“I have to agree,” her mother, who rarely said an unkind word about anyone, added. “I don’t understand why you tolerate him.”
“I just want to keep things cordial between us.” The truth was, she didn’t know the best way to handle Sam. And she didn’t know how to tell him to stop coming into the bakery.
So she changed the subject. “We should sit before anyone else stops by.”
Her mother gave her a concerned look and smoothed some hair back from Tessa’s face. “How are you doing with everything, anyway? He’s moving in with that girl?”
So much for trying to change the subject. “Everything” was code for her post-Sam life. “I’m doing okay. Lilac and I are having lunch this week.” Her eccentric best friend, who was a children’s librarian, kept her supplied with books and humor. And of course her two sisters, Juliet and Vivienne, were always in her corner. Tessa also had her YouTube ladies who always watched her baking videos that she uploaded a few nights a week and left kind comments. They were her cheering squad that helped her keep her dream alive of one day becoming a pâtissier.
Gram returned, carrying a little tray holding three coffees. Two were bitter black espressos. Tessa’s was topped with steamed milk and a lot of foam. And any one of these was capable of keeping a person up for a double shift.
“Be sure to say hi to Lilac for me,” her mom said, talking as Gram took a seat with them at one of the tables. “I’m glad we get a rare moment to sit down together, but I must admit you’ve got my nerves up.”
Tessa took a sip of Gram’s wonderful coffee, licking the foam off her lips and gearing up for what she had to say. She had a sinking feeling that any sentence she’d utter with the word Castorini in it was destined to create a volcanic eruption. But she plunged in anyway. “So…” she began, “I’ve been trying to get us new accounts to replace the GoodFoods chain pulling out.”
“Yes,” her mom said. “I have, too. I had a couple of leads as far as Illinois and Michigan, if we could hire the transport so the bread arrives fresh.”
“Well, that might not be necessary. I found a potential local customer.” Really local. “No transport required.”
“Is it a chain?” her grandmother asked. “We’ll need more than one store.”
“Not a chain.” Tessa had to remind herself to breathe. Dread prickled the back of her neck. “It’s a family-owned restaurant. The son is planning to go into business with his father, and he wants to use our bread. They…would like some desserts, too, which I’m happy to work evenings to make.” She took another deep breath. “And…I’d like to do a shelf of pastries here. Just a tiny shelf, to see if they’d be popular. If they are, well—maybe we could sell those, too. Diversify our inventory. And maybe start selling them to our other accounts?”
There. She’d said it. All of it.
Her mother gave her a shrewd look. “Which restaurant?”
Well, okay, almost all of it.
“It’s very well established, and—”
“Tessa, who?”
She waved her hand toward next door. “Our, um…neighbors.”
“Out of the question,” her mother said, bringing her hand down hard on the table. “We are a boulangerie. Not a patisserie. I’ve been telling you that for a long time. We’re not having this discussion again.”
Tessa bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from saying something she’d regret. It was the same spiel she’d heard dozens of times before, and it was usually amended with, “But that doesn’t mean you can’t go out and become a patisserie chef somewhere else.”
But this time her mother added, “And we do not supply Italian restaurants—especially not that family’s Italian restaurant—with our French bread. That’s just absurd.”
Again, Tessa caught her grandmother’s eye. Gram knew that Tessa was too faithful to ever leave her family during a time of need, because family loyalty was baked into her DNA.
“You know, Joanna,” Gram said, “these are desperate times. Maybe we need to change our way of thinking.”
Her mother shook her head. “There’s a difference between changing our ways and changing our principles and values.”
That was just the thing, though. Her mother was not budging on the definition of tradition. She’d rather lose the business than tweak it a little in a different direction.
Tessa looked out the window, where the sun shone brightly on the little shops lining the street. Someone from the candle shop was planting urns with bright red flowers near the main entrance. People were walking by, talking to each other, chatting on their phones.
A sense of pure, utter longing enveloped her and nearly brought her to tears. A ridiculous image appeared in her head, of her running down the street, arms outstretched like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music.
Free.
What did free feel like?
Everyone here had a place. A job. A life.
Well, she had a life, too, but it wasn’t the one she wanted. Her die had been cast as the steady sister, the one who kept everyone on track. And while her mother might talk like Tessa was free to leave, she’d also made it nearly impossible for her to go.
…
“Why are you hiding in here on such a beautiful night?” Tessa’s grandmother asked that evening as she entered the back room of the bakery. Gram took a seat at the big wooden counter, right at home amid the bread racks, electric ovens, and stacks of bagged breads, watching Tessa ice an opera cake that had taken her about three hours to make. It was a masterpiece, with carefully cut layers of almond sponge cake, coffee-flavored buttercream, and ganache.
“I’m not hiding,” Tessa said as she smoothed out the chocolate glaze until it was flawless. “What are you up to?”
Her grandmother held out a hardcover book. She was dressed in a pretty floral blouse and capris, her nearly white hair cut in a stylish bob. “On the way to book club.”
“Oh, how fun.” Tessa silently read the title, Women on Top, and raised a brow. “Gram! What on earth are you reading?”
Her grandmother slid her hand down the front, uncovering the rest of the title. Succeeding as a Female Entrepreneur.
Much more in character. “That’s an interesting selection.”
“I suggested it,” Gram said. “I was hoping I’d learn something to help us.”
“I’m working on that.” Tessa hated that her grandmother was worried about the business at her age. Gram felt obligated to pitch in, but Tessa and her mom didn’t give her more than three half shifts a week. Still, Tessa wanted her to enjoy a real retirement that she’d earned after so many years of hard work.