CHAPTER 2
Zoe
“Not this again,” I groaned. “Spare me, please.” Mina had been riding this horse since I first moved to town, and I was in sore need of a break.
“You can’t let one asshole dictate your romantic life. It’s just wrong!”
“I’m not letting him dictate it, I’m just recovering from what he did,” I shot back.
“You’re not recovering, you’re moping.”
She had me there. The sophomore slump following my first real boyfriend had been a major one. If we’re being real, it was half the reason I’d decided to move to Middle of Nowhere, Wisconsin. I had to put hundreds of miles between us so I wouldn’t spend the night thinking about how easy it would be to key his car.
“You’re your own boss now,” she continued, “and a boss lady needs man candy on her arm.” I wondered absentmindedly if these were the kind of truisms she’d picked up in online business school.
Before I could respond, the bell above the entrance jangled, and Kelly stormed in.
“Good morning, Kelly,” I said pleasantly. Mina merely shot a nasty look in Kelly’s direction and settled on astutely ignoring her.
“Is it ‘good’ though?” Kelly replied.
I know, I know, teenagers are always miserable. You don’t need to tell me, I was an asshole kid. But Kelly, with her raccoon-lined eyes, pink shag haircut and snakebite lip piercing — she took the stereotype to a whole new level. It was a shame she was too young to have participated fully in the Hot Topic fad, because she would have fared well on MySpace.
I’d hired her because, because… well, I wasn’t quite sure, actually. She didn’t do much, she was usually in a mood, and she often showed up late and tried to leave early if there was a lull. I guess it was because she was the first one who’d applied for the position and I was too nervous to field other candidates. So now I was stuck with off-brand Avril Lavigne.
“You can open the till,” I instructed her, knowing that she’d forget. Or pretend to forget, anyways.
“Oh right,” she replied. “How do I do that again?”
“With your code.”
“What’s my code,” she demanded. If she had heard of manners before, she certainly wasn’t big on using them.
Sighing, I set my cup of coffee down on the table. Mina shot me a knowing look, that could loosely be interpreted as, ‘Fire this bitch.’ If only, Mina. If only.
I walked behind the register, and keyed in my own code.
“I don’t remember what yours is,” I told Kelly. “But you can use mine for today.”
She nodded and looked askance. Yeah, I thought, you should be embarrassed.
With a huff, I moved across the bakery and took my seat next to Mina once more.
“Don’t,” I interrupted Mina before she started. Mina’s relatively recent but deeply felt grudge didn’t need more airtime. And it definitely didn’t need to be uttered so loudly in Kelly’s vicinity. Kelly was one of the two people who Mina did not get along with.
“But she’s such a—”
“I know.” We all knew. Nothing to be done about it.
“And her boyfriend—”
“Yeah.” Zach. Mina’s other arch-nemesis. He was a weirdo too, and also done up like a bad metal band, gauges, tattoos and all. And whereas Kelly was reasonably quiet, he was brash and raucous. This wouldn’t be my problem, if it weren’t for the fact that he’d made Zoe’s his new haunt. He hung around the bakery every day, except for his frequent clove cigarette smoke breaks. That was how the grudge had developed between Mina and the pair — close quarters.
“But he creeps out the customers,” Mina whined. Another fact. But not one I was in the mood to address.
“And, and,” she continued, pressing the point, “I bet Kelly gives him free cookies.”
I sighed, “Yeah, probably. But I give you free cookies too, so I can’t exactly begrudge her that.”
The phone blared loudly. I’d sprung for a landline, thinking that it was more professional than using my cellphone. I also didn’t mind the old-timey touch of a good rotary. I was a vintage girl at heart.
Kelly remained stationary, even though the phone was all of two feet away from her gray-painted nails, and I made eyes at her across the space.
“You gonna get that?” I questioned loudly. She shrugged. Shrugged. As though she was a guest, and not a goddamn employee.
“Fire her,” Mina whispered fiercely. I held up a hand, stopping the argument in its tracks, and walked my ass back to the counter from whence I came. With my eyebrows arched meaningfully in Kelly’s direction, as if to say ‘Look, here’s how you do your job,’ I grabbed the ringing phone off its pedestal.
“Zoe’s Cakes and Bakes, how may I help you?”
“Yeah, hey,” a tinny voice on the other end replied. “This Zoe?”
“Sure is.”
“Good, good. Listen, I’d like to order about, say, fifty cakes.”
I dropped the phone, and it clattered on the counter. Kelly and Mina’s heads shot up, as if they’d heard a gun go off.
Fumbling, I palmed the phone once more, and managed to squeak out, “Pardon, sir?”
“Yeah, fifty should do it.”
My mouth beat my brain to the punch, and I asked, “Why, uh, do you need fifty cakes?” Stupid, stupid Zoe. Just take the nice man’s money!
“Corporate retreat.”
That, at least, made sense. We were about twenty miles away from oil land and the corporate headquarters of several of the biggest refineries in the country. Lots of mouths to stuff with cake.
“Okay sir,” I said, gaining my composure. “And when do you need these cakes by?”
“Thursday.”
My palm, slick with sweat, almost dropped the phone again. Thursday?! That was less than a week away. If I’d had a team of ten people, I could barely have done it. But just me, a no-good teenager and a couple of guys who swung around occasionally to help keep the ship running? Impossible.
“We can definitely have it by then,” I found myself saying. At what point, I wondered, had this mouth decided to turn traitor on its owner? Fifty cakes in under a week? Made almost entirely by me? This was sheer madness.
Or, more realistically, it was sheer desperation. The loan payments were due soon, and I was already behind on last month’s. This would be, without a doubt, the biggest influx of cash I was likely to get for a good long while. The winter months meant fewer people on Main Street to wander into the bakery. I cursed myself once more for opening a shop during the time of year with the least foot traffic. A total amateur move.
“How would you like to pay?” I asked. I’d resigned myself to the actuality of this crazy operation.
“Cash, upfront.”
My ears perked. This meant I could maybe even afford to hire the boys for help, thank God, and maybe buy myself a full set of groceries for once. Eating something besides ramen? Yum.
I rushed the man through the rest of the details — size, flavors, etc. — jotting down notes as we went. Eventually, he said he had a meeting and had to hop off the line. I slowly put the phone back in the cradle.
“Who was that?” Mina queried immediately.
“Yeah, who was that?” Kelly added. Mina scowled in her direction.
I replied, “A big order. A huge order.” The sheer quantity began to loom large in my eyes, like a threatening ax swinging slowly back and forth over my neck. Had I really just agreed to that? I was screwed. If I jumped into action right this minute, maybe, just maybe, I would be able to meet the demands.
Crossing to the coat rack, I grabbed my jacket and keys. Mina and Kelly tried to pry information from me, but I was out of it, busy running calculations. Ten pounds of sugar, gallons and gallons of milk, maybe twenty cartons of eggs… the numbers slipped and slid through my mind like pigs in oil.
“I’ve gotta pick up ingredients,” I told the women. It was true, we didn’t have nearly enough in stock for all those cakes. “Kelly, hold down the fort. I’ll be back in an hour. Maybe two.”
Mina called out, “But she’s not equipped to handle this—”
“I totally am,” Kelly interrupted with a smack of her gum.
“Sort it out between you two,” I ordered. “I’ll be back later. Don’t let the place burn down, okay?”
They opened their mouths, ready to question my decision, but I was out the door before either could press further.
I had a big damn job to do.