A job offer reunites old friends in their home town in this exclusive tale by the prize-winning US writer
The ask felt abrupt. Noah told me – over a text, our first in years – that he and his mother were reopening their bakery, but then he asked if I could help. I could sleep on his father’s futon.
His folks had owned the business for decades. I’d even worked there for a few years, before I left Houston for New York, chasing some accountant fucker with a beard. And after I’d gone, the bakery kept going, and the world kept turning, and Noah stayed in Katy, our tiny town just outside of the city, stuck in that bubble – but when his father died, Noah and Lynne closed its doors. He worked as a florist for a minute. Lynne found a job at the mall. None of us kept in touch, with no plans for that to change.