The bakery’s laptop was sitting on the kitchen table. Cass hadn’t had a chance to check the bakery e-mail all week, assuming—perhaps wrongly—that Charlie was handling everything. She toggled the mouse pad, and when she saw her face appear on-screen, quickly turned off the camera. It was a program she didn’t recognize called Live.Li. She clicked a tab called “past videos” and watched a few of Charlie and Walter cheekily giving baking tutorials—one of them a how-to on how to create the bakery’s signature lemon squares. What was Charlie thinking? It was a recipe that had been in her family for decades, and Charlie thought it was somehow okay to just share it with the world like that? Cass gritted her teeth and watched another video about the sourdough starter, and then another that seemed to have nothing in it. She fast-forwarded until she saw Walter, Charlie, and Brett.
Her sister’s voice was angry, almost unrecognizable. Cass watched, aghast, as her sister laid into her ex-boyfriend. Why was this recorded? As her sister went on to say some unflattering things about the town, Cass’s heart sank even more.
“Charlie, no,” Cass whispered.
She searched for a way to delete the video but couldn’t find one. So she quickly exited the program and sat still. She had asked her sister to deal with Brett—but she understood now that it had been wrong for the twins to think they could solve each other’s problems. Cass needed to deal with all this herself.
Cass opened the bakery’s e-mail account, thinking she could write to Brett and try to set things straight in a way that would provide their relationship with proper, irrevocable closure. Charlie had been rough on him, yes—but with some distance, Cass could now see how toxic his behavior had been. He had been disrespectful of her wishes and refused to take no for an answer—which worked fine in business dealings but was an unacceptable way to deal with another human being. As she contemplated what to write, the new e-mail messages downloaded. One in particular caught her eye: it was from Sarah Rosen. The subject line was “Enlisting Your Consulting Services?”
Dear Cass and family,
I so enjoyed my visit to Woodburn Breads, and cannot stop thinking about those plum cardamom linzer cookies! They were truly epic—and I’ve tasted a lot of baked goods.
Cass, I know it might seem like we are at cross-purposes here: you run a family bakery, I run a national bakery chain. But the truth is, with someone like you on board, and with a location like the one your family owns and runs Woodburn Breads out of, we could create something incredibly special, something that would bring both Makewell’s and your family’s bakery to a whole new level.
I’d love to meet up and talk with you about the attached offer. Makewell’s would like to buy the Woodburn Breads building, as well as the rights to some of your recipes. As you can see from the attached, this is an incredibly lucrative deal. Some might even call it life-changing! I ask that you please consider it, with this in mind: you would still be a part of the bakery. I have included a clause to hire you as a consultant, which means you would be on salary to continue to help us develop recipes for the chain, which would be a part of our Signature Heritage line, all inspired by Woodburn Breads. This is a way for your bakery to live on in a changing world—rather than being shuttered when Makewell’s moves in and takes over 60 percent of the market share, which is what happens each time a Makewell’s moves into a neighborhood. （Attached are the numbers to support this.）
Please note that if you say no to this offer, we will still be creating our signature line, inspired by the baked goods I tried recently at Woodburn—they just won’t have your family bakery’s name attached to them. You can’t patent flavor combinations, and plum and cardamom is a winning one. :）
I’m looking forward to hearing from you! My cell phone number and direct line are below.
Best regards,
Sarah Rosen
President and CEO
Makewell’s Bakeries “Famous because we’re that good!”
P.S. Thanks for the Starlight loaf, but it didn’t quite work for me. A bit dry. The other stuff was bang on, though!
Cass stared at the screen. This is a way for your bakery to live on in a changing world. Seriously? And all those faux-friendly exclamation marks and smiley faces? At this point, Cass’s blood was near boiling. She had never felt so angry, or so betrayed. Without thinking, she hit reply on the e-mail, and typed a response, her fingers flying across the keys as she let the words flow.
Dear Sarah,
For your information, you are not welcome at Woodburn Breads, nor is anyone from Makewell’s, which has taken recipes from other bakeries around this country and turned them into tasteless, uninspired tripe. We may not have patented any of our recipes, but I have it in writing now that you plan to steal them, which is not a great PR look for Makewell’s. Rest assured you will not be hearing the last of me if you attempt to co-opt any of our recipes, which have been passed down through generations and is an authentic representation of quality baked goods which cannot be mass produced.