The Difference Between California and New York

The dough slithered under and through my fingers as I kneaded it into a small little ball and placed it next to the others in a line. The smell of sugary sweets and cakes trickled up my nose and through my watering mouth. I loved being in the bakery when everything was baking at once; the mixed aromas of baking bread and the cakes sitting out to cool before they are iced. I smeared my flour-covered palms over my apron in attempt to get a bit of it off, though I knew it was nearly no use. Flours and batters of all assortments were engraved and etched into the fine lines of my hands so far down that they will never come out. I never minded though. It made me feel like a piece of the bakery was always with me.

A buzzer went off just as I finished kneading the last ball of dough, and in a hurried attempt, I ran to the oven to first and foremost shut off the alarm. It was the loudest and most obnoxious oven timer I had ever heard, and I had baked in hundreds of kitchens before, though none of them compared to the shrill piercing sound that the one in Flour’s made. I quickly turned the knob on the oven and left a white residue on it once my hand was removed. I pulled down the hatch to take a peek inside; the bread that was within looked about done.

I was working alone tonight. Normally Sandra or Molly would be here with me on late nights, but both of them were busy out in the city doing whatever city girls do. They had invited me to come with them, they said to just close up early, but I couldn’t. I had never been the kind of person to put my work aside just so I could have a little enjoyment, merely because my work was my enjoyment. I had been cooking ever since I was a little girl; I used to beg my mother to let me make dinner almost every night. It was just what clicked with me, and I was not a girl that clicked easily with anything.

With a mitted hand, I slid the tray of bread out of the hot box and to the side table that seated the other loves I had previously baked. Today was Saturday, and Saturday was always the busiest day in the bakery; people would come in and buy last minute cakes and breads for weekend plans. But today had been a rough busy day. More than half of our breads of a variety of flavors went, and nearly all of our cakes. And since the owner of the shop died this past year, he willed it to be left to the employee who worked the hardest and best; the bakery was more thrown to me than given to me. Nonetheless, I took it on with just as much care as the previous owner. With that responsibility however, comes the sacrifice of a social life when the store is in need of a restocking.

Despite the responsibility, the sun had been down for hours now, and I knew it was getting to be late and I should get going. My car was in the shop for engine trouble, and the busses almost never ran after midnight.

I began to clean up some of the loose flour and dough that was on the table and floor; I wouldn’t bother scraping every bit of it off when I was just going to repeat the process tomorrow morning. As far as dishes went, they would need to be washed, whether I was going to use them tomorrow morning or even in the next hour. I made my way to the dishwashing area, pans and utensils of all kinds within the container they were carried in. I ran each item under steaming water before adding the soap to them and then rinsing them off again. I loved baking, but I had never liked the cleanup process afterwards.

I put away unbaked balls of dough to the storage fridge and placed the finished breads in their rightful containers; I would slice them in the morning. I swept up a bit until the bakery looked as good as it normally gets, which in my mind is the perfect amount of messiness and tidiness. I untied my apron and hung it on the hook marked with my name before grabbing my jacket and bag, and flicking the light off. I always looked back over my shoulder once I did so; Flour’s gave off such a sad and gloomy vibe in the darkness, almost as if the place grew abandoned at night in the cold. The sight always rattled me slightly, but I grew accustom to looking back each time the light went off.

Every night the first step out of the bakery and onto the street is always the coldest; the pure shock of temperature change sends a shiver down my spine that the weather itself could never do. It was early January, and while New York was still getting over their New Year’s parties and shenanigans, each night the walk from Flour’s to the bus stop was a quiet and solitary one. My hands would always be firmly placed in my pockets and my eyes facing downward, only looking up occasionally to make sure I didn’t walk into anything. My neck and chin would be buried into my scarf if I was wearing one, if not, trying to guard my exposed flesh from the prickling little bites of the wind and cold.

The walk itself to the bus stop was only a short ways, but waiting for the bus could sometimes be much longer than it should be. I’ve waited up to an hour for the bus before, and only because I had no other choice. My apartment was nearly all the way across town, and there was no way I was walking all that way in the blistering cold at night in New York City. I value my life a little higher than that.

There was another way around the busses though; I did have friends I could call for a ride. Lindsey and Daniela were my best friends, and have been for years now. But when your life is in your work, your social life comes close to nonexistent, and choosing who your closest friends are is slim pickings. Somehow though, no matter how many days or even weeks will go without us seeing each other, they greet me with open arms each time, and it’s nice to have people to go to like that to call my best friends.

However recently, they’ve both been so self absorbed in their relationships that it seems like everything else in life is minuscule in comparison. I had met both of their boyfriends, and they were both very nice, and both extremely attractive, but I couldn’t see the sense in mindlessly talking about that one person for hours at a time. It would just get boring after the first half hour.

Hence why I normally didn’t ask them for rides. I didn’t like the idea of being stuck in a car for ten minutes trapped in an endless loop of boyfriend talk.

I hadn’t had a boyfriend in nearly a year, and I hated repeatedly being reminded of how lonely I was. And since I became the owner of the bakery, that loneliness sprouted into a beautiful flower of solitude.

My breath was thick in front of me, and the streetlight above only illuminated the stream of hot air even more. I looked ahead; the bus stop was only one more block away, but there was no reason to get excited about that. It only meant that now I could sit down while I felt myself freeze over.

I destroyed the space between myself and the little box that you were expected to wait in for the bus. Being inside of the little box at least cradled you from the wind a bit more than it would have you been standing outside of it. Nonetheless, it was still cold; it was only a sort of convenient cold.

When I rounded the bend of the corner of the box, I was only slightly shocked to see that I would not be the only person waiting in the cold for what seemed like a bus that could never come quick enough. There was a man already sitting down on the bench, though he looked extremely distracted with whatever was floating around his head. I felt my face grimace, mimicking my emotions. I hated being forced to be in close spaces with people I didn’t know; it called for conversation and I was absolutely terrible at small talk.

He didn’t acknowledge me when I sat down beside him, as far on the bench as I was allowed. I didn’t want to look his way whatsoever; I didn’t want to subconsciously invite him to partake in a meaningless conversation. However in the fleeting glimpses I did manage to toss his way, my stomach would begin to turn inside of me. He was leaning over onto his knees; his elbows to his legs and his hands over his mouth. He looked strangely sad, a sort of sadness that even he didn’t seem to understand. From where I sat straight up with my legs crossed, trying to look as casual as possible, I could only look at his profile. There was a streetlight nearby on the opposite side of the bus stop; the light bounced off the pavement and shined behind him, illuminating him in a way that I thought only happened in books and movies. The side of him I saw was shadowed and dark, but I could only slightly make out his grim features.

He was tall, that much was evident from how far he was leaning on his knees. He had dark hair, short, but stopping halfway over his ear. His fingers, which were entwined with the other under his chin were long and boney, and looked as fragile as an icicle, and just about as cold too. I kept glancing away from him, but I couldn’t stop my sight from meandering back.

Once a good amount of five silent minutes passed, he released a huge sigh, mixed with a sort of grunt, and came off his knees and leaned back against the bench. I had never in my life focused more on staring straight in front of me than in that moment. In his process of moving, the light from behind him had illuminated his face if only for a second before I turned my head away from him. And in the millisecond glace I captured of his face, my stomach became an ocean. He was extremely attractive with dark brown hair and blue eyes, thin lips and faint stubble across his chin. It’s amazing what you can see in a second if you're really looking.

I began praying for the bus to come any second. If there was anything I hated more than being near strangers, and in danger of them talking to me, it was being near attractive strangers. I didn’t know how to flirt; I felt like I was always saying the wrong thing, which I probably was. I am twenty three years old, and I’ve only had three boyfriends in my entire life. The first was in middle school, and because of a dare; I didn’t even like him that much. The second was senior year of high school, and that had been with my best friend of the time. We dated for about five months, and broke up right before graduation. It destroyed my friendship with him. The third one was just last year; it was also my longest relationship. We dated for a year and a half, and I thought I really loved him, but it turns out love is a funny thing, and isn’t always returned the way it should be. He left me for someone else.

Love and I had never been on the same page; it was almost as if we just didn’t fit together. There were times in my life when I accepted it and others when I wanted to fight against it. I didn’t want to give up and say that love doesn’t exist, because I know it does. It has to. Because if it doesn’t, what are we all doing here?

The man beside me shuffled again, and I strayed from my memories. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him wipe his hand over his face and then glace his way towards me, as if he had just noticed me for the first time, which is very plausible. His eyes adverted, but then came to me again went I felt them on the side of my head. I kept my head down, allowing my hair to fall into a convenient little barrier between his eyes and mine. I didn’t want him to talk to me; I hardly even wanted him to look at me. I wouldn’t know how to speak to him.

With a swift turn and a sudden intake of air from him, I could feel it coming. I lifted my head slightly, causing my wall of hair to disintegrate when I not only felt, but saw his eyes on me.

“Can I ask you a question?” I turned and our eyes met for the first time.