Sweet Expectations (A Union Street Bakery Novel)

by Taylor, Mary Ellen

  “The acid test will be the beach vacation. Ellie and Anna are going to kick their asses.”

  Rachel loved her girls more than life but she needed this break. Needed a little time to reacquaint herself with Rachel.

  “They raised us,” Daisy offered.

  “You lose the stamina real quick. If I had to go back to the infant stage now, I think I’d die. All those sleepless nights. I thought I’d go insane.”

  Daisy’s gaze sharpened. “Mike helped, didn’t he?”

  “When he could. But he had to be up at three to bake, so for the most part I took care of the babies.”

  “Yeah, but you had two.”

  “True. But all it takes is one with colic and life as you know it is over. Gone. Dead in the water.”

  Daisy untied her apron and carefully hung it on the wall. “Good to know.”

  “What do you have to worry about? You’re on the no-kid plan.”

  “Right.”

  The front door bells jangled, Margaret wished the last customer good day, and then she pushed through the saloon doors. “Mission accomplished. We are now officially closed.”

  “So we pack up equipment now, right?” Rachel said.

  “Sure,” Margaret agreed. “I’m about all packed on the home front, so you have me all afternoon.”

  Daisy’s smile made her pale features look a little ghoulish. “Great.”

  Seeing the finish line brought with it a kind of euphoria and Margaret could see hers. Rachel had been robbing Peter to pay Paul timewise for so long, she’d forgotten what it felt like to be excited. Her finish line was so far off in the distance, she wondered if it existed.

  Chapter Three

  Saturday, 2:00 P.M.

  13 days, 22 hours until grand reopening

  Income Lost: $0

  The three of us worked for several hours. While I cleaned out my office, Margaret and Rachel packed all the cooking supplies, pots, pans, and spoons. Jean Paul finished his repairs to the brick oven.

  By four we’d cleared out the space, and we were ready to demo the wall of my office. The wall had been in place for as long as I could remember and was made of brick. Jean Paul had gone to the basement, studied the floor joists, determined the office wall was not load bearing and we were safe to remove it.

  “Don’t worry,” he said.

  Hammer and chisel in hand, I stared at the wall. “You are sure about the wall?”

  He shrugged and brushed back a lock of hair with his long fingers. “Of course.”

  “If the bakery collapses, Jean Paul, I’m coming after you.”

  He grunted, took the hammer and chisel from me and cut into a chunk of mortar. The first bricks were slow going, but after about the fifth or sixth removal the demolition went faster. Soon, my sisters and I were carrying bricks to the back alley behind the bakery and stacking them in neat piles.

  Since Jean Paul’s arrival I’d noticed whatever he did, he did very well. However, he could only do one task at a time, and he could not be rushed. So when we had no bricks to move, I swept mortar from the floor, Margaret texted friends, and Rachel paced.

  It wasn’t an efficient system, but like I said, Jean Paul wasn’t charging more than his baker’s salary, and I didn’t have the money to hire a real builder. And so we moved slowly and carefully.

  In a couple of hours, about 40 percent of the wall had been dismantled. We’d created a neat hole into the space that had been my domain for the last couple of months.

  “I’m gonna miss this space.” Closing the office door had been a treat in itself. The space had been small, but it was a sanctuary of sorts. And soon it would be gone for good.

  Rachel shook her head. “Not me. I always tensed up in the space. Balancing the budget made me want to cry.”

  Margaret texted. “Maybe you can make an office in the basement. Other than the bread oven, space is now open, right?”

  “Twelve hundred square feet.” We could use it as storage but the basement square footage needed to work for us to survive. I didn’t know what we’d do with it yet, but we needed ideas.

  An unlit cigarette dangled from Jean Paul’s mouth as he studied his work. Hands rested casually on his lean hips. “Make it a wine cellar.”

  “Wine. We are bakers,” I said

  “Bread and wine are natural pairings,” Margaret said. “A loaf of bread, a bit of cheese, and a bottle of wine. Perfect for a day by the river.”

  “I don’t know anything about wine. I know what I like, but I wouldn’t know how to sell it.”

  Jean Paul shrugged as if this were a simple problem. “I might know a guy.”

  “A guy?”

  “He is selling his restaurant. He has wine to sell.”

  “How much?”

  Jean Paul straightened, as lazy as a cat on a hot day. “I will ask.”

  With no further explanation we returned to work. As the day went on, the heat outside rose and the temperatures in the kitchen grew hotter. We had the back door propped open to allow a breeze because Jean Paul had shut off the AC so the intake didn’t suck up the dust.

  “This is BS,” Margaret said. Her good humor of the morning had faded. “I can’t believe we are doing this ourselves. Why don’t you hire someone, Daisy?”

  I swiped sweat from my brow. “Can’t afford a someone. We are it.”

  “We are bakers, not construction workers,” she said as she accepted a brick.

  Rachel had been silent through the afternoon, but it was clear she didn’t like this any better than Margaret or me. Normally she found positive topics to talk about, but not today. Something chipped at her good humor as Jean Paul chipped at the mortar.

  He set his chisel against a chunk of mortar and hit hard. The mortar fell free and he wrestled another brick loose. This was a maddening process. My head pounded and I considered calling it quits for the day when Jean Paul said, “That is unusual.”

  No surprises, please. “What?”

  “There is a hole where the side wall meets the main wall.” He took a small, dented, silver flashlight, clicked it on, and peered into the crevice left by the missing bricks.

  “Do you see anything?” Margaret said.

  “Always the archeologist,” I said.

  She shrugged. “Be nice to land a big discovery during this adventure. Makes the chipped nails and sore back muscles worth it.”

  “Maybe it’s buried treasure,” I teased.

  Margaret’s eyes brightened. “Now that would be totally cool.”

  “I hope whatever it is,” Rachel said, “it’s worth a ton of money. Then we can hire someone else to do this and we can go on vacation with Mom, Dad, and the girls.”

  “Poverty is a drag,” I said.

  When I’d first rejoined the bakery, I’d seen the income issues as an exciting challenge. I was sure I could come up with a scheme to turn this place around and make real money. I’d slashed costs and turned a very marginal profit, which was enough to pay the quarterly taxes and cushion us for fourteen days of downtime. Hardly setting the world on fire.

  When I’d been in finance the money was been great. And I’d spent it freely, enjoying all the fruits of my labors. I’d assumed the job would always be there and the money would keep rolling into my bank account. I cringe now when I think about how much I’d spent on shoes and eating out and trips. If I’d saved 20 percent I’d have no worries now. But I’d pissed it all away on crap. And now the job had vanished and I was here, schlepping bricks in the heat.

  Jean Paul ignored us as he always did, peering inside the hole. Finally he grunted, pushed up his sleeve and put his arm in the opening.

  “Is that such a good idea?” I said as his arm vanished into the opening. “You don’t know what’s in there.”

  He grunted and leaned deeper into the hole. And then without war
ning he screamed as if in agony. He thrashed. Screamed more. We all squealed. Rachel jumped up and down as I raced toward Jean Paul. Please don’t let his arm get bitten off. The thought of blood made my stomach flip-flop.

  “I’ll call 9-1-1!” Margaret shouted as she reached for her cell.

  I reached Jean Paul ready to do . . . I don’t know what, but I was there ready to attempt a rescue. And then the anguished expression on his face vanished and he smiled. He pulled his arm effortlessly out of the hole. Clutched in his non-bloody fingers was a rusted metal box.

  My heart racing, I stared at him through narrowed eyes as he laughed. “Women. So easy to scare.”

  I took a step back and glanced at my sisters. The anger burning in their gazes mirrored mine. “Should we kill him fast or slow, ladies?”

  “Definitely slow,” Rachel said. Her cheeks remained flushed and her eyes were wide with lingering worry.

  “Super slow.” Margaret tucked her phone back in her rear pocket.

  Chuckling, Jean Paul handed me the box and then glanced up at the clock on the wall. “It’s five. Time to stop.”

  Thank God! I can now crawl into bed and focus on not throwing up. However, despite my first reaction, I said, “What do you mean stop? We have hours of daylight.”

  One of his thick brows arched. “It’s a beautiful day. And I’ve plans with friends.”

  “Friends. You moved here a month ago.” I’d lived here my whole life and had, well, no friends other than my sisters and Gordon. I wasn’t sure if my current circumstance was my fault or the bakery’s.

  Another casual shrug lifted his shoulders. “It is not so hard to make friends.”

  Instead of summoning a rebuttal, I glanced at the box. “What is it?”

  “A box,” Jean Paul said.

  “Thanks. I did figure that much out.”

  He reached in his pocket for his rumpled pack of cigarettes and headed toward the back door. “Until tomorrow.”

  As he vanished out the door, Margaret peered over my shoulder. “Open it.”

  Rachel pushed her hand through her hair. “If we’re knocking off I’m headed upstairs. I want to make sure Mom packed everything the girls need.”

  “Don’t you want to see what’s in the box?” Margaret said.

  Rachel waved a tired hand. “Pass.”

  “Suit yourself,” she said.

  As I went to the refrigerator, peeled back the plastic now covering it, and pulled out a ginger ale, she opened the box. Rusted hinges squeaked and groaned. I popped the top and savored several small sips. “What’s inside?”

  “Looks like recipes.”

  “Recipes?” As the liquid hit my stomach, it lurched. I refused to get sick again today. “No gold?”

  She shook her head. “No gold, silver, or precious gems. Old recipes. And . . .” She fished her fingers into the box. “A set of dog tags.”

  “Dog tags? For who?”

  Margaret squinted and studied the embossed lettering. “For a Walter F. Jacob.”

  “Who would put a box of recipes in a wall with a set of dog tags?”

  “This wall must have been installed in the early nineteen forties. So this must have been put in as it was being built.”

  “Yeah, but why?”

  “A mystery.” Margaret handed the box to me. “Which I do not have time to consider. I’ve friends to meet for drinks at seven, and it would be nice to take a shower before I meet up with them.”

  I traced my fingers over the dust coating the top of the box. “Sure, fine. Leave me alone.”

  Margaret arched a brow. “Is self-pity lingering under those words? Really, Daisy, that’s beneath you.”

  Wallowing wasn’t my usual way, which meant I should be entitled to it once in a while. “What if it is?”

  Margaret rolled her eyes. “Whining does not become you, Daisy. You love solitude.”

  “Not always.”

  “Where’s Gordon?”

  I traced my finger through the dust on the box. “On a hundred-mile bike ride in the Shenandoah Valley with a group of tourists from Japan.”

  “One hundred miles?”

  “I know. Crazy. But he loves to ride, and his adventure/extreme tours are becoming popular.”

  Margaret scrunched up her face as if she’d bitten into a lemon. “Popular with who? Masochists? That’s not exercise. It’s torture.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir.”

  She shrugged off her apron and hung it on a peg by the door. “So are you two getting kind of serious?”

  My smile masked my panic. “We’re trying to be friends. A new and different approach for us.”

  “I mean, I have guy friends, and I know you’ve had one or two, but you were going to marry Gordon at one point.”

  “Yeah. But the engagement was rushed. We moved too fast.” Gordon had never considered our pace fast. The speed had been my complaint.

  “He is cute.”

  I smiled as I sipped more ginger ale. “Yes, he is.”

  “Better grab Gordon, Daisy. He strikes me as a keeper.”

  “Yeah.” I thought about the dark pink plus sign on the pregnancy test buried deep in my bathroom trash can. How would I explain this to him? How could I tell a guy I really loved I was pregnant with another man’s baby. “He is.”

  “When will he be back?”

  “Monday.” When he’d left a couple of days ago I’d been sorry to see him go. Now I was glad for the break. I had to find a doctor and get a blood test so by the time he returned I knew one way or the other about the pregnancy. I tried to think good thoughts about flu and food poisoning.

  “Well, if you two decide to take your relationship up a notch and tie the knot, call me. You getting hitched is an event I’d like to see.”

  I imagined us standing by the Potomac saying our vows. “No one is getting hitched anytime soon.”

  “Never know.” She gave me a quick salute. “So are we doing the going-away party tomorrow?”

  “We are. Mom and Dad shove off with the girls in the morning so let’s shoot for five. You, me, and Rachel.”

  “We’ll walk to a pub and drink like we did when we were teenagers.”

  I offered a thumbs-up, already knowing if I drank a drop of wine I’d throw up. “Right.”

  “See ya.”

  Alone in the dusty kitchen I stared at the hole and thought about the wall that had stood guard here all my life and provided a refuge office for my grandfather, my dad, and me. And now it was gone.

  The front door bells of the bakery chimed and I cursed Margaret for not locking the door. One fact I’d discovered about retail was that no matter what time of day or year, if the front door was unlocked someone assumed we were open.

  I pushed through the saloon doors to find an attractive man dressed in dark, pleated pants, an ironed monogramed white shirt, and expensive tasseled loafers. I recognized him from my financial days and the five or six custom orders he’d placed with the bakery. Chocolate espresso cake. Simon Davenport. He was on the verge of launching a new development near the river, and the Union Street Bakery had done some catering for him in the last weeks. Nothing large yet, but the stream of business had been steady. And best of all he paid on time and his checks always cleared.

  Reaching for a towel behind the counter, I wiped my hands. “Simon, what brings you to our neck of the woods today?”

  He adjusted horn-rimmed glasses. “I hoped to place an order. But I see you are closing for a couple of weeks. The party is week after next.”

  My dad’s heart for business beat strong in my chest, and I couldn’t let potential income pass without at least asking. “We’re making minor renovations. What kind of party?”

  “Launch of the Waterside Project. We’re inviting key investors to walk the site. Always nice to
have good food on hand when you’re trying to make a sale.”

  “Fat and sugar do make the world go round.” The last job we’d done for him had netted us a grand. One thousand dollars would sure take the sting out of being closed for the next thirteen days. “We might be able to help you. I’m always willing to work with a good customer. How many people at the party”

  “Forty.”

  A good number. Not so huge but big enough for a decent payout. “And you’d need this when?”

  “Nine days.” I ticked through a mental calendar. It was a Monday.

  “What would you like?”

  “I hoped Rachel would have suggestions. She has a knack for knowing what people like.”

  “Let me get her. Wait right here.”

  “Great.”

  I found Rachel upstairs in her apartment, standing in front of a pile of clean but unfolded children’s laundry. She stared at the pile. “Packing for the girls?”

  “Attempting.” She reached for a pair of little red shorts. “They’re going to need so much, and I don’t know where to start.”

  Recognizing she obsessed over details when she worried, I kept my tone light. “They’re going to the beach. They need a bathing suit, one change of clothes and flip-flops.”

  She plucked the matching set of red pants from the pile and studied the two together. “I always rotate their outfits.”

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  Stress deepened normally nonexistent lines on her forehead. I was stressed about closing the bakery and so was Rachel. Love it or hate it, the bakery was the glue in her life. “Don’t worry about the clothes. Keep it simple. You know Mom. The girls will likely wear the same clothes the whole time. Like when we were kids, she’d wash our clothes at night and have them ready for us in the morning.”

  A grim smile tugged the edge of her mouth. “We looked like urchins half the time.”

  “We’re well fed, and the clothes, though they might not have matched, were clean. And we survived, like the girls will survive a less-than-perfect fashionable week.” I jabbed my thumb toward the door. “Simon is downstairs, and he wants to place an order.”