The Memory of Lemon (11 page)

Neely

“Who thought Pie Night was a good idea?” complained Maggie.

It was six o'clock, the bakery's normal closing time, and the place was empty, despite the row of signature pies, running the length of the counter, that Jett and I had just set out.

Chocolate. Strawberry-rhubarb. Apple. Blackberry. Bourbon chocolate. Coconut cream. Sour cherry. Lemon meringue.

All with scalloped edges, lattice tops, pastry cutouts artfully arranged, or peaks of Italian meringue scorched with a pastry torch for a toasted marshmallow effect.
All that work
.

Granted, one of the reasons we were doing Pie Night was to test how each of these pie varieties held up before we had to bake and take them to Lydia's wedding reception in June.

Pastry dough was such a touchy thing. So much depended on the coolness of my fingers and the marble countertop where I
rolled out the dough. The smooth way the rolling pin glided over the disk of chilled dough. There was a certain feel to pastry that you didn't need with cake. You didn't have to feel a cake batter to judge if it was ready, but you had to touch pastry to know. The tiniest change in the weather—humid versus dry, warm versus chilly—seemed to make the dough come together and then roll out differently.

We had baked the pies earlier in the morning. Now, ten hours later, if the pastry was soggy, tough, or otherwise imperfect, I would have to try again with another pastry recipe or filling combinations that could hold up better. And I only had a little over a month.

I sent up a prayer to the pastry gods:
Please let this be all right.

But I also wanted to make a little money here. “Did you send out another social media blast? Tweet and Instagram?” I asked Maggie.

“You were looking over my shoulder when I did.”

“Let's not freak out here,” Jett said, ever the diplomat in venom green nail polish and little skull earrings. “People aren't going to come until after they've had their dinner. Pie is for dessert.”

Maggie and I stood behind the counter, arms folded, and stared out the display window.

Jett shook her head. Leave it to her to be remarkably upbeat while the rest of us were uncharacteristically morose. “Maybe we should open up so that this wonderful pie aroma brings them in,” she said brightly. She opened the door and used it to fan the pie air out onto the street.

And it worked.

Somebody walked in.

“This is Pie Night, right?” the older lady asked, pointing to the sign in the front window.

Signs, portents, e-mail, or the aroma of a just-baked pie. Something was working.

We introduced ourselves to silver-haired Mrs. Hefron, who looked to be in her seventies. I got her settled with a slice of coconut cream and a decaf coffee. Pie was a friendly kind of dessert, so it was only natural to begin chatting.

“I've been looking forward to this all week. I don't make pie like I used to, but my mother made the flakiest crust,” she reminisced. “It used to shatter when your fork cut into it. She always used leaf lard, the best kind. She used to buy it in a metal tub. It was snowy white. I can still see her cutting it into the flour with two knives she used like scissors.” She took another bite. “But this is very good, too.”

Maggie must have called her mother, because in she came with little Emily in tow.

“Well, Patsy!” Mrs. Hefron exclaimed to Maggie's mother. “Where have you been keeping yourself, neighbor? You and that adorable grandchild come over here and sit with me. I'll treat you two to pie.”

A single mom and her three kids came in next, and then the Professor, whom Maggie corralled away from her mother. She sat him down with a slice of blackberry pie, the closest we had to his favorite blueberry and lemon morning muffin—
I mean, breakfast cupcake
.

I was surprised when Mrs. Amici's grandson Bobby stopped in. Mrs. Amici used to be a regular customer until she moved up to Mount Saint Mary's memory care wing with Gran. I don't
remember Bobby ever coming into the bakery, but I was glad to see him anyway. I cut him a slice of strawberry-rhubarb. “How is your grandma doing?”

“She has good days and bad,” he said. “I take Barney up there when I go. Sometimes she doesn't even recognize him, but that dog is always a big hit.”

I smiled at Bobby. Barney, part beagle, part dachshund, with a long and low body and droopy ears, had christened every streetlight, lamppost, and mailbox along Benson Street. I missed seeing Barney and Mrs. Amici walk by the bakery every day.

People I had never seen before flocked in, their faces showing a longing you never saw for cake. People's eyes lit up for a cupcake; cake seemed to signal celebration. But their eyes got filmy, watery, misty when we handed them a slice of pie. Pie was memory. Nostalgia. Pie made people recall simpler, maybe happier times.

“I haven't had pie this good since I was a boy,” the Professor told Maggie. I saw her pat his hand. Maybe he would ask her out again, and this time, she would say yes. He looked sad. Wistful. Unsure of himself.

But my attention was drawn back to our pie customers.

“My aunt Fanny used to make a hickory nut pie, but she died before she could write down the recipe for me,” another woman told me.

As I refilled coffee cups and moved around the bakery, I drifted in and out of pie conversations.

“We used to go cherry picking when we lived in Michigan, and my mom made pies all week that we froze and would bake all year. You can bake a pie from frozen, you know; you just bake it longer. Sour cherry is still my favorite.”

“My mother-in-law and I used to pick black raspberries at a farm near Wilmington, buckets and buckets of 'em. They make the best pies.”

“Have you ever had that Shaker lemon pie, the one with the whole lemons sliced thin? You want to talk lemon, that's lemon. It's real sour.”

“When I was on the road, I used to stop in a diner outside of Indianapolis that had fantastic lemon meringue pie.”

“I clipped a recipe from the newspaper years ago that had a chocolate pie like this one. I wonder where that recipe went.”

“When are you going to have Pie Night again?”

By eight o'clock, every pie pan was empty and we had to shoo people out.

Maggie and I were delighted. It was now Jett's turn to go to the dark side. “I've never seen such a bunch of doom cookies,” she said, wiping down the tables.

“What?”

“Doom cookies. You know, people who pretend to be something they're not, like girls in my class who pretend to be bad-ass but go home and read
The Little House on the Prairie
in their Disney princess bedrooms.”

“Who were the Pie Night people pretending to be? I don't quite follow.”

“They're pretending to be bad-ass pie bakers.” Jett trilled in a church-lady falsetto, “
‘Oh, leaf lard is the best.' ‘No, I swear by a mixture of Crisco and butter.'
When was the last time they actually baked a pie? If they did, they wouldn't be gorging themselves here on Pie Night. They probably don't even own a rolling pin.” Jett sniffed. And then she added, diplomatically, “But your pie was good.”

By the time I got home, it was after nine. I changed into comfy clothes and made myself a peanut butter and apple jelly sandwich, a taste of my childhood. I first had that combination at Maggie's house. Patsy, Maggie's mother, would make after-school sandwiches for us, then one for herself. Patsy was always snacking on something. “Pleasingly plump,” Maggie's father used to say, eyes twinkling as he gave Patsy a little pinch on the behind, even in front of us kids. Maggie found that embarrassing, but I thought it was wonderful—to be loved for yourself by someone who found your quirks charming, quite the opposite of the strained silences between my parents at home.

Patsy also had a baby doll dressed in a dimity gown, which she displayed in her living room. No one, not even little Emily, was ever allowed to touch it. “It was what I wore when I was adopted as an infant,” she once told me, matter-of-factly. “My birth mother probably intended for it to be a clue of some kind, but it's a reminder to me that I have a happy life. I don't need to look for more.”

Dimity.
The word stopped me. What was it I was trying to remember about dimity? Whatever it was, I would think about it again tomorrow. I had something important to do yet tonight.

I sank into the settee in my front parlor. I put my feet up on the ottoman and nibbled my sandwich.

The flavor also took me back to elementary school on Millcreek Valley's hilltop, where Ben and I had been in the same class since second grade. When I looked back at my childhood self from an adult's perspective, I wanted to hug that ponytailed, long-legged, smart girl with the permanent teeth that were as yet too big for her little face and tell her everything was going to work out fine. Not to worry.

When I looked back at Ben as a child, I wanted to tell that shy, husky boy with the blue eyes and sandy hair that one day, he would grow into his strength and self-assurance. He wouldn't have to take a backseat to anyone. Ever.

I needed to write Ben a letter, since we could no longer text or talk by phone.

I wanted it to be a love letter. But what do you write to someone you've known since you were kids, but don't know yet in an intimate way?

I took my sandwich plate into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of pinot gris.

I took the wineglass—and the rest of the bottle—upstairs to my office.

I hadn't penned a handwritten letter since the night Luke and I finally broke up in March, except for a letter to my dad in April. I had torn up the many versions of my letter to Luke and thrown them away. Writing that letter had only been a way to help me work through the breakup.

But I had also written a second letter that night. To my troubled, homeless dad. And he had answered it. We were now connected for the first time since he'd left when I was fifteen. Who knew if it would continue? He could wander off again, but I had high hopes this time.

I had high hopes for Ben's letter, too.

So, what did I feel?

I took a sheet of paper from the printer feed and started freewriting all the feelings that came up when I conjured Ben.

I felt warmth, the kind that starts in your chest and radiates out. I felt happy and buoyant because I knew that a good, good man loved me. I felt grounded because Ben knew me, really knew
me, and loved me anyway. I felt safe because Ben, unlike Luke, had no selfish side that could lead him to betray me. When Ben looked at me, when he held me, I felt cherished.

I wanted to be as close to him as I possibly could. I wanted the two of us to become one.

And at that, the longing, the ache, the physical thrill that was always the first thing I felt with Luke became the ultimate thing I felt for Ben. It was all of Ben that I wanted.

I gulped my wine and fanned my face with the paper.

I placed a sheet of stationery on my desk blotter and caressed it with my fingers.

Ben,

Not seeing you is so hard. We were off to a good start—again—and then the stupid prenup had to ruin everything. If it weren't for Gran, I would tell Luke to keep everything and I would just walk away, happily empty-handed and free. But I can't do that.

I don't know how long this has to last. I hope not long. You have been so patient and understanding. Please know I am doing everything I can to make this ridiculous situation go away. I have an appointment with my attorney to file for divorce. I will let you know how that goes.

I miss you more every day. I miss being in your arms, my head under your chin, listening to the beat of your heart.

Yours,

Neely

I sat back and put my pen down. What good was it to sit by patiently, passively, like the little woman at home that Luke and Charlie Wheeler wanted me to be?

I had to do something.

Against my attorney's strict advice, I called Luke.

I doubted whether he would even hear his phone ring, buzz, bleat, trumpet, or whatever sound it made these days. He was probably out socializing or bedding a barmaid.

But he picked up on the first ring.

“I was hoping you'd call.” His voice was like velvet, tender like a caress. And there was no noise in the background. Maybe he was having a quiet evening at home for a change.

“I wasn't sure you'd be home.”

“I'm a changed man, Claire. That's what I've been trying to tell you.”

“You haven't been trying to tell me. I haven't talked to you in months.”

“I have been trying, but you haven't been responding.”

He was right. I had blocked his number from my phone and sent his e-mail address to the spam folder.

“So you thought, good guy that you are, that threatening me with that stupid prenup was a good plan?”

“I had to get your attention somehow, Claire,” he said, tiredly, as if this were a last resort. “Look, just say the word and I'll drop whatever I'm supposed to be doing and come to you. You can have whatever you want. Your bakery. Your life there. We'll just go back and forth. Other couples have long-distance marriages and they make it work.”