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One
Iturn up the volumeon the kitchen speaker. As if given more energy, my head bobs and my hips sway. Whenever I’m baking, I have the same playlist on. Everyone in my family knows not to mess with the stereo when I’m in the kitchen. And that’s most mornings because I have a sweet gig baking desserts for Morton’s Café.
A few days a week, I work there as a server. Baking desserts is something extra I do a few mornings before school. Everything I earn goes into one fund, earmarked for attendance at a Parisian patisserie school.
I don’t know how the French would feel about me dancing while I bake. Although, I doubt I’d ever be that brave. No one, outside of my family and my best friend, knows I get my groove on in my kitchen. If there was ever an occasion I needed to bake at the café, I don’t know how I’d function. I’m far too self-conscious to have anyone watch me shimmy at the counter, or bob in front of an oven.
This part of me stays at home, where I’m safe to experiment and have fun. At my workplace I’m just a server, and at school I’m just an invisible student.
Sometimes, I wish I could leave school now and be a full-time baker. But there’s one perk of still being at school. It’s five days a week in the same place as the gorgeous boy next door. Seeing him before and after school just wouldn’t be enough.
Ever since his family moved to Victoria Falls, my heart hasn’t stopped fluttering. I’ve easily replayed the moment we met a million times. That day, I was so scared to go over to their house and introduce myself. I was carrying a tray of brownies, and because my hands were trembling, I was sure I’d drop them on my shoes.
My mom made me stand by her as she rang the doorbell. My anxiety lowered when his wonderful parents welcomed us inside. I swear, my jaw almost fell to the floor when he descended the staircase. I’d never seen a more beautiful boy.
“Hi, I’m Lewis,” he said, waving at me.
After every syllable caught in my throat, my mom made our introductions and offered up the brownies I’d made.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off Lewis as he took his first bite. His sky blue eyes lit up like the sun was rising for the first time. A pink hue highlighted his cheeks as his grin stretched.
“Man,” he mumbled with a mouthful of brownie. “That’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”
My heart pumped into overdrive.
His eyes locked with mine as he asked, “You made these?”
I swallowed my leaping heart and managed to squeak, “Mm-hmm.”
As my mom chatted with Lewis’s parents, Lewis snagged another brownie and waved goodbye, wandering into the back of the house. This is the part of the memory where my imagination takes over.
If only I were more confident, then I would’ve followed Lewis into the back room. My mom wouldn’t have minded. She always encourages me to chat with more people my age.
Most times when I reimagine this moment, Lewis stays in the front room with us. He asks me more about baking, and we discover our mutual love of zen activities, which require mindfulness and quiet. We then find a private place to sit and enjoy each other’s company.
Ahhh.
Just thinking about it puts me at peace.
I always get my baking done as early as possible so I can catch a glimpse of Lewis before school. With the white chocolate, raspberry swirl tart out of the oven and resting on a cooling rack, I hightail it toward the staircase. I detour through the back room and give our lazy and spoiled golden retriever, Brandy, a good dose of pats.
“Hey, girl,” I whisper. “I gotta go upstairs and see Lewis.”
Her head tilts to the side and she emits a quizzical sound.
I giggle. “I know. What am I doing here? I might miss him.”
I leave Brandy and head upstairs. From my bedroom window, I gaze into the corner of Lewis’s bedroom, where the most I can see is his desk and a poster on the far wall. It’s a movie poster from his favorite action franchise, Wasteland Gang. I’ve forced myself to watch the first three in the series so I can wow Lewis. So far, we haven’t had that conversation outside of my head.
As if willed into existence, Lewis steps into frame. He closes a textbook and the laptop on his desk, and slips them inside his backpack. The thumping of my heart plays like drums as I stand motionless. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself drooling. He moves away from the window, but not from my thoughts.
I breathe out slowly, and envision him standing in my bedroom. His hand scuffs through his buttery blonde hair, the way he does at school. I always imagine he’s deep in thought when he does this. There’s so many layers to this boy I want to discover.
The conjured Lewis kicks back on the edge of my bed and smiles. “I always love looking at that poster.”
I sit down on the edge of the bed, taking a whiff of his cologne that’s been burned into my memory. I gaze at the poster of Paris and drift into the fantasy of snuggling close to Lewis.
“One day we’ll get there,” I whisper.
