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There are two kinds of women here: the old ones, wrinkled and chipper, with hairpinned buns or permed wisps, knobbed knuckles and grandmother names like Ruby, Esther, or Bess, who work the morning shifts and slice and bag marbled ryes with the efficiency of nuns. And then there are the girls, in their mid-to-late teens, who come in after school, if they go to school, to relieve the old ones. The girls work till closing at nine, and all day Saturdays and Sundays. The smell of their fruity lip gloss and gum competes with the cherry-topped cheesecakes and yeast, and they cinch their bib aprons tight around their waists, tug them low over their tank tops, lean far over the counters toward the rare male customer. The old ones have been working here fifteen, twenty, thirty years, and greet regulars by name, know their preferences in rugalah; the girls are just passing through, they tell themselves, just picking up the minimum-wage paycheck on their way to something better, something else.

The new girl is watching the other girls. She is the youngest one here. Her mother, purchasing Sunday morning bagels (two raisin, two egg),

had offered her up to the boss, a fifty-something aging rocker called Elliott, son of the shop's original owner, an octogenarian for whom the bakery was named. Elliott appraised the girl, took in the pearly pink nail polish, the good posture, the evidence of pricey orthodontia in the awkward smile. It wasn't quite legal to hire her. But he likes the younger girls, they work hard. And the customers would like this one, too, her baby fat and still-clear skin. The older girls, well, they start to look a little tough after a few years. Her divorced mother liked the idea of her daughter working in a bakery, a Jewish bakery at that, such a wholesome, homey place, the greeting whiff of sugar and butter and dough. And she'd know where her daughter would be on weekends and in the afternoons, while she was at work herself, brokering foreclosed condos.

And all the sweet things you can eat, Elliott had told the girl, grinning, and she'd smiled back.

There are also two kinds of men here, besides Elliott. The Latino guys who load dough into kneading machines, and bake sheet after sheet of cakes, and the descendents of the original owner, a flock of male cousins in their late teens and early twenties who carry trays of cookies and loaves back and forth. They all look like younger variations of Elliott. All of them are musicians. During their breaks they sit on the hoods of their cars in the parking lot and play air guitar. The hottest of them, an older girl advises the

new girl on her first day, is Jamie, Elliott's son. He actually plays in a band. His girlfriend's pregnant, but everyone thinks he shouldn't marry her and get tied down just now. None of the girls like the girlfriend. She's a bitch, they chime in, overhearing. Jamie's really hot. Check out his car: a repo'd Hummer H2 he got from a police auction, he jazzed up the rims, put this velvet all inside, painted it black. Maybe she can come with all of them to see him play sometime. We'll sneak you in to the club.

The new girl nods, happy. These girls are much cooler than her friends at school. She's never had access to girls like this, worldly and mature. She is just barely filling out her A cups, so she tries to keep her shoulders back, her chest muscles outthrust. She has had nine periods in her life. It still thrills her, the surprise warm curl of blood pushing through to her underpants, the buying of junior tampons, the womanly tug of a cramp. When she masturbates, reading at night from her mother's nightstand books, there's more wet and a sharper smell now. Her insides get to a harder clutch and peak. And now she has her first job. All the sweet things she can eat. Friends who go to clubs. Girls who know about sneaking you in, who use gloss, not balm, who laugh like women. Things will start to happen now. She's not quite fourteen.

Little One, compliments her handling of eclairs and squeezes her arm warmly in praise. Kate is one of the nice ones.

Sure, she says, agreeable. She is still learning the machines, how to slice breads and seal up cakes in pink cardboard and string. She likes the job, most of it, likes being helpful to customers while Elliott nods in approval. She likes the coating of sugar on everything, the sweetness whenever she licks her lips, the stickyness of fruit fillings clotting her hair and the smears of buttercream she finds dried on her face and arms. She keeps her hair in two braids, seals the ends with twist-ties they use to bag challahs; when she gets home at night from the bus stop, smelling of onion and fudge, she unripples her hair and appraises herself in the mirror, deciding her fatigue and sweat and hurting feet and — is that a pimple? her first? — are signs of maturity, of growth.

She reaches into the paper bag, feels an odd thing, pulls out . . . what? A rubbery, peach-colored club, double knobbed at one end. It feels tacky, smells chemical, like petroleum. It is sinister, somehow. She is humiliated by the thing, fat in her hand, but isn't sure why, doesn't know why she feels a twisty flush between her legs. She smiles uncertainly, and hears the other counter girls crack up.

She's never seen one before! Kate announces.

A little big for her, don't you think? Maria says, to more laughter.

Another thing she has learned: not to trust these laughing girls. During her fifteen-minute break on her second day, Denise had asked if she wanted to see her modeling shots, then shown photos of herself splayed naked in a garage on top of a stack of tires, her mouth gaped wide and her fingers pulling her vagina open and raw, and everyone had laughed at her startled face. Shelley had asked if she had any blow, and snickered when she'd stammered an offer to ask around for some at school. Nicole wanted to know how many guys she'd fucked, or had she still only done oral? Monique offered to fill her in on all the cousins and back room guys, then described each of them by the size, shape and smell of their cocks, that word, said over and over, hurting her ears. Debbie advised her to start early on anal, your hole can take it easier when you're young. They bring the reek of cigarettes and beer back into the bakery after their parking-lot breaks, despite Elliott's rules. They tell bumper sticker jokes: Bakery girls knead it. Bakery girls cream their pans. She has comforted herself with mouthfuls of the broken Danish and cookies the girls stuff as they please, with big bites of marzipan to get the ache out of her throat, with sucking the stray buttercream frosting from her fingers when no one is looking. The chocolate constantly under her nails reminds her of the dark blood that lingers in her cuticles after inserting a tampon, reminds her that she is cool and worldly and mature.