Chapter 22: Patience
June 17
A middle-aged Chinese-American man walked into the bakery with beautiful eyes and a pushed-in face that Hayden found attractive. He looked in each of the glass display cases, paced from left to right, rubbed his chin, and finally said in his thick Americanese, “You have chocolate cake?”
Cupcakes didn’t. Usually they did, but not today. “We have an assortment of pies and other cakes to choose from.”
He pointed at a row of birthday cakes in the center case and repeated, “Is that a chocolate cake?
Hayden shook his head. “It’s a blackberry cake.”
“It looks like chocolate. How can it be blackberry?”
“It’s not chocolate,” he said in a huff and raised tone. “I’m not going to tell you again.”
Had David or Richter heard him, he would have been fired on the spot.
