Entry tags:

!complete, audrey, cotton weary

Who: Cotton Weary purecotton & Audrey Baxter biddable
What: Surrendering to the sweet tooth
When: Between 12/15/15-12/26/15
Where: Baxter Bakery
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Cotton Weary has no memories of his false imprisonment or of the last several years of his life. His amnesia is its own warning.
Status: Closed/Completed GDoc

~*~

Holiday food was something universal. Cotton Weary had grown up among trailer trash, surrounded by people whose Christmas dinner was usually a few cans of donated food from the local food pantry and a canned ham if they were especially lucky. He remembered one year his old man had taken the money the church had given him to provide dinner for his family and used it to buy a can of Spam to go with the two cases of beer he'd wanted to feed his own alcoholism.

Cotton didn't really understand what his life was like these days. He did understand the size of his bank account and the fact he had a personal investment banker on his cell phone. Money wasn't a problem for him these days. It had been expressed to him he didn't want to know why so he hadn't pushed. The internet seemed to be where everything existed. There were "net places" for every business or person or thing. He'd played around with it for a while only to give up when the breakdown in communication between what he was reading and what he remembered became too much for him.

All he knew at present?

He didn't care what his "personal trainer" said about his desire for holiday foods. He wanted something sweet, spiced, and not pumpkin of any kind. What was the deal with all the pumpkin? It was Christmas, not Thanksgiving. Cotton absolutely could not understand why they were pushing pumpkin spice in everything under the sun. He thought he'd even seen pumpkin spice scented toilet paper in the fancy grocery store where he evidently did his regular shopping through the week.

Smiling at the friendly bell which announced his entry into Baxter Bakery, Cotton held up a hand to wave to the woman behind the counter, approaching her to say, "Tell me something with spiced fruit is an option. I would kill for something that tastes like Christmas. Nothing pumpkin. I have no idea what the thing is with the pumpkin, but yes to any other fruits. Yes, yes, and more yes. I'll worry about my trainer later. I need to eat my holiday feelings right now."

~*~

Like every other day, Audrey was at the bakery. She tried to change up what she was doing each day, giving samples or taking orders or making drinks. Some days she worked in the back, doing the actual baking though she had a whole team that was in charge of the back room stuff. Their wholesale business was booming at the moment--Baxter Bakery provided bread, pastries, and other baked goods to over a dozen local restaurants and smaller coffee houses.

This morning Audrey was behind the register, punching buttons in the silly machine and trying to get it to stop saying stupid things. She'd have to get her tech expert (her husband) in here to fix it. Or she'd have to get out her wand and hex the stupid thing. Maybe it was time for a new point-of-sale system store-wide. Especially since they were considering opening a second location.

She looked up at the sound of the voice and broke into a smile. "Absolutely. Is apple your speed? Because I've got the world's most amazing apple turnovers fresh from the oven. Filled with nutmeg, cinnamon, and clove, it's the perfect, sweet treat to fill you with the Christmas spirit." She paused for a moment, grinning a bright, somewhat conspiratorial grin. "Does that sound good? Because I'm thinking about doing a commercial."

~*~

The woman had a fantastic smile. Cotton found himself smiling back with sincerity for a change. She embodied the holiday spirit herself in a sense. He hoped her food was as welcoming as she was because the idea of being disappointed by pastry was terrible. Cotton had been disappointed enough in life lately without his sweet tooth experiencing any losses due to bad decisions on his part.

Pastry in general was a bad decision on his part, but he wasn't going to think about that.

"That sounds fantastic. I'd buy it if you did a spot. Are you thinking radio or TV? I might be able to work you in for a twenty on my holiday week which is coming up. They're playing my show's holiday specials from the last few years plus the new one we'll be recording live."

He shrugged. It wasn't the worst idea for promotion Cotton had been pitched. The holiday extravaganza hadn't been his idea at all. They had talked about it -his PR manager and his agent- before informing him of their final decision once it'd been finalized. Cotton figured at least they'd bothered to tell him this year. More than once Cotton had been left blindsided by a promotion stunt on the part of his network, his PR manager, his agent, even his executive producer. Money was their friend and who they were looking out for, not Cotton Weary.

Offering his hand, he said, "Cotton Weary. Sorry. I do a talk show. Pure Cotton. No idea if you've seen it or not. I'm vain but not nearly vain enough to think everyone has seen my show."

~*~

With a laugh, Audrey's hand smacked down into the counter. "Shut the front door. Are you serious? I just did my commercial voice for someone who actually works in television?" She laughed, and reached her other hand forward, offering it up to him to shake. "Amazing. I'm Audrey Baxter, I own this place."

His offer of putting the spot on his show was pretty fantastic. Pure Cotton. Audrey racked her brain to try and remember if she'd seen his show--but for the most part, she was at the bakery while daytime television aired. Of course, there was the time she was home on Maternity Leave though she barely remembered any of those shows. Nursing in front of the tv was the only thing that kept her sane during those long, sleepless months.

"I wish I could say I'm a big fan, but I don't get to watch a lot of daytime television. I was thinking about putting a little tv in the back, actually, for breaks and whatnot... I do love decorating cookies in front of the telly. But I haven't gone about doing it yet."

~*~

"You really did," Cotton agreed with a smile upon shaking her hand, "Or so they tell me. I'm having a little memory problem. I can't exactly remember what kind of show I do? I do know it's daytime and in syndication and does a lot to pay my bills."

That was putting it mildly. Cotton had no idea what to do with the kind of money he was bringing in. If this amnesia issue became permanent, he would have to give his investment guy a raise. There was no way in Hell he'd be able to manage his own finances without help. Cotton had no education where it came to dealing with stocks, bonds, mutual funds, any kind of funds really. His last memory of going to the bank had been cashing his check from the high school where he worked as a janitor.

It'd been enough to pay what he needed to pay to keep himself from being homeless and that was it.

"Miss Baxter, your place smells delicious. I think if you could find a way to market the scent alone you'd never have to worry about commercials or any advertising again."

He wished idly he had fallen asleep to wake up to being a bakery assistant. That seemed as if it would have been a lot more pleasant than waking up to being some kind of reality television show host. Cotton couldn't imagine why anyone wanted to hear about his real life. Was being trailer trash hip or cool or whatever now? Why did anyone care about the lifestyles of the poor and janitorial? No one would answer him when he asked; Cotton hadn't worked up the nerve to try to find out using the computer he apparently worked on every day now.

~*~

"Oh. I'm so sorry." Audrey had a lot of memory loss issues in her Dreams. She was sort of the perfect person to talk to when it came to those kinds of things. The Death Eaters had tortured her, practicing their memory charms on the poor girl, and she ended up practically comatose because of it. After the war, Ministry Officials found her in a Muggle Institution and attempted to give her back all of her lost memories. But there were bits and pieces she never recovered. "If you ever want to talk about it... I'm all ears. Well, not literally, because I've got other parts, too. But I'm really good at listening."

She grinned brightly when he complimented the place. "Hey, I like that idea. I could bottle it. Eau De Bakery Parfum." She said, putting on an atrocious, fake French accent, then she laughed and put the turnover onto a plate for him. "I wish. If only my magic worked that way. So, that's an apple turnover, and a cup of coffee or a latte?"

~*~

Apologies weren't something Cotton was used to receiving. Poor blue-collar guys tended to get what they got from the people they came across. Courtesy was reserved for those with money or status Cotton Weary had never had personally until he woke up with both. He couldn't help chuckling at the idea of her putting out a perfume to smell of a bake shop. The truth was Cotton would have likely married the first woman he met wearing the scent so he was glad it was only a hypothetical.

"If only there was magic to make dreams come true, right? Well. Good dreams. I imagine you know what I mean. It seems a lot of people talk about their dreams here. I think it might be a California thing."

Cotton tried to remember what a latte was only to come up blank. He didn't let his smile slip while he came up with an excuse.

"Coffee is fine. Throw some cream and sugar in it so it pales down, I'm happy. I'm not a fancy guy."

He owned a lot of fancy things now, but Cotton didn't feel any different. Was he different when he had his memories? Was he the kind of guy who wanted to get his nails done while talking on a phone he clipped to his ear? Those guys seemed completely self-absorbed to him. Cotton hoped he wasn't one of those guys. Ever. There were some levels of dick he didn't want to fall down into. That was one of them. Lately it seemed he spent more time thinking about what kind of man he didn't want to be than what kind of man he actually was which might be half the reason he had memory loss.

~*~

“I've heard of magic in this world,” Audrey said, softly, “but I don't think it's that kind of magic.” She could do some pretty incredible things with her wand, and Merlin didn't even need one. But he didn't have the power to make wishes or dreams come true. That she knew of. Maybe Merlin was holding out on her, and he had amazing, Genie-like powers. One never could tell in Orange County. "California is certainly a magical place," she smirked as she put some cream and sugar into a cup of drip coffee, then brought his whole order to him over the counter.

"It certainly has been a pleasure talking with you, Mr. Weary. I'm glad you came into the shop today." It might have been a line if it came from anyone else, but on Audrey the sentiment was genuine. She was in this business because she was good at it first and foremost, but secondly because she loved people. Talking to new people made her very happy.

"Is there anything else I can get for you?"

~*~

"You know? I'm glad I came in here, too. It's nice to have a good interaction with someone for a change."

It helped she had no reason to expect anything other than casual conversation from Cotton. He was tired already of not being able to answer questions about a life he had no idea how he was living. There were too many things he couldn't remember for him to be useful to the people who were a part of his current life. They were tolerating his memory loss from what he could tell. Most of the time, Cotton wished he'd never woken up in this state at all. What was the point of having money, fame, and power when a guy was given nothing other than grief for it?

Cotton had gotten a photo of himself snapped while he was wandering the parking lot at a store clicking his key fob to see which car lights flashed---it'd wound up in a tabloid saying he was publicly intoxicated to the point of being unable to remember his own vehicle.

Drinking was not something Cotton overindulged in.

His old man had been enough of a drunk for three generations of Weary men.

"Thanks for the pastry and the coffee. I hope I remember to come in here again."

~*~