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 Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2023 7:57 am
Though the peak of summer had passed, it was still hot enough that fresh bread and pastries weren’t in high demand. Autumn would be better, and Winter the best of all, but Cecil was making due. There were plenty of events willing to host him anyway, and he always had a few new, unique treats among his staples.
He didn’t need a food truck like some of the other vendors; he did all his baking before leaving, which meant he had the luxury of packaging them in nice little boxes and bags. He was out alone today–not uncommon on a school day–but it meant that he lost the appeal of his energetic little assistant, who was all too happy to loudly proclaim how good everything smelled, and who was eager to announce how much better it tasted, too.
There were other bakers in the market, but he wasn’t too pressed when it came to the competition. He’d visited them earlier, to check in on them and pick up a few things. He wasn’t competitive; he was making ends meet and they deserved all the support they could get. He considered himself on friendly terms with all of the usual faces, and did his best to make the newcomers feel welcome, too.
He had plenty of returning customers and spent a good amount of time trying to secure more, but if all he got out of a conversation was a good time, that was fine. For today, at least. Business was on his mind, but it was a nice day and the bills were paid through next month at least, so this didn’t feel like he needed to hustle.
This career wasn’t as secure as the last job he’d had, but he was so much happier here.
His stall had a canopy over it, helping keep the temperature reasonable. He had a few fans set up, too–both for comfort and because he knew how good his most recent batch of goods smelled. There were cookies, of course, but sweets weren’t his forte. Biscuits and bread were his go-to, and he had an array of them on display.
He had a few seasonal breads, and a few new recipes that he was trying out, but he was known for his rolls. He had sweet rolls, buttered rolls, stuffed rolls, flavored rolls. He wore a colorful apron and, for as chatty as he’d been earlier, he’d only just sat down and had a moment to himself. He smiled to anyone who caught his gaze, but for the moment he let the sights–and smells–of his stall do the work of brining people to him.
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Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2023 2:18 pm
Bread. Linnea halted from her stroll around the city and perked up at the smell of it. Good bread. So much of the bread here was absolutely awful. It came in the plastic bags that could rip if someone's fingernail hit them the wrong way, and that had to be thrown away after. It was all the same shape. It barely had a smell, let alone a flavor, and it was soft but not in the way where it felt intentional, just in the way where she could barely even feel its thin slices under her teeth. The good bread existed, but it was more expensive and sometimes could be hard to find. Linnea knew how to bake some of it herself, but she had to be careful about using the oven in the summer because not everyone else loved the heat the way that she did. The promise of something quality in a time like this was enough to stop her in her tracks and have her trotting towards the source of it, which wasn't hard because there were a few food trucks and stalls around with bright advertisements. A few of them looked like they might be selling baked goods, but she looked at the vendors, and made her way to the one who she thought had the kindest eyes. She looked at his spread, and asked, "Which of these do you think is the best?" Although there was no hiding the fact that her gaze gravitated towards the buns.
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Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2023 6:25 pm
Cecil's eyes immediately found Linnea's, and he was on his feet to receive her instantly. "Oh, which one's the best?"
He clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth and looked across the selection he had to offer. He hadn't missed that her eyes seemed to stick to the buns.
"Well, those are pretty good, I think. I don't know if they're the best, but they're one of my favorites. And they get pretty good reviews. I usually sell out of them before I go home, so they're pretty popular. And they're my own recipe, too." He sounded proud of them, but not in any way that seemed to imply hubris or arrogance. He just seemed excited to share them.
"They're light and fluffy and they stick together well, so if you're eating on the go you don't have to worry about a lot of crumbs. I have a few different flavors today--the original one, that's right there by your hand, but I've got a sweet roll and a spicy roll--it's jalapeno spicy. I had blueberries too, but those sold out early on. I have--actually, would you like a sample? I don't do this for everyone," he said, but didn't seem like he'd have been the sort to say no if they'd asked, and reached under the table to pull out a cupcake carrier. Instead of cupcakes, he had small little bite sized rolls. Unlike the ones on the table, three of the samples had coloring in them. He explained, "The regular colored ones are the normal ones, but the blueberries are blue, spicy green, and sweet is red. I colored them so if they rolled around I'd still be able to tell what was what."
He hadn't waited for her to answer before he opened the tray to offer them to her. There were only a few blue ones left, and while the others still had quite a bit more, it was clear that he'd been offering samples. It probably wasn't a surprise that he sold out of things before he went home; the fresh baked goods smelled delicious while wrapped up, but the open container gave a full experience of what she could expect.
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2023 1:41 pm
She'd already been prepared to buy one of the buns, before he even started talking about the different options, all of which sounded equally delicious. Still, when he popped open the tub of samples and the scent wafted out of it, Linnea stilled, her eyes going somewhere distant. It had been about a week after she'd first moved in with the government officials, and she'd gotten a delivery, a box. She'd squirreled it up to her room, and she'd popped open the lid to be hit with the smell of a few flavors of bread, just like this. She'd gobbled it up, of course. Coincidentally, that had been the night that she'd learned that if she used her senshi powers, she could easily jump out her window. That had been the first night she'd ran home. Now, she popped one of the normal flavored samples into her mouth, and at that point her eyes might have gone a bit misty. "I'll take one of each," she said, with no hesitation. She would have taken more, but there was only so much money in the pastel blue wallet that she pulled out of her pocket. "These are the best that I've had in a long time," she told him, then reached up and tried to be subtle about it while she wiped her face. "Like my dad's."
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Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2023 8:36 pm
In the bright sunlight, it wasn’t difficult to miss the wetness in her eyes. Cecil didn’t need to see tracks of tears to know; he was a father and in doing this by himself he’d gotten very familiar with the prelude to a teary tantrum.
Not that he assumed he’d have to expect as much from the girl in front of him! A switch just flipped inside of him. He was sympathetic even before she mentioned her father.
He closed and lowered the samples so he could quickly start packing up one of each. And, if he happened to slip an extra one in, oops. He’d just forget to charge for that one. “Oh, that’s quite the compliment, I think. Thank you.” There were a thousand things he could have assumed, so he was careful with how he asked, “Do you have a lot of happy memories of your dad baking things for you?”
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Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2023 7:15 pm
Linnea took a breath that was deep enough to keep her from shaking or generally spiraling into true tears. She wasn't a child. She wasn't going to start blubbering in font of a stranger, no matter how kind his eyes were. No. She was going to take these buns to the grave, and she was going to tell Lars about them, and then she could cry all she wanted. For now she handed a few bills over, hoping that he wouldn't try to give her any change, because to be honest she still wasn't the best at telling the coins apart. "It's a compliment," she told him, and with the way that he was asking his questions she even managed to smile instead of falling back into sadness. "Breads like this were his specialty, I think because they were my favorite? He was always making them when I was little, and then later, if I had a bad day at work, he would always have something whipped up for me to come home to." She knew she couldn't go into too much detail with some stranger, but she was finding she wanted to tell him at least a little bit.
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Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2023 6:13 pm
Cecil adopted a sympathetic expression, and there was ample understanding in his eyes. He’d paid attention to the tenses she’d used, and even if he appeared to be busying himself with counting bills to give her change–sorry, Linnea–he was mindful of her posture and tone, too.
There were no coins in the change he offered, and he passed them back to her along with the paper bag of treats.
“That’s so sweet. I hope I can be that kind of father, too. My little one hasn’t gotten picky yet, but I’m noticing a distinct drift towards the sugary treats these days. I appreciate the compliment.” He couldn’t speak for her father and wouldn't presume to know their circumstances, but he could imagine plenty all the same. “If it’s a good memory for you, it must have been a good memory for him, too. I think there’s something special about knowing you can make something someone looks forward to. I’m here most days of the week. Oh–here,” he said, and passed her a business card, too.
“I can’t make any promises, but if you’re ever having a bad day and need a pick-me-up, I’m always baking something. Maybe I can help.”
Realistically, he had something of a bleeding heart anyway, but usually he could restrain himself from the temptation of such offers. And yet, with her, he couldn’t help himself. Something in his heart ached a bit, in a distant, foreign way. He wanted to do something nice for her.
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Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2023 3:36 pm
No coins. Okay. She could work with that. She tucked the bills away quickly and glanced back at him as he mentioned he had a child. "They're lucky to have you as a father," she told him. "Anyone would be." A second passed before she added, so it didn't sound quite so weird, "With all these sweets." She meant it as more than that, though. She would have been lucky to have him as a father, she meant, because there was just something about him, something kind, something almost familiar. On Daphne, it wouldn't have been strange to ask him right now, in the middle of the street, if he wanted to be part of her family, and while it usually took more than a brief conversation to accept a proposition like that, but here it would be silly with how family was some immutable thing tied closely to genetics. So, she smiled politely. "I'll be back," she told him. And she would be. The next day, and the next, and the next.
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