33
CECíLIA
The smell reached me before I opened the oven door.
It wasn’t the pleasant smell of butter beginning to brown. It was stronger, bitter at the edges, and made me drop the spatula right away.
Joana followed me.
I took out the baking sheet, set it down on the spot I’d prepared, and looked at the cookies. The bottoms were too dark. The display still showed the set temperature, but the thermometer we used to check it showed something else.
“Turn it off,” I said.
She turned it off.
We stood there looking at the afternoon’s first failed batch.
It was Wednesday. We had cookies and tart shells to deliver the next day, as well as the bakery’s usual production. The oven had been serviced a few months earlier. Until that morning, there’d been no sign of trouble.
I wanted to open the door again, adjust the temperature, and test it. Joana pointed to the thermometer.
“You can’t trust it like this.”
She was right.
I called for service while we set aside the unbaked dough. The technician could come late that afternoon. He couldn’t promise to fix it that day.
I checked the time. Ten past four.
On the wall, our schedule looked like it had been drawn up by someone who was far too optimistic.
I took a sheet of paper and sorted out what needed the oven, what we could keep doing here, and which customers we’d have to notify if an order ran late.
The timing was tight, but not impossible.
I knew a shared kitchen that rented time slots; I’d worked there before opening A?úcar de Dentro.
I called the woman in charge, asked about availability, and learned there was an opening that evening.
I booked the hours we needed and confirmed the equipment and price. Then I looked at Joana.
“Can you go and finish that part? I’ll stay here to meet the technician and wrap things up.”
She checked the boxes we were sorting.
“I can do it. But I need to leave at the time we agreed on. I have an appointment afterward.”
“You’ll leave on time. If there’s anything left, I’ll take over.”
I still had to arrange transportation. Ivo was on another delivery. I could call a car, explain how much we had, and hope the driver would take the boxes and pans without stacking them like luggage.
My phone rang while I was figuring that out.
It was Dante.
We’d agreed to talk in the late afternoon about Saturday’s outing. I answered with the phone wedged between my shoulder and ear, my hands busy sealing a box.
“Can you talk right now?” he asked.
“For a little while. The oven’s decided it hates me.”
There was a second of silence, then I heard his attention shift.
“What happened?”
I explained it without embellishment. Dante asked if anyone had gotten hurt. I said no. Then he wanted to know what I’d already figured out.
I told him about the kitchen and the repairman.
“What do you need right now?”
I looked at the stack of baking pans.
I was tired enough to answer honestly.
“A ride for Joana and two boxes to the shared kitchen. I’m trying to arrange a car.”
“I can take them. I’m leaving the office and can be there in twenty minutes.”
My first impulse was to work out why I didn’t need his help. My second was to look at the pans again.
“Does your car have room?”
“I think so. Tell me the size.”
I told him.
We confirmed what would fit and what had to stay level. He didn’t ask what a new oven would cost. I didn’t refuse before hearing the help he was actually offering.
“Then I’ll take it,” I replied.
When I hung up, Joana looked up.
“Transportation sorted?”
“Sorted.”
She went back to closing the boxes.
***
The next two hours passed in fragments.
Dante arrived, helped arrange the materials under Joana’s guidance, and left with her.
The technician showed up shortly afterward, examined the oven, and explained that he’d need to replace a part in the control panel.
I asked for a quote, heard the estimated timeframe, and confirmed the service without counting on money I didn’t have.
The oven would be out of service until the repair was completed.
I didn’t like it. Still, it was information I could work with.
I let my mom know that the afternoon would run late. She was already with Bento and said he’d have dinner there, as we’d planned in case I was delayed. I heard my son in the background asking if he could peel the banana by himself.
I smiled before going back to my list.
At the shared kitchen, Joana made use of our reserved slot. She sent a picture of the first good batch, then another of the finished tart shells. We arranged what would stay there to cool and the transport back. She would leave on time, and I’d take over anything left.
Dante offered to come back and pick up the boxes after dropping her off at the spot where she’d continue on to her appointment. I confirmed with the kitchen manager that he could pick up the supplies, and only then did I give him the instructions.
By seven, the baked goods were back.
It wasn’t the afternoon we’d planned. There was a ruined batch, kitchen hours to pay for, and a repair still ahead. But the orders were moving along, and no one had needed to pretend the oven worked.
I finished checking the items while Dante waited near the counter.
“Can you put this one here?” I asked, pointing to an empty box.
He placed it on the shelf.
“Like this?”
“A little further back.”
He did as I asked, then turned around with an expression I knew well.
“I spent the afternoon taking orders.”
“Joana is demanding.”
“So are you.”
I laughed. It was my first real laugh since the smell of burning.
I turned off the production-area light. The front of the bakery was already closed, the chairs put away, the street sounds distant behind the glass. Suddenly, nothing urgent needed my hands.
Dante was just a few steps away.
I’d thought about his mouth almost all week. About coffee at home. The way he’d said he wanted to kiss me without turning my answer into a punishment for us both. The touch I’d chosen before he left.
Now I could see him without a baking sheet between us.
“Thanks for today,” I said.
“You’ve already thanked me.”
“I know.”
He grabbed his keys, but didn’t move toward the door just yet.
“Is Bento with your mother?”
“Yes. I’ll pick him up in a little while.”
He nodded.
I saw the moment he decided to leave so he wouldn’t make me late. His hand closed around his keys; his body turned a little. And I knew if I let him go, I’d spend the whole way there imagining something I could have chosen.
“Dante.”
He stopped.
I stepped closer.
I hadn’t rehearsed a single sentence. I was wearing an apron, my hair tied back haphazardly, and a smudge of flour near my elbow. Nothing about that night seemed ready for a beginning.
I touched the front of his shirt.
Dante stood motionless beneath my hand.
“I want to,” I said softly.
His eyes met mine.
I rose a little and pressed my mouth to his.
At first, I felt only the contact—warm and real, so different from the times I’d imagined it that I had to close my eyes. Then Dante responded, and the kiss lost the hesitation with which I’d begun.
His hand came to my waist. The other touched my face, light enough that I could have pulled away. I didn’t pull away. I grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer, feeling my breath catch as his mouth moved over mine.
There was a familiarity that moved me and something else I didn’t recognize. The man kissing me knew he could lose me. I knew I could still desire him even after having been hurt.
I pulled my face away just enough to breathe.
Dante rested his forehead against mine. His fingers stayed at my waist without keeping me there.
“Cecília.”
Hearing my name in that voice almost made me kiss him again before I answered.
I opened my eyes.
“I’ve been thinking about this all week.”
His smile appeared slowly, tinged with an emotion that tightened my chest.
“So have I.”
This time, as we moved closer, there was no doubt that we both wanted it.
I kissed him again.