Giving Blood at the Danton Bakery

10. Sugar Cookies

The morning of the blood drive was chaos. 

There was a mistake at the print shop and the stickers for the cookie packaging had to be remade, only just finishing that morning. Beatrice was able to make the dough the night before and freeze it into logs for easy slicing and mass baking, but she wasn't strong enough to cut the frozen slices efficiently and it slowed the process down. Theo and Mason were streamlining the packaging process, but since it was a bright sunny morning outside they were going to be trapped in the back of the bakery until sunset.

Edith was the only one really handling anything well, and she volunteered her van for the cookie delivery. Biscuit happily rode in the front seat with her, head out the window and tongue flapping in the wind. Everything a corgi could ask for.

Theo in particular was frazzled as he paced the room. Rushing from the table with the plastic wrapping, to the counter where the hot cookeis cooled, to the table where Mason was stickering the individual cookies shut.

"Relax," Mason scoled. "You're going to run a path in your brand new floor."

Theo snapped his head to Mason, wearing a familiar grumpy expression. "This is going to go perfect, Mason, or so help me-"

"You'll what?" Mason shot his friend a lopsided grin. "You'll kill me?"

Theo's mouth opened, and then closed, and then opened again as he raised a scolding finger to his long-time friend and already very much dead vampire.

"Mason's right," Bea called from the kitchen, closing the oven door with her hip as her arms were full with a tray of fresh cookeis. "You should relax more, Theo. You have a beautiful business here. And think of all the people that will smile when they have these treats today!"

Bea set the steaming pan down on the counter, beaming at Theo with such a dazzling smile that he froze in place for a moment.

"Theo?" Mason asked. "You okay there, buddy?"

Theo blinked. "Yes, uh, what?" 

"Beautiful bakery, happy people, cookies," Mason said, rolling his hand in the air with each word he said. "Keep up, Theo."

Theo clenched his jaw, glaring at Mason before turning back to Bea. "Bea, I'm so happy the bakery has you. It really wouldn't be the same with a baker who didn't care about the customers."

Bea laughed, a blush of pink coloring her cheeks as she slid her oven mitts off of her hands. Setting them on the counter, she began moving cookies from the hot surface to a cooling rack nearby. "I'm glad too, Theo. Not everyone agrees with your sentiment. I wish more places in the pastry world cared about simple baking and happy people."

Theo tilted his head, now watching Bea curiously as she finished moving the cookies over. How does a twenty something like Bea know her way around an industrial kitchen so well? It almost reminded him of something he had seen before, but to look back on two hundred years of memories it was impossible to say what that something could be.

"Well!" Bea dusted her hands together and then removed her apron. "Since my part is done I really need to get to the library. I've got a group project meeting."

"Thank you for coming today, Bea," Theo said. "It means a lot to me. I'm sure your beautiful treats will be just what we need to get the word out about the blood donations."

"Of course," Bea said, grabbing her bag from the hook by the back door and slinging it over her shoulder. "Let's just hope it works. See you later, tell Edith thanks for watching Biscuit 'til I get back!"

"Aw, she's a big softie," Mason called. "Don't you worry about Edith."

Bea laughed, giving a quick wave before she disappeared through the back door of the shop.