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Despite a long history of waking up at 4 am, I groaned when my alarm went off that morning. I'd gotten a little too used to having my apprentice Paulie around to take two morning shifts each week, and I'd stayed awake entirely too late with Con the night before. I'd be feeling it all day today. In fact, I was feeling it now: My eyes seemed to have their own personal sandbags weighing them down, and I wanted nothing so much as to huddle deeper in my blankets and hibernate.
It didn't help that it was winter and the sun wouldn't rise for another three and a half hours, either. The sun and I have what you might call a special connection. Especially these days.
I decided to play a game with myself: If I abandoned the warmth of the covers at such-and-so a time, I could take the world's fastest shower and still make it to my bakery in time. Playing chicken with myself, or maybe the clock. When the clock ticked over to 4:11, I groaned again--I could win awards for my zombie impressions, I swear--and extracted myself from the warm embrace of my bed.
I had to get my warm embraces where I could, these days.
After the aforementioned world's-fastest-shower and a generally uneventful car trip (as uneventful as any trip in the Wreck, faithful steed that it is, can ever be) I was at my bakery, ready to bake cinnamon rolls, Killer Zebras, and muffins upon muffins for our hungry customers.
As usual, I was the first one there, so I started the big coffee urn and made myself a pot of strong black tea before I began.
First up on the list was my cinnamon rolls as-big-as-your-head, a specialty of Charlie's. I measured out my flour and started separating egg yolks on autopilot.
An hour later, other people finally started to arrive.
After it all happened, my mom was a little slow to come around to the idea of me all alone in the bakery each morning. Hell, while it was happening my mom was what you might mildly term "against it." She had at least stopped leaving charms everywhere, but I had noticed she'd started scheduling the front end staff a little earlier. In the spirit of diplomacy I didn't let on that I'd noticed, though; we'd had enough big fights and conspicuous-avoidance-of-fights in the past few months to last us a year.
I went up front to greet whoever'd just come in--from what I remembered Mary was scheduled as first opener--dusting my hands off on my apron as I went. I collect flour like a black dress collects lint. If I happened to be wearing black, I collect flour more like a magnet attracts iron filings. Thankfully, I'm not much for black clothing.
It was Mary after all, and Charlie with her. I gave him the eyebrow. "Aren't you supposed to be scaling back a bit?" I asked.
He just smiled at me in that implacable way he has, the one that makes Charlie so good at dealing with difficult people like Mom and I. "I am scaling back. I waited until 6 instead of 5, didn't I?"
"Right, of course," I teased, "And what does Mom think of that?"
Charlie set his finger beside his nose and winked at Mary and I. "Our little secret, right?" We all laughed. I reveled in it, a bit--it felt good to laugh again, like something inside me that had been stretched tight was finally relaxing. Like I had room to breathe, and to grow.
They started opening procedures, Charlie in the kitchen and Mary up front, and I waved at them and headed back to my bakery to continue making muffins.
Eventually, Charlie came to stand in the doorway. "Sunrise," he said, with a nod toward our front windows, and I could feel it creeping up. I knew I was smiling like a fool, but I can't stop that kind of thing anymore.
We all grabbed cups of the hot beverage of our choice--coffee for Mary, tea for Charlie and I--and went to sit outside. If you think it's strange that Charlie, titular owner of a coffeehouse, would be drinking tea first thing in the morning, you must never have met my Mom. She's making him cut back on caffeine (something she'd never dream of for herself). She'd never keep him from his champagne, though, and I think she was too smart to try.
It may have been a little cold to sit outside, especially before it was properly light out, but this was one of my new traditions. We sat on the little wall around the garden Mrs. Bialosky keeps up and I--well, there's not really a better word for it than basked. I basked in the sunrise while Mary and Charlie chatted.
Mr. Cagney was our first customer of the day, earlier than usual at 7:01, but the way I felt, even that couldn't phase me. I gave him a cheery wave and continued drinking my tea while Mary and Charlie headed into the coffeehouse to start serving customers.
I waited until the sun had properly risen and a little bit longer, until warm light had filled our little courtyard. Then I headed back to my bakery for another two hours until I'd finish up for the day.
During that time, more and more people filed into the cafe, and it got that morning bustle so characteristic of real neighborhood institutions. In a few hours Mom would be in, terrorizing everyone while she dealt with the accounts and finding me new sources of flour. By then I'd be back home, trying to get some sleep in while Yolande gardened outside. I'd wake in time to eat with her out in the garden and watch the sun set.
Then, after I'd drunk in its last rays, Con would come, and we'd start talking again. I'd display most of the new tricks I'd learned from Yolande and my own fumbling experiments and he would do his best to help me navigate this strange new world, the world I was born into but largely unaware of until Events. We'd probably have some burningly-hot sex, not that Yolande or my family or even--thank God or the higher power of your choice--SOF knew about that part.
And the next morning I'd wake up, groaning, and head back into my bakery, and I would make cinnamon rolls as-big-as-your-head.
And life would continue under the sun, and under the dark, and I would keep tightrope-balancing the two.