Ben's Bakery and the Hanukkah Miracle Read online

  “Like what you played?”

  “Yeah.” Adam rubbed the back of his neck. “Um. Sometimes they let people get on the ice before the game.”

  Ben bit his lip, fingers dancing on the glass. “Uh. I don’t know—”

  “I know, and it’s fine,” said Adam. “Just... the boys are probably going to try to get you to skate with them, so if you want to skip it, you might want to plan to be late.”

  Ben nodded, still biting his lip. “Duly noted.”

  Adam didn’t think he’d ruined his chances for a kiss that night. And forewarned was at least forearmed. “You’ll still come, though?”

  “Wait,” said Ben quickly, pushing away from the counter. He scrambled behind it for a minute, before coming back up with a business card and a pen. “Here, let me write down my cell number. You have to text me directions, right? Do you have a phone that works in the States?”

  “Yeah,” said Adam, his chest growing warm.

  “Good.” Ben bit his lip again, but this time it looked much more mischievous than worried. “Don’t wait too long. I might be tempted to sext you later.”

  Adam’s heart lurched in his chest. “You know I’m surrounded by kids all day, right?”

  “Oh shit,” groaned Ben, the blush rising fast to his cheeks. He fell forward on the counter and covered his head with his arms. “Forget I said that. I don’t even know what the word sext means.”

  Adam chuckled. “Oh. Don’t go that far.”

  Ben laughed into the glass.

  UNKNOWN NUMBER TO BEN

  Hi this is Adam. I hope I entered the numbers right.

  Ben to Adam

  Yes, you did! So where should I bring the cookies tonight?

  Adam to Ben

  You don’t really have to bring cookies.

  Ben to Adam

  I want to, though. Unless you’re saying that as a coach and not just to be polite.

  Adam to Ben

  I’m saying it as a coach who intends to eat the cookies before the kids come off the ice.

  Ben to Adam

  I see. What if I tell you that there are much yummier things for you to eat after the game?

  Adam to Ben

  And you said you didn’t know what sext meant.

  Ben to Adam

  DONUTS. I MEANT DONUTS. ALCOHOL-FILLED DONUTS.

  Oh no.

  Please delete that text.

  Adam to Ben

  No.

  Ben to Adam

  What if the kids see it?

  Adam to Ben

  Have you talked to fourteen-year-olds lately? They have a better sexting game than I do. If they saw that, they’d just call you lame.

  Ben to Adam

  They wouldn’t dare, I give them cookies.

  Aren’t you supposed to be coaching right now?

  Adam to Ben

  Aren’t you supposed to be baking right now?

  SHELDON HAD BEEN MUTTERING to himself for ten minutes when Ben finally gave into his curiosity.

  “Sheldon, stop frowning at your laptop like it’s done you wrong,” Ben scolded him. The plate clattered as Ben set it down on the table next to him. “Just... tell me.”

  “I don’t get it,” grumbled Sheldon. “You’re actually making money this week and not losing it.”

  “Probably because I’m getting an influx of hungry hockey players,” said Ben wryly. “It’ll change next week.”

  “And I’d agree with that analysis, except for this.” Sheldon tapped the screen. “See this? It’s your write-offs. Your write-offs are down fifty percent for this week.”

  Ben frowned. “That can’t be right. I feel like I’ve been giving more things away, not less.”

  Sheldon groaned. “The fact that you aren’t even worried about the inherit wrongness in giving away your products is a problem, Ben.”

  “Cupcakes are not products, they’re cupcakes. Maybe this just proves that philanthropy for philanthropy’s sake is its own reward.”

  “Funny,” said Sheldon dryly.

  The bells on the door clanged out merrily as a woman dressed in a brown wool coat and a bright red hat and scarf raced inside.

  “Ben! I know it’s earlier than you said, but I have an emergency!”

  Ben jumped up from the chair. “Absolutely, Mrs. Chetham. What do you need?”

  “A fruitcake,” gasped Mrs. Chetham. “I know it’s early, but we just found out my mother-in-law is coming through tonight and not next week like she’d said, and she’s been asking for your fruitcake for the last year. Please say there’s one ready? Or almost ready?”

  Ben headed toward the back. “I’m sure they’ll be fine – one week less shouldn’t lessen the punch by too much.”

  “Oh, you’re a doll,” breathed Mrs. Chetham. “How long to pack one up?”

  “About twenty minutes. I can whip up some of the bourbon sauce too, but that takes about an hour and a half, if you want to come back later?”

  “I’ll send Fred down. Oh, dear, those donuts look delicious. Could I have half a dozen? The office will love them.”

  Ben wrapped up the donuts and rang her up for the entire order, fruitcake and all. Sheldon watched with a bemused air. The moment Mrs. Chethem left with her box of donuts in tow, Ben turned to Sheldon, ready for the scolding he knew Sheldon had been preparing to unleash.

  “Go on, say it,” he said, almost wearily.

  “How often does that happen?”

  Ben blinked. He’d been expecting something along the lines of you mean you could be selling the fruitcakes now?!?!

  “Does what happen?”

  “That,” said Sheldon, jerking his thumb in the direction of the door.

  Ben was still confused. “Customers buying things? Mostly every day, not as often as you’d like. I need to start that sauce if it’s going to be ready when Fred Chetham comes by. I’ll give you a cookie if you watch the till and stop asking stupid questions.”

  “Duh,” said Sheldon. He closed his computer with a snap and carried it and his sandwich behind the counter while Ben went into the back to get the sauce started. Sheldon’s voice followed him. “I meant, how many times a day do people come in asking for fruitcake.”

  Ben sighed as he set the recipe on the stand and went to look for his ingredients and supplies. So much for making the cookies for the hockey kids that afternoon – he’d have to do them after store closing and be a few minutes late for the game.

  Which meant being a few minutes late for their open skate, too. That wasn’t an entirely terrible thing.

  “Ben?” Sheldon prompted.

  Ben shook off his thoughts and started warming up the saucepan. “Oh, about half a dozen. Another half dozen call. It’s like I said, Sheldon, no one minds waiting. I think they like coming in, honestly. They always end up talking for a spell and having a coffee and a donut and—”

  Coffee and a donut or a half dozen or an extra tart for that night’s dessert...

  “Oh,” said Ben, staring at the package of butter in his hand.

  Sheldon leaned against the doorjamb. Superior looked good on him, even Ben had to admit that. “Yeah, that’ll do it. An extra cookie here, a few muffins there... Mrs. Chetham and her half dozen donuts.”

  “That’s so... wrong,” breathed Ben.

  “Wrong? Ben, you’re making an extra hundred dollars a day because people are being vigilant about their fruitcakes.”

  “But... they wouldn’t come in at all if I just had the fruitcake!” exclaimed Ben. “Instead I’m stringing them along!”

  “Did you lie about when the fruitcakes would be ready?” asked Sheldon. “Or give the impression you weren’t sure when they’d be done?”

  “Noooo,” said Ben. “I mean, I told them I wouldn’t sell them until after Hanukkah was over, and that there’d be a sign in the window once they were available. And I did take preorders for people who definitely wanted one – and I’ve made extra, too. I always sell out anyway, I’m not worried about that.
Plus there’s the email list – everyone who wanted to be notified by email when they were ready for pickup, I’ve got that ready to go.”

  Sheldon shrugged. “Then you’re fine. You haven’t made any false claims, and the people coming in to check on them are just the ones who either can’t be patient or are just thinking of it now. You’re fine. And you need the money.”

  Ben shook his head. “It doesn’t sound ethical, though. Isn’t that bait and switch?”

  “Only if you put a sign out there saying you had fruitcake now,” said Sheldon. “Speaking of, do I owe your Canadian beefcake a thousand dollars yet?”

  Ben groaned. “Sheldon.”

  “For my own budgeting purposes,” said Sheldon, hand over heart. “Though you do have a certain... glow about you, Benny. Tell Uncle Sheldon the truth now: have you recently been laid and laid quite thoroughly?”

  “I don’t see any reason why I should divulge such sordid details, Mr. Smith,” said Ben loftily.

  “Mm-hmm.” Sheldon grinned at him.

  “But I believe you owe the man some money.”

  Sheldon let out a hollering whoop and returned to the counter. “I knew it!”

  “And pay up promptly, Shel!” Ben yelled after him. “We’re going out again on your dime.”

  Ben to Adam

  I might be running a bit late tonight.

  ADAM TO BEN

  You can change your mind, it’s okay. We can meet afterwards.

  Ben to Adam

  No, it’s fine. Just ran into a few emergency baking situations at work.

  Adam to Ben

  What exactly is an emergency baking situation?

  Ben to Adam

  Surprise visit from a mother-in-law.

  Adam to Ben

  I suppose that would do it.

  Ah. We’re not talking about YOUR mother-in-law, are we?

  I just want to make sure you don’t have a husband or wife stashed away somewhere.

  Ben to Adam

  LOL no. Customer’s MIL.

  Adam to Ben

  You know that if you can’t make it, the boys will understand. I don’t want you to feel obligated if you’d rather not.

  Ben to Adam

  Okay.

  Would you rather I not?

  Adam to Ben

  No, I want you to come. But only if you want to come.

  Not in that way, but in terms of hockey.

  Well, that way, too, obviously, but.

  I’m going to stop now.

  Ben to Adam

  Too late, your secret is out.

  The only reason you didn’t want me to sext is because your own sexting game is so poor. :D

  Adam to Ben

  Haha.

  Just – if you don’t want to watch them play, for whatever reason, please don’t feel obligated.

  Ben to Adam

  It’s fine. I’m not so fragile. I’ll see you there, okay?

  IT FELT WEIRDLY NORMAL, walking up to the ice rink that night, with a carrier bag of cookies over his shoulder. Ben had walked by the rink a thousand times in the past four years, noting the new paint on the railings, the changing signs on the doors, the cascade of kids who came in and out at all hours and with all manner of skating gear over their shoulders.

  He hadn’t gone inside. Not in four years. But his feet remembered the exact distance between the steps at the entrance, how they were oddly spaced, almost too big for single steps. His arms remembered how heavy the doors were to pull open, sucking against the vacuum of the relative warmth inside.

  And the smell – the way manufactured ice trapped in a warehouse with a bunch of sweaty teenagers always had the same metallic tinge to it. Ben remembered how he’d hated and loved that scent in turns over the years.

  The sounds of the hockey game in progress were eerily familiar too – skates on ice and sticks on pucks and young voices shouting at each other back in forth. It was noisy and chaotic and entirely different from the sounds of a race, where people sang and clapped their hands, even though all Ben could ever hear was the rush of the air by his ears, and the slick of his skates on the ice. Things he equated with speed, the rush of sailing along the ice at thirty miles an hour or more.

  Hockey’s different, Ben told himself, same as he’d been telling himself all day. I’m not going to have flashbacks just by watching a game. It’s fine. I’m fine. It’s going to be fine.

  Somehow, that seemed easier to believe when he’d been in safety of his own bakery kitchen, packaging up the cookies he knew the boys were expecting.

  I’m not going to let a stupid thing like my own insecurity stop them from enjoying these, he told himself.

  Ben took a breath. There wasn’t anyone in the lobby. No one had seen him come in. He could leave right now and send Adam a text in apology. Too busy, he could say. Too tired. So sorry. Come after and I’ll give you the cookies for the boys.

  Adam would understand. Given their text exchange earlier, Ben had no doubt about that. And maybe Adam was already having second thoughts about inviting Ben in the first place....

  A door slammed shut as a woman stepped out of the ladies’ room. “Oh, hello. Are you here for the game?”

  Ben’s fingers tightened on the bag handles. “Yep! Guess I’m late, I hear them shouting.”

  “Not really, they only got started a minute ago,” said the woman. She eyed the bag. “But if you stay out here, you’ll definitely miss it.”

  “Yeah,” said Ben with a nervous laugh. The woman headed for the doors leading into the rink. “Um – is it okay to sit anywhere?”

  “Anywhere but the ice, unless you want to play.”

  Ben giggled and followed her in.

  The game was even louder inside the rink than in the lobby. Ben didn’t look at the ice; instead, he glanced over the stands, wondering where Adam was sitting. He didn’t see him – or anyone else he recognized – but no one seemed to be paying much attention to Ben’s entrance anyway. The kids who weren’t on the ice were sitting on the first line of benches, dressed in hockey gear and watching the game avidly, clearly ready to jump in at a moment’s notice. The coaches were just as easy to pick out: they stood with arms crossed and frowns on their faces, every so often calling out a suggestion that undoubtedly could barely be heard on the ice.

  (Ben had never heard his coaches during a race. Ben had never heard anything that wasn’t the blood and air rushing through his ears, the sound of his breath and his skates flying below him.)

  There were plenty of spectators, too: young kids who stood against the boards, banging their fists on the Plexi-glass as they hollered, parents who sat back and either gossiped, heedless of the game, or watched with as much scrutiny as the coaches. Old men who were reliving their glory days, dismissive of all aspects of a game they could no longer play.

  There were other men, too: men with clipboards and stopwatches, who talked amongst themselves and took notes. Recruiters, maybe. Everyone else seemed to give them a wide berth; Ben sat as far away from all of them as he could manage.

  It wasn’t far enough to not overhear them, though.

  “—too slow on the passes. His grip’s all wrong.”

  “Young, though. They grow out of that.”

  “Not out of poor grips at this age. Should’ve known better by now.”

  Ben tried to ignore them and just enjoy the game. It wasn’t that similar to speed skating, but the kids never stopped moving, a continuous clumsy scramble across the ice instead of the graceful loping stride of a speed skater. Ben wasn’t sure if it was because they were kids in over-sized pads and jerseys, or if they really were just that terrible at moving fast.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” Ben found himself muttering as the pack raced across the ice after the puck a fourth time, sticks and skates and limbs flying in equal measures around them like marionettes on strings. They were so ugly, and for a brief moment, Ben wanted to call over to Adam and tell him what he’d seen. One kid had a terrible push off;
one kid’s skates needed to be sharpened; one kid’s skates were too sharp...

  “—see the way he talked to him?” asked one of the recruiters behind him. “Put his head right back into the game. That’s not really something you can learn.”

  “Yeah, he’s good with them,” agreed another recruiter. “You either get them or you don’t.”

  Ben’s attention snapped back to the stands with a jolt.

  I’m not a coach, he realized. I can’t teach these kids how to speed skate.

  “The JL’s a whole other level, though,” said the first guy. “These kids are doing it for what, shits and giggles? JL’s serious.”

  “You don’t think he knows that?”

  “I know he knows that, question is if he’ll still be able to reach them in the same way. Plus they’re older, you can’t teach them nothing. They’re all the fastest, smartest players on the ice, and they’ll see him as a wash-out. All that potential he threw away.”

  That’s what I am, a wash-out, thought Ben as the mass of kids skated by again: a whoosh of sound and motion and blur. He rubbed his calf muscles absently. I was supposed to have gold medals around my neck by now. My name in all the papers, sponsorships lined up for miles...

  Instead, I’ve got a bakery.

  “You’re not giving Bernard enough credit,” said the first recruiter.

  Ben sat up a bit straighter. They’re talking about Adam?

  “He’s good with the kids, he knows what it’s like from their angle – he knows them. They’ll listen to him. Probably more than they listen to us.”

  They’re not here to recruit the kids, thought Ben, amazed. They’re here to recruit Adam.

  “Ben!”

  Just seeing Adam’s face, lit up with happiness, was enough to calm the grumbling uncertainty in Ben’s stomach. It was still there, just waiting for a reason to burst forth again, Ben wasn’t going to complain for the respite.

  “Hey,” said Ben, lifting up the bag of cookies. “As promised!”

  “They’ll appreciate it,” Adam said. It looked to Ben like Adam was examining him, trying to determine if Ben really was there willingly. “I’m glad you came.”