“Just a bit of a headache.”
“Maybe you need to sleep more?” Walter suggested. “How’s the dough looking—I hope I left everything in good shape?”
“Um, pretty good I think.” Charlie glanced toward the row of baskets and wanted to cry with how many there were. She held out her arms for his coat and hat. “Let me hang these up for you.”
“Thanks, Cass,” Walter said. “Hey, cool ink! When did you get that?” For a moment Charlie was confused, but she followed his gaze to her wrist, and realized he was referring to her tattoo.
“Oh. My ink.” Her sluggish brain just couldn’t keep up.
Walter tied his apron and put a hairnet on. Then he frowned at Charlie. “What’s up with you today? Is it the Makewell’s rumor? I wouldn’t worry too much, Cass. Woodburn’s will be fine.”
“Of course it will.”
Charlie had her back to Walter as she hung his coat on the hook to the far side of the bakery, where two small tables with a couple of chairs provided space for patrons to enjoy their baked goods with a coffee. She paused to gather herself. You are Cass. You have a cat named Gateau and you live upstairs and do not have a tattoo.
“It’s just a temporary tattoo, for fun. I should probably cover it for work, so it doesn’t fade too fast,” she replied, smiling as she turned back around. “And Makewell’s would never fly in this town. I’m not worried at all. The people here like their traditions.” Then she saw Cass’s note on the countertop and lunged to grab it. Walter looked surprised at her quick movement. “Sorry, just needed to take a look at this before we get started.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Walter asked.
“Absolutely,” Charlie folded Cass’s note and shoved it into her apron’s front pocket. “Now, how about we get these loaves going?”
* * *
? ? ?
A couple of hours later Walter had left for class and Charlie was checking the daily bakery stock against the list. Croissants. Eclairs. Scones. Three kinds of cookies. Date squares and raspberry bars. Whole wheat and pumpernickel loaves. The Starlight Bread she and Walter had baked this morning was on shelves in the back of the bakery, cooling before the loaves headed to the freezer, where they rested until the town threw its annual Starlight Eve bash in the square on December 24.
Suddenly her Sweet & Salty television schedule didn’t seem quite as grueling. How did Cass do this every day? Some of the items, like the cookies and bars, could be made every other day, but the Woodburn’s sourdough was baked fresh daily. Charlie checked the sourdough loaves in the oven and saw they had about thirty minutes to go. She couldn’t smell anything but suspected the bakery was filled with delicious scents. Charlie had hoped her sense of smell would have come back by now, but it had only been a day since the accident. And she wasn’t exactly resting like she had been told to do at the hospital.
The bakery opened at nine o’clock, which meant she had just under an hour before she had to start greeting customers. Thank goodness for Walter. Things were almost ready to go.
Charlie decided a few moments of rest would be fine. Just to briefly close her eyes, which felt gritty and sore from lack of sleep. Before she dragged herself upstairs she found a bandage in the bakery’s first aid kit and applied it to her wrist, covering her tattoo. Then she lay on Cass’s couch, telling herself she would set her alarm for fifteen minutes. Plenty of time left to finish the bread and get the coffee brewed for the morning rush. Setting her phone beside her, she leaned back onto the pillows and closed her eyes.
* * *
? ? ?
Charlie woke up not because of her phone’s alarm, but because of another alarm—this one painfully loud. Confused and disoriented, she sat up quickly and instantly felt dizzy. She reached for her phone but it was no longer beside her. Where was it? With a grunt of frustration, she glanced at the kitchen clock and saw she had been asleep for forty-five minutes. Which meant the bakery was opening in minutes. The fire alarm screeched so loudly she had to cover her ears as she ran downstairs from Cass’s apartment.
It only took her turning the corner from the staircase into the bakery’s back room to understand precisely what the problem was. Smoke billowed from the ovens. And even though Charlie could smell nothing, it was clear what had happened. She’d burned the sourdough loaves.
“No, no, no . . .” she mumbled, racing into action. First, she turned off the ovens, making the decision to pull out the burning loaves rather than leaving them in the ovens to char further. Quickly putting on the industrial oven mitts that went past her elbows, Charlie opened the doors one at a time and grabbed the blackened loaves; the billowing smoke made her cough and her eyes water. Then she opened the front door and all the windows, despite the cold winter air, and reached for one of the cardboard menus from the countertop before jumping on a chair to try to disperse the smoke away from the fire alarm in the ceiling. She nearly toppled over with another wave of dizziness, but managed to stay upright.