Chapter Sixteen
Ava
That Wednesday, I went into The Rolling Scone still riding the high of yet another amazing day with Jules. A meeting with Ben tonight to finally get some answers and go over Gianna’s changes to the contract should be the only rain cloud on my bright, sunny day.
I went through all the motions of getting the bakery up and running for the day, starting with popping the first of many loads of scones, cookies, and muffins into the twin ovens. Next up, making pastries and bread dough fresh for the day. While the dough rose and the scones baked, I frosted cupcakes and cut brownies. Before I knew it, six o’clock rolled around and I had to start filling the displays and get the coffee machine up and running.
Everything was right on schedule, even the small crowd forming outside the front doors waiting to hurry in for their morning fix. At five past six, I shoved my last batch of scones into the oven—blueberry lemon. Yum. I only had enough prepped for a single batch today because I’d been gone for part of the weekend, but I planned to work through lunch today to make the usual amount for the rest of the week and get caught back up. As I shut the oven door, I heard a hissing sound from the cafe.
Wiping my hands on my apron, I rushed out of the kitchen to find the coffee machine spewing a thick liquid more akin to tar than coffee into the carafe. Crap.
I glanced anxiously toward the front door, then started messing with it. Over fifty regulars stopped by every morning for coffee and a pastry, and I typically had a dozen or so random customers on top of that.
I couldn’t afford a broken coffee machine. But the more I messed with it, the more it appeared that was exactly what I had. I pulled out my phone to call a technician. My heart stopped when I saw the time.
6:24.
I’d been so distracted, I forgot to set my alarm for the scones. Coffee machine forgotten, I sprinted into the kitchen and threw open the oven.
To find all forty-eight blueberry lemon scones charred beyond salvation.
Perfect. No coffee and no scones.
I took a deep breath, long and slow. It would be fine. Everything would be fine. It could only get better, right?
With less than five minutes until opening and a disaster brewing, I pulled the scones out of the oven in record time and tossed them straight into the trash. Maybe after the morning rush I could squeeze in another batch between decorating the cakes that were being picked up today. I grabbed the flour from the shelf to set it out for quick assembly.
And dropped it.
It slipped right out of my hands. I stood in a puffy white dust cloud in shock. I’d never dropped the flour before. What on earth was going on today?
Smacking as much flour off my apron as I could, I headed back to have one more round with the coffee machine before admitting defeat. Spoiler: it won.
I trudged to the front door, mentally preparing myself for the gut-wrenching feeling of letting my customers down.
“Good morning,” I greeted them, finding it difficult to use my normal chipper tone. “I’ve got some bad news about the coffee today.”
“What’s the news?” Jim, one of my regulars, asked.
“The news is that there’s no coffee.” I forced myself to keep eye contact, even though I wanted to hide. “I’m calling a tech, but if you need a caffeine fix, you’ll have to find it somewhere else.”
The response was mixed. Most people accepted the news without too much grumbling, some walking away and others coming inside. A few told me not to worry, it’d be up and running in no time. And two people complained about terrible service and wasting their time before stomping off.
Aside from having to break the secondary bad news of the burned batch of blueberry lemon scones, the rest of the morning rush went off without a hitch. I closed the bakery at ten as always and started in on cake decorating for today’s pickups. At eleven-thirty, instead of taking my lunchtime walk, I made up enough blueberry lemon scones for today and tomorrow, sticking the dough in the fridge for tomorrow’s batch.
I’d learned a few interesting baking tricks as I maneuvered running the bakery as a one man show. Some things, like scones, actually cooked and tasted better if you refrigerated the dough overnight before baking. Cakes and cupcakes tasted the best if you baked them the day before you wanted to serve them. And, of course, the more delicate pastries and the breads were best made start to finish on the day you served them, though I could refrigerate that dough, too, if needed. It took a few months, but I’d hit a rhythm that kept The Rolling Scone running smoothly.
At noon on the dot, I reopened for lunch. When I hired a few employees later this summer, I could stay open the whole day, but with just me I needed a few hours without customers to keep up on all the baking and prep work.
The lunchtime rush came and went. Between serving the customers, moving extra scone batches in and out of the oven, and order pickups I didn’t come to a full stop until around three- thirty. Of course, in the bakery a full stop is simply a five-minute lull between prepping tomorrow’s morning baking batches and orders and serving the trickle of customers that come for a midafternoon snack. As I measured out the ingredients for my Unicorn Explosion cupcakes, it hit me.
Mrs. Beatty never came in.
I set down the industrial sized measuring cup and checked my phone.
3:38.
That couldn’t be right. She hadn’t missed a single day in four years. Even in the winter, she broke down and drove here, but then she stayed the whole afternoon instead of just an hour. She only did that on the coldest and snowiest days, though. She always said there was no bad weather, just bad clothing choices. If you dressed appropriately, you could get through just about anything. If she didn’t prove it year-round, I’d have argued that point.
I really should call her and make sure she was okay. I scrolled through my contacts, looking for her number. How did I not have her number?
Normally, I just walked next door to talk to her or waited until she came into the bakery. Crap. I kept scrolling, seeing if I had anyone else’s number that could go check on her. By 3:40, panic started settling into my bones.
This wasn’t like her at all, and I had no way to check on her. Before I could give it more thought, a group of high schoolers blew in, looking for an after-school sugar fix. After they were sitting down with an assortment of pastries and sandwiches, the four o’clock rush began and didn’t slow until I turned the sign to “Closed” at six o’clock. I did set aside the last Unicorn Explosion cupcake for her, thinking I could take it to her personally when I got back home tonight. Of course, in keeping with both the rest of the day and the theme of her cupcake, her special sprinkle jar exploded on me when I tried to open it.
Once the cafe cleared out, everything in me screamed to drop what I was doing and go check on her. This was exactly why I hadn’t gotten any closer to her than we already were. The story of my life was losing the people I loved. First my friends to their own lives, then my parents. It never seemed to end.
Nausea gripped my stomach, taking hold and wreaking havoc as I went through the motions of shutting down the bakery before Ben arrived for our meeting. Maybe I should call and cancel with him, or see about pushing it back an hour so I could get out there to check on her.
Yes. That was what I’d do. I pulled out my phone to tell him something came up. And the bell above the door jingled.
Damnit.
Alright, fine. I would just get through this as fast as possible.
Everything would be fine.
Everything had to be fine.