I Cheerfully Refuse

by Leif Enger

was called Bread—the shop—because it started as a bakery. It was the best place in Icebridge even before Lark got there. The owner was Maudie Antoinette, who made one variety of bread, domed peasant loaves that rose all night to be baked in the morning. Creamy inside with a dark crust that looked split by lightning, it made a meal by itself or with whatever else you had. The story is that Maudie fell in love decades earlier with a Spanish baker and surfer who imparted this recipe then vanished. The note he left said, I am returning to Europe before it closes. Maudie made forty or fifty loaves a day. Hers was the only place in town people lined up outside. She had a blunt benevolent face and the most defined forearms I ever saw. This is how Lark got involved. We’d been in town less than a year. One morning she bought the last loaf and Maudie, musing at her own hard work and tiny profits, referred to herself as Gimpel the Fool. Of course Lark knew the bread-baking hero of the old story, and from then on the two of them were friends. There followed evenings in which they compiled lists of cherished books. Some I’d heard of, most not. Maudie also had a barter arrangement with a local distiller named Dodge, so these evenings got mawkish and boisterous. One night I dragged in late from an upshore gig and Maudie was still there, pink and giddy with the news that Lark had agreed to sell used books at the bakery. One small shelf to start with. It felt exciting, precarious. They rea...