It's funny how your understanding of adulthood changes over the years. When I was seven, I knew adults were "big." I also had some vague idea of reading the newspaper while drinking black coffee in the morning. When I was 13, I knew you were an adult when you turned 18. When I was 18, adults were the people who paid for things; if you were an adult, it meant you bought groceries and paid the bills and all sorts of boring things. When I started doing all those boring things for myself, I waited for that moment when I'd start to feel like an adult. When it never came, I realized something: either nobody ever really feels like an adult and it's up to each person to define what adulthood meant for herself, or seven-year-old me was actually right but my stunted growth meant I would always be a kid. Either way, it meant I could watch cartoons and eat Froot Loops in bed at 2 o'clock in the morning and nobody could tell me a damn thing. Well, almost nobody.
"I don't know how you can eat those things," said Taylor.
"They're delicious and nutritious."
"Nothing about them is nutritious."
"Shh, you're talking over the show."
"And that's another thing: didn't this channel have shows other than The Weekenders at some point? This is the fifth episode in a row."
"I may have swapped to a DVD while you were in the shower."
As the night continued and episode five turned into six and seven, I found my head slowly migrating to Taylor's chest. I absentmindedly played with a lock of Taylor's hair that had been tickling me for the past five minutes while Tino confronted his fear of clowns for our entertainment on the TV.
"Y'know, you kind of remind me of Tish," I said.
"We have literally nothing in common apart from our shared gender and the fact that we both wear glasses."
"That is such a Tish thing to say."
"She's a middle-schooler and I'm a hero."
I climbed onto her lap and looked into her eyes. "Yeah, you are." I kissed her with a ravenous hunger that surprised us both. The kiss was hot and heavy, and I felt a fire deep in my core threatening to engulf me whole.
"Wow," said Taylor.
"Yeah."
"I didn't realize early 2000s cartoons got you so worked up."
"And now you've ruined the mood." I rolled off her onto my side of the bed.
"It's probably better this way." Her fingers combed through my hair soothingly. "We have to leave for work soon, anyway."
I groaned. She was right, of course. It turned out that adulthood wasn't all sex, cartoons, and fruit-adjacent cereal. We had responsibilities creeping up on us like a giraffe stalking its prey. Taylor's job was literally a matter of life and death at times, and while The Busy Bee was never quite at that level, I did have employees who relied on me for their livelihood.
"We are kind of in the middle of a crisis," I said.
"I know, honey. It must be eggs-cruciating."
"Okay, now I'm glad we didn't get beyond second base tonight."
###
A peal of thunder shook the earth as lightning raced across the heavens and rain pelted my windshield. I pulled up to The Busy Bee. The employee park and entrance around the back were usually more convenient but offered no protection from the elements. If I stuck to my usual routine, I would have missed the waif sitting under the awning with her head between her knees; her clothes completely drenched from the rain. It took a minute, but eventually, I recognized her as Natalie, one of the regulars. I got out the car and approached her carefully. She started when I drew near but calmed when she saw my face.
"Ms. C?" Her eyes were red-rimmed. Her face was young; she couldn't have been older than 15. "I didn't know where else to go."
"It's okay. Let's get you inside and warmed up."
"It wasn't supposed to be like this."
"I know, honey."
"It wasn't supposed to be like this," she whispered.
I ushered her inside and sat her at a table near the counter. I looked to the kitchen and saw light escaping from the cracks around the door. I shouted for Claire. The door swung upon, revealing a figure silhouetted against the kitchen's harsh, unnatural lighting.
"What's with all the shou- Natalie! What on earth happened to you?"
"That can wait. Do we still have that space heater?"
"Already on it."
"Natalie?" I asked her. She looked up at me, her face heartbreakingly hopeful; like she expected me to have all the answers. "I'm going to get something dry for you to change into, okay?" She nodded. I ran to Ruth's office. Experience had taught me that you never know when you'll need a spare outfit, which is why we kept a few spare outfits in various sizes there. A few hours watching YouTube videos about running a business had taught me to stay on brand, which is why those outfits used the patisserie's color scheme. In no time at all, Natalie was warming herself by a portable heater, dressed in a gold-colored blouse and a black pencil skirt. Meanwhile, Claire and I discussed the elephant in the room.
"I can't believe you made an elephant cake topper."
"Isn't it amazing?" said Claire. "I'm amazing."
"Not to mention modest."
"Pfft. Modesty's overrated."
"Hey, Natalie, come check this out."
Natalie plodded to the kitchen door, then practically jumped to the table when she saw the topper. "This is amazing."
"That's what I said."
"No, you said that you were amazing."
"Yeah, but you can tell that that's what she meant to say."
Natalie turned to me. "Is that fondant?"
"You'll have to ask Claire."
"It's modeling chocolate. You ever use modeling chocolate?"
Natalie shook her head. "No, but I have seen it on YouTube. I know it's supposed to be hard to work with."
"Yep. I am pretty great." Claire gave me a smug look, as though she were daring me to say otherwise.
"As fun as this is, we do have work to do."
"Right."
"Natalie, since you're already here and you seem to know a thing or two about baking, you're being shanghaied into service."
"What am I doing?"
"You're the dogsbody," said Claire. Upon seeing our blank faces, she said, "God, is that British, too? You'll do the grunt work."
"So why not just say that?" I asked.
"Because after years of watching movies and tv shows from around the world, I no longer know the authentic me."
"To be honest, I didn't really know what 'shanghai' meant, either," said Natalie.
"I give up," I said. "Natalie, are you cool with helping out for a bit?" She nodded. "Great. Now, we don't have to talk about why you're here until you're ready, but I do need to ask you a few questions. Have you been physically harmed?"
"No."
"Are you safe?" She shrugged. "Let me rephrase that: are you in immediate physical danger?"
"No."
"Do your parents know where you are?"
Her breath hitched almost imperceptibly. "No."
"Okay." I smiled at her. "Whenever you're ready to talk, I'll be here."
After that, we got to work preparing as many egg-based recipes as we could manage. At some point, Claire started talking about movies, and we couldn't get her to shut up.
"You ever think about rich people in movies? Like, the extras playing them."
"Not really," I said.
"Most people don't, but it gets weird when you think about them."
"What do you mean?" asked Natalie.
"Oh no, don't encourage her."
"I mean, how many times have you seen rich snobs getting their just deserts from some average Joe in a movie? Like in… Well, I can't quite think of an example off the top of my head—"
"Or pull one out your—"
"Natalie!"
"—but I'm sure you know the kind of scene I'm talking about. Rich snobs in a fancy restaurant get shown up by Jake and Elwood—Ah, the Blues Brothers! Anyway, Jake and Elwood take them down a peg, everyone in the audience laughs, and the movie goes on. But those rich snobs are played by broke actors. Meanwhile, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi are multi-millionaires."
"So, what's your point?" asked Natalie.
"No point. It's just something weird I noticed."
"And that's why you don't encourage her."
We continued to work in high spirits until Ruth arrived at around 9. She asked me if we could have a word in her office, which I was more than happy to do.
Sitting in one of the plush office chairs Taylor had borrowed from the Elite, I asked, "What do you need?"
"It looks like the ordering mistake was on our end."
"Damn it."
"Yeah. When we were restocking after the catering gig, somebody seems to have displaced the decimal point."
"So, what does that mean for us?"
"It means we'll have to eat the eggs."
I groaned. "Sorry. Taylor's been making egg puns non-stop since I told her."
"Oh, I didn't even mean to do that."
"Who could have made the order?"
"Going forward, it'll just be me. We need to prevent a repeat of this, and the simplest way to avoid it is by concentrating power at the top."
"Well, I guess that makes sense," I said.
"As for the egg order, based on the time it was placed, it was probably either you or Claire."
"I don't remember placing an order at all."
"You were pretty out of it when I arrived. We're lucky you didn't set the building on fire."
"Hey, I can bake in my sleep."
"You practically were." Ruth and I laughed. "Do you want to tell Claire or shall I?"
"I can do it. Do you mind if I borrow your office for a minute?"
"What's mine is literally yours."
Ruth left to find Claire for me. While I was waiting for her to arrive, a horrible thought occurred to me: if I couldn't remember much from that night, then maybe Claire couldn't remember much, either. Maybe I could pin the order on her entirely and get her to, I don't know, work unpaid overtime to make up for the egg expenditure? To my everlasting shame, I actually considered doing this for way too long. It was only the thought of my superhero wife and my adolescent pledge to become a better person that stayed my hand. By the time Claire arrived, I had managed to school my features, but I could still feel the taint eating at my heart.