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A deliciously magical and mouthwatering debut, Bread Alone is the uplifting journey of a woman whose entire life changes course when her husband announces one evening that their marriage no longer works for him.

Not suited for teaching high school and hopeless at selling real estate, thirty-one-year-old Wynter Morrison long ago gave up trying to find a suitable career and drifted into the role of a trophy wife -- mainly to suit her husband's desires. An ambitious advertising executive, David had encouraged Wyn to spend her days among other society wives at wine tastings, French films, and trendy restaurants -- improving their social Rolodex and his array of business contacts. So, after seven years of marriage, when David informs Wyn that he feels confined and that their marriage was a mistake, she is left emotionally devastated and without direction, wondering how she let herself become so dependent.

Desperate for a change of scenery, Wyn leaves behind her posh, pampered life in Hancock Park and ventures north to Seattle, where she spends aimless hours at a local bakery, sipping coffee and inhaling the sweet aroma of freshly made bread. These visits bring back memories of her apprenticeship at a French boulangerie, when her passion for bread-making nearly led her to leave college to become a baker. Once again the desire and ambition to bake bread consumes Wyn's thoughts, and when offered a position at the bakery, Wyn quickly accepts, grateful for the comfort of a routine.

Arriving at the bakery just before midnight and working long hours among the bakery's cluster of eclectic women -- Linda, the irascible bread baker; earth mother Ellen and her partner Diane; Tyler, the blue-haired barista -- Wyn awakens to the truths that she missed while living the good life in Hancock Park. And soon she discovers that making bread -- the kneading of the dough, the heat from the ovens -- possesses an unexpected and wondrous healing power, helping her to rediscover that nothing stays the same: bread rises, pain fades, the heart heals, and the future beckons.

Inspiring and beautifully rendered , Bread Alone is an uplifting debut novel -- dusted in the gentlest of magic, full of humor, and guaranteed to warm the heart.

Fragmento. © Reproducción autorizada. Todos los derechos reservados.

Bread Alone

William Morrow & Company

Chapter One

The beeping smoke detector wakes me. No, wait. The smoke detector buzzes. When I sit up, the room is wavy, an image in a funhouse mirror. The alarm clock? I turn my head too quickly. It's the old Apache torture. Strips of wet rawhide, tied tight, left to dry.

I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, blink my swollen eyes. My mouth feels like the lint trap in the clothes dryer. I'm wearing a half-slip and the ivory silk blouse I had on last night. My watch has slid up, cutting a deep groove into my arm: 6:45 A.M. An empty bottle of Puligny Montrachet on the night table. I thought only cheap wine gave you a headache. What did I do with the glass?

I stand up, unsteady. Walk downstairs. Carefully. Holding the railing. Into the kitchen. The bread machine. How can such a small machine make such a big noise? The beeps are synchronized to the throbbing in my temples. I hit the button. The beeping stops and the lid swings open, releasing a cloud of scent. I wheel around and vomit into the sink. I turn on the water, rinse out my mouth, stand panting, gripping the cold edge of the slate countertop. Then I remember. David.

I lift out the still warm loaf, set it on the maple butcher block, a perfect brown cube of bread.

The employment agency is a busy office in a glass and steel building near LAX. The windows offer breathtaking views of Interstate 405, still bumper-to-bumper at ten-thirty. Applicants crowd the waiting areamostly women who appear to be ten years younger than me, probably all named Heather or Fawn or Tiffany. The place has a sense of purpose worthy of the war rooms you see in World War II movies. All that's missing is Winston Churchill. No one lingers by the water fountain to chat. Everyone's on the phone or tapping a keyboard or striding resolutely down the hall, eyes averted to avoid distractions. Like me.

The only exception is the young woman at the front desk. When she finishes filing that stubborn broken nail, she looks up with a smile. "Can I help you?"

I try for amused detachment from the whole process. "I have an appointment with Lauren at eleven o'clock. I know I'm early, but..."

"That's okay." She hands me a clipboard with several forms attached to it. "if you'll just fill these Out, we can go ahead and get started with your tests." She gives me a pencil and points to some chrome and leather chairs against one wall.

Tests? Oh shit. I sink down onto a chair, my head still twanging in spite of two aspirins and a double espresso. One thing at a time. Name: "Justine Wynter Franklin." Maybe I shouldn't use my married name. I try to erase Franklin" but the eraser is old and brittle and just makes smudges as it crumbles. I scratch a line through it, print "Morrison." Now it looks like I'm not sure.

Address. Telephone. I nail those two. Date of birth, Social Security number. Type of work desired. "Don't know" probably wouldn't look good. I put down "Office." Too vague? Skills. I stare at the blank space and it seems to grow larger, defying me to fill it.

Well, I can still recite Frangois Villon's "Ballade des pendus." Or discuss the effects of the Industrial Revolution on the English novel. Let's see...I can make perfect rice with no water left in the bottom of the pot and every grain separate and distinct. I know how to perk up peppercorns and juniper berries that are beyond their shelf life, repair curdled crhme anglaise. And if you want to tenderize meat using wine corks or get candle wax out of a tablecloth, I'm your woman. I can tell a genuine Hermhs scarf from a Korean knockoff at fifty paces. I have a strong crosscourt backhand. A long time ago, I knew how to type, but even then my speed was nothing to brag about. Someone told me once that I had a nice telephone voice. "Give good phone?"

"Justine Franklin?"

Startled, I look up.

"Hi, I'm Lauren Randall." The woman standing in front of me showing me her perfect teeth is obviously very much at home in this world. Fortyish, handsome rather than pretty, wearing a beige raw-silk dress. Her blonde hair is pulled back from her face so tightly that it raises her eyebrows into an expression of surprise.

When I get up to shake her outstretched hand, the clipboard clatters to the floor. Face burning, I scoop it up, ignoring the stares, and follow her down the hall while she does her standard line of chat. "It's so nice to see somedone wearing a suit. You wouldn't believe some of the outfits I see. These young girls come in here looking like they're going to the beach instead of to work."

Now that we've eliminated me from that "young girl" category... She takes the clipboard from me and leads me into her Office, a cubbyhole with two chairs and a tiny desk covered with file folders. "Let's see what we've got. What kind of work are you looking for?"

"General office. Filing, answering the phone..."

Excerpted from Bread Aloneby Judith Ryan Hendricks Copyright © 2001 by Judith Ryan Hendricks. Excerpted by permission.
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