“The bingo girls? Come on in!” She holds the door open for us, and we hurry inside. The shop is small but so cute. All pink and gold. There are two small tables in the corner and a counter with a display case. There are labeled trays in the case, fifteen different flavors of cookies, but only half of the trays are still full.
“We know you open soon, so we’ll try not to take up too much of your time,” Heaven says, after we introduce ourselves properly. Her voice is quaking a bit. I almost grab her hand to reassure her, but I stop myself.
“Are you kidding me? This is so cool,” Lara says. “You hope people want to know about your business, but you usually hope it’s the local paper or someone with a really huge internet following. Teenagers actually thinking you’re cool enough to talk to is like every old lady’s dream. I can’t wait to answer your questions.”
“Okay, good,” Heaven says. “Sorry. I’m a little nervous.”
“Oh honey, don’t worry. Awkward is my middle name. Ask your questions and then we’ll have some cookies, and you two can get on with your summer.”
“Okay,” Heaven says, a small smile cracking through her nervousness. Ms.Lara directs us to one of the tables and then comes back with a small plate with some mini chocolate chip cookies on them. Well, mini for her shop. Her standard cookies are the size of your hand and twice as thick.
“So, you said you’re doing a bingo challenge your dad came up with and interviewing a small business owner was one of the squares.”
“Yeah, I’m trying to become a tattoo artist when I graduate, and as you can see, I’m not great in the people department. He wanted me to practice talking to people and also learn about working for myself. We also interviewed our postal carrier, but Saylor did all the talking.”
“I love to talk,” I add.
Ms.Lara laughs, giving her nod of approval. “Well, props to dad. That sounds like a great idea. Okay, you can ask me anything you want on one condition?”
“What’s that?” Heaven says.
“When you’re finally tattooing, all nice and official, you have to tattoo me.”
My heart melts when this huge smile blooms over Heaven’s face. “Deal.”
“Great. Ask away.”
We have such a fun time with Ms.Lara. She’s funny and talks to us for almost an hour before her assistant actually needs her for something. Heaven does a great job. She asks her serious questions like how much time she has to put into the shop, and some silly questions, like what’s her favorite song to bake to.
She says it takes up all her time, and when she’s really in the zone, she’s blasting old-school Lil’ Kim. She’s horrified I don’t know who that is, but Heaven promises to enlighten me when we get back in the car. She tells us how she got started baking with her grandmother, but she stopped backwhen she went as far as she could go with her distance running career, like Olympic trials far.
After, she thought she’d go to law school, but she realized she was happiest when she was baking. After ten years working around LA, she finally opened her own shop with help from her brother and her best friend. She lets us sample every flavor of cookie she sells, plus the Oreo cookie brownie she’s testing out.
The chocolate chip is good, a classic, but her Earl Grey sugar cookie brings tears to my eyes. Ms.Lara has definitely picked the right career. When we finish up, she sends us each home with a box filled with every flavor of the full-sized cookies, so we can share them with our families. We take a quick picture with Ms.Lara and her assistant, Nadine, and then head back to the car.
“You killed it,” I say once we’re buckled in.
“Yeah, that wasn’t so bad. She was really easy to talk to,” Heaven says, smiling back.
“And look, you already got a client on the books.”
“True. Hey, what were you gonna say about the free square before we went in?” she asks me.
“Oh. Just—” I sigh, feeling like we just stepped back into the real world after being in the beautiful land of cookies. “We just got our bingo. I forgot about the free square, but talking to Ms.Lara gets us our bingo.”
“Oh. Well, we still have a lot of squares to go before we clear the board.”
“I know, but my mom wants to do content around our first bingo. She has our shirts ready and everything. Theycame last week.” It seems so weird, like my reaction is outsized, but I really want to cry. Cristine Ford, the reason we can’t have nice things.
“Saylor,” Heaven says.
“Yeah?” I turn to her, suddenly worried because her voice sounds off.
“Do you want to be my girlfriend?”
My heart speeds up like I’m the one training for the Olympics. It’s maybe the only thing I’ve wanted Heaven to ask me all summer, but still her tone is weird. Like she’s not sure.
“Yeah, I do.”