Christmas Cakes and Kisses

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Later Saturday Evening

Morelville, Ohio

It was quiet when Hannah walked into the house. Not even Boo, her house mate Dana’s little Boston terrier, was around to greet her and give her the sniff test to see if she’d come home from school with any treats.

“Where is everyone?” she called out.

Dana’s muffled “In here,” came from the master bedroom.

As she headed toward it, the slacking dog bounded out of the bedroom, toward her. “Not doing your dog job very well, I see,” she told the hopping ball of energy and then gave her a quick pat.

In the bathroom, off of the bedroom, she found Dana pulling her son Jef out of the tub.

“Look, Mommy is here,” Dana told the toddler.

The boy smiled at Hannah and splashed around in response.

“Almost bedtime,” Hannah warned him. “Time to get out.”

“One minute,” he begged.

“Just while it drains,” Dana told him. She started to drain the water while Hannah gathered a towel, a diaper and the boy’s pajamas. As she dried and dressed her son, Dana quizzed her about class.

“How was the first night of cakes?”

Hannah gave a half nod in Dana’s direction. “Good.”

“Just good?”

“It was different. Not what I expected.”

“Why’s that?”

Hannah told Dana about the TWIG project and about the chef assigning them each a partner.

“You don’t get to work with Sandy?” She knew Hannah had really taken a liking to the older, no-nonsense, African American woman.

“No.” Hannah shook her head. “Someone else. Her name is Morgan Barber.”

“Sounds sophisticated.”

“Mmm,” she shook her head, “I don’t think so. She’s actually pretty quiet...keeps to herself most of the time.”

“Older or younger than you?”

Hannah shrugged as she concentrated for a few seconds on pulling Jef’s pajama bottoms on. That done, she said, “My age, I guess or maybe a couple of years older. I don’t know anything about her other than that she doesn’t hang around with the younger...people in class. She doesn’t hang around with anybody during breaks. She hardly even talks unless Chef is talking to her or he calls on her.”

“Does she seem to know what she’s doing?”

“I guess. I don’t really know.” She blew out a breath as she picked Jef up and then set him on his feet on the floor. “I’m going to find out soon though. I, uh, hope it’s all right. We’ve gotten some basic specs for guidance. We have to take those and we have to have a meeting right away to plan out our presentation to the client. I uh, asked Morgan to come down here tomorrow around 11:00 but we can, uh, go over to the bakery if we’re going to be in the way here.”

That last bit came out, in what sounded to Dana, as a little bit reluctantly. She knew Hannah hadn’t even told the Chef that led her program that the bakery she ‘worked at’ was actually hers. Dana didn’t know if it was the fear of being held to a higher standard than the other students or if she was just shy about her accomplishments. She suspected it was a little of both.

“Hannah, sweetie, it’s fine; fine anytime. I’m just surprised you didn’t want to do it at school on Tuesday.”

“Well, we want to try and meet with our contact on Tuesday, before class. Besides, Chef already told us, we need to work together outside of class; our time in class will be full until it comes time to actually do the baking for this project. And, Morgan didn’t even tell me where she lives. She seemed pretty eager to meet wherever I wanted to.” The most interested I’ve ever seen her in anything that I can think of, Hannah thought.