Page 58 of Sparrow

She does, and seconds later we’ve both got our elbows on the counter as we go through the recipes she knows by heart, outlining all the products that can and should bake together and figuring out how to organize them into genres. All the cookies happening together. Pies at the same time. The cinnamon rolls that Mars is so crazy about.

“Which means we’ll be a cookie bakery at one point in the day and a pie bakery later,” she finally says.

“Exactly! And you can make that a thing, too. Want fresh cookies? Show up at 10 in the morning and they’re guaranteed. Come by at noon for fresh pie. Bread is ready at dinner and everyone gets to take home a fresh loaf for their soup. The whole town learns your schedule and arranges their own days around what they want to buy from you.”

“What are you two doing back here?” Penny asks suddenly from behind us. “I hear a lot of giggling.”

Allie and I whirl around, caught, but Penny’s smiling like she wants in on the secret.

So I start telling her our plan, and before long she’s adding ideas, too. Naming the hours when genres of pastries come up. Designing the ads she’ll put on the white board outside.

Adding new things to the menu to match with what she’ll have at specific times.

And that harried, stressed expression she was wearing when I arrived?

Completely gone, and replaced by an excited air of possibility. The idea that anything is possible–and that the baker is finally going to get the facelift she’s wanted to give it for years.

Three hours later we’ve organized all of Penny’s offerings into genres and set out the ideal timetable, and Penny is already telling customers that if they want bread, they need to come back at 6 when it’ll be warm and just out of the oven.

“You can take it home and pop it into your own oven to keep it warm while you cook dinner,” she tells a woman. “Then open the oven and bam! Fresh bread. No one will ever know the difference.”

The woman’s laugh is a tinkling bell. “I’ll tell David I baked it myself and I’ll only give it to him if he repairs the roof like he’s been supposed to do for a year.”

Penny’s laughter is loud and conspiratorial. “And I won’t tell a soul,” she whispers. “In fact, if you like, I can make sure you bake his favorite kind of bread every week. Get you lawn mowing and a painted house as well.”

I’m so happy I can barely stand it, and Allie’s face is flushed with excitement. The air of the whole bakery is different now, and the customers are coming in with excited smiles on their faces. I’ve been in town long enough to know that everyone already loved Penny’s, but the idea of being able to show up at a specific time for a specific treat right out of the oven is making them kids in a candy shop.

And I can’t stop smiling.

I can’t stop thinking that this is the only way to really using an engineering degree.

By organizing a bakery so it can serve more baked goods.

Penny is all smiles and hugs when she turns back to me, and she says something about the town being lucky to have me. I answer with something innocuous and fairly vacant, because as much as I like hearing her joy, I know something she doesn’t know.

The town might be lucky right now, but that can’t last.

Because I can’t stay. I’m not safe here, and there’s no getting around that.

I’m saved from having to say so by Bruce, who comes rushing into the bakery with a face nearly as excited as Penny’s.

“Arden,” he gasps. “I heard you were here! Good. I just got a new shipment in and we have the two new books from that author you love. The one who writes about the dragons. I set them aside just for you, they’re not even on the shelf yet. Want to come over and get them?”

This shocks me so much that I just stare at him for a moment. He got a new shipment of books, found the ones he thought I’d like, and then set them aside for me? And then came over here because he heard I was in the bakery? I’ve been in his bookstore once, and I was with Mars, the man everyone notices and hangs on.

I didn’t think Bruce had even clocked my presence.

And yet he’s seeking me out with news about my favorite author because he has books he thinks I might want.

Orion is right. In New York, no one sees you. This would never happen there; the people are too busy rushing around and handing their own business to worry about what other people might want. They don’t store facts about everyone, then pull them out like tokens when they have a use for them.

They don’t take a stranger and learn her habits so they can try to encourage them later.

I don’t know if anyone back home has noticed that I’m missing, and right now, for just a second, I don’t care.

Because this little town has noticed that I’m here. And though I don’t think I can stay–no, I know I can’t–I’m here right now.

And I’m going to soak up as much of this sunshine as I can, so when I go back to the grim darkness of the city, I have something to keep me smiling.