The stories we tell
Ginny walks with Harriett toward the bakery. They are holding hands. Ginny is afraid and has not left the apartment in the week since the shooting. She feels sweat in her palms, and her throat feels tight. Her knees want to give way. But she walks on, lightly supporting Harriett, whose steps are older and more faltering.
Harriett holds her hand tight. “What you need is normal.”
Ginny glances back toward the apartment. “When will we go back?”
Harriett grips her hand a little tighter, as if worried she might try to bolt. “We are going to go get pastries. We will sit down, have coffee, read the paper, and relax. Then we will go back.”
The bakery is warm and smells doughy. Huge beams of sunlight shoot through the windows, but are then softened and dispersed by airborne motes of flour dust.
Two middle-aged men are sitting at separate tables, each bent over a newspaper, a cup of coffee, and a plate of crumbs. They are mirrors of one another, wearing brown coats and jeans. They look staged, somehow. Ginny looks at one and then the other.
“It’s okay,” Harriett says. She nudges Ginny toward the counter.
The baker is a gray-haired man with a big fleshy face. He is bent over, reaching into the display case, restocking rolls, muffins and donuts after the morning rush. His voice is muffled through the glass. “Be right with you, ladies.”
Ginny thinks about the person she was before. The old Ginny would have decided by now, perhaps picking the bear claw or maybe the big bran muffin with the raisins. Some days she might have wanted the sweeter, chewier glazed pastry, sometimes the pretend-healthy muffin, but she would have known quickly, decisively. Today she feels a little sick.
She looks at Harriett’s kind old hands, resting lightly on the edge of the counter. These hands that pulled her into a stairwell when the shooting happened, and saved her life. They are old, weathered, capable hands. They are beautiful like a desert lake.
The baker washes his hands in a little sink, wipes them on a cloth towel, and replaces it on its hook, then steps to the counter, smiling. There is something comforting about him. For a moment Ginny imagines there will be a day when she can trust people again, trust men.
“How are you two on this fine morning?”
Harriett takes Ginny’s hand again. “We’re fine. Thank you.” She looks at Ginny, appears to be considering. “We’ve been a bit shaken, since the shooting on Lake Street. Ginny here was in the line of fire, and.... We’re just… venturing out.”
The baker’s eyes go wide, his forehead glistening with perspiration in the creases. “Oh now. Oh my. I’m sorry.”
Ginny tries to smile. “We’re okay. I’m okay.” Angelica died, though. And two others. She doesn’t say it.
“Ladies, your breakfast is on me. Really. It’s the least I can do.”
Harriett smiles and puts her wallet back in her purse. “That’s very kind of you.” She nudges Ginny. “What will you have?”
The air feels still and pregnant. “Just coffee, please.”
But the baker is putting a small selection on a plate. One crueller, one bear claw, one chocolate muffin, one Boston cream.
They thank him several times, because there is nothing else to say, and take their seats with their coffee and plate of pastries.
Both of the men have gone. It is mid-morning and people are at work now. All the working people. Ginny is on temporary leave from the ad agency and doesn’t know who she will be when she goes back. Back through the looking glass.
Harriett gets the paper from one of the abandoned tables. “Isn’t this nice.” She takes the front page and gives Ginny Variety.
Ginny tries to read a review of the latest show at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre. It is Peter Pan. The picture shows Peter flying high over Never Never Land. Of dreams and songs, pirates and fairies, and the pure hopes of children.
She is just settling in, recognizing words as something to read and make sense of, when chaos breaks out. The bakery door flings open, loudly jangling the bell, and there are shouts and people running. Ginny bursts from her chair, upsetting the cups of coffee. The coffee splashes everywhere. She screams, in movement, rushing, knowing she has to think quickly and do something.
But in the next moment, she realizes that the noise makers are teenagers. Teens on a break from school, getting coffee and donuts. Just teenagers. They race each other for the counter, jostling and laughing--two boys using their new deep man voices and showing off for two girls. In their own little universe, they haven’t noticed Harriett and Ginny, haven’t seen Ginny jumping and shrieking like a frightened cat.
Ginny comes to her senses, and realizes she is bent over Harriett, shielding her with her own body. She straightens, looks at the coffee mess and at Harriett, who has tears in her eyes and is also smiling.
The baker has seen it all, and has come to them with a damp towel and two fresh cups of coffee. As he cleans up the spilled coffee, he glances at the teens, who are looking over the pastry choices, all arms and hugs and laughter.
The baker chuckles. “They are mostly not life threatening.”
Ginny smiles. She wants to become very small and disappear into herself. But she looks at the baker, and is glad for him. She watches as he returns to the counter to get pastries for the teens.
“I once saw someone jump from a bridge,” Harriett says.
Ginny looks at her, not understanding.
Harriett blows on her coffee, and takes a little sip. “It was on the High Bridge, over the Mississippi. It was late spring and I was out for a stroll, just thinking about the beautiful day. I was young, then.”
“What happened?”
“There was a man. I thought he was enjoying the view. But I was also a little nervous. I was on the same side of the bridge, headed straight toward him, and I felt… vulnerable. So I held back. I was maybe 25 yards from him, and walking slowly, just watching him, when he climbed up onto the railing.” Harriett looks down at her coffee and then out the window.
“Oh my God,” Ginny says. She can see it. Harriett wouldn’t have had time to get to him.
“I started to run. It seemed like slow motion, like my limbs were moving through mud. And I yelled ‘No! No, please! Don’t!’ I thought I could stop him, even though I knew I couldn’t get to him.”
“But you couldn’t.”
“No. He looked at me. But it wasn’t a look as if he was considering my plea. I was close enough now to really see his face, and what I saw was calculation.”
Ginny sets her coffee down. “What do you mean?”
“He was calculating how much time he had before I got to to him. He was running out of time. I was maybe five yards from him when he took one more look at me and leapt into the air.”
“God. How awful.” Ginny puts her hand to her mouth. ”Like Peter Pan without pixie dust. Oh… that sounds wrong. I’m sorry.”
Harriett smiles. “No. I actually thought the same thing.” She puts the extra pastries in the little white bags the baker gave them to take their things home. “I felt so terrible about it, for so many years.”
“How did you…?”
“Get over it? I never did. Not really. But eventually you realize that bad things just happen sometimes. It’s not about getting over it. It’s about finding your way again, even though you won’t get over it. You can’t forget. You never will.”
There is a small brown puddle of coffee at the bottom of Ginny’s cup, and she watches it with interest. “But how do you find your way again?”
Harriett smiles and looks up from her own cup. “By writing a new story. You had a story, but it got interrupted. That’s all. And now you need a new one.”
Ginny lets out a long slow breath. For a moment it seems like breathing is something she must learn all over again. The teenagers have left the shop, and now it’s just the two of them, some background classical music and the baker, wiping tables.
“Rain’s started,” he says. “There are umbrellas by the door, if you need one. Just drop another off sometime.”
They put on their coats and take up their purses and their little white bags, and they thank the baker again for his kindness. At the door they each take an umbrella. Harriett selects a gray one with a wooden handle, and Ginny chooses one that is a bright, sunny yellow. She thinks of Mary Poppins, and what it might be like to sail up, up, up. They go through the door of the shop, open their umbrellas, and step out into the rain.
Thank you for reading! I would love your feedback, if you have thoughts about this story. Like all fiction writers, I am always working to improve my craft.
If you are a writer seeking to improve your work, be sure to check out The Writers' Block on Discord! Just click the gif image at the bottom of this post.
