A STORY by ELLA UNAL
Regulars
Amber comes in exactly five minutes before we open and orders one corn muffin and one large iced coffee—extra ice. She doesn’t tip, but she does smile. Her son was recently promoted at work, and he doesn’t visit as often as he should.
Judy calls at 7am to place an order for fifteen plain croissants. She always arrives before the croissants are out of the oven, and she always brings her own bags. She hates the new head baker, but she’s a creature of habit and wouldn’t dare take her business elsewhere.
Sean comes in after his overnight shift at the firehouse, but leaves when he sees that Gwen hasn’t arrived yet, claiming that he needs to “consult the missus” before ordering. He studies his phone on the front porch until Gwen does arrive, and then he comes back in.
Gwen flirts incessantly with Sean, holding up the line. “Should I be bad today?” she asks, body positioned towards the cashier, but eyes turned towards Sean. “Don’t give me any ideas,” he replies with a laugh, and we all laugh, and no one brings up the “missus.”
The missus’s name is Frankie and Frankie is chronically depressed. She calls in an order for a baguette at 10am, but never comes to pick it up. Sean is gone by 9. They were high school sweethearts who mistook familiarity for love, and they’ll get divorced in three years, but not because of the flirting. Sean will never cheat, not really, but he will fuck Gwen the day after the divorce is finalized.
The Girls come in for an early lunch, each one a carbon copy of the others. The Girls are halfway through their eighth-grade year, and have the feeling that everything will be different in high school. Most are comforted by this prediction, but one is paralyzed by it. They buy two boxes worth of lemon squares and prosciutto sandwiches, and jokingly fight over which of their family’s Amex Platinum Cards will cover the order. The one called Emmy wins, but her card is declined. She laughs and pays with a $100 bill instead.
Emmy got the $100 bill from Craig. Craig is thirty-three and Australian. He moved to the U.S. to become an actor, and now he does cocaine with Emmy and her Other Friends at high school parties. The Girls don’t know about Craig.
Lydia’s voice carries into the bakery from the street, and she kisses the boss on the lips when she enters. Lydia is a lesbian and the kiss is an old ritual. If Lydia were not a lesbian and the kiss were not a ritual, then it would practically be incest. Lydia’s wife never comes into the bakery, and the boss jokes that she’s a figment of Lydia’s imagination. Lydia’s wife is not a figment of imagination. In fact, she’s just gluten-free.
Pete interrupts Lydia and the boss and yells that he’s going to kill. No. He’s going to motherfucking KILL that motherfucker, John.
Right. John came in earlier, while Judy was on the phone. He picked up a muffin and a large coffee, said something about the weather, and left. The boss (his wife comes from generational wealth, by the way), never makes John pay.
Anyways, it turns out that John tried to sic his dog on Pete’s twin, ten-year-old daughters when they were on their way to school. John has schizophrenia, no meds, no living relatives and, really, needs much more than a free scone every once in a while. The boss calms Pete down, gives him two free scones, and has him sit on the front porch to peck through them. Lydia joins Pete and monologues about her latest restoration project. A light, spring breeze blows through town.
In the kitchen, a dark cloud of dread builds and precipitates, builds and precipitates, in Anne’s mind. Anne is, for a liberal arts trust fund baby, an uncharacteristically reliable bakery employee. She’s also three months pregnant with Craig’s son, which she confirmed with a CVS pregnancy test on Tuesday.
In the front, a group of Taiwanese tourists purchase an obscene number of pretzel rolls. The cashier is extra smiley, as she always is around people who are not white or not from New York. Do they prefer the Hudson Valley or the city, she asks. The valley, definitely.
Then, it happens. John comes back. Pete calls him a “motherfucker” and raises his hands into two tight fists. John walks up the porch steps and hits Pete in the face with an iPhone which has not been charged or used, in the traditional sense, in over a year. Pete’s face reddens upon impact and in anger and he punches John in the nose. Before John can retaliate, the boss scuffles out and tells him to get the fuck off his property. John does indeed get the fuck off his property, and Anne calls 911. There is a short police chase wherein John smears his feces on the park bench, and then it is over.
In the kitchen, the boss and Pete plan to slash the tires of John’s car. The car is John’s home, and never has any gas in the tank, so this wouldn’t make much of a difference. Also, John has been arrested. He’ll be sent to prison back in New Jersey and finally prescribed Haloperidol.
By two o’ clock, the glass has been wiped clean. Amber returns for a second coffee (decaf) and leaves a dollar on the counter by accident. Anne folds parchment paper, wipes flour from her wrists, counts minutes between nausea. Craig is asleep somewhere, phone on Do Not Disturb. Pete goes home to his daughters who will repeat the story at school, getting nearly all the details wrong. The bakery closes on time.
Ella Unal (she/her) is an educator, editor, and emerging writer based in NYC. She spends 50% of her free time thinking about writing, 30% reading, 10% english country dancing, 9% chatting with her lovely fiancé, and 1% actually writing.