I remember I’m wearing a shower cap and goggles. I hurriedly snatch off both, which is a mistake. My breasts heave and then drop, breaking the paper halter strings, so that they flop out over the top.
I reach back and grab for modesty’s sake one of the paper towelettes they gave us to dry off with. As I do, I hear a rip. The crotch of my bikini bottom pops, leaving me with two narrow triangles flapping free, fore and aft.
“Well, well. Liz.” Brandi’s lips twitch as her gaze flicks up and down my torso with mortifying interest in my wayward flesh. “It’s always…interesting to see you.”
“I—er, yeah,” I manage but she’s on the move.
“Got to run,” she says as she sashays her tiny bronze butt toward the lockers.
“Who was that?” I hear her buddy ask as they disappear around the corner. I miss the reply. But I don’t really need to hear it.
I strip off the remains of my wrecked suit with shaking hands. Of all the bad-luck, unnecessary things to happen!
I’m back in my own bra and panties when Celia reappears, which adds a second shock to the day. She looks like something that should be served up with clarified butter and lemon wedges.
“Holy cow! Celia, are you okay?”
“She’s fine. She’s just had a reaction to the tanning booster,” Lili says calmly.
Celia doesn’t look calm. She’s vibrating as if she’s got one of her new fingernail tips caught in an electric socket. “The hot-action cream said it gave maximum tanning results in the shortest possible time. I—I wanted to look—look.”
I turn to our hostess. “I thought she was going to be painted bronze. Cherry-red is not a tanning color.”
“It’s temporary,” Lili assures us with the perfect composure of a salon hostess accustomed to dealing with victims of a disastrous tanning job. “It will wear off.”
“She can’t go out in public like this,” I protest. “She looks like a frankfurter.”
“In twenty-four hours, she will look normal again.”
“Tanless?” Celia questions in alarm.
“No, just not so—”
“Boiled?” I suggest.
Lili purses her lips. “She’s not burned. Our hot-action creams simulate the same kind of heat you get from deep-heat muscle creams. Mrs. Duffy just has what we call an overt reaction. The overstimulation of blood vessels will wear off.”
I turn to Celia. “Get in the shower and wash that stuff off.”
“No!” both Celia and our hostess protest.
“She’ll lose the benefits of the spray-on tanning,” Lili explains.
“And now, because of my reaction, it will be two weeks before I can come back!” Celia’s wail touches my heart. But my brain is busy reliving humiliations of my own.
She has just reappeared, wearing a blouse knotted high under her breasts and low-rider cuffed cropped jeans that expose a long lean bronze torso with a multicolor tattooed garland centered two inches below her navel.
Lili rushes up to her to gush, “Was everything satisfactory, Mrs. Talbot?”
She shrugs. “I’m not sure. I’ll let you know.”
“Of course, Mrs. Talbot. If there’s anything I can do for you, just let me know.”
I straighten my spine as she passes. I’m in my best underwire now. It’s safe to thrust.
The corners of her mouth lift only in the corners. “I recommend next time you bring your own suit. They have designs that can work miracles with those little problem areas. Bye now.”
If I wasn’t holding in my stomach I would say something really vile.
Instead, I let her walk out the door, unchallenged.
Finally, Celia senses something is wrong. It must be the stricken look on my face. “Who was that?”
“Brandi with a ™ over the i Talbot. The husband-snatching chickie-babe who stole my husband!”
Chapter 2
“’Night, Miz T.”
“Good night, DeVon. Desharee.” I step aside as two-thirds of the night crew troops out the front door of No-Bagel Emporium. DeVon wears camouflage and Desharee’s in skintight jeans and a cropped tee. Neither smiles but I don’t expect it. Generation Z projects a permanent bad mood. I can no longer afford trained staff so we recruit for on-the-job educating. DeVon and Desharee are two of my high school work-study-program students.
Bakers are a breed unto themselves. There are rivalries and rituals among my crew that I don’t need or try to understand. Even so, I can’t keep back a big sigh when spying the ricotta tub on the counter that acts as our “fine” box. The crew is young so we fine a quarter per cuss word to keep things polite. My grandfather didn’t believe in cussing. Must be the only male to grow to manhood in New Jersey and not cuss. So we’ve kept the tradition alive in his honor. Today there’s a five dollar bill sticking out of the ricotta tub.
“You don’t need to know about the Lincoln, Miz T.”
Shemar has poked his head out from the back. “We were breaking it down for the new guy last night. It’s all good.” He makes that sideways-fist-to-the-chest move.
But I’m unconvinced. The night shift is the heart of a bakery, when the mixing and proofing and shaping and baking are done. The proof of success is in the product.
I lift out one of the loaves of sourdough stacked in racks for the morning rush and inspect it. It’s lightly brown, the crust texture thick and craggy. One stroke of a bread knife and the still-warm yeast aroma of fresh bread rises into my nostrils. Got to be in the top three of my favorite smells. I’m an olfactory person. The right smell can send me straight into ecstasy. Whatever occurred last night, Shemar got the job done.
“Would I lie to you, Miz T?”
I look up over my shoulder with a sheepish grin to see Shemar carrying a rack of pastries. “So what was the problem?”
“The fool didn’t feed Ma before he left last night.”
I blanch. “Is she okay?”
“True that. After I was done, he won’t ever forget again.”
Even so, I rush into the back and over to a large plastic tub that contains nothing less than our secret formula for bread-making. Lifting the lid, I lean in and inhale, reassured by its vague brewery aroma.
Every artisan bakery has its own Ma, or bread starter for the uninitiated. The fermentation processes caused by microbes that occur naturally in the environment give each bakery’s Ma and the bread made from it its unique flavor and proofing properties. The rivalry among bakers over their batches of Ma is legendary.
I learned not to say Ma contains “bacteria” after a class of first graders on a field trip to a bakery stampeded out shouting, “The bread’s got a disease!”
With a gloved hand I lift a glob of Ma to test its resilience. Like any living thing Ma must be fed or it will die. We put in fresh flour and stir it several times a day. Our Ma is five years old, and counting.
“You want a chocolate croissant?”
My empty stomach growls in expectation of a backslide in my resolve to lose a few. I loooove Shemar’s chocolate croissants but, “No, thanks.”
He crosses his arms high on his chest and leans back on a slant, giving me a smirk. “Watching your shape?”
I roll my eyes but smile. “How’s Shorty doing?”
Shemar