Hilary Fields - Bliss

Sera grimaced. “No, there isn’t anyone special in my life, and there hasn’t been for a long time. Kind of got my buns burned, if you know what I mean.”

Aruni nodded sympathetically.

“Right now, I’m really more focused on getting my bakery up and running than on getting laid,” Sera continued. “But please,” she hastened, “don’t tell that to Pauline. She’d have a spazz if she knew I wasn’t keen on finding someone to hop in the sack with.” Serafina flushed, lowering her voice to an agonized whisper. “You can’t know what it was like, growing up with Aunt Pauline always pushing me to be more ‘out there,’ as if getting some would solve all my problems…”

“I hear ya, sister. I love Pauline like she was my own aunt, but seriously, I can’t keep up with that dame. Tell you what. You keep me in sweet stuff, and I’ll keep your sex life—or lack thereof—our little secret.”

The two women high-fived across the Formica table. “Deal.”

I’m so glad you’re not giving up on the orgasms, dear.”

Serafina started, face instantly flaming. She glanced around to see if anyone had heard Pauline’s overly loud comment, but the aisles of the Whole Heart supermarket were free from tittering eavesdroppers. Could Pauline actually know? Sera thought with a spurt of panic. Visions of what Pauline would say—and do—if she knew the truth about her niece sent tendrils of dread down Sera’s spine. Then she relaxed a bit as realization dawned. Her aunt was talking about tonight’s meeting of the Back Room Babes, and Sera’s agreement to allow the club to continue despite the shop’s changing hands.

I’m just groggy from the flight, she reassured herself. She’d only returned late last night, and the supermarket was their first stop this morning, since Sera needed some basics for the house. More than that, she’d wanted to scope out the grocery situation and get a feel for what everyday life would really be like in Santa Fe. The answer, she’d already decided, was A-okay. Sure, Whole Heart was wildly pretentious. Pauline liked to call it “Whole Paycheck” and mutter about how much better the place had been—how much more authentic—when it was still just a local grocery called Wild Oats. It seemed pretty authentic to Sera—at least, as authentic as earnest, sustainable supermarkets could get. It smelled like a health food shop, the dry air carrying a whiff of the musty, tangy scent that always reminded her of the inside of a vitamin bottle, commingled with the odors of homemade soaps, bulk cereals that tasted like hamster feed, and always, always, the faint hint of patchouli that emanated from no evident source. She figured it must be the echoes of generations of hippies who had settled into middle-aged complacency but couldn’t quite leave behind their bohemian youth, wandering the aisles in search of enlightenment and lower cholesterol.

While you could get any kind of spelt flour, seventeen varieties of organic low-foaming shampoo, or a free-range bison steak complete with birth certificate and pictures of said buffalo frolicking on the prairie as a calf, nowhere in evidence were such simple pleasures as Oreos and Diet Coke. For that, Pauline had assured her, her needs could be amply supplied at the local Albertsons. But for the kind of yogurt Pauline preferred—goat’s milk with locally gathered honey (great for vaginal balance, if Serafina knew what she meant)—and granola that would convince Sera that granola actually tasted good, nowhere but this supermarket, with its cool sea foam décor and wide, well-stocked aisles, would do. Sera had to admit, compared to the cramped, tiny-carted, uptight grocery stores she’d frequented in Manhattan, this was a pretty sweet deal, Oreos or no Oreos.

Pauline was wheeling their cart through the deli section, passing displays of farmer’s cheese and sourdough bread that made Sera’s empty stomach rumble longingly as she followed her aunt toward the dairy case at the back. Today Pauline had braided her rough-and-tumble hair into a long rope, just a few frizzy strands escaping to frame her lined but lively face. Her T-shirt invited readers to “Ask me how I DO IT,” and Sera was grateful the accompanying diagram was covered by the gray cashmere cardigan she was sporting—a gift from Sera last Christmas that already looked like it had seen nearly as much love as its owner. Her skirt was a cheerful red broomstick affair, threaded with silver tinsel and chiming with the little Tibetan bells Pauline loved so much.

“You’re still serious about keeping the back room the way it is, right, kiddo?” Pauline persisted as she scanned the yogurt selection. “I mean, I’d hate to have to tell the gals that tonight’s their last get-together. Their climactic moment, if you get what I’m saying.” She gave a burlesque-worthy pelvic thrust that set her skirt bells chiming.

Man, she is really attached to those rubber weenies, Sera thought. She’s, like, totally fixated. Maybe it’s her way of coping with her loss?

“Well, we’ll see how it goes, I guess.” Sera shrugged, dubiously eyeing a shelf of flavored soy products that promised to revolutionize her coffee experience. “I’m mainly going to be concentrating on the front of the store, to tell you the truth, and leave the back room to its own devices.”

“Devices.” Heh, heh.

Oh, good lord, was she going to have Beavis and Butthead chuckling moronically in her mind for the rest of her life? No, silly, said the little voice in her head. Just for as long as you run a “pleasure enhancement” establishment that’s chock full of instruments you can’t even look at without giving yourself a case of rosacea.

“There’s so much to work out before I can open Bliss, I haven’t had much of a chance to think about how we’ll feature the P-HOP leftovers,” Sera continued. “I still have to interview contractors after I check out those secondhand ovens Asher was telling me about at the auction today. And change over my driver’s license, apply for my small business license, meet with the accountant… and I’ve just barely gotten things settled in New York.” She sighed, overwhelmed by the scope of her to-do list, still processing the magnitude of what she’d just done in severing ties with her past. In her head, Maggie’s voice chimed in. One day at a time, Sera. Sufficient unto the day are the troubles thereof.

“How’d that go, kid?” Pauline wanted to know. “You feelin’ okay, now that you’ve taken the plunge and said sayonara to the Big Apple?”

Sera slung her arm across her aunt’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze as they piloted the cart leisurely through the refrigerated section, feeling a wave of affection for the woman who had raised her. “I’m fine, Aunt Paulie. Excited actually. And I got a lot accomplished. I’m really looking forward to getting set up here.”

It was true. Sure, she’d still have some logistics to work out back East, but she’d been lucky—her assistant Carrie had offered to take over the lease on her loft, and wanted to carry on the catering business on her own. In fact, Carrie had been quite keen to grab Sera’s rent-stabilized apartment, claiming that since the majority of the baking had been done on the premises, it just made sense to move in. It might have been a little Single White Female for Sera if she hadn’t been so comfortable with Carrie—and if she’d cared more about what she was leaving behind. Since Sera had stopped taking commissions for her signature cakes and confections, and had been subsisting on selling more standard dessert fare to local eateries, it hadn’t been too much of a hardship handing over the reins.