“This is perfect.” I handed the sketch back to Rosa and glanced out the window.
Arlo was chatting with a woman I didn’t recognize across the plaza by the bubbling Lithia Fountain.
This was my chance to go have a word and see what I could find out about the mystery man who seemed to have caught Lance’s eye.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I said to Rosa. I hurried outside and crossed the street into the center of the plaza by the information kiosk. An assortment of posters for concerts, art shows, and open-mic poetry nights were tacked to the kiosk. Arlo and the woman he’d been talking to hugged and ended their conversation. The woman headed toward Lithia Park.
He turned in my direction. “Juliet, we meet again.” He beamed a welcoming smile and reached out to hug me. “How fortuitous.”
“Actually, I saw you and thought I would invite you to Torte for a latte and pastry.” I nodded toward the bakeshop.
He took a brief glance at his watch. “Yes please. I have thirty minutes before my next appointment.”
We walked to the bakeshop together. Arlo was dressed in a pair of jeans, Chuck Taylors, and a casual V-neck sweater. He took wide steps with a steady gait.
“How was the pub last night?” I asked.
“Wild.” He grinned and held the door open for me. “I don’t know if you know this, but softball coaches are crazy.”
“I did not know that.” I laughed. “Have a seat at one of the booths. Do you have a preference? Sweet? Savory? Both?”
“Not at all. Surprise me.”
“What about coffee? How do you take your coffee?”
“I take it however you want to give it to me.” He strolled over to a booth while I went to plate a variety of pastries and put in an order for Andy’s lemon dream latte. I didn’t know much about Arlo yet, but his easygoing attitude was warm and welcoming. I was excited to learn more about him and try to deduce if Lance’s love life was about to take a turn for the better.
Chapter Thirteen
“Are you trying to get me fired from my coaching job?” Arlo teased when I presented him with a plate piled high with tea cakes, meltaways, peanut butter brownies, sun-dried tomato egg-salad flatbread, and ham and Swiss croissants.
“I’ll share.” I sat across from him.
“How does a baker who makes a spread like this stay so slim?” He leaned against the back of the booth in an easygoing manner.
“Good genetics?” I took a brownie and broke it in half. “That and the fact that we burn a lot of calories baking, running up and down the stairs, and delivering our bread around town.”
“It sounds like I could recruit you to come coach.” Arlo studied the plate with wide eyes. “What should I try first?”
“I’m not a good judge. Each of my pastries is like a baby. I can’t pick a favorite.”
He threw his head back and let out a deep, baritone laugh. “No wonder Lance adores you. Pastries babies!”
Andy brought us coffees. A lemon dream latte for Arlo and a straight black cup of our blond roast for me.
“Lemon, huh?” Arlo said after Andy left. “That’s the thing I’m quickly learning about Ashland. This isn’t your standard small town.”
“You’re very observant.”
Arlo decided on the egg salad. “It comes with the job. I’ve spent the last fifteen years traveling from theater to theater. You’d be surprised how the same issues come up no matter if you’re in Iowa or LA. I spend the first few weeks watching and observing, and listening—listening is the key—before I begin to brainstorm solutions.”
“Interesting.” I bit into one of Bethany’s brownies. It was the consistency of fudge with a creamy peanut butter filling. Mom and I had begged her to join our team at Torte and even offered a small percentage of profit shares after trying her brownies at Ashland’s annual chocolate festival. “What have you learned about OSF so far?”
Arlo sipped his coffee. A faint smile tugged at his lips. “I can say with certainty that Lance has set a vision. He has command of his company, and expectations that exceed anything I’ve ever seen.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“Perhaps a bit of both,” Arlo answered honestly. “The company and community clearly revere him, but have they bought into his vision? That, I’m not sure.”
I hadn’t expected Arlo to be so forthcoming. His confidence allowed him an ease that made me feel comfortable.
“Don’t get me wrong. I think Lance’s vision for OSF is trailblazing. He wants to revolutionize theater as we know it. Which he’s already doing. It’s pretty incredible actually. When I told people I was taking a job in Ashland, the response was consistently positive. Lance has a reputation for being on the cutting edge. He wants to push audiences out of their comfort zone and make them feel what it’s like to walk in the shoes of people who are very different from them. He sees theater as the great educator and equalizer of our times. He sees the stage as having the most impact to bring us together. To help us understand that our worldview is slanted, no matter what our belief system is.” Arlo’s eyes were bright and open as he continued. “Lance doesn’t want to put on yet another production of Romeo and Juliet. He wants you—the audience member—to become a Capulet. He wants you to walk away from a three-hour production and have it live on for days and weeks and years to come. It’s an ambitious vision. I personally think he’s right to use this platform to help shape understanding, but he can’t pull it off without buy-in. My challenge is going to be figuring out how we engage with patrons. How we message the community—and how we fill seats in the theater, because there is a percentage of our devoted members who want to come see a show that they recognize and leave feeling happy and good. Some of what Lance wants to do isn’t going to meet those patrons where they’re at. It’s going to leave them feeling uncomfortable. That could drastically change attendance numbers. It could sink the theater.”
“Really?” I clasped my hands together. The theater, along with most businesses in southern Oregon, had taken a hit from wildfires the past few summers. Attendance numbers had been down and some of the outdoor shows at the Elizabethan had to be cancelled due to poor air quality. Ashland’s bevy of bed and breakfasts, retail shops, restaurants, and outdoor recreation companies had been impacted. I didn’t like hearing that Lance’s vision for OSF’s future might also jeopardize ticket sales.
Arlo’s face was severe. “I’ve seen it happen before. Now, I also concede that Ashland is unique. If anyone can pull it off, I think it’s Lance and I think it’s here. But, it doesn’t come without risk and without some painful bumps in the road.”
“Have you said this to Lance?” I sipped my coffee.
“I have.” The smile returned to Arlo’s cheeks. “You and Lance have been close for a while now; how do you think that my input went over?”
It was a good thing I had set my mug on the table, otherwise I might have spit coffee at Arlo. “Not well.”
“Nope.” He snapped his fingers together to signal I had answered correctly. “Lance blew off my concerns. And, trust me, I get it. I get that he wants to do big things here, but if he alienates his base it could spell disaster.”
Arlo was scaring me. If OSF crumbled, so would everything I knew and loved in Ashland. The theater was the lifeblood of our community.
“What’s the answer then?”
“My answer would be to stay the course. OSF has an international reputation not only for its top-caliber talent, but also for staging new plays and works by playwrights who traditionally haven’t been given a voice. I think it’s about balance. Each season should have both. We should be producing revolutionary shows. We should help push the boundaries of understanding, but we also need a few feel-goods. We need big productions outside at the Elizabethan that get people up on their feet and dancing. Shows that bring down the house. Lance told me that he loves a good song-and-dance number, which is critical.”
“It’s true,” I interjected. “Lan
ce loves Rodgers and Hammerstein as much as he loves Shakespeare.”
Arlo pressed his palm to his heart and nodded. “That’s good. That’s going to be my pitch to Lance and our point of balance. Those musicals draw in families and new theatergoers. They are gateway shows. They generate buzz and they help fill seats in some of the lesser-known shows. Maybe somebody comes to see The Music Man. They’re on their feet clapping and singing through the show. They have such a great experience that they look through the season brochure and one of our more serious productions jumps out. They give that a try and it’s a transformative experience.”
Arlo sounded like he knew his stuff.
“But Lance doesn’t agree?” I asked.
He rolled up his sweater sleeves. “I wouldn’t say that. I think Lance knows that at his core, but will he admit it? That’s the question.”
“I don’t envy you.”
“Don’t worry about me. I can handle it. I’d rather go head-to-head with someone as passionate as Lance than a theater director who just wants to dial it in.”
The more we chatted, the more I liked Arlo. He was levelheaded and calm. Lance may have met his match. I couldn’t imagine Arlo caving to Lance’s every whim, and I was glad he had OSF’s best interests in mind.
“Enough about me.” Arlo picked up an almond meltaway. “Tell me about you. How did you come to be a baker extraordinaire?”
“I don’t know if I’d say that, but baking is in my blood.” I gave him a condensed version of how my parents had opened the bakeshop when I was young.
“How is it returning home? Weird? Good? Both?” Arlo’s relaxed body language continued to put me at ease. It was no wonder that he excelled in his position. Like Mom, he had a natural way of asking questions designed for more than a yes or no answer.
“Both. Things have changed since my childhood, but mostly for the better. It was strange at first, but you’ve experienced Ashland’s embrace enough to understand that you would have to be a hermit not to find your tribe here. I love that. I love living in a place where everyone looks after each other. It took traveling the world to teach me how special Ashland is.”
Arlo ate two more cookies. “Ashland is lucky to have you. I’ve spent a fair amount of time traveling too, and I have to say these are some of the most delicious pastries I’ve ever had.”
I felt my cheeks warm.
“As much as I would love to learn more about you, I have to run. Board meetings—the joy.” Arlo made a face then placed his napkin on his plate and took one last drink of coffee. “Thank you so much for the wonderful early lunch. That sad peanut butter and honey sandwich waiting for me at the office is out of luck. What do I owe you?”
“Nothing, it’s on the house.” I waved him off.
He frowned. “In that case, beers on me one night this week. What do you say?”
“I’d love that.”
Arlo stood. “I’m a hugger. Is that cool?”
“Me too.” I gave him a quick hug and promised that I would find time for beers soon.
After he left I went downstairs to the kitchen. A family with two teenagers appeared to be locked in board game battle. They had Catan spread out on the coffee table next to plates of my rose cookies and mugs of hot chocolate with our hand-pulled marshmallows. “Can I get you anything?” I asked before going to check on my staff.
The mom held up one of the game pieces. “We’re fine. Everything is delicious, but I could use a teammate. I’m getting crushed here.”
“I feel you. I’ve been there.” I chuckled. When Ramiro had visited over the winter holidays we had played Catan for hours. He’d beaten me every time.
Bethany scooted by me with a tray of cupcakes, hand pies, and macarons. I continued into the adjoining kitchen. Steph had a pair of earbuds in at the decorating station, where she was frosting a fault-line cake. The trendy cakes were so popular that there was rarely a day we didn’t have at least one custom order for one. To create the contemporary look, lines of buttercream were swiped out of the middle of the cake and then filled with sprinkles, berries, cookies, or sugar geodes.
Sterling called me over to the stove. “Hey, Jules, can you come sign off on my soup?”
He ladled half a cup into one of our sturdy bright red bowls and handed it to me along with a spoon. The one thing I had tried to impart to my staff above anything else was tasting. A chef can never taste too much. “It looks great,” I noted. “And it smells even better.”
Sterling tucked a dish towel into the apron tied around his waist while he waited for my input.
The chicken soup was packed with flavor and the dumplings were light and buttery. “This is incredible. I am going to need more than this little scoop in my bowl.”
“Glad you approve.” Sterling added more of the creamy soup to my bowl. “Speaking of Scoops, are you heading over to the new space?”
“Yeah. I figured I would take off as soon as the lunch prep is complete, and it looks like it is. What about you? Do you want to come, or skip it today? How are you feeling?”
Sterling dished up bowls of the chicken-and-dumpling soup for the rest of the team. “I’ll come. I’m good. I’m not over the shock, but a routine helps, and I know Andy wants to go over the menu and Steph said she would do the chalkboard.”
Marty took one of the soup bowls that Sterling offered. “Things are running smoothly. I think the rest of us can manage for the afternoon. Now once the season starts and the crowds return, we might be singing a different tune.”
“I know. Mom and I are already planning for that.” I clicked my fingers together. “In fact, thanks for the reminder. I need to post an ad online and in the paper for seasonal help.”
After I checked in with everyone, I gathered my things and left. The walk to Scoops revived my spirits. I stopped to chat with fellow business owners, allowing my skin to soak in the springtime sun.
I could smell Nana’s food truck from two blocks away. Laney was probably in the middle of lunch service, which meant that I wouldn’t be able to talk to her alone. I went straight to the garden and dropped off my things. When I walked behind the counter to put a few supplies in the refrigerator I froze.
Someone was curled up in a sleeping bag sprawled out on the ground.
Chapter Fourteen
I jumped at the sight of someone camping out behind our coffee counter. What were they doing here?
An empty feeling swirled in the pit of my stomach. What if the person was dead?
Please don’t let them be dead, I prayed internally as I knelt next to the person.
“Are you okay?” I gently shook the sleeping bag. It was army green and tattered and dirty. From the condition of the bag it appeared that it had gotten a lot of use.
The person’s head was buried inside.
I shook it again.
No one moved.
Oh no. I clasped my hand over my mouth. This couldn’t be happening again.
I tried again. “Are you okay?”
This time the person stirred.
Whew. Relief washed over me. For a moment I wanted to be still and allow the feeling to flood my body.
The person made a mumbling sound and pushed their head from beneath the badly worn sleeping bag.
“Sky?” I’m sure my eyes must have been wide with surprise.
His upper body swayed from side to side as he tried to shuffle out of the sleeping bag. “They’re after me.” His eyes were glassy. They darted in every direction. He blinked rapidly, as if trying to focus.
“Sky, it’s Jules. I’m the one who helped with your hand.”
He had managed to sit up, but he continued to rock in circles. “They’re coming for me. They’re after me.”
“After you? Who?” I glanced around.
Sky scrunched his face. His eyes were bloodshot and his pupils were the size of dimes. “I gotta hide. I gotta get out of here.”
Was he in danger or was he on something or both?
“Hold on.” I s
teadied him. “Take a minute before you try to stand again. You look a bit dizzy.”
He swayed as he scratched his dreadlocks. “No, I gotta get out of here. They’re gonna find me and if they do they’ll kill me.” He used his injured hand to steady himself. The cut had bled through the bandage.
“Slow down, Sky.” I tried to keep my voice calm and even. “Who is following you?”
“The Wizard’s killer. They think I saw something too. I didn’t. I swear I didn’t see anything, but they think I did and now they’re gonna kill me.”
What did he mean by “saw something too”? Had the Wizard witnessed something that had gotten him killed?
“Take a minute and breathe,” I cautioned Sky, who wiggled out of the bag and stumbled to his feet. He clutched the countertop to steady himself, knocking off a box of silverware that Andy had brought over. Spoons scattered everywhere.
“Sorry. Sorry.” Sky bent down, grabbed his sleeping bag, and bolted toward the front gate.
“Wait,” I called after him, but he tripped toward the front gate, unlatched it, and wobbled down the sidewalk in a zigzagging pattern. I watched him almost lose his balance as he tried to step over a collection of plastic pots outside of the Grange and disappear behind the building.
He was obviously spooked and he looked pretty out of it. The question was why. Was his fear legitimate or was he on a paranoid drug binge? I picked up the spoons. Then I placed a quick call to Thomas. I wasn’t about to take any chances. The Wizard was already dead. If there was a glimmer of truth to Sky’s concerns, I wanted the police to follow up.
“Hey Jules, glad you called,” Thomas said. “I was hoping to swing by Torte later this afternoon. I could use your opinion as long as you have a few minutes to spare.”
“Sure, but I won’t be at the bakeshop. I’m here at the new space—Scoops.”
Chilled to the Cone Page 12
