C & C Part 5

Lisa was the baker at the company, but anywhere else? She would have been called the pastry chef. A round-faced girl from New Jersey of about my age, Lisa had graduated from the CIA and was easily the best cook in the kitchen. She turned out chocolate chocolate cakes, sour cream apples pies, carrot cakes, and chocolate mousse pies by the half dozen, not to mention cookie dough, and an assortment of pick-up desserts for all the catering jobs, and she made it look easy.

Lisa lived with a friend named Amber, whose husband, Ron, was a sailor on active duty and often gone for months at a time. Amber and Ron had a three year old daughter, Savannah, who Lisa loved like her own. Times were rough when Ron was in town; Lisa didn't like the way he treated his family and, living under the same roof, it was a struggle for her. Ron was always trying to set Lisa up with guys he knew, probably to get her out of his house, although financially the arrangement worked for him (and emotionally it seemed to work for his wife and daughter).

That was how Lisa met Ernie, and things were going really well for a couple of weeks until he had to go to jail to serve the prison sentence he had received before Ron introduced them. Lisa stayed faithful to Ernie, though, talking to him on the phone when they could, and visiting him on her days off. As summer approached that year she grew increasingly concerned. Ernie wasn't happy; Ernie was worried for his safety; Ernie was distant. She did what she could to help, and she planned a surprise visit with a cake and all sorts of goodies for Ernie's birthday on July 14. 

That morning the phone rang in the kitchen and whoever answered it called Lisa over. I can still remember the look on her face as she twirled the cord around her finger, listening. "I don't know anything," she said and then hung up. "That was the police," she announced to the kitchen. "Ernie escaped."

Well, it was Bastille Day.