5. Ember #2
Marge doesn’t say a word. She reaches into the case with a pair of metal tongs, snatches a massive, perfectly glazed roll that looks like a work of art, and slides it into a brown paper bag.
She pours a cup of coffee from the industrial pot behind her, snaps a plastic lid onto it, and sets it on the counter.
“Four fifty.”
I slide my credit card across the glass. Marge looks at the piece of plastic, then looks up at my face.
“We have a five-dollar minimum for cards,” she says flatly.
“Oh! Perfect,” I say, my brain instantly pivoting into high gear.
This is my opening. This is the market opportunity I’ve been looking for.
“In that case, let me add something else. Actually, Marge… can I ask you a question about your visual identity strategy?”
Marge’s left eyebrow climbs about half an inch toward her silver hair. “My what?”
“Your sign,” I say, gesturing toward the front window.
“The pastries in here are a masterclass in culinary execution. Seriously, those croissants look incredible. But your external brand communication is… well, it’s actively misrepresenting the quality of your product.
The muddy brown color palette is dampening consumer appetite, and the lack of proper kerning on the word ‘Bakery’ is causing a significant visual bottleneck at the street level. ”
The older couple in the corner stop chewing entirely. The man in the high-vis vest looks at his bear claw like he’s trying to see if it has a visual bottleneck.
Marge stares at me for three long, agonizing seconds.
“My sign,” she says slowly, “was painted by my brother-in-law. It tells people there is bread inside. They come in, they buy the bread. The system works fine, Miss…”
I stare at her.
She’s serious.
The system is ‘fine’ in the same way that a sinking ship is ‘fine’ because it’s still technically floating.
It’s a tragedy of missed opportunities, and I am itching to fix it. I’ve spent my life building empires, but apparently, my current life’s work is convincing a woman in a denim shirt that kerning actually matters.
“Ember,” I say, leaning in a little closer.
“And it could work better, Marge! Imagine a clean, hand-lettered logo. I can design it for you. I have a degree from Manhattan School of Design, and my portfolio includes three corporate rebranding campaigns that resulted in a forty percent increase in millennial engagement.”
“We don’t have many millennials here,” Marge says, her voice dropping into a dangerous, icy territory. “We have farmers. And they don’t like rebranding campaigns with their coffee.”
“But they like efficiency!” I insist, my words tumbling out in a fast, hyperactive rush.
I am begging now, and I know I am begging, but the sheer wall of rejection I’ve faced today has triggered my deep, pathological need to be useful.
“Look, Marge, I don’t need the money. I really don’t. I will design the new logo for free. I will build you a complete digital asset kit, a social media template library, and a new outdoor menu board. And… I want to work here.”
Marge actually blinks this time. Her arms drop to her sides. “You want what?”
“A job,” I say, and God, I sound like an intern pleading for a summer placement.
“I can work the register, sweep the floors, scrub the cases. I don’t want a salary.
I just… I just moved into the Gilded Goat, my house is a disaster area, my goats only answer to ‘Kevis,’ and the entire town looks at me like I’m a walking public health hazard.
I just want to exist here without being treated like a contagious disease. Let me clean your kitchen.”
Marge stands behind the counter, her sharp eyes studying my face with an intensity that feels like a physical weight. The non-nonsense exterior doesn’t crack, but the icy edge in her posture softens just a fraction.
She looks down at my black credit card, then back up at my red lipstick.
“You want to work for free,” Marge repeats. “In a bakery. In your white overalls.”
“I have other colors, too,” I offer eagerly. “And jumpsuits.”
Marge lets out a sound that is halfway between a grunt and a sigh. She reaches into a drawer beneath the register, pulls out an old-fashioned receipt pad, and scribbles something down with a stubby pencil.
She slides the paper toward me.
“Five dollars,” she says. “I charged you for a cookie to hit the minimum. Slide your card.”
I insert the card into the reader, the machine letting out its familiar beep of approval. I grab the paper bag and the coffee cup, my heart sinking slightly as I realize the pitch has failed.
“I don’t need a new sign, Ember,” Marge says, her voice rough but losing some of its initial hostility as she picks up her wiping cloth again.
“And I don’t hire people who don’t understand that a brother-in-law’s paint job is worth more than a millennial strategy.
But… I do need someone to scrub the flour bins on Tuesday mornings.
The flour gets into the hinges and jams the lids.
It’s boring, it’s messy, and it’ll ruin your manicure. ”
I freeze, my hand wrapped around the warm coffee cup. I look up at her, my eyes wide. “Are you… are you offering me a shift?”
“Temporary help,” Marge corrects immediately. “Tuesday morning. 6 AM sharp.”
A grin explodes across my face. “Done. And you seriously do not have to pay me. Honestly, I’m happy to—”
“Oh, absolutely not,” Marge cuts in, fixing me with a sharp look. “I don’t take charity, and I don’t hand it out. You work, you get paid.”
“Marge, I literally bought a truck because I was having an emotional crisis. I do not need bakery money.”
“That’s your business,” she says flatly. “Eight dollars an hour.”
I blink at her.
Okay. I was fully prepared to work for free, but eight dollars somehow feels deeply personal.
“Marge,” I say carefully, “I think that hourly wage was legal in, like, 2004.”
“It’s flour bins, not brain surgery.”
I press a hand dramatically to my chest. “Wow. So this is what workplace exploitation feels like.”
“You can always leave.”
“And give up my flourishing career in hinge sanitation? Never.”
“Eight dollars,” she repeats. “Free coffee during your shift. Final offer.”
I stare at her for another second, then sigh like a defeated corporate negotiator. “Fine. But emotionally, I want you to know I’m volunteering.”
“If you’re one minute late, the door stays locked. Now get out of my shop. My sourdough is turning.”
A giant, genuine, uncontrollable smile breaks across my face—the first real one all day. “Thank you, Marge! I will be here at 5:50 AM. You won’t regret this!”
“I already regret it,” Marge mutters under her breath, but as I turn toward the door, I catch the briefest, most microscopic twitch at the corner of her mouth.
I march out of the bakery, the bell clanging wildly behind me, and step back onto Main Street feeling like I’ve just successfully negotiated a hostile corporate takeover.
I have a foot in the door. I have a local anchor point. I am officially an assistant flour bin technician in the township of Suncrest Hollow.
I take a massive, glorious bite of the cinnamon roll as I walk down the sidewalk.
The walk back to the Gilded Goat feels infinitely shorter than the walk into town, mostly because my brain is humming with adrenaline and design concepts for a bakery rebrand that Marge explicitly told me she doesn’t want.
I will wear her down eventually.
A good designer always wears the client down.
As I clear the final ridge and the silver-gray timbers of my barn come into view, my eyes dart toward the eastern perimeter line.
My heart does a sudden, violent jolt against my ribs.
The white car is parked in Brooks’s driveway.
He’s back.
The driver’s side door swings open, and Brooks steps out onto the gravel. He’s still wearing his dark blue fire department trousers and a heavy black t-shirt with the station logo faded across the back.
He reaches into the cab, grabs a heavy canvas tool bag, and slings it over his shoulder with a smooth, practiced movement that makes my breath catch in my throat.
He doesn’t look toward my house. He stops by the edge of his driveway, staring down at the sad, forty-five-degree tilt of his broken mailbox, his shoulders dropping in a silent, exhausted sigh.
I should probably feel guilty.
Instead, I’m wondering if I have time to reapply lip gloss before he reaches the property line.
Humiliating behavior.
Truly embarrassing for me as a person.
I stop walking, standing on the dirt path of my own property, my hands gripping the brown paper bag from Marge’s bakery.
I look down at my overalls, checking to make sure the white fabric isn’t completely covered in road dust. I touch my hair, ensuring the messy bun hasn’t collapsed into a structural hazard of its own.
Brooks turns his head then, his gray eyes locking onto me from across the boundary line.
He stands there for a long moment, the heavy tool bag hanging from his shoulder, his expression unreadable but intense.
He doesn’t wave. He doesn’t smile.
He just takes a slow, deep breath, adjusts the strap on his shoulder, and starts walking toward the property line—marching right toward my rotting, beautiful, chaotic farmhouse.
I push my sunglasses onto my head, feeling a defiant, thrill-ride grin tugging at my lips.
“Get ready, hot neighbor,” I murmur to the breeze. “Things are about to get complicated.”