Guilt by association

Chapter 2: Petite Boulangerie

The rain continued to pour down.

As reluctant as I had been to take it, I was grateful for the wide, black umbrella over my head, as I had promised my roommate I would pick up tampons on the way home, and the drugstore was four blocks away from the metro stop closest to my apartment.

My roommate Camille and I had met in a biology class. It was one of the only courses cross-listed between her program in anthropology and my program in childhood development. We weren't exactly the likeliest of friends, but we ended up at the same station in lab, and as luck would have it, we had both been looking to sign onto a new lease for the academic year.

Camille was a D.C. native, and she had introduced me to her wide circle of friends as well as an array of bars and clubs in the area. I had never known the sociology-major-type queer girls to drink so much, but if Camille's friends were any representative sample, they certainly didn't let their weekends go to waste.

I had gone out with them fairly often at the beginning of the year, but I had always been more of the stay-home-and-read type, and especially once I had begun my teaching job, I found that I couldn't keep up, both physically and mentally.

But club or no club, I was certainly looking forward to the weekend, when I wouldn't have to wake up before seven a.m.

They say time flies when you're having fun, but it also does when you're unspeakably busy. After school, I had about an hour and a half to get something to eat and run errands if necessary, then class until six or seven p.m., depending on the day of the week. After class, I would grab a quick dinner and then fall asleep doing homework.

And so the weekend was upon me, mercifully quick, and as soon as I got home from classes that Friday night, I promptly passed out, not even stirring awake a few hours later when Camille was getting ready to go out.

This is how I ended up waking up early on a Saturday. Even though I had slept for nearly twelve hours, my body felt as if it had been pummeled by a stampede of bulls. I slowly blinked awake to a quiet house. None of Camille's characteristic snores could be heard, which probably meant that either she was out cold from a heavy amount of alcohol or she was spending the night at her girlfriend's place.

On the weekdays when I rose early, I never had the time to admire how the morning light bathed the apartment. But today, as the fresh autumn rays streamed in through the large windows, the house seemed softer—the edges of the messy surfaces blurred, the clothes on the floor smoothed into coziness.

It was going to be a good day.

I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt, stretching as I bent to pick them up from the floor—for someone who spent most of her time on her feet, my back was always in some sort of pain. I was out the door in a matter of minutes, smiling inside at the prospect of coffee and fresh pastries.

The bakery was a weekend ritual I had established since the very beginning, when I moved into the apartment and discovered this perfect boulangerie just around the corner from my building. They were strictly a bakery, except for the drip coffee and scalding milk they kept flowing back in the kitchen, which I suspected had originally been intended for the workers. But somehow word got out to the regulars about their comfy, strong, and impeccably French cafés au lait.

It was fairly warm for a November morning, so the doors of the boulangerie were wide open. I waltzed inside, greeting the French owner and baker with a cheerful "Bonjour!"

I wasn't usually in this early, and it seemed that most of their business came from the later weekend brunch crowd, which is why there was only one other customer in the bakery. He was standing at the counter, engaged in a friendly exchange in French with the owner. Tall, dark hair, strong posture—the man looked familiar.