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"Finally," Brittany sighs. Her usual perky bun is already coming apart, with stray locks messily framing her anxious face. "I've been texting you all morning."
"What's going on?" I ask quickly, setting my purse down on the counter to free my hands. "You texted about the fridge, but I didn't know what you meant."
"I can't explain," she says quickly. "It's something you have to see for yourself."
She leads me into the very back of the bakery, where we keep the enormous industrial deep freezer.
Back in my mother's day, she required at least three of these things. But with our budget as strained as it is, I couldn't afford to keep them all powered and maintained. So we had two of them removed and made the most out of the one.
However, as soon as I see what's going on, I realize exactly why my mother had so many of the damn things in the first place.
"Oh gosh," I groan, stepping closer to get a better look at the mess. Cream-colored liquid littered with sprinkles and bits of chocolate is spilling from the thin gaps in the freezer door. "Is that what I think it is?"
"Yep," Brittany says sourly.
Carefully, so I don't get my shoes in the melted goo, I step closer to the freezer and crack the door.
A fresh flood of melted ice cream comes pouring out, carrying all the chunks of cookie dough and fudge brownie trapped inside. The inner shelves of the freezer are covered with the stuff and a whole array of broken and sagging cakes that look more like spray-on home insulation than something remotely edible.
"All the ice cream has melted," Brittany grimaces.
"When did the freezer go out?" I run a hand through my hair and take a deep breath before closing the door again. "How does this even happen?"
She shrugs, her eyes following a chunk of cookies and cream ice cream now scooting across the floor. "It's not a power issue since the lights are working fine. It just... died."
"Have you called Pete?"
Pete is the town handyman, and it seems like he has been at Sugar Breeze constantly these last few weeks.
"Yes. But Pete said he would need a few hours to get down here. It probably won't be until the afternoon." She bites her lip briefly before adding, "I also had to call a locksmith."
Taking another deep breath to try and swallow my brewing panic, I say, "And what is the locksmith for?"
"The bathroom. The door is stuck, and it says it's 'occupied,' but it's not. It just somehow got locked from the inside."
"Don't we have a key for these situations?"
"Of course, we do. But I can't find it."
My head begins to pound again, and I start to feel nauseous. Though goodness knows, if I do throw up, it's not like there's a bathroom to do it in. "Thank you, Brittany."
She meets my gaze, her big brown eyes sad, dreading what I will say next. "So… are we still planning to open?"
"How can we? All of our pre-made cakes were in that freezer. Whatever didn't get melted got meltedon. Or worse, on its way to becoming stale. I can't sell any of that in good conscience."
Brittany frowns. "So, we just wait until it's fixed?"
"That's all we can do, I guess." I gesture to the soupy mess all over the floor. "Would you mind cleaning this up while I draw up a sign to put on the door?"
She frowns a little, though I'm certain it's more at the state of the mess than at me. "Of course."
"Thank you. You've been a real trooper through all this."
"It's what I do."
As I exit the back room, wondering exactly how my day could get any worse, I find my answer standing right in front of me. There's a man by the registers, rifling through a small stack of papers that he's holding in his hands.
Shoot. I must have left the front door unlocked.
