ConSign
She always called him "the scoundrel". When he first came into her bakery, she took in his confident stance and his winning smile and knew immediately that he was a sly fox. But he always made her smile. It was so easy to talk to him that she soon trusted him with some very private information. How her husband had cheated on her. How the divorce had nearly cost her the bakery, because she had to pay off the good-for-nothing liar. How much she struggled now that she had to deal with everything alone. Her man had been the one responsible for the bookkeeping, and at first she felt lost without him. Later she discovered that the bastard had squirreled away large amounts of money over the years, especially when the bakery had been considered the best in town. This had changed over the last years. She always did good work, but he often left the customers unattended while she was in the back, or made detours during deliveries. They first lost their major then their everyday customers. Now the bakery had a rundown look and she lacked the money to realize the direly-needed renovations.
When someone wanted to buy her bakery, she initially refused. But then she saw the offer. It was a fair price, but what intrigued her even more was the fact that the contract guaranteed her a permanent job at the bakery with a small share of the profits, and the option to buy the bakery back in ten years for her or her immediate family (mainly her son). She had wondered, since the offer was too good to be true, but she finally accepted.
Everything happened very fast. The bakery was closed for renovation and a horde of repairmen polished everything up with unbelievable speed. She was told not to worry about it, but instead to create something special for the reopening.
"My client wants to advertise with 'The Greatest Cake'," the lawyer of the new owner informed her. She herself viewed this development with worry. A red awning with idiotic advertising wouldn't be enough to bring the bakery out of the red. But nevertheless she strived to make something special and finally created a cake with layers of lemon and passion fruit crème.
As expected, the red awning didn't make much of an impression the day of the reopening. Some stragglers, some old customers interested in the change, but overall, it was a quiet day. Until suddenly there was a commotion on the street. The young woman the new owner had hired as the salesperson told her excitedly about a man who had fallen into their awning.
She got her explanation the next day, when suddenly a lot of people came into the bakery, paying a lot of attention to the awning, but also talking with her salesperson. One of her faithful customers showed her a newspaper as an explanation for the sudden interest. She saw the photo of a familiar face under the headline 'Felon Falls to Freedom' and smiled. This explained everything. Shaking her head she put the newspaper aside, intending to frame the article later on (although this really wasn't a flattering picture of the scoundrel).
A/n: Yesterdays answer was 'Company man'. I'm still not happy with this one-shot...I went for creepy, but I don't think that it really worked out that way. Oh well...
Today I want to know the title of the episode (*duh*) and the character...not the name, because there isn't a name, just who it is supposed to be.
