Baking Lessons

by Katie Allen

  “As if Annabelle would ever do that.”

  “Gross.”

  Annabelle laughed, walking back into the living room as she zipped her hoodie. Even in her comfy yoga clothes, she was gorgeous—tall and lean with narrow cat eyes and a wide, mobile mouth that was always smiling. Reaching up, she loosened her tight bun and shook out her hair. It wasn’t quite light enough to be blond and not dark enough to be brown, but more of a caramel color. In the sun, it reflected all different shades, and it developed blond streaks in the summer. Annabelle loved the outdoors and was always hiking and biking and horseback riding—well, at least until she’d started working with Dick the dick. Now she was lucky to have enough free time to sleep and eat.

  “Quit leaving me in suspense. Did you quit?”

  “Nope, although I’m this close.” Annabelle put her forefinger and thumb a centimeter apart. “Chastity quit.”

  “There’s a joke there.”

  “I know.” Plopping down on the other end of the sofa, Annabelle turned sideways, tucking her feet under her. “I’d laugh, but then I’d cry, because Dick doesn’t want to hire another assistant. He thinks that I can do both jobs.”

  “Back to that,” Leah said. “I thought you were Dick’s assistant. After all, you were always having to do ridiculous assistant-type things like alphabetize his antique Rolodex and iron his ties.”

  “I never ironed his ties. The Rolodex thing is true, though. I’m officially his gallery manager, but Dick is a dick.” Annabelle pulled her hair over her shoulder and started to braid it. “It sounded like a dream come true when I applied. My mom kept warning me that my art business degree would only lead me to jobs involving the phrase ‘Do you want fries with that?’”

  “And then came the Rolodex.”

  “The Rolodex, and checking his emails for him—most of which have absolutely nothing to do with the gallery, by the way—and, now that Chastity’s gone, he wants me to transcribe his stupid recordings.”

  “What recordings?”

  “He’s writing a book.”

  Leah frowned, confused. “Writing? I thought he was an artist.”

  “Supposedly, it’s for his memoir.” Annabelle spat the last word out as if it tasted nasty. “Dick’s not really an artist. He’s a spoiled rich boy who likes to play at painting or writing or driving a race car or whatever strikes his fancy at the moment until he gets bored and starts something new. This is it, though. I’m not typing his stupid fucking book for him. He can find another Chastity, because I’m officially in the market for a new job.”

  “Want to work at the bakery?”

  “God, no. You pay in sugary things. In six months, I’d gain three hundred pounds, and we’d both be homeless because I’d eat all your inventory and wouldn’t be able to pay my half of the rent.”

  “So untrue.” Mostly untrue. She had paid Hamilton in sugary things, but that was just because she knew it was his weakness. Judging by the building he owned and how he dressed and knowing that he worked as an actuary, Leah was pretty sure that Hamilton had enough money to be quite comfortable. And now she was thinking about Hamilton again. “I pay Q in real money, even though he decorated cookies today.”

  “Oh no.” Cringing, Annabelle sent a nervous glance toward the kitchen. “You didn’t bring them home again, did you? Last time, I swear the bunny one with the claws and fangs snuck into my room that night.”

  “No, Ham and I tossed them in the garbage.”

  “What ham?” Annabelle scrunched her face in confusion.

  “Ham, as in Anthony Fitzgerald Hamilton the Third. He was my temporary employee this morning. My cookie bitch, if you will.”

  “Your stuffy-but-super-hot landlord, Mr. Hamilton? Now you’re calling him Ham?” Sitting forward, Annabelle made a “gimme” gesture with her hands. “Cough it up, girl. Have you been holding out on me?”

  “Of course not. I’d never hold out on you. It only happened this morning, and nothing actually really happened, except that Mr. Hamilton turned out to be weirdly fun to work with—and he’s an incredible cookie artist.” Grabbing the remote, Leah turned off the TV. She had a feeling they wouldn’t be watching a movie, after all. Between Annabelle’s dick-like Dick and her Ham story, their evening would be full.

  “Why was he working for you? I got the impression from what you said that the guy’s loaded.”

  “I bribed him.”

  “Bribed him?” Annabelle’s voice was hushed as she leaned even closer, as if not to miss a word.

  “With cupcakes.”

  “Oh.” Sitting back, Annabelle scrunched her nose. “That’s not the interesting kind of bribery. That’s just what you try to do all the time to everyone. But, they usually don’t do what you want, and then you feed them anyway. It’s not a very efficient system, actually.”

  Leah grabbed the throw pillow from behind her back and tossed it at her roommate. Giggling, Annabelle caught it and tucked it behind her, making Leah regret throwing it in the first place. “My sugar bribery does too work.”

  “Nope. Hardly ever.”

  Raising her eyebrows, Leah said, “Well, it worked tonight. Those white chocolate cookies got you to stop bugging me to go out, didn’t they?”

  “Not really.” Annabelle stretched out her long legs. “The couch won that one for you.”

  “It is a very comfortable couch.”

  “Very.” Annabelle teasingly nudged Leah’s leg with her foot. “Now tell me the entire story of how your stick-up-his-butt landlord turned into your cookie bitch.”

  “Well...” Giddiness bubbled up inside of Leah at just the thought of her morning with Ham. “It’s stupid and silly and going to end very badly, but...”

  “But...” If Annabelle leaned any closer, she was going to be folded in half.

  “But...” Her voice lowered to a whisper, even though it was just the two of them in an apartment building almost a mile from the bakery and Hamilton’s loft. “I think I like him.”

  Annabelle’s smile started slow before stretching until it lit her entire face. “You like him?” For some reason, she was whispering, too.

  “Yes.” Even as she admitted it, logic hammered down on her, reminding her of all the reasons that this—whatever it was that she felt for Anthony Fitzgerald Hamilton III—was truly a horrible idea, possibly even as bad as allowing Q to be the bakery’s official cookie decorator. Her stomach butterflies began to die off, killed one by one as she considered why having a crush on Hamilton would lead to misery. “Oh, Anna B. What have I done?”

  Chapter Five

  Leah flattened the wheat bread dough onto the flour-dusted table, pressing out the air bubbles and then folding it into itself, shaping it into loaves. It was one of her favorite things to do, working with bread dough, molding it with her hands. She felt so lucky to be able to bake for a living, a job that basically involved doing kindergarten crafts all day. Playing with dough, painting on cookies, mixing cinnamon and sugar with her hands, sifting the white and brown together like she was elbow-deep in a Zen garden—she had to have the most fun job in the world.

  Today, though, she couldn’t stop glancing at the back door. She’d propped it open, telling herself that it was to keep the kitchen cool and not that Hamilton hadn’t stuck his dumb dimpled head into the bakery for four days and she was trying to bait him into it. Even on Sunday morning, after she’d made his cupcakes and waited for him, feeling stupidly giddy, he hadn’t shown. She’d stretched out the time it had taken to mix the sourdoughs for the next day, every imagined sound making her look at the door, heart lifting with anticipation. As the minutes and then hours passed with no sign of him, she’d been tempted to go upstairs and knock on his loft door, but that had felt so desperate, so needy, that she’d ended up leaving the box of cupcakes on the bottom step of the staircase. With her largest Sharpie, she’d written “Anthony Fitz
gerald Hamilton III” on the top of the box in slashing letters, relieving a tiny bit of her annoyance. When she’d arrived on Monday, the box had been gone.

  Now, it was Wednesday, and Hamilton was not only MIA, but he was also ruining her joy in shaping loaves. Even when he wasn’t around, he was keeping her wound up. With a huff that sounded loud in the quiet of the bakery, Leah popped the last loaf in the pan and put them aside to proof. Grabbing a bench knife, she started scraping the table, creating a pile of leftover flour. It made her think about Hamilton’s reluctance to dispose of his perfectly created flour heap. Stop. She shut her brain down in mid-thought. That was enough stewing about Hamilton. It was more than obvious that her fascination with her landlord was not reciprocated, and that was just fine. Having any sort of relationship with him beyond their current landlord/tenant/one-time cookie-making partners was a recipe for disaster.

  With a firm sweep of the bench knife, she dumped the flour into the trash can.

  Turning toward the hand-sink, Leah saw someone standing just inside the back door. Startled, she jolted back a step.

  “Sorry if I frightened you.” Jude put his hands up, as if showing her he wasn’t armed. For some reason, the gesture wasn’t very reassuring.

  Leah took another step back, and her lower back bumped against the table. “Jude. What are you doing back here?” Her gaze darted toward the clock for a brief second before returning to Jude. “We don’t open for another hour.”

  “I know. The thing is, I haven’t been sleeping well lately. I feel so badly about our argument. Before I left my place this morning, I didn’t even think about what time it was or if you’d be open.” He gave her a little grimace-and-shrug combo that she thought was supposed to be charming, but it wasn’t. Her creep detector was blaring so loud that she didn’t think she’d find anything he did charming. “I was thinking about it, lying in bed and stewing, and I knew I had to talk to you. I couldn’t let it go one more day. When I got here and saw the closed sign on the door, I figured I’d wait until the bakery opened. Then I saw the back door was open, so I thought I’d see if I could catch you.” He smiled. “Plus, I was hoping I could grab a croissant while it was still warm.”

  There was so much wrong with what he’d just said, including the part where he’d just lied, since the back door opened into an alley. There would’ve been no way for Jude to see from either the parking lot or the street that she’d propped the door open. She wasn’t going to debate the details with him, though. She just wanted him to leave. Immediately. “I can’t talk to you right now. I’m baking. You need to go.”

  His smile faltered. “It won’t take long. I just want to explain why I was upset when—”

  “Jude.” Irritation erased some of her unease, and she took a step toward him. “Stop. I’m not talking to you now. I don’t talk to anyone who just drops by the kitchen. I’m on a very strict schedule on Wednesdays. If I don’t stick to it, then I can’t get the bake done by the time I open, and I don’t have Q to man the front while I finish up.”

  “This will be quick.” He took another step into the kitchen, and alarm flared in her.

  “No.” Although she tried to make the word as forceful as possible, there was a slight waver to it—one she hoped he missed. “Please leave. Now.”

  All traces of his earlier friendliness were gone, and his mouth set in a mulish line. “Why won’t you let me explain—”

  “Leah asked you politely to leave.” Hamilton’s bass voice cut through Jude’s tenor. Stepping into the kitchen, Hamilton managed to maneuver his impressive bulk so that he was between Jude and Leah.

  After her initial start, Leah felt a rush of relief, edged with irritation. If he hadn’t been such a white whale for more than half a week, she wouldn’t have tried to set Hamilton-traps that involved leaving the back door open. Pushing aside her illogical thoughts, she leaned to the side, peeking around Hamilton so that she could see Jude. When she got a glimpse of his mulish expression, she braced herself.

  “Who are you to tell me what to do?” Jude asked, making Leah sigh. Apparently, he wasn’t going to take the easy route and just slink out of the kitchen. She kissed her smooth Wednesday routine goodbye and resigned herself to running back and forth between the kitchen and the front once she’d opened, at the mercy of both customers and the timer. “This is between me and Leah, so move aside.”

  “This is my building.” Hamilton didn’t raise his voice or change his inflection at all. In fact, he sounded a bit like a robot, like the voice of her GPS system in her car. It was surprisingly intimidating. “You were not invited to be in here, and you have been asked to leave several times. If you do not, I’ll be forced to call the police and report you for trespassing.”

  Jude’s face turned white and then dark red, and Leah held her breath, hoping he wouldn’t make a bigger mess of things than he already had. “You think you’re a big, important rich guy, don’t you?”

  “I think that I’m the owner of this building and I’ve repeatedly asked you to leave.” Hamilton pulled out his cell phone.

  As soon as Jude saw the phone, he took a step back and then another. “I can’t believe you’re siding with this asshole,” he snarled at Leah. Whirling around, he disappeared through the doorway. Hamilton followed, with Leah trailing behind, barely pausing to pull off her apron.

  Standing next to Hamilton, she watched from the open exterior door, squinting against the rising sun, as Jude stalked down the alley and disappeared from view. A short time later, she heard a car engine roar to life—Jude’s Jeep, she assumed—and slowly fade to silence as it drove away. Leah looked up at Hamilton, who was eyeing her, then the propped-open door, and then her again.

  “I know.” She groaned, pulling out her cell phone as she moved back toward the kitchen. “I’ll keep both of the doors closed and locked like a good little tenant from now on. In my defense, though, Jude did not reveal the depths of his craziness when he was buying croissants from me.”

  “What are you doing?” he asked, closing and locking the exterior door behind them before following her down the short hallway to the kitchen door.

  “Calling the cops.”

  “I don’t believe he’s coming back, at least not this morning.”

  “Probably not. Stupid phone.” She poked at the main button, trying to get it to turn on. “I’m reporting this in case I have ‘stupid whore’ spray-painted on the front of my bakery tomorrow. My roommate Annabelle had a stalker while we were in school, and I learned that it’s always a good idea to document these sorts of things, even if they seem minor at the time.”

  Hamilton tapped her shoulder with his phone, offering it to her, but Leah waved him off. “Mine’ll work. It’s just a little sticky sometimes.” The screen finally lit up, and she unlocked it. “That’s what happens when I have doughy fingers and give in to the urge to check my texts.”

  His appalled expression would’ve made her laugh if she hadn’t been so annoyed by Jude’s behavior. “You got dough on your phone?”

  “Either that, or I’ve just had it sitting around the kitchen too long, and it’s gummed up with flour. The stuff is always floating around in here—oh, hello! Yes, I’d like to report a trespassing incident. It’s not an emergency, and the trespasser has already left, but I’m worried that he might cause trouble in the future.”

  As she gave the dispatcher her information, Hamilton put on an apron and hairnet before heading to the hand-wash sink. Her last responses were slightly distracted.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as she ended the call and slid her phone into the back pocket of her jeans.

  “Someone coming?” he asked, rather than answering her question.

  “Yes. They’re going to call me when they get here so I can open the front door for them. What’s with that?” She waved her hands, indicating his aproned and clean-handed form.

  “I was g
oing for a run.”

  “Uh-huh.” When he didn’t elaborate, she squinted and eyed him up and down. “You might get some weird looks if you go running like this.”

  “I can’t go now.”

  “You can’t?”

  “Of course not.”

  There was a long pause, and Leah tried to wait him out, but patience had never been one of her strong points. “Why not?”

  “I can’t leave you here alone.” He said it in such a matter-of-fact way, that it flummoxed her for a moment.

  “Why not?” she repeated, not caring that she sounded like a curious first-grader. “The doors are locked now, and I’m here alone every morning.”

  “What if he comes back?”

  “Jude isn’t coming back. You said so yourself. If he does, then he’ll be met by two locked doors—three if you include the front—and, if he times it perfectly and karma is feeling spunky, possibly a cop or two.”

  He looked at her impassively, as solid and unmoving as a tree.

  “Fine.” Leah firmly squashed the excited wiggle in her belly. “If you want to work, then you can work, but I’m not making cream-filled cupcakes this week.”

  His face actually fell. He quickly recovered, smoothing his expression into its normal placid, slightly above-it-all lines, but she couldn’t erase that crushed look from her mind.

  “Maybe Friday,” she said, mentally cursing herself for being a huge, marshmallow-like softy. “But not before then.”

  “Friday’s fine. Payday traditionally lands on Fridays.” He gave her a sideways look, just a spare glance, and that look and his pathetic attempt at a joke was so adorable that she couldn’t even stand it.

  Tearing her gaze away from his face, she almost stomped to the walk-in cooler and grabbed a container of dough she’d made earlier that morning. “Throw some flour on the table, then, and let’s make some cheddar-basil bread loaves.”