Chapter 12: Twenty-Two Minutes

Pauline Hoyt asked her first question at 6:04 a.m., before my coffee had finished dripping.

"What is the worst thing about Soren Vinter?"

She sat on my flour stool with her notebook open on her knee and her pen ready.

I had slept for an hour and a half, and I was holding a rolling pin.

"He alphabetizes," I said.

"That's all?"

"He alphabetizes the spices, the receipts and the bathroom. He told me his sink has a schedule."

Pauline wrote for a while.

"And the best?"

"I'm sorry?"

"The best thing. About your mortal enemy."

I looked at the window.

Across the Feud Line, in the Vinter's front window, a man in a very clean apron was lining up loaves with a ruler.

"Nothing," I said, in a voice that came out too soft.

"Mm," said Pauline.

She wrote in her notebook.

At 10:00 the bus came, and we did Monday: Butter, with me leading.

At 10:20 Pauline interviewed Soren while he scaled butter in his front kitchen.

I stood in my doorway and watched on Dagny's phone, which she had propped on the register for a live call.

"What is the worst thing about Lotte Zeman?" said Pauline.

"She leaves her lids," said Soren. "All over. Open."

"The best?"

He did not answer for a while.

I watched him on the screen.

He put down the butter, and he took out his pencil, and he looked at something far away that was not in the room.

"She's the best laminator I've ever seen," he said at last, in an angry voice. "It's maddening."

On the other end of the call, Dagny made a noise like a teakettle.

Pauline wrote something down.

I went back into my shop and ate a kringle without tasting it.

By noon she had followed us everywhere.

She stood behind me when I broke down a case of butter.

She stood behind Soren when he checked a thermometer.

She came with us to the feed store, where a man who sold us twine called me a menace and him an accountant.

She wrote it all down.

We were perfect.

We said not one soft thing in front of her.

By the time the afternoon bus left, I was so tired from not touching him that my teeth hurt.