“Welcome to Aunt Norine’s Bakery!”

Kristen was hit by the scents of baking bread, cinnamon, cardamom, pumpkin spice, and hot coffee. The door shut behind her. In one hand, the “help wanted” sign.

“Is the job still open?”

Norine broke into a big smile. “Why, yes it is, my dear! Are you applying?”

Karen nodded. “I don’t have a lot of experience but willing to learn.”

Norine wiped her hands on her apron and held out a hand. “You’re hired,” she said.

***

“Look, Donna,” Kristen said into her phone, nibbling on a leftover cookie from the shop. “She’s a real nice lady and it’s wrong for me to steal like this.”

“Oh, now you’re getting a conscience? Remember how much I’m paying you and get that recipe!”

***

A few weeks later and it was time for Norine to show Kristin the prized recipe. The recipe that had made her German spritz cookies famous around the world. The recipe that her rival, Donna Stollen, was desperate to steal.

“It’s not even her recipe,” Donna explained. “She stole it from my Grandma’s kitchen!”

The recipe was written on a crackly thin piece of scrap paper, the ink faded but legible.

“We start making these after Thanksgiving- they’ll fly out the door!”

Kristen nodded.

Later, Norine tasked her to return the recipe to its vault.

Right before she returned it to its place, though, Kristen snapped a few cell phone pics.

Over the weeks leading up to the holiday season, Kristen began to regret spying on the sweet old lady. And then stealing that recipe. But a deal was a deal.

Sadly, she pulled up the recipe photos and forwarded them to Donna.

“That’s it?” Donna texted back. “She adds a dash of anise?”

“I guess,” Kristen wrote back. “I’m going to bed.”

***

Donna introduced her new line of spritz cookies the day after Thanksgiving. Kristen stood outside the bakery, holding a tray of samples.

The line still wound out the door into the street, of Norine’s place. No one was raving over Donna’s recipe.

“This is war,” the woman grumbled, nibbling a bear claw pastry.

**To be continued, maybe**