Sweet (2 page)

“Ohhhh.” Teddy moaned around another bite. “Like sunshine, yeah. Bright. Tangy. But underneath there’s a kind of green taste, a little planty, a little spicy and not too sweet, either, just”—here he stole another bite, took a moment to chew and swallow—”just
perfectly
—”

“I
know
!
” the girl squealed. Her hands were clasped on the far lip of the counter
, and she had pulled herself across it toward Teddy and was leaning so far forward she was practically lying on her stomach. “I told you, he’s a genius.” With that, she turned toward the kitchen and hollered, “And I know you’re listening, but I mean it anyway! You’re a genius, darling!” From the kitchen, as if in answer, came a sudden clatter of metal. She turned back to Teddy and whispered, “I hid four of them for myself, to take home. Don’t,” she winked at him as she slid off the counter and turned on her heel, “don’t you dare tell the boss man!”

With that, she was gone again through the swinging door at the back of the bakery. In her wake, the kitchen expelled a puff of hot, spiced air, and all the bells and hanging beads shook lightly.

Teddy sat, half a cupcake in one hand, his other hand wrapped around the still-steaming paper cup of coffee. It was just a cupcake, he reasoned, but since no one was looking now, he closed his eyes and slowly slid his tongue through the cream on top. There was no longer any point in rushing; the damage to the morning had been done, and he would have to run all the way back home to change his clothes, since the coffee stain on his shirt had dried—the girl was right, the shirt was definitely done for—and his pants were probably completely ruined in the back. Even if he managed to grab a taxi in this rain, it would still take at least an hour to get home and then to the office.

He tried not to think about the office, lit too brightly and drained of color, so sterile the air tasted like Styrofoam, but thoughts kept sneaking over him, filling him with—well, not the familiar cold rush and sinking dread he usually felt when he thought of work. Today, the feeling was more like sadness, like blue-black air, like longing, like an empty space. But it didn’t reach his bones, and he felt the deepest pit of him begin to fill up, grow verdant and full of sun, solid and real.

He pulled out his phone and started to compose a careful text message. He would take his time today, for once. And he would be very late to work.

*

“Are you going to watch him all morning like the big ol’ creepy homo you are?” ‘Trice asked as she chopped walnuts on the table near the door. “Or are you going to go out there and claim your pride of place as the genius who gave him a mouth-orgasm?”

Jules turned away from the crack in the swinging door where he’d been
hovering for nearly ten minutes, watching the dripping man with the coffee-stained shirt licking and nibbling with abandon at the cupcake he’d sent out. “First of all, ‘Trice, that is a disgusting way to describe it. Secondly, he seems to still be in the middle of whatever enjoyment he’s getting, and it would be creepier to interrupt him while he’s doing those… things… with his tongue. And finally,” he stopped and carefully curled his left hand over hers, tucking her fingers more carefully under the palm of her hand, “you need to remember your knife skills.
You’re
the creepy homo, wielding that knife like a serial killer. I’m a very sweet homo.”

‘Trice stopped chopping and looked at him, fist on her jutting hip, knife cocked up and glinting dangerously.

“Watch it,” she said, “or this creepy homo might just snap and use this knife on something other than
these
nuts.”

“Nice. Very nice. A nut joke. How original of you.”
Jules turned his back on her. Through the crack, he watched the man pop the last bite of cupcake into his mouth and run his thumb slowly over his bottom lip. Jules knew this was a sweep for crumbs, simply pragmatic, but he saw the movement in slow motion, as more of a caress, as the man’s thumb pulled his own lips apart ever so slightly, and when it reached the corner of his mouth, the thumb dipped in and he sucked it gently. The tendons of his throat tightened and relaxed when he finally swallowed. Jules let out a low sigh.

“He
is
very pretty,” ‘Trice said.

“Stop it. I just like watching people enjoy what I make. And it’s a recipe experiment. I’m doing research,” he whispered, eyes still glued to the crack in the door. “I’m really not being creepy.”

“Uh huh,” ‘Trice said in a monotone.

Jules knew he
was,
of course, being creepy, watching a man who clearly thought he was alone, a very pretty man who’d now gone loose and pliant with pleasure, a man who seemed to be licking his own hand clean like a cat.
Good god,
Jules thought,
there should never be napkins anywhere. Ever.

He also knew he was telling the truth: He really did like watching people enjoy what he baked. Always in secret, to make sure nothing was amped up for his benefit, he watched, thrilling at the little licks and hums and shivers of delight brought on by something he had made. Too often when people praised him, it hurt—the words glittered like fireworks and diamonds, too bright to be real, so bright that they lit up all his flaws and made him feel shabby and sorry to fall so short of the praise. But this was a secret kind of praise, watching the pleasure he helped bring about: quieter, like fire
-glow, like warm hands, like love. He’d never have believed it of himself when he was younger, struggling so hard always to be
seen
and to be
heard,
but what he wanted most of all now was to put himself entirely into something made all the more beautiful because it would not last and to give it to someone else to be completely devoured, to be smelled and tasted and felt, to become a part of that body. He could put all his tenderness and love there, and it would, quite literally,
feed
another person.

“Go out there,” ‘Trice said. She pointed the knife at him. “Just go ask him for his number already, Stalker Barbie.”

“No.”

“Chef Jules James Burns, you are a yellow-bellied chicken. And a baby. You’re a chicken-baby.”

“It’s too soon.”

‘Trice rolled her eyes, even though she knew he couldn’t see her. “It’s been more than a year. It’s not too soon. It appears to be exactly the right time,” she said, nodding toward the outer room.

Jules waved her off and turned back to the door. “Sixteen months. And I get to say how soon is too soon.”

Let us halt this story to say, because neither Jules nor ‘Trice will mention it, that Jules had once been in love.

The man’s name had been Andy. He was a freelance writer and a rabid fan of Jules’s baking. He had a job tending bar, a nice apartment on Jane Street and a gray-and-brown-spotted dachshund also called Andy. Lest you think that evidence of some flaw—narcissism or stupidity or lack of imagination—you should know that Andy (the man) had, because of his big soft spot for anything little or broken or both, adopted Andy (the dachshund) at a rather ripe age, when he’d already been answering to that name for many years and, well, you know what they say about teaching an old dog new tricks. Andy (the man) wasn’t going to change his own name, either, since that would be patently ridiculous, and he’d had the name even longer than the dog. So the two, man and dachshund, shared space and shared names and eventually came to share Jules, who loved them both fiercely and protectively and gloriously for four years.

How they had met is not important—perhaps that story will be told here in due course. Suffice it to say that they did meet and they fell rapidly in love, and, after eight months of loving him, Jules moved into the little apartment on Jane Street with Andy and Andy, and the three of them began to make a home. Six months later, Jules married Andy (the man) and promised also to have and hold Andy (the dachshund) for the rest of
his
life, too.

It is also not important what the man was like, what it was in Andy that made Jules love him so quickly and completely. Because Andy is gone now, knocked off the road by a city bus, laid in a hospital bed and allowed to rest for days in what Jules desperately told himself over and over was just a peaceful sleep, while his crushed bones and purple bruises and glass scrapes and poor broken body valiantly tried to heal. And eventually, sixteen months ago by Jules’s count, he was laid with somber hands in a gray wooden casket and put where Jules could never touch him or look on him or whisper to him again.

“How much chopped walnut do we need?”

Jules jumped and looked at ‘Trice as though she’d just appeared from nowhere.

“I’m sorry? Oh. I don’t even know yet. I’m experimenting again. That should do it, though,” he said absently, glancing at the pile of mangled nutmeats she’d amassed. “Let’s toast them first.”

“Light or dark?”

“Whichever,” he said casually, rummaging on the metal shelves for… he wasn’t sure what.

‘Trice gave him a lingering, incredulous glance before sweeping the nuts onto a baking sheet and turning toward the ovens. “I’ll just char them, then, if it’s all the same to you. I’m brainstorming names. Ashy Nut Muffins? Burny Cakes? Charcoal Lumpies?”

Jules was sure she kept going, but he
’
d tuned her out, turning
instead
to the crack in the door. But the man had already left, and the shop was empty and quiet.

He poked his head out to check the table where the man had been sitting. He hoped for a brief moment the man had… what? Forgotten his wallet? Left a business card with his number and a note for the brilliant pastry chef? Dropped a glass slipper under his chair? He was being ridiculous.

“You are so far gone, Daddy-O,” ‘Trice mumbled as she swept past him, heading back out through the door to take her usual place at the counter. Jules ventured out to stand near the man’s table.

“He didn’t leave anything,” ‘Trice said, looking right through him. “Give it up.”

“I… ” Jules sat down.

“I’ve got your number, Charlie.” ‘Trice pointed and aimed her fingers like a gun, narrowing her eyes to a focused squint, but did not fire.

The man had politely cleaned up after himself
at the table, and nothing—not even a smudge or crumb—was left of him there. All the trash had been cleared away; the table had been wiped clean. Nothing lingered, not even the ring of condensation from his coffee cup.

‘Trice made an exploding noise and fired her finger-gun straight at Jules. “Told you,” she said, and winked. “But he’ll definitely be back.”

The stool’s velvet cushion bore a faint, damp imprint where the man
had been sitting, the only evidence he’d existed at all.

Two

“Stray Gay returns,” ‘Trice whispered,
landing a rough smack on Jules’s rear end as she passed him on her way into the kitchen. “I told you so, you lucky horndog!”

“Boss here!” he shouted, shifting away from her reach. “With a knife! Kitchen safety rules! What did we say?”

‘Trice stopped and rolled her eyes back, reciting, “No smacking or pinching or sneaking up on anyone holding a knife.”

“Especially
… ?”

“Especially if it’s Chef Jules holding the knife, because Chef Jules has fragile sensibilities,” ‘Trice finished.

“Fragile sensibilities, that’s right. Let that be a lesson to you,” Jules said. “Otherwise, no sneaking treats while I pretend to look the other way. Wait. What did I just say? What are you doing?”

‘Trice was barreling toward the cookies that were still cooling on their metal racks.

“I’m getting a cookie for Stray Gay,” she said, grabbing one, then turned and rushed out of the kitchen in a huff of cloves and patchouli.

“Who is—” Jules said to her back and then gave up. When ‘Trice was on a mission, reason was useless. Jules turned back to his chopping—a block of dark chocolate—and managed to concentrate for another six whole seconds before he dropped the knife, wiped his
already-clean hands on his still-clean apron and positioned himself at his spy spot at the door.

Jules had always been particular about his person, but years in the kitchen had made him obsessively neat. His chef’s jacket was crisp and white and perfectly fitted at his shoulders and cinched at his waist by the tightly wound ties of his apron. He was so pale-skinned that, but for the faded freckles scattered across the backs of his hands, it was hard to tell where his white coat stopped and his arms
began. His closely cropped, nearly white hair was tucked tightly into a white handkerchief; his faded gray eyes were barely marked by pale lashes. The only challenge to the strict colorlessness of his person was a red- and vermillion-striped pocket square, which fluttered from
the breast pocket of his coat like a flame rising from his chest.

He peered through the kitchen door. In the shop, ‘Trice was leaning over the counter, chatting amiably with… someone Jules couldn’t see, because that morning, on a joyous whim, he’d bought a bright armful of sunflowers and plunked them in a vase atop the display case to brighten the shop. And, apparently, to block his own view when spying on ‘Trice and… someone.

“This requires something smooth and milky,” she was saying. “I refuse to give it to you with black coffee. You’re having a cappuccino with this. For dunking.” Without waiting for a reply, she turned toward the espresso machine and busied herself with pulling a shot.

“There you go, Cupcake,” she said, whirling toward the counter and sliding a ceramic mug at the invisible person behind the flowers. “Dark chocolate chunk cookie with orange and candied ginger. Fresh from the oven and a little hot and melty, so be careful. Best to dunk in a brilliantly
done—if I do say so myself—cappuccino. With
nutmeg,
not cinnamon. Trust me here. Now get on that!”

Jules heard laughter: masculine, generous, soft as melting butter. “You’re the boss!”

He strained at the door crack, watching the empty space to the side of the counter and waiting for the man to move into it. Instead, he heard a lilting, happy cry.

The man laughed. “What
is
that?”

“It’s a pig!” ‘Trice said, shooting a pointed look at the door behind which Jules stood. She raised her voice dramatically. “It’s one of the many reasons I am invaluable to this operation. I am an
artiste.
And,” she leaned across the counter to—
what? What did she do? Did she actually
poke
the customer?
“That is definitely
not
a comment on you for eating a cookie. It’s just a picture. A brilliant, genius, masterpiece of a picture.”

“You’re definitely a genius!” The man laughed again. “Not many artists work in milk foam and coffee!”

“Thank you,” she sang, and Jules barely had time to leap out of the way before she came charging back into the kitchen.

“I hope you heard that,
Jefe
!
” ‘Trice honked his nose and brushed past him, taking up the knife he’d abandoned and resuming the chopping where he’d left off. They were like those old couples who finish each other’s sentences. “Stray Gay adores me.”

Jules gave her a puzzled look, then turned back to peer into the shop front.

It had been almost a week since that rainy day when Irene had dragged the man into the shop, and Jules had convinced himself he probably wouldn’t ever see him again, yet there he was, in a gray three-piece suit and a narrow gray tie
, tucked into the corner table near the plate glass window. His legs were crossed neatly at the ankles; his brown hair was cropped close at the temples and growing a little long and wild at the crown of his head. He looked peaceful; a sweet smile lingered as he dunked a large piece of cookie into his coffee and slowly brought it to his mouth to suck the milk. His free hand snaked to his collar; one finger wormed into the tie to loosen the knot.
He tipped his head back when the tie fell loose so the lump of his Adam’s apple rose and fell along the tanned, taut column of his throat and he let out a barely audible groan of pleasure as the cookie broke apart in his fingers and crumbled into his open mouth.

An involuntary echo of the man’s groan slid out of Jules’s mouth. His hand came up to touch his own throat, where he could feel sudden freedom from the knot of a
slim gray tie that hadn’t ever been there. On the back of his tongue, he tasted the bitter and sweet of chocolate and orange; and he was overwhelmed by a calm that was earthy, grounded and deep. Jules didn’t care if ‘Trice was watching him or laughing—he could hear her gentle, rolling chuckle behind him; didn’t care that he was mirroring the man, moving his tongue against the roof of his mouth and sucking softly; didn’t care where he was or what day of the week it was or how much of himself he was forgetting. He could feel the spiced heat of espresso he had not swallowed spreading into his belly. He could feel himself grow more certain and solid and sure, as if roots were pushing out through the soles of his feet and curling into the earth below the floorboards.

“It’s nothing,” he said aloud, filling suddenly with regret, because his voice split the moment, and the feelings went wisping away, up in smoke.
And just like that it was lost, his bright, fantastic hallucination.

*

Teddy was no hedonist. At least, he hadn’t thought so. But perched as he was on a velvet cushion in the tiny, empty bakery, letting his tongue melt the chocolate and butter and milk and coffee into a decadent warm cream peppered by the occasional burn of ginger, he swiped the corners of his lips with his fingertips, licked them with no hint of his usual self-consciousness and began to reconsider.

Light streamed in through the large front window, filtering through
the hanging glass beads overhead and splattering the room with softly shaking spots of color. It was like sitting in the middle of a slow, silent disco, he thought. It was an absolute pity he couldn’t linger, was merely stopping in for ten minutes while shuttling between two appointments, even though the bakery didn’t quite fall between them. Even though, he admitted silently, the bakery was fifteen blocks out of the way.

That rainy afternoon after his run-in with Irene and his first visit to Buttermilk, Teddy had returned home, changed out of his ruined clothes and started back to the office on foot. He’d taken his trench coat and umbrella, since he’d been given a second chance to prepare for the day, but he hadn’t needed them after all. Changed and dry and combed and ready, he’d burst out of the glass doors of his apartment building and into a completely different day: rainless and warm, with the mist slowly burning off the streets in the new sun. He’d ambled to work, stopping to run his fingers through dewy lilacs bursting from plastic tubs in front of
a florist.

All day in the cold, green light of his cubicle, he’d burned with a radiating heat that reached out from the center of him and seemed to curl into the cracks between the walls of his cubicle and the next. He’d droned through phone calls and curried columns of numbers and threaded his fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck in concentration, just as he always did, but his mind was floating elsewhere, and bright little beads of colored light twinkled behind his eyelids every time he closed his eyes. He’d bought a spray of orange tulips on the way in and had secretly dropped one on each desk in his section, then hid at his own desk and smiled every time he heard a faint gasp of delight float over the cubicle walls.

The sickly gray-green lights still buzzed above him, and he still felt tired from sitting all day and doing what seemed like nothing. It was very small, the change, almost unnoticeable. But somewhere between
his getting knocked down that morning and his leisurely stroll to work
that afternoon, something had shifted three degrees to the left, and he felt inside him a new thing opening and shooting out, could almost see the spring-
green shoots stretch into tendrils that snaked out from his body and wound themselves lovingly around everything—the rushed and sighing office assistants, the tall vase of calla lilies on the reception desk, the children playing wildly in the park, the people crammed and swaying on the buses, the loose flap of shop awnings in the breeze, the breeze itself wafting like a sigh down the avenues—all of the noise and life and movement in the world was pulled into him, gently, and he felt himself expanding to hold it and extending farther out and, even though he had no window and was shut close inside the gray fabric walls of his tiny portion of the office, that no longer made any difference at all.

He’d left that evening feeling light and open and—inexplicably—joyous.

He’d returned the next morning to find an email that had been sent to him—
sent to everyone—asking company members to refrain from leaving anonymous gifts such as flowers for fellow employees. The note explained, with reasoned language, that some employees might be allergic to such things and other employees may feel threatened by anonymous gifts. The note also explained that morale in the department would be better if the workday were kept predictable and free of surprises that might disturb others, no matter how well-intentioned such surprises may have been.

He’d returned the morning after that to find his desk just as he’d left it, except for a neat, square sticky note on the seat of his chair that read simply, in looping red script, “Thank you.”

*

There is no such thing as magic. There is no such thing as fate, or kismet, or destiny. Anyone with reasonable sensibilities will tell you this. And yet, once in a great while, there occurs a kind of practical happenstance that looks very much to the untrained eye like the simple magic of fate.

In Jules’s life, this had happened exactly twice. The first time occurred not long ago, on a dreary day when the rain banged in fistfuls against the plate glass window, and all morning the shop had been empty of people, and, even so, he and ‘Trice had turned on the velvet lamps to chase out the dimness. He had heard the door bells shimmer and seen Irene coming in with a man on her arm and he’d ducked quickly into the kitchen—
Irene terrified him, loud as she was, and broad-mouthed, and never completely present—to watch as she’d dragged the poor man, confused and pitiful as a wet puppy, to the counter to replace his coffee.

The second time occurred on the occasion of the man’s second visit to the bakery. He came alone this time, smiled and ate a cookie and closed his eyes in pleasure like a cat. He did not stay long, but Jules felt in his mouth and his belly and his knees when the man smiled. Actually, the second time occurred upon his leaving.

After the front door had slapped closed with a jangle of bells, after the man was entirely gone, Jules crept from the kitchen to inspect the place where he had been sitting. Once again, the man had cleaned the area so well that not a trace of him remained.

“I can’t decide if you’re adorable or pathetic,” ‘Trice said, watching him from behind the counter.

“Adorable, then,” Jules mumbled, peering at the table as if it might suddenly yield something it had been hiding.

“Pathetic it is, then. Until you actually
do
something about this.”

She tossed a paper cup at him. It cuffed him lightly on the shoulder and went rolling under the table.

“Stray Gay doesn’t even know you
exist,
” ‘Trice harped. “To him, you’re just an invisible elf baking delicious, invisible cookies in your invisible hollow tree.”

“The cookies aren’t invisible,” Jules said under his breath. “He knows about the cookies.”

On his knees, going after the cup, he saw it: a glint of silver on the floor, a ring of keys.

He scooped it up and into his pocket so deftly not even ‘Trice would notice, then tossed the cup back at her and, when he flipped back through the swinging kitchen door he called, “Can it!” at her in such a way that neither she nor he was sure if he was referring to binning the cup or stopping the rest of her lecture.

Either way, ‘Trice was quiet.

In the safety of his pocket, Jules’s fingers curled around his prize. He held the ring of keys like a secret in his hand: warm and sharp, heavy and real.