4
Finals week is finally over. Well, what the school blocks as finals week.
English courses have a bit of leeway in the realm of final exams, and I’m likely a bit more lenient than most. In the Literature for Young Adults final today, I asked the students to rank the books in order from one to fourteen.
Write two to three paragraphs for each, giving the reasoning behind where it ranked on the list.
I’m not sure what she’s going to do with her English degree, but I wished her the best.
Now, same day, I’m burning the midnight oil helping Michael get the bookstore ready for the fair in two days. I’m the better baker of the two of us, so I help him pretty often by prepping the bakery treats for the store.
When Michael found this place, it had originally been a Masonic Temple.
The place had sat empty for such a long time.
The owner, over the years, had been pretty particular of what she envisioned going into the space.
But, despite how long it had sat empty, the place had been kept in near pristine condition.
Michael approached me a few years out of college with his idea.
He wanted to convert the hall into a mixed-use bookstore and bakery, serving homemade baked goods and a robust coffee and tea menu.
But he wanted to make sure the menu stayed fresh, only keeping a few staples on the everyday menu and rotating the rest.
The reason Michael approached me was because he needed my support.
My dad had died in a car accident a few months before I graduated high school.
Between the payout from the driver’s insurance company, and the life insurance policy he’d been paying into for years, both Mom and I were left with a rather large sum of money.
She, in the end, gave me a much larger chunk of the money.
She worked as a nurse and loved her job, and brought in a really good salary she could live off of.
I also ended up getting a bunch of scholarships and grants going into college.
I maintained an A average in the Honors Program at Central Connecticut State University, which not only offset a lot of the tuition costs, but prepared me for going right into my Doctorate program at UConn.
By the age of twenty-eight, I had my PhD and was an assistant professor back at CCSU.
At twenty-eight and debt free, with a pretty decent salary and a chunk of cash in the bank, Michael approached me about his bookstore idea.
He asked if I would be a partner in it, that I could be involved as little or as much as I wanted.
He just needed help getting it off the ground.
He laid out his business plan, what the upfront and continuous expenses would be.
How much it would cost to retrofit the hall to build out a small kitchen, to have the dual function in the front of house.
It honestly didn’t take any convincing on my part.
I’d known Michael for almost twenty years at that point, and he always put his everything into his passions in life.
Hell, I’d seen him raise almost fifteen thousand dollars one spring for a local Relay for Life chapter.
Just because he had heard from a participant that donations were down that year.
And, as someone with a love of books and literature, why wouldn’t I want to own a bookstore. I already pick out the books students read for class, so it only seemed natural to help pick what to offer the public.
I told him I would do it, but that I would put up all the money upfront so he wouldn’t have to take on business loans before even opening. I told him he could pay me in installments after the bookstore started turning a profit.
I also told him that, to open a bookstore in such a small community like Old Wethersfield, it was important we became residents in town.
I had already been hunting for a house or condo, tired of renting, so I told him I would find a place and he could be my roommate.
He tried to refuse at first, saying it was too much.
But I knew how much he hated living with his roommates, the third wheel to a couple who fought constantly.
I told him, if he wanted, that he could cover the utilities and we’d call it even.
In a matter of months, we’d accomplished so much. I found a condo on Spring Street, hovering right on the line of Old Wethersfield and the rest of town. Michael presented the business idea at a town meeting, backed by the owner of the Masonic Temple, and gained approval unanimously.
By the end of the year, we were both residents and business owners in Old Wethersfield. The bookstore opened just after Thanksgiving. It didn’t take long for the store to turn a profit, and also become a staple in our tight knit community.
Now, ten years later, we are the go-to bookstore in the area.
Our baked goods have won multiple awards and now, thanks to the push by Niall, offer late-night specialty cocktails and snack plates.
Our biweekly book clubs draw in crowds from all over Hartford County and beyond, offering themed cocktails based on the read.
And this is mostly all Michael’s doing. Yes, I gave him the money to get it off the ground, but all of the success is his brain child. I just offer up help and lend my superior baking skills when needed.
Like I am tonight.
“How’s the barmbrack looking?” He looks at the bowl, his brows scrunching. “I don’t wanna backseat drive this sitch, given you know more than me, but doesn’t that dough look a bit…dry?”
It does, and nothing on Niall’s notes are giving me any clues to why.
“I tried googling to see what other recipes said, but they’re all over the place.
Some don’t add anything, some add butter.
Isn’t it weird this recipe doesn’t have any butter or oil in it?
Have you ever baked something without a fat component? ”
“I think it’s an old school recipe for like wartime rations or poor people, or something.”
“You did hear how awful that sounded, right?”
Michael pops his phone on the counter. “Shut up. You know what I meant.” He furiously types on his phone, the phone dinging almost immediately in response. “Add some of the liquid from the fruit and tea bowl, unless you did something stupid and dumped it out.”
“I was going to say I hope you didn’t wake Niall up, but also tell him I said ‘rude’.” I had a feeling the tea would be used for something, so I had indeed just strained the fruit out.
“He says add enough until it’s a wet dough, and not to go all American on it and add butter or lard to it.”
I take turns splashing the tea into the bowl and stirring it up, and slowly the dough (or batter?) starts to resemble something I would normally throw in the oven to bake. I spoon the mixture evenly between the four nine-inch cake pans I’ve prepped on the counter, smoothing out the tops.
Michael hovers over the pans. “Do you think four will be enough?”
I slide them one by one into the oven. “We don’t even know if they’ll be any good. Or if anyone will even buy it. Who the fuck even knows what a barmbrack is? Make sure you put Irish in front of it on the sign. Might help intrigue people.”
* * *
Two hours later I lean back against the counter, exhausted. I prepped cookie dough for six different cookies, baked two dozen loaves of various nut breads, and portioned out ingredients to bake the cakes for the fair on Saturday.
Michael had finished rearranging the front of the store and making signs about an hour ago, so he spent the last hour or so being my baking assistant. Most of the packaging for Saturday’s baked goods is ready to go.
“You really should hire a part-time baker again. Noelle was amazing. I know you were devastated when she left, but it’s not feasible to continue at this rate.”
Michael puts the last of the cookie dough balls in the fridge. “And why would I do that when I have a perfectly good baker here right now?”
“But you won’t in a couple of months.”
Michael leans on me, throwing an arm around my middle. “I’m gonna miss you when you’re in Dublin you know. We haven’t been apart from each other more than a week for, what, ten years?”
He has a point. Once the bookstore opened and I bought the condo, we were constantly in each other’s company.
Most times when we vacationed it was together with friends.
I didn’t think about how lonely he might get with me gone.
Outside of me, I think Niall might be his best friend and he’s going to be essentially down the street from me, and an ocean away from Michael.
“You might not miss me when you have a hot roommate in my place.”
“That’s right! Total upgrade.”
It’s quiet on Main Street when we close up the shop. There are a couple of tables still occupied on Lucky Lou’s patio, but outside of that the streets are empty.
Even Old Town seems to be missing the normal barflies. Well, it is a Thursday night and not even summer yet. I feel the town starts to pick up on the weeknights right around when school gets out.
“I can’t believe we’re still hosting book club tomorrow with all the prep we need to do for the fair.”
I sidestep one of Wethersfield’s many uneven sidewalks. “We can knock out most of the baking in the afternoon. You have Sydney on the whole weekend and she can manage the front of the store before the evening rush.”
“That’s true, I guess.”
We cross Garden Street, passing the Ukrainian bicycle set up on the corner.
It’s been a staple of the Bicycles on Main for as long as I remember, but seems more prevalent now than ever.
Many of our friends belong to the local Ukrainian community, and we’ve hosted a few fundraisers at the bookstore to help out refugees that fled due to the ongoing war.
“Have you heard from Alex at all?”
“Not a single message.” I figured he would’ve texted something by now, but deep down I think I’m kind of relieved. I’ve never been particularly great at being single, often going back to disaster relationships or hanging on way too long after an obvious expiration date.
Michael once called them “boo blinders” and that it was kinda cute until it wasn’t.
The ex before Alex cheated on me with two of his co-workers, sometimes all together.
The ex before that one picked a fight with me at a party when drunk, abandoned me, and ended up crashing his buddy’s car into a tree.
Might’ve dodged a couple of bullets there.
We start to cross Main Street to get to Spring when a car comes barreling down the road. I yank Michael onto the sidewalk, just in the nick of time.
“Jesus Christ!” Michael picks up a rock and throws it in the direction of the car, which has already rounded the corner heading towards Old Wethersfield.
“The town really needs to do something about those stop signs.” When the train tracks became operational again a few years ago, they put up stop signs to encourage drivers to check before crossing the tracks.
It’s only been somewhat successful, with most people still working off muscle memory.
This isn’t the only close call we’ve had walking home at night. Or the day for that matter.
Once back at the condo, we both quietly go to our separate bedrooms to get ready for bed. While today was busy, the next two will be insane.