Chapter 5: Tuesday, W

On Tuesday at five in the morning, I unlocked the bakery and found Lark waiting on the step.

She held a paper cup of coffee in each hand and wore a salt-stained fleece with her hair in a wet braid.

"You're early," I said.

"I'm always early on Tuesdays."

She pushed past me into the dark shop and set a coffee on the counter.

She flipped on the lights.

I stood in my own doorway with my keys in my hand.

"W," I said.

"Noor."

"Every Tuesday for a year, a woman called W has ordered one lemon tart online and picked it up at six-fifteen."

"I know. That's me."

"I thought you were an older man with a regular schedule."

"You thought I was a man?"

"The orders came in at four in the morning!" I said. "Who orders a tart at four in the morning?"

"A marine animal keeper who feeds the harbor seals at five-thirty."

She grinned, and I stared at her.

For a year, a stranger had been taking home one tart a week from my shop.

For a year, I had set that tart in the box with extra care and thought, someone in this city likes my lemon.

I had never seen who it was, because on Tuesdays my counter helper opens at six.

"Why didn't you ever say anything?" I asked.

"What would I say? 'Hello, I love your tart, could you also be my girlfriend?'"

"That would have been fine."

"Then I would've been a stranger who said it to your face, and you would've called the police."

"I wouldn't have called the police."

"You'd have thought about it."

I laughed, because she was right, and it came out shaky.

"Lark, you were at my family table on Saturday. You looked at me like you had never seen me in your life."

"Because I haven't seen you," she said. "I mean, I've seen you through the window. Four times. Once on a ladder, putting up the sign."

"You watched me through a window?"

"I don't go in on purpose. I get the tart from the girl who works for you, and I go out again."

"You've been in my shop every week for a year."

"And never met the woman who made it."

Her voice got low.

"Then Pru said at the reunion that the caterer was Cass's best friend, a pastry chef from Somerville, and I knew it was you."

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