Page 25 of Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail

“I’m fine,” Astrid said, forcing a smile. “Thank you.”

“Can I show you anything?” the woman asked. Her long red hair was streaked with gray.

“No, thank you. I was just—”

“Actually, how much is this lovely clock?” Jordan asked, sidling up next to her, the fairy timepiece still in her hands.

Astrid didn’t wait to hear the answer. She simply turned and stalked off toward a stall, any stall, that wasn’t hocking tacky wares for Jordan to root through like a rat.

She ended up at a bakery tent from a few towns over called Sugar and Star. She’d never been there, but she knew it was run by a queer couple, and they specialized in seasonal offerings. The space wascrowded, but she didn’t mind waiting a few minutes for a view of their selection. She could already smell that warm, yeasty, buttery scent of baked goods, and she felt her shoulders immediately loosen.

“Hi,” a round woman with wild curly hair said when Astrid finally made it up to their table. She wore a nametag that readBonnie, she/her. “Can I help you?”

“Oh, just looking,” Astrid said, but her mouth was already watering at the display of cookies, muffins, and breads. Her eyes landed on a scone with the tiniest bits of purple baked into the pastry. Could be blueberries, but they looked too delicate for the round fruit. She bent as close as was hygienically appropriate and took a deep breath in, trying to figure out the ingredient.

“Is that... lavender?” she asked.

Bonnie beamed. “It is. I’m impressed.”

“Me too.”

Astrid swung her head to the left to see Jordan standing next to her with her eyebrows in her golden-brown hair. Astrid swallowed but ignored her and turned back to the baked goods.

“Would you like a sample?” Bonnie asked.

“That would be lovely, thank you,” Astrid said.

Bonnie slid a scone from the basket onto a white plate, then cut it into bite-sized pieces.

“How do you keep it from crumbling?” Astrid asked as Bonnie’s knife slid easily through the pastry. “Butter?”

Bonnie laughed. “Well, you can never have too much butter, in my opinion, but I have another little trick.”

“Do tell,” Astrid said.

Bonnie placed the scone pieces in tiny cups and handed one each to Astrid and Jordan. “I set them really close together on the baking tray. When they butt up against one another, they don’t dry out as much.”

“Really?” Astrid said. “I never would’ve thought of that. I love scones, but whenever I make them, they’re always so dry.”

“You’re a baker, then?” Bonnie asked.

Astrid shook her head. “Oh. No. I—”

“If you’re making scones on the regular and can sniff out ingredients in a baked good, you’re a baker,” Bonnie said.

Astrid blinked. True, she used to bake all the time as a kid. It was her go-to comfort activity, especially in the quiet months after Delilah’s father died and her own mother was lost in a haze of grief. She’d find herself in the kitchen, a cornucopia of baking supplies surrounding her. She loved the science of it, the precision. But within those rules, there was so much room for creativity and invention.

College changed a lot of that. There wasn’t much space in her freshman dorm for culinary experiments. But even more than that, there simply wasn’t time. She was a grown-up now. She had to move on to grown-up things.

Now, Bonnie was smiling at her so warmly, the wordbakerstill hovering in the air between them, Astrid suddenly wanted to cry.

Which was ridiculous.

“Are you a baker?” Jordan asked, startling Astrid out of her thoughts. She’d nearly forgotten the carpenter was there, but Jordan was gazing at her with something like wonder in her eyes.

Astrid didn’t answer but simply turned away and smiled back at Bonnie, then took a small bite out of the already bite-size piece of scone.

“Holy shit,” Jordan said, doing the same. “That’s amazing. Doesn’t even taste like soap.”