Bakery

Chapter 1
(Today)
This what it must feel like when hell freezes over, she thought after stepping outside and feeling her nostrils freeze together, that not-altogether-unpleasant reminder that life is fragile. Although she’s wearing two pairs of silk long underwear (top and bottom), two pairs of socks, fur-lined boots, a pair of pants and at least two shirts under her long thick coat in addition to the required hat, scarf, and gloves, Michaela is cold. Muscle-clenching, teeth chattering, finger numbing cold.

She wonders, not for the first time, why anyone would choose to live in Minnesota. And yet, she is not alone at the bus stop. In fact, there are at least eleven other suckers waiting with her. We’re all idiots, she thinks, before starting in on one of her favorite daydreams; the one where she lives on a beach, and the coldest temperature on record is 45 degrees. She’s just about to take a sip of her margarita, when a voice interrupts her.

“Excuse me?” the voice is male and extremely polite, with no twang that identifies him as a local. She looks up reluctantly, into eyes the color of her ocean.

“Yes?” Michaela does not fall for eyes, and pretends to be polite while allowing a hint of her impatience through.

“I hear there’s a bakery in town that has the most unbelieveable muffins?” The way his voice rises at the end of every sentence is vaguely feminine. “Do you know where it is?”

Michaela takes a longer look. Expensive coat, nothing covering his ears and dress shoes. Definitely not a local. Plus, the bakery in question is her bakery. The muffin recipe her grandmother’s, and it’s not every day that someone on the street asks you about your own business, and has obviously heard good things about it.

“What hotel are you staying at?” she asks, much kinder now that she knows he’s a fan.

“How do you know I’m not from here?”

“Your shoes are not warm and you’re not wearing a hat.” She smiles now, and he smiles back, sheepishly. “This bus will take you to the bakery. It’s not quite open yet, but I’m sure they’ll let you in to keep warm.”
He looks confused for a minute. “They told me they’re always open very early.”

“Well, I think that’s generally true, but I hear the owner doesn’t like to get out of bed when it’s this cold.” Michaela is not trying to be secretive, but she doesn’t exactly feel like chatting about her muffin recipe with a complete stranger, when she’s still trying to wake up.

“Yeah, I bet this is how it would feel if hell froze over.” She gapes at him for a moment, until he hastily says, “I didn’t mean to be blasphemous. I thought it might be funny.”

“Oh, no. Sorry. It’s just that I thought the exact same thing about two minutes ago. It’s not often that something I hear in my head then comes out the mouth of a complete stranger.” They smile at each other, cautiously.

“So how long have you had the bakery?” the stranger asks. “Or is it too early for shop talk?” Michaela is a little creeped out now, so she simply says, “It’s too early.” The bus finally pulls up, and everyone waiting lumbers aboard, bogged down by their layers of warmth. Michaela curses as she realizes there’s only two seats left, right next to each other, by the time the stranger and she board. He seems to get the hint and stands toward the front, rather than accompanying her to the seats. Or maybe he heard the sigh she’d meant to keep inward. Whatever, Michaela thinks, all he wants is a damn muffin.

The bakery started as a joke. In college, Michaela wooed her men with her grandmother’s muffins. The group of girls Michaela no longer knows (all having moved away, wisely) begged her for the recipe, but why would men sleep with Michaela if they could get her muffins anywhere? And then the friends started offering to buy batches of muffins. As an exercise for her business class, Michaela figured out how many batches of muffins she could have sold, and MUFF’n was born. She didn’t actually start her business until she realized that a degree in literature means nothing in the real world. And she absolutely refused to change the name, even though the professor strongly encouraged the less provocative alternative of Muffin Shoppe.

With a start, Michaela jumped up, yanking on the stop cord. Stranger had been watching for her to get off, so both of them ended up looking silly as the bus driver pulled over, barking, “pull the cord before your stop, please”. She wondered how bus drivers always have the ability to make please and thank you sound like exactly the opposite of good manners. Plus, she now felt obligated to apologize to Stranger for almost missing the stop.

“Sorry about that,” she tried to smile. “Guess I was daydreaming.” He smiled easily in return, thankfully without saying anything, just puffing alongside her in the ice masquerading as air. The pink and yellow awning made her smile today, just as it did every day. She didn’t even care that no one ever got the fact that it was supposed to be ironic.

“Great name,” is all Stranger said as Michaela unlocked the door and held it open behind her.

“Thanks!” Michaela steeled herself for the typical questions, but he was silent and stood there, unsure.

“Oh, just pull down one of the stools and sit,” Michaela said, “I’ll have coffee in five. Want anything fancier, you’ll have to wait until I take care of some other things.” She was needlessly worried that he’d be really chatty, but he seemed content to sit and watch her work. He didn’t even offer to help, which is something that generally pissed her off about early morning customers. They tended to try to insert themselves into her morning routine, and Michaela hates help. He sits and waits, and she went about her morning.

She always checks the close first, because unfortunately, it’s true that if you want it done properly, you have to do it yourself. The bakery’s pink and yellow theme continues inside; the walls frosting colored yellow, and the floor tiled in pink and black. The counters are marble and the sinks wide stainless steel. Her bakery case and old-timey register (the last painted the theme colors, of course) were rescued from a bakery in Philadelphia and worth every penny. For, while Michaela doesn’t relish the idea that she owns a bakery and that is what she does, she understands the importance of appearances, and her goal with the bakery was to embody it with love. Because that’s what muffins are.

The closing tasks seemed to be done, so Michaela whips out her muffin tins and the batter from the day before out of the fridge. One of her secrets is to bake the muffins in cold tins. The other secret is to add the fruit or nuts or chocolate just before popping the muffin tray in the oven. She doesn’t know why it works, but it does. Constance was always a stickler about that, frequently saying things like, “Cold tins, warm muffins, and a warm heart.” None of her phrases ever made any sense to Michaela, but they repeat themselves in her head every day now.

She’s put the muffins in the oven just in time for her coffee. She grabs her mug and then remembers to get one for Stranger. She fills the creamer pitcher and carries the tray with it, their mugs of coffee and the sugar over to the table where he sits.

“I’m Michaela,” she says awkwardly, “Probably I could have told you that before.”

“I’m Steve,” he smiles back. He picks up the branded mug and stirs in cream and copious amounts of sugar. “I assume that one is yours.” Michaela feels a spark of defensiveness about her mug. She happened to have made it for Constance, and yes, perhaps it was a bit lumpy, and maybe it only was ninety percent glazed, but it was one of the first things she’d ever created and she loved it. She was about to defend it, when Steve saved himself by saying, “Whoever made that for you had a whole lot of love for you, huh?” And when he smiled this time Michaela saw the crinkles around his eyes. But huffiness is a hard habit to break, so Michaela simply said, “It was my grandmother’s,” and got up to finish her opening.

Several hours and cups of coffee later, Michaela was having the ‘weather’ conversation for the umpteenth time, when she noticed Steve still sitting at the same table. She felt irritation swarming up at the fact that a) he was still here and b) that she noticed.

“Stay warm,” she cheerily recited her portion of the weather script as the customer left. She wondered if she should find it sad or consider it genius that she was able to have the same conversation thirty times a day and make it fresh every time. There are three conversations that Michaela has perfected for her Customer Service Face. Entitled “Weather”, “I Need Coffee”, and, my personal favorite “I Feel Guilty About the Fact that You Serve Muffins for a Living so I Must Behave as if I Care About Your Life”. It’s her favorite because they always try to leave her tips. Big ones. They don’t know that Michaela refuses all of them and divvies them up at the end of the month among her staff. She wonders how many of her fake conversations Steve has heard, and then immediately scolds herself for caring. People outside of the service industry probably wouldn’t get it, but one of the things she loves about her job is the fact that it lets her focus on her own stuff while working. She bets brain surgeons can’t focus on their personal lives while operating. She glances over at Steve, and when she accidentally catches his eye, makes the signal for more coffee. Not that she thinks he falls for that. Something about him seems much more aware than her average customer. Plus he’s been here for hours. Luckily, he nods and gets up from his chair. There’s been a break in the line, which means it’s ten and time for Lily’s smoke.

“Go ahead,” Michaela yells to her, as she grabs the coffee pot. Lily smiles gratefully and disappears to the back.

“Every morning like this?” Steve asks, seeming really interested.

“Yeah, we have a rush from when we open until about now, and then another from eleven thirty to one. The afternoons are generally slow, and then the students come in from five until close.” Michaela feels herself babbling. This is the second time today she’s gone off script for this man, and she doesn’t like it at all.

“You’re lucky. I hear most bakeries don’t do that well.”

“I suppose. The wireless internet and cheap coffee helps with the student crowd.” In fact, this is a point of pride for Michaela. It pisses her off that places can get away with charging five dollars for a latte. And Michaela hates that “what the market can bear” crap.

“Thanks for the coffee.” Steve nods, and then turns to go back to his table.

“Hey, uh, don’t you have something to do today?” Michaela could kick herself. It’s absolutely none of her business what this man is doing today.

“I did, but then I met you.” And he goes back to his table, picks up his book, and continues reading. She tries to see the title of his book, but quickly stops looking, as she certainly doesn’t want to give the impression of being interested. Because she isn’t. What a great line, though. Michaela thinks of it several more times throughout the morning, but doesn’t allow herself to think about it, focusing instead on her customers and Lily.

Lily is always a welcome distraction. Her hair is purple this week, and stands up in spikes all over her head. When Lily first came to work at MUFF’n, she was bald. Not so unusual these days, but the tattoo covering her head was certainly a conversation starter. That, her extreme thinness and her mostly hemp clothing choices made Michaela hire her purely out of defiance. Luckily for them both, she was fiercely bright and quickly proved to be an asset. Now she is Michaela’s right hand and the manager. Michaela is generally reluctant to make her co-workers friends as well, but Lily made the transition almost without her noticing.

“Who’s the eye candy?” she says now, startling Michaela out of her reverie.

“Who?” Michaela says, deliberately stalling.

“Oh, just that guy that you’ve been trying not to stare at all morning,” Lily laughs, it’s rough he-hawing a surprise, even though Lily laughs almost constantly. Michaela shoots her a look, shushing her, and heads off to the bathroom.

And there he is. She’s been so focused on  avoiding him that she didn’t even notice he’d gotten up to go to the restroom too. The hallway is narrow and dim, with only the phone booth (a flea market find, an actual booth very similar to the London booths) and the two doors leading to the restrooms.

“Oh” Michaela knows she sounds like some damsel in distress from a western, but doesn’t seem able to stop herself.   

If Steve is surprised to see her, he doesn’t show it. Michaela feels out of sorts; she is usually the one to make others uncomfortable. Without a word, Steve leans forward and kisses her. Softly, as if asking for permission. Michaela felt synapses firing and kisses him back, urgently. Before long they grope and paw their way to the phone booth. It was only as they realized that Michaela was wearing too many layers for it to go any farther that they pulled away from each other. Now Steve looks embarrassed, whereas Michaela now feels she has the upper hand.

Sex and Michaela have a long history. From her first sexual experience, Michaela knew that sex was her domain, the place and circumstances where she would always feel the most comfortable with herself. Perhaps the reasoning behind her choice of name for her business?  When she was twelve, she read a book about masturbation disguised as a children’s book. Although she didn’t care for the main character’s methods, she did manage to figure out her own way, and masturbation became a favorite hobby. Soon after, she read a book about first love (isn’t first love really all about sex anyway?) and knew she had to try that, too. Unfortunately, it took much longer to achieve that goal than her first orgasm. It seems the teenage boys Michaela associated with were more interested in a relationship than in the sex. And Michaela didn’t care to be a pressuring sort of girlfriend; she’d learned in health class that one shouldn’t succumb to pressure, and she didn’t want to be “in charge” anyway. So she waited patiently, and didn’t date much. Eventually she dated someone long enough to have sex. It wasn’t great, or even good, but Michaela knew about sex the same way she knew about the piano-if she practiced, she’d get better.

So she chose her next partner carefully. She decided after that first time that two inexperienced people can’t be the way to go-someone has to already know the ropes. From her reading, she knew that older men tended to like younger women, so on her eighteenth birthday she started looking. The easiest way probably would have been to go through one of her professors, but Michaela hated clichés. Michaela’s job at the time was in a clothing store for women, so she started looking for a new job. And found the coffee shop around the corner from her apartment to be just the place.

Serving coffee to a regular one morning, he walked in. She doesn’t remember what he looked like so much as the feeling she got from him. Michaela knows now that it was sexual magnetism, but it was as yet undefined in her life. His name was Inacio Travada, and his number was 646-237-9088. These are the things he told her over the counter as he picked up his coffee, and he ended with, “it means fire”. She called him that evening. It was a year long relationship of eye opening, mind expanding sex. Inacio introduced her to oral sex and anal sex and toy play. Contrary to popular opinion, great sex is a solid reason for a relationship. They laughed a lot and fucked a lot, and they didn’t have too many bad moments. When Michaela realized Inacio needed a woman to take care of his home as well as his dick, she knew she’d never be that woman and told him so. And that was the end of that. Inacio and Michaela are still friends and speak regularly. They never talk about their sex lives.

And what a sex life she has had…What Michaela would like more than anything is to be able to pursue her love of sex as a business. The only person she’s confessed this to is Lily, who Christ! She remembers she’s left her to fend for herself far too long. The lunch rush will be starting soon, and they haven’t, well, anything.

Michaela hurries back to the counter, hoping it’s been just busy enough for Lily not to notice.

“I was about to send someone back there,” Lily says wryly, “and then I saw Mr. Sexy walk up front, adjusting some things.”  Michaela shushes her and gets to work, refusing to look out into the tables.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Lily laughs, “he left as soon as he came up front. Whatever you did to him shook him up good.” Michaela shoots her a look, still not speaking.

“Must’ve been something, though-I haven’t seen you look like that in a while either. And in the shop, too. Never thought I’d see the day.” Lily sing-songs this last, looking very pleased with herself.

“Lily, I think those pitchers need refilling.”

“Oh, I see. That’s how we’re playing this.” Lily straightens up and begins speaking in a high-pitched voice that Michaela guesses is a misguided representation of her. “I’m a fancy bakery owner who can fuck men in the phone booth and get away with not talking about it.”

“Lily, may I see you in the back about these muffins?” Michaela’s voice is strangled. If she didn’t adore Lily, she’d be ready to kill her.

“But of course, Ms. Brown. I’d be happy to.” Lily sweeps through the swinging door ahead of Michaela, laughter rolling out behind her.

“Okay, Lil, I’ll give you the whole story, later, if you promise to stop screaming about fucking in front of the customers.” Michaela wants to give her nothing, but knows that promising the story will ensure Lily’s quiet now, when she really needs it.

“Deal.” And Lily marches back out front to deal with the creamer pitchers and the employee who just walked in. Shit. It must be eleven already.