It wasn’t ready yet, and I hadn’t really thought through what I was actually going to do with it when I was done, but the working on it was enough for now.
In the post-kiss atmosphere of Georgia’s still unnamed bakery, I was thankful for her gritty ability to compartmentalize her life. There were no awkward pauses in conversation or bizarre back and forth dances trying to pass by each other as we moved around the kitchen. We seemed to only be seeing each other in the bakery these days, and that was a lack of sleep well worth it.
We were both exhausted from the hours we’d kept over the last two weeks since I started helping her, but according to Georgia, it was working. She’d had business cards made, with just her information on it, since the bakery had no name—a fact I mentioned to her whenever I could—and she would deliver her baked goods to local businesses and set up stands at various farmers’ markets, too. Her phone had been buzzing like crazy with people telling her the things they liked best, placing large orders for private parties, and asking, of course, when she’d be open for business.
“I just need to get people in here on a regular basis, now.” She spoke in the middle of a train of thought I wasn’t riding. She caught on to my confusion. “Sorry ... I was thinking it’s one thing to have people know where you are, but you need to get people into the habit of coming to your place, to put it on the maps in their brains and make it part of their daily or weekly routine. Sure, they can place orders and pick them up, but I want people, like, here, too.”
I gestured to the large windows that butted up against the booth. “At least you have the location working for you.”
She shrugged and tilted her head side-to-side like she was half disagreeing. “The vista works, right? But ... this is a back street in a largely residential neighborhood. There’s a boutique on the north side of the street, but this part of the road looks like a long driveway. There’s not a ton of foot traffic ... almost none, really. And very little through traffic.”
“Okay,” I sighed, putting my hands on my hips, “time to get some traffic, then.”
She looked up, biting her lip. “How?”
I wandered into the dining area and took a few laps around the space, willing an idea to come to me. I looked back at Georgia, who was watching me closely through the large cut-out in the wall. It was as open a kitchen as the space would allow without completely removing a weight-bearing wall. It was a fantastic space. Warm, open...
“Classes!” I shouted with a loud clap of my hand.
A clearly exhausted Georgia felt the volume all the way to her bones, it seemed. She jumped half a foot back. “What the fuck is wrong with you!”
“Sorry,” I exaggerated a whisper, “classes.”
She flipped me off, and whispered back, “Explain.”
“You could offer baking classes here. For one, people love to say they’re taking classes of something that sounds fancy. That’s just how people are. Throw the gluten-free angle into it and you’ve got something. People want to learn how to bake G-F stuff whether they need to, or not. And, if they do need to, you’ll be doing them a huge favor. You could charge per class or per session ... like ... I don’t know, you could either have a course, so people could learn to make cookies, cupcakes, breads, whatever all in a week, or you could have cookie week...”
I trailed off as Georgia walked into the dining area to meet me toe-to-toe. My tattered six-year-old Converses against her ancient combat boots whose scuff marks were colored in with black permanent marker.
“What? Too much?”
“No,” she blinked like her lashes were the fluttering wings of that rocking horse fly, “it’s fucking brilliant!” A rare wide smile crinkled her eyes as she leaped from her spot on the floor and wrapped her legs around my waist.
Instantly it reminded me of the day I’d met her and she’d greeted CJ that way. It seemed like forever ago, but I know that there was no way back then that I was thinking I’d be in his position someday. The recipient of Georgia’s full-body experience hug. I crossed my arms under the full curve of her hips and circled us around once before setting her down.
“Jesus, Regan, seriously!” She squeezed me one more time before running into the kitchen and returning with a calendar and a notebook. “That’s brilliant. I had so many people this week saying, Oh I wish I could bake like this. I could teach them, and they might do it a few times to impress people or when they’re feeling down, but we know they’ll still buy from the bakery. People know how to cook but still order out, you know what I’m sayin’?”
For the first time since I’d known her, Georgia’s Eastern Massachusetts screw-you accent slipped from her mouth.
“Yeah, I know whatchyou’re sayin’,” I echoed the accent back as I sat across from her.
She blushed deeply, looking up at me through noticeably tired eyes. “It’s like that when I’m tired. Fuck off.”