Chapter 6: Main Street

At ten past six on Monday morning, Reeve stood at the kitchen window with his coffee and said, "The road opened at six."

"I know," I said.

I was at the stove in his flannel shirt, frying eggs.

"You can go back to Denver."

"I know that too."

He turned.

I slid the eggs onto a plate, set it in front of him, and sat down across the table with my own.

"I'm not going back," I said. "I need a job."

His shoulders came down an inch.

He looked at his plate for a long moment.

"The bakery on F Street has a card in the window," he said. "I saw it Friday."

"Then take me there."

He drove me into town in the green truck with the plow blade tipped up.

The road ran down a long white valley with the Collegiate peaks lit pink above it.

My hand rested on his thigh the whole way.

He didn't move it.

He drove with his right hand on the wheel and his left covering mine, and now and then his thumb moved over my knuckles.

The bakery was a brick storefront between a bike shop and a bookstore.

A woman in her sixties with flour on her forearms stood behind the case, frowning at a tray of cinnamon rolls.

I read the card in the window, and then I walked in and told her I could laminate dough.

She gave me a tray, a rolling pin, and ten minutes.

I made twelve croissants on her marble while she watched with her arms crossed.

When I was done, she tore one open and looked at the layers.

She ate half of it standing there.

"Four o'clock tomorrow morning," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Don't be late," she said.

"I won't."

"Where'd you learn that?"

"Grand Junction," I said. "And a bakery in Denver I just walked out of."

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