A Baker's Dozen

I have friends who bake for pleasure. They try complicated recipes like cookie bars with shortbread crusts. They add caramel and chocolate layers. I’ve seen them throw in a layer of jam for good measure. Ganache. Mousse. These are construction jobs that require patience and skill. 

Take people who make focaccia bread! Chairman Joe, for instance. I love focaccia, all that chewy goodness - the salted olive oil. I watched him make it and it seemed easy. Truth is, when I tried it burned.

​What does baking for pleasure have to do with writing? In a way, a blank sheet and a clean counter are springboards. Both activities produce something new from what are otherwise disparate nothings.

I’ve always been a lover of stories, and recently read a novel that was so good I didn’t want it to end. I fell in love with the characters and couldn’t believe the level of care the author brought to her plot. As a former high school English teacher, this is certainly not the first time it has happened, but it was a really good book.

Just as a bite of sticky-chocolate-toffee-cookie bar may tempt me to try the recipe, sometimes a good story tempts me, too.  Maybe because it’s too hot to bake, this week I decided to try my hand at fiction. But just a litte. Similar to my plain style of cooking, think of the following as a cookie sheet that I just pulled out of the oven. Please. Try  a few bites of  my fictional first lines - an effort I like to call my baker’s dozen.  

Lydia brushes the dust from the lid and rests against the headboard.

Kathleen opens the cellar door and adds another cracked glass to the box above the stairs.

Clyde, juggling three cans of peaches in his arms, ducks to the back of the line. Audrey! He squints down to his shirt for stains. 

Balancing on the courthouse wall, Mark flicks a text: My old man's inside. We’ll be there in an hour. Hold your shit.

Squinting through the wipers, Robert watches their house sliding down the hill. When he gets there and sees it standing in place, he sits and lets the engine idle. 

After Stuart forked into his fifth pancake, Alice stood and pushed away her chair. Cool air blew in from the windows. She stepped closer. Looked out at his car.

Shoes sopping, Tom picked his way through the sheets of rain and opened Marjorie's car door. Once under his umbrella, she caught his scent of cedar.

The campers snap towels at each other. Eddy grabs a flashlight and nudges Ian out the side door.

Chrissy’s figuring what to say back to Julia as she runs the water in the ladies’ room sink.

When David was at Cornell, he learned to make a really good sandwich. 

I don’t have my wallet, Margot announced as the others all threw in their cards.

The children sprawl on the rug singing. Melissa wipes flour on her apron and closes the door.

When Susie said yes to Robbie she knew she’d never have to worry again.