20 in 5 -- Vol II -- Sweet Mornings

Nothing like an early start...

She came into the bakery as she did every morning…A little flustered, slightly flushed, her hair sporting a stray tendril or two, her hands flitting about her slim figure in a near-frantic search for keys, wallet, sunglasses or change.


Milton was always there, often kneading dough for one of Eiffel Pierre’s delicate pastries. The quiet dawn hours were his favorites, but they gained a new aura once he knew that she—Jean Marie—would walk in. She was simply beautiful, not in the glamorous, plastic modern way, but in the natural “look twice and you’ll see” way, the kind of beauty that slips across your eyes, brings a small smile to your lips, then gradually absorbs you until you can’t remember ever thinking she wasn’t beautiful.


Milton’s claim to fame, at first glance, or maybe down to a third or fourth, were his eyes, a deep green that shimmered with gold specks reminiscent of elves in a wondrous fairy tale. Sadly, those beautiful eyes were obscured by the heavy lenses of glasses that kept him barely this side of legally blind. His eyes were the main reason he took up baking, for the work relied very little on seeing and oh-so-much on sensitivity and feeling.


Jean Marie breezed in and Milton, as was his habit, smiled shyly, wiped his hands of flour and stood in rapt attention as she flittered and flexed in search of…something. Milton waited patiently until Jean Marie smiled up at him and asked his usual opening question: “Will you buy a pastry or three?”


She laughed, as she usually did. Their morning ritual complete, Jean Marie bit her lower lip and scanned the display, hovering over each item as if absorbing its essence. Milton watched, entranced, taking in her profile, the gleam in her eyes and the very sense that Jean Marie was alive in a magical way no one else was.


Milton’s heart sped up. It always did when Jean Marie was around.


“A maple-glazed doughnut, a pair of ladyfingers and a medium coffee, please.” She frowned slightly. “I may be overdoing it.”

The rest of this story is continued in...

January 2012 Edition of "20 in 5"

To finish "Sweet Mornings" and 19 other great stories, please buy the 2nd edition of "20 in 5," a monthly collection of flash fiction.