Chapter 3
Quinn
“Thank you.” I hand a small bag and coffee to the customer, a woman dressed in straight-legged white pants and a blue pinstriped shirt. “Enjoy your day.”
She leaves with a smile, and I watch her go, admiring her work clothes. I can’t dress like that here, but I could look more professional, I guess.
I dust off the flour on my T-shirt and move away from the counter, removing an empty tray from the case. I hand it to Hailey, the cashier with two perpetually messy buns sitting on top of her head like horns. “Can you take that?” I slide out another, stacking it on top. “And that too. Thanks.”
She backs through the kitchen door, spinning around with the trays in hand. I slide behind Noel, who works the espresso machine, his thick silver rings glinting in the sunlight.
I approach the next customer, and she opens her mouth to speak, but then Mace is there. She butts in. “Emergency.”
“Mace,” I scold, throwing a glance to the young woman she entered with. Mousy brown hair hangs in her eyes. I don’t recognize her.
The darker-haired one, Dylan’s age and dressed like a rocker with the body of a sexy Marine, grips the edge of the display case between us. The Green Street tattoo is dark against her tawny neck. “I need two-dozen brownies,” she tells me.
“No.”
I take a step, trying to tend to the customer she pushed out of the way.
The woman’s mouth twitches in a nervous smile as her eyes flit between Mace and me.
But then Mace is there again, and I sigh. “When? How soon?”
“Eight seconds ago.”
I shake my head, craning my neck to the customer again.
Impossible. I can’t just drop everything.
Quickly, the customer blurts out, “Two loaves of bread, and please tell me you have more of that garlic dipping oil.” She winces a little. “I didn’t see it out on the shelves.”
I hold up a finger. “Yes. I do. Just a moment.”
I twirl around, rushing into the kitchen, and dive into the pantry to grab a box. Mace follows on my heels, her friend following her.
I plop the box down on the table and reach behind me for the scissors on the high shelf. “You can have—I mean, buy—two dozen of whatever I have left,” I growl to Mace.
“But Hugo wants brownies.”
I slice open the box. “I’m creeped out that your gangster boss even knows who I am. I really wish he didn’t.” I dig out a jar of the garlic oil. “And what kind of criminals like brownies?”
“They’re for one of his associates.” She folds her arms over her chest, the black leather jacket grinding. “Their kid has a potluck at school or something. I promised I’d make it happen.”
Hailey carries a tray refilled with goodies back out to the front, and I catch sight of the shallow box on the work table, the old cell phone I’d put in there last night missing. Did someone—
Ugh, never mind. Too busy.
“Mace, I’m swamped.”
“I know!” She grabs the girl next to her by her shirt and hauls her closer. “That’s why I brought you help.” She gestures to the kid. “She’ll work for free today and tomorrow.”
I eye the girl, seeing her light brown hair pushed behind one ear as she sports a faded navy sweatshirt two sizes too big. Is she even sixteen? Or even consenting to this?
I lift an eyebrow at Mace, and my lungs constrict as she pulls a knife out of her back pocket—her last resort. She flips open the blade, gripping it at her side as she stares at me.
It only takes me a moment to calibrate. “Are you serious?” I almost laugh.
Maybe I would’ve felt threatened when I first met her a month ago.
Dylan and Aro had been sneaking their Weston friends and little Green Street criminals into the Falls on a regular basis by then.
But I know better now. She colored my fingernails with Sharpie after I fell asleep at a party last week.
She’s a marshmallow if she likes you. And she likes me.
She hoods her eyes, closing the knife again. “Okay, I’m kidding,” she mumbles. “But just so you know, I could make you my brownie slave if ever I decide to.”
I hesitate a moment and then shake my head, because I can’t seem to ever want to disappoint anyone. “They will be boxed on this table in two hours,” I tell her. “That’s the best I can do.”
“Awesome.” She breaks into a smile. “Didn’t need them at his school until two anyway.”
Of course, you didn’t. Emergency, my ass.
She takes out a cigarette and starts to light it, but I grab it out of her mouth. “Gross.” I crush it in my fist and fling it into the garbage. “Now let me work.”
I push her out the door, back into the bakery, and quickly turn to the young woman she brought to work. “I’m Quinn.”
No time for handshakes.
“Codi,” she nearly whispers.
I try to catch her eyes, but I can’t even see what color they are.
She wears baggy jeans, rolled up at the ankle, and her nails are painted with chipped pink polish.
Her heart-shaped face makes her seem so young, but the trim waist visible just above her loose jeans makes me wonder if she hides herself on purpose to not get attention.
In any case, she looks old enough to work legally.
I point toward the store. “The shelves out there all have labels,” I instruct, gesturing to the storeroom behind me next. “Would you be able to grab whatever you need from here to restock them for me?”
She nods about four times in quick jerks.
“When you’re done, please clear and clean whatever tables inside and outside need it.” I grab the jar the customer asked for and call out behind me. “Sixteen an hour, plus you get to split tips,” I tell her.
I don’t know if I can afford the help, but I can’t not pay her. And it’s only a couple of days.
It takes another hour before I can free myself from the morning rush to get Mace’s brownies in the oven.
While those bake, I get the soups going for lunch and start prepping the pizza pans with dough.
I typically prefer to stay in the kitchen as much as possible because the summer crowd always brings in old classmates who want to talk when I’m busy.
Or my dad, who always winks at me when he insists on paying for his coffee like this is my lemonade stand.
He’s just trying to be supportive. My whole family makes me nervous, though.
My brothers only stop in to check that everything is running smoothly, to make sure no one is fucking with me, and whether or not I have a ride home.
And their wives are too afraid to order birthday cakes, thinking they’re taking advantage of their relationship with me to get a last-minute order in.
Don’t they understand? I want them all to rely on me.
To bum a coffee, a cake, or a donut. It feels good to be needed and treated like an adult with something to offer.
The only family members I might like to see paying for their treats are my niece and nephews. They take stuff because they think I’m too gutless to stop them. It’s different.
However, today, I keep fighting an urge to leave the kitchen and go back out front. Every once in a while, I’ll hear a male voice and my pulse will quicken, or I can’t help myself from glancing out the windows on the off-chance Lucas wanders by.
It’s been hard to stay focused.
Where is he right now? What’s he doing?
He doesn’t show up, though. At least to my knowledge.
It was bizarre, being alone with him this morning. I was afraid he could see me blushing, or how I could barely breathe every time he looked at me. What did I seem like to him? I keep replaying everything I said in my head, thinking about what I should’ve said instead.
The girl, Codi, works quietly as she lugs in tub after tub of dirty dishes, straightens shelves, and walks around with a broom and dustpan.
She even restocks napkins, finding more by herself in the storage room, and tucks in vacant chairs whenever she finds one.
I don’t hear her speak more than one word, but I know she can.
A fellow teenage girl was leaning her chair back into the wall mirror, and I don’t know what Codi said to her, but she stopped and planted all four legs back on the floor.
They must have the same superstition in Weston. We don’t lean back into mirrors here.
I don’t know why. Something about them being doorways or some other such supernatural nonsense.
Hawke knows. He studies all the urban legends.
There’s another one Weston and Shelburne Falls share, as well.
Pay to pass. Throwing a coin—an offering—over the bridge between our two towns.
I don’t know where that tradition came from, either.
There are others, none of them ever concerning me. I’ve leaned into mirrors and crossed bridges without paying, and maybe been followed by a car with its headlights off here or there… It’s just fun to think it’s real.
Well, not fun, maybe.
Comforting. We need our traditions. It adds hope that the world still has mystery.
But it doesn’t. That’s why we have books. And movies and theater and video games to escape into. Many people between our two towns love distractions like that.
Like racing. Around and around and they’re never going anywhere. What’s the point? I just want to go forward.
The scent of pizza fills the shop, and I prop open the front door to let fresh air in.
Grabbing two more empty platters from the case, I throw a glance at the mirror again, smiling at the idea of tempting fate some night and seeing how long I can lean before I scare myself and run. Maybe I believe a little.
Pushing through the kitchen door, I hear dishes clank and look over, seeing my mom at the sink with one of my aprons on.
“Mom, what are you doing?” I drop the empty trays on the worktable.
My mother stands with her hands in dishwater because she thinks it’s faster than using the machine and wastes less water. Which it doesn’t. I know what I’m doing.