by Annora Green
“Wondered how long you were going to stay away,” Ari commented from behind the counter when she noticed Sophia.
Sophia shrugged. “I’ve been busy this week.”
“When you were busy a few weeks ago, you were in here more often for coffee, not less.”
Sophia didn’t reply.
“Was something wrong? Did I do something wrong?” Ari asked, narrowing her eyes.
Sophia looked surprised. “No. Why?”
“You haven’t come in since Saturday.”
“I said I’ve been busy.”
“Last time you were here, Rachel didn’t serve you a bad coffee, did she? Or a rancid blueberry muffin or anything?”
“No. Although, now that you mention it, I did try the strawberry turnover last week and it was subpar.”
“Oh, so that’s it. Subpar strawberry turnover,” Ari said.
Sophia shook her head and crossed her arms. “There has been no such thing keeping me away. But since you brought it up, I should tell you that you don’t do pastry crust well. It’s not tender and flaky like it should be. It’s far too rubbery and chewy.”
“Rubbery and chewy?” Ari asked, indignant, but also somewhat playful. “Really? Are you some sort of expert, or...?”
Sophia shook her head. “I’m not an expert, but I know how to make a decent turnover. And yours is not a decent turnover.”
“Okay, then. I’ll give you free coffee for another week if you come in and show me how to make a tender, flaky turnover.”
“Really?” Sophia asked.
Ari nodded. “I’m curious to know what a non-subpar strawberry turnover tastes like. Be my guest.”
“Well then. I suppose I could come over tonight after work, if that suits you?”
¨°¨
Sophia was not sure what, exactly, had possessed her to suddenly be such a crusader for strawberry turnovers. But that evening, she wrapped things up at work around 7pm and headed over to The Little Cafe. The cafe was closed, but despite the CLOSED sign, Ari had left the door unlocked for her.
Sophia found Ari in her small back office, typing something on her laptop.
“I’m here for your strawberry turnover lessons, Ms. Little,” she said.
“All right, I’m ready to learn,” Sophia said, smiling gamely, although both women sensed that the meeting had been a bit of a silly concept, and now felt slightly awkward about the whole thing.
Ari, trying to diffuse some of the awkwardness, spoke up. “I should give you a bit of a behind-the-scenes tour while you’re here. You’ve already seen my little office. Next are two exciting pantries, one for Rachel’s baked goods and another that’s basically just my coffee bean storage room.”
“That smells delicious,” Sophia said when Ari showed her the coffee-bean storage pantry, which was about the size of a small walk-in closet.
“It’s my favorite smell in the world,” Ari said proudly, her long blonde hair, which was tied up in a ponytail, swinging as she moved around, pointing things out to Sophia.
“Next up, this is where all of the magic happens. The kitchen,” she said, and they walked into a small kitchen, Ari clicking on the lights as they entered.
“Welcome to my world. It’s not bras and bustiers, but if you don’t mind endless jars of coffee beans and mixers and kitchen implements, it’s not a bad place to be. It’s a bit of a cross between the messiest apartment kitchen you’ve ever been in, and a mad scientist’s laboratory. Rachel’s really into experimenting with her recipes, and I’m... well, I’m sorta messy.”
“It’s nice,” Sophia said, gazing around at the small but cheerful room, which had white tile countertops, a clean white tile floor, and light blue walls.
On one of the walls there was a poster advertising the best cupcakes in Palo Rosa. Sophia wondered if it was from Ari’s mother’s shop.
“So,” Ari said, handing Sophia an apron and then grabbing one for herself. “How did you become such a strawberry turnover expert?”
“It’s a bit of a story,” she said, tying on the apron over her white blouse and slim black trousers.
“By the way, help yourself to whatever you need. Flour and sugar are over there.” Ari directed.
Sophia busied herself opening up drawers and cupboards, roaming around the small kitchen, gathering the things she needed. Then she explained her expertise on the subject at hand.
“Growing up, part of my parents’ yard was filled with strawberries every spring and summer. And so every year my mother had to come up with a million ways to use them up. Or rather, she ordered the maid to come up with a million ways to use them up. It was my father who once suggested strawberry turnovers as an alternate to the endless string of strawberry pies and berry crisp, and together we figured out a good recipe. He has an innate sense for how to make a tender and flaky pastry dough. After several attempts, we perfected the right blend of ingredients for the filling, and ever since then we’ve made these great turnovers that were better than any pie or crisp recipe we’d ever tasted.”
Sophia had begun pulling ingredients off of metal shelves around the room and the fridge. She arranged all of the ingredients on the counter and turned to Ari.
“What I will mainly focus on tonight is the pastry. The filling is easy enough. We’ll do that second.”
As they worked, they chatted.
“In general, do you think the food is good here?” Ari asked Sophia at one point.
“Sure,” Sophia said. “What I’ve had so far I thought was good. Certainly above and beyond typical coffee shop fare.”
“It doesn’t sell all that well. Keeping all of the food and snack items in stock has kind of become a money drain,” Ari admitted. “I just wondered if it was the selection we’re offering, or a quality thing, or what.”
“Running a business is a lot of trial and error I’ve found,” Sophia said. “The important thing is to be really in tune with what customers want. If something isn’t selling well, or if there seems to be a loss of interest or generally lackluster interest in anything, drop it, and try something different. Don’t keep pushing stuff on customers and hoping they’ll eventually fall in love with it. They have too many other choices out there and are unlikely to change their minds.”
“How do you do it? I mean, keep track of everything involved in running a business. I knew it would be a lot of work before I got started, but really, I had no idea it would be like this,” Ari asked.
Sophia nodded. “I remember thinking that. Keep a pulse on what your customers like, what seems to be going right, and focus on that - try to make the most money off of whatever’s working - and stay flexible and willing to experiment with everything else.”
Ari bit her bottom lip, deep in thought.
“It seems you’re doing well for a new business,” Sophia said, rolling out dough with a white rolling pin.
“It may seem like that,” Ari said, watching Sophia’s hands as she worked, “But that’s not totally the case.”
Sophia gave her a smile and touched her lightly on the shoulder. “I assume you’re being too hard on yourself. It’s difficult, the first year or two of a business. It does get easier.”
They continued working on the turnovers. Sophia walked Ari though each step, and Ari (with Sophia’s blessing) wrote down notes throughout the process.
An hour later, Ari and Sophia were sitting at the counter on two wobbly wooden barstools, devouring the perfect, tender, flaky pastries. The kitchen smelled divine: warm, with the aroma of buttery pastry and the sweet smell of strawberries, comforting aromas that enveloped the space.
As they sat, chatting easily, any earlier tensions from conversations prior to that evening seemed to have dissipated.
And perhaps even more disarmingly, Sophia’s mind kept lingering on some of the things that had happened while they were talking and baking.
Like the way Ari had watched her a beat too long from time to time throughout the evening: instead of writing down notes or w
atching carefully what was happening in the mixing bowl, she had caught Ari’s eyes dwelling on her as she spoke.
At one point, noting that Ari was once again looking up at her instead of in the bowl, where she was showing her how to properly cut in butter for the crust, Sophia, slightly thrown off by the attention, had accidentally knocked a small bowl of salt off the counter.
“It’s no big deal,” Ari had assured her, bending down to pick up the bowl, laughing lightly as Sophia apologized.
“It’s nothing. Keep going,” Ari urged the woman.
So Sophia tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and continued.
As she worked throughout the evening, Sophia had the distinct sense that Ari was frequently distracted.
However, Sophia was not entirely a victim in the situation, either. Once or twice, she had caught herself subconsciously allowing her hand to linger over Ari’s, or brushing her shoulder as she reached past her for a spoon.
Each time they brushed shoulders or hands in a way that was a bit more intimate than either had consciously intended, there were quick blushes, hands that were pulled back quickly, and nervous glances away, as if by pretending that nothing was happening, that would make it so.
And somehow, despite their increasingly distracted moods, the turnovers were finally finished nearly two hours later.
“These are by far the best turnovers I’ve ever had,” Ari stated as they sampled the final product in the kitchen.
“I’m glad you like them.”
“I’ll definitely be sharing this recipe with Rachel. Thank you so much for this.”
“Did you get everything written down accurately?” Sophia asked, raising an eyebrow at the general direction of Ari’s notepad with her chicken-scratch notes.
“I think so. But if not, you’ll just have to come over sometime and bake them again,” she said, smiling coyly and taking a second bite.
Sophia smiled, the first truly relaxed, open, kind smile Ari had seen from the woman. Her face was beautiful - completely radiant - when she smiled like that.
“Running a successful business, cooking perfect turnovers, being a single mom, being mayor, looking flawless all of the time even when cooking... is there anything you can’t do right?” Ari asked, half-joking as she bit into a second turnover.
“There’s a lot that I don’t manage to be very good at,” Sophia said quietly, dropping her eyes.
Ari laughed lightly. “I don’t believe it.”
“It’s not... well, never mind, you wouldn’t want to hear it,” Sophia said hesitantly.
“What?” Ari asked. “You can’t just say that and stop talking.”
Sophia sighed.
“Well, in a nutshell, when I was younger, I thought I could do it all. Raise Percy - I had him when I was 23, right in the middle of grad school - and for a while, I did. I went to school, I raised him, I had internships or worked. I started my own business. But along the way, I let things go. I wasn’t always perfect. And lately, as FORBIDDEN has grown, I’ve taken advantage of the fact that Percy is older and I leave him alone more. I’m not keeping up with everything like I used to. It’s an impossible cause and effect situation. The more FORBIDDEN grows, the more the rest of my life suffers. Especially Percy.”
“Oh,” Ari said, her face growing serious. “Perhaps it’s just temporary? Growing pains for the business?”
“Perhaps. But I don’t think so. I’m choosing to do this all on my own, but sometimes I don’t know if it’s the right choice, especially when Percy is the victim,” she confessed.
Ari stood up to refill her small coffee cup, and refilled Sophia’s at the same time.
“So, maybe you should cut back?” Ari prompted.
Sophia looked at Ari with pursed lips, considering. “I don’t know. But I know I can’t be a good mother to Percy while I spend all of this time being devoted to work.”
“You’re not the first woman to have to try to balance parenthood with a flourishing career.”
Sophia nodded, then cleared her throat.
“Anyways, enough about that. Thank you. Tonight was nice,” Sophia said, splashing a bit of milk into the coffee. “It was fun getting a glimpse behind the scenes here.”
“Likewise,” Ari said.
“I miss having someone to talk to. You know, someone who is not an employee. You’ve reminded me of that tonight, Ms. Little.”
Ari cringed at the continued formality. “It was fun. But considering we just spent a few hours baking up a storm, could you at least stop calling me Ms. Little?”
Sophia looked at her, their eyes meeting. Ari shifted slightly. Sophia blinked once, then nodded to herself.
“Ari,” Sophia said softly, her name rolling off her tongue.
They were quiet for a moment. Ari wondered if that had been the right move, to ask Sophia to call her Ari. When she did, it felt as though there was a strange intimacy to it. It sounded odd to her, after so long of hearing Sophia call her “Ms. Little.”
“Is Ari short for something?” Sophia asked, breaking the silence.
“Arianna. It’s a weird name, I know,” she added quickly. “My parents have always been into really romantic stories and romantic things, so they gave me a name that sounds like some kind of princess.”
Sophia smiled, amused, imagining what it might have been like for the serious, straightforward, girl-next-door, no-frills woman before her to grow up with a mother who liked elaborate, girly names and aspired to run a cupcake shop.
“Arianna is a very pretty name,” Sophia said.
When she said her full name, the word rolled off even more easily on her tongue.
“It is, but I’ve never thought it was me,” Ari admitted. “My mom liked sweet, girly things. Arianna was the perfect name for her little girl, or so she thought. Unfortunately for her, though, I turned out to be a little more of a down to earth, tomboy, get my nails dirty kind of girl.”
“I’ve never heard Ari used as a shortened form of Arianna,” Sophia said.
“Growing up, my friends kind of condensed Arianna to Ari, and it stuck. Well, it stuck with everyone but my parents, who still call me Arianna.”
“I also prefer ‘Arianna,’” Sophia said. “There’s something to be said for classic, elegant names. And it’s not too girly. There’s something strong and dignified about it.”
“Thank you,” Ari said, her blue eyes meeting Sophia’s. “Although I still don’t know if an elegant and dignified name is right for me.”
“You are elegant, Ms. Little.Arianna,” Sophia said.
It did sound like a strong name when Sophia said it aloud.
After she spoke, Sophia became acutely aware of the empty kitchen, and the empty cafe. The only sound was of the light music playing softly from a speaker that Ari had turned on in the kitchen while they had worked. That, and the ticking of the clock.
“I need to go soon,” Sophia said quietly. “Back to Percy. But let me help you clean up.”
Ari stood up and moved around the kitchen, putting a few things they’d used - a spatula, a small bowl - into the dishwasher.
Sophia helped load the dishwasher.
“So. I taught you how to make a decent turnover. I hope that by now perhaps I’ve atoned for some prior inconveniences that I may have caused to your young business,” Sophia said.
“Hah. You were not the best neighbor I could’ve asked for at first, but I’ve gotta admit, this is starting to make up for it,” Ari said, pleased to have finally reached a detente with this woman.
Sophia watched as Ari dipped her index finger into the remaining crumbs that were on her plate and quickly licked them off. Then, she put the plate in the dishwasher. She closed the machine and pressed the button to start it.
The dishes under control, Ari crossed her arms, leaned her back against the counter, and glanced at the clock. “I didn’t realize how late it had gotten.”
Sophia followed her eyes to the clock.
“No, me neither,”
she agreed quietly, her eyes flickering to her purse and coat.
Ari was about to offer to walk her out, but as she opened her mouth to speak, their eyes met again. This time, it felt to both women like an invisible thread was connecting them in that instant. Stranger yet, that thread carried a strong, profound vibration, almost like an electrical current.
The resulting heat Sophia felt when Ari’s eyes met hers caused Sophia to hold her breath for a moment.
She impulsively shifted forward, moving a step closer to Ari.
Ari took a breath, and raised her hands, almost as if to welcome her in an embrace, but stopped mid-air.
Having closed that space, Sophia was now most definitely too close to Ari to mean anything other than what she wanted to do most in that moment.
Ari’s eyes were still on hers, searching.
“I apologize for making your first weeks here so irritating, Arianna. Is there...” she whispered, her eyes flickering down to Ari’s lips “...anything I can do to make up for it?”
Ari looked at her, her eyes growing wider, but she did not reply.
Sophia’s eyes softened and darkened, and she leaned forward, hesitantly, but just enough to make her intentions clear. Just enough to allow Ari to pull away, to step back, for both of them to pretend nothing had happened, if that was the way Ari wanted things to be.
A few long seconds passed.
Ari did not move in the slightest. Instead, she took a breath, her eyes scanning Sophia’s face, making sure she had read the situation correctly.
And when Ari swayed forward the tiniest millimeter instead of stepping back or turning away, Sophia made her decision in a fraction of an instant.
Every ounce of Sophia’s body was suddenly a magnet, pulled into Ari, and without thinking or questioning any of it, the two were joined as one as their lips locked.
Sophia’s senses were overwhelmed: by Ari’s lips, soft, open, by the feel of her in her arms, her hair twining through her fingers, the faintest scent of lavender on her skin, her soft skin. Sophia wanted to press her against the wall, have her entirely at her mercy, but to her surprise, it was Ari who suddenly took over and drove their next movements, and so Sophia let her take control.