Homeless

Chapter 5

Derek chuckles and taps one of his bags. "I got enough water in here to last me the week. But thanks."

"Okay..." I start to feel defeated and wonder again if I should offer him a job. I decide to just go for it.

"Do you want... do you want a job?" I finally blurt out. I feel my face get hot. I'm hoping my dark skin is hiding my embarrassment.

"A job?" he asks. I can't tell if he's being sarcastic or genuine.

"Yeah, here, at the bakery." I want to facepalm myself for stating the obvious. "We could use the extra man power around here. You could help with organizing, cleaning, even running the register if you feel comfortable. Or I could train you in the kitchen. It's a very chill working environment."

Derek looks at me then back at his plate. "I appreciate the offer," he says quietly, "but I don't think you want someone who looks like me representing your business. That would definitely scare customers away."

"Would you feel more comfortable working the kitchen? Customers can't see into the kitchen."

An awkward silence fills the air as Derek thinks about my offer.

"Could I work Sunday afternoons?" he finally says.

"We're not open Sundays."

"But you're here Sundays."

"Just to prep for the week. I don't make my employees come in on Sundays."

"And if I want to come in Sundays? Is that an option?"

"Um, sure. I don't see why not. It would just be food prep for the week. And maybe some light prep, cleaning and organizing."

"How much do you pay?" Derek asks.

"Does $20 an hour sound fair?"

"Sounds fair to me."

"Okay," I say. "Do you want to come inside and fill out the paperwork?"

"There's paperwork?" Derek asks. "I don't have a social security number or any ID for that matter. Can we just do this under the table?"

I hesitate for a moment. As I business owner, I try to be honest in everything that I do. I've never paid an employee under the table and I don't know how I feel about doing that now.

"Um. How about we can just call your pay a gift? I don't like the idea of under the table."

"Tomato tomato," Derek says. "I'm in."

--

Derek's POV

"Do you have some time for me to show you around?"

I really want to finish my pasta but I know I need to be a bit kinder to this woman. She's shown me more kindness in the last few days then I've been shown in over 10 years.

"Sure." I close my plate then stick it on top of one of my grocery bags. I stand up then follow her into that bakery.

I spend so much time outside the bakery that being inside is a bit of shock. We walk through the backdoor and are immediately in the kitchen. Everything is sparkling clean.

I feel dirty standing here. I'm wearing baggy, black jeans that are ripped at the knees and fraying at the hem. I'm also in a beat up black tee and a grey pea coat that is wet from the rain. Not to mention, my beat up converse have just dragged a bunch of dirt into the white, marbled floor.

"Um," I say, looking down at the floor. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay!" Danielle says. "Don't worry about it. This is the kitchen where you'll be for the most part. I like to keep it pretty organized and clutter free."

She's right about that. Besides the dirt that I dragged in, the place is spotless. The giant island in the center of the kitchen is absolutely empty and there is not a single spot on it. To my right, there's several shelves with different sized baking pans and dozens of cupcake sheets. There's also a bunch of cupcake decorating supplies.

"That's where I keep a majority of our decorating supplies," Danielle mentions, pointing at the shelves I was starting at. "If you follow me, we'll go into the pantry."

I follow her to the left and we enter a medium sized room, packed from floor to ceiling with hundreds of cupcake ingredients. There's at least 5 different types of flour. I see a couple hundreds of pounds of sugar and even more cake making ingredients. One shelf is even lined with 3 different kitchen aid mixers. My mom used to have one of those.

"This is the pantry," Danielle says. "Everything you could possibly need to make cupcakes and frosting is in here." She points across the room at a large, industrial size refrigerator. "The left side has all our eggs, butter, milk, stuff like that. And the right I use to store orders that will be picked up.

"Sundays I try to make sure everything here is organized so that we are ready for the next week. I also check all expiration dates and move things to the front that will be expiring soon or move them to the trash if they're passed the date. So that's one of the things I'll have you do. Anything that's expired can go in that trash can in the corner and then the trash goes out before you leave."

She grabs a clipboard hanging on one of the walls. "After you go through expiration dates and throw stuff out, you'll use this chart to check the stock and see what we are low on. Just mark it down here and I'll place the orders Monday mornings." She pauses and glances at me. "Any questions so far?"

"No," I say. "Pretty straight forward."

"Yeah," she says, putting the clipboard back on the wall. "That's the bulk of the work and usually takes me a few hours. I also prep ingredients Sundays but you don't have to worry about that."

She makes her way out of the pantry and I follow her. We walk through the kitchen and then through a door that takes us to the front of the bakery.

"And this is where we make the customers happy."

We are standing behind a large glass display case. The storefront is simple but very modern. The marble floors continue out here with bright walls to match. They are painted a very calming pastel blue. I look behind me and there is a large menu posted high on the wall with a list of all the available flavors. Everything is so neat.

"I have a janitorial crew that comes every two weeks to do a deep cleaning but the Sundays they are not here, I do a cleaning myself. We also clean every night before we close so the place doesn't get too dirty.

"But the Sundays you are here, after you work in the pantry, you can use the cleaning supplies in the closet to wipe down the display, the counter and the inside of the window. You sanitize first then can make it look pretty after."

I smirk a little. Make it look pretty. Definitely did not think my first job in years would be making things look pretty.

"And that's pretty much it," Danielle says. Just a few hours on a Sunday afternoon. "Now do you have any questions?"

"Can I start today?"

She looks a little caught off guard.

"Oh, um, sure. I haven't gotten to the pantry yet if you wanna start there. I can show you how I organize."

"That sounds good."