The basement was dimly lit and smelled like detergent and old concrete. Two washers, two dryers, and a folding table that had definitely seen better days. Lucy loaded her clothes into a washer, added detergent, and set it running.
She should go back upstairs. Read that book Rei had recommended. Or finally watch the new season of that showeveryone kept talking about. Or do literally anything that qualified as "relaxing."
Instead, she stood in the basement and watched her clothes spin through the washer window, mesmerized by the repetitive motion.
This was the problem, Lucy realized. She didn't know how to turn her brain off. Even when she wasn't working, she was thinking about work. Mentally reviewing recipes, planning tomorrow's prep, worrying about supply costs and equipment maintenance and whether she should expand the breakfast sandwich menu.
Your grandmother didn't leave you this place so you could disappear into it.
Uncle Walter's words from Saturday kept circling. Two days later and Lucy still couldn't shake them.
Her phone buzzed.
Rei:better not still be at the bakery
Lucy:I'm not. I'm doing laundry.
Rei:...that's not what I meant by relaxing
Lucy:It's the best I can do right now.
Rei:okay. baby steps. proud of you for leaving the bakery at least.
Rei:btw Marcus told me Jake Morrison is probably going to come to team dinner Friday night. you should come too.
Lucy:Why would I come to team dinner?
Rei:because you're friends with me, I'm team PT, therefore you're team-adjacent. also because you never go anywhere and you need to be social.
Lucy:I'm social. I talk to people all day.
Rei:taking bakery orders doesn't count as socializing. come to dinner. it'll be fun. Marcus is buying appetizers.
Lucy:I'll think about it.
Rei:you'll be there. I'm manifesting it.
Lucy put her phone away and tried to imagine herself at Mac's Tavern on Friday night, surrounded by hockey players and their partners, trying to make small talk. The thought was exhausting.
But maybe that was the point. Maybe she needed to be exhausted by something other than work. Maybe she needed to remember how to exist outside the bakery walls.
The washer chimed. Lucy transferred her clothes to the dryer and headed back upstairs.
Her apartment felt too quiet. She turned on music—not the classical stuff she played in the bakery, but the indie rock she'd loved in college—and started cleaning. If she couldn't relax, she could at least be productive in a different location.
She was scrubbing the bathroom sink when she heard it: a thud from the other side of the wall.
Her mysterious neighbor was home.
Lucy paused, listening. More movement. Something that sounded like furniture scraping. Her neighbor definitely kept strange hours—sometimes Lucy heard them at 3 AM, sometimes at 2 PM, rarely on any predictable schedule.
She wondered what they did for work. Something with odd hours, clearly. A nurse, maybe? Or someone who worked at one of the 24-hour gas stations on the highway?
Another thud, louder this time.
Lucy considered banging on the wall—she'd done it before when the noise got excessive—but decided against it. It was Monday afternoon. If her neighbor wanted to move furniture, that was their business.
Instead, she went back to cleaning. Kitchen counters, stovetop, the inside of the microwave she never used. Anything to keep her hands busy, her mind occupied.
