Fall Romance (Title TBA)

1 - Baking

Baking was really her mother's thing, but this year it was up to Juliette to make her family's signature Pumpkin Crumb Cake Muffins for the Fall Festival.

No one expected her to do it. No one expected much at all from her at the moment, given the circumstances. But she needed a distraction, a goal to focus on. So when Mrs. Genevieve at the library lamented that there would be no Pumpkin Crumb Cake Muffins this year - a completely innocuous and well-meaning sentiment - Juliette latched onto the idea of making them herself.

At the register of the local supermarket, Juliette worried her thumb, feeling strangely exposed as the young cashier - whom she, thankfully, didn't recognize - lazily scanned each item before passing it down the counter to the bagger. She didn't come for much, only the seasonal items and some basics that had spoiled since her dad didn't cook.

Thankfully, her mom had always kept the pantry stocked up on various types of flours, sugars, oils, and an array of spices so vast Juliette would be hard-pressed to list them all from memory even at gunpoint. The bagger, another youthful face unfamiliar to her, used a single paper bag to pack the eggs, milk, butter, pumpkin puree, and pumpkin spice. All the items were locally produced and rang up at nearly half the price Juliette would have paid in California.

She checked out, then almost forgot to force a smile as she thanked the employees and headed towards the exit. With any luck, she might actually finish this grocery trip without having to encounter any well-meaning community members eager to offer their condolences.

Outside, fall winds howled through the parking lot, compelling red and brown leaves to swirl and dance above the pavement on their journey north. Juliette forgot how forceful fall weather could be as the California coast basically had only two seasons: hot and dry, or cool and wet.

Though the temperature this far north was much colder, she remembered how it used to snow as early as October when she was a child. These days, northern winters were mild in comparison, a point Juliette's mother used a couple of years ago to try to convince her daughter to move back home.

Global warming notwithstanding, it didn't work. Juliette had not even visited home in over five years, and even then it had been a trip that ended early. She'd come for her mother's sake, but there was only so much time she could spend around her father before old emotional wounds bubbled up to the surface, threatening to burst and ruin everyone's holiday.

She did not miss the cruel and predictable irony of being home now and tending to the one grieving parent left to her.

The wrong parent, she thought bitterly. And she almost felt bad about it.

Juliette's dark waves whipped around her face, blocking her sight as she moved the grocery bag to one hip and stuffed a hand into her black tote bag to search for car keys. The bag was too big and stuffed with too many things, leaving Juliette to do the same song and dance outside her car that she'd done many times before.

Her arm went into the bag past the elbow as she shoved a notebook, empty pens, scissors, mace spray and receipts aside, listening for the tell-tale jingling of metal against metal and coming up short.

The tote's strap slipped off her shoulder as the gale heaved to a crescendo, and before she knew it, the grocery bag toppled out of her arms and onto the ground.

The wind's hollow howls did nothing to muffle the dismal sound of eggs cracking in their carton and milk smacking the pavement hard enough for the jug to break open. The jar of pumpkin puree rolled away unscathed, eagerly fleeing the scene, much like Juliette wanted to do at that moment.

As milk soaked through the paper bag, forming a fast-growing puddle at her feet, Juliette couldn't help but laugh silently at her misfortune; her chest and shoulders shook with it. But soon her eyes blurred over with tears, and laughter seamlessly shifted to sobs.

Not at all feeling her 32 years, Juliette crouched where she stood, covered her face with her hands, and wept over spilled milk.