The Ingredients of You and Me

by Nina Bocci

  “Remember the conversation from ten minutes ago? About the space by Charlotte?”

  He scratched his head. “No, doesn’t ring any bells.”

  “Funny. I don’t know if it’ll work, but what if we turned it into a community bakery? Something regulated, of course—it couldn’t be a free-for-all. Instead, it could sort of be like a community garden.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “We had them at school when I was growing up. The PTA used to have bake sales where parents would contribute various desserts, and all the money would go back to the school. That’s what I’m thinking. Something where people provide treats and the money rolls back into the business. I want some advice about it, and Charlotte, Emma, and Cooper are the ones who are going to give it to me.”

  He looked at me with thinly veiled shock. “I thought you said that you weren’t ready for another D and V. I believe those were your exact words.”

  “You’re right. I’m not ready for that level of a business, where I’m both owning and operating. If the community bakery works out, though, I would still own it, but it would be operated almost like a nonprofit once I got my investment back.”

  “Like on Shark Tank.”

  I laughed. “Yes, like Shark Tank, but I’m the poorest Shark there is. They’ve got tons of money. I’m just looking for ways to invest.”

  “Parker, that’s a nice idea, but it’s also impulsive. You need an actual plan. I know you know that, but you’re also someone who throws both feet into the fire and then wonders why they’re burned.” Nick knew me too well.

  “Well, you’re not wrong there.”

  “How would you make your money back? Mark Cuban always looks for that. You should too.”

  “Obviously. Like I told the Golden Girls, I promise I won’t put the cart before the horse. None of this may even be feasible.”

  “Guess there’s only one way to find out.” He smiled.

  From Nick’s phone, I shot off a quick text to Cooper and Emma and included my number for Cooper to return the message—not that it mattered, though, since it was dead at the bottom of my bag. I was asking them to meet me at Charlotte’s shop because I had questions about the unit next door. I’m sure Cooper would know what that meant.

  “You know, I’d be happy to help you get this started if you needed. I’ve run my own business for years. I can help you work through your thoughts while we’re driving to Charlotte’s,” he offered, slowing his truck a bit to account for the snow squall that was currently swirling around us.

  “You know, I ran my own too. So successfully, in fact, that a big company bought me out for a lot of money,” I shot back, laughing lightly when his ears turned pink.

  “I didn’t mean to imply anything. I just thought it might help to talk it out,” he apologized.

  “Nick, I was teasing. You can help,” I assured him. “You run a business here, in a small town that’s, what, an eighteenth of the size of New York City? There are bound to be differences in operations, management, hiring, sales, and pricing. I can sell a dozen cupcakes in the city for almost forty bucks but I know that wouldn’t fly here.”

  His face was aghast. “You’re not serious.”

  “Dead serious.”

  “It would fly here. Right into a wall.”

  I laughed. This was the part of Nick I missed: his quick wit and brutal honesty.

  I nodded. “I priced nine-inch pies at thirty-four bucks, a single brownie at four. That’s why I think you can help. I would get lambasted if I did that here. Even during the height of tourist season.”

  “If you charged me thirty bucks for a banana cupcake, I might die before getting to eat it.”

  “I remember banana was a favorite. I assumed that’s why you chose to make a hummingbird cake today?” I asked, curious.

  “I’m easy so anything delicious is my ultimate fave, but Mancini loves hummingbirds and I thought she’d get a kick out of us making it,” he said, and I smiled at his sweet nature.

  “Now, if you pull out a salted caramel PB, C and B cake, I’ll do anything you ask,” he said, sliding a wry smile my way as we reached the stop sign on the outskirts of the town proper. “And honestly, I’m happy to help. There are a lot of moving pieces for this to work. Who would do the baking at this community bakery? How would you regulate it to make sure no one’s not making pot brownies?”

  I laughed. “That sounds exactly like something Mancini would do.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt that she has some in her house right now.”

  I shook my head. “I think I need to draw up a plan. See what would actually work and what is a pipe dream.”

  When we pulled behind the bank building, he eyed my sneakers warily. “We’ll have to walk up the sidewalks.”

  Seeing what he was looking at, I got defensive. “Listen, Mancini Jr., I didn’t think we’d be adventuring today so I didn’t wear the good boots.”

  “It may be a problem,” he said, pulling into the back lot next to Cooper’s BMW.

  I looked over the dash to see mounds of ankle-deep snow. “Shit.”

  He opened his door and hopped out. Before shutting it, he instructed, “Sit tight a minute.”

  Nick made his way over to my door, rubbing his hands together. Opening it, he turned his back to me. “Hop on, Parker.”

  When he said it, I blushed white hot. The heat rush from my face down to my chest settled into the pit of my stomach. I was so glad that he couldn’t see me because I’m sure I was beet red.

  “Nick,” I started, my voice shaking. The last time we did this, my shirt was half off, my shorts were all off, and we were charging into the lake to skinny-dip and scare the fish.

  “It’s not a big deal, come on. You can’t walk through the snow with Chucks on, Parker. I’m wearing waterproof boots. This is a no-brainer.”

  “Fine.” I let out a deep sigh and climbed on. He bounced me up once to hook his arms under my legs better and turned so he could close the door behind us. He made easy work of the trek through the snow. It was a lot deeper than I thought from my vantage point in the car.

  “Don’t drop me. I’ll kick your ass,” I said, flicking his ear.

  “You mean like this,” he teased, pretending to loosen his grip on my legs.

  I squeezed as much as I could around his thick coat. “Nicholas, don’t you dare!” I howled, and before I knew it, he was doing squats near a pile of snow near the curb.

  “What’s the matter? A little snowball fight may do you some good,” he said, getting precariously close to the mound. There was a newspaper vending rack near the curb. His arms were still tucked under my legs, but he managed to scoop up the snow and hold it in his gloved hands.

  I grabbed his chin, turning his face toward mine. “Don’t you dare. I can’t defend myself up here on Mount Saint Nick.”

  We both laughed, and for a moment, it felt like it had pre-Jillian.

  The snow was falling again, but it was just a flurry that coated his hatless head. I brushed it off, mussing his hair and earning a chuckle. “Hey, I worked hard on this hair.”

  “It looks better now. I de-snowed you,” I explained, giving his hair one more run-through with my hand just as he rounded the corner onto Main Street.

  “I’ll take your word for it— Hey!” he said, sounding shocked. I looked up to see Jillian at the front door of the building with Emma and Cooper, the three of them chatting amiably. When Jillian saw me, her expression darkened for a moment.

  Nick squeezed my legs once before allowing me to slide down onto the one patch of shoveled sidewalk.

  “What a surprise,” he said, walking over to give Jillian a quick kiss on the cheek. She turned her head, giving him a mouthful of her hair. Perhaps trying to save face in front of his friends, and I supposed me too. “I thought you said you couldn’t make it up this weekend?” he asked.

  “Parker,” she said, ignoring Nick’s comments entirely. “So nice to see you again.” Then, much to my horror,
she hugged me.

  Okay, now I was beginning to think she gave hugs as a way to handle awkward situations. I guess it could be worse. If I saw my boyfriend carrying another woman on his back, laughing and teasing, I’d be pretty annoyed, not giving her a hug. “Good to see you too, Jillian. How did you get here? I thought you didn’t drive.”

  “I didn’t drive. I used Nick’s Uber account,” she explained, turning to Nick, who looked a bit wan. “I thought we agreed that we were meeting up today to finish our conversation from the other night?”

  Covering my discomfort with a pretend cough, I asked Cooper and Emma to join me inside for a chat. Turning to Nick, I smiled. “Thanks again for the ride here. You saved me from having to walk all that way.” Sure, I exaggerated a little, but I hoped that Jillian wouldn’t be too hard on him, considering the friendly and flirty position she caught us in.

  “You’re welcome, but I can come in too? To chat about what we discussed? I’d love to be a part of it too,” he said hopefully, turning to Jillian. “Babe, do you want to wait in my truck? Or you can come in? See what’s going on?”

  “If I go to the truck, are you going to carry me too?” she asked, trying to sound sweet, but it was heavily laced with bitterness. She was uncrossing and recrossing her arms over her chest. There it was. I actually felt relieved that she wasn’t pretending she was okay. She has human emotions, ladies and gentlemen!

  She smiled at me, and then planted a searing kiss on Nick’s lips. I looked away just as he closed his eyes. He didn’t lean into it, but the whole scenario was impossible to watch.

  “Parker, lovely to see you again. Nicky, I’ll be in the truck keeping it warm.” As she walked off, not waiting for his response, I was struck by how passive-aggressive she was being. Again, I tried to imagine myself in that position, and I felt a pang of empathy. Once she was around the corner heading back to the alley, I stopped Nick from following Cooper and Emma inside.

  “Listen, I appreciate you wanting to help with everything and I’ll definitely take you up on it, but not now. You can’t with her here. It’s awkward enough without me getting in the middle of you guys. I can fill you in on what we talked about later.”

  He smiled thoughtfully, and I sunk inside a little, assuming that he was going to heed my advice and leave. “I promise,” he began, “it’ll be okay if I stay. I want to help. Besides, Jillian knows that you and I hung out a bit in the past and that we’re friends now.”

  “So she knows? About…” I pointed my finger back and forth between us.

  He looked down, rubbing the back of his neck. “She doesn’t know much. Just that you and I… well, that there was a you and me at one point,” he whispered, looking around to make sure no one heard.

  I took a deep breath. Nick was delusional if he thought she wasn’t bothered. The fact that she knew something happened between us explained a lot, and I almost felt bad for her. This was the kind of thing I wanted to avoid at all cost. Jealous girlfriends were not my favorite thing to deal with. When I ran D&V, I constantly got requests from jealous exes, or even current girlfriends, trying to ferret out information. I would always pawn those off on another baker to handle. And I did not want to deal with that drama now.

  “Nick, I don’t want to tell you what to do, but you’ve got to know that coming inside and leaving her there is not the best move right now. Especially with her knowing about us. I mean, there is nothing for her to worry about, right?”

  “Yeah,” he said slowly, rubbing his neck again. “Nothing to worry about.”

  But the way he said it had me thinking that maybe he wasn’t being honest—and that felt scarier than the truth.

  Nick looked at his friends, then at me and then back at Jillian, who was already around the corner headed toward his truck. “I should go,” he said.

  Which meant he left me on the sidewalk, mouth agape as he jogged through the snow toward his truck.

  Two steps forward seemed to always bring us three steps back.

  Instead of wondering what was going on, I joined Cooper and Emma in the main part of the room next door to Charlotte’s shop, leaving Nick and Jillian to hash it out in the cold. The place was exactly as Charlotte had described it. It reminded me of her space but it was much larger. The space was an empty canvas of whites and grays, which actually worked really well for what I had in mind. It wouldn’t need anything bold and audacious to make it special. Particularly if the goal was keeping things classic.

  “So, Parker. What’s up? You called a meeting,” Emma said, and I got the impression that she was used to being the one who called meetings, not vice versa.

  “I did,” I said excitedly. “I’ve got an idea.”

  As I ran down the main points of what Nick and I had discussed in the car, and what Charlotte and I had discussed previously about the classes, Emma and Cooper were riveted. “I’m assuming you’ll draw up a formal plan for this venture?” Cooper asked, smirking.

  “Of course! But you know about all of this already, don’t you,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Let me guess, Charlotte?”

  “I’m the mayor; of course I know all of this. In fact, I believe my future mother-in-law wants to come for a class.”

  “Please, from what I hear, she can teach the classes. Which leads to another point, but I’ll get to that in a minute.”

  “Apologies, we know how to sidetrack a conversation better than anyone else,” Emma offered before holding her hand up to her mouth as if she was going to be sick.

  “Do you want to sit down?” I asked, pushing her toward a metal folding chair that was in the corner at the front of the space.

  “Thanks, I’m just a bit woozy today. No big deal,” she said, casting a wary glance at Cooper.

  When he was preoccupied with his phone, I whispered, “You haven’t told him yet. Why?”

  She shook her head and raised her index finger to her mouth. “Waiting for the right time. Please don’t say anything.”

  I made an X over my heart and mouthed Promise.

  “Sorry, carry on,” Cooper said, coming over to stand with a comforting hand on his fiancée’s shoulder.

  I walked in a circle around the largest part of the room. In my mind’s eye, I could see it coming together nicely.

  “The goal is to use everything that we make for the YouTube videos and sell it here in the shop. Every week the menu changes except for the core staples. The classics! People can bang those out easily during the week, but we’ll keep the changing specialties a surprise.”

  “By classics you mean, like, bagels? Sorry, I don’t want to sound clueless, I’m just trying to get a handle on what you’re thinking. You remind me a lot of Emma. Your brains operate at a speed ten times mine does, so it takes me a bit to catch up.” Cooper chuckled.

  “Aw, babe!” Emma sang from her perch in the corner. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  “No bagels. Think muffins, scones, traditional cupcakes: chocolate, vanilla, maybe hummingbirds because that’s old-school. Just simple things that people love.”

  “Okay, seems simple enough.”

  “Yes, it’s pretty straightforward, and we’ll use social media to drive traffic to the store. It’ll depend on who our guest baker is.”

  “Oh, guest baker? That’s fun!” Emma said.

  Cooper nodded. “Where’d you come up with that?”

  “Viola. She mentioned that she does a celebrity scooper at the ice-cream shop every now and then, so I just changed it. The businesses go hand in hand, so instead of this being competitive, it’s collaborative. It works if people take ownership of the place. The social media is the easy part in all of this. It acts as a commercial for the business.”

  “Do you mean someone will just pop in sporadically, or is it a set thing? Like, every Monday is Sophia. Or holidays with Henry?” Emma asked, and I loved that she used Henry as the example. As much as I loved her, crappy crêpes with Charlotte probably wouldn’t fly.

  “Both
!” I grinned. “It depends on who wants to volunteer and how much time they have to devote to the bakery, but I see no reason why we can’t have both scheduled and seasonal guests helping out.”

  “I’m following you now,” Emma said, her fingers moving lightning fast as she took copious notes on her phone. “This sort of sounds like a community garden.”

  I clapped my hands. “That’s exactly what this is like! Except instead of renting spaces to grow your crops, you’re baking goodies and showing off your skills.”

  “So how does this tie into the YouTube videos?” Cooper asked.

  “The new version of my videos will highlight the Golden Girls, and have me giving lessons like I did today with Nick, except instead of featuring one person, they’ll feature the entire class. We’ll run those here too. Charging for the classes is part of how the place will make money. We can use the large space in the back by the kitchen for the class setting, and maybe we can bring in a handful of decorative chairs or small tables for displaying photos, or flowers from Charlotte’s place. It’ll be more of an in-and-out–style shop. Grab a muffin and you’re off.” I paused and looked around once more.

  “This all seems so easy and yet complicated,” Cooper noted, before kneeling beside Emma to check on her.

  “You’re not wrong. But I think with a little help, this could be really cool, not too expensive, and overall good for the people in town to have something new and vibrant for them to not only be a part of but also to fill a need that Hope Lake has.”

  Cooper puffed out his chest knowingly.

  “Don’t let your ego get too inflated. I’ll admit that you were right, but this bakery is not exactly what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m listening,” he said with a mock smugness that made me want to both laugh and slap him.

  “You both know that I sold Delicious and Vicious for a pretty penny. I put a lot in savings. I bought a couple stupid things, but that’s all I’ve done with it.”

  “Parker, what are you saying?” Emma asked, standing to put an arm around Cooper’s waist as they waited for me to explain.