Of course he does.
“Are you well?” he asks.
“Great.”
Darlene makes a sound.
I add, “Mostly great.”
His eyes search my face with that steady, unsettling care. “You slept poorly.”
“Everybody loves a man who opens with flattery.”
“That was not flattery.”
“I know. That was the problem.”
He studies me another second, then looks at the ruined tray in the bin. “You burned food because you were tired.”
“Or because the buns were morally weak.”
“That seems unlikely.”
“Do not take their side.”
There it is. That tiny betrayal of softness, the one he tries to smother before it becomes evidence. It catches me under the ribs so sharply that I have to turn toward the prep counter and pretend the cinnamon filling needs inspection.
Darlene watches the whole exchange with the smug despair of a prophet no one wants to believe.
The day unfolds around us in layers of heat and rhythm. Kauss repairs the side brace on the temporary window panel, then reinforces the shelves in the dry storage, then lifts flour sacks as if each one weighs less than a thought. Customers have begun treating his presence as part of the building’sarchitecture. He is the enormous dark shape near the back counter, the quiet man with scarred hands, the one who fixes compads and door hinges and becomes visibly offended by loose screws.
He still frightens people.
But less.
A little girl named Esme comes in with her mother just before school, wearing a yellow raincoat and holding a folded paper in both hands. She stops three steps inside the door and stares up at him.
Kauss stops moving.
Her mother winces. “Esme, honey, don’t bother Mr. Kauss.”
“He’s not bothered,” I say, before he can claim otherwise.
Kauss looks at me.
I smile.
He looks back at Esme. “I am not bothered.”
Esme creeps forward and holds out the paper. “I made you another dragon.”
He takes it with the care of someone accepting an ancient treaty. The paper looks tiny between his claws. He unfolds it slowly. This one shows a black dragon with red stripes standing in front of a bakery while a smiling yellow-haired stick figure waves a rolling pin.
Darlene peers over my shoulder. “That dragon has better posture than him.”
Kauss ignores her, studying the drawing with grave attention. “The wings are larger this time.”
Esme nods solemnly. “Because you have to carry more cinnamon rolls.”
