Tremon looked like he was about to say something, then stopped himself.
“Shizuka … It’s a shame that you had to be beautiful,” he finally said.
“Tremon?”
He bowed, then got up and left.
Shizuka smiled uncomfortably. But her body shook, as if recovering from stage fright. What was going on? There was no problem. She had time. Katrina still had more to learn.
No.
Don’t be stupid, Satomi. Tremon was right. This was business.
Hell, it was more than business. This was her soul at stake, her music, everything she was.
So why couldn’t she just say yes?
She slowed her breathing, smelled the lovely coffee. Finally, the Queen of Hell felt steady enough to leave.
She asked for the check, but of course, Tremon had put everything on his tab.
* * *
Katrina stared at her screen.
In one night, her Axxiom video had over one thousand views. Now, in a week, her total views had gone over ten thousand.
She held a pillow to her face and screamed.
24
Edwin Tran and Windee Tran. It was such a cliché, but could twins be any more different? Windee was precocious, technical, brilliant. Lanny was training Windee to work the counter, tune the warp filaments, adjust the replicators; every day she seemed to be working on a different facet of operations. Even now, Floresta could see that Lanny envisioned her as a future command officer.
But Edwin had neither the aptitude nor interest for warp or replicator science. And although he was kindhearted and considerate, he struggled for words, leaving customers confused and compromising service efficiency. Thus, Lanny left Edwin to cleaning up and helping Floresta in what she felt were the nonessential activities of the kitchen.
Oh, that Lanny. The girl was a wonderful scientist and starship captain. But sometimes she forgot that this was not a starship.
There were essential differences between a captaining a lone starship delivering a refugee family to a faraway planet and running a donut shop dedicated to bringing tasty treats to the people of El Monte. And these differences were beginning to hurt the shop, the crew, and most of all, Edwin.
Out of all the children, Floresta believed Edwin was born for making donuts. Sure, he was not the best with conversation. His mind was not as flashy as Windee’s, and of course he couldn’t match Markus’s engineering prowess. But no one, not even Shirley, perceived what customers wanted the way Edwin did.
It was Edwin who suggested filling the front area with music, played not too loudly, but at a volume that would make customers feel welcome to sit down and have conversation. He suggested they move the drink refrigerator to the front of the counter, where it could be stocked with cold soda, sparkling water, and especially, old-fashioned dairy bottles of regular and chocolate milk.
“I notice that whenever they see the milk, the customers smile,” he said. “So this way, they can be smiling sooner.”
And beyond that, there was Edwin’s sense of taste.
Why was one bakery full of lines and laughter, while another was empty? Why did one noodle house thrive, while another failed? Was it the processing? The equipment? What were the secrets?
Floresta had no answers until that day when she had spirited Edwin away and given him a bolillo roll. He replied that it tasted like home. When Floresta reminded him that they had come from across the galaxy on a starship, the boy shrugged.
“T-that’s not what I mean. I’m not talking about that home. Just ‘home.’ A good bread tastes like home.”
And that was it. The answer did not lie in any combination of someone else’s secret recipes or ingredients—it was in the tastes not just of home, but of excitement, memory, love, belonging … What people truly hungered for.
If their donuts could evoke those feelings, then customers were sure to return.
With Edwin’s help, Floresta had quietly and gradually created her first set of recipes. Eventually, Floresta would create ready-to-use mixes. But for now, she and Edwin combined the ingredients one at a time: water and yeast, then flour, then the oils, and other such things that premade mixes had.
Floresta monitored the warmth of the dough. As the dough began to rise, the kitchen began to fill with the intoxicating smell of yeast. The donuts had not even been fried yet, but already, Floresta’s mouth began to water, and her mind began to think of a place that had long disappeared. It had been so sweet.
She waited for Edwin’s signal before the dough was rolled, then cut, then proofed. And then she went to find the captain.
Edwin was cooling the first batch just as Aunty Floresta led the captain into the kitchen. Lan paused. The smell was different. She couldn’t pinpoint how, but it was making her hungry.