She slowed her breathing, smelled the lovely coffee. Finally, the Queen of Hell felt steady enough to leave.

She asked for the check, but of course, Tremon had put everything on his tab.

Katrina stared at her screen.

In one night, her Axxiom video had over one thousand views. Now, in a week, her total views had gone over ten thousand.

She held a pillow to her face and screamed.

24

Edwin Tran and Windee Tran. It was such a cliché, but could twins be any more different? Windee was precocious, technical, brilliant. Lanny was training Windee to work the counter, tune the warp filaments, adjust the replicators; every day she seemed to be working on a different facet of operations. Even now, Floresta could see that Lanny envisioned her as a future command officer.

But Edwin had neither the aptitude nor interest for warp or replicator science. And although he was kindhearted and considerate, he struggled for words, leaving customers confused and compromising service efficiency. Thus, Lanny left Edwin to cleaning up and helping Floresta in what she felt were the nonessential activities of the kitchen.

Oh, that Lanny. The girl was a wonderful scientist and starship captain. But sometimes she forgot that this was not a starship.

There were essential differences between a captaining a lone starship delivering a refugee family to a faraway planet and running a donut shop dedicated to bringing tasty treats to the people of El Monte. And these differences were beginning to hurt the shop, the crew, and most of all, Edwin.

Out of all the children, Floresta believed Edwin was born for making donuts. Sure, he was not the best with conversation. His mind was not as flashy as Windee’s, and of course he couldn’t match Markus’s engineering prowess. But no one, not even Shirley, perceived what customers wanted the way Edwin did.

It was Edwin who suggested filling the front area with music, played not too loudly, but at a volume that would make customers feel welcome to sit down and have conversation. He suggested they move the drink refrigerator to the front of the counter, where it could be stocked with cold soda, sparkling water, and especially, old-fashioned dairy bottles of regular and chocolate milk.

“I notice that whenever they see the milk, the customers smile,” he said. “So this way, they can be smiling sooner.”

And beyond that, there was Edwin’s sense of taste.

Why was one bakery full of lines and laughter, while another was empty? Why did one noodle house thrive, while another failed? Was it the processing? The equipment? What were the secrets?

Floresta had no answers until that day when she had spirited Edwin away and given him a bolillo roll. He replied that it tasted like home. When Floresta reminded him that they had come from across the galaxy on a starship, the boy shrugged.