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“Okay… I think this is it,” Pim murmured half to himself as he squinted at the sign plastered on the front of the building. “‘Mad Batters’... oh, I get it! That’s kinda funny.”
Charlie sighed as he undid his seat belt, holding back a yawn. He was kicking himself for sleeping in that morning. He didn’t leave himself enough time to make or grab coffee without being late for work. It was too early for this.
“Now we just need to find Andrew,” Pim said as they pushed the door open. It was a quaint little cafe, intricately designed pastries on display in the clear case next to the register. Charlie’s stomach growled at the sight of them.
“Do you think they have coffee here?” Charlie wondered aloud, skimming the menu boards. The items were all written on a chalkboard in pastel cursive lettering, complete with drawings of croissants and coffee mugs.
“We can get coffee when we’re done,” Pim said, shaking his head when Charlie pouted in protest.
“I need it for this, though,” Charlie muttered. “I’m not nearly awake enough for this.”
“Oh, stop it, you’ll live,” Pim gave Charlie’s arm a light smack before he stepped closer to the counter. There was someone behind it now. She had just come from the back room, a cloud of flour on her apron.
“Hello ma’am!” Pim chirped, grinning brightly at the woman. “We’re the Smiling Friends and we’re looking for an Andrew, is he around?”
“Oh, yeah, he’s in the back,” She replied. “Let me see if he’s busy.”
She disappeared for a moment, someone else walking out to take her place. She opened the pastry case, adjusting one of the little signs that had fallen over. She looked at Charlie and Pim and then spoke.
“You’re here for Andrew, yeah?” She asked them, stepping away from the pastry case. Pim nodded in confirmation.
“You can come on back if you’d like,” She gestured to the little gate that separated the back of house and the front. “There’s a table back there you can wait at. Do either of you want anything to eat or drink?”
“Coffee, please,” Charlie didn’t hesitate. “And, uh, one of those little plum danish things you’ve got.” Pim shot Charlie a glare.
“Charlie,” Pim murmured in the tone that he always used when he deemed Charlie’s behavior to be impolite.
Charlie frowned. “What, man? She asked.”
She laughed. “Really, it’s no trouble. Do you want anything, mister…?”
“Pim,” Pim supplied with a smile. “And just some water for me, if you don’t mind.”
“Cool, I’ll bring ‘em over to you,” She replied, opening the gate for the two of them. Charlie let Pim step through first, following close behind as they walked towards the small table that appeared to be in their employee break area.
Someone sped past Charlie, nearly shoulder-checking him in the process. The woman stopped, meeting Charlie’s eyes when he turned around.
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry-” She paused abruptly, eyeing Charlie up and down. Charlie froze, too. He had a feeling that he recognized her. Her voice sounded familiar, and now that he was looking at her, she looked familiar too. Almost instantaneously, Charlie’s brain supplied him with her name.
“Andrea?” He blurted, raising an eyebrow. Andrea’s eyebrows shot upwards, as did Pim’s.
“Cece?” She gawked, loosely pointing at Charlie. A wave of hot, deep-seated embarrassment washed over him at the sound of the nickname.
“Well, yeah, but, I go by Charlie now,” He stammered, hoping the dread he was feeling wasn’t visible on his face. Andrea seemed to connect the dots, appearing to join Charlie in his dread for a moment before speaking again.
“Charlie,” She corrected, smiling. Charlie was relieved at the lack of weirdly invasive questions. “It’s good to see you again! How long’s it been?”
“You two know each other?” Pim butted in, equal parts surprised and confused.
Andrea laughed. “Know each other? We were best friends in high school!”
Pim’s eyebrows raised even higher, which Charlie didn’t think would be possible. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Charlie confirmed with a nod. “After graduation, we kinda drifted apart. We tried to keep in touch as best we could, but, you know… adulthood, man. Shit happens.”
“What’re you doing in Philly?” Charlie asked, Andrea following them to the break room table.
“Oh, my fiance-” She paused to gesture to the ring on her hand with a grin. “He got a pretty solid job offer here, so we both moved from Chicago a few years ago.”
“Oh, nice,” Charlie hummed. “Wait, is Jared your fiance now?”
Andrea smiled. “Yeah, yeah, he is.”
Before the conversation could go farther, Andrew came from around the corner with the woman they saw when they first walked in. She had Charlie’s coffee and his pastry in one hand, and Pim’s water in the other. Andrea smiled sheepishly as she stood back up.
“Sorry, I forgot you guys are also working,” She chuckled. “It was nice to catch up with you for a little bit, Charlie!”
“Yeah,” He called in reply as she turned the corner. Charlie heaved a heavy sigh, feeling his skin crawl where Pim’s eyes were locked on him.
“I’ll explain later, don’t ask,” Charlie muttered, his voice coming out sharper than he intended it to. Pim raised his hands a bit in surrender, dropping the subject as he took a sip of his water.
“Hello, Mr. Andrew! I’m Pim and this is Charlie, and we’re the Smiling Friends!” Pim beamed through his usual greeting as Andrew took the seat across from them. “What’s got you down in the dumps?”
“Well, a rival bakery chain just opened a new shop down the road,” Andrew began with a frown. “They’re stealing all of our business. I haven’t made a profit in weeks.”
“Oh no, that’s horrible,” Pim gasped. His free hand flew to his chest, over his heart. Charlie fought the urge to roll his eyes.
“Well, do they have something that you don’t?” Charlie asked, sipping his coffee. Pim shot him that warning glare again.
“I don’t know,” Andrew admitted with a shrug. “Whatever it is they have, my usual customers can’t get enough.”
Pim pouted. “I’m sure they’ll come back! Nothing beats the quality and care of a small business compared to a chain, right Charlie?”
“Yeah, sure,” Charlie agreed half-heartedly. Even though his reply was less than enthusiastic, Pim seemed pleased with it anyway.
“If that were the problem, they would’ve come back by now,” Andrew grumbled. “The new Donut Craze shop can’t be that good. They don’t even make anything fresh.”
Charlie began to drown out the conversation, Pim asking Andrew half a million questions about pastries and baking and other things related to his business. Charlie didn’t know shit about running a business, and neither did Pim. It sounded like Andrew needed business advice rather than a smile. At least Charlie was getting paid to eat pastries and drink coffee.
“This is really good,” Charlie interrupted their conversation after taking a bite. “No way Donut Craze’s shit tastes better than this.”
“Maybe your usual customers just have bad taste,” Charlie added with a shrug. “It’s, like, common knowledge that fast-food chain pastries and baked goods taste like ass.”
“Crass language aside,” Pim gave Charlie a side-eye. “Charlie’s right. Maybe they just have something that they’ve always wanted to try that you don’t have?”
“Like donuts,” Charlie pointed out like it was obvious. “I didn’t see any donuts in that little case out there.”
Pim blinked, caught off guard. “Oh. I don’t think I did either, now that you mention it. Do you sell donuts here, Mr. Andrew?”
“No, no, we don’t,” Andrew seemed dumbfounded as he shook his head. Charlie fought the urge to get up and leave.
“So yeah, no wonder they’re going to the donut place,” Charlie scoffed.
“If they want donuts , and you don’t have donuts,” Charlie continued, speaking slowly. Pim called his name to get him to stop, but he acted like he didn’t hear anything. “Of course your customers would go to Donut Craze to get them.” Andrew looked like Charlie had just solved all of the problems in the universe for him.
“I just need to sell donuts to get my customers back,” Andrew marveled, a bright grin overtaking his face. Pim joined him, and Charlie rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, great, glad we could help,” Charlie’s voice dripped with sarcasm. Pim paid him no mind and began to excitedly chatter with Andrew about the business adding donuts to his menu would bring in, grabbing the paperwork for him to sign from a folder he carried.
Once the forms were signed, Andrew said goodbye to the pair with newfound energy. He disappeared into the back room again before they could say goodbye back, muttering ideas to himself for potential donut flavors. Andrea, who was helping a customer, waved to the two of them before the door shut.
Charlie was silent when they walked to the car, the memory of being basically deadnamed still fresh in his mind. He hadn’t spoken to Andrea in almost a decade, and she had no clue that Charlie had transitioned. Nobody from Charlie’s past did.
He did that on purpose. His mom, a devout Catholic, was -- not shockingly -- unsupportive. Charlie had come out at 16, but couldn’t do anything for himself until he was an adult. As soon as he turned 18, he drove to Philly where one of his cousins lived. They were cool with it, and let Charlie stay with them until he landed a job at Smiling Friends almost 8 years ago.
While he was still on his mom’s medical insurance, he immediately sought therapy to get approval for testosterone hormone therapy. Once his mom inevitably booted him from her medical plan, Charlie scrounged for pennies to pay for his HRT out of pocket until he could get medical benefits through Smiling Friends.
Charlie exhaled, sinking into the passenger seat of the company car. It was silent for a moment, the only sound being the gentle hum of the engine idling. He could tell based off of Pim’s body language that the smaller critter hadn’t forgotten, much to Charlie’s displeasure.
“So,” Pim started, cautious as he glanced at Charlie.
Charlie’s face hardened, and he kept his gaze locked on a car that was parked across the street. “Please don’t say it.”
“She called you…” Pim trailed off, wanting to obey Charlie’s wishes. “Is that…?”
Charlie felt himself sink even further into the passenger seat. He wanted nothing but to become one with the floor. “My deadname. Cece’s my deadname. I’m trans.” He saw Pim raise his eyebrows in his peripheral vision. He wanted to throw up.
Charlie grabbed hold of his hoodie strings, twirling them in lopsided circles around his shaking fingers. “Well, it was technically Cecelia. But I hated it. It-it always sounded way too feminine. So I made everyone call me Cece instead. ‘S not much better, but still.”
“I didn’t think I’d ever hear that again, honestly,” Charlie murmured, his voice uncharacteristically small. “It kinda sent me back to-to being 17 and miserable, waiting until I turned 18 so I could leave home and actually… be myself.”
Charlie felt his breath hitch in his throat and hoped to God that Pim didn’t notice. “Caught me off guard, you know?”
“Cece, I like that,” Pim hummed after a moment, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. “Sounds cooler than my deadname, that’s for sure.”
Charlie turned away from the window so fast he almost gave himself whiplash. “Your what?”
“My deadname,” Pim repeated like it was no big deal. Charlie blinked, nonplussed at the sudden and nonchalant reveal of the information.
“It was Phoebe,” Pim continued when Charlie remained silent. “I remember asking my mum what she would’ve named me if I were born a boy instead, and she said Pim. So I went with it.”
Charlie felt almost all of the tension in his body fade, an odd mixture of confusion and relief taking its place. “Wait-wait-wait, so you’re trans, too?” Pim gave Charlie a soft smile as he nodded.
“I don’t really talk about it much,” Pim admitted, sheepishly glancing away from Charlie. “My family wasn't exactly… supportive, to say the least. And these days, you never know if people will be cool with it or not, so I just told myself I’d be stealth.”
Pim sighed. “I don’t mind talking about it if it comes up, but I’m never usually the one to bring it up first. It’s kind of a gamble how the conversation would go if I did, sadly.”
“I know exactly how you feel, Charlie,” Pim consoled. Charlie felt his face soften when Pim’s eyes met his. “Are you doing okay?”
Charlie sighed, the breath releasing most of the remaining tension in his shoulders. Warmth blossomed in his chest at the care in Pim’s voice. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine. Just startled me a little.”
“Did she… know?”
“No, no, she didn’t. I graduated at 17 and didn’t come out until the year after that. We weren’t really talking anymore at that point. College and work and stuff, you know.”
“Oh, well, at least it wasn’t on purpose, then.”
“Yeah, that’s true. It still didn’t feel good.”
“No, for sure. I’m-I’m just saying that at least it was an accident, you know? And-and not, like, malicious.”
Charlie nodded, his gaze set on something unseen in the distance. “Yeah.”
“This-this doesn’t change anything, right?” Charlie asked, his voice just above a whisper.
“No, of course it doesn’t,” Pim replied in earnest. “You’re still the same Charlie I’ve always known.”
“If anything, it’s kinda cool,” Pim shrugged with a sheepish smile. " You’re trans, I’m trans… we understand each other.”
Charlie smiled softly. It didn’t occur to him to think about it like that. “Yeah, we do.”
Pim paused, turning the radio volume up a marginal amount as he pulled away from the curb. There was a beat before he spoke again, changing the subject. “Do you want Salty’s for lunch? My treat.”
Charlie felt his smile strengthen. He sat up a little straighter. “Yeah, man. Sure.”