Tasting Menu
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apexpreyAt the southwest corner of Rivington Street and Essex in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, there is a pear-shaped building. Bartlett, with a squat, spherical foundation and tapered top. Narrow cylindrical stem, maybe two feet long. The whole thing is made entirely of frosted green glass that neither absorbs nor reflects much light, despite the cloudless, mid-morning sunshine on what feels like the first day of spring. The building’s front face is cross-section flat, but looking at the structure from any other angle reveals what appears to be an edifice infinitely extending back toward the horizon. There is a line of people snaking out the door and around, waiting for their chance to enter.
Standing across the street, you notice no one who goes inside appears to leave.
You believe yourself asleep but cannot be sure.
There aren’t many trees along this part of Essex Street, mostly just cars and brown bricks and stale cigarette smoke. As you consider the current state of your consciousness, you blink, then find yourself under one’s shaded blanket, twenty or so feet from the bakery entrance. The sun has hardly moved. Goosebumps now dot your skin, though on an exhale, your nostrils flare fever-hot. If this is really a dream, the lucid kind of which you are familiar and wherein you would typically know this to be true, you should be able to adjust the weather conditions, or at the very least change your clothes to, first, be textured and present on your skin, and second, be more climate-appropriate.
The line creeps forward enough for you to step out from underneath the tree. You tilt your head up and stare at the sky, above where the sun currently sits, willing moisture to gather and burst into white popcorn puffs. Nothing immediately happens.
Another set of steps forward. You squeeze your eyes shut. Maybe you have to hold the changes in your head and look away before they come true—watched pots and all that. The afterimages on the backs of your eyelids make it hard to focus, but the altered atmosphere is there, steady at the front of your mind, almost tangible. You picture a clear glass of water growing foggy, steam rising. Humidity prickling.
Warm drops of liquid glance off your the back of your right hand. Startled, you open your eyes.
Sun shower. Gauzy gray clouds and a quarter of a faded rainbow are visible if you turn your head to the left just a little. While turning, you glance down at your arms, which had started out bare and are now covered in void-like black long sleeves that absorb an absurd amount of light. You twist your forearm and hear the crinkling sound of polyester, like a windbreaker, but see none of the material movement. It’s almost two-dimensional. You look away.
The entrance to the pear-shaped building stares you down. You are next to go in, though you’re not exactly sure how. There are no handles on the tall, arched door, but it doesn’t appear to be automatic or have buttons or keypads. No noticeable camera, no scale built into the sidewalk like a place mat. This close, you notice the writing above the door, the only transparent part of the building. It reads PEAR SHAPED.
You snort. Yeah, it sure is.
Also this close, though the door seems sturdy and perfectly in frame, straight on its hinges and flush to the ground, you smell butter. Melted, as if in dough. Your brain conjures an image of a freshly baked croissant before those words materialize, and your mouth starts to water.
Suddenly, you remember where you are, and why, and all but how you arrived: this is a new dessert shop called Pear Shaped, or at least a fantastical version of it.
Its opening has been on your radar through multiple channels. Your weekly lifestyle and food newsletter, Campos Pile, has readers who sometimes respond to your calls for recommendations of cool, fresh, and interesting places in the New York metro area with insider tips about what’s to come. One of your best friends from undergrad is a foodie who funds her tabs by working in advertising design, and she was commissioned to create the branding and graphics for a whimsical patisserie founded by a group of four female friends—like your own friend group from undergrad, your friend says, but all from California, whereas it’s just you in yours who hails from the Golden State. And every couple of weeks, your beloved younger sister calls you and shares, among other things, news and gossip about people you both knew from high school; one time, this includes the news that three of your childhood best friends reunited with your ex-best friend, years after you all and that ex-friend fell out, and have since become baby-shower-invitation and new-business-venture close. One of their husbands transferred to New York for work, and they all moved together. Teased the beginnings of a bakery dream they apparently all had since they met in elementary school.
All of it is news to you when you first hear it. You were also friends with them, once.
Faint white light begins to encircle the door, flowing out from the bottom center point in both directions until it connects at the apex of the curve. A similar outline appears in the door itself, one of a person with long, shaggy hair and crossed arms and the ballooned edges of a bubble-hem skirt. Again, the realization hits before the words do, but still you check your outfit, the one you insisted on materializing. There are finally suggestions of folds on your zipped-up, too-black windbreaker. Your skirt is short and also black, but a normal liquid ink shade, and its rounded but sturdy pleats remind you of a lampshade. At least somewhere in your brain, you can imagine a realistic kind of structure. Your sneakers are blindingly teal like twin poisonous frogs.
You lift your head and pull your shoulders back. The outline moves with you. Quickly, you cast your gaze to the line just to gauge reactions. No one notices you noticing them. Everyone’s kind of a smeared blur, actually. No features. This is a selfish dream, you think, returning your eyes to the door.
As if satisfied with your discoveries, white light fills the entire outline except for a small portion over the chest. Letters, transparent like those of the building’s sign, emerge.
SYDNEY
CAMPOS
First name over last. Your name.
“Yes,” you say without really thinking about it.
The door replies by saying your name aloud, back to you, in your voice. “Sydney Campos.”
“Yes,” you repeat.
“Confirmed,” says the Sydney-door. “Please enjoy.”
The letters fade into the light which, like staring into the sun earlier, forces you to instinctively close your eyes. These afterimages look like you in crisp detail, like a mirror: dark brown hair with a fringe, winter-lightened tan skin, long legs. They dance as your eyes move in their sockets until they begin to move independently of your processing brain. Your phantom yous walk in the direction of the building, shrinking in your sight. The lit outline is exactly the right shape and amount of space needed for you to enter Pear Shaped. It radiates warmth like an oven.
You wonder, briefly, whether you would’ve recognized anyone in line if you’d have paid attention before you got to the door. Whether, to them, you are also a smudged-out afterthought.
Inside, you are alone. The room is square. Hundreds, if not thousands of skinny, green-shelled down lights are clustered like sea anemone, radiating faintly warm yellow light onto a smooth tile floor and exposed brick walls. A ten-foot-long pastry case with clear glass is packed with desserts, pastries, and baked goods, some familiar and some you couldn’t even begin to describe. There is a cash register but no self-checkout; there is the case but no doors or tongs with which to serve yourself. No names of items either. Maybe a slice of red velvet cake is that, or maybe it is not.
You walk up to the case but bump up against an invisible wall about six inches before the glass. Touching the pastry case is making a decision, you realize. Whatever you point to is what you will order. Unclear whether you can make adjustments or order more than one item. Whether it costs anything. Whether it is real food or an illusion.
Decisiveness will be rewarded. So, too, will spontaneity, you suppose.
You consider your options. Then, you choose.
TASTING MENU
What you point to isn’t a dessert but instead an empty, two-inch-tall, orange ceramic ramekin with straight walls. You’ve mostly seen ramekins used for baking souffles and crème brulee on TV, though your parents do own one and typically use it for side-dish storage: kimchi, guacamole, thick fruit preserves. Those ones are white and have finger-shaped grooves you think are for easy removal of a cooled dessert. This reminds you of a pot for a plant.
Your index finger pokes the glass at the approximate middle of the vessel. Instantly, a body appears on the other side of the case. At torso-level, you see a solid, pear-green apron. You stand ramrod straight.
The employee is an inch or so taller than you at full height. White, female-presenting, red-brown hair in big ringlets held out of their face with a rust-colored bandanna. Big, slightly-squared frames that remind you of magnifying glasses, inspecting your selection, then you, the curious bug. Name tag reads Kelsey.
“Hi there, welcome to Pear Shaped,” says Kelsey. She smiles with rows of slightly yellowed teeth. “You’re getting the maple walnut ice cream, yes?”
“I guess so,” you reply, slightly confused. “Can it be a different flavor?”
Kelsey shakes their head. “That’d be a different bowl.”
Well, at least you’re right about how much importance your decision carries. You aren’t allergic to any foods or ingredients, though you have your dislikes—it isn’t technically impossible to see shrimp or tomatoes somewhere on this mystery roster, but for your sake, awake and asleep, you hope your instinct won’t lead you astray.
“Maple walnut it is,” you affirm.
“Great! This one comes with peaches. Hope you’re cool with that.” You nod.
With a hum, Kelsey rests the ramekin atop the pastry case and turns around to wash her hands along the back wall. The service area is set up like a bakery inside a cafe, with the food items up front and small preparation appliances toward the rear, fridge and blender and espresso machine. It’s neater than you’d expect a dessert shop to be, almost sterile. There is a curtained off passageway to what you assume is the kitchen and staff break room, but same as the exterior, there’s no crack in the wall for peeking.
Kelsey grabs the vessel again and opens the left-most side of the case, your left—where before there were all the dessert options, there is now only rows of open ice cream tubs. You lean down and scrunch your eyebrows in bewilderment. Surely, she didn’t lift some shelf or flip a switch to rotate everything out while you were distracted. She wasn’t standing at the case the whole time between your selection and now. It occurs to you how long it’s been since you drank water. Maybe the dehydration is hitting.
None of the tubs have labels, as seems to be par for the course. With a clean, silver scoop, procured from who knows where, Kelsey reaches into the second container from the right, in the row closest to her. She shapes the roundest, smoothest ball of pale brown ice cream and deposits it in the center of the container, leaving an inch or so of room around the lip for the peaches. The scoop goes into a nearby rinsing bucket, which they lean over slightly to reach.
Revealed over Kelsey’s shoulder is a thick wooden cutting board; on top is a pile of freshly cut freestone peaches. You gawk.
“It’s a very efficient system we have here,” Kelsey says, as if in response to your expression. We’re trained to expect what customers are likely to select and be ready to handle any surprises. I had a feeling you would go with this one.”
“That’s–” The words trail off. You wrack your brain to remember anything else inside the case, but your memory draws a blank. “It was between this and the apple pie.”
“We don’t serve apple pie. Even if we did, you seem like the kind of person who would see the empty container and think it’s strange to see that in a case where everything else is present, so you’d pick it to figure out what’s going on. You’re wondering how I cut the peaches so quickly.”
You splutter. Kelsey arranges the peach slices around the ice cream scoop like lotus petals and tops the whole thing with crushed, toasted walnut pieces.
“Practice,” they say, presenting you with the ramekin. You walk with it to the register, and Kelsey follows. “But also we source our fruit locally. You almost don’t have to cut it with how willingly the flesh bends. Kinda like it has a mind of its own.”
“Huh,” you say again. In your grasp, the skins of the peach slices gleam. Wink, even.
Kelsey opens something behind the counter—a utensil drawer, based on the sounds of metal clinking against each other. She hands you a small golden shovel. You stare.
“This is the best spoon for the job, trust me,” says Kelsey. “We’ve tried them all.”
It was sort of a given that you’d leave Pear Shaped with more questions than answers, but it’s becoming more likely that you’ll return to the world slightly askew, a little off. You picture yourself trying to write a review for the newsletter—Delicious dessert but weird vibes. Pairs well with a sensory deprivation chamber and the strongest liquor in your cabinet—and laugh.
“I believe you,” you tell Kelsey, grabbing the shovel. “How much?”
“On the house. Compliments of the owners.”
You drop the spoon. It clatters heavy on the tile like a true-to-life shovel. “Sorry?”
“Everyone who’s new to the shop gets their first dessert for free. Consider this a thank you for trying us out.”
Oh. Yeah, okay, sure. They don’t actually know you’re here. No one else can see you make strange faces or forget how to speak for half a second. That’s fine.
“Oh,” you say aloud. “That’s really nice. Thank you.”
Kelsey grins. It doesn’t meet their eyes. “Hope you enjoy!”
“Thanks.” You take a step back from the counter, then remember you’re without spoon at the moment and bend down to retrieve it. “Sorry.”
Kelsey tosses the dirtied shovel into the same rinsing bucket as the scoop and opens the utensil drawer again. The sound is different, like that of lifting a metal pot to grab the one underneath it. What she gives you this time looks exactly like the other one, same triangular handle and flat end. You wonder whether you can buy serving shovels wholesale or whether the shop special ordered a pack just for ice cream. She gives you some brown napkins, too. “It’s chill. Eat up.”
You plant the spoon into the scoop and flash a thumbs up. There are no tables inside, so you walk toward what appears to be the exit, a standard rectangular door with a silver knob. The knob turns, and you exit.
You are no longer in the Lower East Side. It’s New York still, but there so many more trees. Less skyscrapers, more sun-washed brick. Brooklyn, you think. Two summers ago, you stayed in a five-story house in Fort Greene that belonged to a friend’s uncle, the sort of place that would otherwise cost tens of thousands to rent. This air feels like that neighborhood.
Not as many people rocket across the sidewalk, but still you press yourself against the exterior of a closed restaurant. Remarkably, the ice cream hasn’t yet begun to melt or make the ramekin sweat. The crushed walnuts are perfect cubes. You shovel a scoop into your mouth. Indeed, the base tastes candied like maple, but the toasted walnuts were also blended into the cream and lend a savory nuttiness that cuts what otherwise might have been too sweet. Really pleasant consistency, too. It’s really solid ice cream. You can’t complain.
One of the peach slices catches the setting sun just right. You leave the spoon and bite half of the fruit. It’s a peach. Juicy but not mushy, light and not overly fragrant. Nothing sticks to your fingers, even after you pinch it to test the give. When you wake up, you hope to remember to look up peach orchards to figure out who grows these. They’re wonderful.
You go to grab the spoon again and notice two things: there is another peach slice in the space this first one left behind, not from falling, and there is a pit sticking out from where you took your first portion of ice cream. It wasn’t there when you scooped it, or it if was, you didn’t feel it, but a pit seems like a gross oversight. In retrospect, though, you don’t know how it could have gotten there anyway, since the cutting board was far from the case and you had watched Kelsey arrange the slices.
You pluck another slice, then shove another scoop into your mouth at the same time. Maybe the most unnerving thing so far all day is the way you watch more of the pit reveal itself beneath the cream and how the new peach slice rises and curves in place like an inflating balloon.
Tapping the spoon against the peach pit only produces a dull thud, but getting ice cream from on and around it doesn’t disrupt the motion, almost as if the pit is semi-corporeal, only mattering when encountered directly and on purpose. The color of the peach skin is so saturated, reddish-orange. Like the flesh, the inside of the ramekin is sunshine yellow.
“Oh, no way,” you say to yourself, or really to the dessert in your hands. An older woman walking her dog looks at you funny.
You now have a theory.
The woman and her dog cross the street, then cross again to get to Fort Greene Park. Once they leave your eyesight and you no longer care what any other passersby think, you hold your hand over the cut peach slices and tilt the ramekin to your lips, trying to get as much ice cream into your mouth as possible to clear the vessel of it. The roof of your mouth is mad, and your stomach clenches, and you have to hope you don’t accidentally send walnut cubes rocketing down your windpipe, but you’re mostly convinced of what’s going on, and you’re not going to waste what is genuinely excellent dessert.
When the ramekin is as clean as can be, you right it between your hands and train your eyes on the middle. Like a potted plant, you think again, as you watch all the peach slices lean toward the center and close around the pit, becoming a single whole peach once more. Not only that, but it expands enough to fit the entire width of the ramekin, and you can only tell the difference between the fruit and the dish because of the straight walls and specific ceramic shine.
You try to lift the peach, but it doesn’t budge. A laugh escapes your nose. Ah, you see. There are no finger grooves, but there are two parallel bands around the outside of the walls, and their function is similar. You twist the fruit this time and feel the pop of suctioned air releasing as you now hold an unspoiled peach. Possibly infinite peaches.
You bite directly into the flesh. Sweet and fresh. The chew isn’t tough or messy at all. In about fifteen seconds, there’s no record of it on the skin.
Infinite peach glitch. And you have a new ramekin. You wonder what would happen if you try to fill it with guacamole. (back to top)
Too many cakes.
(back to top)
One of your coworkers is really into this fantasy romance book series that you think has to do something with elvish royalty and portals and weird possessive relationships. She’s tried to convince you to read it too, even bringing a giant insulated cup wrapped in an iridescent rainbow map of the book’s world and placing it just so on her desk, or refilling it at the water cooler instead of drinking from one of the extra bottles she stores in a bottom drawer, for you to notice and ask about. Each time, you say you’ll think about it, but you know you won’t.
Something you remember her saying about the first book is that the main character has to prove her worth (or something) by competing in a gauntlet of life-threatening challenges until she is the last one standing. Obstacle courses, mazes, duels—all in a pretty dress, probably. Only then can she marry the prince (or something).
You point to a normal two-stack of Belgian waffles with syrup and a pristine pat of butter. An employee who reminds you only vaguely of said coworker—dirty blonde hair in a high ponytail, blue-gray eyes, perfectly even teeth that were either filed down or subtle veneers—pulls the plate out from the case and walks toward the register. You move to follow, but your feet are rooted to the ground.
“These are for if you win,” says the employee.
“Huh?”
A quick glance down reveals your feet strapped to a circular platform, rollercoaster lap belt-style. Your shoes are no longer teal sneakers but broken-in brown leather boots that go up to mid-calf. Slim cargo pants instead of a skirt. Same windbreaker. A dagger with a wicked blade in hand.
In front of you is no longer the pastry case but a fifteen-foot-tall hedge with three forking paths. The sky is overcast, gray and miserable. Behind you, a royal seal trimmed into the greenery.
Not that you would have learned anything useful about how to survive, but you start you think maybe you should have read those books. At least to know the order of what’s to come. (back to top)
(back to top)
The first bite of a cream puff of the croquembouche: The first person you ever had a crush on was a girl named Maisie, but you didn’t realize it was a crush until you were in high school, long after you were last in contact. She was devoutly Protestant. If she liked you too in that way, it probably would’ve never become anything. Or maybe you would’ve been her first girl kiss, tucked away in the attic of her house, where you used to play with Littlest Pet Shop toys.
Finishing the first cream puff: You wish you’d remembered to send that letter to her. You were pen pals for a year after she left. Her family sent you a Christmas card from their new house in Fort Walton Beach. She was snow white, which bought out the red flush of her cheeks in the knit red sweater she wore in the photo. Her handwriting was always so neat, and she had a knack for cursive in a way most third graders didn’t super care for. Maybe you would’ve been each other’s first fuck.
Bite of a second: The most devastating crush you’ve ever had was [REDACTED].
Of a third: He [REDACTED]
Fourth: And when you first got his phone number, you were outside a coffee shop and fell to the ground in a dramatic heap, while one of your friends (now a bakery owner) watched in amusement. She was friends with his ex-girlfriend, and she was the one who suggested you confess to him. His text said [REDACTED]
Fifth: Long distance [REDACTED]
Sixth: Ten years [REDACTED]
Seventh: And when you visited him, you [REDACTED]
Eighth: If you could see him again, you would say [REDACTED]
It is hard to throw away such an impressive display of choux pastry, both because the bake must have taken so long and because trash can space and size is very much at a premium in New York, but you must. Several cream puffs are half-eaten, torn to shreds in your haste to stop the thoughts they made you have. You toss the tower with tears in your eyes.
For a moment, you think about deleting someone’s phone number from your contacts. Or maybe you send him a text. Is he alive? Are you thinking about him because he died and you didn’t know? None of your friends now know who he is. Any of the people who do are no longer your friends. You would not be you without him. You are alone with this knowledge and history.
You do nothing with your phone. You walk away. (back to top)
“Actually,” you say, seeing the purplish-red color of the coulis and remembering how itchy his polo felt under your fingertips, “I think I’m good.”
You leave. (back to top)
What, are you going to tell Bitsy no? Of course you’re going to eat the cookie she gives you from behind the counter.
You ask for a hot coffee, too. She gives you a glass of milk. You say thank you. (back to top)
When asked what non-edible substance on Earth you would eat if it were possible to do so without negative consequences, you often say some kind of rock or mineral. Diamond, granite, geode sprinkles on ice cream. Salt is an edible mineral, so why not other crystals? You should be allowed to eat a cluster of purple chalcedony the way you enjoy grapes at a picnic.
You’re glad Pear Shaped has allowed you the opportunity of a lifetime. In a clear serving dish is a pile of blackened rocks rolled in cinnamon sugar, like candied nuts but earthier. From the center of the earth, says Kelsey.
She doesn’t tell you how the shop acquired them, but your imagination can do enough of the heavy imagination work. Who among us hasn’t dug as far down as time allowed, hitting red clay or water and thinking you’ve made it to the other side. Your inner child would be delighted. (back to top)
The dessert shop dream happened a week ago.
You wake up and jolt. The wheels of your chair roll slightly. You are at your work desk, slumped on your folded arms. A discarded wrapper for a new protein bar splayed open and limp next to your stack of teal sticky notes. Two more like it occupy your wastebasket.
Someone in the upstairs office recommended this brand. Never again will you trust them. (back to top)
You read a story once where a character shined his phone light through a bottle of Listerine to create watery lighting in their shared, dark hotel room, trying to soothe another character who was feeling miserable in bed halfway across the world from home. It became one of their things when they traveled, a mouthwash night light. Creating their own ocean in which to feel calm.
This is like that, except yellow, and you’re drinking it from a glass shaped like a calla lily, with a literal, bendable stem. You think of all-purpose cleaner instead of mouthwash, which would ruin the experience for you if not for the fact that lemon-scented cleaner is both common and pleasant for a reason. Lemon is an unmatched flavor, sweet or tart or mouth-pucker sour. Not that you want to go by way of household product, but would it be so bad?
A lemon drop cocktail of sorts, inspired by the ocean. You’re drinking alcohol at a dessert shop, but you suppose you can’t stop them, since you liked the look of the lily and wanted to see the concept through. Kelsey also gives you sorbet in a mason jar, so you do have a real sweet treat, but again, you’re not turning down a free cocktail.
Vodka isn’t your friend. You hate when it pierces through a strong concept—your first espresso martini was an utter disappointment, and thus it was also your last—and don’t miss the days in undergrad where it was both an acceptable shot to take and a welcomed participant at a party. Even something as simple and friendly as a lemon drop has been ruined by a heavy hand, and you reserve a bit of judgment for those who forget that, sometimes, drinks aren’t about tasting the alcohol but forgetting it’s there.
All this to say, you’re unsure of what kind of bartender Kelsey is, given how young she looks, twenty-something fresh from undergrad. But your first sip perks you up, in the way lemon should. Sugar-sweet but not intolerable, and both the vodka and triple sec are tempered enough to know there’s a buzz coming but not for a long while. Hint of salt in the sugared rim? It’s really good.
What really strikes you is the smell. All the usual suspects are present, but there’s a note you can’t quite name but can immediately construct a mental image in reference.
There’s a purple plastic bracelet you used to love and wear all the time as a child. It has slim silver beads between each big purple one, and it makes the most satisfying rattle noise when you wear it and shake your wrist in small, fast motions. You don’t remember how you got it, but it was a staple of your wardrobe, only coming off for showers or sports. The best thing about it, amid all of that, is the smell. Watery is the best way you know how to describe it, though that’s insufficient. There’s a depth you’ve never been able to place, water and something. Ozone, maybe, but that’s more sharp and metallic. Likely it’s the same volatile compounds that make new car smell so pleasant, but that’s a bit of a bummer. If you could bottle it, you would. Not to wear, but simply spray and think of home, of simpler times. A bracelet you no longer have.
The calla lily is empty. If you knew how to return to Pear Shaped from wherever it throws you—Astoria Park, this time—you would ask for seconds, happy to pay. Instead, you’re left with a flower and a glass jar that’s suddenly freezing and melting in your hand.
You sip from it and smell purple plastic. (back to top)
You’re awake. You know this to be true. It has been a delirious past 24 hours, long work shift and drinking at a bar and re-entering the world with a bitch of a hangover. Light streaks weirdly in your vision, and all the sounds are wrong, but you know you are conscious.
Pear Shaped isn’t, actually. It’s a normal storefront in size and shape, with clear glass windows looking into the kitchen. There are two employees at the front, manning both the espresso machine and the pastry case, which is more of a flat rectangle display, lined with butcher paper and the names of each dessert written in black Sharpie below. Neither of these staff members are familiar, but you see the ones who are.
Two in the back, actively rolling out dough. One wearing a pantsuit and observing. One wearing bakery merch, a light green tee shirt and white baseball cap, both with a clever pear logo embroidered into the fabric. Expensive. Fitting.
They don’t look the same as you remember them, and they don’t occupy the roles you would have guessed they played in the business. Elissa was a winning beauty pageant queen throughout her youth, someone made for formal wear, not forearms wearing flour. Likewise, Robin was always the tomboy type, getting her hands dirty and not interested in hierarchy or desperate attempts at accruing power; you do have to hand it to her, though, she looks sharp in tailored navy pinstripes. Patricia bought food, not made it. And Adrienne was a middle child who’d never be caught dead volunteering to lead, not to mention be a walking advertisement.
All at once, the feelings from each of the imagined desserts mixes in an ugly stew, and you feel nauseous but also cogent. Aware of the time that’s passed since you’ve seen these people. The lives you’ve lived. Cells regenerate but memory stays, at least for a while.
There is a future where you will forget who these people are and why they ever haunted you. Friends come and go, girls fight and make up. High school is when the bar is lowest. You leave and start to make something of yourself with people you get to choose, and those are the relationships that matter. Not all of those last either, but you’ll be more capable of handling them, even if that looks like finding another rug to sweep under.
Maybe it isn’t so abstract. These are just people. There are others.
One of them, Robin, looks up. Out the window, onto the street. At you, or past you. You can’t be sure because you’re not her, but you watch as she says or does something to pique the others’ attention, and then you have four women looking at you, ones whose names you know but whose presents you couldn’t begin to guess.
In the dreams, you could leave. Some allowed you to opt out of the interaction entirely and avoid what effects the dessert might incur. Sometimes you need that. Other times, you have to eat it.
There is no line into Pear Shaped. You walk in. (back to top)
Standing across the street, you notice no one who goes inside appears to leave.
You believe yourself asleep but cannot be sure.
There aren’t many trees along this part of Essex Street, mostly just cars and brown bricks and stale cigarette smoke. As you consider the current state of your consciousness, you blink, then find yourself under one’s shaded blanket, twenty or so feet from the bakery entrance. The sun has hardly moved. Goosebumps now dot your skin, though on an exhale, your nostrils flare fever-hot. If this is really a dream, the lucid kind of which you are familiar and wherein you would typically know this to be true, you should be able to adjust the weather conditions, or at the very least change your clothes to, first, be textured and present on your skin, and second, be more climate-appropriate.
The line creeps forward enough for you to step out from underneath the tree. You tilt your head up and stare at the sky, above where the sun currently sits, willing moisture to gather and burst into white popcorn puffs. Nothing immediately happens.
Another set of steps forward. You squeeze your eyes shut. Maybe you have to hold the changes in your head and look away before they come true—watched pots and all that. The afterimages on the backs of your eyelids make it hard to focus, but the altered atmosphere is there, steady at the front of your mind, almost tangible. You picture a clear glass of water growing foggy, steam rising. Humidity prickling.
Warm drops of liquid glance off your the back of your right hand. Startled, you open your eyes.
Sun shower. Gauzy gray clouds and a quarter of a faded rainbow are visible if you turn your head to the left just a little. While turning, you glance down at your arms, which had started out bare and are now covered in void-like black long sleeves that absorb an absurd amount of light. You twist your forearm and hear the crinkling sound of polyester, like a windbreaker, but see none of the material movement. It’s almost two-dimensional. You look away.
The entrance to the pear-shaped building stares you down. You are next to go in, though you’re not exactly sure how. There are no handles on the tall, arched door, but it doesn’t appear to be automatic or have buttons or keypads. No noticeable camera, no scale built into the sidewalk like a place mat. This close, you notice the writing above the door, the only transparent part of the building. It reads PEAR SHAPED.
You snort. Yeah, it sure is.
Also this close, though the door seems sturdy and perfectly in frame, straight on its hinges and flush to the ground, you smell butter. Melted, as if in dough. Your brain conjures an image of a freshly baked croissant before those words materialize, and your mouth starts to water.
Suddenly, you remember where you are, and why, and all but how you arrived: this is a new dessert shop called Pear Shaped, or at least a fantastical version of it.
Its opening has been on your radar through multiple channels. Your weekly lifestyle and food newsletter, Campos Pile, has readers who sometimes respond to your calls for recommendations of cool, fresh, and interesting places in the New York metro area with insider tips about what’s to come. One of your best friends from undergrad is a foodie who funds her tabs by working in advertising design, and she was commissioned to create the branding and graphics for a whimsical patisserie founded by a group of four female friends—like your own friend group from undergrad, your friend says, but all from California, whereas it’s just you in yours who hails from the Golden State. And every couple of weeks, your beloved younger sister calls you and shares, among other things, news and gossip about people you both knew from high school; one time, this includes the news that three of your childhood best friends reunited with your ex-best friend, years after you all and that ex-friend fell out, and have since become baby-shower-invitation and new-business-venture close. One of their husbands transferred to New York for work, and they all moved together. Teased the beginnings of a bakery dream they apparently all had since they met in elementary school.
All of it is news to you when you first hear it. You were also friends with them, once.
Faint white light begins to encircle the door, flowing out from the bottom center point in both directions until it connects at the apex of the curve. A similar outline appears in the door itself, one of a person with long, shaggy hair and crossed arms and the ballooned edges of a bubble-hem skirt. Again, the realization hits before the words do, but still you check your outfit, the one you insisted on materializing. There are finally suggestions of folds on your zipped-up, too-black windbreaker. Your skirt is short and also black, but a normal liquid ink shade, and its rounded but sturdy pleats remind you of a lampshade. At least somewhere in your brain, you can imagine a realistic kind of structure. Your sneakers are blindingly teal like twin poisonous frogs.
You lift your head and pull your shoulders back. The outline moves with you. Quickly, you cast your gaze to the line just to gauge reactions. No one notices you noticing them. Everyone’s kind of a smeared blur, actually. No features. This is a selfish dream, you think, returning your eyes to the door.
As if satisfied with your discoveries, white light fills the entire outline except for a small portion over the chest. Letters, transparent like those of the building’s sign, emerge.
CAMPOS
First name over last. Your name.
“Yes,” you say without really thinking about it.
The door replies by saying your name aloud, back to you, in your voice. “Sydney Campos.”
“Yes,” you repeat.
“Confirmed,” says the Sydney-door. “Please enjoy.”
The letters fade into the light which, like staring into the sun earlier, forces you to instinctively close your eyes. These afterimages look like you in crisp detail, like a mirror: dark brown hair with a fringe, winter-lightened tan skin, long legs. They dance as your eyes move in their sockets until they begin to move independently of your processing brain. Your phantom yous walk in the direction of the building, shrinking in your sight. The lit outline is exactly the right shape and amount of space needed for you to enter Pear Shaped. It radiates warmth like an oven.
You wonder, briefly, whether you would’ve recognized anyone in line if you’d have paid attention before you got to the door. Whether, to them, you are also a smudged-out afterthought.
Inside, you are alone. The room is square. Hundreds, if not thousands of skinny, green-shelled down lights are clustered like sea anemone, radiating faintly warm yellow light onto a smooth tile floor and exposed brick walls. A ten-foot-long pastry case with clear glass is packed with desserts, pastries, and baked goods, some familiar and some you couldn’t even begin to describe. There is a cash register but no self-checkout; there is the case but no doors or tongs with which to serve yourself. No names of items either. Maybe a slice of red velvet cake is that, or maybe it is not.
You walk up to the case but bump up against an invisible wall about six inches before the glass. Touching the pastry case is making a decision, you realize. Whatever you point to is what you will order. Unclear whether you can make adjustments or order more than one item. Whether it costs anything. Whether it is real food or an illusion.
Decisiveness will be rewarded. So, too, will spontaneity, you suppose.
You consider your options. Then, you choose.
OPTION 1: Maple walnut ice cream & live peaches
What you point to isn’t a dessert but instead an empty, two-inch-tall, orange ceramic ramekin with straight walls. You’ve mostly seen ramekins used for baking souffles and crème brulee on TV, though your parents do own one and typically use it for side-dish storage: kimchi, guacamole, thick fruit preserves. Those ones are white and have finger-shaped grooves you think are for easy removal of a cooled dessert. This reminds you of a pot for a plant.
Your index finger pokes the glass at the approximate middle of the vessel. Instantly, a body appears on the other side of the case. At torso-level, you see a solid, pear-green apron. You stand ramrod straight.
The employee is an inch or so taller than you at full height. White, female-presenting, red-brown hair in big ringlets held out of their face with a rust-colored bandanna. Big, slightly-squared frames that remind you of magnifying glasses, inspecting your selection, then you, the curious bug. Name tag reads Kelsey.
“Hi there, welcome to Pear Shaped,” says Kelsey. She smiles with rows of slightly yellowed teeth. “You’re getting the maple walnut ice cream, yes?”
“I guess so,” you reply, slightly confused. “Can it be a different flavor?”
Kelsey shakes their head. “That’d be a different bowl.”
Well, at least you’re right about how much importance your decision carries. You aren’t allergic to any foods or ingredients, though you have your dislikes—it isn’t technically impossible to see shrimp or tomatoes somewhere on this mystery roster, but for your sake, awake and asleep, you hope your instinct won’t lead you astray.
“Maple walnut it is,” you affirm.
“Great! This one comes with peaches. Hope you’re cool with that.” You nod.
With a hum, Kelsey rests the ramekin atop the pastry case and turns around to wash her hands along the back wall. The service area is set up like a bakery inside a cafe, with the food items up front and small preparation appliances toward the rear, fridge and blender and espresso machine. It’s neater than you’d expect a dessert shop to be, almost sterile. There is a curtained off passageway to what you assume is the kitchen and staff break room, but same as the exterior, there’s no crack in the wall for peeking.
Kelsey grabs the vessel again and opens the left-most side of the case, your left—where before there were all the dessert options, there is now only rows of open ice cream tubs. You lean down and scrunch your eyebrows in bewilderment. Surely, she didn’t lift some shelf or flip a switch to rotate everything out while you were distracted. She wasn’t standing at the case the whole time between your selection and now. It occurs to you how long it’s been since you drank water. Maybe the dehydration is hitting.
None of the tubs have labels, as seems to be par for the course. With a clean, silver scoop, procured from who knows where, Kelsey reaches into the second container from the right, in the row closest to her. She shapes the roundest, smoothest ball of pale brown ice cream and deposits it in the center of the container, leaving an inch or so of room around the lip for the peaches. The scoop goes into a nearby rinsing bucket, which they lean over slightly to reach.
Revealed over Kelsey’s shoulder is a thick wooden cutting board; on top is a pile of freshly cut freestone peaches. You gawk.
“It’s a very efficient system we have here,” Kelsey says, as if in response to your expression. We’re trained to expect what customers are likely to select and be ready to handle any surprises. I had a feeling you would go with this one.”
“That’s–” The words trail off. You wrack your brain to remember anything else inside the case, but your memory draws a blank. “It was between this and the apple pie.”
“We don’t serve apple pie. Even if we did, you seem like the kind of person who would see the empty container and think it’s strange to see that in a case where everything else is present, so you’d pick it to figure out what’s going on. You’re wondering how I cut the peaches so quickly.”
You splutter. Kelsey arranges the peach slices around the ice cream scoop like lotus petals and tops the whole thing with crushed, toasted walnut pieces.
“Practice,” they say, presenting you with the ramekin. You walk with it to the register, and Kelsey follows. “But also we source our fruit locally. You almost don’t have to cut it with how willingly the flesh bends. Kinda like it has a mind of its own.”
“Huh,” you say again. In your grasp, the skins of the peach slices gleam. Wink, even.
Kelsey opens something behind the counter—a utensil drawer, based on the sounds of metal clinking against each other. She hands you a small golden shovel. You stare.
“This is the best spoon for the job, trust me,” says Kelsey. “We’ve tried them all.”
It was sort of a given that you’d leave Pear Shaped with more questions than answers, but it’s becoming more likely that you’ll return to the world slightly askew, a little off. You picture yourself trying to write a review for the newsletter—Delicious dessert but weird vibes. Pairs well with a sensory deprivation chamber and the strongest liquor in your cabinet—and laugh.
“I believe you,” you tell Kelsey, grabbing the shovel. “How much?”
“On the house. Compliments of the owners.”
You drop the spoon. It clatters heavy on the tile like a true-to-life shovel. “Sorry?”
“Everyone who’s new to the shop gets their first dessert for free. Consider this a thank you for trying us out.”
Oh. Yeah, okay, sure. They don’t actually know you’re here. No one else can see you make strange faces or forget how to speak for half a second. That’s fine.
“Oh,” you say aloud. “That’s really nice. Thank you.”
Kelsey grins. It doesn’t meet their eyes. “Hope you enjoy!”
“Thanks.” You take a step back from the counter, then remember you’re without spoon at the moment and bend down to retrieve it. “Sorry.”
Kelsey tosses the dirtied shovel into the same rinsing bucket as the scoop and opens the utensil drawer again. The sound is different, like that of lifting a metal pot to grab the one underneath it. What she gives you this time looks exactly like the other one, same triangular handle and flat end. You wonder whether you can buy serving shovels wholesale or whether the shop special ordered a pack just for ice cream. She gives you some brown napkins, too. “It’s chill. Eat up.”
You plant the spoon into the scoop and flash a thumbs up. There are no tables inside, so you walk toward what appears to be the exit, a standard rectangular door with a silver knob. The knob turns, and you exit.
You are no longer in the Lower East Side. It’s New York still, but there so many more trees. Less skyscrapers, more sun-washed brick. Brooklyn, you think. Two summers ago, you stayed in a five-story house in Fort Greene that belonged to a friend’s uncle, the sort of place that would otherwise cost tens of thousands to rent. This air feels like that neighborhood.
Not as many people rocket across the sidewalk, but still you press yourself against the exterior of a closed restaurant. Remarkably, the ice cream hasn’t yet begun to melt or make the ramekin sweat. The crushed walnuts are perfect cubes. You shovel a scoop into your mouth. Indeed, the base tastes candied like maple, but the toasted walnuts were also blended into the cream and lend a savory nuttiness that cuts what otherwise might have been too sweet. Really pleasant consistency, too. It’s really solid ice cream. You can’t complain.
One of the peach slices catches the setting sun just right. You leave the spoon and bite half of the fruit. It’s a peach. Juicy but not mushy, light and not overly fragrant. Nothing sticks to your fingers, even after you pinch it to test the give. When you wake up, you hope to remember to look up peach orchards to figure out who grows these. They’re wonderful.
You go to grab the spoon again and notice two things: there is another peach slice in the space this first one left behind, not from falling, and there is a pit sticking out from where you took your first portion of ice cream. It wasn’t there when you scooped it, or it if was, you didn’t feel it, but a pit seems like a gross oversight. In retrospect, though, you don’t know how it could have gotten there anyway, since the cutting board was far from the case and you had watched Kelsey arrange the slices.
You pluck another slice, then shove another scoop into your mouth at the same time. Maybe the most unnerving thing so far all day is the way you watch more of the pit reveal itself beneath the cream and how the new peach slice rises and curves in place like an inflating balloon.
Tapping the spoon against the peach pit only produces a dull thud, but getting ice cream from on and around it doesn’t disrupt the motion, almost as if the pit is semi-corporeal, only mattering when encountered directly and on purpose. The color of the peach skin is so saturated, reddish-orange. Like the flesh, the inside of the ramekin is sunshine yellow.
“Oh, no way,” you say to yourself, or really to the dessert in your hands. An older woman walking her dog looks at you funny.
You now have a theory.
The woman and her dog cross the street, then cross again to get to Fort Greene Park. Once they leave your eyesight and you no longer care what any other passersby think, you hold your hand over the cut peach slices and tilt the ramekin to your lips, trying to get as much ice cream into your mouth as possible to clear the vessel of it. The roof of your mouth is mad, and your stomach clenches, and you have to hope you don’t accidentally send walnut cubes rocketing down your windpipe, but you’re mostly convinced of what’s going on, and you’re not going to waste what is genuinely excellent dessert.
When the ramekin is as clean as can be, you right it between your hands and train your eyes on the middle. Like a potted plant, you think again, as you watch all the peach slices lean toward the center and close around the pit, becoming a single whole peach once more. Not only that, but it expands enough to fit the entire width of the ramekin, and you can only tell the difference between the fruit and the dish because of the straight walls and specific ceramic shine.
You try to lift the peach, but it doesn’t budge. A laugh escapes your nose. Ah, you see. There are no finger grooves, but there are two parallel bands around the outside of the walls, and their function is similar. You twist the fruit this time and feel the pop of suctioned air releasing as you now hold an unspoiled peach. Possibly infinite peaches.
You bite directly into the flesh. Sweet and fresh. The chew isn’t tough or messy at all. In about fifteen seconds, there’s no record of it on the skin.
Infinite peach glitch. And you have a new ramekin. You wonder what would happen if you try to fill it with guacamole. (back to top)
OPTION 2: A 3-tier Neapolitan cake, which when sliced reveals 3 separate 3-tiered Neapolitan cakes, which when sliced reveals 3 separate—
Too many cakes.
(back to top)
OPTION 3: Just plain waffles with butter and syrup, but in order to eat them you must face a gauntlet of life-threatening challenges. The waffles themselves are not worth the effort, but the reward is the sweet taste of triumph
One of your coworkers is really into this fantasy romance book series that you think has to do something with elvish royalty and portals and weird possessive relationships. She’s tried to convince you to read it too, even bringing a giant insulated cup wrapped in an iridescent rainbow map of the book’s world and placing it just so on her desk, or refilling it at the water cooler instead of drinking from one of the extra bottles she stores in a bottom drawer, for you to notice and ask about. Each time, you say you’ll think about it, but you know you won’t.
Something you remember her saying about the first book is that the main character has to prove her worth (or something) by competing in a gauntlet of life-threatening challenges until she is the last one standing. Obstacle courses, mazes, duels—all in a pretty dress, probably. Only then can she marry the prince (or something).
You point to a normal two-stack of Belgian waffles with syrup and a pristine pat of butter. An employee who reminds you only vaguely of said coworker—dirty blonde hair in a high ponytail, blue-gray eyes, perfectly even teeth that were either filed down or subtle veneers—pulls the plate out from the case and walks toward the register. You move to follow, but your feet are rooted to the ground.
“These are for if you win,” says the employee.
“Huh?”
A quick glance down reveals your feet strapped to a circular platform, rollercoaster lap belt-style. Your shoes are no longer teal sneakers but broken-in brown leather boots that go up to mid-calf. Slim cargo pants instead of a skirt. Same windbreaker. A dagger with a wicked blade in hand.
In front of you is no longer the pastry case but a fifteen-foot-tall hedge with three forking paths. The sky is overcast, gray and miserable. Behind you, a royal seal trimmed into the greenery.
Not that you would have learned anything useful about how to survive, but you start you think maybe you should have read those books. At least to know the order of what’s to come. (back to top)
OPTION 4: A handful of stars and fresh fieldberries set in gelatin, topped with whipped cream and dusted with powder from the cosmos
OPTION 5: A croquembouche made from regret, lust, and something so idiosyncratic to human nature that it can’t be described through words. This dessert has unknowable intentions
The first bite of a cream puff of the croquembouche: The first person you ever had a crush on was a girl named Maisie, but you didn’t realize it was a crush until you were in high school, long after you were last in contact. She was devoutly Protestant. If she liked you too in that way, it probably would’ve never become anything. Or maybe you would’ve been her first girl kiss, tucked away in the attic of her house, where you used to play with Littlest Pet Shop toys.
Finishing the first cream puff: You wish you’d remembered to send that letter to her. You were pen pals for a year after she left. Her family sent you a Christmas card from their new house in Fort Walton Beach. She was snow white, which bought out the red flush of her cheeks in the knit red sweater she wore in the photo. Her handwriting was always so neat, and she had a knack for cursive in a way most third graders didn’t super care for. Maybe you would’ve been each other’s first fuck.
Bite of a second: The most devastating crush you’ve ever had was [REDACTED].
Of a third: He [REDACTED]
Fourth: And when you first got his phone number, you were outside a coffee shop and fell to the ground in a dramatic heap, while one of your friends (now a bakery owner) watched in amusement. She was friends with his ex-girlfriend, and she was the one who suggested you confess to him. His text said [REDACTED]
Fifth: Long distance [REDACTED]
Sixth: Ten years [REDACTED]
Seventh: And when you visited him, you [REDACTED]
Eighth: If you could see him again, you would say [REDACTED]
It is hard to throw away such an impressive display of choux pastry, both because the bake must have taken so long and because trash can space and size is very much at a premium in New York, but you must. Several cream puffs are half-eaten, torn to shreds in your haste to stop the thoughts they made you have. You toss the tower with tears in your eyes.
For a moment, you think about deleting someone’s phone number from your contacts. Or maybe you send him a text. Is he alive? Are you thinking about him because he died and you didn’t know? None of your friends now know who he is. Any of the people who do are no longer your friends. You would not be you without him. You are alone with this knowledge and history.
You do nothing with your phone. You walk away. (back to top)
OPTION 8: Your ex who you never actually dated, reduced to a coulis and spread out on the dirt
“Actually,” you say, seeing the purplish-red color of the coulis and remembering how itchy his polo felt under your fingertips, “I think I’m good.”
You leave. (back to top)
OPTION 9: The chocolate cookie the giant mouse beside your bed keeps offering
What, are you going to tell Bitsy no? Of course you’re going to eat the cookie she gives you from behind the counter.
You ask for a hot coffee, too. She gives you a glass of milk. You say thank you. (back to top)
OPTION 10: Bits of rock from the center of the earth, rolled in cinnamon sugar and lit on fire
When asked what non-edible substance on Earth you would eat if it were possible to do so without negative consequences, you often say some kind of rock or mineral. Diamond, granite, geode sprinkles on ice cream. Salt is an edible mineral, so why not other crystals? You should be allowed to eat a cluster of purple chalcedony the way you enjoy grapes at a picnic.
You’re glad Pear Shaped has allowed you the opportunity of a lifetime. In a clear serving dish is a pile of blackened rocks rolled in cinnamon sugar, like candied nuts but earthier. From the center of the earth, says Kelsey.
She doesn’t tell you how the shop acquired them, but your imagination can do enough of the heavy imagination work. Who among us hasn’t dug as far down as time allowed, hitting red clay or water and thinking you’ve made it to the other side. Your inner child would be delighted. (back to top)
OPTION 11: Strangely sweet tree bark that slowly eats away at your sanity
The dessert shop dream happened a week ago.
You wake up and jolt. The wheels of your chair roll slightly. You are at your work desk, slumped on your folded arms. A discarded wrapper for a new protein bar splayed open and limp next to your stack of teal sticky notes. Two more like it occupy your wastebasket.
Someone in the upstairs office recommended this brand. Never again will you trust them. (back to top)
OPTION 12: The lemony fresh beam of light that shoots up from the bottom of the ocean
You read a story once where a character shined his phone light through a bottle of Listerine to create watery lighting in their shared, dark hotel room, trying to soothe another character who was feeling miserable in bed halfway across the world from home. It became one of their things when they traveled, a mouthwash night light. Creating their own ocean in which to feel calm.
This is like that, except yellow, and you’re drinking it from a glass shaped like a calla lily, with a literal, bendable stem. You think of all-purpose cleaner instead of mouthwash, which would ruin the experience for you if not for the fact that lemon-scented cleaner is both common and pleasant for a reason. Lemon is an unmatched flavor, sweet or tart or mouth-pucker sour. Not that you want to go by way of household product, but would it be so bad?
A lemon drop cocktail of sorts, inspired by the ocean. You’re drinking alcohol at a dessert shop, but you suppose you can’t stop them, since you liked the look of the lily and wanted to see the concept through. Kelsey also gives you sorbet in a mason jar, so you do have a real sweet treat, but again, you’re not turning down a free cocktail.
Vodka isn’t your friend. You hate when it pierces through a strong concept—your first espresso martini was an utter disappointment, and thus it was also your last—and don’t miss the days in undergrad where it was both an acceptable shot to take and a welcomed participant at a party. Even something as simple and friendly as a lemon drop has been ruined by a heavy hand, and you reserve a bit of judgment for those who forget that, sometimes, drinks aren’t about tasting the alcohol but forgetting it’s there.
All this to say, you’re unsure of what kind of bartender Kelsey is, given how young she looks, twenty-something fresh from undergrad. But your first sip perks you up, in the way lemon should. Sugar-sweet but not intolerable, and both the vodka and triple sec are tempered enough to know there’s a buzz coming but not for a long while. Hint of salt in the sugared rim? It’s really good.
What really strikes you is the smell. All the usual suspects are present, but there’s a note you can’t quite name but can immediately construct a mental image in reference.
There’s a purple plastic bracelet you used to love and wear all the time as a child. It has slim silver beads between each big purple one, and it makes the most satisfying rattle noise when you wear it and shake your wrist in small, fast motions. You don’t remember how you got it, but it was a staple of your wardrobe, only coming off for showers or sports. The best thing about it, amid all of that, is the smell. Watery is the best way you know how to describe it, though that’s insufficient. There’s a depth you’ve never been able to place, water and something. Ozone, maybe, but that’s more sharp and metallic. Likely it’s the same volatile compounds that make new car smell so pleasant, but that’s a bit of a bummer. If you could bottle it, you would. Not to wear, but simply spray and think of home, of simpler times. A bracelet you no longer have.
The calla lily is empty. If you knew how to return to Pear Shaped from wherever it throws you—Astoria Park, this time—you would ask for seconds, happy to pay. Instead, you’re left with a flower and a glass jar that’s suddenly freezing and melting in your hand.
You sip from it and smell purple plastic. (back to top)
OPTION 13: TASTING
You’re awake. You know this to be true. It has been a delirious past 24 hours, long work shift and drinking at a bar and re-entering the world with a bitch of a hangover. Light streaks weirdly in your vision, and all the sounds are wrong, but you know you are conscious.
Pear Shaped isn’t, actually. It’s a normal storefront in size and shape, with clear glass windows looking into the kitchen. There are two employees at the front, manning both the espresso machine and the pastry case, which is more of a flat rectangle display, lined with butcher paper and the names of each dessert written in black Sharpie below. Neither of these staff members are familiar, but you see the ones who are.
Two in the back, actively rolling out dough. One wearing a pantsuit and observing. One wearing bakery merch, a light green tee shirt and white baseball cap, both with a clever pear logo embroidered into the fabric. Expensive. Fitting.
They don’t look the same as you remember them, and they don’t occupy the roles you would have guessed they played in the business. Elissa was a winning beauty pageant queen throughout her youth, someone made for formal wear, not forearms wearing flour. Likewise, Robin was always the tomboy type, getting her hands dirty and not interested in hierarchy or desperate attempts at accruing power; you do have to hand it to her, though, she looks sharp in tailored navy pinstripes. Patricia bought food, not made it. And Adrienne was a middle child who’d never be caught dead volunteering to lead, not to mention be a walking advertisement.
All at once, the feelings from each of the imagined desserts mixes in an ugly stew, and you feel nauseous but also cogent. Aware of the time that’s passed since you’ve seen these people. The lives you’ve lived. Cells regenerate but memory stays, at least for a while.
There is a future where you will forget who these people are and why they ever haunted you. Friends come and go, girls fight and make up. High school is when the bar is lowest. You leave and start to make something of yourself with people you get to choose, and those are the relationships that matter. Not all of those last either, but you’ll be more capable of handling them, even if that looks like finding another rug to sweep under.
Maybe it isn’t so abstract. These are just people. There are others.
One of them, Robin, looks up. Out the window, onto the street. At you, or past you. You can’t be sure because you’re not her, but you watch as she says or does something to pique the others’ attention, and then you have four women looking at you, ones whose names you know but whose presents you couldn’t begin to guess.
In the dreams, you could leave. Some allowed you to opt out of the interaction entirely and avoid what effects the dessert might incur. Sometimes you need that. Other times, you have to eat it.
There is no line into Pear Shaped. You walk in. (back to top)
