“Your shift starts at 4:45 a.m., not 5:00. 4:45.” I hold his gaze.
“Right. 4:45,” he repeats, sober.
His posture changes. Shoulders set. Face serious, as if someone just spoke to him in a language he understands. He nods.
He fumbles with the apron strings, trying to tie them over his stupidly white, tailored jacket. He can’t get the knot. His fingers are manicured, uncalloused. Hands built for screens and signatures, not canvas ties.
I don’t help. I just watch. I don’t have to look at Gwen to know she’s enjoying this as much as I am.
His cheeks flush. After several painful seconds, he manages a lopsided, pathetic bow that immediately starts to come undone.
“Great,” I say, voice dripping acid. “Your first job. You see those?”
I point to the corner of the wash-up area, where a stack of large grey plastic proofing boxes sits like a judgment. Caked in yesterday’s dough residue, dried, gluey, cement-like. The ghost of a hundred loaves.
“They need to be scrubbed,” I tell him. “Fill the three-compartment sink. Hot water and sanitizer in the first bay. Hot, soapy water in the second. Cold rinse in the third. Scrub every single one until it is spotless.” I meet his eyes. “Supplies are in the janitor’s closet. Green bottle. Don’t touch the blue one unless you want to poison us.”
I stare. Hard.
I’m waiting for him to quit. To laugh. To call someone. To make a joke about how this is content. To reveal it’s all performance and he’ll be gone in five minutes.
He just looks at the stack of fossilized dough boxes, then back at me, and nods grimly. From his pocket, he pulls out a device, a tablet of some sort.
“Is that a tablet?” I ask.
“Yes,” Leo says quickly. “Just in case. For notes.”
“Notes?” I repeat, sharp.
“Yeah, you’re explaining a lot of new things, and I didn’t want to miss anything.”
“No.”
The word is quiet. Absolute.
Leo blinks. “No?”
“No tablet,” I say. “No notes. If you write things down, you’ll try to do it right instead of doing it real. And this place doesn’t work that way.”
He looks down at the tablet. Hesitates. Half a second. Then sets it on the shelf by the door. Out of reach.
“Ok,” I say, pointing at the cleaning supplies. “Green bottle. Three compartments. Spotless. Got it.”
I hold his gaze for a beat, searching for cracks.
Then I turn. “Gwen,” I call, because I refuse to let my kitchen pause, “that butter isn’t going to laminate itself.”
The prep room door swings shut behind him, sealing him off with a soft whoosh, like the bakery itself is exhaling in relief.
I go back to my table. Back to my dough. Back to the things that are real. The rhythm resumes: Gwen pounding butter into submission, the bench scraper shushing through sourdough, the oven humming low and steady. The smell of yeast rising. The quiet, unglamorous music of work.
I tell myself he’ll be gone by noon. I tell myself this will be one of those stories you recount later with exhausted laughter: Remember when a billionaire showed up and tried to cosplay as an employee?
I do not give him the satisfaction of checking on him immediately. I wait.
When I finally step back into the wash-up area, because time passes and the air feels… wrong, I find my worst expectations surpassed.
The space is a war zone.
