Chapter 8 #2
It’s good to see the old bakery again, even if there’s a line of irritated-looking people waiting to be helped.
It’s good to smell the rich mixture of apple and vanilla and caramel and butter, somehow just as Will remembers it and also deeper, more refined.
It’s good to hear the soft purr of the flame in the commercial ovens lick on and off, more soothing than any white noise machine.
But mostly, it’s good to see Daphne Cardini-Johnstone right where he left her, new lines on her face but her hair that same shade of bottle-fresh auburn .
“Daph,” Will says, drawing her attention away from her customer, as he takes a hesitant step into the disputed territory between “Customers Welcome” and “Only Staff Allowed.” It’s a question in more ways than one—Will has no idea, honestly, how this interaction is going to go.
He’s known Daphne since he was born, but she was his mother’s friend and Bill’s, more than she was ever his.
She might react like Mere did, with tears and hugs, but she also might tell him to stick it where the sun dares not shine.
Daphne could be like that, sometimes. Unpredictable.
She turns. She looks him up and down. She grins.
“Tell you what,” she says, “About twenty years ago, you didn’t show up for your Saturday shift and really messed up my weekend plans, but—better late than never, right? You, next in line; give Will your order, let’s get this moving.”
“What, did you just hire him off the street?” the customer demands. “Who is he?”
“Well,” Daph says, cutting Will a sly sidelong look, “I’d say he’s the owner, but rumor has it not for long.”
“Oh,” the customer says, relaxing even as Will tenses— God , he’d forgotten how quickly gossip travels in this little town. “Well, the owner , that’s all right, then.”
Thus mollified, he deigns to give Will the courtesy of his order, which is for several donuts, a pie, and one of the bakery’s signature apple turnovers.
Will packs it all up, marveling briefly at the new logo on the stickers with which he closes bags and boxes, which combines that of Cardinal Bakery and the new Robertson iconography.
The bakery started running their production out of Robertson Family Farms sometime in the ’70s, and Will knows it was Daphne who’d kept it going after Bill took things over on the farm side.
Daphne’s mother, old Mrs. Cardini, had decided within a few months that Will’s father was fine enough as far as company went, but she couldn’t work with him.
But Daphne had seemed to enjoy working with Bill, finding his rudeness amusing and his tendency to fly off the handle entertaining and funny.
She’d liked June, too, become good friends with her over the years.
For a period of his life, Will had grown very used to seeing the two of them sitting together somewhere on the farm, whispering and then laughing hysterically.
She was more or less famous locally, quite the gossip, and Will tries to steel himself against the barrage of questions he expects as he helps the next customer in line.
Instead, Daphne gives him information, interrupted only by the occasional violent lash of rain against the window, or boom of thunder so loud she has to repeat herself.
She pours in such an enormous volume of talking—about who’s gotten married, and divorced, and had babies, and tried and failed to have babies, and gotten fired, and gotten famous, and did you hear about the fire on Chesterfield Road, and on and on and on —that Will forgets to guard himself, or to think at all.
He just packs up pies and turnovers and donuts and slices of apple cake, and says things like, “Wow” or “No kidding?” or “Oh, God, I would not have seen that coming.” It’s nice, honestly.
More comforting than Will would have guessed.
But then, when the line winds down, Daph stops and gives him a sharp look over, seeming to be cataloguing his changes, nodding firmly when she’s done. She pinches his cheek, strongly enough that it stings a little even after she lets go, but then pats it lightly, twice, as if in apology.
“Your folks missed you, kid,” she says quietly. There’s nothing hard in her tone, if you don’t count the iron ring of truth. No judgement; just information. Good old Daphne. “They wouldn’t have said it, your old man especially, but. They did.”
Will stares at her for a second. Finally, because it’s all he can think of, he says, “What am I supposed to say to that? ”
Daphne shrugs, and gives him a strange, sad smile. “Nothing, baby. You’re just supposed to know.”
Will shifts, discomfited, wishing there was another customer to help. He’s relieved when Casey rounds the corner, looking harried.
“Daph,” he hisses tightly, his gaze landing briefly on Will and seeming to stick in irritation for a moment at his position behind the counter, before it slides on to Daphne.
“You set aside twelve pies for her, right? When she came in? You’re not selling off her pies while she whittles my soul into nothing? ”
“Two blackberry, two blueberry, two cherry, two pumpkin, and four apple,” Daphne rattles off, shaking her head. “Didn’t know what she wanted ’em for next week and sure as hell don’t know why she suddenly needs them now, but I’ve got ’em, if she wants them.”
“She does,” Casey says, pulling a darkly sarcastic little face. “And she doesn’t! Because they’re not her pies, you know—the pies that were made for her ?—”
Daphne cuts Casey off at this point, but Will doesn’t catch what she says.
Almost without meaning to, he wanders out from behind the counter and back towards the central market.
He’s oddly calm, not even jumping when the wind outside blows a branch into a window with particular viciousness as he passes, some part of him abruptly retuned to the wavelength upon which this place operates.
He knows Mrs. Baumcombe, despite never having laid eyes on her before, the second he sees her.
Something about her outfit—the little pearl-lined pin sharply fixed to her sweater, perhaps—suggests she’s a person who is constantly encountering shocking customer-service issues and never recognizing the single common denominator in all those unfortunate stories.
“Mrs. Baumcombe,” Will says, in a booming, cheerful voice that isn’t his own.
Selma taught him this, admittedly with the help of quite a large amount of alcohol and through peals of laughter, the very first time he had to present an argument for study funding.
She’d said a number of things that night, some of which were helpful and some of which were neither helpful nor repeatable, but the most useful was this dreadful but inarguable truth: With most people, most of the time, presenting a certain aggressively audacious confidence is 80 percent of the battle.
“Your pies are all ready for you. If you’ll give me your keys, I’ll get them loaded into your car, how’s that? ”
“But,” Mrs. Baumcombe says, blinking at him. “But the other man said—he said it would have to be other pies from today , not the ones made for me ?—”
“Twelve pies,” Will says brightly. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a blond head peek around the corner to watch, and doesn’t let himself turn to look and see if it’s Casey.
“Ready to go! What car do you drive? Noel can take your payment right over here…” Will falters, realizing he’s not sure if that’s true; the ancient, horrifying monstrosity of a cash register that used to sit in here, taking up roughly one-third of the counter space, is nowhere to be seen. “I mean, probably, anyway.”
Noel nods solemnly, but their eyes are entertained. “Oh yes. This is where the paying happens.”
“But,” Mrs. Baumcombe says, even as Will herds her over to the register. “I?—”
“Do you not want them loaded into your car?” Will says, very innocently. “Because it’s quite a rainy day. I personally wouldn’t recommend it, but if you want to carry them all to the car yourself?—”
“No, no, I want them loaded in,” Mrs. Baumcombe says, looking a little baffled. She opens her mouth as if to argue further, but:
“That’s settled, then,” Will says. To Noel, firmly, he adds, “Ring her up.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Noel mutters, sounding both impressed and annoyed about being impressed. “Right away, Mr. Bossman, sir.”
“Don’t do that,” Will mutters. “I’m not your boss.” He turns away hastily, mostly looking for the blond head he briefly caught in his peripheral vision, although he’s not at all sure whether or not he’s hoping it will be Casey.
He doesn’t find out, anyway. When he turns around, Casey is standing directly behind him, a stack of six pies in each hand and a bright grin on his face.
“I believe,” he says, sounding very pleased about it, “I heard you advertise your car-loading services? I guess that’s how you know we’re under new management—I myself wouldn’t have offered such a courtesy on a day like this, but hey, way to go the extra mile.”
Will bites back a groan; he hadn’t thought this far ahead.
He’d been trying to get the woman out of everyone’s hair, and had figured he’d try to finagle some way out of getting wet again if it came down to it.
But, alas, there’s nothing for it now. He’s going to have to follow through because, clearly, Casey’s not going to let him forget it.
That shouldn’t matter to Will, of course. After all, he will be forgetting all about Casey in another day or two, maybe a week, once he leaves Glenriver behind. A month, tops. Six at the outside—nowhere near long enough, anyway, to make “He’d never let me forget it” much of an argument.
Will sighs, and squares his shoulders, and holds out his hands. “All right. Give them here.”
Casey hands the pies over, the amusement on his face changing into an expression Will has a hard time identifying. Will nods, turns, walks over to the door, and?—