Authors: Elizabeth Butts
CHAPTER TWENTY
I was amazed at how quickly the crazy train got moving once the wheels started turning. I would have expected some huge drawn out contractual process where I had to sign a million pages of paper and lease agreements with contingencies and clauses. I thought I’d have to wait forty five to sixty days in order to receive my keys, time that I would use to create an opening menu, determine necessary inventory and track down some equipment.
Instead, Eve had some lease agreement she’d downloaded from a legal website, and hand wrote our agreed upon terms and we both initialed them. She pressed the keys in my hand an hour later and practically skipped away, excited to have leased the shop.
I would bring the lease agreement to Liam and have him review it for any issues his legal mind could find, but in the meantime, I just wanted to be in my shop. I held the keys up to Nick and dangled them, grinning at him.
“Okay, let’s take another look.”
I should be embarrassed to admit that I squealed like a little girl as I ran to the front door and unlocked it. Stepping inside the shop the second time was different. Knowing that this was going to be where our dream pulled together to become reality nearly knocked me over. I don’t know if I imagined it, but I felt a slight brush of air on my cheek and the smell of marzipan. I grinned, because it felt like Nonna was in this place with me and that I had her approval.
“This is going to be a lot of work, Alex, are you going to be willing to accept help?”
I started to automatically turn him down, but when I saw him physically brace himself against the rejection I stopped. This was
his
Nonna, too. He had known her longer that I did, and he stayed. He didn’t leave and never come back. He’d even followed her from Providence to Onset.
Sigh.
“Yeah, I’ll accept your help. But Nick, this is as friends, nothing else. We are not dating.”
“Ever?”
“Undecided, but leaning towards no.” I hated having to say that, but my brain knew he would just break my heart. Hard. This battle raging in my mind between my brain and my heart was getting tiring.
“Gotcha, just friends, cleaning a pretty gross space, nothing else.” He reached out his hand to shake on the agreement. I reached forward and grabbed his hand to shake and was shocked when goosebumps formed on my arm. That little gust of air happened again. I looked up and saw a facial expression that must have mirrored mine.
Nonna, stop it. No beyond the grave match making.
I sent up the silent plea, hoping they got mental email up in Heaven.
Nick cleared his throat.
“Uh, okay, I’m going to head home right now. Why don’t you start a list and tomorrow I’ll come by and help out.” He tripped over himself in his effort to make a hasty exit. I should have been upset that he abandoned me, but I had to laugh. Besides, I was kind of happy to get the first hours alone in my new shop.
Looking around I realized I had no cleaning supplies, nor a pad of paper to write down what I would need.
I walked out, locked up, and went in the direction of a small convenience store I’d seen when we were walking around earlier. While there, I grabbed a bucket, a mop, a broom, some of those pre-saturated cleaning cloths, a pad of paper and a pen.
I struggled to get back in to the bakery with my arms filled with supplies, but somehow managed to before everything fell to the ground.
What cleaning project would have the biggest impact for right now? I looked around. Cleaning down the surfaces. I started on the counter and all the woodwork I could find, including the wide plank floor boards, not stopping until all surfaces gleamed.
I sat back and looked around. It was a completely different shop without the layer of dust and grime everywhere. I could really see it, the bakery was going to be real. I laid down on my freshly clean floor giggling, and then promptly passed out cold from exhaustion.
***
Two weeks passed in a blur of cleaning, organizing, rearranging and buying. I put internet in both the little cottage and the store, so that I could go online to order equipment, find new recipes and find vendors for supplies. I’d downloaded a program into my tablet to let me take credit cards, so that was all set.
I found this antique, old school register that was still in working condition, so I got that and used the internet to figure out how best to clean it, and how the hell to work it.
I had figured out the interior design of the café. I was going to do the wall on the right when you first walked in with pale pink polka dotted wallpaper, to match that apron that Nonna had gotten me. The chalkboard painted menu areas to the left of the register would be framed by wood molding, painted in the same pale pink. Behind the counter would be shelves to hold fresh baked bread and pastries, as well as the multiple ovens so people could see everything baking.
I hadn’t figured out the most important part.
The name.
I had spent the last two weeks coming up with what I was certain would be ‘the name’, only to scratch that suggestion out and throw it away. Now I understood why Cheryl had been okay with calling her shop ‘coffee’.
I was sitting in the corner table at the coffe shop, struggling with a name.
It was between five:
Nonna's Sweet Dreams
Nonna's Flour Power
Nonna's Baking Memories
Nonna's Sticky Buns
Sweet Nonna's
There were things I liked about each of them, and things that I wasn’t crazy about. It really needed to make people aware that it was a bakery. I wasn’t sure that
Sweet Nonna’s
or
Nonna’s Sweet Dreams
were right, but I still really liked them.
“Hi, are you Alex?”
My head whipped up to see this chick with some crazy red hair standing in front of me. I tried to mentally place her but failed.
“Uh, yeah, Alex Edwards”. I reached out to shake her hand. She shook it quickly, pulled out the chair across from me and sat down.
“Mind if I sit?” I raised an eyebrow, because she had asked about thirty seconds too late.
“Sure?” I mean, really. What was I supposed to say to that?
“Thanks. My name is Ashley, I live one town over in Wareham, but come here all the time because Cheryl’s got the best coffee game.”
“Nice to meet you. Yeah, I was beyond excited that there was a coffee place in town that did more than just brew coffee and pour it into a mug.”
“I thought Nonna said you lived in Atlanta.”
My mouth dropped open. I really had to start getting used to people knowing Nonna and talking about her so freely. Mom and dad really didn’t have much to say, they’d never spent any time with her. So over time, Nonna was someone who just lived in my heart and my head. But here, surrounded by so many people who obviously loved her, it was like she’d never died.
“Well, yeah, I did for like, ten years, I guess.”
“Then why don’t you have an accent. When I’d heard you were in town, I was expecting a super cute southern accent.”
“Sugah, there ain’t nuthin’ super cute about little ole me.” I laid it on
thick
, giving her everything she wanted and more, because I added fluttering eyelashes for good measure.
Her eyes bugged out a moment before she started laughing.
“Sorry, I apparently had unreal expectations. But seriously, why no accent?”
I shrugged.
“My parents and I moved around a lot for my dad’s work. So I never really stayed in one place long enough to pick up an accent. By the time we were in Atlanta, I was sixteen, so it just didn’t stick.” I had no idea why I was sharing anything with her. She had just sort of barged in on me and I still didn’t know why.
She nodded. I watched her as she bit her lip and played with a napkin. She was giving off all the signs of having something to say but being afraid that it was perhaps inappropriate. Which meant this chick had a filter. What a novelty.
“Out with it.”
“What?”
“You are dying to say something or ask something, but you’re telling yourself that you shouldn’t. So, just… out with it. None of that filtered speech crap.”
She glared at me.
“Okay, you want me to ask what I’m trying hard not to ask? Fine, so, word on the street is that you are
finally
making Nonna’s dream from the 1940s a reality. You are putting in a bakery? Is that legit?” She crossed her arms and sat back, daring me to either confirm or refute, I wasn’t sure which.
Should I make her suffer, and wait? Nah, this chick seemed pretty nice. And honestly, despite everyone being nice to me and everything when they figured out that I was ‘Nonna’s Alex’, she’s the first one to sit down and try to get to know me.
“Yup, putting in a bakery.”
“Oh my God, that is so fun and exciting and super cool!”
“Yeah, I guess.” My enthusiasm for the project had been somewhat dampened by the fact that I couldn’t name my bakery to save myself.
“Nonna said she taught you, and that you had ended up becoming a better baker than she had ever dreamt of. Is that true?”
I had no words. She thought that? She thought I had become better than her?
“That’s not possible. No one is better than Nonna. Besides, I hadn’t seen her in ten years. Between school and then work, I never made it back up here to see her.” I was shaking my head, telling the tears that threatened to stay where they belonged.
“Yeah, I know, but you sent her every single recipe that you created. She was so proud that you wanted to develop new versions of the old recipes, to reach more people and more tastes. But she hoped you’d still do the originals, too.”
The lump that formed in my throat had grown to a boulder while Ashley spoke. These were words that Nonna never spoke to me, but that wasn’t her way. She let you know she was proud of you with more than words. It was in actions, always actions. Sort of like telling an entire town about you in your absence so that when you finally made your way home, you weren’t a stranger.
“Can you make zeppole and cannoli like Nonna, because if so I can’t
wait
to try some.”
Okay, now I knew this chick’s game. She was going to be my friend so that she could get some free food. Whatever. I was not going to lay victim to that bullshit. Been there, done that, had the t-shirt.
“Well, just keep an eye on the front of the store, I’ll be posting the grand opening pretty soon. I have to go now, I have to move everything around in there tomorrow because Saturday morning I’ll be there early painting. Nice meeting you, Ashley.”
My abrupt exit left her looking really confused. Good. I’d had my fill of people pretending to use me for something other than just friendship. Let her think about what she said and did. No free pastries here, sweetheart. You’ll be a paying customer just like everyone else.
The truth was, I did have a lot of painting tomorrow. And I had to figure out if I could handle the wallpaper on my own or if I needed help.
I pulled into my little driveway and stepped out of the car.
“Hey, Alex. How’s the bakery coming along?” A shiver of what I could only describe as desire ran up and down my back in response to Nick’s voice. I was going to have to button down that reaction
really
quick. And wait a minute, wasn’t he supposed to be here to help me today?
I spun around and fixed him with my bitchiest glare.
“It’s going great. Thanks
so
much for all your help. Oh, wait. That wasn’t you. It must have been the imaginary Nick who told me he was going to help out.” I stood there, with my hand on my hip. I may have been overreacting, I mean, it wasn’t like he had any reason to help me. But I was in a shit mood and this was the Alex he was getting.
“Nothing to say? Hmmm, shocker. Nick, I’m busy. I have a lot going on. When you are wanting to be serious about anything having to do with us in any way, shape or form, come see me.”
I walked into my house, slammed the door, and took a little bit of satisfaction in the echo from the slam of the door.
Sigh. Double sigh.
I hated the finality of the slamming door, but I needed to pull up my big girl panties and just stick with my guns. I was so done with this. With being on the edge all the time, wondering if we had a chance or not.
I turned on my tablet, and went to ForeverUs.com, a dating site I’d seen advertised. It was time for me to find a
real
distraction. I started my profile.
I’m a woman in her mid to late twenties who is about to be a business woman in the Cape area of Massachusetts. I’ve been told I’m abrasive and a bit too ‘snarky’, but the fact of the matter is, I call it like I see it. You want pink tutus and glitter, hit up a ballet studio. I am a chick who wears Chucks, not Choos. You want Jimmy Choo stilettos, find someone else, you’re not for me. I like Italian baking, not lettuce leaves. You want a size zero to a size four? Move on, little man, you’re not for me. If you want someone who would like an equal partner in life, laughter, someone who can bake so well that you will need to expand your pant size, hit me up. You found me.