“You’re eating with atmosphere.”
Darlene passes behind her. “That’s brooding.”
I take refuge in coffee.
The next day, I come back because the east access route “requires inspection.” The day after, because the rear fuel line still troubles me. The day after that, because Evie’s bruise has begun turning greenish-yellow at the edges and I need to see with my own eyes that the swelling is receding. By the fifth morning, I stop inventing reasons before I arrive, though I continue inventing them afterward if anyone asks.
The bakery begins to build itself around me.
I learn that the first hour belongs to laborers who need calories and caffeine before the shipyards or warehouses swallow them. The second belongs to elders, clinic staff, and parents with children on the way to school. Midmorning brings quiet regulars who sit by the window and make one coffee last too long because warmth is cheaper here than in their apartments. Lunch is chaos, all soup, sandwiches, laughter, complaints, and Darlene calling three different men freeloaders while sneaking extra bread into their bags.
Evie hums when she bakes.
Badly.
Not offensively badly. Not enough to qualify as an act of war. But she does not hold pitch with precision, and she forgets melodies midway through and replaces them with little invented turns that make Darlene sigh like a woman living under occupation.
“Do you know any whole songs?” Darlene asks one morning.
“I know the emotional truth of songs.”
“You know six bars and confidence.”
“That’s enough for theater.”
“That’s enough for a lawsuit.”
Evie looks toward me while rolling dough. “Kauss, do Vakutans sing?”
I am sitting at the prep table because the front stool finally cracked yesterday, though not catastrophically. Darlene declared it “a noble death” and blamed me anyway.
“Some do,” I answer.
“Do you?”
“No.”
“That was very fast.”
“It was a simple question.”
“Simple questions can have suspiciously fast answers.”
I look at the dough beneath her hands. “Vakutan military songs are not suited to bakeries.”
Darlene snorts. “What are they suited to?”
“Marching. Drinking. Funerals. Intimidating enemies before boarding actions.”
Evie’s hands slow. Flour dusts her wrists, soft against her bruises. “That’s a lot of emotional range.”
“War requires range.”
Her gaze lifts to my face. For a dangerous moment, I think she will ask about mine. My war. My funerals. My songs left unsung over bodies I could not recover.
Instead she says, “All right, no military songs during cinnamon rolls unless business gets desperate.”
“It is already desperate,” Darlene says.
