"So how long have you been baking?" Fallon scuffed her heels in the dirt as she and Callie walked along the path that would take them to the cafe.
"Probably since I was seven or eight. I learned from my Grandma. She taught me everything I know." Callie felt herself smile proudly as she talked about the woman who took care of her and Ryleigh for most of their lives.
"Wow. I wish I had some quality grandparent time like that. My parents were never close with the rest of their family so I've only spent time with them around the holidays. My aunt, the one that we're going to visit now, was the only person that ever really stayed in touch." the petite girl read over Callie's face for a moment before turning her hazel eyes forward. "Must be nice to have a family that close." Callie fought not to flinch at the mention of family.
"Well, my brother and I don't really know any other family. Our mom left when we were really young. Our dad took care of us for a little while before he couldn't anymore." The slightly taller girl tried not to meet her friend's gaze after such a vague explanation.
"Oh." Fallon realized her cabin mate was trying to avoid her curious stare and decided not press on. She clucked her tongue to break the weird atmosphere as they approached a cute yellow building. Newly painted dark green shutters framed the front windows that let Callie peek inside. She felt her excitement grow at the thought of the sweet treats she was going to bake all summer long. A few steps led up to a long front porch with a row of park benches. The slim figure of a guy was resting on the farthest bench, his elbows on his knees. Moppy black curls obscured Callie's view of his face.
"This is the cafe. The weekends are the busiest but the team here is a lot of fun. Come on, I'll introduce you." Callie's hand was tugged on as Fallon took her wrist and trotted up the stairs. Fallon smiled back at Callie before noticing her friend was gazing off to the side of the building.
"Sorry, we open tomorrow." Fallon's voice fell off as the young man snapped his head up. Bright green eyes locked onto the two girls poised at the cafe door. His face masked in irritation as he recognized being spoken to. Callie watched in curiosity as his glowing green orbs swung onto her and never strayed from her face. A moment of silence passed without anyone speaking before Fallon cut the staring contest short. With a gentle tug on her wrist, the shorter girl pulled Callie inside but not before Callie locked eyes with him. The doorway cut off any view of him leaving her confused if she actually saw his face fall into a frown before she was swept into the air conditioned cafe.
"Fallon? Is that you?" the voice of a woman carried around the spacious room before the person made herself know. A woman who looked to be in her late sixties walked in from the back kitchen. Callie peered around the room at the cozy looking maroon booths on the perimeter of the room. Tables with two to four chairs dotted the room here and there with long, skinny paper menus perched upright in the center of the tables. The walls were a pale honey color. The ceiling was open with raw exposed wooden beams giving the room a faint echo without the usual cafe commotion. A light breeze blew over Callie's skin from the long air conditioning units scattered along where the roof met the wall.
The woman wiped her hands on her flour dusted waist apron as she beamed at the two girls standing in the middle of the cafe. Two metal hair clips pinned back and tames her wiry blond hair that fell on her wide shoulders. Callie could see the strong resemblance as the woman pulled Fallon into her embrace.
"Aunt Mae! Ready for another summer?" Fallon beamed up at the woman that stood a few inches taller than her.
"You know it hun. Do we have more help this year?" Fallon's Aunt pulled away from her niece after she saw Callie standing in the middle of the room, admiring the space.
"This is Callie. She's my cabin mate and signed up to help us here in the cafe." The tiny blond girl took Callie by the wrist again to pull her closer.
"How wonderful! Oh I can tell how close you girls will be." Mae smiled warmly between the two as Callie offered her own small smile.
"I'm thankful to have a good cabin mate and friend here." The truthful words fell from Callie's mouth as she glanced over at Fallon. Mae let out a soft chuckle as she made her way back to the kitchen where she came from.
"Have you ever worked in a commercial kitchen before Callie?" the two girls followed after the older woman. The deep green colored door swung behind them as they entered the gleaming clean kitchen. A large stainless steel table stood in the center of the room. Three cooking stations with ovens, stove tops and sinks lined the walls to the left and another three to the right of them with the far wall being made up of industrial fridges and large pantry doors. Callie felt her eyes go wide at all of the high end equipment around her.
"No. I've only ever used my Grandmother's kitchen."
"Alright, then shall we do a tour? After today, we hit the ground running as it gets busy fairly quickly. But if you need any help you can ask anyone here. We start at four in the morning. When you come in, sanitize your station then pick a recipe from the middle table in that basket there. First to come in gets the first pick."Callie flipped through some of the laminated recipe cards in the towel lined basket atop of the steel table. Her eyes quickly studied every other card as a smile tugged at her lips at what she saw.
"Then when you've decided on what to make, you can clip the card up over here." Fallon walked back to where the kitchen door was. To the right of the door was a massive white board with a bunch of magnets on it. Some of them held up photographs of what Callie guessed were people that had worked in here. The left side of the board closest to the door was sectioned off with the word Menu in bold black vinyl letters at the top.
"Once there's about six recipe cards up here, anyone else that trickles into the kitchen will know to start helping those that are already here. If someone is done with their recipe and a cooking station opens up again, then anyone can claim that area and make another recipe.
The only thing is, the same recipes in one day can't be made again the next day. That way it gives the menu a chance to cycle through and keep some ingredients from going bad."
"So how many people work here?" Callie finished flipping through the recipes and pushed the basket back to the center of the long steel table.
"I think Genevieve mentioned there would be about fifteen of us in the cafe this year. Sometimes people jump back and forth from the cafe to the main cafeteria hall, but as long as we have nine or ten people stationed here at a time, we should be good." Mae winked at Callie as she walked across the kitchen to the fridges.
"Grace and I run the cafe with volunteer help. Grace is the woman in charge of keeping us stocked up." the older woman explained as she ducked into one of the fridges.
"She'll pull any of the recipes out of the basket if we don't have those ingredients. For the most part we rarely run out of anything major but if you see we are getting low on anything, you can jot it down on the board up front too." Callie nodded along as Fallon came to stand back by her side.
"Well, that should be all. I think you'll meet everyone tomorrow. Some volunteers swung by earlier. Looks like we'll have a good team this year." Mae closed the last fridge she was going through and approached the girls in the middle of the room. "When we have the full group, we'll run through the kitchen rules and cleaning assignments. Basically, if you made the mess, you clean it up. After all the baking is done, we'll have a couple people stay by the counter to serve for a couple of hours and then swap out with some other people for a few more hours and so on.
We can go over scheduling tomorrow morning too. Some years the group agrees to keep a specific time slot, other years we've rotated so the same people won't have the same time two days in a row. Whatever the group can agree on is what we will do. Grace and I are pretty flexible here."
Fallon chuckled as she side hugged her Aunt. "It's the best working here Callie. The main hall is kinda rushed but here, we make enough prepped food to last for the day. Other than that, Aunt Mae and Grace stay in the kitchen during the day to make any sandwiches that are ordered. We have to wake up earlier than the hall workers though. Most of the hall volunteers help out for lunch and dinner."Callie chuckled at Fallon's small frown at the mention of sleep disruption.
"Well, at least we'll have the rest of the day to do whatever."
"True true. Cat naps are amazing." Fallon sighed dreamily. Mae chuckled at her niece as she began leading the girls out of the kitchen.
"Alright you two, go get some rest. I want you here early so we can get through the boring run throughs and get to baking." Mae untied her apron and hung it on a hook by the kitchen entrance. Callie was briefly surprised at the darkened sky through the windows. How long were they in the kitchen for?
Fallon and Callie bid Mae a goodnight before Fallon grabbed hold of Callie's wrist to tug her along. A chuckle slipped past Callie's lips causing the smaller girl in front of her to glance back at her with a smile.
"Do you always tug people around?" Callie lifted a brow at her. Fallon laughed lightly for a moment.
"I guess. The girl in my cabin last year was a little standoffish so we weren't that close. I guess I'm just excited for this year." she lifted a shoulder in a quick shrug before slowing up a bit to walk by Callie's side, dropping her wrist.
"Do we have another cabin mate?" Callie watched the ground in front of her to make sure she wouldn't trip. The light sure did fade fast on the paths with all of the trees above them.
"I don't think so. Not this year. We're a little farther away from the office so the other cabins are filled first, but no one is left alone. I think it'll be just us two." Fallon pointed to another path when the girls came to an intersection. Callie hummed but didn't ask anything further as she checked her phone for the time and saw it was nearing nine o'clock.
"So since most of the help is here, Gelsey and Genevieve host a special kick off bonfire for us. We could go for a little while then head back to the cabin?" Callie caught the questioning look Fallon tossed her through the darkness.
"Lead the way."
YOU ARE READING
A Sugar Summer
Teen Fiction(Sequel to A Silver Summer) It's been seven years since Camp Silver Lake barged into Callie's ten year old, routine life of surviving with her brother. After the first summer Ryleigh left, she thought their lives could return to normal and they woul...
