Peach Pies and Alibis (2 page)

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

Reba smirked. “She’s been playing 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
affecting 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.” She raised her
eyes and steepled her hands. “Wish me luck, I’m goin’ out to take her order.”

Ella Mae saluted her with the rolling pin 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 dough into a glass pie dish.

“She’s wants a breakfast pie,” Reba announced as she reentered 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 lock of hair out of her face, leaving
behind a streak of flour on her cheek and the edge of her ear. “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.”

Obviously 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, macadamias, 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 along 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.
She muttered under her breath and appeared on the verge of complaining to Reba for
having to wait so long
when the petite waitress burst out of the kitchen carrying her meal.

“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.” Looking down at her gray blouse and gray skirt, she 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 three 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 a only 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.

The rest of the morning passed by in a blur of baking, plating, and dish washing.
The breakfast rush merged into brunch, and before Ella Mae knew it, the lunch crowd
had arrived.

With a loud “Yoo-hoo!” Ella Mae’s aunt Verena strode into the kitchen, a glass of
pomegranate iced tea in hand. Verena, who was clad in a black-and-white-checked dress
and a pair of cardinal red pumps, settled onto a stool and drank her tea down in three
gulps. Verena was famous for her hearty appetite. As she surveyed the heaps of dirty
dishes in the sink and the pies cooling on wire racks, her fingers marched across
the worktable and snagged a blueberry
from a bowl of fruit salad. “Full house again, I see!” She popped the berry into her
mouth.

Ella Mae cut a tomato basil pie into even wedges and wiped a hunk of dried dough from
her forehead. “Are you still glad you invested in this place?”

“Of course!” she shouted. Verena didn’t have an indoor voice. Whenever she spoke,
it was as if she were addressing a large crowd. Her exuberance was as powerful as
her appetite. “But we’re all worried about you, Ella Mae. You work all day and then
you go home, drink some wine, and fall asleep with a book in your hand. That’s no
way to live! Where’s the fun? The adventure?”

“Has my mother been spying on me?” Ella Mae joked, but she didn’t really want to hear
Verena’s answer.

Grabbing another blueberry, Verena shook her head. “No one’s peeking in your windows.
We only have to look at you to know that you’re in over your head!” She scrutinized
her only niece. “Your hair’s a tumbleweed, you’re too skinny, and I bet you can’t
recall the last time you ate out or went to the movies. You need help!”

Reba entered the kitchen in time to catch Verena’s last sentence. “Amen to that. Our
girl needs another employee, a car, and a roll in the hay. And not necessarily in
that order.”