Tomorrow night it’s supposed to dip below freezing. It’s not clear how long it will take until I can find somewhere to live. Most businesses run their payroll at least a week in arrears. That means a paycheck next Friday at the earliest. And I still won’t have enough money to rent an apartment.
I need to find somebody who’s looking for a roommate. I peeked at Craigslist, but the offerings were thin. The cheapest rental apartments I found on the web start at eight hundred dollars. Theoretically I could afford that, except I don’t know if I could pass a landlord’s credit check. Before I lived with Brian, I had some hard years. And also, landlords sometimes ask for first and last month’s rent and a security deposit. Under those conditions, I’d be sleeping in my car for weeks.
So I need a room someplace where they aren’t too concerned with the rules. A house shared with college students, maybe. I’d be a good roommate. Neat freak will make you sourdough waffles once a week on his day off. Gay AF. Quiet because he has no friends.
These are the things I think about while I slowly fall asleep in the refrigerator chill of my tiny German car.
The next few days are exhausting but glorious.
At first, Zara and Audrey don’t change their schedules. One of them is always present when I show up at six to help them start the day.
My bones ache from sleeping in the cold car, but I always feel better after the first hour in the kitchen. My new bosses like to play music while we bake muffins and start the coffee. The smell of pastries in the oven is like therapy to me. And since Zara and Audrey have given me free rein to test my own recipes, I’m up to my elbows in bread dough at least once each morning.
Push and turn. Push and turn. Kneading a loaf has always centered me. When I can bake, everything is right with the world. The yeasty smell of dough soothes me.
Meanwhile, I make it my business to learn everything I can about the coffee shop. I master their espresso machine and figure out when all the deliveries happen. Their cash register system is nothing too complicated.
“I’ve got this,” I tell Audrey on Wednesday. “You can let me open up the place tomorrow if you want to start sleeping in sometimes.”
Her smile is a mile wide. “We are thrilled by this idea, trust me. But Kieran’s dad just had surgery, so he’s not coming in for a couple days. After we get through that, I promise Zara and I will let you open for us. We can’t wait.”
“Awesome,” I say.
“Listen, about Kieran…”
I turn down the music—we’re rocking out to an old Violent Femmes album this morning—and wait for Audrey to continue. I’m desperately curious about Kieran, to be honest. He’s working that whole strong-and-silent-type thing. Those brown eyes. Those strong shoulders. If I spotted him in a gay bar, I’d be all over that.
“He’s kind of quiet,” Audrey says.
“You don’t say.”
Audrey laughs. “It’s just the way he’s made. I mean—he’s the best kind of guy in the world. He’ll do anything for his family. But he’s not a charmer. Zara and I don’t like to leave him alone with the customers for too long. He isn’t rude or anything, he just has RGF.”
“Resting…grouch face?
“Exactly!” Audrey giggles. “My whole point is this—don’t take it personally. People sometimes get the impression that Kieran doesn’t like them. But that’s not the case.”
“Gotcha,” I say. But I’m really thinking, Oh, honey. You have no idea how much he wants me gone. “Is his dad going to be okay?”
“Yeah,” Audrey says as she hands me a bag of coffee beans to pour into the grinder. “It’s back surgery, which sounds dreadful. But it’s not the sort of thing that kills you.”
I stay quiet, hoping she’ll keep talking about Kieran. My curiosity runs deep. What’s the other job he runs off to every afternoon? Is he single? Does he date men? Women? Both?
But Audrey doesn’t elaborate. “I’m going to flip the sign, okay?”
“You go, girl.”
She unlocks the front door, flips the sign from CLOSED to OPEN, and hangs the Open flag outdoors.
I hope we have a flood of customers and sell every last one of the onion bialys that come out of the oven. I need the Busy Bean to be the most profitable business on the planet.
And I need that paycheck.
Kieran reappears after a couple days. He’s taciturn behind the coffee bar, serving customers promptly but silently. He doesn’t have much to say to me either, but I’m not offended.
“Are you sure six work days a week isn’t too many?” Zara asks while pondering her new work schedule. She has me baking alone in the kitchen on three mornings and coming in later on three more.
“It’s all good. I need the hours,” I assure her. That’s what happens when you walk away from your life with nothing.
“Okey dokey,” she says.
My first morning opening the kitchen alone is on a Saturday. And it’s Kieran who’s scheduled to show up at eight. I hear him walk in the front door, whistling. “Hello?” he calls out.
“Hey,” I reply. “It’s only me back here.”
There’s a pause. I wonder if he’ll even respond. Would he really ignore me completely? “Oh. Hey,” he says a beat later. “Morning.”
I go back to work shaping the bagels I’m making, but he doesn’t appear in the kitchen. I hear the sound of chairs moving around on the wood floors as he checks the front of the house.
Then it gets quiet.
I have a tray of muffins to bring up front, so I step out of the kitchen. At first I don’t spot Kieran, but then I realize he’s standing on a stool behind the counter, his hand raised as he sketches something on the signboard.
Taking another step, I see the blackboard wall has been swept clean, and Kieran is drawing a new design. In multicolored chalk he’s fashioned a big turkey—a tom with a colorful spread of tail feathers. There’s a speech bubble beside his beak that says, Life is short. Eat dessert first.
“Wow. Do you draw everything on the displays in here?”
Kieran startles. For a second his balance goes haywire, and he comes close to falling off the stool. “Shit,” he curses under his breath. He puts a hand to the wall to steady himself. Luckily, only the chalk falls down.
“S-sorry,” I sputter.
“No problem,” he says, but his eyes close briefly, displaying his irritation.
“That’s a killer drawing,” I say, even though he probably doesn’t care what I think. “I assumed Zara did all the art and wrote all the notes. Because the quotes around here are so…”
“Snarky,” Kieran offers.
“Yeah.” They really are.
He jerks a thumb at the talking turkey. “I just channel my inner Zara when I’m changing up the weekly wisdom.”
I snort. It’s the first funny thing I’ve heard Kieran say. He doesn’t talk to me, and he isn’t chatty with the customers, but sometimes I’ve heard him and Audrey laughing together, so I know he’s capable of joy.
He’s still Mr. Enigma. I wish I could say that I didn’t care, or that I haven’t been watching him, but that would be a lie. I’m definitely tuned in to the Kieran channel, even if the signal is sometimes hard to make out.