“Well, I wasn’t enough of an overachiever to be born a Shipley,” Audrey says. “I had to marry one.”
“Whatever works,” I say, and she laughs.
“Do you both run this place?” I ask, trying to get a feel for whom to impress.
“Yep!” Audrey says, buzzing around behind the counter, straightening the empty cups. She reminds me of a jolly bumble bee. “We’re partners.”
“Oh,” I say slowly, not quite sure what she means by that.
Zara laughs, and it’s a rich, full sound. “Not life partners. We just own the business together.”
“Okay.” I let out a nervous chuckle. “Sorry for jumping to conclusions. Tell me what you are looking for.”
“We need somebody full time. Somebody reliable, with good references,” Zara says immediately.
“I can be all of those things,” I promise. “I once did a summer internship with the guys down at King Arthur Flour. That was a few years ago, but they’ll still vouch for me. Lately, I’ve been working in a big Nashville bakery. I have references there, too.”
Zara nods. “So you’re from Vermont originally?”
“Sort of? I was an Air Force brat. I was born here, but then we moved away. We came back my last two years of high school.”
“You went to high school in Colebury, right?” Zara asks. “I thought you looked a little familiar.”
“And you just moved back home?” Audrey adds.
“Yeah,” I say, trying not to look uncertain. “I want to stay in Vermont, but only if I find a job.” The truth is I don’t know how much time I can give myself to look for work. The safest thing would be to get right back in the car and try to get my old job back in Nashville.
“Why did you leave Tennessee?” Zara asks.
Tell the truth, or lie? It’s not an easy decision. “I got out of a bad relationship. Seemed like driving out of state was the only way to fix it.” That’s understating things somewhat, but they don’t need all the gory details.
“Don’t grill him,” Audrey yelps.
Zara laughs. “I managed a bar for five years. Grilling people is how you weed out all the nutters.” She gives me a sheepish smile. “Sorry. But it is.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” I say, hoping to sound agreeable.
“Well, fine,” Audrey says. “Zara is the businessperson. She keeps me from fucking up.”
I bark out a laugh because it seems wrong to see such a sweet-looking human dropping f-bombs.
“But let me tell you a little more about the Busy Bean. We’ve been open for about a year. It’s just been Zara and me and a part-time employee. But he can’t give us any more hours, and we need someone full time. I’m having a baby this winter.” She pats her belly. “And Zara has a lot going on in her life, too. We need full-time help, but we’ve been putting it off because we’re cheap.”
“You do your own baking, right?” I tear apart one of the muffins Zara served me and toss a bite into my mouth. “Wow. Good lemon flavor.”
“Thanks!” Audrey beams. “We do all our own pastries. But we buy our bagels.”
“I can make your bagels,” I say, putting another bite of muffin into my mouth. “Easy peasy.”
“But would you have to start at four in the morning?” Audrey asks. “That’s why we don’t make bread.”
“Nah. Now, baguettes need a four a.m. start time. But bagels and pretzels don’t need that kind of double rise. I’d use a sourdough starter for flavor, but the rise would come from instant yeast. One rise time. Boil ’em up and bake for twenty minutes.”
“Pretzels?” Audrey asks with a dreamy sigh. “That sounds amazing.”
“You could try me out for a probationary couple of days, and I’ll show you,” I promise. “How’s your oven?”
“It’s all right,” Audrey says. “Nothing fancy like they have at King Arthur.”
“You don’t need a fancy oven to make small breads and rolls,” I say quickly. “The giant oven is necessary for crusty boules and baguettes. In a smaller oven you can bake rolls, bagels, freeform pizza, pretzels, popovers…”
“Pizza!” Audrey yelps. “Now I want pizza.”
“You were just telling me that you had to watch the carbs,” Zara says. “That’s why we agreed to have chicken salad salad for lunch.”
“Plus it’s fun to say chicken salad salad,” Audrey points out.
“So that’s chicken salad—”
“On salad!” both women say at once.
I have a feeling this would be a fun workplace. Besides, if the Shipleys run it, the place is bound to do well.
“Can I have those references?” Zara asks. “I’ll call them today, and then if you were serious about working a couple of days as a trial, I think we should do that.”
“Sure! Let me grab my résumé out of my car,” I say. “One sec.”
I run outside, where I grab a folder. By the time I get back inside, Zara and Audrey are having an intense, whispered discussion. “Hours, pay, benefits,” Zara is saying. “We don’t have any of that stuff nailed down.”
“We can do some research,” Audrey says. “It’s time, right? I’ll ask May about the legal stuff.”
“Okay, sure.” Zara turns to give me a smile. “I thought we’d procrastinate a little longer, but then you walked in. Maybe it was meant to be.”
I hope she’s right. Because if there’s someplace in this world that I’m meant to be, I haven’t found it yet.
Kieran
Sometimes fate just slaps you in the face.
I hear these words, and my face prickles with awareness. Because fate is definitely smacking me around today.
After seeing Roderick at the gym yesterday, I wasn’t even surprised when he walked into the Busy Bean this morning. If I came back to Colebury after a long absence, I’d check out the cute new coffee shop, too.
But now he wants to work here? Fuck my life.
I steal a glance around the doorframe just to confirm what I already know—he’s getting in good with Zara and Audrey. They’re all smiling at each other like a bunch of BFFs.
Is there any way this ends well? Maybe he’s a horrible baker. Maybe he’ll burn everything and give the customers food poisoning.
And I’m obviously a terrible person, or I wouldn’t be thinking like this.
The urge to walk out the door right now is powerful. But that’s not what a man does. I take Audrey’s cookies out of the oven and move them to a cooling rack, so they won’t burn.
I can’t believe Audrey actually abandoned a batch of cookies in the oven. She got distracted by all this talk of new employees. If I’m honest, she gets distracted a lot lately. She calls it “pregnancy brain.”
The truth is that Zara and Audrey really do need a full-time employee. I can’t give them any more hours, and when Audrey has that baby, she’s going to need to take some time off. This past summer, Audrey went on a ten-day honeymoon, and it nearly killed Zara.