15. Justin

15Justin

The soundof the bell over the front door of the bakery had me to looking up to find a young woman entering the bakery. She had a friendly smile on her lips as she approached me with her hand already extended.

“Welcome,” I said, taking her hand to shake. “Cassie, I assume?”

“That’s correct.” She grinned and nodded as she looked around the bakery. According to her resume, she was twenty-one and appeared eager to have a shot at the job I’d advertised. I looked down at the resume in my hand and motioned for her to take a seat.

“You have an amazing place here,” she said, her eyes bright and filled with so much youth. I found the idea of hiring someone young like her intriguing because it would create a different vibe. Even though I was only twenty-nine, she could bring in a new vibe of customers in her age group.

“Thank you! I wanted to take the opportunity to meet you and get to know you a little better. I hope you don’t mind having the interview out in the open. Truth is, I’m the only one here, and I don’t want to miss any customers.”

She shook her head. “Happy to just have an interview. That’s all.”

“Great, thank you. So, let me give you a rundown of the position.” She nodded, and I continued. “This position is an important addition to my business. You would be doing pretty much the same things I do, except with fewer responsibilities. The biggest part of the job is assisting me. You would be working here in the front of the store taking care of customers and serving orders, as well as assisting with baking in the back as much as possible. Very few nights are required, and we close relatively early. Weekends would be a must, but I hope with help we’ll be able to alternate that. As I see on your resume, you have lots of experience working in bakeries, so that’s great.”

Her eyes dropped to her clenched hands, and I noticed her starting to tremble. I laid down her resume and put on a smile.

“Am I missing something here?”

She shrugged. “The truth is, I don’t really have experience. Not much anyway. When my grammy was alive, I often baked with her. Mostly for my grandpa.” She scrunched up her nose. “I’m a fast learner, though. Please tell me that won’t be a problem.”

I sighed. This was my third interview already, and I was starting to get a tad underwhelmed with my prospects. It appeared that most either lied on their resume in one area or another or just copied one off the internet. It was discouraging for sure. Now that I could actually hire someone, I looked forward to having some time off from the bakery. It only made sense to have some help, but it wasn’t quite panning out the way I wanted it to.

“The truth is, the bakery is expanding.” I held up a finger and jumped up from the table. I went to the counter and grabbed the cake book, then returned to her. “You see…” I opened it up to the unicorn cake I was asked to bake and looked up to her. “I’m going to be making this cake soon, and I need someone that would have the skills set to help with this. With someone that doesn’t have experience, I just don’t see how it would work out.”

She nodded and looked down at her hands again. “I’m sorry for wasting your time.” She jumped up and hurried out of the bakery. I considered rushing after her, but that was just me wanting to be empathetic. I needed to be realistic with my expectations. This was not an on-the-job training position, unfortunately.

I turned back to the pile of resumes and stared at them. I still had ten people to interview, so all hope wasn’t lost.

The bell rang on the door again, and I glanced down at my watch. It wasn’t time for the next one, so it had to mean a customer. “Welcome,” I started, then snickered. “And it’s just you….”

Chris laughed. “What every man wants to hear. Oh, it’s just you. Why yes…yes it is.” He gave me a teasing grin. “Came to see if you could scoot away for lunch.”

“Lock up the bakery?” He sighed and picked up the pile of resumes. “I would, actually, but in thirty minutes, I have someone coming in for an interview.”

“Oh? Nice. You’re taking the plunge and hiring someone. That’s a nice turn of events.”

“Well, it’s not exactly going well, thus far,” I smirked. “The last one….” I thrust the resume towards Chris. “Read this.”

Chris took a moment and skimmed over the resume and then looked up, eyebrows arched. “This one isn’t a good thing? This woman sounds amazing. I’m ready to hire her to be my chef. And you have a problem with that?”

“Yes, on paper, it appears amazing, doesn’t it?” I grabbed the resume and wadded it up, then tossed it towards a trash can.

“He shoots…he scores, and the crowd goes wild,” Chris said, laughing. “So, on paper, it’s amazing, but not so much in person?”

“In person, she’s nothing like the person she perceived on paper. In her words, she has no experience. Unless you consider the hours, she spent in the kitchen with her grammy. Unfortunately, I have a business to run and can not include that as experience. She lied. So, not really something that looks too promising.” He raised his eyes to Chris, then sighed, not able to hide the smile. “However, with that being said, it’s hard to say my life isn’t going perfectly now.”

Chris plopped down in the seat across from him. “Oh? Do tell because I’m always happy to hear my best friend is doing amazing.”

I snickered. “It’s just that my house is getting remodeled. I’m doing well enough at the bakery that I’m actually financially ready to sift through a pile of resumes.” I held up the stack and tilted my head. “That’s major. And…Kairo and I are getting closer.” Just thinking of being in Kairo’s bed left me with a permanent smile. While I had initially made the first move, Kairo was there to go in full force. He wanted it just as much as I did. In fact, part of me thinks he wanted it even more. “Let’s just say that my mate and I are getting much, much closer.”

“Gosh, just hearing you say that makes me hot and bothered.” When he grinned, I knew he was only teasing me. I grabbed another resume that was doomed even before the interview started and wadded it up. When I threw it at him, he laughed, then shrugged. “Just saying, man. But I’m happy for you.”

I nodded slowly and looked down at the resumes. Hopefully, one of them would contain the man or woman that would start working here sooner rather than later.

“I just wonder why you look so glum,” Chris stated. “If you’re happy, which is great and all, why don’t you look it?”

Looking up at my friend, I shrugged. “I guess that maybe I worry that everything is going too well, you know? Like it worries me that maybe this is too perfect, and it’s just setting me up for some sort of let down.”

“I think you’re paranoid,” Chris replied softly. I didn’t agree with that. While I had filled Kairo in about Hazel, I didn’t want to open that topic up for another conversation. Nothing had happened thus far, but we weren’t out of the woods. As long as Hazel had the motivation to turn me into CPS, there was always that threat. I just had to hold on to the hope that Hazel’s bark was worse than her bite. Kairo and I were going to be fine, and so were the children. I would make sure of that.