How to Bake a Perfect Life by Barbara O'Neal Page A

for old people—denture creams and elastic bandages and canes. An old man came out of the door as I was going by; he glanced at me but didn’t seem to notice or care about my belly, so I kept walking. At the end of the block, I’d cross the street and go around the courthouse on this side, which wasn’t as busy, then go to Russ’ Drug.
    I couldn’t really think of anywhere else to stop before that. I wanted to save something for the record store. So I walked down the sidewalk like I belonged there and then turned to cross the street. Traffic was steady enough that I couldn’t just dash across—you might not think a little town like that could have so many vehicles, but everybody has to drive on the same street—and I was standing in the sun. A trickle of sweat came out from under my hair and ran down the back of my neck. The baby kicked me, as if he was getting cranky in the heat.
    A truck slowed down in front of me and stopped right there, in the middle of the street. It was the same guy who’d yelled at me a few minutes ago. He was way older. The truck bed had a lot of construction tools in it, wheelbarrows and shovels and dusty tarps, and the guy looked as if he’d been working hard. He had light-blue eyes and long hair, and I took one step back.
    “What’s your name, honey?”
    I shook my head, checked to my left as if I was getting ready to cross the street.
    “You’re not from around here,” he said. “I’d remember that hair. You’re as pretty as a little angel.”
    I turned away, ignoring him, hoping for some help from an adult who would tell him to move along. Nobody was around.
    “C’mon, sweetie, I won’t bite,” he said. “My name is Jason. What’s yours?”
    Finally somebody behind the truck honked. “See you around,” the guy said, and pulled away. He hung his head out the window like a dog pretending he couldn’t stop staring at me.
    The person who’d honked was a woman in a nurse’s uniform. She waved for me to cross the street, and I waved back, thanking her, then hurried across.
    I made it to Russ’ Drug without any more trouble. The air-conditioning felt good after the hot sun outside, and I had twenty whole dollars to spend. There were some people in the store, but I pretended I didn’t see any of them, that I was completely invisible, and headed for the stationery aisle.
    There were all kinds of things I liked here. Mechanical pencils with their fine, perfect line; labels for jars and file folders; paper for every use—onionskin for typing, Big Chief tablets, spiral notebooks, and, my favorite, sketch pads, which I somehow used only when I was at Aunt Poppy’s house. There was something about the place that made me want to draw. Even now I was thinking about the blue bottles and plants on her kitchen window. It seemed like something that would make me feel better, drawing or maybe painting that. I gathered a sketchbook and mechanical pencil and was dithering between the watercolors or pastel crayons when the pharmacist in his white coat came down the aisle. “Can I help you with something?” he said.
    “No, thank you,” I said politely. “I’m just thinking.”
    He didn’t go away.
    “Is there something wrong?”
    “Somebody thought you might be shoplifting.”
    My face burned bright red, all the way up past my eyebrows and around the edges of my ears. “Why? Because I’m pregnant and that makes me a criminal?”
    “Now, now, there’s no reason to get all excited. Why don’t you show me what’s in your pockets and we’ll be fine.”
    For a long, hot second, I stared at him, sure it was a mistake. “I come in here all the time with my aunt Poppy. Don’t you remember me?”
    “ ’Fraid not.” He shifted, folded his hands one atop the other like a deacon. Waiting.
    Fighting very hard not to cry, I put back the sketch pad and the pencils. Deliberately, I pulled my pockets inside out, displaying the twenty dollars and a tube of Chapstick. Before he could