Page 2 of Of Literature and Lattes
Jill laughed and whisked his refusal away with a single swipe of her hand. “You are not watching your weight. Come on in.”
David stepped inside the shop and grinned. Dew, sunshine, and a breeze off the lake were good, but nothing beat cinnamon, sugar, and the warm yeast smell of rising bread. Betty had baked every Saturday morning of their fifty-year marriage. Yes, some memories you held tight even if they carried a little sting.
“How’s your mother doing?”
Jill’s expression clouded. “She’s okay. Good days and bad days. It’s hardest when she doesn’t recognize me—I keep thinking of my own kids. To be honest, it scares me. It scares her too.”
David waited. Jill’s lips stayed parted an inch as if there was more to say.
But she seemed to blink the thought away, so he stepped into the silence. “I understand that, and I’m sorry... She and Margery Williams were on the prom court together back in high school. George just said Margery is struggling too.”
“I heard that.”
David smiled and changed the topic. “What’s that wonderful smell?”
“Try it.” Jill handed him a slice of coffee cake resting on parchment paper. It was still warm to the touch. “I’m using a different cinnamon, and I’ve added almond extract to the batter. Also rosemary. Tell me if it’s too much... I’m trying out some new ideas.”
“Does the new coffee shop have you nervous?”
Jill looked past him out the window. “The Daily Brew didn’t compete too much with us, but I don’t know what baked goods Andante plans to sell. And the Sweet Shoppe could use something new, don’t you think? Mom held on to some of our recipes since I was born.”
“Good baking is timeless.”
Jill shrugged. “But I need to make something new, do something different. You don’t grow any other way, do you? You don’t stay sharp. I mean, things change whether we want them to or not.”
David nodded. He heard fear in her voice and couldn’t blame her. Losing her mother bit by bit, memory by memory, was a terrifying thing. Losing your sense of home was hard too.
Jill cast her gaze back out the window toward Andante. “I should’ve gone over to introduce myself during those couple months before he closed for renovations, but”—she shook her head—“it was a rough spring.” Her eyes filled.
“Jill?”
She snuffled. “Don’t worry about me, Mr. Drummond. I’m just tired today.”
“You could probably start calling me David, don’t you think?”
She laughed. “Wouldn’t that horrify Mom? No... I don’t think I could get used to that.”
“I understand. I hope you get some rest soon.” He raised the square of coffee cake in thanks and turned to walk out the door.
David took a few steps down the sidewalk, then stopped and stared at the new coffee shop across the square. It felt strange not seeing the old hand-printed Daily Brew sign with its red poppy border mounted above the door. It had hung there since 1977, the very summer he and Betty moved to Winsome.
He chuckled softly. The only stable thing in life is change, he thought, and no, you don’t get used to it.
Chapter 1
“You’re free to move; we can run your interview out of the Chicago office. We’ll be in touch.”
Alyssa threw another Tums in her mouth and cracked down on chalky grape. She played the message again, for the fourteenth time in three days, and while the words gave her no new hope, this time she focused on tone. Was there a lightness in Special Agent Denek’s voice? Did he sound relaxed? Optimistic?
Once determined to make the call, unable to avoid it for another day, Alyssa had rehearsed what to say countless times, written out two different conversational scenarios, and hadn’t drawn a real breath during her fifty-eight-second message—and power-chewed six Tums afterward.
Denek’s reply had taken seven seconds.
Alyssa scanned her apartment. Three years. In a whirlwind, she’d moved from Chicago to Palo Alto, started a new job, signed a lease with a new colleague, and moved into this now-empty space. Well, the space downstairs. This one they moved into only eight months before on the promise of a huge raise—a raise that never came. Yet despite that, she and Meera thought they had arrived—even while working fifteen-hour days more often than not.
After all, they had two bedrooms with a living room and a small balcony in a three-story walk-up just blocks off Stanford’s campus. They stood in line at chic coffeehouses bumping shoulders with Nobel Laureates and Silicon Valley legends, not to mention the up-and-comers—who could be anybody from the slick Euro-dressed woman in the pencil skirt or the jean-clad skateboarder who hung his board off his forearm as he ordered an oregano-infused Ethiopian pour-over. They paid twenty dollars for an arugula salad with beets and goat cheese and convinced themselves they weren’t still hungry.
And they’d held their heads high too. She and Meera knew they were mere worker bees, but they worked for “the” company—the newest and, some said, the greatest of the unicorns. The one that was not only going to make the Uber and Twitter IPOs look like chump change, but the one that saved lives, whole generations, from the chronic illness epidemic that was “engulfing the modern world.”
