Page 121 of Never Let You Go

An authentic, sense-driven experience.

The photographs that follow show our kitchen table set for four, and again, the bread is at the center, bringing the family together. And I know that’s exactly what she’s doing here. She’s imparting my vision of what bread is.

Not hers.

Mine.

And she captured it exactly. So well, I’m having trouble swallowing.

When she moves to the next batch of photos, I freeze. These are all photos of me, and this time, she’s not protecting any privacy.

I’m embarrassed to see myself, even if these photos are professional and there’s nothing inappropriate about them. I avert my gaze for a while and notice her hand trembling slightly as she moves through that batch: my forearms clenched around a fifty-pound bag of flour; my eyebrows furrowed as I examine a tray of petits choux straight out of the oven; my back flexing under my uniform when I’m hand-molding breads; me beaming behind the counter, a line of customers in front of me, a bright bouquet of flowers to the side.

I remember when she took that picture. It was her first day here, and I’d sent her away with Grace to get her bearings. She’d been taking pictures all day, and she had finally returned. She’d brought the flowers to brighten the bakery, and she’s been doing that a lot since. My smile wasn’t meant for the camera.

It was entirely meant for her.

Alexandra finally breaks the awkward silence. “It’s just an idea. Here’s what it could look like,” she says as she switches screens and shows me what look like mock-ups of social media accounts. Each photo is accompanied by a comment and hashtags. The postings are diverse, showing different facets of the bakery all at once. I see a logo appearing at intervals, bold and warm at the same time.

I don’t know what to say. I’m overwhelmed with emotion. It’s not just the work she put into it. It’s how she sees us—how she sees me. The best of who I am. And I know not anyone could pull this off. It takes talent and skill.

It also takes emotion.

Connection.

That scares the shit out of me.

That she sees that in me.

And now what?

“Here’s the account I created for Grace.” She pulls up an actual live account on her cellphone of Grace’s spa and hands it to me. While I scroll through the feed, she stands next to me to walk me through some of the functionalities she’s enabled and explains how it’s been helping the spa’s visibility online.

Next, she reaches over, so she can switch views and show me the back end, and the side of her breast presses against my bicep. I’m trying to focus on what she’s telling me about the data she collects, but her scent gets to me, her body gets to me, her soul gets to me.

I shove the phone back in her hand.

I run a hand through my hair. “That’s… That’s fucking awesome. The work you did.”

Her cheeks flush, and she exhales sharply. “Oh, good. I was afraid you’d be upset. Nothing’s live, you know? It’s all just ideas? You can decide whatever you want to do. I just thought—”

“You’re perfect—I mean, it’s perfect.” Get a fucking grip, man. Your daughter is right here. “Yeah, just go ahead with it.”

“What—like, everything?” She looks like a kid in a candy store. Shiny eyes and huge smile. I’ll let her post anything if that’s my reward. I’ve never seen her so happy. So alive. And, although I can’t relate to online stuff making people happy, I know passion when I see it.

She’s passionate about that.

“You sure about that baking apprenticeship?” I ask, half joking, weighing her counter-performance this morning at the bakery (Who the hell mixes kilos of yeast and grams of flour and expects anything but a disaster?) with the work of art she put together with just a phone. “Seriously, Alexandra, you’re wasting your time here. Why don’t you tell Red Barn to go screw themselves and go work for another company? Or for yourself?”

Sure, if she were to quit now, that would mean I would lose my grant. But I’d rather lose my grant than see her wither away in a shitty company. She doesn’t belong there.

“No, I have to stay there for now. I’ve got no choice,” she says, her shoulders slumping.

“You do, though. You can tell them to fuck off.” I could kick myself for having wiped the smile off her face. “Well, you can keep doing that on the side as far as I’m concerned,” I say when she remains silent.

I turn back to the photos on her laptop. “How come there are no close-ups of the breads,” I ask. “Like you did for Gems,” I add, referring to the jewelry shop.

“Oh, you saw that?” she says, blushing slightly. “The camera on this phone isn’t good enough. I’d need to clip a special lens on. I could try and buy one online. Gems had professional photography from a while back that I was able to use.”

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