Sweet Girl by Rachel Hollis Read Free Book Online Page A

but yours has thirty-eight—I’ve counted them. More than once.”
    She snorts in response and starts to manhandle a loquat like she’s checking it for concealed weapons. After another couple of minutes I realize that she’s not going to speak to me anymore. I keep watching her, racking my brain and trying to think of what I can say to engage her in conversation again. I never thought I’d actually meet her, and now that she’s in front of me, every single question I’ve ever wanted to ask her comes bubbling to the surface. How many years did she attend culinary school? What made her want to be a baker in the first place? How does it feel to be a female boss with a staff of all men? Why doesn’t she use raspberries in her layer cake? Did she really throw a drink in Thomas Keller’s face at last year’s South Beach Wine and Food Festival?
    There is only one female Certified Master Pastry Chef in the entire nation, and she’s standing next to me. I have to ask her something in case I never get this opportunity again! I filter through the litany of questions and quickly decide on the most important.
    “Is it cardamom? Is that what you put in the budino ?”
    Her head turns in my direction. Her mouth is outlined on all sides by wrinkles from a lifetime of smoking, and when her lips purse, I take it as permission to continue.
    “There’s a little hint of something under the flavor of the caramel, and I’ve always wanted to know what it is.”
    She studies me again in closer detail, and I try not to fidget while she looks me over. Finally she opens her mouth and shocks me completely.
    “I’m hiring, Stork. You interested?”

Chapter Four
    I’m not sure that I was able to give Avis any kind of verbal commitment, because I was too overwhelmed to reply. But surely I must have nodded or something, because here I am following her down the hallway like a dutiful puppy. We come from the main kitchen and in through the back of a smaller kitchen, where Latin music is bouncing out of surprisingly nice stereo speakers and filling the already-hot room.
    Avis whirls around and looks at me. Through the lenses of her giant glasses, her eyes look twice as large as they are.
    “You’re here because I need a stork,” she says.
    I never thought my height would be any kind of job qualification, but Avis’s oddball personality is as notorious as she is, and I’ll take whatever help I can get.
    I nod. “Yes, I—”
    She waves me off with an erratic hand.
    “No need to discuss it. Joey will tell you what you need to know. I’ll only tell you one thing.”
    She takes out a pack of cigarettes and taps it against her hip. We stand there in silence for at least three minutes before I realize the cigarettes are keeping time with the music in the air. It’s a little awkward—OK, more than a little awkward, but I wait patiently for her to tell me whatever it is she wants me to know. When she does finally get around to it, the words are no less ominous for having been delivered by the absent-minded professor.
    “Nobody ever gave me a chance, Stork”—she points the pack of cigarettes at me—“and you’re getting this. It’s the only one you’ll get from me.”
    I nod earnestly.
    “Now”—Avis points a wrinkled finger at the tile below my feet—“you stand there.”
    I nod again, but she’s already walking away. I’m standing in the exact spot she left me, dead center where four dark-orange tiles come together. X marks the spot. I look around, using the moment to try to calm myself enough to process what’s happening. The scuffed toe of my Converse is so old and grimy that the white has long faded to gray. A plume of flour in the air dissipates and settles around my shoes, snapping me into focus, and my brain finally catches up.
    I’m standing in Dolci!
    I whirl around until I can see the partition of glass that separates the kitchen from the lobby, just to confirm where I am. How many times have I stood on the other