Chapter 3 #2
My chest lifts. Whew. Maybe I didn’t totally blow this. “Of course!” I open up the box and spin it towards Quinn.
Her face drops. Again. Like, really drops, with a look that sinks my belly all the way to my toes.
“No…” Quinn’s eyebrows wrinkle. She glances down at the box, at me, and back again. “These are blue and red.”
A heaviness lodges in my throat, and I swallow. I know they’re blue and red. I’m the one who packaged them up. “Yes, they’re blue and red. That’s what you ordered.”
“No. I didn’t.” All smiles are gone from her voice.
I push up my slipped glasses and double-check the order slip. Yep, right there, printed across the top—blue and red. I read it once, twice, three times, and swallow. “This definitely says you ordered eight dozen blue and red cookies.”
A thin pink stripe grows across Quinn’s neck. “No, I didn’t. I know what I ordered.”
Her tone switches to tense, which makes me tense, and now we’re in a bottomless bucket of tension.
My belly twists, hard, and stays knotted.
Any moment now, I’m going to stop breathing.
“I’m really sorry, Quinn. I don’t know what to say.
But here.” I hold the order form out to her and point to the clearly printed eight dozen blue and red cookies. “It says blue and red cookies.”
“Why would it say that? Why would I have possibly said I wanted blue and red cookies for a Christmas event? I even talked to that Luna girl about it. She said her parents go to it every year and I’m going to love it.
” Quinn crosses her arms across her chest, and her fingers tap against her biceps.
“So, if that slip says blue and red, not green and red, it was her mistake, not mine.”
My shoulders brace. I blow air up my face to fan myself.
It’s definitely warm in here. I’m pitting out and will need an extra swipe of deodorant any moment now.
But Luna is a great employee. She’s been with me since she was in high school, and I don’t take too kindly to outsiders from the big city coming in here and berating my staff.
“You… signed it,” I stammer, then straighten my back. “You signed it,” I say, not quite matching the firmness in Quinn’s tone, but at least inching towards it, and point at her signature. “Right here.”
Quinn stares at the order slip, her face flushing into a myriad of colors. “No… there must be something wrong. I wouldn’t have done that…” She exhales through her nose and a few terrible, excruciating moments pass. “It’s okay. I just… I just need you to fix them.”
I almost laugh. Does she see around my shop?
As lovely as the first few minutes of this interaction have been, the line has doubled since we started chatting, and my customers expect a certain level of speediness.
“I’m really sorry, Quinn. We can’t just fix these.
We’ve shut down the ovens for the day and—”
“Well, turn them back on.” Pink stains Quinn’s cheeks, and splashes across her freckles.
My breath tightens, turning my pulse heavy and thick in my throat.
“That’s not how it works.” I mean, obviously, we can turn them back on, but we prep at night, bake in the early morning, serve customers during the day.
It’s our rotation. I might be a pushover on some things, but I am not changing my entire business model because Quinn thinks she ordered green cookies.
“We do not have time to fix these. It took us hours to make these.”
Quinn softens only a fraction and pushes her palm into her forehead. “I’ll come back in the morning, so you have time to redo it.”
My anxiety is currently through the roof.
Like surpassed the building, out the chimney, heading on its way to the North Pole, through the roof.
We have an overcapacity prep schedule tonight, and the morning baker is already coming in an hour early.
I’m not adding eight dozen additional cookies to that list.
How is Frankie so very nice and cool, and Quinn is decidedly not cool?
At all. She’s not even that nice. And I really, really, do not like not-nice people.
“We won’t have time. I’m sorry, we already have more orders tomorrow than what we can handle.
” I’m trying so hard to keep a smile on my face that I’m gritting my teeth.
All the moisture in my mouth catapults to the back of my neck and any moment now, a gross sweat trickle is going to bead down my spine.
“Are you actually serious right now?” she fumes, her cheeks even more red than before. “You don’t have time? That is not my problem. That’s for you to sort out.”
The idea that anyone, especially Frankie’s sister, won’t like me grinds at me and will most definitely keep me awake tonight.
And since Quinn’s a local business owner, there’s always an opportunity for collaboration.
But I refuse to take any more of this nonsense, regardless if I work with her sister and roommate. “There is nothing we can do.”
“But I need these for tomorrow,” she says, dropping her crossed arms to rest her hands on her waist. “Your employee is the one who fucked up, not me.”
This earns Quinn a hard look from the woman in line and an even harder twist in my stomach.
“Now… just a second here.” Who the heck does Quinn think she is?
She comes into my place of business and talks smack about Luna—the girl who works her butt off for me every day—and then drops the f-enheimer right here in the middle of my family friendly shop?
No. I absolutely am not standing for this.
Between the dog that got loose, and the delivery guy who forgets my things, and my broken foot, and Josie…
I have let way too much go today, this past week, this last decade, and I. Am. Done.
“Luna is an excellent employee. She’s here before everyone, stays late, and I’m… I will not let you talk about her like this.” My hand winds the apron string so tight around my fingers I may cut off circulation.
A long, icky moment stretches between us. An unfamiliar and uncomfortable standoff ensues, and something in me clicks. I refuse to be the one who breaks first.
Quinn shakes her head, and this, this!, is a look of disappointment that makes my insides cry. But right now, I’m so heated, it’s only slightly affecting me.
“This is completely unacceptable,” she says. “And you need to make it right.”
“I’ll take these back and refund your money.” I’ll take a hit, for sure. But I can put them in the display case today and tomorrow, half price them, and chalk it up to never doing business with Quinn Lee again.
“I can’t do that. I need these cookies for tomorrow,” she says with a deep frown, and an even deeper sigh. “This really sucks.”
Enough! “Well, perhaps you should get your cookies from somewhere else from now on.”
Oh no, I didn’t.
But yep, I sure did. Yes, I said it with a calm voice and forced smile, but I said it, nonetheless. My therapist would give me a gold star for the day for this one.
Quinn cocks her head, her freckles darkening along with her eyes. “Perhaps I will.”
She grabs the large bags. She’s so much shorter than me that I almost offer to help, to make sure she doesn’t trip as she juggles the cookies out the door. Thankfully, a customer steps in and holds the door open. Quinn bolts down the sidewalk with a very heavy, very annoyed stomp.
I let out a ragged sigh.
And that is my introduction to Quinn Lee. Which never, ever, has to happen again.