After breakfast, Sophie showed me around the house. She took me upstairs first, leading me into two small bedrooms. Except for a single bed and dresser in one of them, both rooms were completely bare. Despite their sparseness, they didn’t look half as bad as I expected them to. Their pale walls, freshly refinished floors, and undressed windows, however, indicated that some work had already been done to them. The scent of clean wood filled the air, and light streamed in from the wide windows on both sides.
“Where is all of Goober’s stuff?” I asked.
Sophie waved her hand. “Her things are still in the garage until I finish all of this. I don’t want them to get dirty. And technically she doesn’t even need her bed. She still sleeps with me.”
She led me back downstairs, into a large, very wide room in the front of the house. The floors were rough and unfinished, and while two of the walls were bare and smooth, the other two were pocked with cracked plaster. Unlike the woodsy scent upstairs, this room was permeated with a strange oily smell.
Sophie walked into the middle of the room. She spread her arms out wide and turned around slowly. “This room is going to be the first thing people see when they come in. This is going to be the whole front of the store.” She pointed to an empty space on the right. “I want to have a case of breads over there—whole wheat, rye—and English muffins, and cranberry-nut, blueberry-lemon, and white chocolate raspberry muffins over there. I want a table in the middle filled with nothing but cookies—the dark-chocolate-walnut-toffee ones, coconut macaroons, peanut butter drops with the little Hershey’s Kisses in the middle, and sugar cookies. And then on the left, I’m thinking pies: apple, peach, and cherry daily, and maybe chocolate cream espresso for special occasions. Plus, I want to have a wall for all different kinds of specials. Maybe a certain bread—like Irish soda bread for St. Patrick’s Day, fruitcake for Christmas, or challah bread for Passover—whatever.” She looked at me, her face shiny with perspiration. “What do you think?”
I shrugged. “Good.”
“But?”
“But it sounds like a lot.” I shoved my hands deep into my pockets. “It sounds like a whole lot. Can you do all that?”
“I can try.” She studied me for a few seconds without saying anything.
“What?” I asked finally.
“You know this is my dream, right, to have my own place, my own bakery? To create amazing things for people to eat?”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Yeah. I mean, I guess I do now.”
“Well, when something’s your dream, you do whatever it takes to make it happen.” She shrugged. “Even if it seems like too much.”
I waited, hoping she wasn’t going to start in again on her “you gotta have fun” speech.
“You have a dream, don’t you?” she asked instead.
I looked away uncomfortably. “Well, yeah. Of course.”
“What is it?” Sophie asked. “What’s your dream, Jules?”
“Didn’t we already talk about this?” I could feel my defenses starting to rise. “In my room, right after my graduation? You know I want to be an attorney and get on the whole legal fast track.”
Sophie nodded slowly. “I know that’s going to be your job,” she said. “But is that your dream?”
I crossed my arms. “Yes. Now can we drop it?”
Sophie nodded. “Come on,” she said. “I want to show you the kitchen.”
“Actually, I think I need some air,” I said. “The smell in here…Can we go for a walk or something?”
“Yeah,” Sophie said. “Definitely. I should’ve given you a mask to put over your face before we came into this room. I’ve been using turpentine on the walls and the fumes are really strong. Come on.”
Outside, the day was warming up fast. More people had appeared on Main Street, walking dogs or just hurrying down the sidewalk. A man in biker shorts and bright red clogs was sweeping the sidewalk in front of the Brown Bag Delicatessen, and a herd of men holding coffee cups had gathered in front of a little convenience store called Stewart’s. They were laughing and talking, lifting their caps to scratch their heads and then placing them back on again.
“Let’s head this way.” Sophie pointed in the direction of the high school. “It leads right into East Poultney, where there’s an adorable little mom-and-pop store and a real gorge with a waterfall. We can get some drinks at the store and then sit for a while by the waterfall. I always go down there when I need to think. It’s great.”