Pies and Prejudice (36 page)

Note: For a meatless tart, substitute mushrooms for the pancetta.

“There’s nothing like a wedding to ruin a perfectly good Saturday,” Mrs. Dower declared to the pie shop’s empty dining room. She dropped the newspaper she’d been reading on the table, leaving the radiant faces of new brides to stare at the ceiling.

Ella Mae LeFaye studied her first customer of the morning. Mrs. Dower was gray. Her clothes, her hair, and the cloud above her head were all a shade of dark gray. She sat alone at one of the café tables, rumbling like a thunderhead. With every breath, she seemed to expel an invisible vapor of gloom. It gathered around her and then spread across the pie shop like a low fog, blotting out the light, muting the twang of the country music being piped through the radio, and squelching the pleasant aroma of baking pies.

“Nothin’ like a challenge before you’ve even got your eyes open,” said a pixielike woman with nut brown hair. She examined Mrs. Dower through a crack in the swing doors leading from the kitchen into the dining room and shook her head. “It’s hopeless, Ella Mae. You’ll never make her
smile. For a half century, that woman has been swallowin’ up all traces of joy like she was a human bog.”

“What’s her story?” Ella Mae asked as she moved away from the door to stand behind her worktable.

Reba smirked. “She’s been playin’ the organ at the First Baptist church since before I was born.”

Ella Mae pressed a ball of dough flat and picked up her rolling pin. She paused, the flour-dusted pin poised in the air. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Of course!” Reba laughed, a sound like the tinkling of tiny bells, and tied her apron strings behind her back. “She only acts like she’s older than dirt. Shoot, she’s probably younger than I am.”

“I don’t know what to believe about the people of Havenwood anymore!” Ella Mae replied heatedly. “You try discovering that you’re able to transfer emotions into food, thereby directly effecting other people’s behavior, and see how muddled your thoughts become.”

Waving in surrender, Reba glanced out through the crack again. “I know you’ve been thrown for a loop, but you’ll be all right. The LeFayes are tough.” Her eyes widened. “Wish me luck, I’m goin’ out to take her order.”

Ella Mae waved the rolling pin at Reba and then pressed it into the center of the dough, releasing a burst of buttery scent. She maneuvered the wooden tool up and down, side to side, and up and down again until the dough had been manipulated into a flat circle. Folding it in half, she gently transferred the piecrust into a glass dish.

“She wants a breakfast pie,” Reba announced as she re-entered the kitchen, the swing doors flapping in her wake. “But not the one on the menu. Says she doesn’t care if she has to wait an hour for her order. She wants what she wants.”

Ella Mae pushed a stray lock of hair out of her face, covering her cheek and the edge of her ear with flour. “Then I suppose it’s a good thing she showed up before we’re officially open. What exactly would she like?”

“I see that twinkle in your eye,” Reba said, holding out a warning finger. “You think you’re gonna charm her into smilin’, but even your mojo isn’t that powerful. All jokin’ aside, Ella Mae, you don’t know how to control your gift just yet. You’d best rein it in for now.”

“How am I ever going to control it when no one will give me straight answers about how I got this way!” Ella Mae snapped. “How any of us got this way. What makes me and you and my mother and aunts different?”

Reba shook her head. “I told you, sugar. You have to find your own path to the truth. It’s one of the rules.”

“Made by whom? Another mystery none of you will explain to me.” Gesturing at the pie plate, Ella Mae said, “Forget it. Just tell me what Mrs. Dower wants for breakfast.”

Relieved to change the subject, Reba reached into her apron and pulled out a pack of red licorice twists. “Her mama used to make a pie full of cheese, hash browns, bacon, and somethin’ crunchy on top. Mrs. D. doesn’t remember what made the crunch—probably the bones of small children who lost their way in the woods—but she said if you’re as good as folks say, then you’ll figure it out.”

Ella Mae walked over to the pantry and examined her supplies. She glanced at the tidy jars of dried fruit, passing over the cherries, apricots, cranberries, raisins, prunes, figs, and quince until her gaze rested on the collection of nuts. But she wasn’t looking for pecans, almonds, macadamia, walnuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, pistachios, peanuts, or cashews. What she needed wasn’t in her kitchen.

“Just sprinkle a few dead beetles on top,” Reba suggested. “She’ll think it’s some kind of exotic nut.”

Ignoring the jumbo tubs of sugar and flour, the canisters of spices, and the clumps of dried herbs hanging from the wire shelves, Ella Mae turned to Reba. “Can you run over to the Piggly Wiggly for a box of Corn Flakes?”

“Ah ha.” Reba tapped her temple. “You’re a clever girl. Be back in two shakes of the devil’s tail.”

After Reba left, Ella Mae took eggs, bacon, and cheddar cheese out of the walk-in refrigerator. Once the bacon was sizzling on the stovetop, she shredded the cheese and sliced the potato until she had a mound of thin, white strips on the worktable. When the bacon was crisp, she removed it from the frying pan and dumped the potatoes in the hot fat where they jumped and jerked like a child being tickled. By the time Reba returned, Ella Mae had blended all the ingredients together with a cup of cottage cheese. Seasoning the mixture with salt, pepper, and a pinch of paprika, she poured it into the pie shell and then opened the box of Corn Flakes.

“You said that Mrs. Dower’s an organist. Have you ever heard her perform?”

Reba nodded. “People are so glum when she plays the offertory hymn that they can barely pull out their wallets, let alone pry them open and stick a bunch of cash in the collection plate. And that woman can make a bridal march sound like a funeral procession.” She pointed toward the dining room. “You heard what she said. She hates weddings. Hates happiness in general.”

“And her mama? The one who made her favorite pie?” Ella Mae shoved her hand into the cereal box, her fingers caressing the small, stiff flakes.

“Passed on years ago. Why?”

Ella Mae scooped up a handful of Corn Flakes and held them over the pie. “I bet she misses her mother—that she’s never gotten over losing her. I need to help her believe that her mother wouldn’t want her to spend the rest of her life moping. I need to help her stop feeling so…gray.”

Reba frowned. “Not blue?”

“Blue doesn’t describe loss. Grief robs the world of color. Turns it heavy and gray.” At the mention of grief, Ella Mae thought of her failed marriage and of how she’d left New York before completing her final semester of culinary school. Shoving the memories aside, she glanced at Reba.
“Give Mrs. Dower some more coffee, please. I want to add something special to her pie.”

“You should save your superpowers for an emergency, like making that hunky UPS man fall madly in love with me. Instead, you’re gonna waste them on that sourpuss.” With a scowl of disapproval, Reba left the kitchen.

Ella Mae closed her eyes and traveled back in time. In her mind’s eye, she was a little girl again. It was summertime and her thin limbs were bronzed and freckled by the sun. There was a kite in her hands. It was shaped like a butterfly and had been made from a rainbow of bright nylon hues. Ella Mae had tied the kite to the basket of her bicycle and sat perched at the top of a steep hill, ready to propel herself forward.

Letting out a holler of anticipation, Ella Mae pushed off with her bare feet, launching the bike into the air. She picked up speed instantly, her whiskey-colored pigtails lifting from her shoulders, the kite shooting into the cerulean sky. She’d looked up at her kite, watching the sunbeams illuminate the reds, blues, yellows, and greens until the fabric seemed to shimmer with life.

Here, in her warm kitchen, Ella Mae relived that moment of light and joy. She saw the colors and felt the wild freedom of her downhill plunge. And she willed those feelings into the cereal flakes as she scattered them over the surface of the pie. “Be happy,” she whispered. “Let go of your grief.”

By the time the pie was done, Mrs. Dower had finished reading the paper and was glaring at the other customers who’d entered The Charmed Pie Shoppe in search of breakfast. Ella Mae noticed the woman’s agitation and quickly handed the treat to Reba to deliver.

“Made-to-order ‘specially for you, Mrs. Dower.” Reba put the plate down with a flourish and then moved to the next table to take the customers’ drink orders.

Ella Mae carried a pair of ginger peach tarts through the
dining area to the rotating display case in the café’s front window. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Mrs. Dower take a bite of pie. Then another. And another.

The older woman chewed slowly at first, but then her jaw moved with more gusto. Slowly, so slowly that Ella Mae wasn’t certain it was there, Mrs. Dower’s mouth began to curve upward into the tentative beginnings of a smile. By the time Ella Mae went back into the kitchen and returned with two coconut cream pies for the display, she barely recognized the woman in gray.

Mrs. Dower, who’d been licking the crumbs from her fork, reached out and grabbed Ella Mae as she passed close to her table. “Your pie,” she began and then faltered. She touched her cheeks, which had grown flushed and rosy, and lifted a pair of meadow-green eyes to Ella Mae. “It was delicious,” she whispered, the blush on her face spreading over her neck and arms, infusing her sallow skin with a healthy pink glow.

Ella Mae put a hand on the woman’s shoulder and grinned. “Come back again, you hear?”

“I most definitely will,” Mrs. Dower promised. She then lifted a sugar packet from the bowl of sweeteners on her table and pivoted it in the light. “What a pretty yellow. Reminds me of buttercups.” She then looked down at her gray blouse and gray skirt and frowned. “I like yellow,” she told Ella Mae.

“I bet you look lovely in it too,” Ella Mae said and couldn’t help but giggle as Mrs. Dower shouldered her purse and hustled out of the pie shop, dropping her gray scarf in the trash can bordering the sidewalk.

Reba handed Ella Mae an order ticket. “Where do you reckon she’s going?”

“Shopping,” Ella Mae replied. “Look out, Havenwood. Mrs. Dower is on the loose.”

“Well, at least she’ll be dressed like a peacock when she goes into credit card debt.” Reba gave Ella Mae a stern look.

Ella Mae held out her hands. “I was just trying to brighten her day. The rest of my pies will be totally normal, I promise. After all, I can’t make something special for every customer.”

As it turned out, Ella Mae barely had time to think, let alone infuse her food with specific feelings. In the months since she’d opened the pie shop, she’d worked five days a week. Nearly six if she counted Mondays, because even though the shop was closed, Ella Mae used that time to make a week’s worth of pie dough.

Her days were long too. She was on her feet for ten hours straight and, after locking the front door at four o’clock each afternoon, she’d say good-bye to Reba, clean the kitchen, and wearily pedal her bike to Canine to Five, Havenwood’s doggie day care, to collect her Jack Russell terrier. And yet, no matter how tired she was, her dog’s kisses of greeting gave her the energy she needed to manage the uphill ride home.

Charleston Chew, or Chewy, as Ella Mae had taken to calling the impish puppy after he’d succeeded in shredding most of her handbags, belts, and shoes, would perch in her straw bike basket, brown eyes gleaming and tongue lolling, as she made the trek to Partridge Hill, her family’s historic house. Ella Mae would dismount in the garage and gratefully step into the lovely and tranquil carriage house. Her cozy refuge from the world.

It still seemed unreal that only a few short months ago, Ella Mae and Chewy had been living in a Manhattan apartment with Sloan Kitteridge, Ella Mae’s husband. For seven years Ella Mae had been content as Sloan’s wife, but after she’d caught him in flagrante with the redheaded twins from 516C, she grabbed Chewy and took three planes to her hometown of Havenwood, Georgia. She returned to her beloved aunts, her daunting mother, and to Reba, the housekeeper who’d practically raised her. And she’d finally fulfilled her dream of opening her very own pie shop.

“Stop gatherin’ wool and plate me some sausage pie,” Reba ordered and slapped three more order tickets on the counter. “I sure wish that sweet girl you hired to work the register and handle the takeout side of things didn’t have to go back to Georgia Tech. She made my life easier, even though I hated sharin’ my tips with her.”

“I was hoping to find a nice high school kid to take her place, but no one’s responded to my ad.” Ella Mae placed a sprig of mint on top of a small bowl of sliced kiwis and fresh strawberries, plated an egg and mushroom tart, and took a bacon and onion quiche out of the oven. She tore off the potholders and quickly filled four more orders, wondering if today would be as busy as yesterday.