by March, Mia
Of all the diners she’d worked in over the past twenty-two years, the Best Little Diner in Boothbay was her favorite. She loved how pretty it was, for one. The floors were wide-planked pumpkin originals dating back to the late 1800s, when it used to be a general store. Instead of standard vinyl seats for the booths, the seating was white painted wood (washable, of course) with soothing starfish-printed cushions. And the tables, twenty-five in total, were polished wood and round. When the diner slowed down at off times, she loved checking out the local artists’ work on the walls. And the back room was a waitress’s paradise of comfy recliners, a nice restroom, and even a lovely back alley to sneak out to for some fresh air. The diner’s owner, Deirdre, had something of a secret flower garden out back, and Veronica often spent her breaks just standing amid the big pots of blue hydrangeas and breathing in the scent of roses.
“I see a table open right there, young lady,” Veronica heard a familiar voice snap to the hostess. Oh no. Mrs. Buffleman, pointing, with her usual scowl, at the table that had just opened up in Veronica’s section. Mrs. Buffleman was Veronica’s old English teacher from junior year. Buffleman retired a few years ago and had breakfast practically every day at the diner; Veronica had long ago told the hostess to seat her in someone else’s section, but sometimes, when it couldn’t be helped, Buffleman ended up in hers, like today.
“Good morning, Mrs. Buffleman, Mr. Buffleman,” Veronica said as she stopped at their table, coffeepot in hand. “Coffee this morning?”
Mrs. Buffleman studied her for a moment with her usual slight shake of her head, the shake of disappointment. When Veronica had had to drop out of high school, all her teachers had received a memo about why and that her last day would be at week’s end. Mrs. Buffleman was the only teacher who’d brought up the subject with her. “Darn shame,” she’d said to Veronica on her last day, when Veronica had been on the verge of tears since walking in the building that morning. Head shake. “What a waste.” More head shaking. And Veronica, who hadn’t thought she could possibly feel worse, had felt worse.
Veronica had never particularly liked Mrs. Buffleman, but the old battle-ax had given Veronica an A on every paper, and Veronica had earned As on every exam. English had been her best subject, but it wasn’t as if she’d planned on becoming a teacher or an editor of some kind anyway; Veronica had never known what she wanted to do. When she started baking four years ago, she thought about opening her own little pie diner, but that took a lot of money, to invest in it and to keep it up, and though Veronica had a nest egg socked away from twenty-two years of waitressing, low rents, and low overhead, she was afraid to spend it on something that might fail. It wasn’t as though she had anyone else, like a life partner, to rely on for half the bills, half of retirement, and even then, if you did have a husband, you never knew what could happen. That little pie diner was nice to fantasize about, though.
“That’s the gal who dropped out of high school because she got pregnant,” she heard Buffleman whisper to her husband, for at least the hundredth time since Veronica had been back in town.
Veronica rolled her eyes, then groaned at the sight of Penelope Von Blun and her mother sitting at a table for two in Veronica’s section. She’d have to add Penelope to the list of people not to put in her section. Penelope was one of the biggest snobs Veronica had ever met, and unfortunately, she’d signed up for Veronica’s pie class, which started tomorrow night. Veronica was surprised the woman would deign to learn the art of making pies from Veronica, but she was pretty sure there was an ulterior motive involved. Penelope likely wanted to learn the secrets of making her own elixir pie so that she wouldn’t have to give Veronica her business.
Penelope’s whispering to her mother started the moment Veronica began walking over with her coffeepot. Veronica had no doubt what she was saying. Remember the slutty girl who got pregnant my junior year and dropped out to go to Hope Home? That’s her. Working at the diner. Guess we see how her life turned out.
“Veronica!” Penelope said with fake brightness, and Veronica was struck by how different she looked than usual, toned down somehow, the hair less straight-ironed, the outfit more conservative, and just a couple of simple pieces of jewelry instead of gobs. “I’m so excited about pie class tomorrow night.” She turned to her mother and said, “Veronica is known in town for special pies. Have you ever had one?”
“Oh, I don’t go for that nonsense,” her mother said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Pies don’t bring you love or cure cancer. Please.”
The woman was such a stick in the mud that Veronica laughed. “Well, they sure do taste good.”
“I know. I’ve had your pie here,” the woman said without a smile. “Coffee please.”
Veronica poured their coffee and took their orders. Penelope was having the fruit plate. Her mother ordered the most high-maintenance plate of substitutions Veronica had ever had the displeasure of writing down on her order pad. Two eggs, one over easy, the other sunny side up. Rye toast, extra light, but still warm, the butter on and melted. Home fries without a single charred piece of potato, which were Veronica’s favorite kind, when the grill got ahold of the onions and the edges of the potatoes.
Sometimes, when she ran into people like Penelope or Buffleman—especially on the same day at the same time—she felt a small blast of that old shame. Nothing like when she was sixteen, of course, and newly pregnant, with people staring at her as though she had a sign around her neck. But just a frisson of that feeling that made her feel . . . uncomfortable. As if her life could have gone another way entirely if only she hadn’t gotten knocked up. She’d be married, maybe. With two kids. And she’d have figured out what she wanted to do with her life. Discovered her pie-baking skills a lot earlier because she’d bake for school bake sales for her children. Maybe. Maybe not. Who the heck knew?
She glanced around at the counter, where Officer Nick DeMarco usually sat when he came in, which was pretty often. At least he wasn’t here this morning. Too bad he hadn’t been here yesterday, when she could have sicced him on that nudgy drunk Hugh Fledge, who wouldn’t stop asking her out. She barely remembered Nick from high school, but she knew his face, recalled he was part of Timothy’s crowd. Every time she looked at Nick, she felt exposed, as though he knew all sorts of things about her that weren’t even true. She hated how that felt. And so she avoided him whenever she saw him at the diner or around town. But she wouldn’t be able to avoid him tomorrow night at the class. She’d have to be extra polite too, because of his daughter.
Times like this, she wondered if coming back to Boothbay Harbor was a mistake, after all. If she’d ever really settle in and face anything of her past. Boothbay Harbor still didn’t feel like home again, even a year later. And though she’d made some friends, Shelley, of course, right over there at table nineteen, explaining the difference between a Western omelet and a country omelet, and had a lot of acquaintances, especially her clients, who seemed to rely on her as if she were a fortune-teller, Veronica felt . . . lonely. Lonely for something she wasn’t even sure of. Was it love? A big group of close girlfriends, something Veronica had never had except for her seven months at Hope Home? Something was missing, that was all she knew.
People will come and go from your life for all kinds of acceptable and crappy reasons, her grandmother had always said in her saucy, straightforward style. So you’ve got to be your own best friend, know who you are, and never let anyone tell you you’re something you know you’re not.
Veronica had been thirteen when her grandmother had said all that, over a girl who’d told Veronica she couldn’t be her friend anymore because her mother thought Veronica looked “too grown-up.” She’d worn a C-cup bra in eighth grade, had a thin, curvy figure, and no matter how conservatively she’d dressed, the boys had come chasing. In ninth grade, girls—including Penelope—had started rumors about Veronica “sleeping around” when she hadn’t so much as French-kissed a boy. The few boys she’d dated had made up stories about h
ow far they’d gone, so Veronica had broken up with them. By sixteen, when she’d started dating Timothy Macintosh, she’d had a reputation when she hadn’t ever let a boy see her bra. Timothy had believed her too, said he thought she was beautiful and interesting and would never say a word about her to his friends. Girls had always kept their distance from her, so Timothy had become her first real best friend. Until a very cold April afternoon when she’d told him she was pregnant.
Bringing herself back to that day sent a fresh stab of pain to her chest. Maybe it would always hurt, even thirty years from now. Stop thinking about him, she ordered herself, calling out Penelope Von Blun’s and her mother’s order at the open window to the kitchen, which got an extended eye roll from Joe, the cook. She wished she could stop. But in the first few weeks of her return to Boothbay Harbor, she’d actually seen Timothy, from a distance in the supermarket, and she’d been unable to sleep well ever since, memories waking her up. She’d been so stunned to see him that she’d jumped back behind a display of bananas. She hadn’t been sure, at first, if it was really him, but then she heard his laughter as he listened to something the woman with him had said. Veronica hadn’t gotten a look at her, just the back of her head—a precisely cut bob—and an amazing figure. Timothy’s arm had been around her, and he turned to look at something, and there was that profile, the strong, straight Roman nose. Veronica had almost started hyperventilating. It had been so unexpected. She didn’t think he lived in town; she’d looked him up just so she’d know if she had to accept that she’d run into him in town, but there was no listing for him, and she hadn’t seen him before or since that one time, so perhaps he was visiting relatives.
“Oh. My. God,” Shelley said as she collected the discarded Sunday Boothbay Regional Gazette from one of her tables.
“What, Shel?” Veronica asked, coming over.
Shelley, a petite redhead in her late thirties like Veronica, with catlike amber-hazel eyes, was staring at a page of the newspaper. She held up the front section of the Life & People section. “This.”
One glance at the front page and Veronica repeated Shelley’s “Oh. My. God.” A photo of Colin Firth, looking absolutely gorgeous in a tux, next to a brief article about the movie crew that had recently set up some equipment in Boothbay Harbor, near Frog Marsh, to film scenes of a new Colin Firth dramedy. Below the article was a call for extras.
Major motion picture seeks locals as extras. Apply on location at Frog Marsh between 4 and 6 Monday and Tuesday only. Bring a résumé and two photographs paper-clipped together, full-body and headshot, with name, phone, height, weight, and clothing size written in permanent marker on back.
So it was true. Colin Firth was coming to Boothbay Harbor—and could very well have been in Harbor View Coffee yesterday, despite the barista swearing on a stack of Bibles that Colin Firth had not been in the place. Perhaps he’d ducked out the back once word had gotten out that he was in there. The man had probably just wanted an iced coffee and a scone, for heaven’s sake, not screaming fans bombarding him. Such as herself.
“Come by my house tonight and I’ll take a bunch of pictures of you,” Shelley said, ripping out the front page, folding it up and tucking it into the pocket of Veronica’s apron.
“Pictures of me? For what?”
“So you can apply to be an extra!”
Veronica laughed. “Me? I work here. I bake a thousand pies a week. How could I possibly drop everything to work on a film set? I once read that extras are on call all day for as long as it takes to film the scenes on location. They sit around in a tent and read or chat until the director calls them to walk by wordlessly in the background or whatever.” But still, just the thought of being an extra in a Colin Firth movie started an excitement inside her that Veronica hadn’t felt in decades.
“Oh, you’re applying,” Shelley said, well aware of Veronica’s love of Colin Firth. At least three times a month, Veronica invited Shelley over to watch a Colin Firth film, complete with fun drinks and appetizers and pie and discussion afterward about the film and why she adored Colin Firth so darn much. Didn’t we just see Love Actually a couple of months ago? Shelley had asked when Veronica had told her she was planning to watch it, if Shelley wanted to join her. As if you could see Love Actually one too many times. “You’ve got money, Veronica. Your pie business will allow you to take off a few weeks, even a couple of months. You’re going to miss the chance to be an extra in a Colin Firth movie in your own hometown?”
No, I’m not, Veronica thought, the image of Mr. Darcy walking soaking wet out of that pond coming to mind. There was no way she was missing this. She unfolded the newspaper page and stared at the photo of her heartthrob, then at the ad. She was smiling like an idiot.
Major motion picture seeks locals as extras. Good Lord, Veronica could be in the same airspace as Colin Firth. She could be an extra—why not? And Shelley was right; her pie business had been doing so well that she could easily take some time off from the diner.
Veronica in same room as Colin Firth. She could look Mr. Darcy in the eye!
She’d be first in line to apply.
Which meant coming up with a résumé for the first time in her life, she realized, as she eyed the kitchen window counter and saw two of her orders were up. She headed over and filled her tray. Veronica had been a waitress at busy diners since she was sixteen and left Maine for Florida. All you needed for that job was to say you had experience and then show it on the floor and you were hired. Was she supposed to list every diner she’d worked from Florida to New Mexico to Maine for the past twenty-two years? She’d think it over later as she fulfilled her pie orders. If the movie people wanted locals, they wanted real people with local jobs, everyday people, not necessarily a résumé full of accomplishments. She’d tell the truth, go to Shelley’s tonight and have her picture taken, and then she’d apply with fingers crossed.
She’d make herself a Hope Pie too. Salted caramel cheesecake. Just for good measure.
By four o’clock, Veronica’s house was sparkling clean for tomorrow night’s pie class, she had her recipes printed to hand out, and she’d written her résumé. On her cover sheet, she briefly described leaving Boothbay Harbor just months shy of her seventeenth birthday—but not why—and making her way, alone, to Florida, where she’d gotten a job in a diner, then a few years later heading slowly west, to Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, and then back to Maine. She wrote a paragraph about working at the Best Little Diner, how she loved her regulars and enjoyed the tourists. She didn’t know if that would be remotely interesting to whoever was in charge of hiring the extras. She went on Google and learned she wasn’t off base about what extras did. Lots of sitting around and waiting. Apparently, there wasn’t much about what made for a good extra, what would make her be chosen over anyone else. But if they wanted “real people,” Veronica was as real as they got. According to the articles she read about extras, the one thing an extra wasn’t supposed to do or be was star crazy, so she’d left off her enduring love of Colin Firth.
Veronica put away her laptop, made a neat pile of her recipes, and did a check of her cupboards, pantry, and refrigerator to make sure she had everything she needed for tomorrow’s class. Enough flour, shortening, baking soda, and sugar, both white and brown. She’d have to replenish her salt supply, pick up eggs, sticks of butter, and a pound of apples and a few pints of blueberries. She added cherries, blackberries, bananas, Key limes, and chocolate to her list. She used her jar of molasses so infrequently that she didn’t have to worry about coming up short for Leigh DeMarco’s shoofly pie.
For the first class, she’d focus on good old apple pie—even though it wasn’t apple season—and making piecrust from scratch, but if students wanted to make special elixir pies, they would be able to; Veronica had a professional oven that could handle many pies at once, and every possible kind of pie filling at the ready, from fresh fruit to good chocolate to coconut to custard.
Her phone rang. Hopefully it was Penelope
Von Blun dropping out of class.
“Hello, Veronica speaking.”
“I’d like to order a pie, a special pie.” The voice was raspy, thirties, Veronica thought, and there was a tinge of anger, of bitterness, but also sadness.
“Sure. What kind would you like?” From the woman’s tone, Veronica had the sense she’d order Amore Pie or maybe Feel Better Pie.
“The kind of pie that would get someone off someone else’s mind. Do you make that kind?”
Her boyfriend or husband was having an affair. Or in love with someone else, Veronica thought, but that didn’t seem quite it. Usually Veronica could tell so much by just a voice, but there was something complicated here that Veronica couldn’t put her finger on. “Well, I’ll need to clarify if you mean in a romantic sense or just someone you’re trying to purge from your life.”
“Maybe both,” the woman said.
Cast-Out Pie. Veronica had made a few like that, just twice here in town and several times down in New Mexico. The first time, one of the busboys at the diner, an emotional wreck of a young man who cried while clearing the tables of any woman who had red hair, like the ex who’d broken his heart, had been on the verge of getting fired for all his crying. So Veronica had stayed late and found herself using peanut butter for its stick and coconut for its grit, figuring a lighter cream-based pie that felt airy couldn’t dislodge and lift, whereas the heavier peanut butter and the texture of coconut could get in there, take those feelings of gloom and doom, and carry them away from the stomach, such a source of upset. She’d baked up her Cast-Out Pie and given the poor guy a slice the next morning while having a chat in the kitchen. She told him that he was stronger than he thought, that he was in control of his own destiny, his own future, and maybe it was time to let old hurts go. Maybe it was time to focus on the new. Reel off and cast in.