“Your monkey bread was good,” she says with a mischievous grin, but it fades too quickly.
“And you tried itafteryou and Theo asked me,” I press.
“I know, but I’ve had your baking before.”
“Right, but that doesn’t answer the question.”
She’s quiet for several thoughtful seconds. When she speaks, her voice is pensive and vulnerable. “I think some things just happen at the right time. My grandmother always saidIf not now, when?”
Those are powerful words, and I understand why they’d driveherto act. But even so, she’s talking about huge changes. “So that’s why you decided to turn a firehouse into a bakery when you hadn’t even planned on returning to Cozy Valley?”
“Yes. I don’t want to move here. I love the city, and I still want to open a bakery there, but I havethisnow, and it’s a place to start. I’ve been wanting to open a bakery since I went to college. It was always my dream.”
“You think that adage applies to us going into business too?”
“Sure. I think that’s the point of the saying. Take a chance and all.”
But it’s not that simple. I gesture from her to me. “It’s a big deal going into business. Sure, some of the work is done. But there’s so much more to do.” I leave the kitchen, motioning for her to join me as we return to the garage area. “We’d need a glass garage door for natural light and street visibility. The cool kind you see in trendy restaurants in Brooklyn.” I gesture to where the counter would have to be. “We’d need to buy display cases, and of course, we’d have to paint the exterior bricks some pretty, frothy, bakery color. Something…you know, floofy. We’d need to paint the inside too.”
I pace toward the garage door, sweeping my hand across the space. “We’d need tables and chairs and merch. We’d need to plan the offerings. Are we a cupcake bakery, Mabel? Are we doing cake and cookies and brownies? What about bread? That’s a whole other area, and one I’m just not that into. And will there be muffins? That’s a deal breaker for me. I hate muffins. Then there’s the issue of nuts. Some people hate nuts, though I’m not sure I could ever get along with such a monster. Pecans are proof of life.”
And I shut up because she’s smiling at me. A pleased, wide, closed-mouth grin.
“What’s that for?”
“You can see it,” she says, delighted with hergotcha. “The bakery.”
Maybe, but I’m not ready to admit that out loud. “I’m just saying it needs a lot of work.”
“But you can see it turning into a bakery. You can picture it. You just listed offnearly everything. You’ve clearly mapped this all out. I know you wanted to wait till you retired, but Corbin…” She pauses, twisting her fingers together. “I need the help. I can’t afford it all, but this place is amazing, and it landed in my lap. I can use it to keep my existing business going, and I can run everything from here. I’ll handle things, and you don’t have to do much. Just benefit from it and, like my grandmother used to say, you won’t know unless you try.”
She presses her hands together in a plea.
Dammit, she’s pulling on my heartstrings. But I can’t make this choice just because I want to help. So, I’m not sure why the next thing out of my mouth is: “I don’t like pumpkin stuff.”
Tossing back her head, Mabel laughs. “But I do. I can make the pumpkin things, and I won't make you taste-test them. And I hate peanut butter. Most nuts actually.”
I sneer. “How is that possible?”
“Peanut butter tastes like cardboard.”
“That makes no sense.”
“But see, this makes perfect sense. I can be the pumpkin taste-tester, and you can be the nut taste-tester.” Again, she has a solution to every problem I fling at her. “Also, I can’t stand muffins either, so they will never be on the menu. And I don’t want to bake bread. I don’t need this bakery to be all things to all people or to compete with the café in town that makes bread. I just want it to be full of really great sweet treats that satisfy cravings. So it sounds like we’re kind of on the same page.” She flashes me another flirty, dirty, hopeful grin that’s working its magic on me. “Are you in?”
Am I? This is a huge leap. “Mabel, we barely know each other as friends, even less as business partners. We might screw this whole thing up. Then what?”
“We clean it up and move on. Like we did with the cake in my hair and with your cat scratch. You tend to the problem and move on.”
Like we’ve moved past that white-hot kiss. “This is more complicated than a scratch or a smash cake, but point taken. What happens to our friendship, though, if this business doesn’t work out?”
Things didn’t work out with Eliza, and though our breakup was cordial, we’re not in touch. We don’t really need to be. Moving on was easy since our lives weren’t entangled. What would a business breakup with Mabel do to this tentative friendship we have going on? Would it turn it to ash?
“We act like adults,” she says, giving a simple and real answer. “We handle it like grown-ups. And we give ourselves a time limit.”
My ears perk up. I do great with deadlines. I eat them for breakfast. “What are you thinking?”
“I gave myself a year to make a success of this or I’ll go corporate.”
