“My business. Right.” Glyma stood and started dissembling the pile of supplies she’d brought for her presentation. “Let me get my mood board.”
“Mood board?” Quin echoed, sounding somewhat horrified, but Glyma ignored her.
“Here’s the binder of paperwork you asked for,” Glyma said, and the glittery binder clonked onto the desk with a heavythumpthat made Quin startle. “I may have added some extra stuff. Better too much than not enough, right?”
“I suppose,” Quin said diplomatically as she brushed—or attempted to brush—excess glitter that had come free from the binder off her desk. It stuck to her fingers instead, and Glyma swallowed a laugh as she shook her hands in a vain attempt to dislodge it.
Giving up, Quin opened the binder, nose scrunching. “Are the pages scented?”
“Of course. Scent is a very important part of a lasting impression,” Glyma said as she searched the room for somewhere to set up her mood board. Shit, she knew she should have brought her own easel, but it was too late now. She balanced the mood board on the chair’s arm rests instead.
“Right,” Quin said.
On the other chair where Glyma had been sitting, she set up her oversized sketchpad and flipped the cover to reveal the title page of her presentation. She’d carefully crafted a digital one, but her computer had decided to spontaneously combust yesterday, taking with it all of her hard work—not to mention, her hopes and dreams. But as her mother had taught her, it wasn’t over until the banshee screamed, so she’d thrown back a glass of wine, borrowed markers from the neighbor kids, and pulled an all-nighter so she could have at least something to present to the business consultant. Now that she thought about it, the lack of sleep probably contributed to her manic energy and poor control over her hormones.
But none of that mattered now. She had a presentation to deliver.
“I give you, Glyma’s Bakery,” Glyma said as she waved jazz hands at the sketchpad where she’d drawn a colorful storefront last night. “Working title only. I’m still trying to decide on an official name. I hope that’s okay.”
Before Quin could respond, she flipped to the next page, where she’d drawn the purple interior with tables, chairs, a bakery case, and a coffee machine. “So I want my bakery to be a place people come for good pastries and a homey atmosphere. A place where every customer is a friend and every coworker is a family member.
“I thought I’d start small with just baked items, but who wants a pastry without a coffee?” Glyma flipped to the next page as Quin leaned back in her chair, her expression unreadable. “So we’d need an espresso machine for simple coffees and lattes. But then I thought, why stop there? Why not serve a light lunch? Nothing crazy. Just soups and salads, maybe some sandwiches.”
Continuing to flip pages, Glyma gushed about all her ideas, referencing the mood board to ensure Quin really understood the vibes she was going for. The Daemon, for her part, just listened. Her thin eyebrows were the only facial feature to move throughout Glyma’s entire presentation, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.
“In conclusion,” Glyma said as she flipped to the final page of the sketchpad, “Glyma’s Bakery is more than just a bakery, more than a restaurant.” Pilfering through her supplies, she produced the confetti cannon she’d bought and aimed it at Quin’s desk. “It’s your home away from home.”
Beaming at the Daemon, she yanked the string of the cannon free, and confetti and glitter exploded from the other end with apop. It rained down onto the desk and floor, fluttering through the air. A particularly large piece of streamer caught on Quin’s horn, draping down to tickle her cheek, and the Daemon blinked.
Glyma folded her hands behind her back and waited.
Slowly, Quin reached up and dislodged the streamer, letting it float down to her desk. “Wow, that was… colorful.”
“Well, I had a digital slideshow, but my computer exploded last night, so I had to get creative,” Glyma explained.
Something like relief colored Quin’s face. “Oh, that explains… a lot. What if you logged in on my laptop and emailed me the digital presentation? Just so I have a full, less glittery picture.”
Glyma’s stomach dropped. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Somehow, in the wee, sleep-deprived hours—and after more than a few glasses of wine, if she was being honest—she had come up with the idea of a confetti cannon before she’d thought of using someone else’s computer to email the presentation.
“Right. I can do that,” she said, cheeks warming with embarrassment. “It should be saved on my cloud.”
Red fingers brushed glitter and confetti off the closed laptop before Quin opened it and—Glyma assumed—logged out of her own credentials. Then she turned the laptop so Glyma could access the keyboard. She typed in her log-in and found the mostly complete slideshow, emailing it to Quin using her business card.
“Sorry,” she said as she pushed the laptop back towards the Daemon. “I probably seem ridiculous to you.”
“No,” Quin said quickly, but firmly. “You’re enthusiastic, which is important. If you don’t have passion or belief in your business, then no one else will either. How about…”
She stood, Glyma’s binder in hand, and rounded the desk. She cleared the chair Glyma had used as an easel and sat down, patting the chair holding the mood board.
“Sit, please.”
Glyma sat and folded her hands in her lap.
“Okay, I’m going to be straight with you,” Quin said, and Glyma braced herself. “Restaurant and catering businesses areone of the riskiest. It will be demanding and draining. You’ll have to do a lot of the work yourself to start out, and you probably won’t even turn a profit for a few years.
“There are so many factors that play into creating a successful restaurant. The wrong location or even the wrong paint color will affect your chances. Even with good products, businesses go under.”
The knot in Glyma’s stomach tightened further. “I know, but I have to try. Even if it fails, I have to try. I know it sounds cliché, but it’s my dream.”
