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.