Chapter 18: Andi

The next day, Andi came bounding down the stairs to the coffee shop a little after 8 AM. Unlike her first night in Cherry Creek, she’d been able to get much more sleep. Even the worries about her parents hadn’t felt so overwhelming by the time she tucked herself into bed. She had a full day to get a head start on festival goodies and get the rest of her stuff ready to be taken to the post office. All in all, things felt manageable again. Even if she was delusional, she was going to let herself enjoy it for the time being.

When she got into the shop, she’d expected to see Jackson behind the coffee bar, but was instead greeted by Eric.

“Good morning,” she said. Did she sound disappointed? That was silly. She wasn’t. Was she? It was just, unexpected. It wasn’t like she was actually upset not to find Jackson in the shop this morning. Jackson had told her Eric was working this morning, but she’d hoped that meant both of them would be there at least for a while.

“Sup?” Eric said with a tilt of his chin.

“Is Jackson around here anywhere?” she asked. Why was she so bummed not to see him?

“No,” Eric said. He was fumbling with one of the espresso machines. “He had to go see someone about—something. I don’t know. He was pretty hush hush about it. Maybe it was a date.”

Andi looked at the clock. It seemed like a really strange time for a date. “Can I help with anything?” she offered. “I was just about to do some baking.”

“No,” Eric said again. He laughed as he tilted his head toward the seating area. “I think I can handle it.”

She scanned the shop to see exactly three customers—two of whom were drinking black coffees—and none of whom were eating anything.

“Right,” she said sheepishly. She wrinkled her nose and looked over at the display of pre-packaged goods again. She shook her head. She really wanted Jackson to let her fill up the bakery cases while she was here. She understood his reasoning. He didn’t want to set up expectations that he couldn’t meet later. It just annoyed her.

But a deal was a deal. She set the ovens to pre-heat. Nat would be there later with her mini gingerbread house cutters and other supplies. So, for now, she’d work on some easier recipes—and maybe a quick batch of scones for herself and Eric.

◆◆◆

“Hey,” Eric said a little while later as he turned around to face her. “Mr. Allen wants two of whatever you’re making.”

That was how the chaos began. Andi innocently offered one customer some of the scones she’d been preparing.

Before she knew what was happening, there was a line of people asking for them—most of them not even knowing exactly what it was they were waiting in line for. She and Eric did their best to keep up, but the pace was pretty breakneck for the two of them. She eventually got the idea to throw together some scones and quick breads as filler items. They didn’t take long and were easy to make in batches. Plus, people loved them eating them warm, so serving them straight out of the oven offered added value.

But even using her fastest recipes, she fell behind after a while. It wasn’t until a young woman with dark hair who was barely tall enough to see over the bakery case made her way to the front of the line, that help came. Andi was ready to call it off and tell Eric to tell everyone they were out of everything. Before she could, the small woman spoke to her.

“Are you Jackson’s new baker or something?” she called across the counter. To Eric, she gave her coffee order and paid, also making sure to order, “One of whatever smells like cinnamon,” to eat.

“Or something is probably more accurate,” Andi said with a laugh. “I’m just supposed to be helping prep for the festival. But today’s preparations somehow turned into sales, and now—” Andi gestured to the room around her, filled to the brim with people eating and drinking. Despite the chaos, she took a second to soak in the feeling. She could almost imagine what her own bakery would feel like.

Hopefully, it would feel as good as this felt.

“Where is Jackson?” the woman asked. Was this his girlfriend? He hadn’t mentioned having a girlfriend. It wasn’t specifically her business but seeing that they had their current arrangement in place, it also wasn’t a completely irrelevant detail for her to have either.

“I think he’s got an appointment in the city,” Eric answered for Andi. “Like, a date kind of appointment.”

“Really?” The woman sounded surprised, but not angry. Okay, so she wasn’t the girlfriend, but apparently, someone was.

Seriously, it wasn’t Andi’s business. Why wouldn’t he have a date? And as long as it didn’t mess up the arrangement with her parents, why did she even care?

Eric politely shuffled the woman away from the line so that he could continue to take orders. Andi was still boxing and bagging things up as quickly as she could, while answering the woman’s various questions.

“I’m Allison,” the woman said after a few minutes. “Sorry. I definitely should have opened with that.” She gave an embarrassed looking shrug.

“That’s okay,” Andi told her. “I’m Andi. I’m just...visiting for a while,” she said, trying that explanation on for size.

“Do you need help?” Allison asked, her eyes scanning from the huge line to the thinning assortment of baked goods.

Andi wondered, not for the first time, what it was about this little town that made people so eager to help strangers. “You don’t have to do that,” she said. She waved away the woman’s offer. “I’m sure you’ve got places to be.”

“Well, here, actually,” Allison laughed. “Jackson was supposed to meet with me about some marketing ideas I have for the place. A meeting which he apparently forgot all about when the prospect of a date came up.” Despite her words, she didn’t sound anything more than mildly annoyed.

Andi bit her lip, considering. “Well, I mean, if you’re going to be here anyway—” she trailed off. “Sure?” It came out sounding more like a question than a statement, but Allison barely paused before stepping behind the counter to wash her hands and throw on an apron.

“You got it,” she said, beaming at Andi. “I’m a terrible baker, though. So, you’re going to have to give me really good instructions.”

Andi chuckled. “Honestly, if you just help Eric with pricing and boxing up items, I can throw some things into the oven quickly.”

“Deal,” Allison said. She pulled out her phone and started snapping some pictures of some of the items already sitting on plates and in the boxes Andi had been lucky enough to find buried under the counter.

“What are you doing?” Andi asked.

“These are gorgeous,” Allison said in a tone that sounded like she really wanted to say duh. “They need to be Instasnapped.

“Jackson doesn’t do Instasnap,” Eric chimed in without even looking away from the customer he was helping.

“Right,” Allison mumbled as she typed into her phone. “He does now,” she said.

“Did you seriously just make him an account that quickly?” Andi asked.

“Yep,” Allison said causally.

“Okay, but I’m not a permanent fixture here. I don’t think he wants to advertise anything I’m making. Customer expectations and all that,” Andi said, trying to remember the reasons he’d given her.

“The only thing these customers are expecting is an awesome pop-up bakery event: today only,” Allison said. She turned the phone’s screen to Andi, who examined the gorgeous photo of her scones and cinnamon rolls.

“Oh,” Andi said. “And people will come for that?”

“I guess we’ll see,” Allison said. “But I can’t think of many young people who don’t want to try something that’s new, delicious, and only available for a limited time. They’re going to be snapping about this stuff all day.”

Andi had no idea what she was talking about. She had social media, but rarely used it. She was embarrassed to realize that despite wanting desperately to open her own bakery, she hadn’t even given any thought to how she was going to market it.

“So, you have a marketing company or something?” Andi asked Allison.

“Not exactly,” she said. “I do marketing for The Book Nook a few shops down. But I also have a few small clients on the side. And then, there’s the unsolicited advice that I just can’t seem to stop myself from giving.” She wrinkled her nose and shrugged. “I’m passionate about what I do,” she added.

◆◆◆

Within an hour, Andi had a new batch of cookies and brownies going into the oven for the afternoon. Scones were cooling on the baker’s rack, and there was a line of people that she couldn’t see the end of from inside the shop.

“Are all of these people here because of Instasnap?” she asked Allison.

“From what I can tell,” the small woman said cheerfully.

“How do you know?” Andi asked her.

“I just ask them when I hand them their stuff.”

“Oh,” Andi said. It made sense. She wondered if she could find someone like Allison to help her when the time came. She didn’t want Tim to be right about her not being able to handle this on her own.

“Hey, we’re out of napkins,” Eric called. “And paper bags. And low on cups. We’re all out of the stuff we have up here.”

“Oh,” Andi said. “Wow, I didn’t realize we’d sold so much. Is there more somewhere?”

“Maybe in the basement,” Eric said with a shrug. He and Allison were both busy dealing directly with customers.

“Why don’t I go look?” Andi offered as she slid two trays of cookies onto the baker’s rack. “Do you think Jackson will mind?”

“No,” Eric said, pointing a finger toward the back of the shop with one hand while he took cash from a customer with another.

“Be right back,” Andi said as she marched off in the direction he pointed.

The basement was small and nearly pitch black. Andi felt around the walls for a switch, but couldn’t find one, so she pulled her cell phone out of her apron pocket and used the screen to illuminate the space.

“Ah-ha,” she called to no one as the light hit a thin string hanging from a bulb in the middle of the room. She pulled it and a single light bulb cast a yellow glow over the space. Metal shelves lined each wall, and each shelf was full of boxes. Few were marked, but some had photos of napkins, boxes, or other supplies on the side.

She started with the box that was labeled napkins, only to find it full of a random assortment of everything from used paper cups to an old video game controller.

“Eww,” she said, again to no one. She wiped the dust from the box off onto the apron and scanned the boxes again. On a very top shelf, she saw a clean-looking box with the word napkins written in the same neat scroll she’d seen on the sandwich board that sat outside the shop. She strained, standing on her tiptoes to try to reach the box, but it was useless. She pulled a ladder from the corner over and climbed up instead, still having to stretch to reach the box in question. As she pulled on the box, something small and hard came off the shelf, hitting her in the face.

“Ouch,” she yelled. She swiped at it frantically and whatever it was fell to the floor and landed with a soft tink.

When she recovered from the scare, she grabbed for the box again and climbed down. She shone her phone’s light to the floor where she’d heard the object land. The light quickly touched on a massive ruby-red stone, surrounded by clusters of clear and green stones on the basement floor.

She bent down to pick it up. It was heavier than she expected a piece of costume jewelry to be. But it had to be costume jewelry. It was so large, there was no way it was real. She stuffed the massive piece into the pocket of the apron she was wearing and scanned the rest of the boxes in search of more supplies.

Thankfully, finding paper bags and cups was fast and didn’t involve any flying costume jewelry. She filled the napkin box with a few sleeves of cups and a few bundles of bakery bags and made her way up the stairs.

The noise of everyone’s chatter hit her ears the second she stepped out from behind the door. The line had more than doubled from what she could tell. She quickly sat the box down and grabbed napkins and paper bags to hand off to Eric before jumping back into the kitchen.

As she pulled the apron off to switch with a clean one, she felt the heft of the broach in the pocket. She dropped it into the pocket of the clean apron. The constant thumping against her leg would be enough to remind her to hand it off to Jackson.

She looked around the room as she washed the dust from the basement off her hands. The space was crammed full of people. She took a deep breath and soaked it all in. As thrilling as it was to see so many people lined up for baked goods, she was also more than a little nervous about what Jackson was going to say when he got back.

She grabbed two of the biggest chocolate chip cookies and set them aside, hoping the fresh-baked sugar might help calm his anger.