They were interrupted on the tour of the bakery by Ruth’s arrival.
After the introductions, Ruth looked Charles up and down. “So you’re half of the new tenants, hmm?”
“How did you know?” Libbie asked. “You weren’t here when they got here on Saturday.”
She stepped forward to shake hands with him. “I heard all about them from Grover when I ran into him at Publix Sunday after church.
Nice to meet you, young man.”
Libbie left Ruth to get started on the morning’s preparations while she continued showing Charles around. When they reached the storeroom, he let out a low whistle. “Someone likes their label machine.”
Admittedly, she’d gone a little hog wild with the thing, a housewarming gift of sorts from Grover when she bought the building.
Bless his heart, he’d foreseen her need to stay organized to help combat the fibro fog. Utensils, pans, and tools, along with specialty items that didn’t need to be in the main kitchen all the time were stored on shelves and in two large sets of stainless cabinets with drawers, each one bearing several labels reflecting the contents neatly stored amongst dividers inside.
Along many of the shelves, where pots, dishes, pans, and other assorted items resided were more labels, taped to plastic cards affixed to the wire racks. As well as places for standard dry supplies like sugar, flour, salt, and the like.
“Do you have the cooler labeled like this, too?”
She felt her face heat. “No. They wouldn’t stick.”
“Does the label maker have a label?” He laughed, but she sensed 88 Tymber Dalton
no meanness behind it.
“You think I’m crazy?” she asked.
“Yep. You’re crazy,” Charles gently teased.
She stuck her tongue out at him. “Shows how much you know,”
she lightly retorted. “I’m not crazy. My mother had me tested.”
Charles roared with laughter at her playful smirk. “Ah, you love the show, too, huh?”
“Yeah. The Big Bang Theory has to be my all-time favorite. No matter how crappy I feel, I can watch that and laugh. I practically know all the episodes by heart.” She dumped the ball of dough out onto the floured board. “I have all the past seasons on DVD, and the current ones on my DVR. I can watch them over and over again and never get tired of them.”
“Something we have in common, then,” he said.
He’d finally coaxed a smile out of her. If it meant he had to go around quoting The Big Bang Theory all the time, he’d do it.
Anything to make her smile, to take the perpetual look of pain from her face for a moment.
Admittedly her system, while perhaps appearing to be overkill to those who didn’t understand how bad the mental fuzziness dubbed fibro fog could be, was genius. It meant he’d have little trouble finding things or figuring out what to do next.
She led him over to a little alcove between the office door and the bakery. Several shelves held clean aprons and dishtowels. Another held a box of hairnets. “Sorry they’re not a fashion statement,” she said. “Health regulations. If you’re working the counter, or doing cleanup, you don’t need one, but for actual prep work and baking, you do.” He realized she’d worn her hair in a braided ponytail today. She reached up and deftly twisted it into a makeshift bun before pulling one of the hairnets over her hair and grabbing an apron. She handed It’s a Sweet Life 89
him a hairnet and an apron. “I’m going to have you working with Ruth this morning. She’s handling today’s usuals. We make them every day. Grover takes on the more specialty items and helps me with some of the decorating.”
He pulled on the hairnet before slipping the apron on over his head and tying it around his waist. “Point me in the right direction.
I’m here to help.”
When Grover showed up a few minutes later, he walked over to Allan and, out of earshot of Libbie, leaned in and asked, “She doing okay today?”
He glanced across the kitchen, where Libbie had just headed out into the storefront. “I think she’s hurting, but she’s good at hiding it well.”
“You better believe she is. She don’t like to ask for help. She’s a proud, stubborn, independent woman.” He tapped Allan on the shoulder before wagging a finger at him. “Remember what I told you.
I’m counting on you two being my eyes and ears.”
Allan nodded. “Yes, sir.”
By the time the store opened at seven thirty, the display cases were over three-quarters full with more items on the way out of the ovens or fryers. Three people were lined up outside the door when Jenny raised the shades, unlocked the door, and welcomed them in.
Allan was surprised to discover some of the items, while technically fresh, were prepared in advance and frozen. “I don’t know why I never thought of that,” he said to Grover while lifting a tray of bread into the oven. Libbie was in the store, helping Jenny serve the wave of morning customers as more filtered in.
“It’s a time-saver. Some things, we have to make fresh every day or they just wouldn’t taste as good. Or Little Miss Pigheaded refuses to make them ahead because she prefers to do them the same day. But we do ahead what we can the afternoon before, sometimes even a couple of days before. She don’t like to do them too far in advance.
Special order items are always made fresh, like wedding cakes.”
90 Tymber
Dalton
“How many of those does she do?”
“Not as many as I wish she would. They pay really well, but it’s hard on her. I can do basic stuff, some piping and flowers, but she’s the artist when it comes to the fancy cakes. Not to mention she’s only one person and only has twenty-four hours in a day. She can’t predict when her pain will be bad, so she rarely takes on more than one special order a week that requires a lot of decorating.”
“What about Ruth?”
“She’ll do the stuff we sell in the store, like cookies and cupcakes and the likes, or frost the cakes before Libbie takes over, but she doesn’t do as much as I do when it comes to the special stuff.”
Allan considered that. “How hard is it to do that kind of stuff? I’m artistic. I draw.”
He smiled. “Drawing isn’t the same as sculpting sugar in three dimensions.” He closed the oven and set a timer before walking over to the list and crossing off yet another item. “Come here.” He led Allan into the office and showed him two shelves full of cookbooks, cake decorating manuals, and other food-related guides. “Make sure to ask Libbie first, but I’m sure she’ll say yes to letting you borrow any of these.”
Allan pulled one out, a basic primer on decorating cakes, and flipped through it. “I think this is really neat. Do you think she’d let me practice?”
“Absolutely. If you get to the point where you can do some of that for her, it’d be a huge weight off her shoulders, I’m sure.”
Allan returned the book to the shelf and followed him back into the kitchen. “So what’s next?”
Grover pointed to Ruthie. “She’ll show you how to whip up cake batter for the red velvet cakes. They’re one of our best sellers.” Allan knew he’d never remember everything he’d already learned, much less what he knew was coming. Then he glanced at the list hanging on the whiteboard and he realized he didn’t have to. From the laminated recipe pages in the notebooks, to the well-organized storeroom, all he It’s a Sweet Life 91
had to do was follow directions and enjoy his morning. Ruth and Jenny were as welcoming as Grover and Libbie had been.
It struck him that while he liked what he did in Miami, and enjoyed many of his coworkers, he didn’t have the easy camaraderie there that he’d found after just a few hours in this bakery.