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said hello to Thomas.
    “Baron,” she whispered and scrunched her face up. “Someone stick a fork in me. I’m done.”
    “I’ll help him,” Eli said, moving toward the archway.
    Anna jumped in front of him like a ninja and held her hands up, ready to karate chop him if she needed to. “No way, José,” she argued. “You stay here. Please .”
    Eli held his hands up in surrender. “I’ll stay put, but only because you said please.”
    Anna exhaled and stepped through the archway. Baron stood at the counter, staring at the pastries in the display case. “Hey,” she said. A jar full of jumping jelly beans ricocheted around in her stomach.
    He looked up at her with sleepy eyes. She couldn’t read his expression, and she fought the urge to jump over the counter and wrap her arms around him.
    “Donuts look good,” he said.
    “Want a few for the road?”
    Anna was already sliding the glass door open when Baron reached across the counter and grabbed her hand. He gave it a squeeze, and she squeezed back. “About yesterday,” he began, “I still don’t know what to say really. I had no idea you wanted to…”
    “Wanted to what?” she asked, unwilling to help ease the awkwardness she heard in his words. She needed to hear him say it, to hear him say again that he hadn’t thought of her, of them .
    He released her hand. “That you wanted to go with me, that you wanted to get married ,” he said too loudly. “You’ve never even mentioned wanting to get married.”
    Anna frowned, and her face reddened. She could see Thomas’ attention was locked on them. “That’s what normal people do, Baron,” she said in a voice only loud enough for Baron to hear. “We’ve been together two years.” Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
    “And you want to get married?” he asked.
    Anna wished his voice didn’t sound so strained, so tight. “Yes. Maybe. I don’t know . I know I love you. I wanted to be with you.”
    Baron grabbed her hand again and twined his fingers with hers. “I love you, Anna-Banana. Wait, what do you mean, wanted to be with me? That’s past tense.”
    Anna sighed and closed her eyes. She inhaled the faint smell of the ocean; it seemed a thousand miles away. “You’re leaving, and I’m staying, and you didn’t even once think that I might want to go with you.”
    “For this two-week trip? I didn’t even know they were sending me a ticket,” he said, throwing his hands up.
    “No, not this trip, Baron,” Anna argued in a whisper. “Just in general. You’re leaving me. That will make us past tense—” The anger pushed the tears aside.
    “Hey, Eli,” Thomas called from a table for two near the windows, “could I get a refill?”
    Like the surprise crouched in a jack-in-the-box, Eli sprung through the archway and strode toward Thomas’ lifted cup. Baron turned his entire body to watch Eli walk across the room.
    “Who the hell is that?” Baron asked without lowering his voice.
    Eli walked behind the counter and filled Thomas’ cup. “Hey, man,” he said to Baron with an easy smile. “I’m Eli, a college friend of Anna’s. I’m helping out around here for a while, and she’s letting me crash at her place.” He motioned with his head toward the upstairs apartment. He carried the coffee to Thomas and returned to Anna’s side.
    Baron said nothing, and Anna wished so hard for a black hole to appear beneath her feet and swallow her. A vein throbbed in the center of her forehead. Baron looked at Anna, asking her questions with his eyes, but her mind was full of nothing but the wind, blowing straight through her ears.
    “Is that a joke?” Baron asked Eli when Anna blinked at him in silence.
    “Which part?” Eli asked, leaning casually against the back of the display case.
    Baron’s eyes narrowed. The bakery door opened, and a bone-cold wind flooded the room and blew the loose hair from Anna’s face. Thomas walked out whistling the theme song from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly