Page 5 of Forbidden to Fall

“Morgan will be coming into town next week,” she said.

The eraser in my hand nicked a nearby letter. I stifled a sigh. I’d have to rewrite the whole line.

“Oh,” I said, trying to keep my tone upbeat.

Morgan was Mrs. Keller’s daughter. She would be inheriting the role of Baker in Chief when Mrs. Keller retired.

“How long will she stay?” I asked, hoping it sounded off-hand.

It wasn’t that I disliked Morgan. Three just felt like a crowd at the bakery.

Okay, fine. I may have harbored a bit of simmering resentment toward her. I’d been at Keller’s Bakehouse for a long time. I knew our products better than anyone but Mrs. Keller herself—and all the dead Kellers who’d come before, of course. Meanwhile, Morgan was living her best life in Boston managing client accounts for some big mortgage company. She made trips to Autumn Ridge twice each year. Twice.

She had long, pointy nails that ripped through all of our gloves, and she constantly confused baking soda and powder.

It made no sense at all that Mrs. Keller would entrust her precious bakery to such an unqualified person when she could have chosen me. Then again, I lacked one critical trait: the Keller name.

“A few weeks at least,” Mrs. Keller said. “She wants to get more hands-on experience.”

I took in a steady breath as I erased the line I’d nicked. That had to mean Mrs. Keller was getting closer to retirement.

“Speaking of which,” Mrs. Keller said, opening a drawer and taking out a box of chalk, “I’ve been looking at the schedule…”

With precise movements, I wrote apple muffins.

“Paying three full-time bakers instead of two is a stretch for the books.”

My perfect line of chalk faltered as the chalk broke between my fingers. I didn’t even care.

I turned to look at Mrs. Keller. Was she about to fire me?

She pulled out a new piece of chalk and handed it to me. “I hope you understand.”

I blinked. “A-a-are you letting me go?”

“What? No! I only meant that I might not be able to give you your usual hours.”

I let out a breath of relief.

“I think I can safely promise twenty-five or so—I’d like to have you come in three mornings a week to prep everything, then I’ll be here with Morgan the other mornings so she can get experience with that and how things run in the later part of the day. Does that work for you?”

I was so relieved I still had a job—and would have less overlap with Morgan than I’d feared—that I nodded quickly.

But once I headed upstairs to my apartment, my relief had shapeshifted into something very different.

My hours had been cut for the first time in years. No, ever.

That meant less income, which hadn’t exactly been flowing freely before. I was an assistant baker in a small town, not Mary Berry. But the reduction in hours also brought up a whole lot of questions. Questions like, was this the beginning of the end? What would happen to me when Morgan took over for real? Would she even keep me on?

What would I do if she let me go? Baking was all I knew.

Unlike most of my friends from high school, I hadn’t gone off to college and learned skills. I’d dreamed of culinary school, but it had always felt out of reach. I’d save money, only to have it disappear when I chipped a tooth or my car’s alternator needed replacing.

I didn’t usually bake when I got home, but I had three bottles of syrup sitting on my counter, so I stress-baked some maple cream puffs in my tiny kitchen.

I’d lived with my mom and dad until about a year ago. Moving above the bakery had been my desperate attempt for some dignity as a twenty-six-year-old woman. For Mrs. Keller, it had been a way to finally sleep in until five after years and years of waking at 2:30.

The apartment was a studio. A small studio. I couldn’t even fit a regular 9x13 pan in my oven. Three jars of maple syrup took up a frightening percentage of my counter space, and the only dishwasher I had was my own hands.