Chapter 97: Sucker's Bet
Tempestuous
Words are wind, so I write.
- Location
- CA
AN: Beta-read by Carbohydratos, Did I?, Gaia, Linedoffice, Zephyrosis, and Mizu.
As it turned out, I didn't have to wait until school started back up to see one of my 'loyal customers'. Megan came by in early August, accompanied by a man and a woman I assumed were her parents, and a younger girl hiding in a hoodie despite weather that hadn't fully given way from summer to autumn.
"You do birthday cakes?" the man who was probably Megan's father asked. He was a tall man with receding auburn hair, closing in on fifty if he hadn't passed it already and wearing clothes I could best describe as 'dress casual'.
"We do," I confirmed, grabbing the pad of order slips and a pen from my apron. "Who's it for?"
"Rebecca, here." He thumped the girl in question on the shoulder.
"What size and what kind?"
"How large a cake would you recommend for twenty people?"
"Do you want a round cake or a flat cake?"
"Flat cake."
"How large will the pieces you serve be? We sell our flat-cake-by-the-slice in three inch squares"—I pointed to the display case where those slices were—"but that's a lot. You'll probably be cutting two by three or two by two."
The man looked at the woman who was probably his wife, a short woman with bleached-blonde hair in a cut that screamed, 'I want to speak to your manager.' "We'll do two by two, and let people have seconds," she said.
"So you're going to want forty servings of two by two squares?" I asked. They nodded. "A one-third sheet cake is eleven by fifteen inches, which is forty-one and a bit." I pointed to the laminated sheet on the counter showing our cake sizes and recommended cuts. "Thirty-five squares, six oddly shaped one-by-four pieces, and a little left over."
"What if we wanted every piece square?" the man asked.
"You'd need to go up to a half-sheet, twelve by sixteen inches, which would give you forty-eight two by two slices."
"That is a lot of cake."
I nodded because it was a lot of cake.
"Not everyone will have seconds," the woman reminded us.
I looked down the list. "The next size down is a quarter-sheet, which is thirteen by nine. Twenty-nine servings plus a small leftover."
"So we'd have even less regular pieces," the man said.
"If you stuck to two by two, yes—"
"We'll take the half-pan."
"Okay." I marked ½ in the box for 'size' and checked 'sheet cake', then turned and addressed the birthday girl to-be. "What kind?"
Her father answered for her. "Chocolate with buttercream frosting."
Rebecca muttered something I didn't catch.
"We want something everyone can enjoy, honey," her father chided her, squeezing her shoulder. "Chocolate cake, buttercream frosting."
I wrote CHC W/ BCF on the order slip. "What would you like for decorations?"
"Will 'Happy Thirteenth Birthday, Rebecca' fit?"
"It's a large cake," I assured him. "Do you want 'thirteenth' written out, or in numerals? There's room for either."
"Numerals."
I wrote [Happy 13th Birthday Rebecca!] in the box at the bottom of the slip and showed it to him. "This is correct?"
"Perfect."
I circled it. "What else? We can do frosting flowers, candy sprinkles and sequins, chocolate pieces, patterns…"
"Whatever you think is best."
I scribbled 'ALL DC' under the message to let Homura know she had free reign. "When do you want to pick this up? There's a rush charge if it's within three business days."
"No worries," he said, "we planned ahead. Two weeks from tomorrow?"
"Not a problem." I wrote down the date, then flipped the slip up and tore off the carbon copy beneath it. "This is your receipt for the cake—you don't need to bring it with you to pick it up, it's just a record of exactly what you ordered in case there's a problem. Would you like anything else? Then or now?"
Rebecca muttered something again.
Her father smiled. "Of course. Megan? What do you recommend?"
"They're all good," Megan said, tearing herself away from where she'd been ogling today's selection of cookies. "Maybe the peanut butter cookies?"
Rebecca spoke up for the first time since she'd come in. "I'd like a peanut butter cookie."
"Sure thing! With or without chocolate chips?"
"Without."
"I'll have what she's having," Megan said.
"Two peanut butter cookies, coming right up." I grabbed the tongs and set about placing the cookies into a paper bag.
"Do you serve coffee?" her mother asked.
"There are some iced coffee drinks in the cooler," I said. They might be terrible by 'real coffee' standards; I wouldn't know. "Here are your cookies."
"Thank you." The man took the paper bag and handed it to Rebecca, who removed her cookie and handed the other to Megan.
"But you don't brew coffee," the woman said.
"No, sorry. Only tea."
"You should really serve coffee," she said. "You have coffee cakes on display."
I shrugged and repeated "Sorry," while I rang up the order for one half-sheet cake and two cookies. The man handed me his card, which told me his name. "Thank you, Mr. Elwick. Please sign here, if you don't mind." I passed the card back with the bill. "You can pick up your cake any time from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. that day, and we'll hold it one additional day just in case something comes up. We can hold it longer, but only if you call us and let us know you still want it."
"Don't worry," he said, passing back the signed bill. "I'll see you then."
"Why don't you?" Mrs. Elwick asked.
"Pardon?"
"Serve coffee."
I shrugged again. "I don't like the smell."
"You won't sell coffee because you don't like the smell?" she asked, pronouncing it like it was the stupidest thing she'd ever heard. "I can't believe you still have a job."
"Ma'am," I said, grateful that the politeness perk helped conceal my annoyance, "there is a coffee shop less than five minutes' walk down the street that I am told serves excellent coffee."
"Mom," Megan hissed.
"Quiet, honey," Mr. Elwick said, pulling the girls away to let their mother make a scene in peace.
Mrs. Elwick watched them go for a moment, then turned back to me. "I don't like your attitude, miss. I want to speak to your manager."
Oh no. The prophecy of the haircut has come to pass!
Super politeness kept me from laughing in her face long enough to say, "I am the manager," with more respect than she deserved.
"Then I want… to speak… to your boss," she said, pausing and emphasizing parts in turn like she was talking to a small, stupid child.
"One moment." I could have just kept referring her back to myself, but I chose to head back and call Homura out of the kitchen. Idiocy like this ought to be shared.
"Is there a problem?" 'Akemi' asked as we stepped back into the shopfront.
"I want to complain about your employee's attitude," Mrs. Elwick said. "She's been extremely dismissive and disrespectful."
Maintaining a straight face was already hard, and seeing Megan facepalm in the background only made it harder.
"And I cannot believe this shop refuses to sell coffee because one clerk doesn't like the smell," Mrs. Elwick continued. "Refusing to serve customers because she has a sensitive nose? Ridiculous. You really ought to find better help."
Homura took a moment to digest the entitled idiocy on display before breaking out into a shit-eating grin. "I'm sorry," she said. "All our hiring decisions go through the owner."
"Well, who's the owner, then?" Mrs. Elwick snapped.
Homura pointed at me.
"Can I help you?" I asked, wearing a shit-eating grin of my own.
Mrs. Elwick turned beet red and, thankfully, shut up. They left in a hurry after that.
My third summer in Strawfield ended with heavy turnover among the people I'd worked with. Sean finished his training as an auto mechanic and took a better-paying job in the car shop. Paul's second attempt at a novel—or his third, if you counted his first and second tries at his first premise as two attempts—found a publisher and an audience, so he was on a book-signing tour; he'd be back, but it was anyone's guess if he'd be waiting tables again. Rosie, meanwhile, was leaving for good: she'd secured a transfer to the University of Portland, and given what I understood from context to be a 'fraught' relationship with her immediate family, wasn't eager to return.
We saw her off with a party, of course: a big potluck affair the day before her departure. The party grew a little out of control, truth be told. I'd originally expect it to be ten people at most, but once everyone had RSVPed and all the plus-ones (or -twos, or -threes) were accounted for, there were two dozen people on the guest list. I shouldn't have been surprised; Rosie was just the kind of person to make that many friends.
And so twenty-odd people gathered in the large outdoor park near the highway to say goodbye. The main course was a truly monstrous black bean casserole that Andrew confessed, with some embarrassment, was from his mother; someone else brought a tub of potato salad that was nearly as large. There were also chicken wings, sliders, sandwiches, pasta, roasted vegetables, and three types of proper salad. Homura and I provided the cake, of course, decorated with the green, yellow, and blue Portland City Flag under a message of good luck and farewell. And Mark brought ice cream and a boombox that got the cops called on us. (Nine out of ten people attending were white, so they let us off with a warning when we promised to keep the volume under control.)
Things might have gotten even rowdier if the town allowed drinking on public property, but I was perfectly happy that they didn't.
To my shame, I largely auto-piloted my way through the celebration. After all the going-away parties I'd attended throughout the years—for heroes, whose parties were more 'publicity event' as anything else; or for crewmates, who'd be lightyears away in only a few days; or for myself, because I was leaving the local reality entirely—it felt odd to be having one just because someone you knew was getting on a plane. It was another strike in the column of 'ways the 'chain has ruined my sense of normal', and I resented it a little.
I did get one good, wholesome memory from the event near the end, after we'd collected our trash and were preparing to head home. Homura and I had approached Rosie to congratulate her privately, and then Homura had handed her a small envelope alongside an instruction not to open it until she'd arrived in Oregon.
"Really?" Rosie asked. "How much money did you put in here?"
Homura shot me a look.
"I didn't say anything!" I whined. "You were just unsubtle!" Goodness' sake, Homura, how would I have given away a surprise you didn't even tell me about?
Rosie nodded happily. "Yeah, what she said. Err, no offense, though! It's just, well, there aren't a whole lot of reasons to tell me to wait, so I took a guess. Your face gave away the rest." She looked at the envelope, then back at us. "So now that I know what's in there, can I—?"
Homura leaned forward and repeated, "Don't open it until you're in Oregon."
"Okay, okay! Promise!" Rosie tucked the envelope into her purse, then hugged Homura—which left the latter looking a bit poleaxed—and then me. Then Lizzie came to say her goodbyes, with several others right behind, and that was the end of our moment.
"Do you have a plan to make sure she cashes that check?" I asked Homura as we walked back to the car.
"It's not a check. It's a receipt."
"For what, a house?"
"Her student loans and future tuition fees."
"Ohhh," I said. "Generous."
Homura shrugged. "It's a terrible system."
"Well, yeah…"
Paul dropped by Home Sweet Home the week he got back to Strawfield. He looked a bit different than the man I'd gotten to know, mostly because his hair was neat and his face clean-shaven. "My agent insisted on it," he said when I brought it up. "Said it would make me look more appealing to the demographic who'd actually be interested in the book."
"Huh."
"Yeah."
"If it works, it works," I said. "What's your next book going to be?"
"I haven't a clue. But, uh, I wanted to give you a copy of this one." And indeed, he presented me with a nice, hardback book. I risked looking a gift horse in the mouth and flipped it open, grinning when I saw his signature on the page opposite the dedication.
"Thank you." I tucked it under the counter with my sudoku book for safekeeping. "It'll be fun to see how much changed between the last draft you showed me and the final product."
We spent another few minutes chatting about nothing until another customer came in, which was Paul's cue to say goodbye. His visit was the last interesting thing that happened that summer.
"I don't think the ice cream was a great idea," I admitted to Homura as we helped Lizzie—who'd jumped at the chance to replace Rosie for the closing shift—close up in what was now early fall. The weather had finally begun to turn, but that wasn't the only reason I was looking to ditch the freezer.
"It's been selling," Lizzie said. "Besides, it's not like goes bad, right?"
"Yeah, but it's… it's not up to snuff. It's like selling M&Ms alongside gourmet chocolate truffles."
"Very flattering," Homura said. "I suppose you'd prefer we sold fancy Italian gelato instead?"
"If we're not making it in house, is it really worthy of the name Home Sweet Home?"
"I'm not going to make gelato."
I chuckled. "I didn't expect you to. My point was that we should probably just ditch the frozen-treat business."
"It's your call."
"We're probably not going to sell much ice cream over the winter, anyway," Lizzie added.
"My thoughts exactly." I closed the till, then grabbed a rag and gave the counter one last wipe down. "Oh, I almost forgot: we're due for another health inspection soon."
Homura nodded sharply. "Won't be a problem."
"Yeah, I figured." The kitchen was never anything but spotless.
If I wasn't familiar with Homura's attention to detail and general perfectionism, I might've suspected she was cheating.
"We're back," Ashley droned as six kids made their way into Home Sweet Home to 'celebrate' the start of the school year.
"You sound delighted," I drawled back. "Where's Megan?"
"Eating at school." She put her things down so she could make finger quotes as she explained, "She said she could, quote, 'Never show her face here again,' unquote."
"Her mom did something stupid again," Chloe chimed in. "Bet you twenty."
"Sucker's bet."
"Well, tell her she's welcome back," I said. "The entertainment was worth the mess."
"I'll tell her," Natalie said. She turned towards the tables, then exclaimed, "You added shelves!"
"What?"
"There!" She pointed at the shelves against the far wall.
I didn't conceal my amusement. "Those've been up since we opened."
"Wait, really?" She turned to Kaitlyn for a second opinion, who shrugged. "Well, they're very… subtle?" Natalie said. "The sculptures are cool."
"The baking supplies are a bit on point," Chloe added.
"The old bakery on Hay Street had muffin trays nailed to the walls," Ashley said. "Remember that?"
"Oh, yeah, I forgot about that place. Why did it close?"
"Health code violations," Mike answered.
"Oh. Ew."
"They got rid of the ice cream, too," Nick said, pointing to the spot the NESTLY® brand chest freezer had occupied near the fridge holding the drinks. The lack of reaction to his observation neatly demonstrated how little anyone cared about cheap ice cream bars.
Megan showed up the next day. "Sorry about my mom," she said. "She's just… like that."
"All the time?"
Her sigh was answer enough.
Bumming around Spell-Bound Books that fall made me another friend: Margaret's newest employee, who I first met when I nearly ran over her, as I'd been too focused on the shelves in front of me to look where I was going.
"Sorry!"
"Sorry!"
"No, I'm sorry! I wasn't looking where I was going—"
"No, it was my fault," she insisted. "I was distracted. Um, can I help you find anything?"
I gave up trying to take credit for the collision. "Just browsing."
"Well, let me know if you need any help!" she chirped, then bounded away with the inimitable enthusiasm of a brand-new hire.
"I heard you meet Penelope," Margaret said when I stopped by the desk to say hi on my wait out.
"The girl I nearly walked into?"
"That's the one."
"New employee?"
"That she is," she said. "Nice girl."
"Seemed to be. Lots of energy."
Margaret laughed. "We'll see how long that lasts."
I ran into Penelope again less literally a few days later.
"Hello," she said when she found me wandering the store. "Can I help you find anything?"
"No, thank you," I replied. "I just like being surrounded by books."
Penelope gave me a searching look. "I can't tell if you're being sarcastic."
"I wasn't. But to answer your question, no, I'm just browsing. Seeing if anything jumps out at me."
"Ah." She glanced at the section I'd been looking at. "You like mysteries?"
"Not particularly, though Margaret's done her best to get me hooked."
"She does like her mysteries."
She was still looking at me brightly, however that worked. I cleared my throat. "I'm Cassandra, by the way," I said. "I work at the bakery a few doors down."
"Cassandra? That's a pretty name."
"Thanks. I chose it myself."
Penelope furrowed her brow in confusion, then decided I was kidding. "Hah, I guess that's kind of a strange thing to compliment. The bakery, that's Home Sweet Home?"
"That's the one."
She nodded. "Margaret's said great things about you. Oh, sorry, I'm Penny. Nice to meet you!"
"Nice to meet you too, Penny. Been in town long?"
"Grew up here, but I only got 'back' a few months ago."
"College?" I guessed.
"Yeah, in California. Big change, moving back home."
"I bet."
That seemed to be the end of the pleasantries, so I turned back to the books for a second before Penny blurted out, "Want to join my book club?"
"Hmm?"
She blushed. "I mean, you must like reading if you hang out here just for the books…"
"Yeah, I love reading—although I mostly read genre fiction? Fantasy and science fiction. I don't know what you read—"
Her face lit up. "Oh, that's perfect! I'm a spec-fic fan, too."
"What about the rest of the club?"
"Uh, well…" Penny shrunk into herself and admitted, "I don't actually have a book club yet? I'm trying to make one, but it's hard to find people."
I smiled. "Well, you can count me in."
"Great! I already know what I want for our first book; I actually just finished my read of it last night. It's called Mistborn—"
"Brandon Sanderson!" I exclaimed.
"Yes! He's been on my reading list forever, but I haven't had time. I keep seeing people recommending his stuff—"
"And they should! I love his books!"
"Have you read it, then?"
"Yeah! It's great, seriously great. All his work is great, though his later stuff is better."
"Better than great?"
"Yeah, sure. He improves as an author, you know? So his books just get better and better."
"Wow." Penny laughed. "Wow, you're a fan. Should I find another book?"
"What? No, I'll totally take an excuse to reread it."
"You're in, then?"
"Absolutely—assuming my enthusiasm isn't making you regret bringing up reading in my presence."
"No, it's great! I love it!"
"No yelling in the library!" Margaret called from the back room.
"Yes, ma'am," Penny yelled back. "That's her way of telling me to get back to work, but before I do: you're only the second person who's interested, besides me, of course, so if you know anyone else…"
"I have a few people I can ask. How many people were you hoping for?"
"I dunno, six? Six seems like a nice number. More wouldn't be bad, though. We'll probably lose one or two when they realize they don't have as much time as they thought."
"Yeah, probably," I agreed. "Should I give them your email or something?"
"Sure. I'll make a mailing list."
"Awesome."
A quick exchange of emails later, the deal was struck.
Things went more or less back to normal for a while, with the kids sitting around talking and me making wisecracks from across the room whenever they got too loud. Of course, sooner or later, something always interrupted the routine.
"You dressed up!" Natalie said as she pushed her way through the doors.
"It's Halloween," I said. "You all dressed up, too." Natalie had makeup on her face to look like stitched-together flesh—the classic Frankenstein's Monster look—and wore a red-spattered white shirt for extra goriness.
"Only 'cause we're expected to," Mike said. He was dressed as a Rebel pilot from the Star Wars original trilogy: orange jumpsuit, gray straps, black books, and a plastic life-support-thing on his chest.
"You put work into yours," Nick pointed out. His 'costume' was a white sheet with a hole cut in it for his head.
"'Cause I don't want to look ridiculous."
"I don't look ridiculous."
"Sorry, man, but you really do."
"It's weird seeing you not in uniform," Kaitlyn told me. She'd opted for the 'traditional witch' get-up: pointy hat, black dress, and a broomstick she'd left leaning against the corner of the shop near the door. She even had a black cat plushy safety-pinned to her shoulder as a 'familiar'.
"This is a uniform," I protested, poking at the authentic Starfleet Uniform I had on under my apron. It was lucky I had the clothes-morphing spell, or something made for 'Cassandra Rhodes' wouldn't have fit 'Cassandra Kyogen' at all.
"It's not your normal uniform. Though it is nice."
"Thanks."
"It looks really good!" Ashley agreed.
"And you look terrifying," I said. Ash had the most elaborate costume out of any of them: a 'Ghost Bride' sort of look consisting of a tattered dress trailing ribbons like an afterimage, with a large 'bloodstain' on the front suggesting a cause of death. Her bright pink hair was hidden under a dark purple wig, and her makeup was downright unsettling: she was pallid like an actual corpse, and was wearing colored contacts that glowed red when the light hit them right. The fact that she appeared to be crying blood made her wide, heartfelt grin frankly horrifying.
"Thanks! I put a lot of effort into this." She preened for a moment—which inadvertently revealed the trick behind the wire-stiffened ribbons 'floating' behind her—before she returned her attention to my costume.
"The combadge looks super cheap, though," Ashley said, leaning closer to inspect the badge I'd clipped to my apron opposite the rainbow Pride badge I usually wore. "Damn, that's some real costume store junk. You couldn't get anything better?"
"It's not junk!" I protested. "I 3D-printed it, so it's sorta like it actually came out of a replicator. A really low resolution replicator, but it's still way cooler than 'costume store junk'." I probably should have asked Homura for help with painting it, but I'd thought I could do it on my own.
Privately, I agreed with her: I had been wrong and it had not come out well. It was still mean to say so, though.
Ashley considered my argument for a second before deciding in my favor. "Nerd-cred reestablished," she announced. "Miniatures paint?"
"Yeah."
"Reestablished with interest!"
"You paint miniatures?" Megan asked. She was—somewhat surprisingly, given her stated opinions—dressed like a witch from Harry Potter, Gryffindor scarf and all.
"No, I don't," I said. "That's why it looks like crap."
"Oh."
"Do you?"
She shook her head. "Not me. My sister, she's super into roleplaying games. She has an entire collection of minis she painted herself."
"That's cool. Nice costume, by the way. Why'd you go for a Harry Potter sort of witch?"
"They're recognizable and less generic than the super-stereotypical black-dress-and-hat sort. Plus most of those generic witch costumes are slutty."
"My costume isn't slutty," Kaitlyn protested.
"I said 'most', not all!"
"Do you have a wand?" I asked.
Megan scowled. "The school said I couldn't have a 'weapon' in class."
I shot a look at the broomstick in the corner. "A wand is a weapon, but a broom isn't?"
Kaitlyn shrugged.
"Should have left it in your locker," Chloe told Megan. She'd ignored the traditional Halloween spookery in favor of dressing up like… hmm.
"Who are you supposed to be?" I asked her.
"Nano Shinonome!" she declared, spinning around to show me the giant cardboard wind-up key sticking out of her back. When I failed to react as hoped, she said, "You have no idea who that is."
"Nope." An anime character, almost certainly, but beyond that I had no clue.
Chloe turned to Ashley. "I'm revoking her nerd cred."
"You can't revoke her nerd cred right after we reestablished it."
"She has no idea who Nano Shinonome is!"
"I have no idea who Nano Shinonome is!"
"Even I know who Nano Shinonome is!" Megan said.
Chloe pointed a finger in Ashley's face. "I'm revoking your nerd cred!"
"But I have pink hair!" Ashley protested.
"So?"
"The first thing you said to me in middle school was—"
"Yes, yes, we remember," Natalie said, doing her best to head off another argument.
"She's never going to let that go, is she?" Chloe whined to Megan. "I was, like, ten. Gimme a break!"
"It's okay," Megan told her. "The fact that you haven't given her a better story in four years is… sort of an accomplishment?"
"Gee, thanks."
I cleared my throat. "So, what's new?"
"Oh!" Ashley yelled. "We got nine!"
"Nine what?"
"Nine people signed up for the tennis team," Natalie answered for her. "Out of ten. Sorry, she forgets to give people context when she's excited."
"I do not."
"You literally just did."
"That's great," I said. "The deadline's not until after New Year's, right?"
Ashley nodded with enough enthusiasm to knock her wig askew. "We only need one more!" she said as fixed her hairpiece. "But none of them are willing to even try!"
"I haven't done 'school sports' since elementary school," Chloe said.
"I do 'athletics', rather than 'sports'," Kaitlyn added.
"I'm not even athletic," Megan mumbled.
"You'd play quidditch!" Ashley said.
"Would she?" Chloe asked. "She hates Rowling."
"She dressed up like a witch, didn't she?"
"She'd probably play just to make a point about how dumb the snitch rule is," Kaitlyn said.
"Nah," Natalie said. "She's not athletic, remember? She'd be a coach, or something."
"Aren't most coaches retired players?" Mike asked.
"In muggle America, maybe, but who knows how quidditch works?"
"She would!" Ashley crowed.
Megan folded her arms and glowered at her friends. "I swear to god if magic was real I would hex you all."
"Heeey," Ashley said as she, Natalie, and three other girls I'd never met before sidled into the shop a few days into November. "Glad you're here." Albert was out sick with the flu, so I was working his normal Saturday shift this week—and would strongly consider tracking him down and magicking the virus away if he was still sick next Friday.
"Hi," I replied. "Glad to see you, too. What's up?"
Ashley sucked in a breath through her teeth.
"Well…" She trailed off as she squirmed on the threshold. It was the first time I'd ever seen her not owning whatever room she was in, which was actually a little concerning.
Natalie gently nudged her aside and took charge. "We got our tenth player," she said, "but it turns out the school's tennis equipment is terrible. Half the rackets are flat-out broken! Ashley and I"—she waved the hand that wasn't holding the clipboard I hadn't noticed—"have our own stuff, but most of the other girls are here to learn, so they don't have rackets or anything."
"And the league has a membership fee," Ashley said morosely. "And we'll need to pay for travel, and uniforms—"
Natalie waved her to silence. "Yeah, the league is expensive, but right now we just need the basic equipment."
"So you're collecting donations?" I asked.
"Not donations," another girl said. "The school says we need local sponsors."
"All the other teams have them," another girl added. "Well, that's what the principal said."
"Donations are fine!" Natalie interrupted. "The sponsorship is for the league, and we're not there yet."
"How many sponsors do you have so far?" I asked.
Ashley let out something that was half-sigh, half-growl. "Right now? None. We've gotten a bunch of offers for free or discount products, which might be useful if the sporting goods store wasn't full of sexist pricks!"
"They only sponsor men's sports," Natalie explained, "so the one store that has what we need won't help."
"Usually, the school gets around that by having both a mens and womens team," another girl explained.
"But that means the women's teams always get hand-me-down equipment," Ashley complained. "I'm not about to build a men's team too just so we can use their spare crap!" Several of the others shushed her, clearly worried that she was lowering the already poor odds of wringing any money from a two-person bakery.
Natalie brought the conversation back on topic. "So," she said, "I'm sorry to put you on the spot like this, but we're sort of running out of people to ask…"
"One moment." I held up one hand in the universal just-a-minute sign while I grabbed the phone and dialed Homura's cell with the other.
"Cass," she said, "why are you dialing me from two rooms away?"
"Because I can. How do you feel about sponsoring a local youth sports team?"
"Your budget is two million dollars a year. Knock yourself out."
"What," I said. "That's… uh."
"A good indication of how much we can afford to throw around?" she suggested. "It's our money, you're free to use it however you want."
"All that?"
"That's your half of our money—our income, if you want to be precise. If they just need a one-time donation, we can spare about one hundred million. If you need more than that, you should call Max."
I sat there staring into space for a second. Sometimes I forget we have cheat codes on.
"If you say so," I said. "You're sure?"
"Very sure," she insisted. "Is that all?"
"Yeah. Uh, thanks. Talk to you later!"
"In person, next t—"
I hung up and turned back to the group, who had been following my half of the conversation with naked interest. "I think you're in luck."
I got a very fancy letter only a few days after writing Strawfield High a generous check. "GUEST," it read—in embossed silver letters on a matte eggshell card that felt like cloth under my fingers, "You (+1) are cordially invited to Mr. and Mrs. Fredrick Elwick's New Year's Eve Party." It went on to specify the date (duh) and time (actually necessary), ending with a request to RSVP by the twenty-fifth and a phone number to do so.
Of course, the first thing I did was show it to Homura.
"Huh," she said.
That had been my reaction as well.
"I'm not sure if they're inviting us because they're embarrassed about the thing last summer," I said, "or because they're not embarrassed about the thing last summer."
"Do you want to go?"
"Do I want to skip hanging out with a bunch of people who respect me so we can get sneered at by rich people instead?" I asked. "I think… no."
"We could go to both," Homura said.
"Why would we?"
"You're friends with their daughter, aren't you? This might have been her idea." Homura flipped the card over and frowned at the company logo on the back. "Maybe it says GUEST because she didn't remind them who we were."
I took the card back and looked over it again. "I'm not sure if that's more or less likely than the Elwicks having so little shame as to see nothing wrong with inviting us themselves."
"Maybe they've already forgotten the incident."
"Or they're hoping we'll bring some of your baking as a guest gift."
"I've changed my mind," Homura said. "That is the most likely explanation."
"Are we going to?"
"Not a chance. Pies are for people we like."
Chapter 97: Sucker's Bet
As it turned out, I didn't have to wait until school started back up to see one of my 'loyal customers'. Megan came by in early August, accompanied by a man and a woman I assumed were her parents, and a younger girl hiding in a hoodie despite weather that hadn't fully given way from summer to autumn.
"You do birthday cakes?" the man who was probably Megan's father asked. He was a tall man with receding auburn hair, closing in on fifty if he hadn't passed it already and wearing clothes I could best describe as 'dress casual'.
"We do," I confirmed, grabbing the pad of order slips and a pen from my apron. "Who's it for?"
"Rebecca, here." He thumped the girl in question on the shoulder.
"What size and what kind?"
"How large a cake would you recommend for twenty people?"
"Do you want a round cake or a flat cake?"
"Flat cake."
"How large will the pieces you serve be? We sell our flat-cake-by-the-slice in three inch squares"—I pointed to the display case where those slices were—"but that's a lot. You'll probably be cutting two by three or two by two."
The man looked at the woman who was probably his wife, a short woman with bleached-blonde hair in a cut that screamed, 'I want to speak to your manager.' "We'll do two by two, and let people have seconds," she said.
"So you're going to want forty servings of two by two squares?" I asked. They nodded. "A one-third sheet cake is eleven by fifteen inches, which is forty-one and a bit." I pointed to the laminated sheet on the counter showing our cake sizes and recommended cuts. "Thirty-five squares, six oddly shaped one-by-four pieces, and a little left over."
"What if we wanted every piece square?" the man asked.
"You'd need to go up to a half-sheet, twelve by sixteen inches, which would give you forty-eight two by two slices."
"That is a lot of cake."
I nodded because it was a lot of cake.
"Not everyone will have seconds," the woman reminded us.
I looked down the list. "The next size down is a quarter-sheet, which is thirteen by nine. Twenty-nine servings plus a small leftover."
"So we'd have even less regular pieces," the man said.
"If you stuck to two by two, yes—"
"We'll take the half-pan."
"Okay." I marked ½ in the box for 'size' and checked 'sheet cake', then turned and addressed the birthday girl to-be. "What kind?"
Her father answered for her. "Chocolate with buttercream frosting."
Rebecca muttered something I didn't catch.
"We want something everyone can enjoy, honey," her father chided her, squeezing her shoulder. "Chocolate cake, buttercream frosting."
I wrote CHC W/ BCF on the order slip. "What would you like for decorations?"
"Will 'Happy Thirteenth Birthday, Rebecca' fit?"
"It's a large cake," I assured him. "Do you want 'thirteenth' written out, or in numerals? There's room for either."
"Numerals."
I wrote [Happy 13th Birthday Rebecca!] in the box at the bottom of the slip and showed it to him. "This is correct?"
"Perfect."
I circled it. "What else? We can do frosting flowers, candy sprinkles and sequins, chocolate pieces, patterns…"
"Whatever you think is best."
I scribbled 'ALL DC' under the message to let Homura know she had free reign. "When do you want to pick this up? There's a rush charge if it's within three business days."
"No worries," he said, "we planned ahead. Two weeks from tomorrow?"
"Not a problem." I wrote down the date, then flipped the slip up and tore off the carbon copy beneath it. "This is your receipt for the cake—you don't need to bring it with you to pick it up, it's just a record of exactly what you ordered in case there's a problem. Would you like anything else? Then or now?"
Rebecca muttered something again.
Her father smiled. "Of course. Megan? What do you recommend?"
"They're all good," Megan said, tearing herself away from where she'd been ogling today's selection of cookies. "Maybe the peanut butter cookies?"
Rebecca spoke up for the first time since she'd come in. "I'd like a peanut butter cookie."
"Sure thing! With or without chocolate chips?"
"Without."
"I'll have what she's having," Megan said.
"Two peanut butter cookies, coming right up." I grabbed the tongs and set about placing the cookies into a paper bag.
"Do you serve coffee?" her mother asked.
"There are some iced coffee drinks in the cooler," I said. They might be terrible by 'real coffee' standards; I wouldn't know. "Here are your cookies."
"Thank you." The man took the paper bag and handed it to Rebecca, who removed her cookie and handed the other to Megan.
"But you don't brew coffee," the woman said.
"No, sorry. Only tea."
"You should really serve coffee," she said. "You have coffee cakes on display."
I shrugged and repeated "Sorry," while I rang up the order for one half-sheet cake and two cookies. The man handed me his card, which told me his name. "Thank you, Mr. Elwick. Please sign here, if you don't mind." I passed the card back with the bill. "You can pick up your cake any time from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. that day, and we'll hold it one additional day just in case something comes up. We can hold it longer, but only if you call us and let us know you still want it."
"Don't worry," he said, passing back the signed bill. "I'll see you then."
"Why don't you?" Mrs. Elwick asked.
"Pardon?"
"Serve coffee."
I shrugged again. "I don't like the smell."
"You won't sell coffee because you don't like the smell?" she asked, pronouncing it like it was the stupidest thing she'd ever heard. "I can't believe you still have a job."
"Ma'am," I said, grateful that the politeness perk helped conceal my annoyance, "there is a coffee shop less than five minutes' walk down the street that I am told serves excellent coffee."
"Mom," Megan hissed.
"Quiet, honey," Mr. Elwick said, pulling the girls away to let their mother make a scene in peace.
Mrs. Elwick watched them go for a moment, then turned back to me. "I don't like your attitude, miss. I want to speak to your manager."
Oh no. The prophecy of the haircut has come to pass!
Super politeness kept me from laughing in her face long enough to say, "I am the manager," with more respect than she deserved.
"Then I want… to speak… to your boss," she said, pausing and emphasizing parts in turn like she was talking to a small, stupid child.
"One moment." I could have just kept referring her back to myself, but I chose to head back and call Homura out of the kitchen. Idiocy like this ought to be shared.
"Is there a problem?" 'Akemi' asked as we stepped back into the shopfront.
"I want to complain about your employee's attitude," Mrs. Elwick said. "She's been extremely dismissive and disrespectful."
Maintaining a straight face was already hard, and seeing Megan facepalm in the background only made it harder.
"And I cannot believe this shop refuses to sell coffee because one clerk doesn't like the smell," Mrs. Elwick continued. "Refusing to serve customers because she has a sensitive nose? Ridiculous. You really ought to find better help."
Homura took a moment to digest the entitled idiocy on display before breaking out into a shit-eating grin. "I'm sorry," she said. "All our hiring decisions go through the owner."
"Well, who's the owner, then?" Mrs. Elwick snapped.
Homura pointed at me.
"Can I help you?" I asked, wearing a shit-eating grin of my own.
Mrs. Elwick turned beet red and, thankfully, shut up. They left in a hurry after that.
———X==X==X———
My third summer in Strawfield ended with heavy turnover among the people I'd worked with. Sean finished his training as an auto mechanic and took a better-paying job in the car shop. Paul's second attempt at a novel—or his third, if you counted his first and second tries at his first premise as two attempts—found a publisher and an audience, so he was on a book-signing tour; he'd be back, but it was anyone's guess if he'd be waiting tables again. Rosie, meanwhile, was leaving for good: she'd secured a transfer to the University of Portland, and given what I understood from context to be a 'fraught' relationship with her immediate family, wasn't eager to return.
We saw her off with a party, of course: a big potluck affair the day before her departure. The party grew a little out of control, truth be told. I'd originally expect it to be ten people at most, but once everyone had RSVPed and all the plus-ones (or -twos, or -threes) were accounted for, there were two dozen people on the guest list. I shouldn't have been surprised; Rosie was just the kind of person to make that many friends.
And so twenty-odd people gathered in the large outdoor park near the highway to say goodbye. The main course was a truly monstrous black bean casserole that Andrew confessed, with some embarrassment, was from his mother; someone else brought a tub of potato salad that was nearly as large. There were also chicken wings, sliders, sandwiches, pasta, roasted vegetables, and three types of proper salad. Homura and I provided the cake, of course, decorated with the green, yellow, and blue Portland City Flag under a message of good luck and farewell. And Mark brought ice cream and a boombox that got the cops called on us. (Nine out of ten people attending were white, so they let us off with a warning when we promised to keep the volume under control.)
Things might have gotten even rowdier if the town allowed drinking on public property, but I was perfectly happy that they didn't.
To my shame, I largely auto-piloted my way through the celebration. After all the going-away parties I'd attended throughout the years—for heroes, whose parties were more 'publicity event' as anything else; or for crewmates, who'd be lightyears away in only a few days; or for myself, because I was leaving the local reality entirely—it felt odd to be having one just because someone you knew was getting on a plane. It was another strike in the column of 'ways the 'chain has ruined my sense of normal', and I resented it a little.
I did get one good, wholesome memory from the event near the end, after we'd collected our trash and were preparing to head home. Homura and I had approached Rosie to congratulate her privately, and then Homura had handed her a small envelope alongside an instruction not to open it until she'd arrived in Oregon.
"Really?" Rosie asked. "How much money did you put in here?"
Homura shot me a look.
"I didn't say anything!" I whined. "You were just unsubtle!" Goodness' sake, Homura, how would I have given away a surprise you didn't even tell me about?
Rosie nodded happily. "Yeah, what she said. Err, no offense, though! It's just, well, there aren't a whole lot of reasons to tell me to wait, so I took a guess. Your face gave away the rest." She looked at the envelope, then back at us. "So now that I know what's in there, can I—?"
Homura leaned forward and repeated, "Don't open it until you're in Oregon."
"Okay, okay! Promise!" Rosie tucked the envelope into her purse, then hugged Homura—which left the latter looking a bit poleaxed—and then me. Then Lizzie came to say her goodbyes, with several others right behind, and that was the end of our moment.
"Do you have a plan to make sure she cashes that check?" I asked Homura as we walked back to the car.
"It's not a check. It's a receipt."
"For what, a house?"
"Her student loans and future tuition fees."
"Ohhh," I said. "Generous."
Homura shrugged. "It's a terrible system."
"Well, yeah…"
———X==X==X———
Paul dropped by Home Sweet Home the week he got back to Strawfield. He looked a bit different than the man I'd gotten to know, mostly because his hair was neat and his face clean-shaven. "My agent insisted on it," he said when I brought it up. "Said it would make me look more appealing to the demographic who'd actually be interested in the book."
"Huh."
"Yeah."
"If it works, it works," I said. "What's your next book going to be?"
"I haven't a clue. But, uh, I wanted to give you a copy of this one." And indeed, he presented me with a nice, hardback book. I risked looking a gift horse in the mouth and flipped it open, grinning when I saw his signature on the page opposite the dedication.
"Thank you." I tucked it under the counter with my sudoku book for safekeeping. "It'll be fun to see how much changed between the last draft you showed me and the final product."
We spent another few minutes chatting about nothing until another customer came in, which was Paul's cue to say goodbye. His visit was the last interesting thing that happened that summer.
"I don't think the ice cream was a great idea," I admitted to Homura as we helped Lizzie—who'd jumped at the chance to replace Rosie for the closing shift—close up in what was now early fall. The weather had finally begun to turn, but that wasn't the only reason I was looking to ditch the freezer.
"It's been selling," Lizzie said. "Besides, it's not like goes bad, right?"
"Yeah, but it's… it's not up to snuff. It's like selling M&Ms alongside gourmet chocolate truffles."
"Very flattering," Homura said. "I suppose you'd prefer we sold fancy Italian gelato instead?"
"If we're not making it in house, is it really worthy of the name Home Sweet Home?"
"I'm not going to make gelato."
I chuckled. "I didn't expect you to. My point was that we should probably just ditch the frozen-treat business."
"It's your call."
"We're probably not going to sell much ice cream over the winter, anyway," Lizzie added.
"My thoughts exactly." I closed the till, then grabbed a rag and gave the counter one last wipe down. "Oh, I almost forgot: we're due for another health inspection soon."
Homura nodded sharply. "Won't be a problem."
"Yeah, I figured." The kitchen was never anything but spotless.
If I wasn't familiar with Homura's attention to detail and general perfectionism, I might've suspected she was cheating.
———X==X==X———
"We're back," Ashley droned as six kids made their way into Home Sweet Home to 'celebrate' the start of the school year.
"You sound delighted," I drawled back. "Where's Megan?"
"Eating at school." She put her things down so she could make finger quotes as she explained, "She said she could, quote, 'Never show her face here again,' unquote."
"Her mom did something stupid again," Chloe chimed in. "Bet you twenty."
"Sucker's bet."
"Well, tell her she's welcome back," I said. "The entertainment was worth the mess."
"I'll tell her," Natalie said. She turned towards the tables, then exclaimed, "You added shelves!"
"What?"
"There!" She pointed at the shelves against the far wall.
I didn't conceal my amusement. "Those've been up since we opened."
"Wait, really?" She turned to Kaitlyn for a second opinion, who shrugged. "Well, they're very… subtle?" Natalie said. "The sculptures are cool."
"The baking supplies are a bit on point," Chloe added.
"The old bakery on Hay Street had muffin trays nailed to the walls," Ashley said. "Remember that?"
"Oh, yeah, I forgot about that place. Why did it close?"
"Health code violations," Mike answered.
"Oh. Ew."
"They got rid of the ice cream, too," Nick said, pointing to the spot the NESTLY® brand chest freezer had occupied near the fridge holding the drinks. The lack of reaction to his observation neatly demonstrated how little anyone cared about cheap ice cream bars.
———X==X==X———
Megan showed up the next day. "Sorry about my mom," she said. "She's just… like that."
"All the time?"
Her sigh was answer enough.
———X==X==X———
Bumming around Spell-Bound Books that fall made me another friend: Margaret's newest employee, who I first met when I nearly ran over her, as I'd been too focused on the shelves in front of me to look where I was going.
"Sorry!"
"Sorry!"
"No, I'm sorry! I wasn't looking where I was going—"
"No, it was my fault," she insisted. "I was distracted. Um, can I help you find anything?"
I gave up trying to take credit for the collision. "Just browsing."
"Well, let me know if you need any help!" she chirped, then bounded away with the inimitable enthusiasm of a brand-new hire.
"I heard you meet Penelope," Margaret said when I stopped by the desk to say hi on my wait out.
"The girl I nearly walked into?"
"That's the one."
"New employee?"
"That she is," she said. "Nice girl."
"Seemed to be. Lots of energy."
Margaret laughed. "We'll see how long that lasts."
———X==X==X———
I ran into Penelope again less literally a few days later.
"Hello," she said when she found me wandering the store. "Can I help you find anything?"
"No, thank you," I replied. "I just like being surrounded by books."
Penelope gave me a searching look. "I can't tell if you're being sarcastic."
"I wasn't. But to answer your question, no, I'm just browsing. Seeing if anything jumps out at me."
"Ah." She glanced at the section I'd been looking at. "You like mysteries?"
"Not particularly, though Margaret's done her best to get me hooked."
"She does like her mysteries."
She was still looking at me brightly, however that worked. I cleared my throat. "I'm Cassandra, by the way," I said. "I work at the bakery a few doors down."
"Cassandra? That's a pretty name."
"Thanks. I chose it myself."
Penelope furrowed her brow in confusion, then decided I was kidding. "Hah, I guess that's kind of a strange thing to compliment. The bakery, that's Home Sweet Home?"
"That's the one."
She nodded. "Margaret's said great things about you. Oh, sorry, I'm Penny. Nice to meet you!"
"Nice to meet you too, Penny. Been in town long?"
"Grew up here, but I only got 'back' a few months ago."
"College?" I guessed.
"Yeah, in California. Big change, moving back home."
"I bet."
That seemed to be the end of the pleasantries, so I turned back to the books for a second before Penny blurted out, "Want to join my book club?"
"Hmm?"
She blushed. "I mean, you must like reading if you hang out here just for the books…"
"Yeah, I love reading—although I mostly read genre fiction? Fantasy and science fiction. I don't know what you read—"
Her face lit up. "Oh, that's perfect! I'm a spec-fic fan, too."
"What about the rest of the club?"
"Uh, well…" Penny shrunk into herself and admitted, "I don't actually have a book club yet? I'm trying to make one, but it's hard to find people."
I smiled. "Well, you can count me in."
"Great! I already know what I want for our first book; I actually just finished my read of it last night. It's called Mistborn—"
"Brandon Sanderson!" I exclaimed.
"Yes! He's been on my reading list forever, but I haven't had time. I keep seeing people recommending his stuff—"
"And they should! I love his books!"
"Have you read it, then?"
"Yeah! It's great, seriously great. All his work is great, though his later stuff is better."
"Better than great?"
"Yeah, sure. He improves as an author, you know? So his books just get better and better."
"Wow." Penny laughed. "Wow, you're a fan. Should I find another book?"
"What? No, I'll totally take an excuse to reread it."
"You're in, then?"
"Absolutely—assuming my enthusiasm isn't making you regret bringing up reading in my presence."
"No, it's great! I love it!"
"No yelling in the library!" Margaret called from the back room.
"Yes, ma'am," Penny yelled back. "That's her way of telling me to get back to work, but before I do: you're only the second person who's interested, besides me, of course, so if you know anyone else…"
"I have a few people I can ask. How many people were you hoping for?"
"I dunno, six? Six seems like a nice number. More wouldn't be bad, though. We'll probably lose one or two when they realize they don't have as much time as they thought."
"Yeah, probably," I agreed. "Should I give them your email or something?"
"Sure. I'll make a mailing list."
"Awesome."
A quick exchange of emails later, the deal was struck.
———X==X==X———
Things went more or less back to normal for a while, with the kids sitting around talking and me making wisecracks from across the room whenever they got too loud. Of course, sooner or later, something always interrupted the routine.
"You dressed up!" Natalie said as she pushed her way through the doors.
"It's Halloween," I said. "You all dressed up, too." Natalie had makeup on her face to look like stitched-together flesh—the classic Frankenstein's Monster look—and wore a red-spattered white shirt for extra goriness.
"Only 'cause we're expected to," Mike said. He was dressed as a Rebel pilot from the Star Wars original trilogy: orange jumpsuit, gray straps, black books, and a plastic life-support-thing on his chest.
"You put work into yours," Nick pointed out. His 'costume' was a white sheet with a hole cut in it for his head.
"'Cause I don't want to look ridiculous."
"I don't look ridiculous."
"Sorry, man, but you really do."
"It's weird seeing you not in uniform," Kaitlyn told me. She'd opted for the 'traditional witch' get-up: pointy hat, black dress, and a broomstick she'd left leaning against the corner of the shop near the door. She even had a black cat plushy safety-pinned to her shoulder as a 'familiar'.
"This is a uniform," I protested, poking at the authentic Starfleet Uniform I had on under my apron. It was lucky I had the clothes-morphing spell, or something made for 'Cassandra Rhodes' wouldn't have fit 'Cassandra Kyogen' at all.
"It's not your normal uniform. Though it is nice."
"Thanks."
"It looks really good!" Ashley agreed.
"And you look terrifying," I said. Ash had the most elaborate costume out of any of them: a 'Ghost Bride' sort of look consisting of a tattered dress trailing ribbons like an afterimage, with a large 'bloodstain' on the front suggesting a cause of death. Her bright pink hair was hidden under a dark purple wig, and her makeup was downright unsettling: she was pallid like an actual corpse, and was wearing colored contacts that glowed red when the light hit them right. The fact that she appeared to be crying blood made her wide, heartfelt grin frankly horrifying.
"Thanks! I put a lot of effort into this." She preened for a moment—which inadvertently revealed the trick behind the wire-stiffened ribbons 'floating' behind her—before she returned her attention to my costume.
"The combadge looks super cheap, though," Ashley said, leaning closer to inspect the badge I'd clipped to my apron opposite the rainbow Pride badge I usually wore. "Damn, that's some real costume store junk. You couldn't get anything better?"
"It's not junk!" I protested. "I 3D-printed it, so it's sorta like it actually came out of a replicator. A really low resolution replicator, but it's still way cooler than 'costume store junk'." I probably should have asked Homura for help with painting it, but I'd thought I could do it on my own.
Privately, I agreed with her: I had been wrong and it had not come out well. It was still mean to say so, though.
Ashley considered my argument for a second before deciding in my favor. "Nerd-cred reestablished," she announced. "Miniatures paint?"
"Yeah."
"Reestablished with interest!"
"You paint miniatures?" Megan asked. She was—somewhat surprisingly, given her stated opinions—dressed like a witch from Harry Potter, Gryffindor scarf and all.
"No, I don't," I said. "That's why it looks like crap."
"Oh."
"Do you?"
She shook her head. "Not me. My sister, she's super into roleplaying games. She has an entire collection of minis she painted herself."
"That's cool. Nice costume, by the way. Why'd you go for a Harry Potter sort of witch?"
"They're recognizable and less generic than the super-stereotypical black-dress-and-hat sort. Plus most of those generic witch costumes are slutty."
"My costume isn't slutty," Kaitlyn protested.
"I said 'most', not all!"
"Do you have a wand?" I asked.
Megan scowled. "The school said I couldn't have a 'weapon' in class."
I shot a look at the broomstick in the corner. "A wand is a weapon, but a broom isn't?"
Kaitlyn shrugged.
"Should have left it in your locker," Chloe told Megan. She'd ignored the traditional Halloween spookery in favor of dressing up like… hmm.
"Who are you supposed to be?" I asked her.
"Nano Shinonome!" she declared, spinning around to show me the giant cardboard wind-up key sticking out of her back. When I failed to react as hoped, she said, "You have no idea who that is."
"Nope." An anime character, almost certainly, but beyond that I had no clue.
Chloe turned to Ashley. "I'm revoking her nerd cred."
"You can't revoke her nerd cred right after we reestablished it."
"She has no idea who Nano Shinonome is!"
"I have no idea who Nano Shinonome is!"
"Even I know who Nano Shinonome is!" Megan said.
Chloe pointed a finger in Ashley's face. "I'm revoking your nerd cred!"
"But I have pink hair!" Ashley protested.
"So?"
"The first thing you said to me in middle school was—"
"Yes, yes, we remember," Natalie said, doing her best to head off another argument.
"She's never going to let that go, is she?" Chloe whined to Megan. "I was, like, ten. Gimme a break!"
"It's okay," Megan told her. "The fact that you haven't given her a better story in four years is… sort of an accomplishment?"
"Gee, thanks."
I cleared my throat. "So, what's new?"
"Oh!" Ashley yelled. "We got nine!"
"Nine what?"
"Nine people signed up for the tennis team," Natalie answered for her. "Out of ten. Sorry, she forgets to give people context when she's excited."
"I do not."
"You literally just did."
"That's great," I said. "The deadline's not until after New Year's, right?"
Ashley nodded with enough enthusiasm to knock her wig askew. "We only need one more!" she said as fixed her hairpiece. "But none of them are willing to even try!"
"I haven't done 'school sports' since elementary school," Chloe said.
"I do 'athletics', rather than 'sports'," Kaitlyn added.
"I'm not even athletic," Megan mumbled.
"You'd play quidditch!" Ashley said.
"Would she?" Chloe asked. "She hates Rowling."
"She dressed up like a witch, didn't she?"
"She'd probably play just to make a point about how dumb the snitch rule is," Kaitlyn said.
"Nah," Natalie said. "She's not athletic, remember? She'd be a coach, or something."
"Aren't most coaches retired players?" Mike asked.
"In muggle America, maybe, but who knows how quidditch works?"
"She would!" Ashley crowed.
Megan folded her arms and glowered at her friends. "I swear to god if magic was real I would hex you all."
———X==X==X———
"Heeey," Ashley said as she, Natalie, and three other girls I'd never met before sidled into the shop a few days into November. "Glad you're here." Albert was out sick with the flu, so I was working his normal Saturday shift this week—and would strongly consider tracking him down and magicking the virus away if he was still sick next Friday.
"Hi," I replied. "Glad to see you, too. What's up?"
Ashley sucked in a breath through her teeth.
"Well…" She trailed off as she squirmed on the threshold. It was the first time I'd ever seen her not owning whatever room she was in, which was actually a little concerning.
Natalie gently nudged her aside and took charge. "We got our tenth player," she said, "but it turns out the school's tennis equipment is terrible. Half the rackets are flat-out broken! Ashley and I"—she waved the hand that wasn't holding the clipboard I hadn't noticed—"have our own stuff, but most of the other girls are here to learn, so they don't have rackets or anything."
"And the league has a membership fee," Ashley said morosely. "And we'll need to pay for travel, and uniforms—"
Natalie waved her to silence. "Yeah, the league is expensive, but right now we just need the basic equipment."
"So you're collecting donations?" I asked.
"Not donations," another girl said. "The school says we need local sponsors."
"All the other teams have them," another girl added. "Well, that's what the principal said."
"Donations are fine!" Natalie interrupted. "The sponsorship is for the league, and we're not there yet."
"How many sponsors do you have so far?" I asked.
Ashley let out something that was half-sigh, half-growl. "Right now? None. We've gotten a bunch of offers for free or discount products, which might be useful if the sporting goods store wasn't full of sexist pricks!"
"They only sponsor men's sports," Natalie explained, "so the one store that has what we need won't help."
"Usually, the school gets around that by having both a mens and womens team," another girl explained.
"But that means the women's teams always get hand-me-down equipment," Ashley complained. "I'm not about to build a men's team too just so we can use their spare crap!" Several of the others shushed her, clearly worried that she was lowering the already poor odds of wringing any money from a two-person bakery.
Natalie brought the conversation back on topic. "So," she said, "I'm sorry to put you on the spot like this, but we're sort of running out of people to ask…"
"One moment." I held up one hand in the universal just-a-minute sign while I grabbed the phone and dialed Homura's cell with the other.
"Cass," she said, "why are you dialing me from two rooms away?"
"Because I can. How do you feel about sponsoring a local youth sports team?"
"Your budget is two million dollars a year. Knock yourself out."
"What," I said. "That's… uh."
"A good indication of how much we can afford to throw around?" she suggested. "It's our money, you're free to use it however you want."
"All that?"
"That's your half of our money—our income, if you want to be precise. If they just need a one-time donation, we can spare about one hundred million. If you need more than that, you should call Max."
I sat there staring into space for a second. Sometimes I forget we have cheat codes on.
"If you say so," I said. "You're sure?"
"Very sure," she insisted. "Is that all?"
"Yeah. Uh, thanks. Talk to you later!"
"In person, next t—"
I hung up and turned back to the group, who had been following my half of the conversation with naked interest. "I think you're in luck."
———X==X==X———
I got a very fancy letter only a few days after writing Strawfield High a generous check. "GUEST," it read—in embossed silver letters on a matte eggshell card that felt like cloth under my fingers, "You (+1) are cordially invited to Mr. and Mrs. Fredrick Elwick's New Year's Eve Party." It went on to specify the date (duh) and time (actually necessary), ending with a request to RSVP by the twenty-fifth and a phone number to do so.
Of course, the first thing I did was show it to Homura.
"Huh," she said.
That had been my reaction as well.
"I'm not sure if they're inviting us because they're embarrassed about the thing last summer," I said, "or because they're not embarrassed about the thing last summer."
"Do you want to go?"
"Do I want to skip hanging out with a bunch of people who respect me so we can get sneered at by rich people instead?" I asked. "I think… no."
"We could go to both," Homura said.
"Why would we?"
"You're friends with their daughter, aren't you? This might have been her idea." Homura flipped the card over and frowned at the company logo on the back. "Maybe it says GUEST because she didn't remind them who we were."
I took the card back and looked over it again. "I'm not sure if that's more or less likely than the Elwicks having so little shame as to see nothing wrong with inviting us themselves."
"Maybe they've already forgotten the incident."
"Or they're hoping we'll bring some of your baking as a guest gift."
"I've changed my mind," Homura said. "That is the most likely explanation."
"Are we going to?"
"Not a chance. Pies are for people we like."
———X==X==X———
