Sammy was currently pulling up the floorboards in the bakery kitchen while Robin kneaded something on the worktop in the center of the room. Bella was out front manning the register.
Once he’d decided to help Robin and met with Seth, he’d laid out a plan. Tearing up the wood floor and laying down the tile should only take the two days he’d promised Robin. Right now, though, he was trying to decide if he could stall a little. The warm bakery with its sweet, yeasty scent wrapped him in a safe feeling, like a child’s blanket after a scary dream.
He was glad Robin had agreed to his plan for the changes in the kitchen. They would streamline a few things for her as well as bring the kitchen up to code. Robin had said the bakery kitchen’s layout and cabinetry had been grandfathered in because of the age of the building, but he didn’t want her getting into any trouble with the health inspector.
Late the week before, at the lumberyard, he had picked out the right pieces to build the sink structure. Sammy took the lumber home. In his mother’s garage he had a small wood shop complete with a heater for the winter months.
He had used his lathe to turn the 4x4 square lengths of wood into spindles for the new cabinet structure. After turning all four legs, he’d sanded them smooth and stained the wood with a deep red stain matching the Fox’s existing color scheme. Now those pieces were waiting for him to finish the tiling so he could frame up the sink.
He sat back on his heels in the Fox Bakery kitchen. Robin brushed past him as she headed for the cooler, then again as she went out into the dining room. Her perfume mingled with the sweet, vanilla smell of the bakery. Smiling at the interruption, he inspected his work. One more board ought to be enough. He pried up the last of the floorboards and set it on the pile, making sure it was out of the way of the traffic into and out of the kitchen.
Underneath the floorboards, a layer of dust covered the sub-floor. Sammy got up and went to the janitor’s closet tucked between the wall and the walk-in cooler. Out in the dining room, Robin was talking to someone, then she called goodbye. A moment later, she came into the kitchen.
“That was Ronnie Dahlquist.” She gestured with a thumb over her shoulder. “It was fun to meet the woman Peter ended up with. They seem to be crazy for each other. There was a time when I thought he’d never be married. Isn’t he related to everyone in town?”
Sammy laughed. “Yeah, poor guy. Good thing Ronnie rescued him from a lifetime of singleness.”
Robin pushed a stray hair out of her eyes. “Speaking of rescue, did you know that the youth center had someone donate a new furnace?”
A Carrier Infinity 98 gas furnace with Greenspeed Intelligence? Yeah, he knew about that. “Really? That’s great.” He bit back a smile. When the bank had let him know his money was available, he’d gone straight to spending it.
“I guess they paid for the installation too. The crew will finish up by the end of the week. You’ll be able to move your tutoring sessions back over there by the end of the month.” She moved closer to where he was working.
Shoot. That was one cost he hadn’t factored in. “I don’t know. Your cupcakes are so inspiring, I don’t think we can move.”
Robin smiled at him. “You know you’re welcome anytime.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” He swept the dust into a dustbin, then reached for a washcloth and cleaning bucket. The tile grout wouldn’t stick to a dirty floor.
“If you’re really hard up for baked goods, I have an idea. Maybe you should help me chaperone the dance. I hear that pays in cupcakes too.” She gave him a saucy wink.
“I’ll have to think about it. I’d hate to face the demons of the dance floor. I remember being terrible at it in school.” A sticky spot on the floor claimed his attention for a moment.
“Come on, Fred Astaire. What’s to think about? It won’t be that bad. You don’t even have to dance.” Robin knelt beside him and took the washcloth and attacked the stain. The spot disappeared. “Megan said she needed two people. Plus, you’re so wonderful with kids, you’ll do great.” She took the bucket from him and refilled it at the sink. “Come along with me so I have at least one friend there. I don’t know many people anymore, so you can smooth things over for me. Help me avoid any traps because I don’t recognize one of the other chaperones as a former classmate now that they’ve gained twenty pounds or lost all their hair. Please, I need you.”
So, it was going to be emotional persuasion. “Fine, you win.” He was rewarded by a bright smile before she handed him the bucket of clean water.
The door chimed again, and Robin headed out to the dining room.
He finished cleaning the area to be tiled. As he put away the cleaning supplies, he saw a tattered catalog sitting on the office desk. He picked it up and flipped through the pages. Kitchen equipment.
Several pages had been dog-eared with notes running along the sides. The catalog fell open to a page more worn than the others. Next to the MIWE Cube oven someone—Robin perhaps?—had made a note “too expensive” with a tiny sad face drawn next to the photo. He flipped to the back. Robin’s name and a Paris address were stamped on the address label.
Interesting. He hadn’t known Robin was a doodler.
Now he wanted to tell Robin to let the floor dry, and he would come the next day to finish the tiling. When she didn’t return after a few minutes, he decided to investigate. At a table in the corner, Ben Zimmerman sat, looking intrigued. Robin sat next to him, head bent over a book.
“You just need to imagine this circle like a real pie,” he heard her say. What was happening here?
“Wait a minute.” She got up from the table and plucked two round focaccia loaves from the display case. “Okay, these two are the same size. We could divide them into two pieces each or six pieces or ten or whatever, but it wouldn’t change the fact that they are the same size. For example.” She tore one of the loaves in half, then pulled one of those halves into three pieces. Leaving the first half-loaf in a stack, she picked up the other loaf, tore it in half and one of those halves into two pieces, setting the chunks on top of each other. “Which one of these stacks is one half of a loaf?”
Ben’s face cleared. “They all are! I get it now. Thanks, Ms. Fox.” He jotted something on the paper. “Like this?”
“You’ve got it! Well done, Ben.” She patted him on the back and slid some of the bread toward him. Ben crammed a bite into his mouth.
“Math is a lot easier when there’s food,” he said around the bite.
Hey! Sammy didn’t want to be left out of getting the snacks. “You got that right,” Sammy said, clearing his throat. At the table, the math wizards looked up at him.
