I groaned.
“But don’t worry. I’m sure she has matured significantly since seventh grade.” He stopped to correct himself. “Well, seventh and eighth grade, if you’re counting the full twelve months.”
I whimpered but stopped abruptly when our first customers approached the table, a couple taking turns pushing a running stroller. The woman wore a voluminous stocking hat with a bright pink pom-pom that flopped on top. Beside her a lanky, bespectacled man walked, one hand commandeering the stroller and the other cradling a stainless steel carafe. Under a mountain of fleece blankets, two chubby cheeks poked out of the cocoon.
“Are you guys open?” The woman had dark circles under her eyes but wore a cheery smile. “We’ve been up for a while and will probably be ready for a nap by nine. Do you mind if we shop now?”
“Not at all.” I smiled, marveling at their early morning gumption and thinking Manda and Jack and their kids would probably not make it out to the farm until after noon.
Parking the stroller at the edge of the stand, the woman perused the cupcakes, the muffins, the glass hurricane filled with a rainbow of macarons. “Everything looks and smells amazing.” I could hear awe and hunger in her voice. She looked at me with wide eyes. “Did you bake all this?”
“She absolutely did.” Kai sounded as if he wanted to beat his chest in victory. “She’s pretty much incredible.”
I felt my cheeks heat up underneath the pink caused by the cold morning. “I’m used to large quantities and quick turnaround. This has been just for fun, to help out at the farm.” I unfastened a striped round tin I’d placed on the table. “I have samples of the pumpkin streusel muffin. Would you like to try some?”
“Absolutely.” The woman daintily plucked two samples from the tin and held out one for her husband, who was standing before one of my displays with a studied expression on his face. “Here, Mitch. Better eat this before I do.”
He ambled over and took the muffin from her hand.
The woman’s eyelids dropped sometime during her first bite. “This is exactly what I want to eat every day of autumn. And winter. And most of spring.” She grinned. “I’ll take a dozen. Does this woman cook for you? If so, you’re a lucky man.” She directed her words to Kai.
He shook his head. “She has control issues in the kitchen. I cook for her.”
Mitch snorted from his resumed position by my display. “Lizzie, maybe you two should be friends.”
“I might have one or two control issues,” I said to her.
Kai’s turn to snort.
I ignored him. “But I bake things for him all the time.”
“Four times, actually,” Kai said. “And one of them was a bribe to take her back. So that doesn’t really count as kindhearted baking.”
I cocked my head at him and stared. “You are—”
“Well,” the woman interrupted with a laugh. “You were right, Mitch. The ambience and banter are just as delightful as the baked goods.”
I looked at Mitch. He saw the question mark on my face and shook his head. “I definitely did not use the word delightful.” He put his hand out to shake mine. “Mitch Shapiro. I’m a repeat customer.”
I swallowed hard as I shook his hand. “Mitch Shapiro, the Seattle real estate man?”
Lizzie straightened from feeding a morsel of muffin into the chubby cheeks. “Please do not recognize him. It’s so annoying. And it inflates an already healthy ego.”
Mitch continued. “I’ve been out here three other times this fall because of a project nearby, and each time I’ve gone home wishing I’d bought more of what I ate from your booth.”
Lizzie licked streusel off her finger. “I believe the word would be mooning.”
I didn’t have much time to get flustered from the compliment because Mitch jumped right in. “Listen, I think you have something here. I’ve read up on you, on your experience as a chef, your good press from L’Ombre in New York, the TV show gig here with Thrill.”
I winced. “Not some of my finest moments.”
Mitch waved away my concerns with one hand. “All press can be turned to one’s advantage. Particularly if you give some things time. Plus, you have name recognition before you even sign the lease. That’s a huge advantage.”
My eyes widened. “Sign what lease?”
He grinned for the first time, revealing two deep dimples in his slender face. “Chef Garrett, I think you should set up shop in my new loft development in Seattle. Premium real estate, built-in customer base full to brimming with folks who want delicious cakes, muffins, and cookies, and a generous investment toward start-up costs for a small share in the business.” He took another muffin bite from the tin. “As long as you keep baking like this, you’re going to have more business than you know what to do with.”
My head was spinning. Kai had slipped behind Lizzie and the stroller and was giving me hysterical thumbs-ups and mouthing the word “Yeeeeeeessss!” over and over.