location: the happy apple status: open (0/3 cap)
If there was one thing Ms. Misty Apple knew about mornings, it was that they never went according to plan. Not that she was what you’d call meticulous — Lord no, that wasn’t her style — but she did like to tell herself she was a woman with a system. Four a.m. start for the morning prep, doors open at seven sharp, afternoon prep by ten. It was a rhythm she’d been keeping time with for more years than she cared to count. A person would think, by now, she’d stop being surprised when something went sideways.
And yet, here they were.
The merengue — her beautiful, delicate, perfectly whipped, had-such-potential merengue — had the audacity to collapse in her oven. Betrayal of the highest order. Did it stop to consider her feelings? Her schedule? The tiny, flickering hope she might get through one morning without a crisis? It did not.
But Misty Apple isn't a quitter. She's a fixer. A scrappy, flour-dusted, sleep-deprived problem solver.
What she needs is another set of hands.
“Honey, come over here!” she calls, flagging down the poor soul who’d made the tactical error of standing too close to the entrance of the Happy Apple. One arm waves frantic and high, the other still clutching a mixing spoon like a weapon. “You look capable enough. Can you hold a bowl? I really need you to hold a bowl.”