Page 262 of Sweet Ruin

So I put the photo album back down once again and turn out the light.

I tell myself, This is what happiness feels like.

I almost believe it, too.

50

DELILAH

On the last day of April, I find myself closing up the shop alone.

It’s my own fault. Wendell’s compressor bill put a dent in the month, so when a caterer in Park Slope called Friday afternoon needing eight dozen mini quiches by seven in the morning, I said yes. Priya offered to stay, but I told her to go home to her daughter, because Zara had a thing at daycare with a paper crown involved and Priya had already missed one of those in March.

So it’s ten ‘til two on a Saturday morning and I’m alone with eight dozen quiches cooling on racks.

I do my closing walk. Front door locked, chain on. Case wiped. Deposit bag in the safe. Croissant dough in the refrigerator for the morning. Alarm panel by the office door, ready to be armed once I go out the back.

I’m shrugging into my coat when I smell something burning.

Not the oven smell. Not the good caramel edge of something that stayed in two minutes too long.

It’s sharper. Chemical, with a wet-garbage note under it. It reminds me of the day Connor stood at my kitchen sink feeding paper into a fire.

I stop with one arm in a sleeve.

“Hello?” I say, which is stupid, because who’s going to answer?

Then I see the smoke. It’s coming under the door in a low gray sheet, spreading along the floor like water, and there’s a light behind the frosted glass panel that shouldn’t be there.

Orange. Moving.

For about two seconds, my brain does nothing at all. It just stands there and looks.

Then it starts working very fast.

I rip my arm back out of my coat, get my phone out of my apron pocket, and dial 911 while I’m stumbling backward, away from the door.

“Fire!” I tell the woman. “There’s a fire at 4412 Fourth Avenue. Sunset Park. It’s a bakery.”

She asks if anyone’s inside.

“Just me. It’s after closing. There’s nobody else, there’s no apartment upstairs, it’s storage.”

She asks if I can get out.

“Yeah. Yes. I’m going now.”

She tells me to leave now and stay on the line.

I wouldn’t say I’ve prepared for this exactly. I’ve thought about how I’d handle a grease fire, a fryer fire, the electrical panel finally giving up—but the answer is the same answer. The main shutoff for the ovens is behind the bread rack on the wall to the left of the range.

I duck under, get my hand on the lever, and haul it a quarter turn until it stops. Then the breaker panel in the little closet by the office. I flip the big one and the shop goes dark except for the exit sign and the orange behind the back door glass.

The radio dies mid-saxophone. It’s very quiet after that. The only sound is a crackling I can hear through the wall, and a hiss like a hose.

“Ma’am? Are you outside?”

“Working on it.”