12. Alexandra
twelve
The following Thursday, I bounce into the bakery bright and early in the new running shoes I bought at the General Store. It’s not six in the morning, yet here I am, ready to take this day on.
Norwood, a.k.a. Voldemort on my phone, stopped trying to call. He sent emails—same thing. Offering me money to come back to Red Barn.
But I’m right where I need to be. I won’t let him ruin my days. Until I’m back in New York, I’ll focus on the little things. The rest will take care of itself.
The first couple of hours go like a charm.
“You’re on a roll,” Christopher says to me, to which Isaac responds, “Working on your dad jokes?”
I giggle, and Christopher frowns. “It’s a good one,” I tell Christopher. “Skye will appreciate it.”
This gets me my own pointed frown, but I don’t miss the glint of heat that sparkles in his eyes.
Or his visible relief at seeing that Isaac seems to be doing well.
Around eight, Kiara comes in to start work on her pastries with Willow, and I slide into the kitchen to make coffee, drink a large glass of water, and snatch some sit-down time.
As I’m about to pour Christopher and me our coffees, Emma strolls in, carrying a briefcase and a large bag.
I stop my pour midair. “Hi?” I say. Should I ask her what she wants?
“Oh. Hello,” she answers, as if she’s surprised to see me here. She plops her briefcase on a chair and opens her canvas bag.
I resume pouring our coffees and put the coffee pot back on its base.
She pulls two mismatched egg cartons from her bag and places them in the refrigerator. Rummages through said fridge, rearranging things like she lives here. Then pulls small glass jars from her bag and places them in the fridge.
Then she makes her way to the coffee machine and starts a fresh pot.
Like she lives here.
“Oh hey, Ems,” Christopher says.
Her breath catches as she smiles at him.
“You know Alexandra?” he asks.
“Yeah, we’ve met,” she answers crisply, her smile dying. “I brought you fresh eggs from my chickens and some homemade yogurt,” she adds.
Christopher rubs the back of his neck, looking annoyed. “Thanks. You want to set up in the den?”
“Sure.”
“Invoices and all that shit’s already out there,” he says.
I remember now. Grace had said Emma was a CPA. She must be doing Christopher’s books. “You got your coffee?” he asks her.
“In a sec.” She grabs milk from the fridge, frowns as she closes the fridge, then goes straight to a cupboard that holds random things, pulls a mug that says “Emma’s mug” on one side and has a bunch of sheep on the other, then pulls an instrument that looks like a vibrator on a stand but turns out to be a milk frother, and proceeds to make her own little latte like a pro.
The woman is a pro. You have to give her that.
She shows up at her client’s home to do bookkeeping and brings him fresh eggs and homemade yogurt because she knows he’s a single dad and could use the help.
And the attention.
Godthere’s a lot of attention-giving going on right now.
She’s wiping the kitchen table she hasn’t used. Folding the dishtowels she hasn’t used. I’m surprised she didn’t bring flowers.
Oops! She reaches inside her Mary Poppins canvas bag.
“There,” she says, plopping a pot of blooming bulbs on the table.
“All set?” Christopher asks, still rubbing his neck.
“Yeah. That’s better. Much better,” she says, and I’m not sure if I should feel mildly offended or hilariously entertained, so I settle for both.
Thankfully, she leaves for the den, a multi-purpose area right off the kitchen, equipped with a couch, a giant TV, and a table, plugs in her laptop, and takes a deep dive into “the shit” Christopher prepared for her.
Christopher grabs the coffee I push his way. “She’s my CPA,” he whispers to me.
“I got that. I think?” I whisper back.
“I can hear you,” Emma says.
“I know,” Christopher replies, undeterred.
“I’ll need her contract,” she says.
“Whose contract,” Christopher says.
Her eyes land on me. “For payroll.”
“Alexandra’s contract is in the pile of shit,” he answers. Then he pushes himself from the counter and moves to the table where she can’t see him anymore, taking this morning’s mail with him. “Sorry,” he mouths to me while rolling his eyes.
I stifle a laugh and feel all warm. I think back to something Skye told me the other night, after we shared the galette, and my amusement at the situation with Emma turns into a mixture of tenderness and gratefulness for Christopher. As I tucked her in for bed, she couldn’t hold it any longer.
“Can you keep a secret?” she asked, then lowered her voice to a whisper. “I helped Daddy choose a princess bed for you.”
I hugged her close and promised I wouldn’t say anything, and I didn’t ask more. But my inner princess was doing somersaults. I’m not sure what a princess bed is, but it has to be better than the twin size mattress and frame I’m currently sleeping on. Not that I’m complaining. I’m so tired, anyway, I fall asleep the minute my head hits the flat pillow, and I wake up in the same position I fell asleep in.
Since I know he’s planning to upgrade the bed in the room I’m occupying, I figure it’s safe to ask a question that’s been puzzling me. “So… I’ve been doing some shopping.”
His eyes flit from the mail to me. “M-hm.”
“And… I’m a little tight on storage space.”
He raises an eyebrow.
“I was trying to open that closet in the corner of my bedroom, but I can’t figure it out.”
“What closet. There’s no closet in your room. We can get you a dresser. I’ll get you a dresser.”
Gosh, no, I don’t want him to get me a dresser. First a bed, now a dresser? No way. I’m enough of a burden already. “No… I don’t need a dresser. Just, there’s this closet, under the eaves? To the left of the window? It’s like flush with the bookcase, in the angle. There are hinges, and a handle, but it won’t open.”
A faint smile plays on his lips, and his eyes do this thing, just fleetingly, where the dark embers of his irises light up and the corners crinkle just so, while he does a sweep, not just of my body, but, it seems, of the entirety of my being. He nods slowly. “It’s not a closet.”
“Gotcha. A closed bookcase. Thought I could use it to store some stuff?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Never mind.”
“You couldn’t store anything in there,” he says.
“I don’t need much space. Just maybe for my shoes and sweaters?”
“It’s a hidden staircase.”
“A—A wh—?”
“A concealed staircase. Meant for servants back in the day, to get from one story to the other without using the main staircase.”
“Oh…” Way cool. A Victorian house with a hidden staircase. All I need now is a ghost.
Wait.
“Where does this staircase go?” I ask, but my stomach jumps. I know the answer. There’s no level above me, and under my room is—
“My bedroom. Used to be the grand room. For entertaining.”
Right. Heat creeps up from my middle.
“The staircase is locked from the inside. From my side. But, if that makes you uncomfortable, I can nail you—I mean, nail it shut.” He turns his back to me and rinses out his coffee mug.
My brain strives to gloss over his slip, while my body disagrees, and my cheeks burn. I whisper scream so Emma can’t hear. She might be deep in her numbers, but I’m sure she’s not losing one word of this conversation. “You mean it’s still in working order?” Yeah right. Pretend like you’re just interested in architectural details.
He stacks the mail and stands. Then leans over me on his way back to the bakeshop. “Perfectly functional.”
His scent lingers around me, and I fall into a dreamy daze.
I’m fantasizing on all the possibilities. The scenarios. I wonder if someone before used this staircase for illicit encounters.
Am I crazy?
The existence of this hidden passage is an invitation to use it, right? A permanent what if. What if he came up the hidden stairs? What if he knocked on this door instead of the main one? What if I answered that door? What if I left the door open the next night?
God. I need to snap out of it.
“So you’re the one,” Emma says, effectively pulling me out of my inappropriate fantasies.
“Sorry—what?” I take a few steps to get closer to her.
“You’re the apprentice Chris got from that foundation. For…”
She trails off, takes a sip of her latte, her pink lips leaving a trace of lipstick on the sheep mug.
“I’m not following.”
She pulls her eyes from her laptop and latches them onto me. She has the most beautiful, deep blue eyes, bordered by thick, long lashes to die for—and they’re all natural. No mascara. No eyeliner. Full mane of curly blond hair, and she doesn’t even need to play with it to make you notice it. She’s wearing a sweater that molds her without being obvious. Slim jeans that move with her.
She’s the kind of woman who runs for Miss Small Town America and the whole country falls in love with her.
She takes another, thoughtful sip of her coffee, and I realize the sheep on the mug have something to do with counting. I wonder who gave her that mug. If she brought it here herself, with her frother, or if it was a gift from Christopher, to make her feel at home.
That last thought sits uneasy in my stomach.
She smiles at me but doesn’t show me her perfect row of pearly white teeth. That smile, she reserves for Christopher. But still, she smiles at me and says, “Never mind. I see he didn’t tell you. I overstepped.” And she ducks back behind her laptop, taking cute little laps of her homemade latte with her perfect pink, plump lips.
Now, an accountant is like a lawyer. They don’t overstep. They know they can’t share much, if anything, about their clients.
That right there was not a professional accidentally oversharing and hoping we can pretend this never happened.
I spent my tweens and teens in all-girls private boarding schools. And 99 percent of the girls there were gold. Tight-knit, stick together, to death kind of friends.
And then you had that one girl. It never failed, year after year, grade after grade.
There was always one girl who couldn’t leave well enough alone. Who had to dig up dirt. Who spent her year trying to sully friendships. I never figured out why they did it, but I learned to recognize their MO.
Innuendos.
Seemingly innocent questions.
Half revelations.
What is Emma’s problem?
The door to the bakeshop swings up. “Alexandra.” Christopher looks between Emma and me. “I need you back there.”
Well. Hot damn.
Emma pushes her chair back. “Chris, you didn’t forget our date, right?”
My body freezes.
He frowns. “Date?”
“Next week.”
“Oh, right. Tax appointment. Right.”
“I’ll put it in your calendar,” Emma says as she sashays to the fridge, pen in hand, and adds her name on the magnetic calendar full of Skye’s playdates.
“Whatever,” Christopher says, holding the door to the bakery open for me. He folds behind me, his warmth and scent doing funny little things to my insides.
Still, from this point on, I’m totally off-kilter.
My breads have odd shapes. My muffins are different sizes. And I can’t focus on making perfectly calibrated dinner rolls. For the next two hours, Isaac is keeping me on track, looking over my shoulder.
“Alex!” Isaac’s voice comes through to me.
“Huh?”
“Hurry!” He’s holding an oven door open, waiting for me to load my tray of dinner rolls. The temperature dial is falling.
I try to shake my brain free of thoughts of hidden staircases and Emma, and rush to him. I can’t see the floor or anything below the level of the large tray I’m holding, but I already know my way around here, so I don’t slow down.
I cut corners.
I hit something.
Something that crashes with a loud bang.
And then, I’m stepping in crunchy, sticky stuff, and I see Kiara’s face pale.
Then she storms out.
I can face one mess, but not two. I’m not dropping our rolls on the floor. Focus on your first task, then the next, then the next. I hop over whatever is on the floor, lose balance, and thrust the tray of dinner rolls onto Isaac’s unprepared hands. He teeters and two rolls plop on the floor. I steady myself, grab the tray back from him, shove it in the oven, close the door, and manage to remember to set the timer.
Then, I pick up the two fallen, unbaked rolls, and with my hands full, turn around to face the disaster I just created. An explosion of colorful crumbs and sticky paste awaits me. What was seconds ago the latest batch of fresh macarons is splattered on the floor. Kiara is gone somewhere to cool off—thank god. Willow’s eyes are shiny. She’s biting her lower lip and seems on the verge of either crying or laughing.
I’m so ashamed of destroying their hard work that a tear falls down my cheek, and I can’t even wipe it off because my hands are full. I look at the sticky goo in my hands, get on my knees, and start capturing all the pieces of macarons with it.
“What’s wrong with Kiara?” Christopher barks as he enters the bakeshop, then stops in his tracks as he takes in the disaster and my attempt at fixing it. I stand, my hands covered in bread dough, macarons crumbs, and filling like some kindergartener doing finger painting with play dough, tears of shame lining my eyelids.
I blink, and they start rolling down my cheeks uncontrollably.
He runs his hand over his face. “Alexandra, stop,” he says in a low growl. “Willow, what happened.”
“Alex bumped into the tray that was sticking out—”
“The tray was sticking out?”
“It was.”
“Okay then. No more trays sticking out.”
“Nope.”
“Get a broom and a mop.”
“Yup. On it.”
He bends over to where I’m crouched on the floor. “Alexandra. Hey. Come here.” He pulls on my elbow to lift me up and walks me out. I wipe the tears on my shoulder. Once in the kitchen, he rolls up my sleeves while leading me to the sink, where he opens the faucet.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“Isaac asked—”
He taps my forehead and says, “What’s going on in here, and in here,” he continues, tapping the approximate area of my heart, which incidentally, is awfully close to my breast. Then both his hands wrap around my shoulders, and he gives them a quick rub.
Then leaves them there.
I sigh deeply. I just want to lay against him.
I fight the urge, close my eyes, and turn the faucet off.
“I’m sorry, I’m—”
“You’re exhausted. It’s normal.” He rubs my shoulders again, and god it feels good. “Anything different, I’d think you’re superhuman. You take the rest of the day off, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “First I need to clean up the bakehouse.”
“No you don’t.”
“I made a mess.”
“It’s on them and they know it. The tray was sticking out. It shouldn’t have been. No big deal. Plenty of time to make more cookies.” And his hands rub between my shoulders.
“Macarons,” I whisper.
He chuckles. “Whatever.” He pulls my cap off and tucks some hair behind my ear and ohmygod it’s borderline erotic.
With a final squeeze of my shoulders, he sends me off.
“Take it easy,” Emma says from behind her laptop.
Shit. I have a meltdown, of course miss perfection would witness it.