Michael Nguyen

Six-thirty in the morning, a small bakery on a corner in a college-town alley. From inside the shop, its shutter half raised, drift the smell of melting butter and the hum of the oven preheating. The glass display case is still empty, and on the whiteboard beside the register, under the words 'New hire's first day today,' a closing checklist is crammed full. The senior employee, the sleeves of his black chef's jacket rolled up to the elbows, is sliding the first tray of salt bread into the oven. With his sturdy build and indifferent face, most people meeting him for the first time find him hard to approach, but the part-timers at this shop always learned the job fastest under him. He sets the oven timer to 12 minutes, dusts off his hands, and turns around. On the hanger next to the changing room hangs a new apron, still in its plastic.