the bakery and the blonde

December 2, 2008

There’s a bakery up the street from where I live that’s called La Suiza.  It has shiny metal chairs and good lighting and all of the pastries have fancy swirls of color in their centers.  It’s always crowded with people talking about writing and politics and art and I heard a rumor that the owner actually lived in France for a while.  That’s why he wears those skinny jeans and talks about art while he sells his swirly centered pastries.

Just around the corner from La Suiza is Suzette’s.  I don’t have any idea who Suzette is or where she learned to bake although I’d venture that France had nothing to do with it.  The chairs are plastic and squeak when you sit in them and when it rains there are puddles in the floor.  It’s a simple sort of place.  Nothing extravagant about it at all, but I like it.

I wandered in yesterday afternoon as I often do.

The smell of baking bread danced through the air and I heard the oven ding gently as the waitress with the curly hair rushed to open its doors.  She smiled at me as she turned around and then started the rushing again, this time toward my table.

“Buenas, monita.  Que quieres, mi amor?”  Good afternoon, little blonde.  What would you like, my love?

I can’t recall when exactly she and I crossed the imaginary line that divides server from aquaitance and aquaitance from friend, but we must have crossed it at some point and I like the idea of that.

She’s no tie clad server at La Suiza and my bread doesn’t come with a sprig of something unidentified and green carefully placed beside it.  The tables are wobbly and the bathrooms don’t always work, but the bread is warm and the juice is fresh and the waitress calls me monita.

And I’ll take that over skinny jeans and color swirled centers any day.

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