29It was Monday morning and the big woman was proving she could flatten me any time she chose.
A heavy cotton apron in midnight blue covered her slate-gray tank top and matching knee-length shorts.
Wraparound ties snugged the fabric to her thick waist.
She was six inches taller than my five-foot-nine and at least twenty years younger.
She’d pulled her strawberry blond hair into a ponytail, showing off a firm and prominent jawline.
Her well-muscled arms were bare and ended in huge hands.
A blue fabric strap looped from the apron’s bib-front around her pale neck.
The logo on the bib read ALYSSA’S CUSTOM CAKES.
I was in San Jose, a sprawling city of a million people at the southern end of San Francisco Bay.
Yesterday morning, I’d smelled the San Jose landfill when I met May Lee at a
