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void-bee · 7 years

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Time Moves Around Us

i had to write a first person story for class, so i wrote it about a lesbian baker on the autism spectrum

have a nice read, it’s like 3,000 words

Time was very important to me. Keeping that time in order was very important. The world outside my schedule was loud and chaotic, and how others made it through their days is beyond me. There was order and safety in knowing where you should be, what you should do, and when you should do it. Knowing what needs to be done gave me a tether to the rest of the world, let me interact with those who think differently than I do. It made me feel safe. It let me feel in control.

My planet turned on its axis, orbiting the Earth. That’s how other people felt to me: a world away. My brain turned my small world. My world chimed on the hour and there was nothing more soothing to decipher those chimes. They spoke to me in lists and deadlines. So, on Tuesday, I woke up at 3:30 a.m. like I always do. The laminated list near my bedside gave me clear directions for my morning routine in ten minute increments. The timer on its chain went around my neck, its quiet ticking the most gentle sound in my world.

Forty minutes later found me downstairs from my apartment, in my bakery, nursing a mug of coffee and looking through the orders for the day. I had to get bread dough rising, cupcakes mixed, and cookies cut by five or my whole schedule would be off. There was also an order for a cake that had to be finished by 6 p.m., but my sister got in at noon and would be taking care of most of the leg work. I was glad to have her.

“Drawing Dead” started up right on time, a mix of technojazz and piano comforted me through my cupcakes. Getting into the groove of baking is the secret to making them taste perfect; focusing solely on the pastry and nothing else. Time moved around me and I stayed in place, just me and the desserts. Baking is comforting in this manner; follow the instructions and they’re perfect every time. Emily didn’t like this CD, but it turned always ended before noon. This was one of the many ways Emily and I couldn’t communicate.

Rachel came in at six to work the counter. She was a little slip of a blonde college student, but I didn’t know what she was studying. I knew she didn’t really like me, she didn’t understand me. But she was good as a cashier and I trusted her with the sweets.

“Good morning Miss Westmeyer!” she trilled as she opened the backdoor. I didn’t bother to answer her; I had only twelve seconds before the cupcakes needed to come out. She made a face I saw in the corner of my eye but I couldn’t decipher it so I disregarded it. The cupcakes came out perfectly. They were moist and sweet, iced with three perfect rosebuds each. She tried again to engage me, “Did you have a nice night? What are the specials for today boss?” She had tendency to babble at me and I could barely follow the lines of her questioning. Her world was so loud.

“It was fine.” I motioned for her to follow me to the register and wrote out the specials of mocha fudge, lemon lavender, and rosewater mint for the day’s cupcakes. We were also featuring a red velvet cake and tiramisu. The cookies and brownies were fixed menu items, and we sold three basic types of cupcakes daily. Biscotti was sold before noon. Cakes were sold by the slice. Whole cakes that didn’t get sold yesterday were half-price today. We sold milk, tea, and coffee to go along with the desserts, but the big fancy coffee machines made me anxious. We only had two percolators: one for regular and one for decaf.

Rachel continued to talk at me, but I wasn’t focused on what she was saying. I ferried cookies and cakes and brownies into the displays. There were perfectly painted roses on each sugar cookie and a small rosette on each brownie. Our store was called “Cake Bouquet”, so every treat had a small flower on it somewhere. Emily thought of the name, I just piped the flowers. Rachel quit trying to talk to me, thankfully, and just unlocked the door, started running the presale reports and starting up the cash register. I was glad to have her, chatty as she may be. She knew what needed to be done.

Time moved around me again as I kept up with the flow of orders, baking as needed and frosting constantly. Some more cashiers worked the day shift, but I didn’t attempt to know any of them, and they stayed away from the back other than to keep me up to date on shortages. Emily arrived promptly – I��m always relieved when she does, I get nervous when she’s late – and together we made the birthday cake. I spent three hours making ornate gardenias and tulips and roses for it. It’s the only thing I’m good at. Mrs. Romelia was pleased with her cake and I was pleased with our work. As the hours waned away the orders slowed and so did I. By six, there was no more baking to be done as we tried to push the remaining treats. By eight we were closed. Emily ran the cash register after the last cashier left at five, so it was just the two of us. She didn’t mind our silence and I appreciated that.

I gathered up the remaining product other than any of the whole cakes and left the shop to give them to the shelter two streets over. Emily suggested that we give what we don’t sell to those who can’t purchase it. I liked knowing someone appreciated them. I handed the box over to the heavy black woman who works there. I didn’t know her name: all we say is ‘here you go’ and ‘thank you sweetie’. And then I left. I walked the two blocks back to my apartment above the bakery and I balanced the books for the day and took the inventory. Emily was always gone by the time I got back from the shelter. At 9:30 p.m. I reheated some food that she left me for dinner. At ten I went to bed.

I woke up at 1:51 a.m. like I always do. No, wait, that’s not right, I always wake up at 3:30. I stared at the clock in confusion, wondering why I was awake. The clock said 1:51. What was presumably another crash came from downstairs and it was so loud. It was so loud I must have woken up. I crept downstairs, trying to figure out what was happening. My mind was humming a single note, panic blurring my periphery.

There was a man in my bakery. I stood at the bottom of the staircase in the kitchen, wearing nothing but a shirt and shorts, and my feet were bare. He stood across from me wearing a jacket and boots and jeans and I couldn’t see his face under a bandana, couldn't see his hair under a baseball cap. The kitchen was very, very dark. He said something to me but I couldn’t hear him over the increasingly loud humming in my head which was rising and rising in pitch. And then it wasn’t just in my head, but it was out of my mouth and I was screaming. Waving his arms at me, he took a step closer but I didn’t know what that meant. I felt a thousand miles from him but also so, so close. His planet circled closer and closer until it crashed into mine. Something gleamed in his hand and my legs couldn’t hold me anymore, dropping me to the floor in panic. I covered my ears but kept staring at him. We had locked eye contact until he turned away. I kept screaming and screaming and then I fell away.

When I came back, it was to noise that was too much. There were sirens and they were so loud. Emily was close to me and she wasn’t touching me but she smelled nice and she was close to me, so that was enough. I focused on her and away from the flashing lights that flicked red and blue and back. Someone in a brown jacket approached us and put a hand on my shoulder. They were wearing a jacket and he had been wearing a jacket. I flinched back violently from the hand, I didn’t know who was touching me. I heard Emily shouting again but I was too far away from myself to understand what she was saying. She put her hands over her ears and locked eyes with me. I copied her. It was easier to focus when I couldn’t hear as clearly. As my breathing calmed, everyone backed away from me. Time moved around me.

“-got Asperger’s don’t put your hands on her. She doesn’t react well.” I finally made out Emily’s words. Her tone was calm but she was arguing with someone behind me. “She’s just had a serious shock, she’s frightened, she’s panicked. You would be too, just give her some space.” I was so glad to have Emily. I couldn’t tell whoever was trying to touch me that it was just too much right now. I just needed a minute, or an hour, it was hard to tell.

“Listen, ma’am, I understand she’s panicked, but maybe talking through it will help. It can’t be good to keep all that bottled up.” The voice behind me was just as calm as Emily, but the tone wasn’t aggressive. It was warm. The far edges were still dark but I turned my gaze towards the warm voice. It was a police officer; their badge was shiny. The badge was like a little winking star. The officer had a hat with a wide brim and was wearing a scarf. It looked soft and a shiver ran through me as their winter clothing reminded me that my window was broken while I wore nothing but pajamas. I tugged gently at Emily’s shoulder.

“Emily, I’m cold. I need my shawl. The window’s broken,” I told her, not sure if she’d noticed. Something about her expression changed, but not her mouth. I didn’t know what it meant but she nodded and turned to go upstairs. She and the officer stared at each other. I shivered again and she left. Then the officer stared at me and I stared back. Gently, probably copying my sister like I always do, they knelt down so we were eye to eye.

“Ma’am, are you alright?” she asked. Her voice was warm again, like Emily’s was. If she knew enough to mimic my sister’s behavior, she must have been okay to talk to. Now that I could see her, I noticed that the officer had dark, gentle eyes and dark, soft-looking skin. She felt warm like a star; warm like the sun. She reminded me of coffee and I liked coffee. “I’m Officer Thorpe,” she continued, “and I’m here to help you. I want to know what you saw, so I can find whoever busted up your shop. Is that alright? Can I help you?” she kept staring at my eyes and I tried very hard to maintain eye contact. I didn’t want her to think I was lying, and I know on TV people look away when they’re lying.

My voice was tiny when I said “Okay,” but I didn’t mean for it to be. Maybe I was more scared than I thought. Officer Thorpe smiled. I tried to smile back but it was hard. I didn’t feel like smiling right then.

“Okay, okay, great. You’re doing great. Can you tell me what happened?” she asked. My breathing sped up as I thought back to what had happened. Someone broke into my shop and broke my window and woke me up and- “Hey, hey, hey. Stop that it’s okay I’m sorry,” she said, holding her hands up but not touching me. I realized I was panicking again. I was glad she didn’t touch me. “Hey, hey, okay, breathe with me okay?” I copied her as she breathed slow and steady. I calmed a bit. She smiled at me again and I tried again. It was a little easier this time.

“Can we take it slower?” I asked, voice a little stronger this time. The officer smelled like cinnamon.

“Of course we can.” She moved a little bit closer to me. “Okay, so tell me what woke you up and we’ll go from there.” It sounded very reasonable, the way she phrased that. ‘We’ll go from there’ was promising somehow.

“I woke up at 1:51. Which is wrong, I normally wake up at 3:30.” She was nodding and writing down what I said. I was glad, because that meant I’d only have to tell the story once. I don’t think I could tell it again. “I was very confused and scared. I went downstairs because I heard a crash.” My gaze slid past Officer Thorpe to my kitchen. The crash must have been one of my stand mixers, which was on the floor. It was broken. “I guess it was my mixer. I came downstairs and he was standing across from me. We just looked at each other.”

Seemingly excited, the officer nodded quicker. “Okay, so you did see him! What did he look like? Could you see any of his features?” I leaned back a bit, trying not to let her excitement rile me up. I had to stay calm to tell the story so I could go back to sleep. I still had to wake up in a couple hours.

“It was dark when I came down. He had a bandana on his face, but he wasn’t wearing gloves. He wore a jacket and he wore a hat. He wore jeans and boots. He had a knife, I think it was from my kitchen. He stole one of my knives and he broke my window and he broke my mixer.” I frowned at this. Why would he break my mixer? The officer wrote more slowly and then she looked at me. There was something in her eyes I liked.

“Okay, so he broke in and he knocked over your mixer, which woke you up. He must have knocked it off ‘cause it was so dark.” I was very glad she was explaining this to me. “He didn’t come prepared to hurt anybody, since he grabbed one of your kitchen knives when he heard you. He took all the money that was in the register drawer that I guess was set up for today, but he didn’t mess with the safe. And you’re alright, right?” Officer Thorpe took off her scarf and gently set it on my shoulders while she talked. I didn’t realize I was still cold, but her eyes made me feel warm. The sun was so warm and it came from her eyes.

“Right,” I breathed gently. There was a cough off to the left of me, and I saw Emily standing there with my shawl. She also laid it onto me, but I somehow wished it had been Officer Thorpe. The officer flushed red at whatever expression Emily was making and she rose quickly, flipping shut her notebook.

“Well,” she said loudly, purposefully, “I guess that’s all the statement I need, ma’am.” I put my hand on her knee.

“Avery.” I said. She flushed deeper and Emily rolled her eyes in my periphery.

“I guess that’s all I’ll need, Avery,” Officer Thorpe amended. Smiling was easy now. She smiled back at me and Emily stepped into my line of sight. Reminded of her presence, the officer turned to my sister, presumably to hear her statement also. Emily followed Officer Thorpe to the door after they both gave me an order to sit at one of my baking counters and keep calm. It was easy to keep calm if I was thinking of Officer Thorpe and not the robbery. I wanted to go get coffee because I was tired, and it reminded me of the police officer, but I was told to stay where I was. The sky was lightening outside and I saw a glimpse of morning sunlight catch Officer Thorpe’s profile as she talked to my sister in the doorway. Red and blue looked good on her. Upstairs, my alarm sounded and I fidgeted with the beads on the end of my shawl.

It was 3:30 a.m., time to wake up. I had to get the breads in the oven by five.

We didn’t open the next day, or the day after that. It took two weeks to get my window fixed and to be able to reopen the business. Those were a terrifying two weeks. My schedule was gone and without it, my planet was sent adrift in the chaos of what regular people call ‘spontaneity’. But as my mother used to say before she died, ‘When an anchor rises, the ship sails’. Without my anchor, I could discover something new and something exciting, something terrifying. My new waters came in the form of Madison Thorpe, my sole customer for two weeks. Officer Thorpe came in with the sun every day at 9 a.m. for the first five days, once she learned that I really do appreciate punctuality and routine, to keep me involved with the case. I felt very relieved to be kept informed. They caught the robber after five days and he was sentenced to two years in jail and reparations for my window. And he had to pay for my mixer.

After the first five days, I had no idea why she kept coming in. Maybe she liked the biscotti? After a month, Emily began to suspect she came for my company and she informed me of this, which was both surprising and flattering to say the least. She stopped being Officer Thorpe after two months of coming into Cake Bouquet, giving me a stern “It’s Madison when I’m off duty.” Officer Thorpe became Madison, who came in at 9 a.m. for a biscotti, a cup of coffee with two sugars and no milk, a cookie for herself, and a ‘mystery treat’ for her partner. She became Madison, who liked to make jokes I didn’t understand but didn’t make fun of me for needing an explanation. She became Madison, who tried a sample tablespoon of whatever tea I was drinking that day, but hadn’t found one that didn’t make her face twist up.

Time moved around us. She became Maddie after four months of nine a.m. breakfasts, twelve p.m. lunches, and eight p.m. trips to the local shelter. She became Maddie, who loved sleeping over in my warm apartment above the bakery, but never complained about sleeping on the guest bed. She became Maddie who was bleary-eyed and incoherent at 3:30 a.m., when my alarm woke me. Mornings were accompanied by a soft touch to my face and a garbled greeting when I set a mug of coffee on her bedside table and she went back to sleep. ‘Making Maddie’s coffee’ made its way onto my laminated list. She kissed my cheek at five a.m. when she walked by me in the kitchen to go to work, and she always left with two travel mugs of coffee and six doughnuts. They were only made for her. She moved her things into the closet in the guest room, so mine could remain color coordinated and evenly spaced in my closet. She became the brilliant sun that my tiny planet orbited around. She gave me light and life. I became ‘sweetheart’, ‘darling’, ‘sunshine’, ‘lovely’. She moved into my bed. We became us.

#brinley writes #wlw #i dunno its a gay story #how do you tag stories #short story #there you go

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