It would be easy to assume it was an act for the camera, but something tells me otherwise. It’s clear she loves her craft. The comments all mirror my thoughts, noting how easy she makes it look. She has a recipe in the video description, and a lot of the commenters have tried and loved it. Some even mention looking forward to visiting the bakery.
Noelle is a light that draws people in, like moths to a flame. And maybe that part is a lucky hand—luck for her parents choosing to move her, luck for being beautiful and personable—but even if they come for Noelle, they stay for her baking. I haven’t disliked a single thing I’ve tried from The Enchanted Bakery, and while I know she’s not making everything herself, she’s pretty open online about all of her recipes being her own, and it’s clear she holds her team to a high standard.
If I take the stress of the movie and my tentative excitement to be working with someone for a change out of the equation, mostly I’m just excited to get to see her bake in person.
I don’t even realize I’ve been doing nothing but staring at my screen for an hour until she’s saying goodbye, and my tablet auto-plays the next video. If I don’t cut myself off, I’m going to get nothing done. Leaning over my notebook, I write out a plan of attack for the day. I’m a pen and paper person. I need to feel my plans flowing from a pen so they sink into my head, and I always sketch out my designs before I start working on them. On today’s to-do list, I have three of my extra-large macaron cakes, a passion fruit pavlova, and a pear tarte tatin, and I need to start prepping some of the smaller things for my afternoon teas. SinceÉpices et Sucréis closed, I’ve opened up orders for at-home afternoon teas for this coming weekend, and they’ve been pretty popular.
The studio requested I leave everything I could in my kitchen, which wasn’t too difficult considering Noelle has this place stocked, but I brought a few of the things I can’t livewithout: my favorite spatulas, my emotional support mixing bowl, and my tiny step stool. Noelle has to be a good five or six inches taller than me, and I know she stores things up high.
Unlike the kitchen and café upstairs, the basement is surprisingly not Christmas themed. Maybe she just hasn’t gotten around to sprinkling her festive magic down here.
I have about three hours before Noelle is due to come down here to work on our list for the movie, and a lot to squeeze in. I switch from the video to music and lose myself in sugar and flour.
9
NOELLE
“Is there a reason you’re hanging out with me instead of doing the job I know you don’t have time to be procrastinating?” my brother asks, crossing his arms and leaning back against a metal storage shelf filled with blind boxes. They’ve become some of The Enchanted Workshop’s biggest sellers since Felix and Abigail started doing live packaging videos and opening the occasional blind box on camera. They have quite the following.
“I’m not procrastinating. I’m just… avoiding work.”
Felix raises an eyebrow, not even bothering to respond.
We get along a lot better now that we don’t work together, but he’s right to be confused about my presence. I don’t get time off during the day—I’m lucky if I get five minutes to grab lunch—and, if I did, I would probably spend it catching up on sleep or screaming into a pillow instead of hanging around my brother. And I wouldn’t choose to spend it here.
I grew up in this store; it means everything to me and my family. But now, it serves as a reminder that, while I was running The Enchanted Workshop, I was managing. I was happy. I was dreaming. I was excited.
And now… Yeah.
“It’s my first day working with Shay,” I admit, toying with the string of the apron I forgot to take off before coming here. “I’m supposed to meet her in the basement kitchen”—I check my phone—“twenty minutes ago.”
“It’s not like you to be late,” he points out, and I sigh, because he’s right. I’ve always maintained that if you’re not twenty minutes early, you’re late.
“Right. But I don’t want to do it, so…”
“Why’d you agree if you didn’t want to do it so badly?”
“It didn’t feel like I had a choice,” I grumble. “I love this town, but do you ever feel an intense pressure to be your best self for everyone else here, since they’ve done so much for our family?”
Felix tilts his head, squinting, like he’s mulling it over. “If I did, I wouldn’t have spent so many years fucking around not doing my job. But you’re not me, Noelle, and that’s a good thing. The concept of responsibility is still pretty new to me.”
God, what it must be like to be a man.
“You know, I’m sorry for putting so much extra pressure on you for so long when you were running this place,” Felix adds, tapping the toe of his boot on the floor. Why the hell he’s wearing cowboy boots is beyond me. We were born in Texas, but cowboy boots aren’t really our family’s vibe. “I’m guessing spending so long having the weight of everything on your shoulders alone has only added to the pressure. I’m trying to do better.”
“I know you are. We can all see that. Youaredoing better.”
“Right, but I guess what I’m saying is, this is your turn to enjoy yourself. And if you’re not, you should find a way to,” he finishes with a shrug.
It’s not like Felix to take accountability, but I suppose that’s part of trying to do better. Still, I didn’t expect a heart-to-heart when I chose here to procrastinate. Felix and I have an understanding that wedon’tcall each other on our shit. Rora?Blunt as all hell. She’s who I go to when I need someone to tell me to get my shit together.
But Felix doesn’t comment on me being miserable living my dream, and I don’t comment on the way his gaze always lingers a second longer than it should on his best friend’s little sister. It benefits neither of us in the long run, but both of us in the moment.
I clear my throat and look away from him. “True. Anyway, I should go.” I’m not in the mood to open up to him—or anyone—so I suppose that’s one way to get me to stop procrastinating.
If he says anything as I flee the toy store’s storage room, I don’t hear him. I wave goodbye to Abigail on my way out, taking a sharp right down the alley that runs between The Enchanted Workshop and The Enchanted Bakery. The basement door is open, and I can hear music blaring as I skip down the steps, preparing myself for an afternoon in the kitchen with Shay.
But nothing could have prepared me for any of this.
