Pauline stretched her torso, twisting toward the print projected over her floral headscarf. The market light faded as the sun moved behind the butcher shop next door. Alongside the stall, where baskets of beans were on sale with the vendor who proclaimed them the best you could buy in the whole village. She could smell that the couple with the smokehouse had begun pulling out their latest smoked meats. Pauline yawned and shook her head, the shop was especially slow today.
Pauline was a young girl when she started learning from her grandpa Mauricio the art of making chocolate. At his knee she learned the secrets of chocolatiering the way her family had for generations. Papa, as she always called her grandpa, liked to make a spectacle for their customers. Watching together, the crowd anticipated his delectable works of art. When his collectable truffles were complete, they sold out in no time. Pauline's were more delicate, more exotic, more fragrant, and without his showmanship they never sold as well. Papa's life was in the market with his family and the other craftsmen. He was so abundant, that his loss left a hole surrounded by depressed space where the sounds and smells were muted. Pauline gazed through the hole and decided to close for the day.
Quietly gathering her food donations for the week, Pauline failed to notice Charlie, her childhood friend who believed she had her papa's talent, arrive in his wheelchair. "Closing early, just as customer arrives?" Pauline jumped a little as she was broken out of her trance by Charlie's sudden appearance. "Yeah, no one will come by anyway they rarely do anymore" she whispered. Charlie barely heard what she said but was familiar with the morose look on Pauline's face. It was essentially her default look since Papa Mauro passed away.
Charlie had battled depression for years but Pauline was always there for a dose of pity prevention. He hoped to return the favor. "I need refreshments for my reading tomorrow. Harry says he expects fifteen people and they are tired of goldfish." Pauline laughed. Charlie was the print shop owner and he loved Pauline. She gently rebuffed his advances in high school and now they were dear friends. They graduated from the same university just four years ago and even spent their senior year in an off campus apartment together that ended up being the party house of the whole school.
"Well I suppose I could whip something up" Pauline said, while already planning in her head a new truffle recipe with a cayenne dust she could test out. "Look Pauline it will all work out, look at my print shop." "I almost lost her, twice." "Then I read about that new machine, the Xerox, and boom, success." Unbeknownst to Charlie Pauline silently mouthed those exact words having heard them several dozen times.
"Listen my little pea, remember no matter what anyone tells you, follow your passion and good things will come." It was the last thing Pauline heard in her dream from her Papa before she woke up with a sigh. The dream was familiar to her, she'd had it dozens of times since her Papa passed.
The sun reflected off the lake and you could smell the dew from the grass on the other side of the road. Racing down the countryside Pauline had a clear head. These Sundays where she opened the shop late and had the morning to herself helped keep her from falling into a depression. Speed was all that mattered right now, push harder, and again, don't forget to breathe. The repetition of the motion, the wind whipping against her face, and that slight smell of hot tire on the road were all part of her escape. She couldn't help but think of the first time she was on a bike. Her mom and dad trying to hold her seat as she pedaled down the sidewalk and her admonishing them saying she didn't need help. Charlie had mentioned that Pauline might want to get a hobby when she started to talk about feeling sad. She had always enjoyed going out on her bike but these days it was a need. It filled a hole that she felt she had to do something about, she felt accomplished on that bike, something she hadn’t been getting anywhere else lately.
The shop was immaculately kept, Pauline made sure of it. Often on nights when sleep escaped her, you could find Pauline scrubbing the counters or arranging the flour by frequency of use. She arrived Monday to a great surprise waiting at the door, her "uncle" Sal sipping his usual espresso. She ran over to hug him but he stopped her exclaiming, "Paula, a lady does not run to a gentleman caller." This was her Uncle Sal in a sentence. He was now in his late 70's and retired but got up every day shaved put on a freshly cleaned suit and went about his day. This was the only way he knew how to do things, Pauline had heard his diatribe on jeans in the workplace and untucked shirts.
"So Pauline, how's the shop going?" his tone giving away that he already knew the answer. "Well, I assume that Charlie has already told you and that's why you are here." Sal laughed loudly, he had one of those laughs that came from his belly and came out as almost a dull roar. "I always knew you were too smart for me to get one over on you mi picolo piselo." Pauline winced at the term, only her grandpa used that specific sentiment, italian for little pea. "When you were little I would do the quarter behind the ear trick for all the kids and they would laugh and laugh but you, nothing." "You would just stare at me like you were insulted I even tried." Pauline chuckled remembering all those birthday parties that he did that and how he waited for the laugh that would satisfy his need to entertain, just like Papa. Pauline repeated just like Papa to herself. She called him aloud in her mind knowing that reminiscing with Uncle Sal made her happy now but leave her gloomy for the rest of the day.
Pauline opened the store and invited Sal in to sit while she turned on the lights and peeked into the fridge to check that everything was setting properly. She came out to find that Uncle Sal was gone but something was left on the counter, an envelope overflowing with cash.
Pauline was dumbstruck and felt as if she was rendered paralyzed, trying to run after Sal but her brain wasn't responding as if it was operating on a different wavelength trying to figure out what went wrong. When she finally came to she grabbed the envelope and sprinted out the door to catch him. Up and down the streets she searched for him with no success. Like a thief in the night he was gone. But he wasn't a thief, at least she didn't think so. So was he Robin Hood, giving to her cause he thought she needed it. She knew one person who could shed some light on the situation. "Charles, get your ass out here right now!" Pauline's voice echoed to the back where Charlie was taking inventory and he shivered involuntarily. He wheeled to the front of the store and stopped Pauline from going behind the counter. "Sorry miss, employees only" he joked hoping to add some levity to tense situation.
"What did you do? What did you say to him?"
Pauline whispered as the noticed people still were staring after her raucous entrance just a minute before.
"You need help. I said you need help and you do."
Charlie turned around to face the couple perusing wedding invitations saying,
"We do lovely chocolate guest gifts."
Pauline had enough of his humor, grabbed his chair and wheeled him into the back room.
"Not cool, not cool, not cool."
Charlie hated whenever anyone started pushing him around just because they could. Pauline knew that and felt it conveyed how upset she was.
"Charlie I'm only going to ask you once, what did you say to Sal?"
"My Sal?" he responded hoping that he could banter her into remembering he only ever wants to help her.
"Charlie"
Pauline said in an almost pleading manner the fire in her eyes dying down to embers. That look broke him. Pauline was the strongest person Charlie knew; since they were kids she was unflappable. He knew her parents were the reason why vulnerability was hard for her. They never talked about them save for one night when too many margaritas led to an all night discussion, which had not disparated her demons.
"You needed help. I told Sal you needed help. Pauline, Papa left you with the shop to carry on the life you shared and loved. Without him the shop is not the same. You need to try something new, either in the shop or in the world. I will hate for you to go but you need just a connection to his legacy. You are his sustenance. You can't sustain the shop on his memory. It has to be yours."
"Pauline, you know how close he was to your grandfather." Charlie said as they were now at his apartment, having cooled down from the events of that afternoon. The sparsely furnished living room was filled with papers rustling in the breeze that came through the screen door. "Think of it as a possibility to start fresh, with that kind of money you could travel, study, you always wanted to see the French Alps." Pauline sat taking everything in, having only sort of heard what Charlie had said. "You know I can't leave the shop for that long. It wouldn't survive." "Well have you thought about selling..." "ARE YOU CRAZY" Charlie was visibly shaken at the outburst, the second time today Pauline had accosted him. "I'm the only one left. If it closes I've failed them and ..." Charlie couldn't hear what came next through her sobbing. He wheeled over to her and she laid her head on his lap, they sat like that in total silence until they both fell asleep.
Pauline got to the train station early. She watched the freight cars pull in, anxiously anticipating Charlie's shipment, the box car filled with her shop, her shop that she would open in Mavac, a town she found while cycling through France, while finding her way.
