Chapter 6: No Cake for the Heiress

"How much is the full balance?" I asked, though I knew.

"Two hundred twelve thousand, four hundred and six dollars," the woman read.

I'd borrowed it at twenty-three to buy new ovens and fix the roof my father had patched for fifteen years.

"Can they do that?"

"It's in your original note, ma'am. Paragraph nineteen. A change of holder allows a call date."

I hung up.

Through the glass, Teo stood on the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, talking to the shoe repair man.

The shoe repair man was holding a phone to his ear too.

So was the florist, in her doorway, with her other hand pressed flat over her heart.

Nine shops.

Nine phone calls.

Ruggero hadn't sent a car to my door when his forty-eight hours ran out.

He'd bought my street instead.

I reopened the bakery eight days later, on a Tuesday, because the bills didn't care that I was bleeding.

The old baker ran the ovens from three in the morning.

Benedetta ran the counter in gold hoops and an apron that said KISS THE COOK.

She flirted with every man over seventy until he bought a second box.

I sat on a stool behind the register with the twins in a double stroller beside me and made change.

By Thursday the line went out the door at seven.

The block came, and the regulars came.

Half of them came to look at the babies and buy one roll.

I didn't care why they came.

They came.

At eleven on Thursday the bell over the door rang hard.

Carlotta walked in first.

She wore a camel coat to her ankles and sunglasses on top of her head, and that dark red mouth.

Two friends came behind her, tall and glossy, already holding up their phones.

The line went quiet.

Carlotta walked past six people waiting and put both hands on my glass.

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