The letters on the sign above the bakery were as willful as inanimate objects could be. Hugo and Loretta kept an attentive eye out in case the force behind the mischief chose to make itself known. It never did. They had never had any trouble with the “E” until last week. The “G” was another story altogether, having annoyed them for years like a misbehaving child with its tendency to lean slightly out of line of the other letters. It often drooped, or swung with the wind; twice it had mysteriously turned backwards in the night.
The first time it fell off entirely (the first of what was to be four instances in the thirteen-year history of HUGE DOUGHNUTS) the gravity of the slightly convex cube that was the “G” collided with the forward movement of a red Chevy van which was at that moment swinging into a parking space in front of the shop. Its blue and white plastic crunched and splintered onto the hood, leaving a mess of shards in the entry way, an insurance settlement to be paid, and a revision of the identity of the bakery. At night the gap in the letters was less noticeable as the newly transformed HU E DOUGHNUTS shone through the neighborhood with the promise, not of size, but of light.
Loretta and Hugo Huge did not, in fact, embody the bulk that their name suggested. Slight people of birdlike intensity, successful in both metabolism and business, they were able to eat many of the pastries they produced (which were larger than usual—a slogan and a selling point) day after day without gaining the usual pounds and peevishness associated with their product. Thirteen years ago, when Hugo had asked for Loretta’s hand simultaneously in marriage and in store partnership (the name of which he had decided on in Loretta’s company at the Saturday night Scrabble competition), he had proposed simply.
Loretta had just finished arranging her tiles into a vertical exclamation, transforming the monotonous “chant” into the charming “enchantment.” Hugo took advantage of the fire in her eye, the call of his heart, and the magic in the room to ask, “How do you like HUGE DOUGHNUTS?”
Loretta instantly intuited his meaning. “I think I say I dough,” she replied.
They were the sort of people who liked puns and puzzles, odd hours, and controlled, hands-on labor. They took life’s surprises—tremendous financial success, bad luck with pedigree dachshunds, and childlessness—in stride and mostly with good humor.
Loretta liked the way her last name made an ironic comment on her size and gave a good chuckle to customers when they discovered that it meant more than the radius of the chocolate glazes. And, she had to admit, she especially liked those times when the “G,” acting up or falling down, reinvented the shop as HU E DOUGHNUTS. It was, well … colorful. She felt, in her new identity, not like someone who was missing a letter, or a sound, or a part of life, but like a person who had gained something: perspective, or even a separate and brilliant spectrum. She felt her banter with customers lighten; she felt her aura, or her spirit (her imagination, Hugo said) brighten with clarity.
When the trouble with the “E” began and eventually left them as HUG DOUGHNUTS, Loretta’s spirit did not soar. She felt as if she had landed in a hippie commune of pastries, where everyone was expected to touch all the time. It was sticky. “Hug a tree” or “Have you hugged your child (éclair?) today?” paraded through her mind. She and Hugo discussed the options for restoring the sign. They agreed on when (as soon as possible; neither could fathom operating under that moniker for long), but not about how.
What had happened was this: over a week’s time the blue lettering of the “E” on its plastic white cube (was the blue coloring paint? Ink? Dye? Loretta had never had an occasion to ponder it) faded until it completely disappeared. There was no explanation, and no other letter was affected. Whereas the “G”’s antics had perhaps been the work of an irritating but familiar poltergeist, the “E” seemed to have developed quickly and ominously into a black hole, imploding upon itself and achieving invisibility. Loretta secretly worried that the land on which the shop rested had become a time warp, or had always been haunted. One thing was clear: Loretta needed a change. “It’s a sign.”
“Yes,” replied Hugo, “and it needs to be repaired.” He was already defensive, anticipating her direction.
“I was thinking,” she said, “that it needs to be replaced.”
A pause.
“With what?”
“Well, I’m not sure. I mean, there are all kinds of names we could come up with. Something kooky, something lively, or … ”
“Different?”
“Yes, Hugo, different. We’ve projected our own name from a marquee for a good long time. Why not change? Especially now with the “E”; it’s providential.” She took his hands. “I feel that the sign is telling us something.”
A sigh.
“Honey, try to understand. I am the shop, you know? I am—we are … HUGE, each of us. A name, our name, doesn’t it say something? Identity, heritage, dreams, future? I’m not sure I’d know who I was if I saw another word up there in front of DOUGHNUTS. It’s like looking in a mirror.”
Loretta stared. “Sweetheart, sometimes a person needs more to look at than that.”
Though tired from arguing, Hugo rose earlier than usual the next morning and took the Scrabble game from the closet. After a quarrel, whoever had been more at fault, more unyielding, or was more willing to apologize would leave a message for the other. Hugo certainly did not think he was at fault in any way, but he sensed that Loretta felt forlorn and confused about many things, and so he took the lead. The message consisted of the words tend, dewy, travel, lovely, and lucky, spelled with intersecting Scrabble tiles.
Although they hadn’t spoken much in the shop, there was a friendly compatibility between them as they baked. Before he gathered his list, notebook, and satchel, as he did every Tuesday, to go have lunch and do errands downtown, Loretta smiled and said, “What do you mean by ‘travel’?”
“Who knows?” sparkled Hugo. “Perhaps there’s a spaceship waiting for us right now, out back by the apple tree. Perhaps I’ve learned to travel through time, and I’ll bring you back a spice from the future that hasn’t been grown yet. Perhaps … an unknown destination awaits you.”
In BOB’S, the café on the sixth floor of the Roberts Building, Hugo ate his usual mushroom omelette. For a moment, he mused on the name Bob, a strong, direct sign of confidence, and a palindrome, at that! Was his own name somehow lacking in energy, in chivalry? He thought of Loretta’s imagination, her maturing and wiry body, her tearful confession of boredom. Yes, he felt change in the air today; he felt change in his body like a butterfly flapping against his skin. Although they had finally compromised that the sign would remain HUGE DOUGHNUTS for another year, he was disturbed at Loretta’s restlessness, the claustrophobia about her. He would take her on an exotic trip, he had decided, somewhere tropical, balmy, un-city-like. Romantic.
Hugo paused in the lobby as he waited for the elevator. He would go up to the sixteenth floor from here and order a new “E” cube for the sign, talking first with John at the desk about dachshunds. Later, he would buy guidebooks at the bookstore before stopping at the market for groceries. He couldn’t wait to present Loretta with his surprise.
In the elevator, doors closed, Hugo, the sole passenger, pressed the button marked “16.” He searched for the one word he could utter to Loretta to indicate his vacation idea before he realized that no number had illuminated and the car remained still. He pressed “16” again, then “15,” “14,” “13.” Nothing. His mind settled on “Bismarck,” the sea or the islands, as his one-word clue for exotic adventure, as well as for his commitment to his and Loretta’s continuing endeavor in the bakery. His skin tingled. The cubicle jolted and the “Emergency” button lit up. Hugo wondered about the meaning of this as he rose to an anonymous floor. Or, as he thought to himself, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, how did he know he was really going up at all?
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