Page 5 of Leo
I nodded.“Okay.Like I said, let me know.”
Bethany—Nausicaa?—stood and smoothed her hands over the black jeans that made me fear for her circulation.“Good Okay.I will.”She paused, her heavily lined eyes narrowing behind her thick glasses.“I might change it again.”
“Okay.”
“Oh my god,” she muttered, turning on those dangerous shoes and stomping out of my office, her steps sounding down the narrow corridor leading to the kitchen area.
“Don’t touch the bakes!”I called after her out of old habit.
“Iknow!”
I closed my eyes and groaned, letting my head thump gently against the headrest behind me.It was only half past nine on Saturday morning, and the day had already gone on too long.Between getting the Dennis funeral order out the door on time, Bethany’s ongoing litany of complaints about everything from her clothes to her name to the lack of decent writing prompts in the afterschool poetry club she was in, and the rising cost of supplies and dwindling amount of my energy, I was starting to wonder if just maybe I’d bitten off more than I could shew.Fuck.Maybe Aunt Sharon was right and I should’ve gone into computer science or something.
But that was kind of bullshit—Aunt Sharon didn’t mean that.She’d been the one who got me into baking, into doing it professionally.And it was because of her I’d been able to keep Bethany with me after Mom and Dad’s accident.
And it’d been Morris Family Funeral Home and Crematorium that’d cut a freaked out college kid a huge deal and buried his parents for practically nothing, even with the nice caskets and everything that went along with having a decent funeral for two amazing people, so when the order for a gazillion rude cupcakes for a funeral service at the home came in a few days ago, I was tempted to deliver it myself even though I knew the budget needed doing, orders for supplies needed placing, and I had to be front of house for customers.
Saturday tradition at Nice Buns saw me behind the counter instead of in the kitchen or office for most of the day.Saturday was when I’d trot out my specialty bakes for the upcoming week: candlestick cupcakes, cornstarch cookies, Waldorf Salad Bars.All things from the old cookbooks I’d been collecting since high school.Things that, frankly, made Nice Buns stand out from other bakeries.Next to the vanilla cream cupcakes and trays of sugar cookies with seasonally colored sprinkles were candle cupcakes adapted from a midcentury salad ‘recipe’ involving bananas and avocado chocolate pie straight out of one of the 1970s church cookbooks I’d picked up trawling garage sales up and down the coast.
For September, just a few days away, I’d planned an entire month of autumn and back to school themed items.Between Ira, Bethany, and me, we’d made cherry-ketchup cupcakes and chocolate mayonnaise cakes to be sliced up before the shop opened.It’d taken me ages to make both recipes allergen friendly so we’d have those versions on hand as well.In a week I’d be setting out some more typical items alongside the unusual ones: cookies shaped and decorated to resemble pencils and notebooks, cupcakes decorated with delicate spun sugar autumn leaves… I sighed and opened my eyes.I really needed help.
I mean, definitely a therapist sort of help, but help at the bakery most of all.
The outer office phone rang, and I heard Bethany answer it, the tone of her voice sulky and her volume low enough that I couldn’t catch the words.Oh god, don’t be the Sugar and Spice people,I thought desperately.The big bakery chain had been sending out feelers for months, hoping I’d agree to a franchise or, at the very least, agree to sell some of their products but I’d been turning them down.They were another ‘quirky’ bakery chain but relied heavily on plain flavors and gumpaste decorations.Their big claim to fame had been scoring some features on a few travel blogs and having a rich owner who had a great legal team that helped set up a chain of Sugar and Spices in some chi-chi neighborhoods up and down both coasts and in Chicago.
When she didn’t holler for me to pick up the line after a moment, I breathed a sigh of relief, then paused.Please don’t let her be rude to a customer just because she’s in a shitty mood,I thought with a twinge of desperation.I didn’t want to tell her that she needed to tuck away her very valid feelings but at the same time, it took everything in me not to tell her on the daily that Nice Buns had an image to maintain and snarling at customers when she’d had a bad day wasn’t going to help.
I tapped the mouse to wake up the computer and started back in on the budget.We were running on a fine margin, like most bakeries did, but ours seemed to be getting finer.Vanishingly so.Gaynor Beach was an amazing town with a thriving tourist industry and loyal regular customers but…
But.
The tourist industry was largely seasonal, with small upticks near the holidays thanks to the town festivals.And the loyal, local customers were a lifesaver but there were only so many people in town who patronized Nice Buns.
You can’t force people to eat cake,Aunt Sharon had reminded me more than once when I’d get all in my feels about people—people we knew and liked—not coming to her bakery back home, even when word got out that times were hard for the shop.
Before I could stop myself, I tabbed over to the last email from Sugar and Spice.
Hey there, Ambrose!It was great talking to you on Thursday—that’s how I knew it was a form letter or close to it because it hadnotbeen great speaking with the rep.In fact, I’d told them how many corners to fold their proposal into and in which orifice to stick it after they followed me on a round of deliveries and then hung out in my shop all day, being a nosy asshole and bothering customers with questions about how well they liked Nice Buns, had they ever tried Sugar and Spice (sixty locations nationwide, one near you!).
We’d love to get some back and forth going on how Sugar and Spice can win you over!Your location, your aesthetic, and your customer service would be a great fit with the company, and we know you’d really do our delicious products justice with your skills!We’ll have another rep in the area on Monday—
I groaned because Monday was the day after tomorrow.Patience, time, and politeness were three things I was out of and couldn’t be remedied with an order placed to my wholesale supplier.
“Hey,” my sister muttered from the doorway, looking anywhere but at me.
“What did you do?”I sighed.
“What?Nothing!Just some guy is here to see you with all the cupcakes you sent to the funeral this morning.”She shrugged, darting a glance in my direction but hitting somewhere over my head.“And, uh, he might’ve called first too.”
“Do you hear that?That tiny hissing noise?”
Bethany frowned.“No?”
“If you listen really close, just close your eyes andlisten,” I said, dropping my voice to a whisper, “you can hear my blood pressure creeping up to dangerous levels.”
“Oh my god,” she groaned.“Whatever.He’s out front.”
“If you hear a pinging sound,” I called after her, “it got high enough to literally blow my gaskets!”
