She is leaning over a battered laptop, brow furrowed, lips moving as she silently calculates.
From where I stand, I can see rows of numbers reflected faintly in the glass. I try to imagine what she is looking at: flour costs, butter costs, payroll hours. Margins so thin they are practically theoretical. Right now, all I know is that she looks like someone trying to physically intimidate Excel into submission.
She taps keys sharply, jaw tightening, shoulders squared as if the numbers might try something. There is tension in her posture, a tight, coiled focus that makes it clear this is not busywork. This is survival math.
The bell on the prep room door chimes, and another woman stumbles in from the back. She is yawning so wide it looks painful, hair a brown-streaked mess, moving on autopilot toward the industrial coffee machine like it is the only thing keeping her upright.
“Morning, boss,” she mumbles. “Did the numbers behave themselves, or do I need to prepare for another ‘we’re switching to cheaper chocolate’ speech?”
The woman at the laptop, Tess, does not look up.
“They’re on a final warning,” she says. “And we never switch to cheaper chocolate. We would rather go down fighting.”
“That’s my girl,” the other woman mutters, downing an espresso like a shot. “Ok, what’s the plan, Stan?”
Tess clicksSaveand snaps the laptop shut. Even through glass, the sound feels final.
“You’re on laminated dough,” she says. “I need forty classic croissants, twenty pain au chocolate, and fifteen pistachio-cardamom twists. I’ll start the hearth loaves. Auntie June is feeling feisty today.”
“You got it.”
The two of them move immediately, seamlessly. It is a practiced, silent dance, the kind that only comes from working together long enough to stop needing words. I watch Gwen, because that must be Gwen, pound a block of butter into a perfect, cold rectangle with rhythmic precision. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Tess divides a massive tub of sourdough with a bench scraper, her movements economical and exact. The low, powerful hum of the convection oven builds in the background.
Even from outside, it is obvious: this is her sanctuary. This is the work. It is hard, it is honest, it is real.
I ring the doorbell.
I know the exact second it happens because everything inside freezes. Tess stops mid-motion, scraper in hand. Gwen halts, butter mallet suspended in the air.
It is 5:00 a.m. on the dot.
I don’t know the bakery’s rhythms yet, but I understand instinctively that this is wrong. No customers. No deliveries. No casual drop-ins. Something about the way Tess exhales slowly and controlled tells me this hour only brings problems.
She wipes her hands on her apron, sending up a small puff of flour, and whatever dread flickered across her face is quickly replaced with irritation. I watch her stalk through the cozy seating area toward the front, past shelves she clearly built herself.
She reaches the door.
And stops.
I am standing under the flickering, old-fashioned gaslight of her antique sign, holding my phone and squinting between the address on the screen and the Sunrise & Salt logo etched into the glass.
I don’t knock. I don’t wave. I just stand there.
I am painfully aware, in this moment, that I look wrong.
I am tall, apparently distractingly so, with the kind of face that belongs on a billboard advertising billion-dollar watches, not on a bakery doorstep before dawn. And I am wearing what can only be described as a costume.
The baker’s uniform Amelia procured is blindingly white. Sterile. Crisp. The jacket is custom-tailored, fitting my shoulders perfectly. The pants have a knife-edge crease. The skull cap sits absurdly atop my dark, carefully styled hair. It looks less like authentic workwear and more like an architect’s rendering of one.
It almost certainly costs more than her walk-in freezer.
The deadbolt clicks.
The door swings open, and cold morning air rushes past me, smelling of damp pavement and exhaust, cutting sharply through the warmth inside.
“We’re not open,” she says.
Her voice is flat. Final.
