Carmen had seen the girl after she’d been unburied. She remembered seeing her walk around town, at the market, so skinny, and with this doomed look on her face. Could the girl speak? She must have spoken. But Carmen never once heard her say even a single word. A ghost of a ghost.
She rarely thought about the unburied girl from her childhood. But that girl, her face, came to Carmen suddenly when she saw this stranger—the look in her eyes—as she leaned against the bakery counter. The memory came with a startlingly vivid flash.
“Phone,” April was saying, almost panting. “Please.”
Carmen felt her defenses weakening.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?”
“My sister, she’s . . .” said the girl, in an odd, absent sort of way, “gone.”
Carmen retreated into the back to find her phone. As she rummaged through her purse, she saw April standing at the bakery counter, eating the bread samples, ravenously, until the plate was empty.
Why me? Carmen thought, then felt a bit guilty.
When Carmen returned to the counter, April was in tears. She was holding a photo of her missing sister, printed on a piece of office paper.
“This is the most recent one I got,” she said. “Have you seen her? Her name is Rose. She comes around here a lot.”
“Here?”
“Here,” April said, “to this bakery.”
“Oh,” said Carmen, feeling a sudden knot in her throat. “I see.”
She examined the photo. The missing girl had boy-short, bright red hair and big, mischievous eyes. She appeared to be a bit younger and a bit more punk than April. In the picture she was shown in a booth at a Chili’s, intentionally leaning in front of another girl, impishly blocking her out of the photo. Her mouth was slightly open.
“What was she saying?” Carmen suddenly asked.
“Saying?” said April.
“Yeah,” Carmen replied, handing the photo back to April. “In the picture. It looks like she’s saying something.”
April looked at the photo and smiled a tiny bit. “Probably something dumb.”
“Well, she does look familiar, I think. That red hair,” Carmen said. “But I can’t remember when I might have seen her last. Not this week, I don’t think.”
Carmen handed her phone to April. She wiped her hands on her jeans, pulled out a piece of paper with a number on it, and began furiously dialing.
“I’m calling her friend,” she said to Carmen. And then, a moment later: “Ugh.” There was no answer. She left a breathless message.
Uh, hey, it’s me . . . I’m calling from someone’s phone because mine got cut off. Look, Rose’s gone. I don’t know where she is. I haven’t heard from her for more than three days. You know she’s not like that. I’m really scared. I don’t need to tell you what I’m afraid of. I know you know. I’m at Reading now. Please call me back at this number or come here as soon as you can. I’m at . . .
She turned to Carmen.
“Metropolitan Bakery,” Carmen said.
The Metropolitan Bakery, April said into the phone. Reading Terminal Market.
April put the phone back on the counter and looked helplessly at Carmen.
“I think you should call the police, hon,” Carmen said.
“No,” April replied with a vehemence that startled Carmen.
“I just think . . .”
“I’m not calling the police.”
“Okay, hon,” Carmen said. “Just keep it in mind, okay?”
* * *
For the next few hours April waited in the bakery, sitting at the table next to the door, staring out into the marketplace. Carmen made her a sandwich, which the girl at first ignored and then, in four rapid bites, devoured. At noon, when the bakery got crowded, a young woman about April’s age approached her table and, seeing that she’d finished her meal, asked if April was about to leave. With teeth clenched in rage, April said loudly, “How about you keep walking.” Carmen overheard this, sighed, dropped a croissant on a plate, walked briskly over to April’s table, and slid the croissant in front of her.
“You will not talk to my customers like that,” she said. “I’m running a business here.”
April glared at her.
“Do you understand? Answer me.”
“Yeah,” April said. “I got it.”
Even as Carmen handled long lines of customers, she’d turn an eye toward April. For hours, the girl sat in the same spot, almost motionless, just staring. Occasionally, she would stand up, look intently out the window, as though recognizing someone, and begin to walk toward the door, only to discover that it wasn’t the person she thought, and then retreat back to her seat.
Joseph Young had watched all of this from afar. Whenever possible, he’d drift over toward the bakery, to see what was happening with the girl whose sister was missing. He considered going up to her and saying something. But what? And anyway, she seemed agitated, and not in the mood for company. Joseph decided to let her be—for now. But he was keeping an eye on her.
By the end of the day, April was still sitting there. As Carmen began to mop the floor, April suddenly jumped up.
“I gotta go,” she said and made for the door.
“Wait!” Carmen called out. “What if your friend calls me back?”
“She’s not my friend,” April said over her shoulder.
And then she was gone, swallowed up in the crowded market. On her way out, she’d walked right past Joseph, who had drifted back toward the door of the bakery—possibly for the twentieth time that day—to keep watch over April. In her haste, she had bumped into him, and the contact had jolted him far more than he expected. The aroma of her perfume had reached him quickly and lingered powerfully for a moment before thinning out into the ether. Its fragrance was unmistakable. As Joseph watched April disappear, he named it aloud, letting the word pass over his lips like a gently felt secret.
Roses, he whispered.
* * *
Joseph had been so antsy to see April that he barely slept. But April did not show up at all the next morning, or during lunch. By 3:00 P.M. Joseph was losing hope. By 5:00 P.M., he was fairly certain he’d never see her again.
Carmen, too, was preoccupied with thoughts of this troubled young stranger. On her postwork walk home, Carmen kept her eyes wide open, looking for April’s missing sister—but she was also looking for April herself. The search went on for two days. During this time, Carmen called and re-called the number April had dialed, but never got a response. Had it all been a dream? Maybe April and her missing sister were just figments of her imagination?
But then, on Monday morning, shortly after opening time, as Carmen set out a display of fresh rosemary rolls—and Joseph was fielding the breakfast crowd over at the Amish diner—April was suddenly back, standing at the bakery counter, helping herself to samples, gobbling up little bits of bread as though she hadn’t eaten anything in days.
“Hey there,” Carmen said, trying to act casual. She slid a plate with a cranberry-walnut roll on it to April. “It’s hot out of the oven. Want some butter?”
April nodded.
“Any luck with your sister?” Carmen said as she buttered