Friday the 14th

Part 3: Rose Bakery

I slipped into the back room of the bakery, Sylvie and Quinn trailing behind me. Gran was struggling to keep up with a line of customers waiting to pay, and she looked relieved to see me. What a great time for Mom to find "the one."

"Mia, thank goodness. Take out the empty trays in the display case, will you dear?"

I set to work immediately, while Sylvie washed dishes and helped serve customers and Quinn played on her phone in the kitchen.

Rose Bakery was set up in a small shopfront in a quaint little section of Santa Cruz, by the neighborhoods where nice old ladies lived and baked cookies for you whenever you would happen to visit. It had several display cases, an only slightly outdated kitchen, a few tables by the windows that faced the street, and of course the signature rose drawing I had done last year hanging over the doorway. The bakery had kind of become the gallery I would never have, since I've always loved art but know enough to realize the statistics of artists making a living are against me. But my work does brighten the place up a bit, I guess.

The Rose family bakery is by no means fancy, but I like to think the rustic feel attracts people.

"Time to close up," Gran finally said, watching the last customer leave.

I breathe a sigh of relief and wipe the sweat off my forehead (taking off a melted coat of honey colored foundation)--not because I've been working particularly hard, but because the oven's running for some banana bread and it gets so dang hot in the bakery when the oven's on.

"What's Josh been up to, out in San Francisco?" Gran asked, washing her hands over the sink as I passed around a bag of chocolate chips to Quinn and Sylvie.

"He's still in medical school, he'll be graduating next year," I told her. Quinn in particular was looking very interested--no doubt she thought Josh was hot, which was gross on so many levels, first of them being that Josh was my dorky older brother who definitely would never be dating my best friend. And I told her so. "Quinn, don't even think about it."

Quinn looked a little miffed. "I didn't say anything."

"You didn't need to."

Gran laughed, winked at me, and headed back into the storefront to finish cleaning up. Sylvie rolled her eyes and followed Gran, since Sylvie has a bad habit of always being the better person and doing work instead of gossiping.

"I can't help it if Josh looks like a twenty-five-year-old version of McDreamy when he puts on scrubs," Quinn said airily. Before I could make some remark about how weird it would be if she became my sister-in-law, her phone buzzed and she whipped it out without hesitation--one lightning-speed response that I always tried to convince her would be great for the high school volleyball team. Her eyes whizzed across the screen and she bit her lip. "Dang, Jenna's not happy."

"About what?" I asked, leaning over her shoulder.

She was scrolling down Jenna's page, and suddenly gasped as she reached a picture of Jake, his arm securely around my waist at the top of the bleachers, leaning in like we were about to start kissing or something. It made me sick to my stomach. Why did Jenna have to twist things around on an innocent bystander? And even deeper, at the heart of the issue--why was it that when a girl and a guy so much as exchanged a few words people suddenly decided that there must be romantic feelings involved and saying anything otherwise meant you were in denial--whether those feelings were of friendship or, in this particular case, feelings of mutual annoyance and dislike.

But it was the words below the image that truly made my blood boil in my veins. Looks like the undateable nerd decided to turn a new page... a warm welcome to Mia the player who likes to steal boyfriends. You have been warned.