Chapter Text
Jensen was 10 when he tasted his first danish pastry with raspberry filling, and it was the best danish he had ever tasted. Since then, he had tasted countless pastries, but none of them had tasted as good as what he tasted the day he was 10 and sat in grandma Miranda's kitchen. The air stood still that day and the heat wrapped around him like a blanket, but all he could sense was golden crispy flakes filled with velvety vanilla and topped with sour raspberry jam. He could sit there forever and see how grandmother miraculously transformed butter, flour and sugar into golden pieces of heaven.
Every year, as faithful as the birds returning in the summer, he returned to Miranda's kitchen.
As he grew older, he spent less time in the kitchen, and more time in the storefront, but he never became too old for the sacred 15 minutes before the shop opened. Every morning, while the last serving of pastries baked in the oven, he and grandma sat down. She with a cup of coffee, and he with a cup of cocoa, and they tasted the pastry of the day. "To check that we do not sell inedible goods," Grandmother used to say with a smile, and Jensen nodded in agreement while taking the assignment seriously. Although there was never any doubt that as long as Grandma Miranda had baked the goods, they were edible.
"The coffee is ready," Jared's voice brings Jensen back to the present and he looks up from the picture he holds in his hand. It is a faded picture, its colors long since yellowed by the sun. On the picture there is a 12-year-old version of himself smiling back at him,with a large piece of pastry in his hand.
"Thank you," he says, taking the cup that Jared holds out for him after putting down the picture. He glances into the cup and shakes his head laughing.
"What?!" Jared does his best to look innocent.
"Figures that when you finally learned how to make latte-art, it's in the shape of a dick."
"Of course," laughs Jared, "what else should I make?"
"I don’t know, something more appropriate would be good."
"But that’s no fun," Jared grins back at him.
"Just don’t let me catch you doing that for a customer! I cannot risk complaints that my employees behave inappropriately." Jensen looks at him strictly and points his finger to emphasize that he is serious about it. "I mean, Jared. Don’t do it!"
"Relax! I'm just doing it to you. Besides, I'm not employed here."
"As if it that has ever stopped you from standing behind the counter."
In the couple of years since Jared stopped working at Miranda’s, they have spent some time finding balance between them. It was challenging when Jared worked for Jensen, both in terms of switching between being the boss and the boyfriend, but also because they knew that Jared was given more leeway at work, because he were also Jensen’s boyfriend. It was hard finding the line between helping your boyfriend out and taking responsibility as an employer.
The decision to let Jared go at Miranda’s was the hardest decision he ever made in his life. But he is very happy that he did it. He is happy that he can stand up and say that he did indeed make the right decision. He decided to do something when he realized that the situation, as it were, was no good for work, but more importantly, it wasn’t good for their relationship. And he is happy that he, in the end, also listened to his own body, and realized that there is only so much he himself can do to compensate for Jared’s disability. He cannot compensate for everything the illness takes from their life – he cannot do the work of two; not at Miranda’s, and not at home. It was the right decision to say that they needed help, so that Jared would get the time to “be a professional patient,” as he calls it, and have some of the income compensated by a small but steady disability pension.
He is also very happy that Jared beat him to it, that he was the one that said “enough” before Jensen was able to, that Jared can go on knowing that in the end, it was his own decision to say enough.
He had never expected the process of getting a disability pension would be so hard though, and definitely not the avalanche of feelings it would set off when it finally came.
He had never realized that Jared would mourn the loss of a job. Not necessary this particular job, but working in general. He had never realized that for Jared, this was permanently closing the door of the life he had thought he would have.
~*~
It took a while after receiving disability pension before Jared began to come by Miranda's again. In the beginning, it was a day now and then, but gradually it grew to be weekly, and then a couple of times a week. He would sit by the counter and talk with those that were on shift that day. Chatting, small talking, making jokes; communicating with other people. Staying in the house by himself, didn’t go well with a social personality like Jared’s. He needed input, he needed to meet people face to face, and he needed to feel that he was part of a community.
Being away from other people for too long made Jared depressed.
He needed to greet someone hello, and knowing that someone has felt that they have been seen by him that day. That he has paid attention to them, and wished them well. He needs to say “hi, nice seeing you again!” He needs to ask “how did it go yesterday, did you do well on the test?” He needs to smile and be smiled at and give hugs and receive one back. He needs social interaction.
In a good period, he might be there almost every day, and stay for hours. Other weeks, he doesn’t make it at all, being tucked up in bed all day. Some weeks, he can come by a couple of days, stay short or long, but always in need of a bit of recovery time afterwards.
The only problem about spending his time at Miranda’s is that those people that work there are there to do exactly that; work - neither they, nor Jensen, has time for Jared to distract them from work, so it didn’t take long before he started to grow bored just sitting there.
Sometimes, old college-friends of Jared would come by, for coffee or lunch, but they would never stay long. It wasn’t until Jared explained it to him, why they never stuck around, that Jensen realized that many of his competitors had something Miranda’s lacked: free internet.
~*~
After a while, Jared started joining the staff behind the counter. “After all,” he said “I know the drill” and he explained he could make up for all the time he distracts the staff from doing their job.
“You know I’m not paying you, right?” Jensen said one day, as he tried to squeeze his way past Jared to get a loaf of pumpkin seed bread from the top shelf.
“I know other ways you can pay me,” Jared tried, only to get the evil eye from Jensen.
“Don’t even try,” was all he said.
When Jared had served customers every day for two weeks straight, Jensen saw the need to sit him down. “Seriously Jared, I can’t pay you! When you quit and got disability, I had to hire people to do the work you used to do. I can’t pay you as well!”
“I know that. It’s not about the money!”
“So why are you doing it?”
“Because I want to. I’m bored.”
“So bored that you want to work – for free? At Miranda’s?”
“Yeah, well… I need something to do, otherwise I go crazy! And what about helping my boyfriend out, didn’t we agree that I am allowed to do that?”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean working, almost every day, in your boyfriend’s business without getting paid to do so.”
“It’s been only a few times, Jensen. We both know that there will be times that I am so sick that I won’t be able to spend any time there for weeks.”
“Yeah, I know that.”
“So?”
“So, it doesn’t feel right.”
“It does to me!”
And though it felt right for Jared, it never did for Jensen.
~*~
It wasn’t until they had been in Jensen’s cousin Catherine’s wedding, that Jensen got it. When Jared tried to find an answer to the seemingly innocent question, “so what do you do for a living?”
“I don’t know who I am anymore,“ is what Jared had whispered to Jensen that night after they turned off the lights.
~*~
“Are you finished packing this box?” Jared point at a moving box, mostly filled with office supplies.
“Yeah, I think so,” Jensen says while he let his eyes sweep the room one more time to check and see if he has forgotten anything.
“Shall I take it out?”
“Yeah.”
They pack down the whole store, to move it to a new location.
After he and Jared had talked about the reason why students never stuck around it the shop, Jared had an idea. He said “what about making a separated area in the shop, where it’s custom made to use laptops and charge your phone. It will draw in students that wants to work on a paper while eating lunch. They already come in to buy coffee, because your coffee is the best, but they leave again right away. Make them stay for that second cup of coffee and lunch. Offer people a place to charge their phones, and they will buy a coffee while they do it. I know students might sit long, and not spend a lot of money, so having many tables designated to this won’t make a huge enough turnover, but I genuinely think it will be a good idea to set aside a little part of Miranda’s to this customer group.”
The idea had been playing around in Jensen’s head for a while, and he had talked it over with Jared many times. “Can you work the numbers for me?” he had asked one day, knowing that Jared had a head for numbers. If you think we can make this work, after you have run the numbers, then I’ll talk to Danneel about it.”
He did talk to Danneel about it, and they decided that to do this, they needed a bigger and better location. This was the excuse they needed to finally do what they long had wanted, but never had the courage to do. They would move the shop.
Everything had to be taken down: from curtains to chairs to water heaters and knives and forks. Everything was being packed down, given away or thrown out. Jensen had been prepared for it to be a lot of work. Known that there were many things to be looked at, decisions to be made about what should happen to said thing. Should you throw away or keep it? Should it be kept at the store or at home? Can we still use it, or is it too old? All of these things he was prepared for.
What he was not prepared for was how it would affect him mentally.
He didn’t realize how emotional he would be. How much memories and feelings he attached to small, seemingly unimportant objects. Grandma Miranda’s old kettle for instance. It had been stored on the shelf under the old and beaten kitchen counter for years. It was a long time since that kitchen counter had been used as a kitchen counter. Office supplies had taken over a long time ago. Now it was full of binders and papers and everything Jensen needed to do the paperwork that came with running a shop. It was a chaotic office, but it had done its job.
In the new location he would have a real office at the back of the store. It wouldn’t be huge, but it would be closed off, and it would be his. No one from the staff, except for him and Danneel would ever need to go in there. They would have a small kitchen in the back, but only with a small counter. Most of the food was prepared in the store front anyway. That’s how the franchisor wanted it, and that’s how Jensen had done it.
In the years since the kitchen counter was turned into Jensen's office, mixing bowls and pots and pans had been gradually removed, and the only thing left was this old kettle. It was bulky and scratched, and nowhere as shiny as Jensen is sure it once were, but it was still a beautiful kettle. The first thing Miranda did when she came to the store in the morning was to take out the kettle, and it was the last thing to be put in place when she closed for the night. He customers were served coffee from one out of two coffee makers from the 50s, but Miranda herself would always make her own coffee in the kettle at the back of the store. He had removed most of the remaining of Miranda’s old equipment, but he hadn’t had the heart to touch the last item she ever put away.
The decision to move the store was made almost a year ago. But it had taken him this long to dare to move from the location it was first born.
“Are you okay?”
Jensen notices that Jared is looking at him.
“What?”
«Are you okay? You look pale.”
“What am I even doing?”
“Is it tough?”
Jensen just manages to nod. He finds neither words nor voice to describe the storm that takes place inside him. "I did not think it would be so tough."
"What is it that is so hard?"
"I don’t know. Everything. Memories. It's a bit like losing grandma all over again."
Jared has abandoned everything he was about to pack down and sit down next to Jensen. A box full of Miranda's cookbooks works as a chair, and Jensen holds his head in his hands. "When we packed her house, and shared plates, cups and bowls between us, I thought that would be the worst.
Everything that belonged to the store came to me, as I bought it from my mother and uncle, but I
realize now that I really pack away the legacy of grandma and grandpa. This was their life. It was in here they spent their days. It was here that they unfolded and flourished and lived out what they dreamed of. What if I'm wrong? "
"What do you mean?"
“What if I lose the essence of Miranda’s by moving? By making too many changes?”
“You won’t!”
"Are you sure?”
"Yes," Jared grabs Jensen’s hands. "It was not the house, and the kitchen counter that represented Miranda's, that was the soul. It was the people who filled it. It was the love and the skill that was put into business. It was the service they gave to their customers. Customers who came back time after time because they got the little extra here that they couldn’t get anywhere else. "
"But that’s not there anymore."
"Isn’t it?"
"No. What they got here was grandma's pastries. Nobody could bake like her. And is long gone. Now the baked goods are exactly the same here, as in all other stores in the same chain. Miranda's grandma and grandpa's pastry shop, where they stood for the entire production line. Everything was baked in their kitchen. Now it's a franchise, it will never be the same. "
"It has been a franchise for years Jensen, and that didn’t change Miranda’s soul, and neither does changing location."
"But the store itself was retained. What is left when both the pastries and the premises have been replaced? Is there anything left of Miranda's then? "
"You're left."
"But I'm just ..."
"No, Jensen, you are left! And you are Mike and Miranda's grandson. You are the one who sat in Miranda's kitchen summer after summer. You are the one who loves this store, loved it enough to take it on when the rest of your family said enough was enough. You are the one who deserves the credit of bringing it forward, take it to the next step. It's yours. It is a result of Mike and Miranda’s labor, but also of your’s. You can bring it to it’s full potential if you’re not scared of taking the next step.”
“And if I fail?”
“Then I’m here to catch you.”
~ *~
They won’t move far, just across the town square. It is only 102 steps from Miranda’s to the new location. The new location is lying on the corner of the square, facing the main street, where the busses goes and the tram stops. There will be more people rushing in to get a hot drink to warm their hands on cold days there, as there are more busses stopping there than in front of their current location. It’s not only the local route stopping at every little corner of the town stopping there, but in the main road, there are also busses connecting with other towns, bringing students and workers into town every morning, and transport them back home in the afternoon.
They had been looking at inventory for the new location. It had been empty for a while, ever since the Gap store lying there had moved to the new mall two blocks down, but 3 weeks ago, Jensen had received the keys to the place. He and Jared had unlocked the doors and taking their first steps into Miranda’s new locale late at night, after Jensen had worked the late shift at Miranda’s. They hardly dared to speak up, the room was empty, and no soft textures to soften the noise, and they felt their every word were bouncing off the empty walls.
“How will we manage to fill this?” Jensen barely whispered the words. “Oh my god, it’s huge.” He never could remember it being this big. It didn’t feel this huge when it was filled with clothes.
“It’s perfect,” Jared said.
And perfect it was.