Chapter Text
Years in the past, but not many…
A young woman unlocks the door of a building with fogged windows and welcomes patrons into the warmth.
Be the young woman ==>
You are now the young woman. Your name is Jane Crocker. And there aren’t any patrons yet since it’s still pretty early; you’ve just unlocked the door and flipped the OPEN/CLOSED sign around so it faces OPEN side out. You’ve always liked the opening shift; sure you have to come in an hour before you open at seven-which means you have to wake up pretty early! But you have the whole store to yourself for an hour which is completely fine by you. Your routine is enjoyable.
Be past Jane ==>
You are now past Jane. You come in, turn on the lights, and preheat the oven. On your way to the fridge you turn the radio on and switch it to your favorite vocal jazz station. In the walk-in fridge you collect four bowls of premade muffin batter, a small bag of chocolate chips, and a small scoop of frozen blueberries. Then you bring them out to your work counter. Muffins always get made first since people love them almost as much as bagels on their morning breakfast runs. The rack above your work space contains both the muffin tins and the handy pre-cut squares of parchment paper your boss always orders too many of. You take down two muffin tins and a square of parchment paper goes into each cup so the muffins don’t stick. Today you make three pumpkin muffins-one plain, one with cranberries from the shelf behind you, and one with chocolate chips; three banana muffins-one plain and two with walnuts from the shelf and more chocolate chips; three bran muffins-one plain and two with cranberries; and three basic muffins-two with blueberries and one with dried apple pieces from the shelf and a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar on top.
By the time you rewrap and put away all your ingredients the oven is beeping at you to let you know it’s ready. In go the muffins and you set the timer for ten minutes when you’ll need to switch racks. Then you dig the large pot out of the cupboard next to the stove and pop it on top. It’s supposed to rain today so you decide to make a beef barley soup. Nothing is more comforting than a nice soup on a grey day. The beef trimmings come out of the freezer and go into the microwave just long enough to defrost them. You chop them up into more bite sized pieces and toss them into the pot with a little oil and turn the element to medium. You give the pieces a stir to dislodge them from each other and add salt and pepper. Another stir and you better start cutting the vegetables because those muffins are going to need to be turned soon! Three stalks of celery, six carrots, an onion, two cloves of garlic, three mid-sized potatoes, and a healthy handful of parsley all get tossed into the sink. The celery gets scrubbed first and you make short work of it after you’ve patted it dry. You push the well chopped celery to the side and go back to scrub the carrots and remove their ends.
You don’t have time to do more than that before the timer starts beeping at you and you hurry over to turn it off and pull oven mitts from a nearby drawer. You successfully turn the muffins and switch racks. You reset the timer and take a moment to stir the beef again as it starts to sizzle before heading back to give the carrots a rough chop. They get pushed to the side with the celery. The potatoes are next. Scrub. Chop. Set aside. You check on the beef and it’s doing well still. You give it a small stir. Looks like it’s browned all over. You grab the onion, chop the ends off, and remove the peel. You dice it and bring it on the cutting board over to the pot. You stir the bits of onion and beef around and then you have to set everything aside again because the timer is going off and the muffins are done.
You pull them out and they smell heavenly. Warmth and chocolate and cinnamon and partially caramelized fruit. It’s the tastiest bouquet you can imagine. You set them on the built-in cooling rack next to the baskets they’ll be going into once they cool a little. Cookies are next on the list so you turn down the oven, and the stove while you’re at it so the beef and onions don’t burn, and go collect cookie batter from the fridge. Looks like there’s only oatmeal cookie batter pre-made today. You sigh but grab the cookie sheets anyway. Six cookies per tray, and you flatten them out with your fingers. You used to use a fork but it just takes so much longer and it gets sticky and gross and if you dampen your fingers with cool water before pressing out the cookies it doesn’t make nearly as much of a mess. Half of the cookies get raisins sprinkled on them from the shelf and half of those get chopped walnuts as well. They go into the oven and the timer is set for five minutes.
You mince the peeled garlic cloves and the washed parsley and add them to the beef and onion mixture. You stir the contents briefly and then you’re switching the cookies around and setting the timer again. The rest of the vegetables go into the pot and you go into the fridge and collect the beef drippings from yesterday. They go into the pot as a nice start to the broth. The cookies come out and join the muffins on the cooling rack. You check the clock and you have to open in about twenty minutes so you set up two pots of coffee to brew. Medium roast and dark roast. Your boss gets them from a local roaster and the strong, faintly bitter scent is simply delectable.
The muffins have usually cooled enough by now that you can transfer them into the baskets so you do and bring the tins into the back to be washed once your co-worker joins you around eight. While in the back you grab the recipe book and flip to the chocolate cookie page. You gather the ingredients and a couple bowls as well as the hand mixer and whip out a quick batch. You modified the original recipe slightly and these are the best chocolate cookies the town has to offer if you do say so yourself! It’s not like you went crazy or anything, you just use a higher quality cocoa then the recipe asks for, Demerara brown sugar instead of golden brown, and actual vanilla instead of that awful imitation extract. Small changes but they make ALL the difference. Your cookies are more rich and moister than the ones the original recipe produced. (You might also cook them a little less so they’re still gooey on the inside). You make a dozen of those as well and then wrap the batter, date it, and put it into the fridge. Since they didn’t take all that long to make, and you still have a little time before you open, you decide to make a batch of snickerdoodles as well.
Recipe. Ingredients. Bowls. You have to wipe off the mixer before using it but that doesn’t take long. Then you’re switching the chocolate cookies and dropping a couple dozen snickerdoodles onto two cookie trays. You always have to make more of these. They’re a little smaller and also very popular. While you wait for the chocolate cookies to finish baking you transfer the oatmeal cookies to a platter and take the trays back into the kitchen where they join the growing mound of dishes you’re not looking forward to doing.
The chocolate cookies come out and in go the snickerdoodles and the coffee is ready and it’s almost seven so you wipe down the counters and go switch your music to a more popular, modern, local station. Then it’s time to open up.
Be current Jane ==>
You are current Jane again. You pull the snickerdoodles out of the oven and place them on the cooling rack. The chocolate cookies go onto their own platter and you’ve added both beef stock and barley to the soup. You make a batch of butter tarts, pull out yesterday’s Nanaimo bars, and have started a chocolate zucchini bundt cake recipe before you here the tinkling of small bells that heralds your first customer of the day. You look up from your mixing and smile.
“Good morning Rose,” you say.
She smiles up at you with tired eyes, “Good morning Jane, you look chipper as usual.”
“Hoo hoo, well I suppose I am. It’s been a lovely morning.”
She waits politely as you dust your hands off on your apron. Her eyes roam over the muffins and you try to guess which one she’ll ask for today. Your bet is plain banana.
“I’ll have the pumpkin cranberry please,” she asks with a slight lip curve that has you convinced she knows about your little game, “And a large Ceylon tea; to go.”
You bustle over to the kettle and set it up, filling it and turning it on, before you turn to the little jars of loose leaf tea that are stacked on an inset shelf next to the kettle. You add a lightly heaped teaspoon to the small gauze bags you use for loose leaf to-go tea and thread it onto the small skewer that will prevent it from dropping the contents into the cup. You ring the order into the cash register and Rose pays with a murmured thank you. You thank her as well and then use a set of tongs to transfer the muffin into a small wax paper bag.
“So, what classes do you have today?” you ask as you hand her the muffin and turn to pour the now boiled water over the tea.
“’Psychological explanations of criminal and deviant behaviour’,” she answers primly, with a mischievous gleam in her eye, “and a philosophy course, ‘rhetoric and reasoning’.”
You smile back but secretly think to yourself that Rose will be a very dangerous girl once she finishes schooling.
Goodness, she’s already intimidating once she gets going about the zoologically dubious. The thought of her working with people? No, no. You’re not going to think about that. You let the tea steep for four minutes making small talk while you wait (I heard it’s going to rain? Why yes, it does appear rather grey out. Did you bring an umbrella? Yes, of course, I’d be silly not to.); when it finishes steeping you remove the tea bag and put a lid on the cup. You hand it to Rose who smiles when you give her a small wave before turning back to your cake batter. The door tinkles merrily as she leaves. You finish the batter, pour it into a bundt pan and put it in the oven to bake.
You’re whisking an orange glaze for the cake when the door jingles again. The man who enters is a regular but you don’t know his name. He orders a coffee and pays. You get it for him and he leaves. The glaze is set aside and you put out the now cooled desserts. The cake will be a while yet so you decide to set up for cinnamon buns. They’re time consuming as well because you have to let the raisins get plump before you can use the water but this way they should be done around lunch time which is as good a time as any to sell them. Frankly, anytime is a good time to sell cinnamon buns in your opinion.
==>
You get lucky when your co-worker comes in. He goes into the back and washes the dishes without complaint. Usually you two bicker about who has to do them. It might have something to do with the fact that you’re pulling out the bundt and there are several people, already taken care of, at the tables now as he shows up five minutes late. Guilt is a powerful motivator.
Be future Jane ==>
You are now future Jane. You wash your hands for what has to be the millionth time today. A quick glance at the clock tells you that it is exactly three minutes from the last time you checked and you still have twenty-seven minutes left on your shift. You stretch your arms up and arch your back. It pops slightly and it hurts, but in a good way.
The door jingles. Again. You consider the merits of destroying the bells as you turn, smile in place. However, your greeting dies on your lips. The man that enters is taller than you, but still not exceptionally tall. His skin is lighter than yours, brown rather than black, although his hair is every bit as dark. He smiles at you, his eyes a very fetching green. His chest strains the confines of his simple tee-shirt and his shorts reveal hairy, muscular calves and a decent portion of equally hairy, muscular thighs. He says something to you but you miss it in favor of watching the way his lips move around a slight overbite. They’re good lips you decide. Not too thin but also not too full. Manly lips. Yes.
You startle as your co-worker waves his hand in front of your face. Oh no. The customer isn’t smiling anymore. He looks confused and how long were you just standing there staring at his lips? Your face heats up.
“I am so sorry,” you say, “It’s been a long shift, what were you saying?”
His face lights up again, “No worries at all my dear! I was simply commenting on this frightfully awful weather we’re having.”
“Oh. Yes, I suppose it is a bit awful isn’t it? But,” you say, hands fidgeting with a nearby cloth, “if it weren’t for all the rain we wouldn’t have as much greenery. And in the spring we get a lot of pretty flowers, so I don’t really mind the rain? It makes so many things grow.”
You didn’t think it possible but his grin widens, “What an ineffably optimistic gal you are!”
You smile back and chat quietly as you get him the half dozen cookies he asks for.
“Well I’d love to continue to punch the bag with you,” he says as he pays, “But I have to get going. I’m meeting some distant relatives of mine soon and wouldn’t want to be late! You sure are a swell dame though miss…?”
“Jane,” you supply.
“Miss Jane,” he repeats, and holds his hand out to you, “Jake English.”
You shake his hand and wave as he leaves. Your eyes find the clock and you sigh when you realize you still have five minutes before you can go home. Your slight frown fades as your thoughts turn back to one Mr. Jake English. You hope he comes back. It’s awfully silly of you but you feel a connection to him and perhaps the first stirrings of a crush?
You shake your head firmly. You don’t even know the man! It is far too early for crushes or infatuation. You know better. But still, he was rather attractive in his own way. What’s the harm in a little crush anyway? You giggle to yourself and putter around for five minutes. You can’t help the occasional happy sounds that bubble out your lips and by the end of your shift your co-worker is firmly rolling his eyes at you and all but pushes you out the door.