My stomach feels like a blender on high speed. I try to smile at the assembled group. They all look at me-all but Darren, who is focused on his notebook. Standing straight-how awful to slouch on my first day of teaching-I find my words. "We'll start with the basics."

I found a cloth Whole Foods bag in the cabin and have used it to carry the ingredients for today's lesson. From it, I take a saucepan and place it on the stove. Then I pull out a stick of butter, a small sealed jug of milk, and a bag of white flour. I look into my saucepan, and for a second, I have no clue what to say next. I look out at the students. They're surprisingly silent, just staring back at me. I finally say, "We'll make a white sauce."

"White sauce?" asks the one who I think is named Bobby. He is stocky, and his shirt keeps rising up to show his soft and generous white tummy.

"Why can't we make a brown sauce?" asks the girl named Rainy as she adjusts a pair of sunglasses over her large, round eyes.

"How about French fries? Can we make them?" A girl with long brown hair jumps out of her chair. I think her name is Lisa.

After that everyone talks at once.

"Let's just go get some at Burger King."

"Yeah, their fries are good."

"Duh!"

"No, you have to go to McDonald's. They have the best fries."

"No way!"

"You're making me hungry."

"Kids!" I am amazed at the power of my own voice. I have their attention; now what do I do? "Sit down." I point to the chairs as if they don't know where to sit. My tone is like a tractor leveling the ground on a spring day. "We are going to listen." I measure milk and butter with yellow plastic cups I pull out of the paper bag. I turn the heat on low under the saucepan and add butter, flour, then milk. Suddenly I realize I have brought nothing with which to stir the sauce. I open a drawer and find knives. I slide over to another and find forks. "I need a spoon," I say. The sauce is going to burn if I don't stir it soon.

"Look to your left," says Lisa.

"No, her right, dummy!" Bobby's voice booms across the room.

I look in both directions and find a wooden spoon in a canister filled with utensils. If the canister had been a snake, it would have just had to slither once to make it into the saucepan. Quickly, I stir the melted butter and bubbly milk. I lower the heat.

"Can I go to the bathroom?" asks the girl named Charlotte. This is the first time she has spoken. I tell her she may go.

"Are you Mr. Livingston's granddaughter?" Joy asks. Flatly, she adds, "He never told us about you."

"Can we play basketball now?" Bobby asks. I try not to roll my eyes at the group, or scold them like my mother would. "Please come here and watch this sauce."

"Where do you live? Are you from here?" Joy seems to have a lot of questions.

"Dummy, didn't you hear? She's from Atlanta!" This is from the boy with the buzz cut. I now realize his name is Dougy because I see that DOUGY DOUGY is printed across his green shirt. is printed across his green shirt.

"Please get out of your chairs and come here. Now!" I hope my voice sounds authoritative.

They all leave their seats to form a circle around the stove as I stir the white sauce. "It will thicken soon," I say and just then I notice one child is still seated and shading in some drawing on a notebook page.

"Please come here." I eye Darren, but he refuses to budge.

"Darren never participates during the inside stuff," Lisa tells me.

"He's afraid," says another.

"He's scared of stoves," says Bubba.

Darren looks up. With fire in his eyes he shouts at me, "Cooking is a waste of time! Why did you come here? We don't need you!"

His words slice a part of my heart.

thirteen.

Do not cry, I say to myself, which makes it harder not to cry. I am the only adult in the room- I can't let them see me fall apart. I focus on the pan on the stove.

"It does get thick," Lisa observes, chewing on a strand of her brown hair.

"What do you use it for?" Bubba is suddenly interested. I'm not sure why he's called Bubba; he is one of the scrawniest boys I've ever seen, looking no older than a third grader.

"You can add cheese to it and pour it over broccoli or pasta." I work hard to make my voice even and steady.

The kids don't care. They just want to go outside. And find the nearest McDonald's for the best fries.

I wonder what to do next. The clock on the wall says it's 3:14. How long was this lesson supposed to be? "What do you all make at home?" I ask, hoping to take up some time.

"My grandma doesn't like to cook."

"We eat McDonald's!"

"I like onion rings better than fries," Dougy informs us.

Darren just sits and draws. When I ask to see his notebook, he slams it shut.

"Okay," I say as I inhale. "Why don't y'all go outside?"

This is just what they have been waiting for. They race outdoors, and I feel my frustration mount. I should have gone really basic and taught them how to boil an egg. Regret fills me, and to try to shake it off, I begin to wash out the saucepan in the large sink. Flinging open cabinets, I finally find the dish soap-Palmolive, the same kind we use at the restaurant. I squeeze drops onto a scouring pad.

The door swings open, and I glance over my shoulder to see the tall basketball-playing guy from the other day. He gets a drink of water from a plastic container in the fridge.

"You're Deena Livingston, aren't you?"

With the scouring pad still in my hand, I smile. "And you're Zack."

He nods. "Zack Anderson." Placing the water container back into the fridge, he asks, "How did it go?"

"What?" I turn off the water.

"Aren't you the cooking teacher? Didn't you have a class just now?"

I sigh and sink my hands deeper into the suds.

He comes over to the counter where the Tupperware container of white sauce sits. He sniffs. "Butter?"

"White sauce." Don't these mountain folk know anything?

"White sauce?" The way he says it, I am so aware that this was not the item to prepare today. I have made a big mistake. What was I thinking?

He uses one hand to brush back his curly hair. I've always wished my straight hair would one day turn into a head of curls. Sally says for me not to be fooled, that curly-haired people have plenty of coiffure-related troubles. When I see her thick, red hair, full of lively curls, I can never think of one.

Zack asks, "So, did the kids do okay?"

I know we are in church, and I know that telling the truth is important. Even so, I lie. "They were great." My smile is as plastic as the Tupperware.

"Terrific!" He produces dimples in both cheeks and light in his hazel eyes. Yes, some people are way too blessed in the appearance department. I bet he has no scars or moles or flaws whatsoever. I'm certain he models regularly for GQ GQ.

"Yeah." I sigh.

"Sorry I missed it." He stands beside me as my fingers work to scrub the last of the white sauce out of the pan. "I wanted to be here to make sure everything went well on your first day, but I got a phone call from social services about another kid, and that took a lot of time."

"Well, thanks for your concern."

"Yep." He grins at me, then leaves the kitchen.

What on earth am I doing? What was I thinking, quitting my job to come here? Why did I leave Atlanta? I left a place where I was wanted and needed and where no one yelled at me.

Closing my eyes, I breathe in, trying to smell the aroma from the kitchen at Palacio del Rey. I see a leg of lamb marinating in basil and mint and a plate of fresh asparagus cooked in butter, garnished with slivered almonds. Next, I conjure the aroma of the light buttercream frosting of my velvet white cake and just the idea of it sends a pang of yearning to my heart. I see each uniformed employee in my mind; all the dishes they will make for dinner tonight whirl before me-perfect and ready to be enjoyed. I try hard to get a whiff of one of them, but all I smell is lemon-scented cleaner and yesterday's popcorn.

I take in another breath. There is one more scent- nostalgia.

fourteen.

Lucas was seated in the pew in front of Sally and me. I sat through the whole church service staring at his wavy black hair. The sermon was on David and Bathsheba. That should have been my first clue that he was bad news. If you are seated in a sanctuary and the pastor preaches on sin and greed, do not greedily hope that the cute new guy in front of you will ask you out and not at all be interested in the dozens of other attractive single women in the other pews. Women with four-year degrees, wearing Liz Taylor perfume. Women with 401(k)s and matching leather luggage.

I stuck out my hand, told him my name, was too nervous to remember his, and invited him to the singles Sunday school class. I hoped that the way I said singles singles didn't make it sound like it was a horrible disease. I was twenty-five and often thought I was carrying some deadly flaw or illness that kept me from finding the love of my life. didn't make it sound like it was a horrible disease. I was twenty-five and often thought I was carrying some deadly flaw or illness that kept me from finding the love of my life.

Lucas smiled and his aqua eyes crinkled at the edges. His black lashes gently swooped down, and when he looked at me again, we both smiled.

Then others approached him and I was literally lost in the swarming crowd.

The next week he appeared in my Sunday school class, making his way toward me. I felt anticipation fill every pore in my body, although, of course, thanks to my upbringing, I knew not to show it. When he chose the chair next to mine, I could feel my pounding heart.

We talked after that class about the simple things that are often discussed at the beginnings of relationships-the best restaurants in town, noisy neighbors, and the Atlanta Braves. Caught up in the moment, we nearly missed the worship service that followed.

When he called me four days later, I thought I was the luckiest girl on the planet. The sensation was even more exciting than baking a three-tier butter cake and icing it with the most perfect pink roses.

"So how was teaching?" Aunt Regena Lorraine asks as she boils water for sassafras tea. She is standing next to me in the kitchen, where I just pulled a white velvet cake from the oven. The aroma is enticing. However, her question quells my cheerful mood.

Funny how at church I lied, but here at home, I choose to be honest. "Tough." Then I let out a sigh. It aches as it leaves my lungs, making me feel tired, as though I have just cooked a five-course meal for dinner guests. I push aside a cardboard box to make room for us at the table. When I sit down, I add, "I don't think it could have gone worse."

I don't tell her that I threw myself into making the cake just to prove that I can still function in some normal way that resembles the me I'm familiar with. I don't tell my aunt that while baking, I had conversations with myself. My reluctantfearful self was the clear winner of all my arguments.

"Well, well." Sucking in air, she repeats, "Well, well." As she pours the tea into mugs carrying the face of an Indian and the face of a bear, she tells me, "Those kids have been through a lot." She rubs a pudgy hand across the neck of the bright dress she has on this afternoon. The fabric resembles an artist's palette of reds and purples. "Did you meet Darren?"

"Yes," I mutter. "Even his mother."

"His mother?"

"She called him her son when she came to The Center."

"Hair orange or red?"

"Orange."

My aunt nods. "At Christmas it was red. Was she determined to see him?"

"She was yelling."

"She's on probation and there is a restraining order." She turns on the faucet and washes her hands.

"Why?" I ask.

But the question gets lost because Regena Lorraine says, "Looks like Jonas fixed the water pressure." She smiles at me. "Did he come over the other day?"

I think of Jonas waving his wrench and calling me Deirdre. "He did. Is he a little... ?"

I'm not sure what the politically correct term is. What do you call someone who repeats phrases, delivers his words like lines from a poorly rehearsed role, and sings verses from the Eagles' Greatest Hits Eagles' Greatest Hits as he goes around your house tapping every faucet with the top of a Sharpie? as he goes around your house tapping every faucet with the top of a Sharpie?

My great aunt has no concerns about political correctness.

"Retarded. Jonas is retarded. He has a little house in Fontana and lives alone." She dries her hands on the linen towel that Grandpa must have bought in Venice. Venice Venice is stamped under a lopsided bowl of printed fruit. She joins me at the table, handing the bear mug to me and setting the Indian mug in front of her. A spoon swims in each mug. As she shifts into her chair, her rings picking up the sunlight, she smiles into my eyes. "I bet they love you." is stamped under a lopsided bowl of printed fruit. She joins me at the table, handing the bear mug to me and setting the Indian mug in front of her. A spoon swims in each mug. As she shifts into her chair, her rings picking up the sunlight, she smiles into my eyes. "I bet they love you."

"What?"

"Young and attractive."

I want her to stop right there. Notice the long sleeves, Auntie. I'm not wearing them because I'm cold. I am covering all my bad and ugly that is visible to the human eye. The trouble is, I still know those scars are there.