Nina set the timer and tapped the scale with the back of her knuckle the way a conductor taps a baton, not trusting the numbers alone. Morning light sliced through the shop window in narrow bands, catching sugar dust that hung like a faint constellation over the marble counter. Butter & Measure smelled like browned butter and lemon zest and the particular, honest heat of an oven that had been coaxed into good temper. She moved through the kitchen as if through a body she had mapped: press, fold, turn, rest. Lamination listened to her hands because she had taught them the language. Each turn of the dough was a sentence; each rest, punctuation.
Above the door a ridiculous brass bell waited for the oven to reach the temperature she liked. It did not chime like a doorbell. It rolled out a jaunty, theatrical drumline—an absurd, private accent to the shop. Newcomers thought the sound pretentious. Regulars pretended not to like it and then laughed when it happened. It was a small bit of domestic theater: the bell announced a particular kind of success and made people inside pretend this was all unscripted magic.
Outside, the lane had its own steady choreography. A woman pushed a cart that sold paper cones of spiced tea and told fortunes with printed slips folded like origami cranes. The market's metal awnings glinted with morning condensation, and three teenagers on bicycles practiced a clumsy routine that involved ringing bells in synchronous chaos. None of that belonged to Nina's plan, but she filed it away like an ingredient, a texture she might borrow at odd hours.
Bea arrived light on her feet and heavy with flour. She moved through the back room like a small, efficient storm, stacking trays, checking proofs, wiping a counter with a towel that had seen too many croissant seasons. 'Morning,' she said, settling a proofing basket under a warm lamp. She smiled at the bell's faint drumroll and added, 'I still think it's dramatic. Gives us a theme.'
Nina glanced up from the tempering station where chocolate turned from dull to glossy under her watchful eye. She scraped and coaxed the mass with a spatula. 'We have a theme and it's called consistency,' she replied, voice clipped more by habit than by irritation. She slapped a scrap of dough between her palms, stretching it to test elasticity, the action precise, economical. Bea watched her with the familiarity of someone who had worked long enough beside another that the pauses and breaths were readable.
'You could loosen up once in a while,' Bea said, half a tease and half a plea. 'Try a drumroll that isn't our oven telling us we're right.'
Nina caught the towel Bea tossed and flicked a flour-white salute. 'I'll drumroll if the croissants keep folding properly,' she said. Her fingers moved, unhurried, as she weighed another slab of butter and slid it into the laminator, the machine's hum joining the street's quieter orchestra.