Page 6 of The Whisper Place
I ducked back out, but the baker hadn’t seemed to notice me. She was ringing up an order. On an impulse, I grabbed the tub and hauled the whole thing back to the kitchen, stacking the dishes neatly in the sink.
I was on my way back to the front when my surroundings hit me. The kitchen was gorgeous in a completely different way from the rest of the converted house. It looked like multiple old rooms had been combined and gutted, making way for a bright and airy space. A massive butcher-block work surface took up the middle of the room, while the walls were lined with commercial fridges, stacked ovens, and two giant stainless-steel mixers. A mini greenhouse stretched in front of a bay window, housing pots of rosemary, mint, chive, and peppers. Jalapeño, it looked like. I took a step closer.
“Uh, hi?”
I whirled around as the baker popped an egg soufflé in the microwave and set a croissant on the butcher block, slicing it neatly in half. The front room had somehow gotten even louder.
“You said to leave the dishes anywhere.” But I still felt a flush of heat in my chest and cheeks as I realized I’d violated her business’s private space. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I shrank away, feeling myself getting smaller, moving into a crash position my body knew like breathing.
“You emptied the dirties?” She glanced from the sink to the tub, which I’d lifted in front of me like a shield. The microwave beeped and she added the egg on top of the lettuce, tomato, and cheese she’d piled on the croissant, barely looking at the food as she did it. Her gaze was somehow cutting and exhausted at the same time.
“I’m sorry. It just looked like—”
“A hundred dollars.” She snapped the gloves off and picked up the plate.
“What?”
“I’ll give you a hundred dollars if you stay and wash them.”
“I—” But she was already gone, disappearing back to the counter and the endless line of customers.
I stood frozen in the kitchen, unsure what had just happened. I should go. The sun was up and I was wasting daylight in a town whose name I couldn’t actually remember. But I knew I was still in the Midwest, which wasn’t far enough. I needed those mountains at my back. I should find wherever I parked my car and hit the highway, follow the map until it ended, until I was somewhere uncharted and new. A place where they couldn’t find me.
I knew all that and still I couldn’t make myself leave this room. It was more beautiful than any kitchen I’d been in, with the light flooding in from the window, the thriving plants lining the greenhouse, the smell of sugar and coffee swirling in the air. Like a dream I’d had but couldn’t quite remember. I wanted to live right here, in the space where the sunbeams met the butcher block and made it glow.
I took the tub back to the counter, where the line of customers was now out the door, and started collecting the rest of the dirty dishes.
Three hours later, the Sunday-morning rush finally died down into a quiet hum of students studying and scrolling to The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven.” I’d run the dishwasher twice and washed every pan by hand, drying and stacking them neatly into organizers in the cabinets, and then wiped down the surfaces that were coated in a fine dusting of flour. I was figuring out how to get the mixer attachment and bowl off one of the giant mixers when the baker appeared with a handful of twenties. “Thank you.”
As soon as I took the bills, she sagged against the refrigerator, like the money had been the last thing holding her upright. Pressing the heels of her hands to her temples, she rolled her neck out and groaned. “Cancer.”
Was she asking about my sign? I pocketed the money, abandoning the mixer since apparently my shift was over.
“My morning help came down with a nasty case of ovarian cancer.” She opened her eyes, staring sightlessly through the bay window into the trees in the backyard. “It was so sudden. One day she was hauling trays and complaining about her cable company,and the next . . . they’re giving her four months max. Your whole life gone in a blink. Can you imagine?”
“Yeah.”
She turned, scanning me with a piercing gaze. I looked away. “Well, thanks. I gotta go.”
“Can you bake?”
I stopped mid-exit, but didn’t dare turn around to face her. She was offering me a job. I could feel it and a huge part of me leapt at the idea of being in this gorgeous space every morning, spending my days creating edible magic. But I couldn’t. Could I?
“I don’t live here. I was just passing through.”
“To where?”
I shook my head.
“Listen, the kitchen looks amazing. Better than it has in months. I can’t find anyone in this entire city who wants to start work at 4:00 a.m., and my mental health literally cannot take any more of this. I dreamed I was drowning in a vat of flour last night and when I woke up it didn’t feel any different, you know? I love this place, but it’s swallowing me whole. I don’t know what to do.”
“Eat the whale.”
The words slipped out before I even knew I was speaking. The baker frowned at me, looking confused, until the front door opened. She groaned and pushed herself off the refrigerator. “If you’re still in town tomorrow, you know where you can make some money, okay?”
I nodded. My heart was pounding, like I’d just given myself away.
She paused at the doorway. “I’m Blake.”
