I’m laughing.
I finish laughing, then laugh more because I don’t know who I am anymore.
He finishes. He places the twelfth boule “Dough-drio” on the tray with a decisive thump and looks up, breathing hard.
“Done.”
I look at my stopwatch. I look at the tray of twelve perfectly shaped, identical boules. I look at him.
He is covered in sweat. His black T-shirt is soaked through, clinging to his chest. His face is a mask of pure triumphant exhaustion.
“Twelve minutes,” I say. My voice is quiet, and that scares me a little. “Twelve minutes, twenty-four seconds.”
I walk over, inspect them, and prod Snorlax. It is, infuriatingly, a masterpiece of gluten structure. I can’t find a single flaw. Not one. He has done it. He has mastered the bench scrape. He has earned it.
I stand there looking at him, and for one moment, the circus, the van, the comments, and the hashtag melt away. In this moment, he isn’t a billionaire. He isn’t an intern.
He is… a baker.
I don’t say it out loud because I’m not insane.
Instead, I turn and walk to my tiny back office.
Leo stands there panting, and I can practically feel him wondering if he failed, because he always assumes he’s about to be punished.
I come back holding a sheet of cheap, brightly colored stickers, the kind kindergarten teachers use to bribe children into behaving.
I walk right up to him, so close I can smell the sweat and flour on him, the yeast in the air, the cardamom that seems to live in this bakery and in my skin.
I reach up and, with a firm thwack, slap a single shiny gold star sticker onto his floury, sweat-damp T-shirt. Right over his heart.
Leo looks down at the dumb ten-cent sticker. He looks up at me.
My face is serious, because my face is always serious when I’m doing something I don’t know how to do.
But my eyes, traitors, are dancing.
“A… a gold star?” he asks, voice thick. I hate how proud he looks. I hate it because it makes my own chest feel tight, as if something is trying to bloom there.
This stupid sticker means more to him than the hundred-million-dollar bonus his father gave him last year, and I can see it.
“Don’t get cocky, intern,” I mutter.
But the smile is back, tugging at the corners of my mouth.
“It was… B-plus work. At least.”
Leo is about to say something when Gwen walks in.
“Where’s my sticker, boss?” she asks, surprised while observing us.
“Gwen, you get a pension. He gets a sticker.”
I hear Leo chuckle.
Gwen gasps. “This is discrimination,” she says as she zips up her coat. “I’m leaving. I have a long night of absolutely nothing ahead of me, and I can’t wait. See you, weirdos, tomorrow.”
“Bye, Gwen,” Leo says, pointing proudly at his star.
