“I am the baker. Just notyourbaker.”
“What? I’m a customer! With good money!”
“Who left shitty reviews of my bakery everywhere.” For the baby’s sake, I hope her fiancé is smarter than Reggie.
“I’m giving you a chance to redeem yourself. You bake me the cake, and I won’t even charge you for the opportunity.” She positions her hand so I can’t miss the ring.
“Okay, are you seriously asking me to make you a cake—forfree—so you can then decide if it’s good enough?”
She brightens. “Yes!”
“Reggie,” I say sweetly, “go fuck yourself.”
She lets out a loud gasp. “You bitch!”
“And then go fuck yourself again.”
The bell on the door tinkles.
“Oh, look. Here comes arealcustomer.” I turn away from her, then realize it’s just my landlord swaggering in.
The second Floyd crosses the threshold, he pulls out a stained hanky and places it over his pug nose. His white muscle tee stretches painfully around his short torso. Hair that should be on his head sprouts in black wiry tufts from his chest and back, and he has on his usual cowboy boots with the elevator heels. He claims they’re fashion items made with “genuine cowhide that costs thousands of dollars” from Texas.
If anything on him cost more than twenty bucks, I’ll give up my ovaries.
“Baby!” Reggie exclaims with the dramatic flair of a telenovela actress.
Baby?
She rushes to him, looping her arms around his. “Can you believe how rude my cousin is? She won’t make us an engagement cake!”
“That’s terrible, but at least she can’t poison me with gluten.” He sounds nasal through the handkerchief. I don’t know what that green-yellow patch on the wrinkled fabric is, but I hope it’s full of cooties.
“Thisis your fiancé? Floyd Baggett?”
Reggie turns to me. “Yes. And he’s valiantly fighting his allergy to win my heart.” She gives me a cloying smile. “That’s how much he wants me.”
Floyd takes her hand and kisses the back of it. “Anything for you, my love.”
Gag me with a dirty plunger. But at the same time, they do kind of suit each other. Like a praying mantis and a cockroach.
“This explains the fifty percent rent increase Angie wanted,” I mutter, recalling the unpleasant, awkward meeting with the property manager over the lease renewal. I should’ve just signed the five-year contract the property management wanted, but fear of failure stopped me from making the commitment. I straighten my spine, ready for a battle.
His dark eyes narrow in his round face. He loathes that I’m as tall as he is, even though I’m in flats and he’s in those boots. “Gluten tax, Bobbi. The existence of this bakery destroys the quality of life in the city. Not to mention the health of the people.”
“Has anybody tried to tax you for damaging theirmentalhealth?” My tone is drier than the bags of flour in my kitchen.
He blinks for a moment, then turns bright red. “How dare you!”
“Why you gotta be so mean? All we want is to be happy for our engagement,” Reggie whines.
Right, because newly engaged couples always go see people they’ve insulted to share their happiness. Happens all the time.
“Relax. Can’t you take a joke?” I give him a fake laugh, and he backs down a little. He told me more than once that if his mother hadn’t forced him to go into engineering, he could’ve been a taller, more handsome and funnier version of Danny DeVito. His mother was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, and contempt stirs at his delusion and ingratitude to the woman. If it weren’t for her, he’d be unemployable and homeless. He certainly wouldn’t be in a position to come into my bakery and harass me. “Maybe you should lobby the city council if you want to ban bakeries.”Good luck. Probably a quarter of the council buys Danishes from my bakery every morning.
“Oh, I intend to. But meanwhile, I do what I can. You see the reaction I’m having because of gluten? I have to take so many precautions to even be near this place.” He indicates his belly. “Look at this! I used to have a six pack until you opened your bakery.” Reggie makes a sympathetic noise.
“You weren’t even here when I started Bobbi’s Sweet Things. You were in Denver, working at an engineering firm.” His mother was so proud of him finally becoming gainfully employed, rather than hopping from one get-rich-quick scheme to another, that she asked me to bake a set of special cookies for him. She was such a lovely woman, it’s astounding she ended up with a man-child like Floyd. The family lottery can be pretty shitty for some people.
