Chapter Text
-Oliver-
My name is Oliver Petrova or “Oli” as my friends call me. I was born in a mountain town in Bulgaria called Rila. From the time I was born till I was twelve years old I lived in Rila, Bulgaria. Till my parents moved to New York, United States Of America.
When my parents moved here to the United States with me I was 12, now I'm 25 years old. When my mom and dad moved here to New York they bought a nice Queen Anne style house. That was 13 years ago. It was weird being a Bulgarian kid back in 2012 in New York.
My mom ended up dying four years after we moved here to the United States. She had been feeling sick for awhile and when she finally decided to go to the doctor and get checked out to see what the problem was. She ended up finding out that she had stage four pancreatic cancer. So 16-year-old me and my dad had no idea on how to help. So we both talked to dozens of doctors to get advice.
I remember the smell of the hospitals me and my dad took my mom to. So we could try to get her the treatment she needed. We met with dozens of doctors and they all said my mom had six months left to live. So my mom put her foot down and told us “I’d like to spend what little time I have left with my boys.”
So both me and my dad listened to my mom and her wish to spend what little time she had left with us. The next six months were awful to be honest. Watching my mom slowly die
was devastation and what it did to my dad. As mom was slowly
dying he was withering away and I had to take care of them both.
Eventually mom succumbed to her cancer. By the time the cancer killed her, she was just skin and bone. The cancer took everything from her… from dad… from me… Her death all but destroyed my father for he was just a husk of the man who raised me. He lost weight and he started drinking till he put himself in the hospital when I was 18. It turns out the universe hates me and my family.
So my dad was taken to the hospital by the paramedics for alcohol poisoning. So when the doctors did the lab work on my dad such as blood tests, X-Rays, Cultures, and a MRI they found out my dad had terminal lung cancer. Pm top of all that the heart monitor picked up on my dads irregular heart rate. After more tests were done the doctors found out my father had stress cardiomyopathy.
Stress Cardiomyopathy occurs when a person is under severe emotional or physical stress. The condition causes the heart's muscles to weaken making it difficult to pump blood. So my dad was battling cancer, alcohol poisoning and now stress cardiomyopathy. Dealing with all that made my dads heart go out in the hospital. So there I was, orphaned at the age of 18. Then I had to plan on what to do with his body. On whether I wanted him cremated like my mom or bury him.
That was seven years ago. After my mom died me and my dad had her cremated. So when my father died two years later I decided to do the same. Now their urns are on a small memorial shelf in one of the rooms in the basement. Where I can go down there and talk to them.
Is it weird that I talk to my dead parents? Because I don’t think so. My parents were amazing parents and people and they died too soon. So just after my mom died I got a job at a high class cafe. Talk about a sudden change of dialogue. Anyways the cafe’s name is “The Happy Tart” and slowly but surely I rose through the ranks and now I'm the head baker at The Happy Tart.
It takes me about thirty minutes to get to work every morning by 6:30. So I leave my house every morning at 5:45 to make sure I'm at work on time. My morning routine is pretty simple. I get up at 4:00 and walk for thirty minutes then at 4:30 I work out for forty-five minutes. At 5:15 I take a quick shower and get ready, then at 5:25 I eat breakfast and at 5:35 I brush my teeth and then gather my stuff and feed my cast before heading to work at 5:45.
Speaking of cats, I have two girl Siamese cats, one named Luna and the other is named Lilith. Both of my cats rub against my legs as I leave the house every morning. When I leave my house I get into my truck and drive thirty minutes to work. Once I'm at work I park in the employees parking spaces in the back. Once I’ve parked my truck I go inside and change into my uniform that the big boss makes all the employees wear.
Once I’m done changing into my uniform I greet my store manager Garcia with “Good morning Garcia” and that is when she always says “Good morning Oliver” So I smiled at Garcia to be nice and then I went to clock myself in for the long day ahead. Once I’ve clocked in for the day at 6:30 I start baking what needs to be baked for the day since I work in a cafe where the desserts never last long.
My favorite thing to bake is croissants so I'm very fortunate that they are the cafe’s best sellers. So I put my long silky hair up into a bun and put on my apron with the coffee shop logo and a giant croissant under the logo. I then washed my hands in my beautiful baker’s sink and I started gathering ingredients to start baking for the day. Since I bake the treats fresh every day.
So the first thing to bake in the morning are the croissants. So I grab the butter, flour, sugar, salt, yeast and cold milk. Once I've gathered all the ingredients I carefully mix them together and lay the batter into giant triangles and then roll them up. Then I butter the pan and I was now ready to bake the croissants.Then I laid the raw croissants on the trey and put them in the oven. I usually make a batch of about 50 at a time in each oven. I have four industrial baking ovens.
The next thing on the agenda to make are the jelly tarts or Hamantaschen cookies. The ingredients are eggs, sugar, vegetable oil, orange juice, vanilla extract, flour, baking powder, and strawberry fruit preserves. Next thing that needs to be done is to preheat the oven. After preheating the oven I mixed all the ingredients together carefully. I then rolled the dough out on a lightly floured surface and rolled them out into a ½-inch thickness.
Then I cut the dough into circles using a cookie cutter. Then placed them two inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets. Next I spooned about one to two teaspoons of the strawberry preserve into the center of each cookie. Then I pinched the edges to form three corners. Next I put the cookie sheet into the oven till they turned light golden brown for about ten minutes. After they turned golden brown I took them out of the oven to cool down for a few minutes before I transferred them to the wire rack to cool down completely.
By now it was 7:30 in the morning, so I’d already baked for an entire hour. I’m not complaining but It is exhausting. (Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep) the timer went off for the croissants. So I put on my oven mitts and take the croissants out of the oven and let them cool for a minute before putting them in the warming display case one by one in little picnic style treys. Since that batch of croissants are done, that means I have to prepare another batch.
I let the new batch of dough air in the airing box so i can cook them tomorrow. Since croissants need time to make. (Beep-Beep-Beep) the timer went off again and I put my oven mitts on again and grabbed the jelly tarts out of the oven and let them cool down a bit before I transfer them to the warming display case so I wont get burned. A few minutes later I put each jelly tart in a little white tray with checkered paper and put them in the warming display case so the customers can smell then buy the desserts.
The next thing to bake are the giant chocolate chip cookies. So I gather the ingredients: unsalted melted butter cooled to room temperature, brown sugar, graduated sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, all purpose flour, cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder, salt and chocolate chunks. Then I gradually add the ingredients. Then I covered the cookie dough with plastic wrap and transferred it to the refrigerator to chill for at least 30 minutes.
About 15 minutes before the dough is done chilling I preheat the oven and lined the baking sheets with parchment paper. Once the dough has chilled and the oven has preheated, I remove the cookie dough from the fridge and scoop half a cup of dough and roll it into a round ball. Then I placed the cookie dough on the prepared baking sheets, spacing them several inches apart and pressed them down. Flattening them some.
I then transfer the cookie sheets to the oven to bake for 15 minutes. After they were done baking I let them cool down before putting them in their cute little white trays with checkered paper and then put them into the warming display case for the customers to see and smell. Is that technically playing dirty? Even if it is, I don't care. They sell and I make a decent living while working here.
It is now 8:30 in the morning and that's when the customers usually started picking up the pace. So that means I'm done baking for a little more than an hour till I can bake the bread at 10 am. That means I can take my apron off and wash my hands. After I cleaned myself up I made myself a coffee. I decided to grab a plate and put a croissant and a jelly tart on it. Once I had my snack and coffee I went and sat down in the corner booth of the cafe/coffee shop.
I was reading a book while munching on a jelly tart when a tall and well built man in a black trench coat came into “The Happy Tart” and was looking at the desserts. So I was relatively discreetly watching the man. My eyes were barely above my book to not look too suspicious while I was still munching on my jelly tart. So a few minutes later I finished my jelly tart, coffee, and chapter in my book. So I get up and throw away my trash and I then put my book behind the counter and put my apron back on.
That's when the very tall and muscular man said, “Which one do you recommend?” in a thick European accent. The voice was husky but didn't sound awful. Like he just woke up not too long ago. I also notice the accent sounds Russian or Austrian maybe German? Then I finally spoke, “It depends on your taste. If you like something buttery, something sweet, or perhaps something fruity?” The man then said, “I suppose I’ll have something fruity.”
The man's facial expression was unreadable to me. I couldn’t understand it which annoyed me but then I said, “The Jelly is made with strawberries. So if you want something fruity, I'd suggest that.” The man thought for a moment before saying, “I’ll try one” So I grab a little white tray with a checkered food paper with a jelly tart in it and handed it to the man and said, “If you don't like it and is repulsed by t then there will be no charge”
Word Count: 2,071