“What do you mean?” Trudy says.
“I have a baking question.” I set the dessert on the counter.
Ingrid pushes her books and papers aside. “For the Warm the Soul contest? You got something?”
I nod. “I need your opinion, Ing.”
Trudy peers over her glasses at the dessert. “I hereby declare that I am making an executive decision to temporarily lift the ban on baking, so that Ingrid and I can direct our friend in her endeavors.”
Ingrid claps.
“Now, mind you.” Trudy turns the dial on her gas stove until flames lick the pan of hot chocolate. “I’m no longer the authority on such things. I’m old. I’ve passed the torch.”
“What torch?” wonders Ingrid.
“To who?” I ask.
“To whom,” Trudy says. “The Muffin Man, of course. He’s more of a success than I ever was. After all, as the saying goes, ‘Those who can’t do, teach.’ ”
“I’ll take it to him.” I lift the lid off the dish. “But right now I want you guys to test it out.”
Ingrid licks her lips. “Smells scrumpy.”
“I don’t think it’s quite there yet,” I say. “But almost.”
Trudy hands me a butter knife. It sinks through the layers of goat cheese, pineapple, and gooey, hot honey. I transfer a small portion to a red glass plate, which Trudy extends to me.
Elbow sharply raised, pinkie extended, Ingrid carves out a small bite with a fork. She lets her lips close around the tines.
“Well?” I say.
She swallows and folds her hands in her lap. “Assertive. Tangy. Creamy. The goat cheese balances the acidity of the pineapple quite nicely.”
I stare at Ingrid. Trudy throws her head back and cackles, witchlike.
Ingrid shrugs. “What?”
“Nothing,” I say. “So do I have something?”
“Oh yeah,” she says. “You have something. Your turn, Trudy.” She pushes the plate toward her.
“Be brutally honest,” I say.
Trudy raises a wiry gray eyebrow as Ingrid offers her the fork.
She takes a bite, nods enthusiastically, and crosses the kitchen to pour hot chocolate into three fairy mugs. “It’s delicious,” she says. “Now, you see? All those experiments you thought were failures weren’t really failures at all. It’s because of those quote-unquote failures that you were able to create this. You understand?”
There she goes again, getting all Master Yoda on me. “I do understand, Trudy,” I say.
She sucks her dentures. “I think—and this is only my opinion—I think it lacks presentation. First of all, it needs a crust. As it is, it’s way too messy looking. A crust would hold it all together. And also, you need to fem it up a little bit.”
“Fem it up?” Ingrid takes a slurp of hot chocolate. “What does that mean?”
“It means, make it girly,” Trudy says. “Make it your own.”
“Right,” I say. “Make it my own. Got a big cookie sheet or something, Trudy?”
“Please,” she says. “You’ve come to the right place.”
She sets a cookie sheet on the counter, and I dump the contents of the casserole dish onto it. It slowly spreads to the edges.
“Uh, I’m not quite sure where you’re going with this, Zell,” says Trudy, mug paused halfway to her chin.
“Color,” I say. “It needs color. It needs . . .”
Ingrid and Trudy search each other’s faces for ideas.
“Berries?” Ingrid suggests.
Trudy snaps her fingers and pulls a bowl of raspberries from her fridge. “I just thawed these babies this morning. Picked ’em over the summer and froze ’em. Want ’em warmed up?”
“Nope. Chilled. Just like that.” My fingers sink into the cold berries, which stain my fingers. I sprinkle them on the dessert.
“Now, how about brown sugar?” I say. “Just a dusting.”
Trudy pulls a box of brown sugar from a cupboard and hands it to me. The crystals fall from my fingers and catch the light.
“Don’t forget Polly Pinch’s most important rule,” Ingrid says. “ ‘Give it something unexpected.’ ”
I reach for the pepper grinder by Trudy’s stove, next to the fairy trivet.
“Ooh,” Ingrid says as I grind away. “I love me a pepper grinder.”
“Knife me,” I finally say.
Trudy slaps the blunt butter knife into my palm, and I shape what’s left of the warm, peppery, limey, honey-smothered, raspberries-and-brown-sugar-topped, pineapple, goat cheese mélange into a two-humped cartoon Valentine heart.
“Now, that’s what I call femming it up,” Trudy says.
Ingrid claps. “Don’t forget that pinch!” She mimics Polly’s slowly batted eyelids, her slowly parting lips.
As if playing charades, Trudy takes the lid off an imaginary canister and offers it to me. I dip my fingers into it and flick them over the dessert, sprinkling it with a pinch of love.
“What do you call it?” Trudy asks.
“I haven’t thought of a name, actually,” I say. “The real question is, What is it?”
“I got an idea,” says Ingrid. She clears her throat. “Why don’t you use the word ‘scrumpy’ in the title? ‘Scrumpy’ is my favorite adjective. I made it up. It means, ‘scrump, but better.’ ”
“I like it,” says Trudy. “Scrumpy Pineapple Pie?”
“It’s not really a pie, though,” I say.
“Throw a crust on it and it will be,” says Trudy.
“It’s more like a pudding,” I say. “Ish. ‘Scrumpy Pineapple Pud-dingish Pie’?”
Trudy shakes her head. “Who the hell would eat that?”
Ingrid gets somber. “How about we name it after Ahab? What’s his full name again, Zell?”
“Captain Ahab’s Midnight Delight.”
She mulls this over, drumming her fingers on the counter. “So we could call it ‘Scrumpy Delight.’ For Ahab.”
“Scrumpy Delight,” I repeat. “And so it is.” I flick a little more love to christen the lopsided concoction. It’s lost its heart shape and now looks as pitiful and lumpy as Old Man Bedard’s cat. “A dessert only a mother could love,” I say.
Trudy sighs. “Let’s hope not.”
WE POLISH OFF THE REST OF THE SCRUMPY DELIGHt. It really does taste pretty good, but I make a mental note to include less lime juice, to cut back on the wateriness.
Ingrid finishes her homework and goes to bed. But she’s reading, I know, because when I go to the bathroom, I see the light on in the spare bedroom.
Trudy and I drink hot chocolate. She spikes hers with two thimbles of Dr. McGillicuddy’s Peppermint Schnapps, which she keeps locked in a liquor cabinet she made when she first became interested in working with wood. She offers me some schnapps, but I decline because I’ve got to drive home.
Trudy, in the rocker next to the wood-burning stove, grows tipsier with each sip. She becomes philosophical, which even a little schnapps is bound to do to a person who doesn’t drink often. She talks about how grateful she is, every day, that she’s able to be a Renaissance woman and pursue her various “blisses,” as she says: chain saws, goats, fairies. She wonders aloud whether it’s chance, or fate, or somehow both, that bring people where they are in life.
Trudy and I don’t talk for a good long while—we just sit, sip, and listen to the mantel clock tick.
As I get up to leave, she throws both arms around me, rests her chin on my head, and steers me to the door. “Well, Zell, there’s only one thing I know that’s harder than death,” she says. She helps me into my coat. “And it seems to me like you’re doing a pretty decent job at it.”
“What’s that?” I say, yanking on my mittens.
“Life.”
W-H-E-E-E-E-E-E-Z-E.
Eight o’clock Saturday morning. I rub the sleep from my eyes, stumble downstairs, and answer the door yawning. Garrett’s on my porch. Ingrid sleeps in his arms; she’s still in her pajamas.
&nbs
p; “She got up early to watch cooking shows,” he whispers. “But then she fell asleep on the couch. She looked so cute, I just couldn’t wake her. I need you, Zell. I’m really in a bind, here. Trudy fell repairing the goat fence. She tripped on the ice.”
“Oh no,” I say. “That’s horrible. Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. Just needs a couple stitches; that’s all. A friend’s with her at the emergency room. I have an exam this morning.”
Ingrid murmurs in her sleep.
“You’re my only backup,” he says.
“I’ll take her,” I say. “I’ll watch her. But I’m baking. I mean, I’m doing Polly Pinch stuff. Today’s the deadline. I’m perfecting.”
Garrett nods. “Consider the ban lifted.” Gently he drapes Ingrid on my couch. I take her backpack from him.
“You’re a goddess, Zell. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“You’re the first,” I say, smiling. “But you won’t be the last.”
He chuckles, and Ingrid stirs and looks around. “Dad?”
“The ban’s lifted, boo-boo,” he says. He kisses her forehead.
“The ban’s lifted?”
“Yes. Now I gotta run.”
She stands and grins sleepily. They do a quick version of their kissing game; he looks around nonchalantly, then suddenly swoops down to kiss her. She giggles and tries to avoid him, but he smacks her once on the nose and once on the neck.
“Wait.” Ingrid yawns. “Does this mean you’ll definitely let me go on Pinch of Love Live with Zell, if we win?”
Garrett smirks. “Sure. If you’re a finalist, you can be a special guest on the show.”
“Pinkie swear?”
“Pinkie swear. Gotta go. Love ya ’n’ like ya.”
“Love ya ’n’ love ya,” Ingrid says.
SHE CHANGES INTO CLOTHES, and we hop into the car. I drive to the grocery store with a deep sheet print still slicing my cheek. In the produce aisle, Ingrid and I sniff seven different pineapples before selecting the most fragrant one.
“Better get two,” she says as I load the heavy fruit into the shopping basket.
“Why?”
“Because you’re Zell; that’s why. You need backup. In case something crazy happens with the first pineapple.”
“Crazy?”
“Like smoke. Or flames. Or explosions.”
I hesitate, wondering whether I should be insulted. But when she nods and grins, I grab another pineapple and hand it to her. “You’re absolutely right, Ing.”
We stock up on raspberries and honey, limes and pepper, too. In the checkout aisle, Ingrid tosses two chocolate bars onto the conveyer belt. “This brand’s safe for kids with peanut allergies,” she says.
“Is that your breakfast?”
“Breakfast? No, it’s for the Scrumpy Delight. Don’t you know what my mother always says? ‘Just about every dessert is improved by chocolate.’ ”
At home, we set about creating Scrumpy Delight, Prototype II. I grumble about making a crust, but Ingrid bats her hand. “Just whip up a Super Simp Flaky.”
I steady a cutting board and slice the top off the pineapple. “I forgot Polly Pinch has a piecrust recipe.”
“I’ll go find it online.” She pounds upstairs to use the laptop in my office and minutes later skips back into the kitchen waving a printout. “Found it.”
“I have an idea,” I say. “We’re going to grill the pineapple.” That trash-picked old grill was Nick’s domain, but I don’t think he’d mind if I used it now.
“Grill it?” Ingrid says. “Love it.”
Out back, I’m amazed the coals ignite. I scrape some flaky black gunk off the metal and lay fresh pineapple rings across it. Before long, juice drips and sizzles, and brown grooves form in the fruit.
Back inside, I chop the pineapple into small chunks and stir it with softened goat cheese, honey, and a little lime juice. Ingrid grinds pepper into the mixture, singing a little ditty about how she loves pepper grinders. We prepare a Super Simp Flaky—which lives up to its name—put an entire chocolate bar in the center, and spoon the pineapple mixture on top. I attempt to fold it into a heart shape. But the crust rips, and the baking sheet just isn’t big enough, and the pineapple mixture oozes everywhere. I try to salvage some, but a big blob slips to the floor and splatters.
“Aren’t you glad I made you get a second pineapple?” Ingrid says.
Round two. I slice the second pineapple into spears and grill them. When we’ve got another Super Simp Flaky ready to go, I whip up more pineapple-cheese mixture and spoon it on top of the chocolate bar.
“Now what?” I wonder. “Should I try making a heart again?”
“Try something different,” says Ingrid.
I drag the edges of the crust toward one another, forming a sort of rectangular shape. The baking tray accommodates it perfectly, and the dough stays intact.
“Perf!” says Ingrid. “It looks like an envelope.”
“An envelope of deliciousness.”
“Right.”
Twenty-five minutes later, as I pull the tray from the oven, she gasps. “It smells so good,” she says. We wait for the quasi tart to cool a bit. Ingrid stands on a footstool and edges the crust with raspberries. Then she sprinkles the whole thing with brown sugar and love.
“I wish Ahab were here to sample this,” she says.
“Do you think he would be proud of us?”
“I do.” She nods. “I do.”
“Me, too. Well, time to write all this down.”
“Aren’t we going to taste test it?”
“We are, but not just yet.”
We march upstairs. Following a traditional recipe format as best I can, I type exactly what we did into a Word document. She watches over my shoulder, saying, “Good job, Zell,” every few minutes.
“Now for the true test,” I say when I’m done. “The Muffin Man.”
Ingrid does a few pliés. “Awesome. I can’t wait.”
“I’ll let him know we’re coming.”
Travis answers the phone: “Thanks for calling the Muffinry for the best coffee and muffins west of 495,” he says. He pronounces it “faw-niney-fy.” “Can you hold?”
“Travis, it’s Rose-Ellen. EJ’s friend. Is he there?”
“He’s wicked busy. Saturday morning and all.”
“Tell him I think I’ve got something.”
“Huh?”
“Just please tell him I think I’ve got something.”
There’s some muffled noises.
“Zell?” It’s EJ. “You got something?”
“I got something.”
“Well, what the hell are you waiting for? Get over here and let me sample it.”
INGRID SITS IN THE BACKSEAT as I drive to Murtonen’s Muffinry. Under my thigh I tuck an envelope addressed to the contest judges at Scrump Studios in Boston. The envelope is unsealed, so we can show EJ the recipe before we mail it.
I watch Ingrid in the rearview mirror. She’s holding the platter of Scrumpy Delight on her lap.
“Don’t breathe on it,” I say.
“I’m not breathing on it,” she says. “I’m not even breathing.”
“Don’t touch it.”
“Just drive, woman.”
THE MUFFINRY BUSTLES. The bell jingles almost constantly as customers come and go. The only available table is the one in the corner, near the register. Here EJ waits. He’s dressed in his usual garb: clogs, checkered pants, Bruins bandana. He stands when he spots us and grandly gestures for Ingrid to set the platter on the table.
Travis emerges from the kitchen and hands EJ a dessert fork and a small, sharp knife.
“Wow,” Travis says. He raises his eyebrows and nods at the platter. “Nice presentation.”
EJ points to the register, where a line of customers waits.
“I’m going, hey,” Travis says. “I’m going.”
“Now, then,” EJ says. He carves out a piece of Scrumpy Delight, sniffs it, and pops it into
his mouth. He chews slowly, tipping his chin and exhaling heavily through his nose. He strokes his goatee and swallows.
“The raspberries are a nice touch,” he says.
Ingrid punches the air. “Yessss! The raspberries were Zell’s call. For color.”
He places another piece of Scrumpy Delight on the center of his tongue and closes his lips around it. He runs his tongue along the insides of his cheeks. He swallows and smacks his lips, tasting his mouth. “Goat cheese?”
“Yesss!” Ingrid punches the air again.
“Organic.” I nod. “Made right here in town.”
“By my step-grandmother.” Ingrid shadowboxes EJ’s stomach.
He laughs and waves her away. “That?” he says, pointing to the dessert. “Whatever that is? It makes me silent.”
“Silent?” says Ingrid. She’s unsure whether that’s good.
EJ swipes off his bandana and holds it over his heart. “Silent out of respect.”
“It’s good?” I say.
“It’s excellent.” He refits his bandana. “I think you’ve turned a corner with this dessert, Zell. And, as we used to say at Johnson and Wales”—he covers Ingrid’s ears with his hands—“this dessert is going to put asses in seats.”
“I heard you,” Ingrid says.
EJ feeds her a bite, and her eyes grow huge. “Mmm,” she says, nodding.
“Now, tell me,” says EJ. “What do you call it?”
I show him the recipe. He scans it, underlining words with his pinkie. “Pineapple and goat cheese and chocolate and brown sugar. Genius. Absolutely brilliant.”
Ingrid bursts into a sort of hula dance. She waves her arms and chants, “Uh-huh, uh-huh, Zell’s brilliant, she’s genius.”
EJ high-fives me. “Did it come from a dream?” he asks.
“Indirectly. I made it right under the wire, too. This sucker’s got to be postmarked today.” I reach for the fork, but EJ’s staring at me. “What?”
“Well—then what are you doing here?” he says.
Ingrid stops hula dancing. “What do you mean?”
He points to the clock. “The post office closes at noontime on Saturdays.”
I push my chair back from the table. Am I that out of touch with Wippamunk—with the world—that I don’t even know this basic fact of weekly life?
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