The Plan Read Online Free Page B

donut.
    P OUT . I A M H ENCEFORTH R EIMAGINING the word as more than a mere verb and noun. It denotes my entire state of being at this moment. My outlook.
    It’s a good thing today is Saturday. I’ve expended the bulk of my waking moments foraging for the day-old goods that are the greatest perk of being Clara’s roommate.
    Erm, I mean, apart from her being my oldest and dearest friend. My sister from another Mister. My Sole Sister—highest of honors between us Heel Hoors. Yikes. Must sort priorities.
    But seriously: Homer has a point. Donuts equal yum.
    “Clara, are you trying to torture me? Quash my will to live?” Cabinet doors bang. I rummage and search to no avail. Not a single cream puff to be had. Not even a stale apple spice cake donut to soak in my black gold. I mean coffee.
    Clara is missing.
    I will earmark a few minutes later in the day today to rationalize why I noticed that fact after the donuts. About forty minutes after. And a hunt that would’ve located D.B. Cooper if he had the misfortune to smell of cruller.
    She’s always home long before now. Her workday starts around 2:00 a.m. weekdays and as early as midnight for the extra heavy Saturday sales.
    That Time to Make the Donuts commercial guy was a fairly accurate portrayal of Clara’s nocturnal adventures. The more successful her entrepreneurial efforts, the more zombie-esque she has become. Which is not exactly an insult in her mind, either. One of the eccentric things that endears her to me is an inexplicable affection for the extraordinarily terrible film I Walked with a Zombie . Which, I must admit begrudgingly, may have grown on me over the years of coerced viewings.
    There are days I half expect to find a check from the Sadist Sleep Study Institute in the mail. Compensation to us both for being participants in a long-term deprivation experiment we are both far too exhausted to remember signing up for.
    Clara’s text tone sounds out. Her shop is slammed, and the help went home sick.
    No need to ask.
    My successful lobbying at work helped nudge her catering bid to victory. Even fully staffed it was shaping up to be a huge production day for her. In under three minutes, I tie my hair up, throw on blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and Keds, and back the car down the drive.
    I better at least score beaucoup donut holes for this.
    10:16 a.m.
* Here : Flour.
* There : Flour.
* And Everywhere : Flour.
    “H OW’S I T G OING B ACK T HERE ?” Clara peeks into the prep room.
    I’m up on a pallet, working at the cutting bench, giant mixing bowl on an old storage drum that sits waist high. Beside me, several metal racks await donuts to be cut from Clara’s secret recipe dough.
    She guards it like none other. It’s all very Super Secret Squirrel. Fort Knox could take tips. Colonel Sanders would tell her to relax.
    “You tell me.” I finish another roll through the dough with the cutter. She watches me pop the centers out of donut rings two at a time and place them onto a proof box screen.
    I touch the one in the lowermost right corner. “Dibs.”
    “Looks like you’ve got it under control. Reminds me of ye olde good ol’ days when you used to help out at my mom’s store.”
    “Just like riding a penny-farthing.” I poke out two more holes in her direction for emphasis.
    Clara runs back up to man the counter. Display case is all but barren. Neck deep in customers.
    “What time exactly does the demand for donuts taper off?” I call up to her. Desperation is evident in my tone. Though tonight’s catering goods are mostly complete, we still have to do the finishing flourishes and prep for transport.
    She smiles crookedly over her shoulder at me.
    I have flour in places where flour ought not be. Where people typically only complain about having sand in.
    Flour has gotten farther than anyone I’ve dated in recent memory.
    Flour needs to buy me a dozen long stemmed homophones.
    1:35 p.m.
    C LARA C ALLS M E T O T HE F RONT C OUNTER because she says