A Slice of Magic

The first one through the door was a man in a red fedora who wore a royal blue shirt with a red vest and dark brown pants. His slightly overgrown white hair stuck out the sides under his hat and dark thick rimmed glasses sat on his face. He looked like Spider-man’s grandfather.

Next through the door was Flora, and right behind her was a pleasantly plump woman with her white hair pulled into a bun on the top of her head. Her bright blue eyes sparkled, and she had a face that looked like it spent a lot of time smiling. She was wearing a lime green sweater with jeans and carried a very large yellow purse.

‘Hello, Susanna,’ Flora greeted me in her soft sing-song voice. ‘I want to introduce you to Lena and Mr Barnes.’ She gestured towards her two companions.

‘Nice to meet you.’ I was relieved that Flora was going to be one of my first customers. She seemed so sweet, like one of those people who would tell you what a wonderful job you were doing even if you were totally messing everything up.

‘I am not formal,’ the gentleman said, ‘but I go by Mr Barnes because my first name is just too embarrassing. I don’t think my parents wanted to have children.’ He gave me a wink and took off his fedora.

‘We don’t even know what it is,’ Flora said.

‘We’re the Morning Pie Crew. We’ll probably always be your first customers of the day,’ Lena chimed in, heaving her large purse onto its own chair. ‘We’ve been trying to come up with a cleverer name, but nothing has stuck. Sometimes Henry joins us, but he had to work today.’

I had no idea who Henry was, but I just nodded and smiled.

‘We need our daily pie fix,’ Flora said, eyeing the case.

‘I always tell people they should start their days with some cleansing breaths and a piece of pie,’ Mr Barnes chimed in.

‘And a little gossip,’ Lena added.

‘What can I get for you?’ I asked.

After some hemming and hawing, I served up two mocha creams, one blueberry, and three coffees.

‘You should probably make that four coffees, sweetheart,’ Mr Barnes said to me.

‘Why’s that?’

‘You have to join us, of course,’ Lena said, patting the chair next to her, ‘Grab yourself a piece of pie too. I recommend the blueberry.’

This seemed like an offer I couldn’t refuse, and I filled a coffee cup and heaped a plate with one of the larger pieces of blueberry pie. I felt a little weird sitting down for a break already, but I was the boss so who was going to stop me?

‘Lena and I live in apartments over our shops, and Mr Barnes lives in a house at the edge of town,’ Flora said.

‘So about three blocks away,’ Mr Barnes said with a chuckle.

I learned that Lena owned the hardware store, and Mr Barnes owned the yoga studio on the other side of town. According to him, I could use a little meditation in my life.

‘Come in for a free class,’ he offered.

My mouth said, ‘Of course,’ but my mind said, ‘heck no.’

I took a bite of my pie and sighed with pleasure as the flavors hit my tongue. The sweet crumbly topping mixed with the slightly tart juice of the blueberries created the perfect combination. I was still savoring when Lena launched in with the questioning.

‘Why haven’t we seen you around here before? Erma talks about you but hasn’t told us why you don’t keep in touch. Was there some sort of falling out? Why haven’t you tried to reach her before?’ she asked.

‘Lena,’ Flora gently swatted her arm. ‘Don’t be rude.’

‘I am not being rude, I am just trying to get to know the girl,’ Lena said defensively. ‘Fine,’ she said, responding to Flora’s very scary stern librarian face. ‘What do you do for a living?’

‘Are you a baker like your aunt, dear?’ Flora asked.

‘Not exactly,’ I said, ‘I work for a handyman company back home. My baking is usually limited to take and bake cookies.’

All of their eyes widened a little, and they plastered nervous smiles on their faces.

‘I’m sure you’ll do great,’ Mr Barnes said after a slightly awkward pause.

Chapter 2

Day 1 ― Wednesday

Word must have spread through town because I didn’t get to sit for too long. People started pouring through the door. I noticed they weren’t as concerned with ordering a piece of pie as they were with asking me questions. Where are you from? How long are you here? What did you do back home? Are you in a relationship? How long was your last relationship? Why do you think you aren’t in a relationship? What kind of experience do you have with making pies? What is your favorite pie? Will you be able to make pie just like Erma does? Where is Erma? When will she be back? It made the questioning by the Morning Pie Crew seem tame. I tried to deflect their questions by giving short answers or awkwardly changing the topic to the weather.

It didn’t take many people to fill the pie shop. They squished inside standing shoulder to shoulder and spilled outside onto the sidewalk. Somewhere in the blur of scooping pie and questions, I noticed the pie tins were getting empty. I glanced at the clock. It was only 1.30 p.m. I felt a trickle of sweat run down my back as I served the last piece of pie to a middle-aged man who wore a jersey with a picture of a cat holding a bat. He was asking me if I played softball and inviting me to join his team the Killer Kittens but all I could think was, how could this happen? What was I supposed to serve for the next four and a half hours? I thought a little guiltily about the pieces of pie I had stashed in the fridge. Not quite guilty enough to put them out though.

My hand shook a little as I wrote ‘Out of Pie’ on a piece of notebook paper and taped it to the front of the display case, cringing at the thought of people storming out in a fit of rage. Nobody stormed out. People just ordered coffee instead. Then they used the time when I was serving their coffee to ask me if I’d ever traveled out of the country, if my hair was naturally curly, and if I wanted children.

‘OK, all you nosy Nellies.’ Flora appeared in the middle of the crowd. Her quiet voice commanded attention. ‘Leave this poor girl alone. She’s got plenty to worry about without you all giving her the third degree.’

The crowd grumbled a little and began to shuffle out the door. I began to breathe a little easier once it was just me and Flora. She rolled her eyes at me.

‘Sorry, they mean well, but usually people just pass through town. We don’t have outsiders who come to stay like this,’ she said. ‘People have to come to stare. It’s like you’re the only clown at the carnival, and they expect you to do tricks for them.’ She shook her head. ‘If they start gathering again, you just holler for me, honey. You’re doing great here.’

I thanked her and she was gone. It was a relief to have quiet in the shop again.

I found a ‘Back in 10 minutes’ sign on a shelf by the front door. I hung it in front of the open sign and locked the door before running upstairs to check on Mitzy. She was curled up on my jacket. Hadn’t I left that hanging in the closet? I shooed her off it, and she moaned as she headed towards the door to be taken outside. I reluctantly found the plastic bags next to the dog leash. I detested the thought of picking up after her, but I was too much of a rule follower to risk defying the sheriff.

Once we were out on the patch of grass, I stood still, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. I tried to pretend I hadn’t seen Flora from her perch in the window of her bookshop.

‘You can run a pie shop,’ I repeated in my head over and over until I almost believed it.

I held my breath while I picked up after Mitzy. How many times could a dog go in one day? I threw it away and jumped back a little when a cat appeared from behind the dumpster. It had long shiny silver fur and huge bright blue eyes. Mitzy began to hop around like a little jumping bean, barking like crazy.

‘Shh, Mitzy,’ I scolded. ‘Go on, cat.’ I tried to shoo it away so I could get Mitzy inside. The cat listened about as well as Mitzy did and sat blocking the door, calmly blinking up at us.

‘You need to move,’ I said. I spoke slowly and loudly as though that would make the cat understand. Great, day one and I was talking to a cat.

‘Meow,’ it said back, but it didn’t budge.

Finally, I grabbed the still barking Mitzy and carried her inside. I had to slide through the door because the cat tried to follow us in. I set Mitzy down once we were safely inside and she gazed up at me, her tail wagging proudly.

Back upstairs, I made sure all my possessions were out of reach before going back to the pie shop. It was still early, so, very reluctantly, I put my secret pieces of pie in the display case. Well, all except the piece of mocha cream. I needed something to get me through the day.

Just after three, a woman in a tailored black business suit came in. She looked taken aback when she saw me.

‘Hi, what can I get for you today?’ I asked with a smile.

‘Where’s Erma?’ She glanced around suspiciously.

‘She had to go on a business trip, but she left some delicious pies. It’s been busy today, but there’re still a couple pieces left.’ I waved my arm across the bakery case.

She continued to eye me skeptically. ‘And who are you?’

‘I’m Erma’s niece, Susanna,’ I said with a big smile. She continued to stare at me. ‘And you are…’

‘Violet Flowerfield. When will Erma be back?’

‘I’m not sure.’ The smile on my face felt a little more forced now, but she didn’t seem to notice. ‘Is there anything I can help you with?’

‘I’m here for an inspection,’ she replied curtly.

Oy, a health inspector on top of everything else today? Based on the deep furrow in her brow, she was not happy about her last inspection. I didn’t know how that could be possible since the place had been so clean when I arrived. I was eager to help in any way that I could, including charming this grouchy health inspector so she’d get off Aunt Erma’s back.

‘Come on. I’ll show you the kitchen.’ I led her by the arm around the wall to the kitchen. The woman started to protest, but I was determined to help, so I gritted my teeth and gripped her arm a little tighter. ‘See, everything is spotlessly clean.’ I let go of her so I could present the kitchen with a flourish of my arms. ‘Don’t you have a clipboard or something so you can write all this down?’ I noticed her hands were empty, but a briefcase hung over her shoulder.

She surveyed the kitchen for a minute, and suddenly I saw it through her eyes. A trail of crumbs led to the piles of pie smeared plates that I’d stacked by the dishwasher. The island was a rainbow of assorted colored mugs, several of which were still partially full of cold coffee. In my haste to keep up with the earlier rush, I had spilled coffee grounds all over the counter and floor by the coffee pot. How did it get so bad back here without me realizing it?

With her eyebrow cocked, she turned back to me. ‘I need to speak with Erma,’ she said.

‘I wash my hands regularly,’ I said, holding them out for her to see.

‘This is really something I need to speak with Erma about,’ she said, straightening out her blazer.

Wow, she was really One Note Nancy. I slowly exhaled my frustration. ‘I’m wearing my hat!’ I pointed to the purple baseball cap on my head that had Erma’s Pie Shop stitched across it in gold, in one last ditch effort to persuade this woman to pass us.

She gazed at my head for a moment before meeting my eyes. ‘When can I see Erma?’

‘I’m sure she’ll be back in the next few days,’ I said, hoping my words were true. ‘I can let her know you stopped by.’

‘Fine.’ She turned to leave.

‘Does she have your number?’ I called as she headed out the door.

‘She knows how to get a hold of me,’ she said without turning around.

I started stacking dishes in the dishwasher. I looked at the huge mountain of crusty dishes and stopped. Why was I here? My car was out front. I could leave this all right now and who would even know? Aunt Erma wasn’t here. She hadn’t even bothered to call today. She hadn’t left a forwarding number. What reason did I have to stay?

I thought about my job back home. The hours were long, and my boss was a big burly guy with just two emotions, angry and annoyed. Despite that, I knew I was really good at my job. I’d had a knack for fixing things ever since I was a kid and my talking doll stopped talking. I had ripped her open at the seams – which originally concerned my parents because they thought I was a serial killer in the making – and I carefully took the box from her torso out and reconnected some wires. The doll began to talk again, and I duct-taped her closed. That was not manufacturer recommended, by the way.

Even though I’d just left home, I longed for the familiarity of my tiny studio apartment with the thin walls where the ever-present sound of cars rushing down the highway reminded me that I wasn’t alone. There was no dog who might lick me in the mouth while I was sleeping. I had the number of the best pizza place on speed dial in my phone. Was there even a pizzeria in this town? My pillow was lumpy in all the right places. Why didn’t I remember to bring my pillow? The pillow was the final straw. I was going home. If I left right now, I could be home before the pizza place closed. I went upstairs and grabbed my bag. I began to throw the few things I’d unpacked back inside. Mitzy watched me from her perch on the arm of the sofa.

‘The shop will be better off without me. I don’t even know why she called,’ I justified to Mitzy. ‘C’mon. I’ll take you to Flora’s,’ I said, hoping Flora wouldn’t mind the intrusion. Was it my imagination or did she just shake her head no? I sighed; I was in no mood to deal with a reluctant dog.

‘Come,’ I said a little more forcefully. Mitzy popped to her feet and went over to the bookshelf. She pawed at a book with a blank purple spine. ‘Don’t do that,’ I said. She made eye contact with me and pawed at it again.

‘Obedience school, that’s what you need,’ I told her as I grabbed the book off the shelf. The cover was embossed with a gold flower. I opened it up, and the pages were filled with pictures of me throughout the years. Me as a baby sitting on the floor with a bowl in my lap all covered in flour. Me at about three years old wearing a bright yellow dress proudly holding up a pie. Me in that same dress smeared in dark blueish purple juice as I cried at the overturned pie tin on the floor. Me on Aunt Erma’s lap as she read me a book. There were even pictures from after she’d left. Me awkwardly trying to pin a corsage on a boy before a school dance. Me and my mom at my college graduation. How had she gotten these pictures?

Before I could even give myself permission to cry, the tears began to fall. I felt the sharp loss of the family I’d once had. We had been so happy – my parents, Aunt Erma, and me. I had a chance to reconnect with Aunt Erma. Maybe we couldn’t get those lost years back, but we didn’t have to lose any more.

When the tears stopped, I sighed and unpacked my bag.

Chapter 3

Day 2 ― Thursday, November 3rd

I woke up before my alarm. A rarity for me. Even though I had been exhausted, it took me a while to fall asleep. It was just too quiet. In my apartment back home I could hear cars driving on the highway all night. Here, nights were quiet aside from Mitzy’s snoring. I eventually turned the television on for a little background noise. I had slept on the red sofa in the living room. The thought of sleeping in Aunt Erma’s bed made me uncomfortable. I knew she wouldn’t mind, but it felt like an invasion of privacy.

I stood up and stretched. My stomach knotted when I thought about baking pies by myself. Mitzy cracked open an eye when I got up, but since she wasn’t nervous about anything, she decided to stay curled up on her perch on the back of the sofa.

As doubts over my abilities crept into my mind, I packed my bag again. If things went badly today, I wanted to be able to leave quickly. Then, I showered, got dressed, pulled my mess of curls back in a ponytail, and went downstairs with my coffee. I dreaded facing the mess in the kitchen.

I stopped in my tracks the minute I entered. The place was spotless. All of yesterday’s dishes were clean and put away. The floor had been mopped. The kitchen actually seemed to sparkle.

What was going on here? I’d never been the victim of a break-in, but I was pretty sure most criminals didn’t clean up. I debated about what I should do. Call the sheriff? And tell him what? That my kitchen was inexplicably clean? That would probably give him a good laugh. There had to be a good explanation for all of this, even if I didn’t know what it was yet.

Mitzy brought me out of my head with a bark from upstairs, reminding me that dogs have to go outside in the morning even if they are reluctant to get up.

Once Mitzy was back upstairs and curled up on the couch (it looked like she had her day planned), I went back to the kitchen to once again look for pie recipes.

I opened cupboard doors and dug through the papers on the desk in the back corner hoping I’d missed something yesterday. But after another thorough search, I was still empty-handed.

I sighed and went upstairs to get my laptop. Mitzy had managed to pull down my pillow from the spot I had carefully tucked it and was now sprawled across it.

‘Hey,’ I said indignantly as I pulled the pillow out from under her and tried to brush off any dog essence. She looked surprised and confused. ‘Don’t lay on my pillow,’ I scolded, and I swear she narrowed her eyes at me.

I put my pillow on top of the high bookshelf. Then I saw the necklace Aunt Erma had left for me. I had left it next to her less-than-helpful note. I examined the sparkly bottle at the end of the chain, and then slipped it on over my head. It wasn’t really my style, but I tucked it under my shirt. It made me feel slightly more connected to Aunt Erma. I grabbed my laptop and headed downstairs.

As I began searching online for pie recipes, I thought about all the hours I had spent in Aunt Erma’s kitchen growing up. I closed my eyes for a minute and tried to dig way back in my memory to see if I could recall anything Aunt Erma had taught me when I was a kid. It was amazing. I could remember the exact pattern of her star covered apron, every word to the songs we used to make up and sing, and the number of gnomes on the wallpaper border in her kitchen, but I could not for the life of me remember anything concrete about the actual baking.

I think the butter in the crust was supposed to be chilled. Or was it supposed to be melted? Or was I supposed to use shortening in the crust? I distinctly remember Aunt Erma telling me that one was better than the other, but which one? I let my head bang down against the computer keyboard for a minute before taking a deep breath and scrolling through the recipes. I found a couple that looked doable.

I lined up all the ingredients from the two recipes I had picked out and cracked open the back door to let in some cool air. Today was going to be a choice of two kinds of pie: apple or blueberry. I would make six of each pie and hope that the day didn’t get too busy or I might have to shut down early. If these went really well, I might get crazy and add a third, like French silk. I loved French silk, but that recipe looked complicated.

I was very young when I started helping Aunt Erma in the kitchen. I remember her tying me to chairs with towels so I wouldn’t fall off as I stood at the counter to help her. Mostly I helped by playing in the flour. My parents didn’t let me make a mess in the kitchen like Aunt Erma did. She would pour a cup of flour onto the counter in front of me just so I could squish it between my fingers or spread it around and draw in it. She would sing and tell me stories that would leave me breathless with their magic. Keeping a child like me quiet took a special gift. I always thought it was funny when she would talk to the pies, singing little rhymes as she sprinkled the spices on top. She would wink at me and say, ‘Now they can work their magic,’ as she slid them into the oven.

I loved those days in Aunt Erma’s kitchen. They were full of pure joy and deliciousness. Aunt Erma made sure we had a pre-baking snack, usually cheese and crackers and some kind of fruit. ‘We have to make sure we have energy to complete this grand task of ours,’ she would say as we stood by the corner of her kitchen counter. We would pause after making the crust for another snack, which was usually a few pieces of chocolate eaten while we stood in the middle of the kitchen surveying our work-in-progress. She would ask me about my day and patiently listen to my long-jumbled stories about something that had happened on the playground or a dream I’d had the night before. She never interrupted me or told me I wasn’t making any sense. She just let me talk.

Then there was the post-baking snack – a big slice of the fresh pie, which we usually enjoyed as we sat with our legs outstretched on the light green carpet in her living room. She never worried about me spilling pie, though I did more than once. Somehow, she always got the stains out of the carpet.

I stared at the ingredients and drank my coffee. Did I have time to eat some cheese and crackers? I looked at the clock and realized I had to focus. Maybe if I concentrated all my energy, it would somehow magically turn into finished pies. Unfortunately, the power of my mind seemed to be failing me, so I set to work. I added all the ingredients for the crust to the industrial mixer. It was a little daunting to flip the switch to the on position because even though it had a protective guard around the bowl, I was still afraid somehow I would fall in and get mixed to death. I carefully read and re-read the recipe to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. I felt my confidence build as I looked at the giant ball of dough that actually seemed to resemble the pictures of pie crust I had found online. I covered the counter with a layer of flour and plopped the ball of dough in the middle so I could divide it into smaller chunks. Out of the blue, I sneezed right on the pie crust. A cloud of flour surrounded me.

I jumped when I heard a snort behind me. I turned and saw a tall man standing in the doorway. He was a good-looking guy who was probably in his early thirties with wavy dark brown hair, brown eyes, and thick eyebrows. His lips were pursed together as though he was fighting to suppress laughter.

He cleared his throat trying to compose himself. I attempted to brush the flour off me, but there was really no recovering from this.

‘I saw your door propped open, so I stopped to say hi,’ he explained. ‘I’m Henry.’ He looked like he was going to shake my hand but then, as if he remembered that I’d just sneezed, he dropped it back by his side.

‘I’m Susanna,’ I said with a sigh as I grabbed the ball of dough and dumped it in the garbage.

‘You’re the niece,’ he said. ‘I heard some rumblings in town about you.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Something about you loving the musical Annie?’ He raised his eyebrows questioningly at me.

‘That doesn’t sound like me,’ I said, somehow managing to keep a straight, innocent face. ‘You must be confusing me with someone else.’

He looked suspicious. ‘There’s not a lot of new people in town to confuse you with.’

‘So, what do you do, Henry?’ I asked, in what I hoped was a smooth change of subject.

‘I work at the nursing home.’ As he spoke, he walked into the kitchen and washed his hands. ‘The people there are great, but it’s like I have eighteen grandparents always trying to “help” me make my life decisions.’ Without missing a beat, he was over at the sneeze counter, washing it off.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

‘The shop is supposed to open soon, and…’ He waved his hand over the counter where I had all the ingredients lined up. ‘There are no pies. I thought maybe you could use a hand.’

‘You bake?’ I asked.

‘Oh yes,’ he said with a smile. ‘Erma is one of my many surrogate grandparents.’