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1
SWEET RELIEF (JUNIPER)
There are days when I wish I was a college girl.
Not often, mind you. And not because I love the thought of having a gazillion dollars in debt on my shoulders, either. Because with the Sugar Bowl creaking along on its last legs, the very last thing we need ismoredebt.
But a few more math classes would sure as hell help my brain hurt less with these numbers.
“That can’t be right,” I spit.
I rub my eyes, squinting at the spreadsheet for the fifth time.
Nobody warned me that inheriting a business means spending more time hunched in front of a computer screen than actually working. My already pale skin practically glows white. I’m ninety percent sure the blue light from the screen is making my hair frizz.
Numbers.
Ugly money numbers.
Numbers with sharp teeth and a ferocious appetite for chewing up my dreams.
Yeah, things aren’t looking good.
I take a break from the nightmare on the screen and glance around. The back office looks about like it did in Nana’s time.
Same old tall metal filing cabinets propped up against the dusty wallpaper—probably less dusty when Nana ran the shop with an iron fist, of course—and the old faded photos hanging everywhere.
Same awards plastered to the wall. Newspapers and cards and bronze plaques proclaiming some version ofbest in Kansas City!for more years than I can count.
As I always do when I need a moment to get my wits, I stand up, push my chair back—ignoring that one squeaky wheel that cuts my ears—and pace the room, slowly taking in the wall of photos.
There’s Nana, young and bright, standing by the shop with her parents on its opening day in June, 1955. The date is recorded at the bottom of the photo, taken at a time when the world would shine in black and white with a certain charm no Instagram filter will ever match.
My gaze flicks to photos of the interior renovation in the late fifties. And again right around 1970. Before 2000, the Sugar Bowl had a stunning redesign every decade or two, and each one generated a flurry of news and happy, hungry customers pouring in for the grand reopening.
Unimaginable now.
I’m surrounded by an entire gallery of reasons to succeed, to keep going, to remember this bakery’s greatness. But I’m also buried in the fact that those fond memories and fabulous accolades come to a screeching halt in 2021—the year Nana stepped down.
Glaring evidence of my failure to take flight.
This is my family’s legacy, all wrapped up in a store that used to soar.
With me at the helm, it’s struggling to even crawl.
It’s enough to make my throat close up.
If I was the woe-is-me type, I’d have thrown in the towel a year ago. Instead, I put my hands on my hips and look around. My eyes stop on another photo, Nana and my mother when she was a little girl.
“You better not be watching, Mom,” I warn. “This isn’t my finest hour. I mean… neither was last year or the year before that. Come back in a few. The store will be hopping again or the sign will be swinging in the wind.”
I wince at another possibility—we’ll keep stumbling along, just like we have been since I took over the place, twenty-two and fresh-faced. Back when I still had a boyfriend and sky-high hopes for the future.
Better times.
Easier times.
I take one last melancholy look around at every sharp reminder of why I need to step it up—and why I suck—before turning back to my computer.
