19. Arden
Arden
The garage is whirring with activity when I’m next in it, and I pause in the doorway to appreciate it.
Men are moving around smoothly rather than running here and there like chickens with their heads cut off, and each project—each bike or truck or car—has one toolbox sitting in front of it with a few other tools surrounding it.
I see Dutch speaking with Whiskey at the specialty tool counter, the two of them comparing two tools that do things I’ll probably never understand.
On the other side of them Rookie is bent over the engine of the old red Chevy, his face creased in concern and his fingers tickling along the tools strapped to his belt.
But he’s not fighting for access to something he can’t have, which is where I would have found him two days ago.
And no men are bickering about some tool they can’t find, or the fact that someone just crashed into them in the middle of the floor, or that they don’t have enough time to finish a project.
Two days ago, these men were moving around each other like they’d never met in their lives and didn’t know how to work in the others’ space. Now it looks like a well-choreographed ballet.
Though I guess I won’t tell them that. They’d probably think I was insulting their manhood.
I grin at the thought and step down onto the black and white floor, looking for Mars. When I find him, he’s bent over a new Harley running his fingers along the handlebars and talking to it.
“You telling it all the beautiful new things you’re planning?” I joke.
He flushes like he was just caught doing exactly that and I laugh, unable to contain my laughter. I love it when something goes according to plan. Not the Mars flushing part, of course—how would I plan that?—but the garage itself.
“I’m doing nothing of the sort,” he says gruffly.
“Uh huh.” My words are full of doubt, but I don’t push him on it. “I’m going to town.”
Concern flashes quickly across his face, but then he looks around the garage once and nods. “Don’t stay too long. Check in if you’re gonna miss lunch.”
And that’s it.
Two days ago the garage was running badly and I wasn’t allowed to go to town by myself.
Yesterday I fixed the garage.
And today I’m allowed to do what I want as long as I check in.
My smile grows wide and triumphant as I walk past the men working and out of the garage to the driveway. Like I said, I like when things go according to plan.
Especially when my plans lead to everyone winning.
I hustle to the end of the driveway, intent on leaving before Mars can change his mind but then pause.
I was so intent on getting out of the house on my own that I didn’t make a plan for where I wanted to go, and now that the whole town is my oyster, so to speak, I don’t know what I want to do first.
I look right, considering every shop I see, and then left. The bookstore, the diner, the clothing boutique…
Ah.
No.
The bakery.
If I’m going to go out by myself to explore, I’m going to start with a place I already know.
And I promised Penny last time I saw her that I’d stop by and listen to the new gossip she heard about Gunner’s business and whether he was actually allowing Bear to do as much as he’d promised.
Well, I have the whole morning free. And I could use some breakfast, a cup of coffee, and, as it turns out, some town gossip.
“Arden,” Penny gasps, shoving a bowl full of something into my hands. “Please tell me you can bake.”
I stare down at the bowl of whatever it is, at a loss for words.
Because no, I don’t bake.
But as I look around the bakery, I can see that they’re in trouble.
There are only two people working, Penny and her assistant, and they’re obviously under water.
Three people are waiting in line to buy pastries that don’t even exist yet–the pastry cabinet is empty–and the stoves look as though they’re already being used for something.
Penny and her helper are mixing as fast as they can, but that’s not going to do any good if they don’t have ovens for baking.
I feel like I’m watching one of those apps where the characters are set up to fail.
So no, I don’t bake.
But I would never leave a friend in trouble.
“Tell me what we’re doing,” I say, moving into the kitchen and taking up a spot at the counter. “And hi,” I add to the girl I don’t yet know.
“Hi,” she huffs, giving me a shy smile. “Allie. And I’m glad you’re here.”
I laugh. “You’re probably going to regret saying that in about ten minutes. I don’t know anything about baking.”
Her smile gets bigger. “You don’t need to know about baking. Right now, you just need to know about mixing.”
She sets down her own bowl and moves toward mine, telling me quickly what we’re making–muffins–and what ingredients I need to add to the bowl still.
She walks me through where everything is and how to measure it out, adding ingredients to my bowl as she goes, and by the time we’re back at the counter, my head is overflowing with numbers and ingredients and trying to remember where everything is.
And I’m thinking that there’s got to be a better way to do this.
I dump everything into one of the mixers and turn it on, then glance at Allie. “You guys do this every day?”
“Every day, all day,” she confirms. “We start baking in the morning and don’t stop until evening because we’re constantly replacing what we sell out of.”
I frown. “How do you have time for anything else if you’re constantly baking new stuff?”
“We don’t,” she groans. “That’s the problem.”
A problem indeed. I stop the mixer, get three muffin pans, and put papers in each spot to contain the dough. Then Allie walks me through putting the right amount of mix into each spot and handling any overflow. And then...
“What now?’ I ask, the full tins in my hands and my eyes on the ovens. “Put them in the ovens?”
“Oh no,” she laughs. “Those have to wait. Put them on the counter there and I’ll show you how to make something else.”
Okay, that can’t be right.
“You make stuff and then just leave it sitting out?” I ask.
“Have to wait until there’s an oven available,” she answers. “This stuff takes different temperatures, different bake times, different steps, so everything has to be put in separately. But if we make prep it beforehand...”
Her voice fades off and I can tell she’s trying not to point out the problem. But I’ve seen it.
“In theory, you always having something else to put in the oven, so there’s never any down time.”
“Exactly,” she says weakly.
“Except that’s not actually an answer,” I continue. “Because you only have two ovens, and you already have three things waiting to be baked. And if they need different temps, they can’t all go in at the same time.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “I thought you said you couldn’t bake.”
I shoot her a smile. “I can’t. But I’m pretty good at engineering, and when I see a problem...”
She slams the bowl she’s holding on the counter and turns to me, her hands on her hips. “Tell me.”
I’m shocked at how quickly she comes around on that point, but I know a twin flame when I see one, and Allie’s probably been thinking for years that there has to be a better way to do things.
She’s probably also been deciding for years that she doesn’t want to upset Penny by questioning her methods.
But if an outsider comes in and does it for her, that’s something entirely different.
And when I look at Penny at the front counter explaining to people why she doesn’t have any pastries ready, I think she might be open to changing her process, too. Especially if it means making more money while working less.
After all, Penny’s in her sixties. She doesn’t want to be on her feet all day. She wants to be doing something fun while her bakery runs itself.
And if I can help her do that, I’m in.
“Right,” I say quickly. I move toward Allie so we can keep our voices down. “You say everything needs a different temp and bake time, but is that actually true? Are there things that use the same temperature? Things that could bake together?”
She presses her lips together, thinking, and then starts to light up. “There are. There are a ton of things that actually need the same heat, but I’ve never catalogued them that way. But if we organized things better and started making them in batches...”
“Groups of things that all take the same heat level,” I agree. “So you can still make multiple products but you can bake them at the same time rather than having dough sitting out on the counters pre-prepared and waiting.”
“Which will also mean we don’t have anything spoiling while it waits,” she says, picking up the thread. “Right now we lose entire batches of cookies and cakes if they have to sit too long. And that puts us even further behind.”
I grab a notebook and pencil from a table in the corner and start making notes. “Right, but if we organize things carefully, put things into groups, we can prepare everything at once and then do a big bake for that specific... genre.”
“Genre?” she asks with a giggle.
I shoot her a look. “You know exactly what I mean.”
She does, and seconds later we’ve both got our elbows on the counter as we go through the recipes she knows by heart, outlining all the products that can and should bake together and figuring out how to organize them into genres.
All the cookies happening together. Pies at the same time.
The cinnamon rolls that Mars is so crazy about.
“Which means we’ll be a cookie bakery at one point in the day and a pie bakery later,” she finally says.
“Exactly! And you can make that a thing, too. Want fresh cookies? Show up at 10 in the morning and they’re guaranteed.
Come by at noon for fresh pie. Bread is ready at dinner and everyone gets to take home a fresh loaf for their soup.
The whole town learns your schedule and arranges their own days around what they want to buy from you. ”
“What are you two doing back here?” Penny asks suddenly from behind us. “I hear a lot of giggling.”
Allie and I whirl around, caught, but Penny’s smiling like she wants in on the secret.
So I start telling her our plan, and before long she’s adding ideas, too. Naming the hours when genres of pastries come up. Designing the ads she’ll put on the white board outside.
Adding new things to the menu to match with what she’ll have at specific times.
And that harried, stressed expression she was wearing when I arrived?
Completely gone, and replaced by an excited air of possibility. The idea that anything is possible–and that the baker is finally going to get the facelift she’s wanted to give it for years.
Three hours later we’ve organized all of Penny’s offerings into genres and set out the ideal timetable, and Penny is already telling customers that if they want bread, they need to come back at 6 when it’ll be warm and just out of the oven.
“You can take it home and pop it into your own oven to keep it warm while you cook dinner,” she tells a woman. “Then open the oven and bam! Fresh bread. No one will ever know the difference.”
The woman’s laugh is a tinkling bell. “I’ll tell David I baked it myself and I’ll only give it to him if he repairs the roof like he’s been supposed to do for a year.”
Penny’s laughter is loud and conspiratorial. “And I won’t tell a soul,” she whispers. “In fact, if you like, I can make sure you bake his favorite kind of bread every week. Get you lawn mowing and a painted house as well.”
I’m so happy I can barely stand it, and Allie’s face is flushed with excitement.
The air of the whole bakery is different now, and the customers are coming in with excited smiles on their faces.
I’ve been in town long enough to know that everyone already loved Penny’s, but the idea of being able to show up at a specific time for a specific treat right out of the oven is making them kids in a candy shop.
And I can’t stop smiling.
I can’t stop thinking that this is the only way to really using an engineering degree.
By organizing a bakery so it can serve more baked goods.
Penny is all smiles and hugs when she turns back to me, and she says something about the town being lucky to have me. I answer with something innocuous and fairly vacant, because as much as I like hearing her joy, I know something she doesn’t know.
The town might be lucky right now, but that can’t last.
Because I can’t stay. I’m not safe here, and there’s no getting around that.
I’m saved from having to say so by Bruce, who comes rushing into the bakery with a face nearly as excited as Penny’s.
“Arden,” he gasps. “I heard you were here! Good. I just got a new shipment in and we have the two new books from that author you love. The one who writes about the dragons. I set them aside just for you, they’re not even on the shelf yet. Want to come over and get them?”
This shocks me so much that I just stare at him for a moment.
He got a new shipment of books, found the ones he thought I’d like, and then set them aside for me?
And then came over here because he heard I was in the bakery?
I’ve been in his bookstore once, and I was with Mars, the man everyone notices and hangs on.
I didn’t think Bruce had even clocked my presence.
And yet he’s seeking me out with news about my favorite author because he has books he thinks I might want.
Orion is right. In New York, no one sees you. This would never happen there; the people are too busy rushing around and handing their own business to worry about what other people might want. They don’t store facts about everyone, then pull them out like tokens when they have a use for them.
They don’t take a stranger and learn her habits so they can try to encourage them later.
I don’t know if anyone back home has noticed that I’m missing, and right now, for just a second, I don’t care.
Because this little town has noticed that I’m here. And though I don’t think I can stay–no, I know I can’t–I’m here right now.
And I’m going to soak up as much of this sunshine as I can, so when I go back to the grim darkness of the city, I have something to keep me smiling.
I tell Bruce I’d love to see the books and start to follow him out of the bakery, but Penny stops me before I can leave.
“Come back tomorrow,” she whispers. “I’ll teach you to make those cinnamon rolls Mars loves so much.”
And though I know I shouldn’t, though I know this is just one more way the town is going to end up thinking it gets to keep; me, I hug her and tell her that I’ll be here at 7 sharp.
Just in time to start making the breakfast batches before they go into the ovens.