Snapshots

Chapter Three

My parents live a regular fairy-tale. They met in college, sitting across from each other in their Food Tech class. The amount of time they didn’t really talk for varies depending on who you ask – my mum says it was two terms, dad claims it was six months, my godmother Cathy swears it was barely a week. But as soon as they found out that they both dreamed of going to the same culinary school – the Culinary Institute of Tuscany - they were inseparable, supporting each other through their final years and falling in love along the way.

They both got in to the CIoT, in the end. Our bookshelf is filled with photo albums of them in their early twenties: mum, with her dark hair whipped into wild curls; dad, his pale skin practically translucent in the aureate Italian sunshine. They stand on beaches of white sand with their feet in the surf; in vineyards under the shade of branches dripping with ripe purple grapes; amongst sun-bleached valleys of scrub bushes and stone pines. They wear sunglasses and double denim and flares and smiles that stretch across their entire faces. They look young, and happy, and beautiful, and hopelessly in love.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s where my love of photography stems. From the countless books that show me my parent’s lives, that show me who they were before I knew them. I’ve seen pictures of the street they walked down to get home every night; the curtains that my dad sewed by hand, hanging in uneven patches from the rafters of their run-down villa. These photos are some of my favourite things: their images imprinted on my memory from all the times I’ve traced my fingers across the glossy paper. They are my link to my parents past, and show me how they progressed into their future – the life I know now.

There are photos of them in green graduation gowns, waving their diplomas triumphantly at the cameras. Polaroids of a plane ride, and then the golden glow that permeated their lives in Italy is gone, replaced by hazy London streets: the inside of a cab, rain dripping down window panes, the starch white lines of matching chef uniforms. If their long Italian days were the summer, their time in London was a snug winter’s evening – they wrap up in scarves and coats and thick boots, braving the harsh weather to cosy up in pubs with crowds of new friends. They’ve lost their tans, but their smiles are the same.

And then, suddenly, unexpectedly, my parents move to Hearst. They trade in their jobs at a high end restaurant to open up a tiny bakery, and spend their lives amongst spun sugar and buttercream frosting, cooking up sumptuous cakes and sticky éclairs, mouth-watering and perfect in bow-wrapped boxes: pretty enough to entice both the tourists and the locals year round.

People say opposites attract, but in this case it wasn’t true. They’re a pair of dreamers, without a logical thought in either of their heads. Fliss is certain this is why she has grown up to be the sensible one: the person who manages the business side of the bakery. She talks to the suppliers, manages the accounts, controls the website, checks our permits.

I, on the other hand, do the stuff that generally goes unnoticed. The things that need to be done to keep the business running smoothly, things like counting boxes of supplies, double and triple checking the orders that go out, standing for hours upon end behind the small glass counter and serving the customers who trek through our bakery day in and day out.

Fliss markets us a family business in the most traditional sense of the word: everything’s round-cheeked smiles and wholesome family fun at The Baking Booth, both in front of and behind the scenes. And it’s true – but it’s not just us who work there though. Ellery has been working for my parents for the past ten years, and by now she’s practically family. She’s been a constant presence in my life since I was small – always through the swinging saloon doors into the kitchen, whistling along to the radio with her strawberry-blonde hair twirled up into a messy bun.