Lucas' Lifelong Labor of Love, a We Write

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The prompt:

The smell of cinnamon and fresh fruit wafted lovingly through the kitchen, drifting between the bakers and through the hallway leading to the storefront. The scent tempted the awaiting patrons, each lining up before the display case of assorted pastries, pies, and cream-filled confections. Lucas, in his white apron and pastel name tag, saw that the ever-popular eclairs were running low. He left Beverly to tend to the customers as he went to gather more. Smiling, he reached into one of the racks in the kitchen and pulled out the fresh pastries to fill the empty tray.

“We’re going to need more eclairs ,” Lucas mused, “they’re almost all gone back here, too.”

“Well, what else is new?” Jonah laughed. “I’ll get someone on it once we’re done with these pies,” he said as he gestured loosely to the delectables around him. Lucas had helped unload the giant crates of peaches and blueberries that morning, and seeing their baked form made his mouth water. More than that, he longed to make one, perhaps with a cracker crust, carefully baked and topped with a little sugar. No, drizzled honey.

Jonah saw Lucas’ eager stare and questioned, “How long have you worked here now?”

“Oh, uh, about six months.” Lucas had briefly forgotten that he worked front of the house, not in the wonders of the kitchen, and began loading the eclairs again.

“Well, when you’re done refilling those come back. There’s something I want to show you.”

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My continuation:

Lucas was rolling out a pie crust for his grandchild's Third Birthday Pie when he recalled the long ago day he first learned how to roll out a pie crust. It was two weeks before a Thanksgiving and the bakers in the kitchen of the bakery where Lucas worked the front counter had been told to roll out 200 bottom crusts by the end of the day or stay until they were done. Jonah, the baker who hated rolling pie crusts, noticed the lust for flour, sugar, and fat in Lucas' eyes as Lucas refilled the tray of eclairs and thought "Aha! This is how I can get those 200 crusts done!" Beverly would be mad at Lucas, not Jonah, for having to tend to the customers on her own.

And Lucas? Well, Jonah could see there was no chance of Lucas' saying no. "Want to learn how to roll out a pie crust?"

Lucas took to rolling out pie crusts like a newborn takes to their mama's nipple - passionately. He loved the smell of raw flour and butter that wafted out of each slab of dough while he worked it. He loved the sound the bushings in the rolling pin made each time he ran it over the dough, being careful to stop just before the edge of the expanding circle. He loved making the edges of the circles perfect crack-free arcs. He loved carefully lifting the delicate dough and pressing it into the pie plates. He even loved stacking the shells up and carrying them to the walk-in freezer for storage until they would be baked into hundreds of scrumptious pies for Thanksgiving. Bliss.

That was the day Lucas' long and illustrious career in baking began. He had a good run of forty five years before he retired, years filled with helping people make merry with cakes, pastries, cookies, candies, puddings and pies. He was loved and honored in person and in print time and time again. Awards were many, accolades many more, and Lucas himself never lost his love of mixing flour, sugar and fat to make ambrosial delights for others.

But none of this compared to the wonder of seeing his grandchild gaze longingly at her Third Birthday Pie and hearing her say "Can you teach me how to make one of those?"

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This is my entry to @freewritehouse's we-write challenge https://steempeak.com/wewrite/@freewritehouse/we-write-3-the-bakery-last-week-s-winner-announced
Thanks for dropping in!

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