyes because that is how we started, our eyes locked in a dining room. Back then, you ran the line, “yes, chef,” and all that. I was working as a food writer. I remember the tequila, oranges, and cinnamon in my mouth that night. You asked for my number, asked me on a date. I’ve never had that happen before. I said yes. You made me laugh. Our eyes kept locking.

We married in the same way people marry during wars. We honeymooned a year after Florida reopened. It was my idea to come to Key West, my obsession with this wild piece of my home. Or was it my grief? Three out of four grandparents, gone in a few weeks, not one funeral or ceremony. Our neighbors cheering to return to the life we knew, no matter the cost. But my grief asked you to run away with me for a while. And your love said yes, like it always does.

The infection rates were down, so I booked a tree house suite tucked high in a royal poinciana tree full of red blooms. The next night, we stayed above a French bakery near an old whorehouse. In the morning, we heard the bakery below us working. Our room was filled with the smell of bread baking. We ate croissants and drank coffee on the porch as Duval Street came to life. 

We looked to the ground, to the cracks in the pavement where the banyan roots broke through. In 1925, Harvey Firestone brought Thomas Edison an Indian banyan tree in a butter tub for his Florida estate. It was the first banyan tree in Florida, now more than an acre wide, the largest in the continental United States. Called “the walking tree” because of how easily it grows from above. Some say the banyan is an invasive species; some say it’s sacred, that it’s the tree of life. Banyans drip all over the Keys; the shade is a rare respite, and its tenacity to grow necessary for survival in such a place.

A storm rolled onto the beach our third day. Thunder rattles harder in the Keys, and the rain comes faster. I was convinced our umbrella would blow away or conduct lightning. And you were calm, more and more freckles appearing around your tattoos with every second of sunlight. The hogfish on your arm swam in pink speckles like flakes of Himalayan salt. The wind picked up, pulled at the base of the beach umbrella we had purchased at Target for $20 so that we could sit in the sun and read a little bit longer. 

One morning, I could smell the bread baking below us, but you couldn’t. One morning, I could taste the almond paste in the pastry, but you tasted metallic. This was the day before you got sick, before I touched myself in the hallway across from you because we couldn’t touch each other. When I thought I’d lose you and the world stopped. 

My body separated from yours, I wanted you more. Hungry, I unraveled myself for you in a plague burlesque. The darkness of death made me want to be alive with you, electric again. 

Why you? Take my nose, instead. Take my tongue. Your sense of smell and taste disappeared, like a painter going blind, like a musician going deaf. 

Now there are cinnamon buns to ice and quarts of chicken salad to pack into brown paper bags. Recipes, timers, and a lifetime in a kitchen keep your bakes consistent. Thank god baking is a science. When science fails, there’s me.

“Smell this,” you say.

You use mascarpone instead of the usual ricotta salata. You use cinnamon oil instead of powder. The oil is so strong that you only use a few drops. You fill the cannoli shell and hand it to me. 

“Taste this,” you say. 

The mascarpone is so much creamier than the ricotta. The cinnamon seems to breathe through it all. When I close my eyes and nod, you know it’s good. You give me little bites of your rocky road brownies and small loaves of rye bread to try. My mouth and tongue become your translators.

Your sense of smell hasn’t come back, but your gaze remains the same. Our eyes keep locking, everything is fine. The umbrella didn’t blow away, and lightning didn’t strike that day on the beach with the banyan. Sometimes you have to weather the storm. We are bound together like water and flour, our love proofed in this chaos.

Published May 14th, 2023