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“Ouch! Hey, you’re gonna wish later that you’d been nicer to my junk.”
“Language!” she cried, swatting his head. “We’re with aguestat ourdinner table, you bad-mouthed so-and-so.”
Raven loved every second. The two of them had built a simple, comfortable home together and were clearly crazy about each other. Wes’s work had kept him trim, and Maggie was clearly in the habit of being good to her body. She watched them joking and roughhousing, giggling and name-calling, and it brought back the happier moments of her own childhood. She had met Maggie at band camp when they were thirteen, before her father’s problems, before her mother had left. Even though they’d chatted on Skype and texted weekly, seeing her again felt as though the fifteen intervening years might never have happened; might simply have been a bad dream from which she could now awaken.
It was an hour after dinner when Raven decided to retire. Her eyes were closing of their own accord, and her body cried out for rest in a comfortable bed. Well-built for a long-distance drive as her Pontiac was, her back was groaning, and her ass seemed to have tried to mold itself to the car’s seat. Clean sheets were just heavenly, and she was asleep in seconds. Nothing disturbed her until around 1 a.m. when, waking in that groggy way of one briefly unsure of her surroundings, Raven heard a rhythmic thumping from the other bedroom that could have only one explanation. She smiled as she drifted off to sleep once more with the barely stifled, rising moans of Maggie’s third and final orgasm the only sounds.
A large and healthy breakfast was a household tradition, and it was ready even before Raven had opened an eye. Wes was at the stove, singing his own endearing, off-key rendition of a 60s favorite with a verve most would consider inhuman at 6:25 a.m. Raven emerged blearily and instinctively looked around for coffee. “I’m singing your tune, babe!” he announced, starting over again.
Maggie was already dressed, further stunning the fuzzy-headed Raven. “You’ll have to forgive this performance,” she said as she tied back her clean, blonde hair. “Wes was born at the crack of dawn and reckons it made him forever a morning man. I ain’t got no choice but to go along with it, right, honey?”
Bacon, eggs, muffins, and coffee got the day started. Wes was like a jack-in-the-box, rising every few minutes to pack something in his bag, add a note to his ever-present legal-pad list of ‘things to do,’ or fetch more food. Raven found she was starving and shyly requested seconds of everything.
“Got to get myself going,” Wes told them. “Whatcha got going on today, ladies?”
Maggie brought her plate to the sink. “I don’t have to be at the school until one. I thought I’d give Raven the dime tour, maybe see who’s hiring.”
“Good idea!” Wes agreed and slung his bag of tools over his shoulder with practiced ease. “I’ll call Jessie and tell him to expect Miss Raven with the Pontiac. Back around six, honey,” he said, kissing Maggie and giving Raven a friendly, encouraging smile before he jogged down the yard to his faithful pickup.
Raven patted her friend’s shoulder and said, “You got yourself a keeper there.” Maggie smiled, very obviously proud of her man, and even more so of the relationship and home they had built together. “And he’s nuts about you, of course.”
“Well, he’s only human,” Maggie replied with a sassy wiggle. “Some nights, maybe just a littlesuperhuman.”
Raven blushed slightly. “He’d have to be, to keep up with you.” Maggie feigned a horrified gasp, hands to mouth, and then tickled Raven until she dashed across the room to get away. Laughing and catching up, the two young women washed the dishes together, straightened the house, and got dressed, ready for an important day.
“You still like to get flour on your hands?” Maggie asked as they walked to the Pontiac.
“Sure,” Raven replied happily. “Not been doing much baking lately, but I still love it.”
“Let’s see what old Cheryl thinks of you. I know she needs someone part-time.” Cheryl’s Coffee Shop and Bakery was an institution in the little town of Pendale. Only three blocks from Maggie’s school, it seemed the ideal place for Raven to make some friends, get some experience, and make a few bucks. As a regular customer, Maggie hoped her say-so might smooth the hiring process.
By the time they reached the intersection that took them east down Route 87, clouds had gathered in a suddenly leaden sky, and just as Maggie shepherded Raven into Cheryl’s little coffee shop, the heavens opened, dousing the town with rain not seen for three weeks.
“Bless me if the Lord don’talwaysknow when we need a drop o’ rain!” Cheryl exclaimed as the young duo bustled in, closing the door behind them to keep out the abrupt downpour. “How areyou, sweetie?”
Cheryl was perhaps sixty but looked ten years younger. Her dirty-blond hair was tied up beneath her ever-present hairnet, and she sported the ample figure of a woman who spent her life baking. With five tidy tables, a muted TV in the corner, and the rich, stomach-growling scents of cookies, bread, and cakes perpetually wafting through the place, it was a favorite hangout for many in Pendale, especially for a mid-morning snack.
“I’m just great, Cheryl. Managed to dodge the rain, I guess.” Cheryl set out coffee in a ritual so often repeated as to have become automatic. “I want you to meet a great friend o’ mine. Raven, this is Cheryl Mason, baker to the stars. Cheryl, meet Raven Samuelson. Be nice to her, now. She justdrovedown here from Illinois.”
“Well, by theheavensabove, that’s alongway for a little thing!” She extended a hand and smiled with motherly affection.
Maggie waited for things to settle before asking, “Cheryl, I’m wondering if you’d still be needing that help you were advertising for?”
The older lady cleaned her hands with a sack-cloth towel and sat heavily on a tall, wooden barstool behind the counter. “Would this be how it is that I’m coming to meet the lovely Miss Samuelson this mornin’?” she asked with a glint in her eye.
Maggie took Raven’s hand. “She’s a fantastic baker, just the best I ever knew.” She caught herself. “’cepting you, Cheryl. You’re just a miracle with a bowl o’ dough.”
“I should say!” Cheryl replied with a surfeit of self-respect. “But yes,Lordknows I could use a hand around here. The last girl... well, she just up and left afterthree weeks! Didn’t even wait for her last few days’ pay, so we can all draw whatever conclusions we might.” Two customers nodded sagely; this too, Raven saw, had been thoroughly deliberated in the coffeehouse courtroom. She looked Raven up and down. “Would you be OK with waiting tables, too, honey?” Raven nodded, still shy of Cheryl’s no-nonsense air. “And can you be here by 5:30 a.m. on a weekday?”
Maggie glanced at Raven and interjected with enthusiasm. “My Wes’s sure to be up. You two could have some breakfast and leave ‘bout the same time,” Maggie noted. Everything about it sounded perfect. Raven kept nodding, somewhat thunderstruck.
“Well, are ya gonna say yes, or what?” Cheryl wanted to know. “I got dough back there which ain’t gonna roll itself, you know.”
Raven smiled shyly and said, “I’d love to, Ms. Mason. It sounds just great.”
The two shook on it. “First rule: everyone calls me Cheryl, ‘cluding you.” Raven nodded for the eighth time. “Second rule: there ain’t no one here above anyone else, so you see something needs changing, go ahead and speak up, you hear?”
“I will, for sure,” Raven promised.
