The Quiet Ever After

Croissant City - 1

"I'm not going to lie to you, Nina, I don't know if I've ever faced something this complicated."

"Axel, please. Go buy the croissants from the store and save yourself the headache."

She could have punched him in the gut and hurt him less. He stepped back, aghast, into their kitchen counter. Nina rolled her eyes.

"Not all of us have the simple luxury of curating whatever we need easily," Axel said.

"I mean it is costing me money. And I still have to make the coffee."

Axel folded his arms. "Bad example. But! Come on. Think about how much fresher they'll be straight-up homemade. Everyone is going to think about how good these store-bought croissants are and then bam! They're actually homemade! How cool is that!"

Nina leaned on the island in the kitchen where Axel had printed five different recipes on how to make croissants. He'd already started taking notes on them.

Last night, in the neighborhood Facebook group, it'd been decided to change the mid-November barbecue to a brunch event. Like the barbecue, the event would be held at the park so that families could bring their kids and there would still be some games. The change came with two reasons: last year, nobody really participated because it happened at a point in the day when nobody was free; and, this year, they wanted to honor Geoff and Carol, who always loved a good brunch.

As such, Brittany, who was the de facto social media manager of the neighborhood, had been putting out feelers for the best time for the event to take place and consolidated it down to a brunch. Those who confirmed participation, knowing it was a pot-luck style event, were given assignments on what to bring, as was normally the case with the barbecue.

Most of the neighborhood got involved. There were some doubles, like Axel and the croissants. His first reaction was to message Brittany and ask for something else but he didn't want to inconvenience anyone else. This was his burden to bear. Baking may never have been his strong suit, but he had tons of time to master the art of croissants or fail close enough to doing so.

"I didn't think this was a contest."

"It's not. But I think it'd be nice if I put a little more effort into this. It'll help make the first neighborhood brunch memorable!"

Nina was the only one of the two who participated last year, providing utensils and plates because she was unsure what the vibe would be from everyone else. Axel had been quite looking forward to the event since Geoff passed away. Everyone had a good time at the memorial for him but it hadn't been many people in the neighborhood, just the folks on the street. He'd get to see way more of them and interact with them.

Plus, it was going to be entertaining to see the people vying for a spot on the HOA board for the election at the end of the month.

He stared at the recipes before him, picked out not only by the delectable pictures on the headers but also by how well they presented the information on how to make the croissants and how streamlined they were for a novice like him at the start.

The intricacies of getting the right dough and flavors, then properly rolling them up, and at last getting that perfect, crispy top...

"Plus, consider the variety," Axel said. "Some can be your plain-Jane croissants and some can maybe have chocolate or strawberry jelly in them."

"Would people be into that?"

"No idea. But maybe I'll make it a thing."

None of the recipes necessarily called for putting anything in the croissants, but a few had some notes at the end on how to properly do so.