Opal rolls her eyes at me as she walks through the kitchen, headed toward the front of the store. My kitchen. I bought the bakery a few months ago, yet it still feels strange to think about this place as my own. I’d never owned anything before this, not even a house, and here I am running my own business. Cupcakes and Cappuccinos is my store, a combination coffee shop and bakery. "It's Monday. This place isn’t exactly teeming with activity,” she says as she breezes past me, the door swinging behind her.
"I have the Peterson anniversary cake," I call, hanging my apron on a hook and following her to the front. "I'll drop the cupcakes off at Chloe's school and then I'll be back to decorate it."
"Take your time. The bakery won't burn down in the hour or two you're gone." Opal tsk-tsks me the way she always does before slowly meandering around with a cloth in her hand to clean the empty tabletops. A handful of customers are scattered throughout the front of the store reading newspapers and typing on their laptops.
Opal shakes her head at me because I can't let go of my city roots, the rush-rush-rush of life that people in West Bend, Colorado just don't seem to possess. Everything moves slower here, and everyone seems to like it that way. I'm the odd one out, too high strung for this place, perpetually juggling a hundred different things and feeling like I'm failing at all of them.
Opal has been here since I bought the bakery. She came with it, a carryover from the prior owners. She was the only employee who stayed after I bought it – and not by my choice. I wanted to keep the other existing employees as well, but she was the only one who wanted to stay and work for me.
I came to West Bend, far removed from Chicago and the weight of my husband's name, in order to shed my past. Within days of my and Chloe's arrival, rumors spread that we were hiding something – that we were in the witness protection program or fleeing from an abusive man, or even that I was a felon evading the authorities. Town residents decided that I was a woman to be either hated or pitied.
All of the residents except Opal.
Opal just shook her head and clucked her tongue, all too aware of the drama apparently inherent with living in a small town. She's a fixture in West Bend, born and raised here, and is probably the most even-keeled person I've ever met. “People in this town got no business poking their nose in your past,” she’d said. “Glass houses and all that. Besides, we all got pasts. Don’t let it bother you. They’ll come around eventually. People always do.”
The first month, I cried myself to sleep most nights convinced this entire thing was a mistake. I could count the number of customers on one hand that came through the bakery that month. But then, by the second month we were here, customers began slowly trickling in and we started to build up regular business.
None of that kept the old biddies in town from continuing to speculate about what we could possibly be running from, of course. The rumors haven't stopped. And they've affected Chloe, despite how much I've tried to protect her. Mean girls in her first-grade class tease her.
I check the basket on the counter: two boxes of cupcakes, paper plates, and napkins. "Shit. I forgot juice boxes."
"Get out of here and go on over to Connie's," Opal orders, waving the cloth in her hand. She gives me a look over the edge of her purple leopard print glasses. "You’ve got time. Are you sure about going to the school?"
I frown, briefly regretting not simply dropping the cupcakes off at school this morning. I'd feel just awful if my going to her elementary school fueled more whispers and rumors from Chloe's classmates.
But it's Chloe's birthday. Technically, we celebrated it on Saturday, making the four hour drive to celebrate it with my parents. But today is her actual birthday and on her birthday of all days, I didn't want to drop her off at school and let her fend for herself. So what if I'm a little overprotective? It's my fault that she's a pariah in her class. It was my decision to move here from Chicago, and it's my job to be protective of her.
“I’m sure,” I say, my voice firm. “It’s Chloe's birthday. She only turns seven years old once.”
I feel a pang of guilt at the prospect of leaving Opal to manage the store by herself. Rachel, the front counter girl, quit this morning. Any day but today, I'd have been glad to get rid of her, since her work ethic was less than stellar. But her drama this morning left me behind schedule with baking. Opal said it was good riddance because the girl was more trouble than she was worth anyway.
In twenty minutes, I need to be at Deerfield Elementary School armed with cupcakes and juice boxes because I want to be there in case those bitchy little first graders give my daughter any grief.
I dart over to the general store, not even making an attempt at polite conversation with Connie C., which is just fine. Connie C. decided when I arrived in town that she didn’t like me on sight. I usually avoid coming into her store, but desperate times call for it. I grab two packages of juice boxes and stuff one under each arm. I'm glancing around, trying to decide if there’s anything else I've forgotten when I get hit by a brick wall.