From under the counter, I drew a canister of the double-bagged devils. Bhut jolokia, better known as bhut capsicum, the ghost chile, is a naturally occurring hybrid from the Assam region of northeastern India that blasts the top off the Scoville heat scale. “Alex uses the dried whole pepper, but I’ve also got a powder. Kinda like ground lava.”
“He mentioned an oil.”
“Right. An experiment he and I tried one night. We extracted the capsaicin by roughly grinding dried peppers, heating them in oil, and straining it off. The result was a gorgeous, fiery red-orange oil. He made the relish by adding a few drops to a medley of fresh peppers, white onions, and cilantro. And fresh corn, if I remember right.” A big “if”—tequila had also been involved. Like Alex, I don’t let my staff handle the peppers. I pack them after hours, wearing a respirator and elbow-length gloves. A fleck landed on my eyelashes once and fell into my eye. I stuck my head in the sink and wanted to leave it there. It’s the one task that makes me wish for a commercial warehouse, an option I reject at every suggestion. I like running a small show. “You sure? Farmers in India smear it on their fences to fend off elephants.”
“If he can handle it,” Tamara said, “so can I.”
I dropped the peppers into her tote. Confidence is more than half the battle in retail, the legal world, and the restaurant biz.
She scribbled in her notebook, its spring green cover matching the stripes on her tote, and added a quick sketch. “I’ll wait for your price list, then make some decisions.”
“Great. End of the week.” I held out my hand. Her grip was firm but not overpowering—capable of wielding a meat mallet or embracing a delicate filet of sole.
After Tamara left, the brass bells on the door chiming behind her, Sandra and I restocked our Spice of the Month table. This month’s star: cinnamon—half a dozen varieties, ground and sticks. Supporting players: recipe cards suggesting sweet and savory uses, and a few favorite cookbooks. No one, it seemed, had written the definitive book on cinnamon. I’d searched online, scoured publishers’ catalogs, and consulted cookbook collectors. All wasn’t lost, as the hunt had been a great excuse to reread a few favorite mysteries, including Cinnamon Skin by John D. MacDonald and Cinnamon Kiss, an Easy Rawlins outing by Walter Mosley, both now on display.
A customer stopped to watch us. “Cinnamon in April? I think of it in autumn.”
“It’s a year-round spice.” Truth was, I’d ordered a special crop of Ceylon cinnamon that had been delayed at customs and didn’t arrive until after Christmas. And then, with our staff changes and other hoo-ha, we hadn’t gotten around to celebrating cinnamon until now. I took the lid off a small jar and held it out. “Take a whiff.”
“Sold,” she said. I handed her off to Sandra, who held up a copy of Joanne Fluke’s Cinnamon Roll Murder and shot me a meaningful look.
“Right,” I said. “C’mon, boy. Break time.”
Arf, the black-and-tan Airedale bequeathed to me last fall by a former Market resident, popped up from his bed behind the counter. Technically against the Market rules, no one seems to mind—dogs are commonplace down here. I snapped his brown leather leash onto his LED-studded collar—a gift from the street men, in appreciation for the warmth my staff and I try to show them—and grabbed a scooper bag.
If any food known to woman is unavailable in the Market, don’t tell me. Indulgence may be a hazard of the job, but I make up for it by walking. Walking the dog, walking to and from my loft a few blocks away, walking, walking, walking for nearly every errand.
That’s my story, anyway.
In the last few weeks, Sandra and I had become cinnamon roll aficionados. (Lynette, nursing a dream of returning to the stage, declined to participate in the interests of her figure. Kristen, my BFF, and college student Reed, both part-timers, joined the finger-licking fun when they were around, and with Zak, a broad-shouldered, six-foot musician, on staff, we never had to worry about leftovers.)
My current fave featured croissant pastry instead of yeast dough, cream cheese frosting, and raisins. Big enough to feel like you’ve indulged, but not so big it ruins your appetite for the rest of the day.
After Arf stretched his legs and other parts, and greeted his two- and four-legged pals, we fetched a box of rolls from one of the Market’s yummy bakeries and headed back to the shop.
“We can give you your money back, if you insist, but the manufacturer won’t refund ours. You must have cranked it too hard.” I wasn’t two feet inside the door when Lynette’s retort—her tone harsh as her words—shattered my vision of a sugar-and-cinnamon orgy.
“To your bed, Arf.” His nails clicked on the plank floor as he trotted behind the counter. “I’m Pepper Reece, owner of the shop. How can I help?”
The customer, a trim white woman in her forties with thin lips and a tight face, explained that she’d bought the nutmeg grinder from us a week ago. The second time she used it, one of the screws holding the blade in place snapped. “I did not crank it too hard,” she said, her words clipped. “And it was not inexpensive.”
“I am so sorry. Things break occasionally for no obvious reason. We’ll refund the full price and give you a new grinder, at no cost.” A generous offer; that’s what it takes to mend a broken relationship. I reached for another style. “Would you like to try the same model? Or this one? You can see it works a little differently. It’s what I use at home.”
She chose the second, more expensive version and left with a smile on her face.
After Lynette finished helping a customer who’d come in during Grinder Gate, I invited her to join me in my office. Not much more than a closet with a chipboard remnant jammed over two file cabinets for a desk, a few shelves mounted above, it was strictly utilitarian—and the closest thing I had to a private woodshed.
When Tory left last fall, leaving Sandra the sole employee who’d been here longer than me, I knew she’d be hard to replace. But I had not anticipated such a major pain in the anise. Lynette was my third hire in that slot, an unemployed actress who changed hair and makeup like most of us change underwear, and who could flip the charm off and on like a power switch.
And it turned out, she did not take direction well—at least, not from me. She’d pushed both my HR skills and my patience to the limit.
“What do customers and umpires have in common?”
She reddened. A small sign on the shelf behind me said it all: EVEN WHEN THEY’RE WRONG, THEY’RE RIGHT.
“I don’t believe that.” Her voice quavered, her eyes searching for anything to look at but me.
“You’re an actress.” I folded my arms. “Pretend.”
Two
In 1971, the people of Seattle voted to establish the Pike Place Market Historical District and a Historical Commission to preserve the “physical and social character of the soul of Seattle,” in the words of the Market’s saviors.
—Alice Shorett and Murray Morgan, Soul of the City: The Pike Place Public Market
I spent the rest of the morning trying not to glower. It doesn’t actually help. And it creates wrinkles.
If I fired Lynette, would I find a better candidate? She’d learned our spice talk and sales patter like scripts and delivered them with dramatic flair. But she stank at personal interaction and improv—and low-dollar, high-traffic retail is fast-paced ad-lib.
I sat in my office, flipping through the short stack of job apps on hand and studying the online inquiries. Nothing promising. Anytime you ignore your doubts and hire because you’re desperate, you regret it. As Lynette had just proven.
Breathe, I told myself. Breathe and think. You own the joint. What can she do—she knows she’s in trouble.
I sighed and dug my phone out of my apron pocket. We had to get fully staffed before tourist season. The Market feeds the city, but it also entertains millions of visitors who stroll the arcades and cobbled streets every year, most o
f them between May 1 and October 15. I texted Laurel Halloran—good friend, Flick Chick pal, veteran chef and caterer: Help. Send job candidates. And gin.
Then I called an employment agency I’d used in my HR days, managing support staff for one of the city’s largest law firms. When it imploded, taking my job with it only a year after my divorce and move to a downtown loft, I’d shocked everyone, including myself, by buying the Spice Shop.
Spice has added flavor to the Market since shortly after its founding in 1907. In the fervor surrounding the campaign to save the Market from redevelopment in the early 1970s, hippie chick Jane Rasmussen threw her lot with capitalism and started this shop, just down the street from a competitor. Why she thought the Market could support two entirely separate, unrelated spice merchants, I didn’t know—but she’d been right, running this one for forty years until she sold to me and retired to the San Juan Islands.
Time to prepare for the inevitable. I brought up the Craigslist job postings. “Food/beverage/hospitality” covered it. Lynette seemed to have misread the job as part of the “hostility industry.” I checked the right boxes, pasted in my standard ad copy, uploaded a picture, and voilà! Copied the listing and e-mailed it to a few contacts.
“Hey.” Zak’s booming baritone broke my reverie. I glanced at the clock. Five minutes to noon.
“Hey, big guy.” I slid back my chair and gave him a half hug. Tall, muscled, a few months past thirty with a shaved head and arms full of tattoos, Zak worked weekdays so he and his band could rock the weekends away. His eyes darted nervously to the clock. I trust my staff to request time off only when necessary, no questions asked, and no one had abused the privilege. He’d asked for a rare morning free, and I appreciated his conscientiousness. “Right on time. Quiet morning. Cinnamon rolls out front.”
“Umm, thanks.” He stashed his pack in the tiny cupboard. “Delivery just came. Gotta get to work.”
“Hey, boss.” Sandra stuck her head in, the space too small for the three of us. “Guy to see you. And he’s cute.”
Zak trailing like a bodyguard, I headed out front. A man in slim black pants and a black jacket over a white shirt, a black leather messenger bag in hand, surveyed our shelves of colorful jars and tins. He wore his light brown hair in a classic square cut, longer on top and combed back. Professional, but stylish.
“Ben Bradley,” he said when I offered my hand and my name, a touch of Chicago in his pleasant tone. He flashed an ID card from the weekly paper and gestured at the Spice of the Month display. “Looks like I’m in the right place. Hoping you have a few minutes to talk about cinnamon. The Cinnamon Challenge.”
“One of the stupider tricks bored high school kids have found to amuse themselves. But, better than dropping bowling balls off bridges.”
“Can I quote you on that?” He flashed me a genuinely sweet smile I couldn’t help return.
For the next few minutes, I gave him the cinnamon spiel: its origins, its role in ancient burial rites and trade. “Some call it the spice that launched a thousand ships, referring to the Age of Exploration. Cinnamon is one of our biggest sellers. Nearly every kitchen has a jar, even in homes where no one cooks.” In my mother’s “brown bread phase,” when our family had shared a big house with Kristen’s family up on Capitol Hill, she baked with whole wheat flour, honey, molasses, the barest minimum of salt, and liberal doses of cinnamon. Fortunately, my mother had been an excellent cook despite the strictures, which hadn’t lasted long. She flew out of them with a vengeance, embracing butter, cream, and well-butchered meat like a pig embraces mud.
“The Challenge,” Ben prompted. “It’s sweeping the high schools.”
“Not again,” I said. He was about five-ten—three inches taller than me—and clearly a regular at the gym. I gestured to the mixing nook, a built-in table and benches in a raised corner of the shop. Perfect for reviewing price lists and sourcing options with our commercial customers, for staff gatherings, and, yes, for mixing and testing our custom seasonal blends. We sat. “Cinnamon does contain coumarin, which can be toxic to the liver in high doses. But a dash or two in your coffee or on your oatmeal isn’t going to hurt you.”
“What about those cinnamon rolls?”
I drew the box closer, and we plucked out the last two. “It’s the cream cheese and sugar that’ll get ya.”
He grinned, then swallowed before asking his next question. “What about medicinal uses? I’ve heard it can lower high blood sugar and blood pressure.”
“Not my expertise, and I don’t give medical advice. But you’re talking about extracts, which are generally considered safe. On the other hand, trying to swallow a tablespoon of dry, powdered cinnamon—the Challenge—is just dumb. It won’t kill you, unless you’re allergic. You’d probably sneeze most of it out before you could swallow it.”
We moved on to culinary uses—far more fun.
“You know, this place is fascinating. I’d love to do a feature interview, bring in a photographer.” He closed his notebook and gave me a wink. “And get the scoop on how a woman named Pepper ended up running a spice shop.”
“Destined for my job, like you.”
He slid out of the nook. “Not spelled the same. And how do you know him? Watergate happened ages before you were born. Besides, nobody reads the Washington Post out here.”
Barely a year before I was born, but I didn’t say so. The Ben Bradley in front of me couldn’t be more than thirty-five to my forty-two going on forty-three. “Hey, he was legendary. Besides, my mom had a crush on Robert Redford. And Dustin Hoffman. I’ve seen All the President’s Men at least a dozen times.” She likes to say she named my brother for Carl Bernstein, while my dad insists he’s named for Carl Yastrzemski, the Red Sox left-fielder, but in truth, Carl is a variation of an old family name.
“Maybe you can show me around the Market. Give a newcomer the insider’s view.”
I peered outside. The rain had held off. Sandra and Kristen eyed us like a pair of fifth graders plotting a trick on their teacher. He was young, but cute. And they were convinced I needed a new man in my life. Despite a few fun dates over the winter, nothing had ripened into a relationship. Turns out I kinda like being single—most of the time. Okay, some of the time.
“Sure,” I said, grabbing my shopping bag and a jacket for insurance. We made the tour into a walking lunch, starting with pizza at DeLaurenti’s. At Rachel the Pig, the Market mascot that stands guard beneath the iconic sign and clock, we stopped to ogle the fishmongers flinging whole salmon through the air, and I bought a filet for dinner. We ambled up the Main Arcade, past the daystallers who haul in their produce, art, and crafts season after season.
We stopped to chat with Angie Martinez and taste raspberry and strawberry jam from her family’s Central Washington orchard. Tried honey from the beekeeper in the adjacent stall and checked out Herb the Herb Man’s crops. Tulips, daffs, lilacs, and other spring bloomers filled the flower sellers’ buckets. Too soon for aconite, thank goodness. Not their fault that on sleepless nights, bundles of their purple blossoms crowd my dreams.
Early produce filled the tables, and I picked out gleaming white scallions, peppery arugula, and fresh spinach. Pondered radishes: classic red balls or a slender white-tipped French variety that I’d discovered last year? Pointed at a bundle of orange, red, and purple carrots. Ben made a face at the purple roots, until the farmer scrubbed one clean and handed it over for a taste test.
“It’s sweet.” His eyebrows dipped in surprise. “Orange inside.”
“Purple Haze. Very popular in Seattle, birthplace of Jimi Hendrix.” I paid the farmer and tucked the veggies in my shopping bag.
As we reached the end of the Arcade, I glanced west to Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains. A hint of clearing. Nice. The skies, the walk, the company—all nice.
We crossed the cobbles of Pike Place, the Market’s main thoroughfare, on our way b
ack to the Spice Shop. A familiar whizzing sound snagged my hearing. My jaw tightened. Beside me, Ben stiffened reflexively, as people often do at the sight of a uniformed police officer. Even one on a bike.
“Hello, Tag,” I said flatly. “Is there a problem?”
“You tell me.” He stretched one long leg, in sleek black spandex, to the cobbles, the other foot on the pedal. “Seattle’s finest, here to serve.”
“Ben Bradley, reporter, meet Tag Buhner, beat cop. My ex-husband.” I sent Tag an unspoken message to play nice. We’d worked our way back to being friendly, even going out together a few times to catch up, but he had a history of not being so friendly to men who showed any kind of interest in me.
Ben extended a hand. Tag, Ray-Bans gleaming, ignored it, flexing his fingers in their black gloves.
“Thanks for the interview and the tour, Pepper. I’ll call you about the feature,” Ben said to me. Then, with a slight nod, “Officer.”
“The future?” Tag drawled as Ben walked away.
“Feature, as in newspaper.” I pushed past him into my shop, the brass door bells chiming like a call to prayer.
Sandra and Kristen stood shoulder to shoulder, conspiratorial looks on their contrasting faces—one round and olive skinned under a dark pixie cut, the other narrow, her fine bones framed by straight blond hair.
“I liked it better when you two didn’t like each other,” I said.
“We never didn’t like each other,” Kristen protested. “We just had to find common ground.”
“Like you and Mr. Reporter,” Sandra said. “Until Mr. Cop showed up.”
“Let’s Google him.” Kristen whipped out her phone.
“Don’t you have work to do?” Not a customer in sight. Lynette had left for lunch, and Zak was unpacking the day’s UPS delivery.
“B-R-A-D . . .” She spoke the letters out loud as she punched.
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