Chapter 14 #2
She smiled. It was not the careful, measured expression she showed most people, but the wide and unguarded version she'd started showing me. The one that made her look so radiant that it made my heart ache.
We heard the RAV4 before we saw it. The engine's aging rattle, louder than usual, and the crunch of gravel under tires moving faster than Grace typically drove up my road.
Grace parked and spotted us as we waved at her. She came jogging toward us, a wide grin splitting her face. Her hair was pulled back under a bandana dusted with flour. She wore a plain black t-shirt and jeans, both carrying a fine white powder in the creases. Her cheeks were flushed.
I stood and she hit me at full speed. Arms around my neck, face buried in my shoulder, squeezing hard enough that I rocked backward.
"I got it! I got the job. Irma hired me!"
"Wonderful!" Scout cheered as Grace hugged her. "Tell us everything."
Grace dropped onto the grass between us, cross-legged, vibrating.
"Okay so I set my alarm for three-thirty, right?
So I can get to the bakery a little early, show my enthusiasm.
And I get there at like four-twenty-five and the lights are already on and Irma's already in back and the ovens are already at temperature and there's like six different mise en place stations set up on the bench with ingredients weighed out in these little deli containers and I'm like, oh shit, this woman is not fucking around. "
She barely paused for breath.
"So she hands me an apron and she's like, 'Wash your hands, tie your hair back, don't touch your face.
' And I'm like, Yes ma'am. And she starts walking me through the morning production.
Sourdough first because it needs the longest proof.
She showed me how she scales the dough, like, she has this ancient balance scale, not digital, and she drops dough on it with a bench scraper and she hits the weight within like half an ounce every time.
It's insane. Years of muscle memory, for real. "
"Did she let you try?" Scout asked.
"She made me try. My first three were garbage.
Too big, too small, shaped like a potato.
She didn't say anything, she just took the scraper and showed me again.
Fourth one, I nailed it. She nodded. That's it, just a nod, but I was like, okay, that nod is the equivalent of a standing ovation from this woman. "
Scout laughed. I did too, enjoying Grace's breathless excitement.
"Then rolls. Shaping is everything, she said.
You tuck the dough under itself and create surface tension so it holds its shape in the proof.
My tucking was ass at first. She said I was strangling them.
But by the second batch I had the feel." Grace held up her hands and curled them around an invisible ball of dough.
"It's like this motion, this rotation thing, you use the heel of your palm and the counter and you spin the dough until it tightens up.
It's hard to describe, but my hands just... knew. Like some shit from a past life."
"Or from your parents' kitchen," I said.
Her face shifted, just for a second. Something moved behind Grace's eyes that she caught and put away before it could land.
"Yeah," she said. "Maybe."
She pushed past it.
"Then donuts. Holy shit, Thomas, do you know how donuts work?
She fries them in a deep fryer, and you flip them at exactly forty-five seconds, and the uncooked side puffs up when it hits the oil and you get that white ring around the middle.
That's how you know a donut is fresh, that pale band.
And the glaze has to go on while they're still hot so it gets that crackly shell thing.
I glazed forty-eight donuts and only dropped one and she let me eat it so actually I count that as a win. "
"Strategically dropped," Scout said.
"Listen, I will neither confirm nor deny.
" Grace grinned. "And then at like six-thirty the front door opens and people start coming in and Irma's like, 'Counter's yours.
' And I'm freaking out inside, but I just did the thing, you know?
Smiled, took orders, rang the register, bagged stuff.
The register is cranky as hell, but it's basically the same as the motel system.
People were cool. This one old guy asked if I was new and I said yes and he said Welcome to Port Chasten. "
She paused and pulled the bandana off her head and shook her hair loose.
"I worked till one. Nine hours. My feet are destroyed.
My lower back is screaming. I smell like yeast and powdered sugar.
" She looked at her flour-dusted jeans. "But she asked me to come back tomorrow.
Same time, permanent morning shift. She even sent me home with a sourdough loaf and a bag of the donuts that didn't sell. They're in the car."
Grace went quiet. The buzzing energy dropped away and what remained was something rawer. She looked at me.
"I wouldn't have gotten this without you, Thomas."
"I didn't do anything. You got it because you showed up and did the work."
"I showed up because you told her I was worth hiring. That's not nothing, dude. Someone putting their name behind yours when they don't have to." She picked at the grass between her knees. "Not a lot of people have done that for me."
"I meant every word I said to her. You earned it."
Our eyes met... and held. Something passed between us I hadn't expected. It was sudden, a charge that hit both of us at the same time. I'd always known Grace was gorgeous, but now I was seeing it in a way that made my pulse race.
Shit, what is happening right now?
Grace must have felt it as well. We both looked away at the same time. The grass between us became very interesting.
Scout broke the silence with the ease of someone who hadn't noticed or had chosen not to.
"We should swim." She was already pulling her shirt over her head. "Cool off. Then eat that bread with the honey Claire brought."
She stripped with the unselfconsciousness I'd come to know. Shirt, pants, underwear, all of it shed and left on the grass like a skin she'd stepped out of. She stood in the sun, lean and natural and beautiful, and held her hand out to Grace.
"Come on."
Grace's eyes went wide. "You just... okay. Wow."
"The water is better without clothes. You'll see."
"I can't swim."
"The water is not deep. You can just stand up."
Grace looked at me. Looked at Scout. Looked at the pond. Some internal calculation clicked in.
"Fuck it. Why not?"
She pulled her t-shirt over her head. Kicked off her shoes. Peeled off her jeans and underwear and stood in the afternoon light.
She was slim through the waist and hips, fuller through the chest than her loose hoodies had suggested. Her nipples were dark and her mound was smooth and bare.
But it was the ink that drew my eye. I'd seen most of her tattoos when she was sunbathing, but the shorts she wore had hidden the ink on her lower back.
It was a large piece that was clearly newer than the rest, dark and heavy and unfinished, a stylized phoenix rising through smoke and flame.
The ink was dense, the lines thick and overlapping.
Underneath it, only partially covered, I could make out an older tattoo.
Block letters. A name, maybe. The new design covered most of it but not all, the way paint covers a wall but can't always hide what's underneath if you know to look.
I thought about the man she was running from. I thought about what kind of tattoo a person needs to bury under another tattoo. I filed it away and said nothing.
"Last one in is a fugly bitch," Grace yelled.
She grabbed Scout's hand, and they ran together and hit the water in a tangled, shrieking splash that sent the dragonflies scattering.
They surfaced gasping, laughing, pushing wet hair out of their faces.
"Thomas! Get your candy ass in here!"
"The water is perfect," Scout called.
I stood. Pulled my shirt off. Stepped out of my jeans and boots. The grass was warm beneath my feet. I had to grin at Grace's wolf-whistle.
I dove into the pond.
The water closed over me, cool and clean, and the world above went silent for the two seconds I was under.
I surfaced between them, standing waist-deep, blowing water, and Grace immediately splashed me full in the face.
Scout retaliated on my behalf, sending a wall of water at Grace that caught her mid-laugh and filled her open mouth.
Grace sputtered and swore and dove under and grabbed Scout's ankle and pulled her down.
They came up together, tangled and laughing, water streaming off them in the golden afternoon light. Then Grace smiled at me again, her eyes filled with that look we'd shared earlier, a look that made my heart pound in my chest.
I opened my mouth to crack a joke, maybe tease Grace the way she liked to be teased... but nothing came out. I didn't have the words, so I just grinned back, the two of us smiling at each other as sunlight scintillated in the waters around us.