Page 114 of Spiced!

“And Brendan.”

“Yeah.”

“When she’s recovered,” he said, “I want to meet her.”

I looked at the laminated photo on the waiting room wall of Marisol looking back with her patient dignity, an animal who had been managing her own problem quietly for months, waiting for someone to notice.

“When she’s recovered,” I said, “I’ll take you.”

Chapter 32

Adrian

Doña Carmen was in her chair in the corner. She had been in her chair every morning since she’d re-injured her wrist, directing operations with the calm authority of a woman who considered physical location irrelevant to the exercise of her will. She wasn’t supposed to be working, and yet, she drank her coffee, watched the bread, and made comments that were technically suggestions yet functionally instructions. I incorporated the important ones without acknowledging them and nodded at the others without changing anything.

The morning was running well. The pan sobao had come out right. The conchas were proofing correctly. I had a full tray of pastelillos in the oven and another batch of empanada dough resting on the marble.

The rhythm of the kitchen was the thing I had always loved most about it, the way everything had its time, its temperature, and its order. When you understood all three, the kitchen breathed around you like something alive.

Mr. Espinosa arrived at seven-fourteen for his café con leche. He had been arriving at seven-fourteen every Tuesday for thirty-one years. He ordered the same thing in the same words, sat at the same table by the window, read his newspaper, and left at seven forty-seven. He was, as far as I could tell, entirely satisfied with this arrangement and had no plans to change any part of it.

Still, our “four-minute incident” had not been forgotten.

“Good morning, Mr. Espinosa.”

“Good morning, Adrian.” He settled at his table and unfolded his newspaper. “How is Doña Carmen’s wrist?”

“Improving.”

“Good.” He turned a page. “Before the wrist, I was always served by seven-twelve.”

“I know, Mr. Espinosa.”

“The café con leche.”

“I’ll have it right out.”

“No rush,” he said, in the tone of a man for whom rush was irrelevant because the observation had already been made and needed no urgency to support it.

From her chair, Doña Carmen said nothing, but I heard the small sound of her coffee cup being set down, which in her vocabulary was the equivalent of a laugh.

I made Mr. Espinosa’s café con leche and set it before him at seven-seventeen.

He looked at it, then looked at me, then returned to his newspaper, speaking without looking up again. “Three minutes early today.”

“I’m learning.”

“Mmhmm.” He picked up his cup and sucked in a deep breath without taking a sip, an inspector making his contractor sweat, probably for the fun of it.

I went back to the empanada dough.

At nine-fifteen, a regular named Hector came in with a get-well card for Doña Carmen. Hector had been coming to the panadería for as long as I’d been working there and possibly longer. He was a retired postal worker who wore the same brand of white polo in varying colors and was unabashedly vocal about every item on the menu.

He presented the card to Doña Carmen with a flourish. She accepted it, opened it, and read it. Then she read it again. Then she turned it around and showed it to me.

Inside the card, in the precise centered typeface of a man who had composed this on a computer and printed it, were the words,

We appreciate your service.