Excerpt of How To Bake A Man by Jessica Barksdale Inclan

“You cannot really be thinking about doing this!” my mother says. “I don’t understand why you quit that perfectly reasonable job at Grommer’s in the first place. But at least you were going back to finish your education.”

“Mom, I sat in a small office working the books for five years. It’s a miracle I don’t have a hunchback. It was an okay job, but I might have killed myself after another year. Hari kari with a letter opener.” If I’d stayed and done that, then who would you bitch at?

I sigh, look around the kitchen. The snickerdoodles are already baked and put into plastic bags and frozen for some event or another. I had one and a half glasses of wine before I called my mother, and now I can see I’ll have to finish the second glass just to get through this conversation.

“So you don’t want to go back to Grommer’s. And you don’t want to go to school. You want what?” she says, her voice raising even higher.

“Start up,” I say. I cough, sip wine, cough some more. “To buy a better mixer. One of those commercial kinds. Packaging. I have to make business cards. Probably get a license or two. Register with the city. Get bonded. Undergo some kind of bureaucratic thing. Buy insurance. Put up pages on Facebook and all those other ones. Pinterest. You know. Maybe have a full body scan. Hopefully no body cavity search. I don’t know, but you know what I mean.”

“I certainly do not know what you mean about anything. I don’t know word one about this at all. You’re going to pass out food in buildings?”

“It’s not like I’m giving out rations, Mom. It would be a business. Professional. Sort of a dessert business. I’m thinking I’ll call it The Salubrious Palate.”

My mother lets out a sound that might be a sigh but is really an admonition. “What in heavens does that mean? And before you go off on some vocabulary whim, can’t we discuss why you would throw away a perfectly good MBA for cookies? This is really all about Da?”

“Mom,” I say, hoping to stop her. One Danny conversation a day is one too many. But I don’t have to say more than that. She quiets, the sound of the television in the background almost loud enough for me to follow the plot.

There’s no way I can tell my mother about the feeling I had yesterday in the classroom. I don’t want to tell her I swiped her skirt, for one, and the sort of fear/loneliness/anxiety thing that gripped me as Professor Conklin read the roster is nothing she wants to hear. Trust me. I know this. My mother doesn’t do extreme emotions. And any emotion that is extreme is quickly converted into a desire to clean closets or go to Macy’s for the spectacular one day sale. I’ve only seen her cry about three times in my entire life and those moments passed so quickly, I didn’t even have time to hand her a tissue.

“You know how I love to bake, Mom. I know you don’t think it’s worthwhile, but I do,” I say, taking the last sip of my wine. “I need to try this before I get my MBA.”

“You’ll never go back,” she says. I can hear the television blast wide open into full drama in the background, the agrieved lull soap opera voices in my ear.

My mouth opens to argue. I know what to say. All I have to do is give her a time frame, tell her I will do this for four months, and if it’s a total joke, I’ll enroll in the spring semester. I could even tell her I’d go to school and give this business thing a go at the same time, but I can’t. My mouth won’t move to form anything. So I say nothing, knowing that nothing has always been better for my mother than something that sounds wrong.

“What about Becca’s Best?” she says finally. “The Salubrious Palate indeed.” She sighs. “How much will you need?” she says without waiting for me to comment. “I’ll transfer it now.

* * *

I woke up early and spent 6.5 hours downtown. After fumbling around online, I ended up going in and applying for a business permit. Then I went to the Department of Public Health to apply for a permit to operate. Next I took the bus over to CoCo’s Cookware and Wholesale Supply and bought a Kitchen Aid mixer that looks like it could mix up asphalt. I bought cookie cutters and scone pans and a rolling pin that would subdue any mugger.

I hauled the load back to my apartment on the bus and then headed back out to the bank to set up a business account with the money my mom had indeed transferred in the night before. When I got home, I got online and dropped out of all my classes, starting first with the strategy class. Click! Out of there. Goodbye, Mr. Tweed Jerk-Wad Docker Pants. Then I called Admissions and was able to get a refund for all my tuition and fees and put my MBA on hold for one semester. I had four months to do something with Becca’s Best. Four months to prove to my mother I could make a go of it. Four months to prove it to myself that I don’t need an MBA or a Danny to be happy.

Then with the little creativity left in me, I set up all the necessary pages, trying to get my current “friends” to like Becca’s Best Bakery. I sat there waiting, one like and then two, shutting off my computer when I reached ten.

Now, I’m out again, this time at Macy’s in Stonestown. I’ve paid for my purchases and am walking out into the evening light with my bag full of pants that actually fit me. Two blouses, three T-shirts. A pair of cute but trendy flats, good shoes for pushing a cart around office building floors.

The sky is gray, turning to black. Venus hangs on the edge of the horizon like a broken promise. When I get home, I’m going to start planning out the businesses to email and call. Luckily, Dez has left a message, giving me the number of a San Francisco colleague of Nick’s.

“For god’s sake call him first. He’ll say yes, I know it,” she said, the peaceful sound of no babies in the background. “Good luck.”

I have good luck and a new mixer. I have five thousand dollars from my mother in my bank account. I have ten friends and counting. I have my grandmother’s recipes and something I can barely recognize floating in my chest. The last time I felt it was back when I first met Danny, back when I thought things might be possible between us. I think it’s hope.

For a second, I’m almost happy. Maybe I am happy. I’m not sure. It’s been a long time since I’ve had enough happiness to know what it feels like. But I’m tired and full of ideas and plans. And tomorrow I start baking.