by Jackie Lau
I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve never had a boyfriend, not unless you count the two weeks I was Jamie Metcalf’s girlfriend back in grade three, or the three weeks I was with Daniel Spiers in grade ten. I don’t think those really count, though.
Not that there haven’t been men, but never anything serious. It was never my priority. My priority was getting the hell out of Ingleford, my tiny hometown where there is absolutely nothing to do, moving to the city, and opening my bakery. At first I thought I wanted a French pâtisserie, but later on, I changed my mind.
And now I have my very own pie shop. It’s been open for nearly a year, and I have six employees—pie-making is a rather labor-intensive business. Usually there are three or four of us in the kitchen, but I always get in an hour early so I can have a little time to myself and sing along with my music.
I wouldn’t dare subject anyone else to my off-tune singing.
Really, it’s that bad.
I take four pie crusts—frozen in pie pans—out of the freezer. We don’t make pie crust every day; instead, we make big batches of pie crust using our large mixer, then have an assembly line of sorts. Once the dough is mixed, one person measures (235 g per pie for our dessert pies), one person rolls, and the third person puts it in the pan and pinches it. Certain types of pies, like pumpkin, are best when the crust is pre-baked so they don’t get soggy, so I have to blind bake the crusts before I pour in the filling.
Once the pumpkin pies are in the oven, I start on the key lime pie. This one’s a little different, as I use a graham cracker crust. Dylan and Fatima come in when I’m measuring out the apple pie filling, which I made yesterday, for the specially-ordered apple pie, as well as a few for our shop.
“How long have you been here?” Dylan asks. He’s a young guy who recently finished college and has yet to become acquainted with haircuts.
“More than an hour,” I reply.
“Maybe you should try sleeping one of these days.”
I shrug. “I’ll take it under consideration.”
My job is my life, though, and I love it.
Even if I’m best known for supplying the banana cream pie that ended up on the premier’s face.
* * *
At three in the afternoon, I’m in the kitchen, making pear-ginger filling, when Ann comes to get me.
“There’s a couple here. They want to order some pies for their wedding.”
I wash my hands and come out to the front, where I introduce myself to a young Asian couple. They’re about my age, and they’re smiling and holding hands. The guy looks vaguely familiar—I think he might have come into Happy As Pie a few times before? He introduces himself as Wes, and his fiancée is Caitlin. I lead them to a table by the window, a list of all our pies in my hand.
“We’re getting married in August,” Caitlin says. “We thought about having a wedding cake, but they’re usually more about the appearance than taste. Since I really love pie, Wes suggested we have a pie buffet for dessert.”
“How many people?” I ask.
“A hundred and fifty. I was thinking thirty pies? Price isn’t a concern, and I want there to be lots.”
Thirty pies would be my biggest order yet.
Can we do it? Absolutely.
I want to start doing more orders and hopefully get into catering. The focus would be the meat pies, though. There are some companies—mostly tech companies, I think—that provide lunches for their employees every day, or maybe for special occasions, and that would be great business.
Eventually, I’d like to sell frozen meat pies to grocery stores, but that would require Happy As Pie to be a bigger operation than it currently is. Our kitchen isn’t huge. A second location, perhaps?
Yes, I have plans.
But first things first. A pie buffet for a wedding...which sounds fantastic, though I’m admittedly biased toward pie.
I slide over the list of pies. “These are all the pies we make regularly.”
“Awesome,” Wes says. “This looks great.”
“We’ll definitely get a few key lime pies,” Caitlin says. “That’s my favorite. Wes bought me a slice from here a couple times.”
“No key lime today, but would you like to try a slice or two of something else while you’re here?” I stand up. “On the house. Right now, we have spiced apple, cherry, berry crumble, lemon meringue, and chocolate tart.”
“I’ll have cherry,” she says.
“Lemon meringue for me.”
I get them their slices of pie, and Caitlin sighs in bliss at her first bite of cherry pie, which makes me smile.
“Oh my God. You need to try this,” she says to her fiancé. She holds a forkful of cherry pie to his lips, and he feeds her a bite of lemon meringue pie.
“You’ve got something on your lip.” He wipes it off as he looks at her with utter adoration, then plants a kiss on her lips.
I turn away, hit with a bolt of longing.
And I can’t help remembering the man who came into Happy As Pie last night. I didn’t know him at all, yet I wiped butter tart filling off his lip. I should have told him to go to the washroom and look in the mirror; I shouldn’t go around touching customers, even if I ask them first. I don’t know why I acted the way I did.
Okay, maybe I do.
Because he was really fucking handsome, and I spend at least twelve hours a day working, and I don’t have a life.
This is what you want, I remind myself.
Yes, I’m living my dream. My mother didn’t think I could do it. She thought I should stay in Ingleford, get married, have kids, maybe work as an accountant.
I had other ideas.
And here I am.
I went to college for baking and pastry arts, then spent years working in kitchens at bakeries and cafés, saving money and honing my craft, until I opened my shop nearly a year ago. I sunk everything I had into this. It has to remain my focus. I don’t have time for a man, not now.
But today is my first Valentine’s Day in my own pie shop, and I’m baking pies for people in love, for people who want to propose, and there’s a happy couple feeding each other lemon meringue and cherry pie by the window.
“We’ll email you when we decide on the pies,” Caitlin says, standing up. “Sometime in the next few days. Would you be able to deliver them to the venue? It’s not far from here.”
“Sure,” I say. We’ve never delivered anything before, but this is exactly the sort of thing I want to be doing.
Caitlin and Wes leave, and I head back to the kitchen with a smile on my face.
* * *
I don’t get home until eight o’clock that night, after spending fourteen hours at work. Longer than usual, but not every day is Valentine’s Day. I live in a small apartment building about a ten-minute walk from Happy As Pie. It’s a pretty crappy apartment, to be honest, but it’s nearby and I don’t spend much time here anyway.
I collapse face-first on my couch for a few minutes, then get up and make myself an omelette and salad for dinner. I eye the two bottles of wine in my cupboard.
Why not? It’s Valentine’s Day, and I’m alone.
I eat my dinner and drink a glass of sauvignon blanc while sitting at my tiny table and updating our social media accounts. When I’m done, I pull my legs up onto the chair and wrap my arms around them, resting my chin on my knees.
Dammit, I feel pathetic. I shouldn’t, but I do.
You know what would be nice? Having a group of good friends. Other single women who could sit around and share a bottle of wine with me on Valentine’s Day. Maybe meet me for dinner every week or two. Occasionally send me silly text messages. I never made close friends when I moved to Toronto for college. I was hyper-focused on my dream.
Hmm. Where would I find a friend?
I shake my head and pour myself another glass of wine, and then my mind wanders back to the Asian guy who came into Happy As Pie, to his enticing lips, his smile, the curve of his back. He was maybe five-ten, wearing jeans
and a Henley, nothing fancy. Yet he carried himself as though he was someone a little important and could move through the world with ease. He had a nice smile, and I’ve always been a sucker for a nice smile, plus that shirt hinted at great arm muscles.
I can’t say I’m thinking of him as a friend.
Sure, there are lots of attractive men in the world, but he was the hottest guy I’d seen in a long time, plus there was just something special about him, aside from his good looks.
I’ll probably never see him again, and I can’t help feeling more than a little disappointed.
Chapter 3
Josh
I can’t believe it. The unthinkable happened.
My father has gotten a Facebook account.
My sister Nancy sent me a text to notify me of this strange development. She’d been shocked when she got a friend request from him.
I didn’t get a friend request, though.
Not surprising.
Still, I feel a twinge of something at the rejection.
My father is a sixty-five-year-old retired high school math teacher. He doesn’t believe in social media and smartphones. He thinks they’re a waste of time and rants about how they’re destroying society.
Yeah, if I was trying to impress my father, starting a tech company that does a lot of app development wasn’t the best way to go, but that’s where I saw an opportunity.
Anyway, I’ve had a Facebook account since it was called “The Facebook” and only available to university and college students. You had to wait for them to add your school. I never thought I’d see the day when my father would be on it.
Not that I spend much time on Facebook, but I go there now and find my father’s profile. He’s managed to put up a profile picture in which he’s actually smiling, rather than looking like he’s constipated or eating a lemon.
I scroll down his profile and see a cartoon with an i and a π. There’s a speech bubble above each.
“Be rational,” says i.
“Get real,” says π.
A classic math joke. Since I have a degree in computer science, I’m rather familiar with math jokes. I’ve seen this particular one on T-shirts.
His next post is another graphic with a math joke. Don’t drink and derive.
Yeah, I know that one, too.
And the jokes keep going and going.
Did you hear about the mathematician who was afraid of negative numbers? He would stop at nothing to avoid them.
I groan.
What do you call a snake that’s 3.14 meters long?
A pi-thon.
I groan again. That’s one I haven’t heard before.
Apparently, my father has been on Facebook for a while, even though he just friended Nancy, and I see some of his former students commenting on his posts.
My dad was fairly well-liked as a teacher, and he had a reputation for his painful sense of humor and bad puns. His “dad jokes” embarrassed me greatly when I was little, but now that he doesn’t talk to me anymore, seeing them makes me smile, even as I groan.
I miss my father. I miss him a lot.
Goddammit.
Okay, I need a break. I’ve got an important meeting with a prospective client in two hours, and I have to be in the right frame of mind for that.
“I’m going out for a long lunch,” I tell Clarissa, my assistant.
“You’ve got a meeting—”
“I know. I’ll be back for that, don’t worry.”
It’s Friday now, and Wednesday’s snow is turning gray and crusty along the side of the road. The intersections are a bit slushy. I walk to the sushi restaurant I like, only three blocks away, but when I get there, I’m not in the mood for sushi.
No, for some reason I’m craving pie.
I speed-walk to Happy As Pie, excited to eat some pie...and to see the woman who works there, if I’m honest with myself. She’s popped into my mind regularly over the past couple days.
As soon as I get inside, the aroma of apple pie envelopes me, and I start to feel more at ease. The woman behind the counter smiles at me, but it’s not the same woman who was working when I was here two days ago. This one is older, maybe forty-five, and her dark hair is scraped into a bun.
I’m disappointed, I admit, but I’m still getting some pie.
“I’ll have a braised lamb and rosemary pie,” I say, “and a slice of chocolate tart. For here.” Alas, there’s no pear ginger crumble pie today, but the chocolate tart looks tasty. “And a coffee, too, but you’d better make that to go, just in case.” I don’t want to be late for my meeting.
Five minutes later, I’m digging into my braised lamb pie, and it is, indeed, amazing. I wolf it down, then start on the chocolate tart. It’s delicious, too. Actually, my mother used to make something similar. It was my father’s favorite, and she always made it on his birthday.
That’s probably why I ordered the chocolate tart. Because I was thinking of my father.
Seventeen years ago, I disappointed him. I disappointed him greatly.
But I have a good life now. My company is doing well, and I own a house in Forest Hill. I recently appeared in a “20 Young Canadian Entrepreneurs to Watch” article, as well as on a list of the “35 Most Eligible Bachelors Under 35 in Toronto.”
I forwarded the first one to my mother and the second one to my sisters, which I am now regretting, as they keep teasing me about it
The list actually got quite a bit of press. About half the men on the list were non-white, and some people complained that the magazine was trying too hard to be “politically correct,” and “everyone knows Asian men aren’t popular with the ladies,” etc. Toronto is about fifty percent visible minority, so the numbers were just proportional to the population, but...yeah. That was interesting.
Amrita framed a copy of the list and the little blurb and headshot of me. She hung it on the wall in my office. I keep taking it down, and she keeps putting it back up.
Most people think I’m doing pretty well in life, with the exception of my dad. I keep thinking that if I could just convince him to come to Toronto from Ottawa and see the Hazelnut Tech office, as well as my house, maybe he’d change his mind. I also want my mother to visit me, but she refuses to come without my dad.
As I stare at my half-finished slice of chocolate tart, I have a brainwave. I know exactly how to get my dad to come to Toronto.
A Pi Day party.
My math teacher father loves Pi Day. Unfortunately for him, it usually fell during March Break, but he always made the first day back from March Break a Pi Day celebration. My mother would make apple pies for all of his classes. Everyone would get a slice of pie, and there would be a special lesson for the day that involved pi. The specifics varied depending on which class it was.
That’s what I’ll do. I’ll throw a Pi Day party for all of my employees, with lots of pie and nerdy jokes, and I’ll invite my parents. They can see my house, see all the people I have working at my company.
It’s a brilliant plan.
I walk up to the counter. “Do you do catering?” I ask the woman working there.
“Just a moment. Let me get Sarah.”
She goes into the back, and a minute later, another woman emerges. The woman who was here on Wednesday night.
Damn, she’s pretty. I’d forgotten just how pretty she is.
When she sees me, her lips part, and I remember how she touched my lips. A sizzle of heat runs through me.
Yes, this is a particularly brilliant plan if I get to spend more time with her.
Wiping her hands on her apron, she says, “Ann tells me you’re interested in catering. What sort of event is this for?”
“I want to throw the ultimate Pi Day party.”
Chapter 4
Sarah
I never thought I’d see him again, but here he is, in my shop, talking about Pi Day.
I can’t help it. I burst into laughter.
“You want to throw the ultimate Pi Day party,” I
say slowly.
He tilts his head to the side and smiles at me. “Yes, and I want you to supply the pies.” He sticks out his hand. “I’m Josh Yu, CEO of Hazelnut Tech.”
I shake his hand, in a bit of a daze. “I’m...” Oh, God, what’s my name again? “I’m...Sarah Winters. The owner.”
He lets go of my hand, but my hand is still frozen in mid-air.
Apparently, when I shake hands with a really handsome man, I lose control of my limbs.
Once again, he’s wearing a Henley. For a moment, I imagine we’re on a date, and maybe he’ll stroke my thigh or hold my hand under the table, and then after dinner...
Focus, Sarah.
“Tell me a bit about this party,” I say, pulling my arm back to my side. “Where will it be? How many people?”
“I have sixty-five employees in Toronto, and if they bring their partners and families...I don’t know. Maybe a hundred and twenty?”
“No problem.”
I’m a little intimidated, to be honest, but I don’t let on. In the many jobs I’ve had over the years, I’ve worked at events that were this big—and much larger. But I’ve never done anything like this with Happy As Pie.
However, there’s no way I’m turning it down, and not only because this gorgeous man is like sex on a stick.
No, this is exactly the sort of opportunity I want, and maybe it’ll lead to more things. Perhaps Hazelnut Tech is one of those companies that provides lunches for their employees. If we could do something like that semi-regularly, that would be great. Plus, it’ll help to get us known for something other than supplying cream pies to throw at politicians.
My brain is bouncing between thinking like the sensible business owner I always strive to be and being overwhelmed by his attractiveness.
“The party will be at my house,” Josh says.
“I hope you have a big house.”
He gives me a crooked smile. “It’s not bad.”
“Rosedale?”
“Forest Hill,” he says, naming a wealthy midtown neighborhood.