less than thirty seconds. She’d work for three hours, go back upstairs, and wake up Andy and get him to school by eight thirty, right on time, before heading back to the bakery. She stepped around Evelyn Sigona’s station wagon and went inside.
Evelyn was working with the stand mixer, preparing cupcake batter, her long hair coiled into a neat bun. It was dark brown, with one shock of white running through it—her half-life stripe, she called it, because it had appeared almost overnight a few years ago on her forty-fifth birthday. She had an apron on over jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and as usual, she was wearing her kitchen clogs.
“Hey, Evelyn,” Jane said in greeting as she walked in.
Evelyn flicked off the mixer and gave her a smile. “Morning, Jane!” she said. “I saw the cake in the fridge. It looks great!”
“Thanks. I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out.” Jane took off her cardigan and pulled an apron over her head. “Did the flowers come yet?”
“The delivery was out back when I got here.”
Jane sighed. “Not surprising. Their customer service has been slipping.”
“Anyway, I put them in water to keep them fresh. They’re over there if you want to take a look.” Evelyn pointed to the pantry, a smaller side room where they kept baking supplies and sometimes did prep work.
Jane peeked her head in. One vase, only three-quarters of the way filled with puny blooms, sat on a small utility table in the center of the room.
“Their quality’s slipping, too,” she told Evelyn, who was filling cupcake papers in a large tray, “but they’ll have to do. I’ll set everything up on-site at Briarwood this afternoon.”
“Good. Thanks for taking it on.”
Jane nodded. She took any chance she got to earn extra money for Mountain Laurel Cakes. And now that Jane’s cake work was becoming more in demand, Evelyn gave her more leeway to take bakery time to manage that growing aspect of the business. Even though Jane did the bulk of the work, she was grateful. Evelyn gave her the time, space, and materials, not to mention the platform. But she was still new, and every gig counted.
Jane washed her hands in the large kitchen sink. She had been desperate for a job—
any
job—before Evelyn had hired her three years ago. When she first came to work at Mountain Laurel Cakes, she’d known nothing about baking professionally. Dan had told her that any wife of his shouldn’t be working, so despite her degree in mechanical engineering, she hadn’t worked, but she’d needed
something
to fill her time. She’d always been interested in food, so she spent hours watching the numerous food channels on cable TV. After a while, that got boring, so she started experimenting with her own baking. She took a few classes. She made a few nice cakes for friends. And that was it for a while.
Then Andy came along, and that was the best kind of work there was. She loved everything about him—the little tuft of hair on his head, the way he squinched up his face when he was hungry, the babbling sounds he made when he looked at her, and his smell—oh, that new baby smell was just heaven. She’d devoted the first two years of his life to caring for him, doting on him, and doing everything she could to nurture and grow her young family.
Boy,
had she been stupid. Andy turned out just fine, but thinking that domestic bliss would last forever was idiocy. Of course, it didn’t last. Because Dan turned out to be a sociopath. He’d been her first serious relationship out of college. He was half a decade older, and he seemed so worldly and mature. He took care of everything—the house, the car, the finances, the insurance. She couldn’t see how controlling he actually was until it was too late.
But hindsight was always twenty-twenty, right? Leaving Dan meant she needed to support herself somehow, but when she went looking for a job, she found out that her dusty engineering degree with little experience to back
Evelyn was working with the stand mixer, preparing cupcake batter, her long hair coiled into a neat bun. It was dark brown, with one shock of white running through it—her half-life stripe, she called it, because it had appeared almost overnight a few years ago on her forty-fifth birthday. She had an apron on over jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and as usual, she was wearing her kitchen clogs.
“Hey, Evelyn,” Jane said in greeting as she walked in.
Evelyn flicked off the mixer and gave her a smile. “Morning, Jane!” she said. “I saw the cake in the fridge. It looks great!”
“Thanks. I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out.” Jane took off her cardigan and pulled an apron over her head. “Did the flowers come yet?”
“The delivery was out back when I got here.”
Jane sighed. “Not surprising. Their customer service has been slipping.”
“Anyway, I put them in water to keep them fresh. They’re over there if you want to take a look.” Evelyn pointed to the pantry, a smaller side room where they kept baking supplies and sometimes did prep work.
Jane peeked her head in. One vase, only three-quarters of the way filled with puny blooms, sat on a small utility table in the center of the room.
“Their quality’s slipping, too,” she told Evelyn, who was filling cupcake papers in a large tray, “but they’ll have to do. I’ll set everything up on-site at Briarwood this afternoon.”
“Good. Thanks for taking it on.”
Jane nodded. She took any chance she got to earn extra money for Mountain Laurel Cakes. And now that Jane’s cake work was becoming more in demand, Evelyn gave her more leeway to take bakery time to manage that growing aspect of the business. Even though Jane did the bulk of the work, she was grateful. Evelyn gave her the time, space, and materials, not to mention the platform. But she was still new, and every gig counted.
Jane washed her hands in the large kitchen sink. She had been desperate for a job—
any
job—before Evelyn had hired her three years ago. When she first came to work at Mountain Laurel Cakes, she’d known nothing about baking professionally. Dan had told her that any wife of his shouldn’t be working, so despite her degree in mechanical engineering, she hadn’t worked, but she’d needed
something
to fill her time. She’d always been interested in food, so she spent hours watching the numerous food channels on cable TV. After a while, that got boring, so she started experimenting with her own baking. She took a few classes. She made a few nice cakes for friends. And that was it for a while.
Then Andy came along, and that was the best kind of work there was. She loved everything about him—the little tuft of hair on his head, the way he squinched up his face when he was hungry, the babbling sounds he made when he looked at her, and his smell—oh, that new baby smell was just heaven. She’d devoted the first two years of his life to caring for him, doting on him, and doing everything she could to nurture and grow her young family.
Boy,
had she been stupid. Andy turned out just fine, but thinking that domestic bliss would last forever was idiocy. Of course, it didn’t last. Because Dan turned out to be a sociopath. He’d been her first serious relationship out of college. He was half a decade older, and he seemed so worldly and mature. He took care of everything—the house, the car, the finances, the insurance. She couldn’t see how controlling he actually was until it was too late.
But hindsight was always twenty-twenty, right? Leaving Dan meant she needed to support herself somehow, but when she went looking for a job, she found out that her dusty engineering degree with little experience to back
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