Stones for Bread Read Online Free PDF Page A

softening with age. His work boots scuff my wide-plank pine floor.
    My headache grows.
    “You need to go around back and unload there,” I tell him. “I’ll meet you at the door.”
    “No problem.”
    “Gretchen,” I shout, stumbling back into the kitchen. “Where’s that Advil you offered me earlier?”
    “Right here,” she says, rattling the bottle.
    “I need some.”
    She uses her talented thumbnail again, this time to pop the lid off the painkiller. Her polish, I see now, is glittery. She shakes a couple pills into my hand; they’re the same color as the delivery guy’s hair.
    “He tracked flour and dirt all over the café,” I mumble.
    “I’ll take care of it.”
    A horn honks. The man drives a small box truck, dirty white with the hint of a logo peeking through the paint someone used to cover it over. Backs to the door and parks, engine idling. I shout at him to turn the truck off. I don’t want the fumes in my kitchen.
    He calls out the window, “What?” and I make gestures with my words now, turning my wrist as if I clutched a key and then runningmy hand across my throat. He shuts off the engine and swings the driver’s side door open. “I couldn’t hear you. What did you say?”
    “I said I didn’t want your carbon emissions in my bread.”
    “Oh. Sorry.” He looks genuinely chagrined.
    “It’s fine. Let’s just get the flour.”
    But the guy is a chatty one, introducing himself as Seamus and saying he’s only been living in Billingston for a month. This is his first day delivering for the co-op, though he’s had other jobs with other businesses. “Liesl, that’s not a name you hear too often.”
    “I guess not.” I direct him to put the bags on the table. I’ve yet to clean the old flour from the bins; it will be bagged and donated with today’s leftover bread.
    “Only time I’ve ever heard it was in The Sound of Music . Are you German?”
    “It’s Austrian.”
    “You’re Austrian?”
    “No. The Sound of Music takes place in Austria.”
    “Oh. Sure. Well, my daughter couldn’t remember your name. She called you the bread lady.”
    Confused, I shake my head. The slight movement vibrates the head pain around my skull and down into my face. “Your daughter?”
    “Oh, she was here yesterday with her class. Cecelia.”
    I wriggle my jaw from side to side. My ear pops. “She was very sweet.”
    “She said you were really nice to her. And your bread wasn’t too bad either.”
    “Not bad?”
    “I had some this morning for breakfast. Peanut butter and fried egg sandwich. I have to admit, I’ve never had chocolate bread before. I thought it would be sugary, but it wasn’t.”
    “You ate peanut butter and eggs on my bread?”
    “Yeah. We usually do Friehoffer’s, but it wasn’t bad.”
    “Liesl,” Gretchen warns. It’s only bread , her look says.
    Only bread. And not only bread, all at the same time. “If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens,” Robert Browning wrote. That’s how I feel. Others, I need to remember, gunk it up with pulverized peanuts and unfertilized chickens.
    Gretchen turns to Seamus. “Thanks so much for bringing this over.”
    “Yeah, no problem. That’s my job.” He peers at me, scratches his thick beard. “Are you okay?”
    “Yes. Just a headache. I didn’t eat enough today.”
    “Okay, well. You should do that. Eat more, I mean. It’s important.”
    I give an exaggerated nod. Exhale. “You’re absolutely right. Thank you. We’ll see you next Friday.”
    He squints at me, cheeks twitching. “Good, okay then. Have a nice week.” His truck pulls away from the back door and out the driveway. Through the window at the front of the building I see him disappear down the street. I groan instead of saying what I’d like to say, which would not only be rude but breaking more than one commandment.
    Tee drops a pot lid, grunts something unintelligible, and rummages through the refrigerator. “All