Chapter 7 - The Master of Oakhaven
For three weeks, the rhythm of Lower Oakhaven shifted.
The industrial warehouses that flanked Baky Bakery were not demolished, but their dark, smoking vents were cleaned, their iron gates repainted, their workers granted fair wages under new management contracts issued by Vance Financial Holdings.
Every morning at five o'clock, a long black sedan would park two blocks away, and a woman in an exquisite tailored suit would walk down the cobblestones of Calle de la Cruz, carrying a small leather bag containing her executive papers and a clean canvas apron.
Eleanor Vance learned how to bake.
She learned how to measure the yeast by the feel of the air, how to score the tops of the rye loaves with a razor blade so the crust expanded into clean, golden diamond patterns, how to stoke the wood-burning brick oven until the heat radiated in steady, gentle waves.
The neighborhood children—ragged, soot-faced urchins who had previously run from the shadows of the alleyways—began to line up outside the shop every afternoon at three.
They did not beg. They did not claw at the glass.
They stood in an orderly line on the clean stone step, where Eleanor, wearing her pink suit beneath a flour-dusted apron, would hand each of them a hot, golden-brown baguette wrapped in brown paper.
"How much is it?" a tiny girl with red hair asked one afternoon, clutching her bread against her thin cotton coat.
Eleanor would lean down, her pink suede shoes resting in the dirt, and whisper the same words Arthur had given her twenty years ago:
"That's okay. When you can, help others."
The children didn't always understand the words, but they understood the bread. They took their loaves and ran into the winter sunshine, their laughter echoing off the old brick walls that had previously known only the sound of heavy boots and screaming sirens.
One evening, as the last loaf was taken from the rack, Arthur stood by the rear door, watching Eleanor sweep the floorboards.
"You're leaving tomorrow, aren't you?" Arthur asked quietly.
Eleanor stopped her broom. She looked at the wooden dough trough, at the glowing brick oven, at the clean glass counter.
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"The board of directors called from the capital this afternoon," she said, her voice heavy with regret. "There is a hostile takeover attempt on our shipping lines in the east. If I'm not in the boardroom by Thursday morning, ten thousand dockworkers will lose their pensions."
Arthur nodded slowly. "Then you must go. A baker stays by his oven, but a captain must stay at the wheel."
