FICTION ON MEDIUM

The Key

A Bittersweet Story

I found the key the night she left. After the breakup, I stayed at the bar until it closed. And when I was leaving, I saw it on a patio table behind the dessert shop next door. I remember seeing it glimmer from the streetlight as I passed. I stopped for a moment to look at it, finding it curious that a single silver key was left on an otherwise empty patio table.

I pushed on the gate, but it was locked. The patio was almost entirely fenced off, but there was an open section at the back end lined with tall shrubs grown together like a wall of vegetation. But unlike the fence, the shrubs were movable. When I reached in between them, I found that I could push right through to the other side.

I hope there’s no one here, I thought to myself, but it was doubtful. It was a small shop, and mostly dark inside, apart from the street light coming in through the windows. I picked up the key and pushed it into the slot of the back door. It opened. The door swung inward and I walked past the tables with their chairs stacked on top of them, heading straight for the dessert case beneath the back counter.

They were beautiful. Even in the darkness, I could see the colors and swirls and buttercream leaves along the edges like laminated springtime shapes just waiting to be plucked up by somebody’s fork. There were mousses in cocktail glasses and pies with fruit seeping out between the lattice lines. There was a key lime, a French meringue, and a tiered Mt. Adams with coconut and pralines. Fruit tarts were glazed with a lemon-yellow glow, and chocolate ganache was everywhere.

I knew no one was there, but I looked both ways before crossing the sliding glass partition. My hand instinctively reached for one of the mousses. There were six of them stacked two by two, and though it was clearly conspicuous to remove one, I couldn’t help myself. Lifting it by the base as if it were an actual cocktail, I felt its coolness in the palm of my hand. But I needed a spoon.

The glow of light from the street gave me just enough sight to find a stack of silverware at the edge of the dining room. Pulling a chair down from one of the tables, I sat with the spoon in my hand and looked at the mousse in the dark, wondering if someone might walk past and happen to see me. There were no curtains to cover the windows, so the only other option was to head back into the kitchen to eat, or take the food with me and leave.

I decided to stay put and enjoy the dessert, one slow bite at a time. With an eye to the window, I dipped into the cream and made sure to spoon it from the very top, where the chocolate shavings were thickest. After a couple of small bites of the cream, I dug into the mousse proper, taking the remaining cream along with it. It was bittersweet and rich and soft against the palate, and so smooth it was nearly drinkable.

When I finished, I sat there looking out the window at the empty streets, thinking again about the breakup. I thought about the harsh words and the silence between them. And after rinsing out the glass, I looked again at the dessert case, wanting more than anything to continue eating. But I decided instead to hide the glass and take the key with me, saving the option for another night.

A New Routine

Returning everything as I found it (apart from the mousse), I locked the door behind me and left through the row of shrubs in the back. In the weeks that followed, I made a routine of it. Once a week — usually on Saturday evenings when I left the bar in the early morning hours — I would use the key to step inside the dessert shop and help myself to something sweet.

My plan was to share the experience at some point, taking a new friend by the hand and sitting her down in the center of the empty dining room for a final course after a long night of pleasantries. But there were no such dates. And there were no new friends. And I began to eat more and more of the desserts at every visit.

By the fifth week, I was already showing signs of weight gain. I had gone from eating desserts to eating supplies as well, plucking ladyfingers from their espresso marinade and swallowing them whole like drippy-sweet sardines. I was eating whipped cream by the spoonful and munching cannoli's like they were snacks out of a bag. Unfortunately, I was also making a mess. I knew this because I started to see rats in the shadows. They seemed to be stalking me, so I rolled a candied gooseberry in their direction as a peace offering, hearing squeaking and commotion as a result. Rather than listen to them fight, I tossed a few more berries their way, rolling them across the floor until the only sound I could hear was their chewing in the dark.

New Acquaintances

Feeding the rats became part of my routine, as did the espresso, which I poured from the Tiramisu marinade and heated over the stove for an early breakfast. I didn’t want to fall asleep there, which came very close to happening on more than one occasion. So I sipped on espresso and threw crumbs to the rats until a piece of pie crust hit the feet of someone standing there in the doorway, looking at me.

She was dressed in a clean white chef’s jacket and had her yellow hair in ponytails pulled back over her shoulders. She had an unusual look, but there was a pleasantness about her that kept me from being startled. Her face seemed to be smiling even when she clearly was not. In fact, she was glaring, but only as a child glares, as if mocking the very idea.

“You’ve been watching me?” I asked.

Her glare slowly relaxed as she continued to stare at me without a word.

“I’m an idiot,” I told her. “Go ahead and call the police.”

Still, she said nothing. I thought she might stay there staring at me forever until she finally broke her silence with a sigh.

“We’re having a rodent problem,” she said.

“I’m sorry!” I blurted out, wanting to plead guilty as quickly and as clearly as I could. But she only shrugged.

“It’s not the first time,” she said. “We’ll deal with it.” She then paused and said, “But I’m gonna need that key.”

I nodded and reached into my pocket, but when I took hold of the key with my fingers, I hesitated. Somehow, she seemed to know this, as her expression changed to one more stern and demanding.

Giving up, I placed the key at the center of the table and looked at my half-eaten tart beside it.

“Good, sweet things are rare,” I said.

I then stood up from the table and walked to the door. I could hear her following me at a short distance. And when I glanced back at her, just before heading out the door for the last time, she smiled.

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