That was how, a week after getting back to town, I was headed for the local bakery. Mom’s favorite bakery. It sold, she claimed, the best bread in the province. Not having tried all the breads in the province, I had no idea how right she was. But what I did know was that I had been very specifically sent to this bakery for bread.
As it turned out, a lot of people agreed with my mom.
The line that morning was actually out the door. This wasn’t something I saw in Salt Lake. If you needed bread, you just went to a place that didn’t have a line wrapping around the block. Not that it was quite that bad, but there were at least ten people in the line outside the bakery.
“God, how good is this bread?” I muttered, joining them.
I instantly recognized the laugh that came from a couple of spaces ahead of me. Helena’s giggle was embedded too deeply for even ten years to have unearthed it completely.
“Oh, it’s won awards,” she informed me, giving me a small wave past the elderly woman who stood between us. My stomach swooped, which my brain firmly declared ridiculous.
That didn’t seem to help.
“Would you like to take my place? So that you can talk to your friend?” The woman asked, stooping to pick up the shopping bags around her feet.
“Oh, no,” Helena jumped in before I could. “Swap with me. That way, you’ll move up a place! We couldn’t ask you to move down.”
The woman agreed, exchanging places with Helena. I gave her a grin. “Well, aren’t I honored? Adding an extra five minutes to your wait time for me!” I teased. It felt kind of nice. To think that Helena wanted to talk to me enough to swap places with someone in a line.
“Awards, you say? My mom has given me very strict instructions of exactly what I’m to get. She even gave me money for it. I feel like I’m a kid again.” It was ridiculous that my mom had given me - a millions-earning NHL star - ten dollars to buy her bread. “She even told me to keep the change,” I admitted. “I don’t know what I’m going to buy, Helena, but it better be good.”
Helena’s laugh rang out again, her blue eyes sparkling. My stomach swooped again, apparently completely oblivious to what was or was not a sensible reaction. “Sorry.” Helena shook her head. “I’m not laughing at you. It’s just… weird to think you don’t know these things. Isn’t it?”
I got what she meant. It was weird how much I didn’t know about the rhythms and routines of what had been my home town for most of my life. Mom had probably mentioned the bakery winning its first award to me over the phone. Because I didn’t live here, it hadn’t become part of my knowledge of the town.
“Yeah, I suppose,” I agreed. For a moment, I wondered if I was meant to feel bad about it. From the way Helena smiled at me, I didn’t think that was the case. It reminded me how easy it had been to talk to Helena. She had never complicated things, perhaps understanding that I wasn’t very good at solving them.
Yet there were ten years between us now. It was... different.
“This is fucking weird, isn’t it?” I asked suddenly. When her eyes widened, it wasn’t because of the question but rather because of the glare the elderly lady from before gave me about swearing. “Sorry, sorry,” I apologized straight away, shaking my head. “I play sports. I swear too much, I know.”
That made Helena laugh again and I gave her a glare. “Shut up.” And wow, that took me back. Shaking my head, I sighed. “It’s... it’s kind of weird to see you again, Helena,” I admitted.
She gave me a look, the one that gave me the impression she was gathering things in to herself before speaking. It was something I remembered, only even more intense. Maybe she just had even more thoughts now that she was a qualified lawyer.
“It is kind of weird,” she agreed, with a small shrug. “But… it’s been ten years. It would be weird if it wasn’t weird, right?” Slowly, I nodded. That made a strange kind of sense.
Tucking a curl behind her ear, she smiled. “I think we’ll get used to it,” she informed me. “At least, I hope so, otherwise this wedding is going to be a lot more complicated than it needs to be.”
It was my turn to laugh. Helena’s comment was certainly pragmatic. It wasn’t untrue. As awkward as this might feel, there was no way I would let it affect Pat’s wedding.
“We’re doing alright.” I gave a small shrug. We kind of were. The conversation we’d had at the engagement party had been... fine. Part of me just wanted to tell Helena that I’d missed her. That wasn’t smart or fair. Or maybe even true? Could I miss her when I hadn't seen her in ten years?
The amount of things that had changed since we last saw each other must be endless. “You’re a lawyer now, right?” I asked. Pat had said that. And obviously, I had always known that Helena would get there because it was what she had aimed for. It was nice to see that she was achieving the things she wanted.
“But a lawyer in Lunengrove?” I added. “That’s... unexpected? It seems unexpected to me.” Whenever we’d talked about Helena being a lawyer, she had always planned to do that in a city, somewhere exciting.
