The Sweet Spot

by Ariel Ellman

  “It was horrible,” Sawyer cried, soaking Ani’s back with her tears. “It was so horrible for so long,” she whispered, lost in the memories of her broken sister, her sister who had always taken care of her, who had taken over for their mother after she’d died.

  “I would watch Ani sleep at night,” Sawyer confessed to Sebastian. “I was afraid to go to sleep because I didn’t know if she would wake up in the morning. I was so afraid that she would just give up and stop living.” Sawyer squeezed her arms around her sister and Sebastian, and they were both silent; Sebastian taking in Sawyer’s words, and Ani lost in the memories of the months after Sebastian was sent away.

  “God we need therapy,” Ani finally choked in a half-laugh, half-sob.

  “I don’t know, I think it sounds like we’re finally even,” Sebastian teased Sawyer gently. “I saved your life when you were a baby, and you saved Ani for me after I was sent away.”

  “Oh my God! The Salvation Army clothes bin!” Sawyer cried, shoving Ani as her sister moaned and covered her face with her hands.

  “Will I ever live that down?” Ani laughed at the reference to the time she’d tried to sneak her three-month-old baby sister into the goodwill bin her mother had placed on the porch for the Salvation Army pick up. Fortunately for Sawyer, six-year-old Sebastian had stopped Ani when he spotted her gesturing wildly to him from her porch with Sawyer bundled in her arms in a pile of clothes.

  “Soy was stinky and she cried all the time,” Ani defended herself with a muffled laugh against Sebastian’s chest.

  “That wasn’t the only time she tried to do away with you either,” Sebastian teased Sawyer. “There were many other plots against you that I saved you from over the years.”

  “I’m sure there were!” Sawyer exclaimed, glaring at her sister in mock outrage.

  “You know what I remember most about you?” Sebastian murmured, resting his chin on Ani’s head and breathing in her scent of lemons and butter. “You always smelled like cookies,” he whispered to Ani. “Your own special scent of cookies. I used to search for your smell in the prison kitchen when I worked there, but I could never find it. I traded favors for cookies with the other inmates trying to find your smell. One of the guys used to get his sister to send him lemon cookies for me and I slept with them pressed against my face. They called me the cookie monster in the early years,” Sebastian laughed softly.

  “What did they call you in the later years?” Sawyer asked with interest, lifting her face up to look into Sebastian’s eyes.

  “The peacekeeper…” Ani answered for Sebastian softly, slipping her fingers beneath Sebastian’s shirt and tracing the symbols under his collarbone with her fingers.

  “I didn’t earn the peacekeeper label until the very late years,” Sebastian laughed ruefully. “Fifteen years inside a prison is a long time.”

  “So what did they call you during the in-between years?” Sawyer persisted.

  “The monk,” Ani answered for Sebastian again with a laugh, breaking the seriousness of the moment. “Because he wouldn’t suck dick.”

  “Well, I can’t argue with that!” Sawyer replied with a laugh. “Who would want dick after tasting cooch?”

  “You two sure haven’t changed much,” Sebastian grinned, pushing the girls off of him and playfully swatting their asses. “So you like girls huh?” Sebastian grinned at Sawyer. “Ani was pretty sure you did when we were kids. I remember she thought you had a crush on Carmen Alvarez.”

  “Oh my God, Carmen!” Sawyer sighed nostalgically at the memory. “She was my first major crush, an eighth grader. Those big dark eyes and long silky hair, I used to lay awake at night wondering what it would be like to kiss her.”

  “Did you ever find out?” Sebastian asked curiously. “I vaguely remember her, and if I remember correctly, she got around…..” he grinned.

  “Yeah she got around alright,” Sawyer pouted, “with half the guys in the school!”

  “Ah, so no Carmen Alvarez for you?” Sebastian made a sympathetic face at Sawyer.

  “Don’t waste your pity on her. Trust me she’s more than made up for the loss over the years!” Ani rolled her eyes at Sawyer.

  “Hmmm, I have had my share of Carmen Alvarezes,” Sawyer laughed in agreement. “Maybe that’s why I have a thing for girls with dark hair,” she mused thoughtfully.

  “Don’t you girls have some baking to do?” Sebastian reminded them teasingly as he looked around the kitchen at their partially completed inventory.

  Ani felt Sebastian’s eyes on her for the rest of the morning as she and Sawyer worked side by side, mixing dough and sliding pans in and out of the ovens until the cases in the bakery were full and the orange light of dawn filled the sky outside.

  “You made lemon bars,” Sebastian whispered into Ani’s ear as he came up behind her while she was opening the front door.

  “First time in fifteen years,” she whispered back, leaning her head against Sebastian’s neck.

  “I’m going to put one under my pillow tonight,” Sebastian murmured as the chime on the door tinkled and the first customer walked in.

  Ani slipped behind the bakery counter to help her customer and Sawyer slipped her apron off and grabbed her keys.

  “Thanks for coming this morning Soy.” Ani called to her sister as she handed the customer her muffin and Earl Grey tea.

  “Anytime A,” Sawyer murmured, hugging Ani as the customer walked out the door.

  Sawyer was a Sports Masseuse, and worked at an exclusive sports rehabilitation center in the afternoons, which was perfect for her dating life – hence the blond soccer player. Her hours were flexible which allowed her to bake with Ani in the wee hours of the morning when she wanted to. The bakery was a haven for both of them, a place where they could escape the rest of the world and lose themselves in the memories of their childhood baking with their mother, Eva, who had left her family bakery behind in Ireland when she was eighteen. She came to Boston to visit her cousin, met their father and fell in love with him and never returned home.

  “It’s nice to see you two still baking together,” Sebastian murmured softly to Sawyer, following her out the door of the bakery. “It reminds me of when Ani and I were in high school and you used to help her bake for her lemonade stand after school. It was so hard for her to bake again after your mum died Soy. Having you by her side helped her a lot.”

  Sawyer stared at Sebastian as his words washed over her. She remembered the years after her mother had died vividly. She had only been eight and Ani twelve. Their father completely disappeared into himself. He left at four-thirty a.m. to go to his garage and often didn’t come home until eight or nine, and when he walked through the door, he always had a six-pack of beer in his hand and he headed straight for the TV. As they got older and Ani became the spitting image of their mother, it only got worse, until their father literally couldn’t bear the sight of them. They were too much of a reminder of what he’d lost.

  “It was a hard time for both of us,” Sawyer murmured in agreement, holding Sebastian’s gaze as she recalled their childhood together. She had always adored Bast. He was like Robin Hood in their neighborhood. He helped old ladies carry their groceries up their front steps without being asked, and he stood up for the overweight kid who was being picked on at the playground. Sebastian never seemed to be plagued by the normal insecurities that other kids suffered from. He had a confidence about him that drew people in. Even as a teenage boy Sebastian knew who he was and he wasn’t afraid to stand up for his beliefs. He was the best person she had ever known. But she had watched her sister wait for Bast her whole life, first as a little girl, waiting for him to finally notice that she’d grown up and kiss her, and then for the six agonizing years after he had gone to prison for that horrible accident.

  “C’mon, I’ll walk you home,” Bast said softly, slinging an arm around Sawyer’s shoulders and motioning to Ani through the bakery window that he’d be right back. “Your father made a poor choice back
then Soy,” Sebastian said quietly, turning to face Sawyer as they came to a stop in front of the pizza place she lived above. “He chose to wallow in his misery instead of embrace the life he could have had with his two beautiful daughters.”

  “Is that what happened with you Bast? You chose to stay inside prison and wallow in your misery rather than embrace the life outside that you knew was waiting for you with my sister?” Sawyer choked accusingly, blinking back a tear. “Ani waited for you all those years even though you refused to see or talk to her because she was convinced that you would come back to her when you got out on parole. She curled up on her bed alone and went to sleep in your football jacket on the night of her senior prom. She didn’t go on a single date for six years while she waited for you to get out Bast, and when you refused parole I forced her to stop waiting. I couldn’t watch my beautiful sister wither up and waste away at twenty-two. She deserved more than that.”

  “It was complicated,” Sebastian whispered, staring back at Sawyer with haunted eyes. “I wasn’t wallowing with a six-pack on a recliner in a dark room like your father Soy. I wanted to be with Ani more than anything, I swear to you.”

  “But you made a choice not to be Bast, just like my dad made a choice not to be a father to us when we needed him most, and Ani found someone else who recognized her worth. She met someone else who loves her and has made her happy for the last ten years, someone she has a daughter with Bast,” Sawyer whispered, staring back into Sebastian’s eyes, which were raw with anguish.

  “I know,” Sebastian whispered back hoarsely.

  “I love you Bast and I’m so glad you’re finally out,” Sawyer choked. “You were the shining light of my childhood. I always understood why Ani loved you; I hero-worshipped you my whole childhood. You were smart and strong, and kind and beautiful, and I wish that the accident never happened. I wish that you and Ani could have had your baby and lived happily ever after, but life went in a different direction Bast.”

  “And you have a new hero now,” Sebastian murmured, staring back at Sawyer thoughtfully.

  “It’s not that simple,” Sawyer protested weakly.

  “It never is Soy, it never is,” Sebastian replied quietly, leaning forward and kissing Sawyer’s forehead before he turned around and walked back to the bakery.

  Chapter Five

  Sebastian returned to the bakery after he walked Sawyer home, and he spent the rest of the day there, watching Ani silently while she worked. He leaned against the bakery wall drinking coffee and casting Ani lascivious grins behind her customers’ backs, the suggestion in his eyes turning her face red.

  “Knock it off,” Ani laughed when they were alone and Sebastian pulled her behind the curtain and into the kitchen.

  “Do you remember our first kiss in your kitchen?” Sebastian asked huskily, pressing Ani against the counter and sliding his hands under her apron.

  “It was the reason I started baking again after my mother died,” Ani whispered back, staring into Sebastian’s eyes as he kissed her softly. “It was the day I made lemon bars again.”

  When Ani’s mother died after a short and brutal battle with breast cancer the spring Ani turned twelve, she stopped baking for a year. Sawyer would lay her mother’s purple ruffled apron out on the counter every day after school and take out butter to soften for scones every weekend morning, but Ani walked by them as if they didn’t exist.

  All of Ani’s memories of her mother were in the kitchen. Growing up, Ani and Sawyer woke in the mornings to the smell of freshly baked bread and they went to sleep at night with cookie crumbs clinging to their lips. Their mother tucked hot cross buns into their hands when they ran out of the house in the mornings and they tried to guess what cake would be waiting for their tea when they got home at the end of the day.

  Their mother’s death was devastating for both sisters, but it hit Ani especially hard because of the baking connection that she had with her mother. By the time she was six, she was inventing recipes alongside her mother in the kitchen, and at ten, she was running a successful lemonade stand with her own creations, including her famous lemon bars and chocolate frosted spice cakes.

  “It was such a rough year,” Sebastian murmured as he and Ani thought back to the day of their first kiss. “You’d been driving me crazy for six months.” Sebastian lifted Ani up and sat her on the counter in front of him. “You were my best friend and had been trailing after me since you were in diapers, but then suddenly something happened to you.” Sebastian’s eyes filled with wonder at the memory. “You suddenly had these huge breasts that spilled out of your tank top and a round ass that filled out your jeans, and the way that you looked at me with those big blue eyes, it was like you were begging me to touch you. All that I could think about was kissing you. All that I could think about was running my fingers through your hair and sliding my hands under your tank top,” Sebastian confessed, trailing his lips down Ani’s neck.

  “I was so mad at you that year,” Ani replied softly. “I had been waiting for you to notice me since I was a baby. I’d been in love with you my whole life, and when you turned fourteen and started to notice girls, I was only twelve and hadn’t gotten my period yet or started to blossom. Then my mother died, and I was so sad all the time.”

  “I didn’t know what to say to you or what to do, A. You stopped baking and you refused to talk about your mother dying. And whenever I tried to hang out with you, you were mad at me all the time,” Sebastian murmured, brushing his fingers across Ani’s lips. “And then I saw you walking home from school with Sawyer one day and it was like you were a different person. It wasn’t just your breasts and the way your round ass filled out your jeans, it was the way you walked and tossed your hair when you saw me watching you. It was as if you knew that you were different. But you were still only twelve and I was fourteen, so I waited another six months for you to get older, until you turned thirteen and I suddenly couldn’t stand it anymore,” Sebastian admitted with a grin.

  “And you came to my house with a bag of lemons, butter, and confectionary sugar,” Ani whispered, her eyes locking with Sebastian’s as they both recalled that day in her kitchen almost twenty years ago.

  It was a Saturday morning in the spring, exactly one year after Ani’s mother had died, and Ani had just turned thirteen. Sawyer had come to Sebastian distraught because Ani still refused to bake, and fifteen-year-old Sebastian had walked into Ani’s kitchen with a bag of lemons, butter, and confectionary sugar, and plopped them down on the kitchen table in front of her. Even at fifteen, Sebastian was beautiful. His thick shaggy dark blond hair fell over his brilliant green eyes teasingly, and his broad chest and long arms were defined with hard-earned muscles from the punishing workouts that high school football demanded.

  “Why are you here?” Ani demanded sullenly, shoving the bag away from the table and ignoring the lemons that rolled out of the bag and across the kitchen floor.

  “It’s been a year since your mother died. It’s been a year since you’ve baked. It’s just lemon bars A,” Sebastian coaxed softly, dropping down on his heels beside her.

  “Don’t you have better things to do these days than hang out with a thirteen-year-old?” Ani challenged, her eyes flashing with anger. “Shouldn’t you be with your girlfriend or something?”

  “I have a girlfriend?” Sebastian grinned back at Ani in amusement, standing up and leaning against their kitchen table.

  “Don’t you?” Ani yelled. “You’re always hanging out with that dark-haired girl from school, the one whose jeans are so tight I’m amazed she can even sit down!”

  “I don’t like dark-haired girls,” Sebastian replied with a grin, “I like blonds.”

  “No you don’t,” Ani whispered.

  “Well only certain blonds,” Sebastian conceded, reaching out a hand and pulling Ani back into his arms. “Only blonds who make lemon bars,” he whispered, lowering his face and finally kissing Ani softly.

  “I thought you’d never kiss me,”
Ani murmured in wonder when they finally pulled apart for air.

  “I’m two years older than you A. I’ve been waiting for you to grow up,” Sebastian replied with a grin.

  “And you finally decided today that I’m old enough to kiss?” Ani retorted saucily.

  “Not really, I just got sick of waiting, and you looked so cute, all jealous and mad, that I couldn’t resist.” Sebastian admitted, his eyes traveling over Ani’s body appreciatively as his hands rested on her waist.

  That night Ani made lemon bars; and the next morning when Sawyer came into the kitchen to take out butter to soften for scones, Ani was standing at the counter in their mother’s purple apron, already mixing the dough.

  “You got me to bake again, you know,” Ani whispered to Sebastian as they stood in the bakery kitchen, their memories of that day fading from their eyes. “I swore I’d never bake again after my mother died, and then you walked into my kitchen with your bag of lemons and kissed me and suddenly the world seemed like a bright place again.”

  “Sawyer thinks I should stay away from you and let you live the life that you’ve built for yourself,” Sebastian whispered hoarsely, brushing his fingers across Ani’s lips and staring into her eyes intently.

  The bell on the bakery door suddenly tinkled, announcing the arrival of a customer, and Ani slipped off of the counter and out of Sebastian’s arms without a reply. As Ani walked away, Sebastian followed her silent retreat, gazing after her thoughtfully. He was just grabbing his keys and getting ready to head out when Raffi burst through the door of the bakery, skidding to a stop in front of Sebastian.

  “You’re back,” she said quietly, studying Sebastian with an unreadable expression.

  “Yes,” Sebastian agreed, and an uncomfortable silence passed between them before Ani walked over to them and gathered her daughter into her arms for a hug.