The Solace of Bay Leaves

out front. She spoke in Chinese to someone I couldn’t see. Then a girl emerged, maybe four or five, in a purple jacket. The woman let the door clang shut and grabbed the child’s hand, tugging her down the hall past me.
It’s not unusual to see children in the Market, shopping with their families or taking in the sights. The Market runs a preschool, and I love seeing the line of little ones, holding hands, as their teachers take them on a walk or a field trip. Was this girl the old woman’s granddaughter? Was she the child in the photo Agent Greer had given me? And where were they going?
All questions that would have to wait. I made a left past the cheese shop, waved to Misty at Three Girls, and came out on Pike Place. Moments later, I reached my shop. Stashed my tote and grabbed the dog leash. My staff are perfectly willing to tend to Arf when I’m away, but it isn’t fair to leave him alone with them too long or too often.
“Good boy, good boy.”
On our stroll toward the park, I wondered about Joe Huang and what he might have done. Whether Agent Greer and her partner would return to the Market, watching for him.
A few drops of rain hit my face. In my haste, I’d skipped the dog’s raincoat. “Short trip, buddy. I’ll make it up to you, promise.” As soon as he finished his business, we turned around. Back in the shop, Arf trotted to his cushion. I tied my apron strings and returned to the shop floor in time to hear Matt ask a customer how he could help her.
“Oh, I don’t cook,” she said.
I paused, wondering how he would handle her response. It was not an uncommon one.
He smiled. Though one arm is covered in tattoos, he has a sweet, boy-next-door smile. “You eat, don’t you? We’ve got some terrific herbed salts. Here—try one.” He plucked a tester jar of our lavender-bay salt from a display, twisted off the lid, and handed it to her.
She eyed him warily, as if unsure what to do with it.
“Give it a sniff,” he said. “Tell me what you notice. Then sprinkle a few grains in your palm and give it a taste.”
I spotted a tea spill on the floor and stepped behind the counter for a rag.
“He’s so good,” Cayenne said. “People say stupid stuff like that, I want to ask why they bothered to come in. I know, they’re with a friend. Or they wanted to get out of the rain.”
“But you’re learning,” I said. My two new hires were teaching each other. Matt didn’t cook much when he started. I wasn’t sure he cooked much now, though he had talked about watching the famous Jacques Pépin video after hearing Cayenne discuss it with a customer, and teaching himself to make an omelet. “Sometimes, customers say the first thing that pops into their heads, to avoid being pressured into buying something. Laugh it off. Say ‘I’ll let you browse.’ Or offer them tea.”
“And sometimes they’re poopheads,” Sandra said.
Matt’s customer may have started as a poophead, but she ended up buying several jars of herbed salt, our best-selling pepper blend, and our spice tea. “Getting an early start on my Christmas shopping,” she said.
“If I shopped that early, I wouldn’t remember what I bought for who,” Sandra said as she took the woman’s credit card. “Or where I stashed it in the house.”
At three thirty, the front door opened and a young man entered. A few feet in, he stopped, scanning the shop.
I’d completely forgotten that Misty’s deliveryman was coming in to interview. What was his name? Cory? No, Cody.
“Cody,” I said, holding out my hand. “Good to see you. Been in before?”
He hadn’t, though it turned out that he’d met both Matt and Sandra at the bakery. He’d swapped his white T-shirt for a white polo, and added a belt to the green cargo pants. I gave him the nickel tour—the place is so small that that’s all it takes. “You’ll be working closely with me and Matt. Let’s have a chat.” I poured us each a cup of spice tea and we sat in the nook.
“This is great,” he said. “The shop, I mean. The tea, too.” He’d pushed the cup away and now drew it closer.
“The spices are pretty strong,” I said. “You don’t have to like the tea to work here.”
That brought a shaky smile. I hoped conversations with strangers didn’t always make him so nervous.
“Misty said you needed a few extra hours,” I said.
“I’m working at the bakery from six to ten most days. Then I grab whatever odd jobs I can—help people move, clean out their basements, dig gardens.”
Not uncommon for young men, especially a Gen Z-er like Cody. “Are you in school?”
“No. I went to Seattle U for two years.” He paused and I kept my tongue. Most people will keep talking, if you let them, and that’s when they tell you what you really want to know. It didn’t take Cody long, staring at the table as the words spilled out. “I—I played soccer in high school and my parents wanted me to get a scholarship, but I wasn’t good enough. Freshman year, I walked on, but didn’t make the team. We scraped together enough for sophomore year, but I decided not to go back. I—I don’t know what I want to do, and my parents were all stressed and yelling at me and each other. I just—I just want to earn enough to move out. I’ll go back to school eventually. I know it’s important. But not right now.”
He was almost breathless, slowly raising his gaze to mine.
“I can’t promise you more than a few hours a day, but it may work into something more.”