Page 75 of Cream and Punishment
I clenched my hands into fists at my side, breathing heavily. I’m not sure what the breaking point was, exactly. Finding out she’d been purposely ignoring me and pretending she couldn’t hear me for a year. Shooting down my ideas that could’ve helped her bakery improve. Being pushed to the back and taking over baking all of her recipes without any pay or title change to reflect the increase in responsibility. Being treated like a child while doing the responsibilities of an equal.
Whatever it was, it combined like baking soda in vinegar with the maelstrom of emotions I still hadn’t worked through this week. The rejection. The highest of highs before plummeting. Reading into the texts Max kept sending.
I’d finally had enough. It was like I was watching myself in a video, ashamed I was exploding, but powerless to stop it.
“I’m a good employee and a great baker, Gale, and yet you haven’t even had the decency to listen. I’ve been practically yelling at you for a year now, all because I’m the only one you seem to have trouble hearing.” I gestured wildly, though I couldn’t tell you what I gestured at. The phone, the bakery as a whole, the entire world—the possibilities were endless. “I would say I’m sorry for making the cupcakes, but I’m not. I won’t do it again, though, if that’ll make you feel better. If I ever don’t fulfill all the duties you’ve assigned to me,thenyou can chew me out.”
I blinked hard, stunned into silence as the reality of what I’d just done sunk in. I yelled at my boss. Legitimately snapped and angry-yelled at the woman who had the power to fire me here and now. This wasn’t me. I didn’t shout or get angry. I didn’t snap.
And yet, I just did.
Gale studied me for a moment, her wise eyes panning over me. Was it too late to beg for forgiveness? I really shouldn’t have made those stupid cupcakes on company time or at least told her about the mix-up sooner. Really, itwasmy fault, and I’d just taken it out on her. What had I done?
Before I could commence my groveling, her face cracked into a wide grin. The action was so unexpected given the circumstances that all plans of groveling flew the coop.
“Thereit is,” she proclaimed, beaming and nodding in satisfaction.
I hesitated. “Therewhatis?”
Her reason to fire me? Had she just been waiting for a good enough one this whole time?
She shrugged matter of factly. “Your backbone. I was beginning to wonder how long I’d have to keep it up before you’d finally stand up for yourself instead of just rolling over and taking it.”
My mouth gaped open, moving soundlessly before I could gargle any words out. “What?”
She stared me down, unflinching as her voice wavered with age. “I knew as soon as I hired you that you were a better baker than I ever was. You should never have been working for me—or anyone, really. But for some reason you were content letting someone else call the shots, so I put you in the back.”
Her silver-streaked curls swung as she shook her head. “You’re much faster than I am now, so having you man the back made my life easier at the same time. As for shooting down your ideas, I knew they were good ideas. They weregreatideas. But if I adopted them, you’d never get out and have a place of your own.” She smiled sadly at me, looking every bit her age. “I’m old, dear. I’m thinking of retirement, not how to grow my bakery. That’s for the young and ambitious, like you.”
I wouldn’t particularly choose either of those two adjectives to describe me, but comparatively speaking, maybe I was more ambitious than Gale, and definitely younger.
“Speaking of being old” —Gale chuckled, sending me a coy glance as she leaned against the counter— “I really did have issues hearing everything when you first started. Then I got new hearing aids a month or two in and realized you were timid as a mouse. So I kept up the act with you so you’d learn to speak up, and maybe it would ruffle your feathers enough that you’d speak up foryourselfone of these times.”
I finally found my voice again, cowering in the corners of my throat. “So you’re not…mad?”
She guffawed, her voice croaking and barking through the empty storefront. “No, dear, I’m ecstatic. The only thing that’d make me mad is if you continue working under whatever schmuck buys my bakery when I retire.”
My head spun from the emotional whiplash of this situation. The whole week, really. She’d not only thought I should be running my own bakery, just like Max and Lex and all my friends did, but she’d been goading me on this whole time until I’d snap and fight back. And it had taken a whole year to do so.
“So you were just waiting for me to stand up to you?”
She shook her head, her dark hand a stark contrast against the white marble of the countertop as she leaned on it for support. “I was waiting for you to prove to me and, more importantly,yourselfthat you had what it takes to be a boss. And you do.” She met my eyes, her own lit with a fire that could rival Hattie’s. “There’s a difference between being kind and letting others walk all over you. If you don’t know the difference, those who do will trample all over you until you shatter.”
I swallowed hard, Besserman’s face flashing behind my eyes. I’d given in to his pestering for a date, and when I pushed back with boundaries, he’d retaliated with the biggest trampling I’d received. And I’d let him. I didn’t fight him about it, release my own statement. Nothing. I’d rolled over, taken the beating, and ran away with my tail tucked between my legs.
And hadn’t his trampling shattered me? It had shattered my confidence, for sure. I didn’t just abandon my dream, I’d thought I was no longer good enough to achieve it despite already doing so.
Knowing what I knew now about myself and my potential diagnosis, I understood better why I’d reacted the way I did. It allowed for more compassion toward myself—something I’d starved myself of for too long. And it gave me hope.
Knowing what I might have gave me a game plan. I couldn’t treat what I didn’t know existed. If I got diagnosed and treated, presumably the tasks I’d struggled with so badly at my old bakery would be less painful to do. Easier, maybe. I wouldn’t have to swim with one arm tied behind my back anymore.
Gale rested a hand on my shoulder, oblivious to my inner turmoil. “I never would’ve messed with you this long if I’d have thought I could just tell you to grow a spine.”
“What?” I murmured, unsure I’d understood her.
Why couldn’t she tell me? Even if constructive criticism submerged me in boiling water, I’d managed to survive culinary school. Barely. Constructive criticism was necessary.
“You and I both know you would’ve beaten yourself up about it and stressed yourself out bending over backwards to please me. It’s just the way you are.” She smiled gently. “Which isn’t necessarily bad, just something that can easily become harmful if you let it go too far. But I needed a way to get you to fight back on your own.”
