Time passed. It got hotter, and people complained about the humidity. Lawns browned under the sun. The free-tailed bats gave birth to their pups under the Congress Bridge, and every evening hundreds of tourists watched them blacken the sky as they flew in search of food.
Kenny went to day camp, which he loved, even though he was banned from arts and crafts after gleefully showering everyone in grout on Mosaic Ashtray Day. Roger lost a trial, got steamrolled in two settlement negotiations, and spent his nights buzzed on Lone Star, watching Astros games with Kenny snoozing on his lap. Kacy couldn’t tell if Roger looked content or inert, and she was irritated by the possibility that it could be both.
April spent most of her time in her room or out with Skillet. She wore hats when she left the house, but Kacy doubted she kept them on. Her fears were confirmed one afternoon at the fitness club, when her friend Helen Swindon asked if April was ill; when Kacy said no, Helen tactlessly mentioned the name of a hairdresser who “worked miracles.” That night, Kacy slipped a note under April’s door: It’s OK if you don’t like any of your hats, but you need to wear one. Do you want people to laugh at you? Let me know what you like, and I’ll buy it. Please. I love you. After that, April started wearing a navy wool watch cap she had bought on her own. It was ugly, Kacy thought, completely unladylike and far too warm for a Texas summer, but April wore it happily, and it was better than no hat at all.
For Kacy, it was a summer of work, work, work. Orders poured in for weddings and museum functions and book-release parties and golden anniversaries and retirement dinners. The local weekly honored Kacy’s Kitchen with a Best of Austin award, finally. She didn’t sleep much, and when she did, she usually woke up with a headache and a sore jaw. Even so, she worked right through the discomfort and fatigue, humming through her coffee-fueled days in high gear. She was never late with a job, never cut corners, made sure everything was perfect. It made all the difference between being the best and being nobody.
Summer ended. April and Kenny went back to school. The nights turned chilly, and the bats flew back to their caves in Mexico. And still Dinaburg did not call.
The day before the high school closed for Christmas break, Kacy got a call from Mr. Gomez, April’s social studies teacher. He was worried about April, he said, because when he’d looked in on the class during their final exam, he’d seen her pulling out her own hair.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “That doesn’t sound at all like April.”
“I saw her. She stopped when she saw me looking.”
“Well, better her own hair than someone else’s.”
“I’m serious, Mrs. Burroughs. It could be a sign of some, ah, psychological issues. And, ah, if something’s wrong, I’d like to see her get, ah, help. She’s a special girl—”
“We know that,” Kacy said.
“—and I’m concerned for her.”
“Your concern is appreciated, Mr. Gomez. I’ll look into it.”
“Is there anything you can, ah, tell me? I mean, how are things at home? If you don’t mind my asking.”
Kacy did mind. “Things at home,” she said, “are just fine, thank you.” Which they were, really. She and Roger were together, which was more than you could say for most families these days. And if Mr. Gomez was blaming her for working, he could go straight to hell, because the hair problem had started long before Kacy’s Kitchen opened for business.
“I didn’t mean—”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” Kacy said, and she hung up. Her chest tightened, and her heart speed-thumped, and she was afraid she might throw up. It was the same feeling she’d had a few weeks before, when she’d opened the oven door and found her butter cake had fallen and it was her fault, she’d overbeaten the egg whites probably, and there was nothing she could do but watch the cake sink farther into itself, ruined.
She took her glass of scotch into the bathroom, set it on the vanity, and locked the door behind her. She looked in the mirror and ran one hand over her jawline, seeing for the first time how her teeth grinding had bulked and hardened her jaw muscles. She caressed the nascent sags of skin under her eyes, trailed her nail along a crease across her forehead that she didn’t remember being so deep. She lifted a hand up to her perfectly bobbed chestnut hair, took hold of a single strand, and yanked. It stung, although not as much as she’d expected. She held the hair up to the light. The root was white and oily-looking. Disgusting. She let go and watched the hair flutter into the sink. She plucked out another, and then another, and then a few more. Why on earth would April do this?
The house was still. Cool, contracting metal ticked somewhere inside the ventilation system. And aside from that, nothing. Silence. As if there were nothing else in the world, nothing beyond her standing alone in this bathroom with a spent drink and a sink littered with her hair. With a blast of water, she rinsed the hair away.
The front door banged open and Kenny unleashed his little-boy war whoop. She heard him chase Mooch down the hallway and up the stairs. She just couldn’t take it, all the thumping and screeching, not today. “Kenny!” she shouted at the ceiling. “Goddamnit to hell, not now!” Above her, the footfalls stopped dead.
Kacy and Roger spent New Year’s Eve at the Johnson Library at a black-tie benefit for leukemia research. They both drank heavily, and Roger draped himself all over the chesty girl who was serving champagne. After the obviously repulsed girl pried him off, Kacy told him he disgusted her, and they’d stopped speaking. When Kacy awoke the next morning, she could taste cigarettes and alcohol in her mouth, but she felt surprisingly clearheaded. She was alone in the bed; Roger was sleeping it off elsewhere in the house.
A new year. Clean slates, new hopes. She picked up the phone on her nightstand and called Dinaburg at home, humming as her fingers danced over the buttons.
He answered. “Kacy,” he said. “Happy new year!”
“Happy new year to you, too. How’s your kitchen?”
“Great,” he said, “though I don’t get to use it as much as I’d like. It’s funny — I was just thinking that I’d like to talk shop with you. The other night I made a Prinz Tom torte that came out aces. My wife’s sick of hearing about it. She sure loved eating it, though.”
She asked him how the plans for the wedding were going.
“The groom hasn’t run away to Mexico or anything. So I guess we’re in good shape.”
“You know, Joel,” she purred, “you never told me about the cake you’re getting. The Rona Silverman.”
“We designed it together. Nine tiers, white and dark chocolate — El Rey and Scharffen Berger, of course — with chocolate-dipped strawberries on top and decorations that’ll knock everyone’s socks off. And it’s going to taste incredible.”
“The water.”
“Like I said, it’s magic.”
“When does the plane get in? I could pick it up. I could assemble it for you, help with the decorations.”
“No need. One of Rona’s assistants flies in with the cake.”
“Still,” Kacy said, “I have to taste it. I mean, I’d like to. Or see it. Could I see it?”
“I don’t see why not. Professional courtesy, right? It’s coming in on Friday, the day before the wedding. Let me check the time. Hang on.” Then, in the background, Kacy heard a woman’s angry voice ask him what in hell he thought he was doing. The voice demanded that he hand over the phone.