Pupcakes

by Annie England Noblin

  “Don’t feel bad for us,” Rosa said. “The two of us, Lillie and me, well, we were meant for each other. We have everything we could ever want or need.”

  “Oh, I don’t,” Brydie said, quick to reply. “I’m glad. For both of you.”

  Rosa smiled a smile that went all the way up to her eyes. She was about to reply when they both saw Joe heading toward them, a scowl on his face. Trailing behind him was someone that Brydie had never met, but he looked important.

  “Look busy,” Rosa whispered.

  Brydie picked up the icing she’d been using to ice pilgrims’ hats and began outlining the white of the hats with black. She followed Rosa’s lead and kept her head down, even when she knew Joe and the other man were standing right in front of them.

  “And I’m telling you,” Joe said, stopping just in front of the counter, “I need at least two part-timers. I’m down to half the number of employees I normally have during the holidays.”

  “And I’m telling you that you’ll just have to do with what you’ve got,” the man said. “We don’t have the budget to hire anyone else.”

  “I find that very hard to believe,” Joe said, laying his palm flat against the countertop. “Our orders are up fifteen percent from this time last year. You can’t expect us to keep up with half the help.”

  “Can’t be helped,” the other man said.

  “So move around a couple people from overnights,” Joe replied. “I know you can do that. You’ve done it before.”

  “We need everybody where they are.” The other man leaned over the counter until Brydie looked up at him. “How long have you been here?” he asked her.

  “She’s new,” Joe snapped. “We’re still training her.”

  “What about that one,” the man said, his eyes roving lazily over Lillian’s form. “She hasn’t moved since I got here two hours ago. No wonder you’re falling so far behind.”

  Brydie saw the color rising in Rosa’s cheeks, and she opened her mouth to say something, but Joe shot her a look and said, “Kent, she’s the whole reason we have as many orders as we do. Hell, you ordered your wedding cake from us. Tell me you would have done that if you’d known anyone other than her was decorating it.”

  Kent shrugged. “You’ll just have to make do. We aren’t hiring anyone else.”

  “That’s bullshit, Kent, and you know it.”

  “Watch it,” Kent replied. “You’ll do well to know who you’re talking to. One more write-up and you’re out of here.”

  “Fine,” Joe said through clenched teeth. “We’ll make due.”

  “Good man,” Kent said, clapping Joe on the back before turning to walk away.

  Brydie looked up in time to see Joe standing there, rigid from Kent’s touch. His head was as red as a cherry tomato, and for a second it looked as if Joe’s head might very well pop right off his neck. Instead he took a deep breath and walked around the counter and through the double doors. He didn’t look at Brydie or Rosa and walked over to where Lillian was pasting lovely red roses around the side of the cake.

  Brydie winced, thinking about the way he’d chastised her for burning the ghost cookies. Was he going to say something to Lillian about working so slowly? She knew Kent was right—a couple of part-time workers, one even, could work faster than Lillian. But Joe was right, too. Brydie had never seen a talent for decorating like Lillian had.

  “You’re doing a good job,” Joe said. “The roses are perfect.” He rested his hand on Lillian’s shoulder. Lillian let it rest there for a moment before stepping away from Joe’s grasp.

  Rosa smiled at Joe, but her eyes were worried. “I’m sorry we are behind,” she said. “Maybe it would be better if—”

  “No,” Joe said, cutting her off. “Ignore Kent. You know he hates me. He’s always hated me. I won’t let him take it out on you or anybody else.”

  “We’re still behind a couple of orders a night,” Rosa continued. “You heard Kent say that if you get written up one more time, he’ll fire you.”

  “He’s not going to do that,” Joe replied. “Just do your best to be busy if you see him roaming around here, okay?”

  Rosa nodded. “Okay.”

  Brydie turned back around and began tending to the pilgrim hats once more. She thought about the way Joe had tended to Lillian, and she warmed to him, despite the way he’d been so angry with her about burning a batch of cookies. At her own bakery, she’d very rarely gotten upset, even when they ran behind a bit. They always managed to deliver on time. Allan, however, liked to bark orders. They’d actually gone through a few part-time employees before they’d found Cassandra, recommended to them by one of their old contacts at the culinary school.

  At first Brydie was pleased that Cassandra worked out so well. Allan rarely got angry with her, even though she often needed Brydie’s help at the last minute to finish a cake. Now, of course, she knew why that was.

  Brydie shook her head in a physical attempt to rid herself of these thoughts. This wasn’t her bakery. She wasn’t in Jonesboro. Cassandra and Allan would never step foot into this place, because it didn’t belong to them. It belonged to her.

  For the first time in a long time, Brydie felt like she belonged.

  CHAPTER 14

  THE NEXT EVENING, BRYDIE STOOD OUTSIDE DR. NATHAN Reid’s door, poised to knock. She’d managed to get Teddy to walk the entire two blocks with only minimal bribing with treats. She wished now that she’d chosen to drive. The rain was coming down in a slow, cold drizzle and everything outside was starting to look like it had been thrown into the Mississippi River, especially her and Teddy.

  She thought about turning around and going back home to change her clothes, but she was already late enough. As nervous as she was, Brydie knew that if she went home to change, she’d probably end up canceling altogether. So, despite the fact that her hair was matted to her forehead and Teddy was really starting to smell of wet dog, she rang the doorbell.

  Nathan opened the door. “I was hoping you’d decide to stay,” he said.

  Brydie’s cheeks immediately began to burn. “Were you watching me from inside?”

  “Well, when you say it like that,” Nathan replied, “it sounds kind of creepy.”

  “I hadn’t anticipated the rain,” Brydie said. She bent down to unhook Teddy’s leash. Before she could say anything else, Sasha was in front of her, jumping up so that her paws were on Brydie’s shoulders.

  “Sasha!” Nathan scolded. “Get down!”

  “It’s okay,” Brydie replied from somewhere buried in Sasha’s fur.

  Nathan pulled Sasha back and she went loping off with Teddy. “Sorry,” he said.

  “I guess she’s all healed.”

  “She is,” Nathan replied. “But she’s still on tramadol for pain, and instead of making her calm, it gives her the energy of a jackrabbit.”

  There was an awkward silence as the two of them stared at each other. Brydie felt her cheeks warm, and so she looked down at her cardigan, pulling off long, wheat-colored strands of Sasha’s hair. It occurred to Brydie just then how very little they knew about each other.

  “Your hair is dripping,” Nathan said finally, ending the intermission. “Hang on, I’ll go grab you a towel.”

  He left Brydie standing alone in the hallway. On the outside, the house looked a lot like Mrs. Neumann’s. All of the houses in the neighborhood did. But Nathan’s house had been newly remodeled. In fact, the inside even smelled new. The tile in the hallway led to what Brydie assumed, from the fantastic smells emitting from it, was the kitchen. She was sure in the summertime the tile was nice and cool, and it made the house seem light and airy. But with November setting in, it just made Brydie shiver.

  She walked the length of the hallway and stopped in front of a mirror with a gold, filigreed frame. Nathan was right—her hair was dripping down onto her cardigan, hanging in limp strands around her face. Her gold ballet flats were sopping and squishy when she walked, and the bottoms of her jeans were just as
wet. However, she was pleased to see that her makeup, at least, had remained intact.

  “Here you go,” Nathan said, appearing from behind her. He handed her a fluffy white towel.

  “Thanks,” Brydie replied, taking the towel and putting it to the ends of her hair. “Whatever it is you’re cooking smells delicious.”

  “Oh shit, the chicken!”

  Brydie followed Nathan into the kitchen, where he was frantically opening the oven. She watched as he pulled out a steaming dish and set it down on the counter. “It doesn’t look burned or anything,” she said.

  “It’s not,” Nathan replied, relief written all over his face. “But I have a tendency to forget and let food burn. It’s not one of my better qualities, I’m afraid.”

  Brydie grinned. “Do you cook a lot?” she asked. Do you cook for other women a lot? was what she really wanted to ask. Visions of the two women at the Halloween party flashed in her mind.

  “I try to cook for myself a few times a week,” Nathan replied, “even if I’m exhausted after a shift. For some reason, it’s completely—”

  “Relaxing?” Brydie finished for him.

  “Exactly!”

  Nathan motioned for her to sit down on one of the bar stools at the island in the middle of the kitchen, but Brydie couldn’t sit. She was too busy admiring his oven and everything else about the kitchen. “This is an amazing space,” she said. “And you have a KitchenAid oven!” She ran one of her hands over the handle of the oven. “I always wanted one of these in my house, but by the time we furnished the bakery, we just couldn’t afford it.”

  “Bakery?” Nathan asked. His eyebrows were knitted together. “We?”

  Brydie looked up from the oven with the realization of what she’d just said. She hadn’t been thinking. “Before I became nursemaid to a pug, I owned a bakery,” she said. “With my hus—” Brydie stopped, and correcting herself, continued. “With my ex-husband.”

  Nathan pulled two wineglasses down from a shelf and set one in front of her, filling it up. “That explains your reaction to my oven.”

  “I do love a good oven,” Brydie said. She took a drink of the wine. It tasted wonderful.

  “I can’t take credit for the kitchen,” Nathan replied. “It was all my fiancée. Well, ex-fiancée now.”

  Brydie peered at him from over the top of her wineglass. She hadn’t expected that. “She had good taste.”

  “She did,” Nathan agreed. “But she hated it here. She missed the East Coast. She tried, but the mud of the Mississippi River isn’t for everyone.”

  “And you wouldn’t move back to be with her?”

  Nathan busied himself with setting plates and placed a salad between the two of them. “My life is here now,” he said. “Even if my grandparents hadn’t died and left everything to me, I still would’ve found my way back to Memphis.”

  “I’m from Jonesboro,” Brydie said. “That’s where my bakery and my husband were.”

  “My grandfather used to take me there in the summertime when I came to visit as a kid,” Nathan replied. “Well, we always stopped for lunch on our way down to Hardy for a weekend of fishing.”

  “Jonesboro is a nice town,” Brydie said. “It was just too small for me, my ex-husband, his girlfriend, and our failed business.”

  Nathan sat down across from Brydie at the island. “Now I’m nervous that you’ll think I’m a terrible cook. I should have waited until after dinner for the deep conversation about our failed relationships.”

  “I might judge your ability to ice a wedding cake,” Brydie said, “but I promise not to judge any other of your culinary skills.”

  “This is fajita rollup chicken,” Nathan said. “There’s southwestern corn, too, if you’d like some.”

  “Thanks,” Brydie said, popping a piece of chicken into her mouth. “The chicken tastes as good as it smells.”

  “So,” Nathan said after a few minutes of quiet chewing, “how did you find Teddy and Mrs. Neumann?”

  Brydie looked down at her plate, searching for the right words to say to keep her from looking like the near-destitute charity case she really was. “My best friend moved here five years ago after she got married,” she said. “She’s a Realtor, and her husband is an attorney. After my divorce, I just thought it would be a nice change. My friend’s boss at the realty company knows Mrs. Neumann. She set everything up for me.”

  “Seems like a good friend.”

  “She is,” Brydie said. “She’s the best. I lived with her for almost six months. But she’s about to have another baby in January, and they really needed the space.”

  “Did you and your ex-husband . . . ?”

  Brydie shook her head. “No, we never had any children.” She almost laughed at how easily she knew what he was going to ask. It was the next logical question. Besides, better to get that out of the way now, in the beginning.

  “Do you want children?”

  “I did,” Brydie replied. “I mean, I do. But I’m thirty-four.”

  “Age isn’t always a determining factor,” Nathan replied, sounding very much like a doctor. “Women much older than you get pregnant all the time.”

  “I know,” Brydie replied. She wasn’t sure how to respond. She took a slow drink of wine. “But my ex-husband didn’t want to have children. We put it off for a long time, and by the time we decided to start trying, our marriage wasn’t in a good place. So, here I am,” she took another drink, “thirty-four and starting all over again.”

  “It happens that way sometimes,” Nathan said. “Starting over, I mean.”

  “I guess it was stupid of me to think that it was something I’d never have to do,” Brydie said.

  “My parents have started over more times than I ever thought possible,” Nathan replied. He stabbed at the last of his chicken with his fork. “When I was a kid my dad had a habit of starting businesses he couldn’t afford or maintain. My grandparents used to bail him out a lot, just like they’d always done for my mother. When I went away to college, my grandparents stopped helping them. I don’t think my mother ever got over it.”

  “Did that hurt your mom’s relationship with them?” Brydie asked. She thought about her own mother. She’d offered to help Brydie after the divorce. She’d offered to lend her money and even offered to buy her a house, both of which Brydie rejected. She couldn’t let her mother help her. Her mother had been angry, but for Brydie, her mother’s anger was better than allowing her mother to hand her money with strings attached.

  “It did more than hurt it,” Nathan replied. “My mother stopped talking to my grandparents altogether.”

  “I’m sorry,” Brydie said.

  “She feels a lot of guilt now that they’re gone,” Nathan continued. “She takes that guilt out on me.”

  “You and your mother don’t get along?”

  Nathan shrugged. “Now that I live in Memphis, there’s less occasion for arguments, but seldom does she call and we don’t disagree on something.”

  “My mother and I are the same way,” Brydie said. “It’s always been that way, though. Ever since I can remember.”

  “Family can be frustrating sometimes,” Nathan said. “I guess that’s why I have a dog instead of a wife and kids.”

  Brydie wondered if that was his way of saying that he didn’t ever want to have a family. She couldn’t imagine how difficult it must be to balance a demanding job like being a doctor with having a family. She knew only how difficult it had been for her and for Allan to find time for each other while running a business. But she didn’t want to think about any of that. She especially didn’t want to think about Allan. She wanted to be where she was, right here, drinking wine and contented with her life in the present.

  AFTER DINNER, NATHAN refilled their wineglasses and led her into the living room. Sasha and Teddy had settled there as well, and when Nathan built a fire in the fireplace, Teddy dropped right in front of it and started to snore. Sasha wasn’t far behind him.

  “The
living room at Mrs. Neumann’s house has a fireplace, too,” Brydie said. “I thought about lighting it the other night, but it hasn’t been lit in ages.”

  “I’m sure she wouldn’t appreciate it if you burned her house down trying to light the fireplace,” Nathan replied.

  “No, I can’t imagine that would make her too happy.”

  “Listen,” Nathan said, scooting closer to her on the couch. “I’m sorry if I asked too many intrusive questions earlier. I’m hopeless at small talk, and when I get nervous, I tend to fall back into doctor mode. I swear I didn’t mean to interrogate you over chicken.”

  “That’s okay,” Brydie replied. “It was actually kind of nice to talk about it with someone who doesn’t know anything about my life before I moved here.”

  “How do you like Memphis so far?”

  “It’s getting better,” Brydie said with a sly grin. Between the wine and the fire, she felt deliciously warm.

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Brydie watched him watching her. She liked the way his curly black hair fell in his eyes when he was concentrating. She liked the way his T-shirt fit, not too loose or too tight. She liked the way he asked her questions—soft, curious, but not intrusive. It made her want to tell him everything, anything, just to keep him looking at her. Paying attention to her.

  But more than that, she realized, there was something familiar about him, comfortable. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but despite the constant butterflies in her stomach, he made her feel calmer somehow. She could understand why people would be drawn to him as a doctor. She could even understand why a woman might visit her elderly aunt in order to be near him.

  Nathan moved a hand up to Brydie’s face, tucking a wandering strand of damp hair behind her ear. It sent a bolt of electricity through her, and when he moved his hand away, Brydie felt herself grabbing a fistful of his T-shirt and pulling him closer to her until her mouth was on his, and she could taste the wine on his lips.