Pies & Prejudice

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  “Two thumbs up,” says Becca, and we all nod in agreement.

  “And speaking of pie, can we talk to you for a minute?” Cassidy asks.

  “Sure, sweetheart. Fred and I are just wrapping up here. Why don’t you girls put your dishes in the dishwasher, and Cassidy, could you check on Chloe for me? It should be about time for her to get up from her nap.”

  Cassidy returns a couple of minutes later carrying her baby sister, who is rubbing her eyes with her fists. Her hair is mussed and her plump little cheeks are all pink from sleeping, but she breaks into a big grin when she sees us.

  “Check this out,” says Cassidy, setting her down on the floor. Chloe holds tightly onto Cassidy’s hands and takes two wobbly steps before siting down with a thud.

  “Yay!” We all clap and cheer for her, and she claps and cheers too.

  We play with her and help her practice walking while Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid and Mr. Goldberg finish their discussion about a show they’re planning—a tribute to Julia Child, from the sounds of it.

  “So, what’s up, girls?” Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid says finally, after her producer leaves.

  I explain about what happened to Emma.

  “Ouch,” she says when I’m done.

  We all nod. “We want to send Emma a ticket home for spring break,” I tell her. “We think it would really cheer her up.”

  Cassidy’s mother frowns. “That’s a lovely thought, girls, but a present like that is pretty expensive.”

  “We know,” says Becca. “That’s why we need your help.”

  Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid listens thoughtfully as we outline our plan.

  “You know, that just might work,” she says when we’re done.

  Megan passes her the piece of paper with our logo drawn onto it. Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid smiles. “Pies & Prejudice. Catchy.” She smiles at us. “Jane would approve, and so do I. I have a feeling the rest of your moms will too. If it’s okay with them, it’s okay with me, and you may certainly use our kitchen, as long as you work around our filming schedule. Just let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.”

  With a rising sense of excitement, we race back up to the turret to make more plans. Our new business is off and running!

  Megan

  “Good apple pies are a considerable part

  of our domestic happiness.”

  —Letter from Jane Austen

  to her sister Cassandra, October 1815

  I love Saturday mornings.

  For one thing, there’s no school. For another thing—well, I guess it’s really the no-school part I love best.

  Not that I don’t like high school. Au contraire, as Gigi would say. (That means “on the contrary.” My grandmother adores everything French, including the language.) Alcott High started off kind of rocky for me, but now I really like it. It’s just that on Saturday mornings I get to sleep in, and there’s nothing that I absolutely have to do. Oh, sure, maybe a little homework, maybe a few chores, but that’s about it. On Saturday mornings, the whole weekend stretches out ahead of me like yards and yards of smooth white silk. I wake up happy because I know that I have hours of time to do the stuff I want to do—sketch, sew, read fashion magazines, watch movies with Gigi, hang out at the mall with Becca and Ashley, that sort of thing.

  But that was before Pies & Prejudice.

  My alarm goes off and I groan, fumbling for the snooze button. It’s not even seven o’clock yet. I start to roll over, then stop. Reminding myself that I’m doing this for Emma, I force myself out of bed and into the shower. I’m due at Cassidy’s house in an hour.

  This bake sale idea is starting to take off. We sold only two pies the first week, one to Cassidy’s grandparents and one to Mrs. Bergson, but in the month since then, word has gotten around.

  Cassidy enlisted her sister Courtney to help us create a website using my logo. We put it on our business cards too, which we’ve posted on just about every bulletin board in town. Plus, our parents have been handing them out to all their friends and clients too. We take orders up through Thursday night, finalize the list on Friday morning, then on Friday after school Jess and Becca and I take turns buying the ingredients. Saturday is baking day, since weekends are the only time that the kitchen at Cassidy’s house is available. During the week, the film crew is there for Cooking with Clementine.

  When we told our moms about the whole Pies & Prejudice idea, they were all for it, but on one condition.

  “You have to have adult supervision,” Mrs. Delaney told us. She said she wished she could be the one to mentor us, but she couldn’t take on any more projects with all that she’s got going at the farm plus the twins plus she just got a part in a play at some theater in Boston. Between her TV show and taking care of Chloe, Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid was way too busy to help us out too, and the weekends are Mrs. Bergson’s busiest time at the rink. Becca’s mother is up to her eyeballs with her landscape design classes, especially with spring just around the corner, and my mother is president of the Concord Riverkeepers this year plus she’s on the school board plus she’s thinking seriously about running for office next fall, so she couldn’t help us either.

  That left Gigi.

  Fortunately, my grandmother loves to cook and she loves to boss people around, so helping us with Pies & Prejudice is a perfect combination. Plus, my mother says Gigi needs a project.

  My grandmother has tons of energy. I overheard my mom and dad talking about it, and my mom said Gigi is like one of those dogs that’s supposed to be out herding sheep or cattle all day or something, and when they’re cooped up inside instead they get into all kinds of trouble. That’s Gigi, all right.

  The first six months after she came from Hong Kong last year to live with us she kept herself busy cooking up a storm, which was great except my dad had to keep buying new pants in bigger sizes. After Mom put her foot down, Gigi busied herself rearranging the furniture instead. She even painted a wall of our living room one weekend when my parents were away. Mom hit the roof when she came home. Personally, I think that fire-engine red looks fantastic with all our white carpet and furniture, especially the white baby grand piano. My mother eventually admitted it did too, but I guess she’s right, Gigi should have asked first.

  It’s a little after eight when Becca and Jess and I shuffle into Cassidy’s kitchen, yawning.

  “Okay, girls,” my grandmother says, clapping her hands together sharply. “Time to wake up and get to work!”

  This weekend we have nearly two dozen pies to make, and we scored in the cake department, with two birthdays and a wedding shower. On top of that, we got our first order for organic whole wheat banana blueberry bread. My mother is ecstatic about that. When we first told her about this whole idea, her forehead got that worried pucker it always tends to get whenever sugar is mentioned.

  “Shouldn’t you offer some healthy treats on your menu too?” she asked us.

  We managed to convince her that nobody but nobody would want to buy her tofu cheesecake, and finally compromised on Mrs. Delaney’s banana bread, which is fabulous. To make my mom happy we promised to use all organic ingredients and whole wheat flour instead of white flour. Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid is the one who suggested adding blueberries, to help keep it moist. I guess whole wheat makes things kind of heavy and dense. That would explain my mother’s pancakes, which you could use as skipping stones at Walden Pond.

  “Hi, everybody!” Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid pokes her head in the door. Chloe is in her arms, and she waves at us. The two of them are dressed in matching workout clothes—navy stretch pants with white piping down the side seams, white T-shirts, and identical navy warm-up jackets with a white daisy motif around the collar and cuffs. Cute but classy. When it comes to fashion, Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid is amazing. “I left some muffins and fruit salad out for you in the breakfast nook,” she tells us. “And please help yourself to juice and tea and whatever else you want, okay?”

  “Where’s Cassidy?” I ask her.

  “Big game this m
orning up in Nashua. She and Stanley left at the crack of dawn, but they’ll be home after lunch.” She glances at her watch. “I’d better get going or I’m going to be late for our ‘Baby and Me’ yoga class.”

  We say good-bye and I help myself to a blueberry muffin as Gigi hands out aprons.

  “So how’s our bottom line?” she asks.

  Jess consults her notebook. Since she’s the math whiz, we made her the accountant. Cassidy’s stepfather, who actually is an accountant, showed her the ropes and got her set up with a system for tracking our sales and expenses—ingredients, gas for deliveries, advertising, all that sort of thing.

  “It looks like we’ve netted almost two hundred dollars so far, after expenses,” she says.

  Gigi purses her lips thoughtfully. “Well, it’s a start,” she says. “I’m sure we’ll get more orders as more people taste our goods.” She turns to Becca. “You and I are going to be in charge of the pies this week, and Megan, I want you and Jess to handle the rest.”

  We all nod and head to our workstations—Gigi and Becca at the kitchen island, Jess and I at the far counter—to get set up.

  “So what’s your plan?” I ask Jess. She always has a plan. It must be the scientist in her.

  “I’m thinking chocolate cupcakes with white frosting for the pirate birthday party.” She passes me some black construction paper and a white gel pen. “I thought maybe you could draw little skull-and-crossbone flags?”

  “Piece of cake,” I tell her, then grin. “Sorry, bad pun.”

  “We’ll stick them on toothpicks,” she continues, ignoring me. “Plus, I picked up some gold foil-wrapped chocolate coins we can stick in the frosting as well.”

  “They’ll love it,” I tell her. “How about the princesses?” The other birthday party has a princess theme.

  “Yellow cupcakes with pink icing, and lots and lots of sprinkles and sparkles.” She holds up a bag of plastic rings that look like tiny tiaras. “And we’ll top each one with one of these.”

  “Perfect. And the wedding shower?”

  “The bride wants carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, and purple is her favorite color. I’m thinking of tinting the icing a pretty lavender, and then I thought we could outline a big purple umbrella on top of that.” She pauses, glancing over at me. “You know, since it’s a shower?”

  “Got it. Cute.”

  “Only instead of raindrops, we’ll have it raining frosting violets instead.”

  It’s fun to see Jess so into this. Fooling around with color and design comes naturally to me, but it’s kind of unexpected in Jess. She’s so focused on science and math most of the time. I mean, I know she loves music, and that’s creative, but cake decorating? We all think it’s a riot.

  “Let’s get to work, girls!” says Gigi.

  She cranks up the music while we set up an assembly line. Old musicals are my grandmother’s favorite, and my dad made her a mix of all her favorite songs. I grab a whisk to use for a microphone, and Jess sings into her spatula. We pie-ify each song that comes on, cracking each other up.

  “The pies are alive, with the sound of music!”

  “Oklahoma, where the pies come sweeping down the plain!”

  “Somewhere, over the piecrust!”

  Becca tries to pretend it’s too stupid at first, but pretty soon she’s singing just as loudly as the rest of us.

  Jess and I start by making the batters for the carrot cake and cupcakes. By the time they’re ready to go into the oven, Becca and Gigi have finished making the piecrusts, so we pitch in to help them peel apples. We have half a dozen pie choices on our menu—lemon meringue, apple, blueberry, cherry, French silk chocolate, and coconut cream—but for some reason this week nearly everybody ordered apple.

  We bake all morning. Lunchtime comes around, and Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid pops in with pizza to keep us going. She returns a couple of hours later when we’re finished, to help us box everything up. Jess found this bakery supply store that has inexpensive white boxes, and Cassidy enlarged our business card to make labels to stick on them. It was cheaper than getting the boxes professionally printed, and they look great.

  The back door bangs open, letting in a gust of cold air. “Hey, guys!” It’s Stewart. He’s wearing his Alcott Avengers hockey jersey. He’s really proud of the fact that he finally made the high school team. He’s been playing rec hockey forever, which Cassidy says takes anybody that breathes. But she’s been coaching him privately for the past year or two, and I guess he’s gotten a lot better.

  “Almost ready to go, Mr. Delivery Boy,” says Gigi. “We’re down to the last cake.”

  Cassidy and her stepfather arrive home while Jess is finishing up the frosting violets.

  “How’d your team do, honey?” her mother asks.

  Cassidy scowls. “It was a tie for most of the game, but we lost in sudden-death overtime.”

  She hates to lose.

  “You’ll have another whack at them later in the season before play-offs,” Stanley consoles her, giving Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid a kiss. “Where’s Chloe?”

  “I put her down for a nap.”

  He yawns. “I could use one too.”

  “Maybe you should lie down for a while too, Cassidy,” says her mother. “You were up so early.”

  Cassidy shakes her head. “I’m supposed to meet Mrs. Bergson and Tristan at the rink.” She doesn’t look too thrilled at this prospect.

  “Sweetheart, are you sure you’re not overdoing it?” Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid looks worried.

  “I’m fine, Mom. Quit worrying about me.”

  We box up the carrot cake for the wedding shower and load everything into the Chadwicks’ SUV. Stewart slides into the driver’s seat, then rolls down the window and sticks his head out.

  “I forgot to tell you guys—some of us are going to the movies tonight. Anybody want to come?”

  “Who is ‘some of us’?” asks Becca, who is pretty particular about who she’s seen with these days.

  Her brother mentions the names of a couple of his hockey teammates, then adds, “Oh, and Zach Norton and Simon Berkeley too.”

  “Could be fun,” says Becca, trying to sound casual. She’d walk over hot coals to do anything with Zach Norton.

  “Is Tristan going to be there?” asks Cassidy.

  Stewart nods. “I think so.”

  “Forget it, then.”

  Cassidy may be Tristan Berkeley’s practice partner, but she doesn’t even try and hide the fact that she doesn’t like him. Behind his back, she calls him stuff like “Tristan Jerkeley” and “His Majesty” and “the Duke of Puke.”

  “I wish I could go, but I can’t,” says Jess. “I’ve already got plans with Adele and Frankie.”

  Stewart looks at me. “How about you, Megan?”

  “I’ll come,” I tell him, trying not to sound too eager. To be fair to Becca, I’d pretty much walk over hot coals too, only not for Zach Norton. He’s been eclipsed this year by Simon Berkeley.

  “Great! Becca and I will pick you up around seven, okay?”

  I nod. My parents have said that I can’t go on solo dates until I’m sixteen, which I think is ridiculous, but I’m allowed to do stuff in groups. Normally, they’d insist on driving me too, but Stewart is so responsible he’s like a junior grown-up, and I know they won’t mind if he drives.

  Stewart heads off with our deliveries, and we go back inside to clean up. When we’re done, we pile into Cassidy’s family’s minivan. Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid is going to drop Cassidy at the rink first, then take us all home.

  A few minutes later we pull into the parking lot in front of the arena, and Cassidy hops out and grabs her skating bag. As she heads inside, Mrs. Bergson pulls up alongside us.

  “I hope you have my pie in there,” she says, smiling.

  “One French silk chocolate, coming right up,” says Jess, handing her a white box.

  “Why don’t you all come inside and watch for a few minutes?” Mrs. Bergson asks, after she puts
the pie in her car. “You too, Clementine. I think you’ll be interested to see a different side of your talented daughter.”

  We get out and follow her into the rink, then find seats in the bleachers while she goes over to where Cassidy and Tristan are lacing up their skates. The three of them stand there talking for a few minutes, then Cassidy and Tristan head out onto the ice.

  “What the heck is he wearing?” whispers Becca.

  I take out my cell phone and flip it open. “Not sure, but Fashionista Jane will definitely be interested.” Speeding around the rink, Tristan switches directions and skates backward toward us with his rear sticking out. I zoom in on it and snap a picture, then slip my cell phone back in my purse.

  Fashionista Jane, my alter ego, has been having a lot of fun over the past couple of months. She loves lurking the halls of Alcott High, cell phone in hand, and secretly snapping shots for her Fashion Faux Pas, as she calls them. She’s blogged about other stuff too—how to organize your closet, Accessories 101, that sort of thing. But people are especially crazy about the Fashion Faux Pas.

  Everybody at school is buzzing about Fashionista Jane’s real identity, especially the people whose pictures I’ve posted. They’re not too happy about that. I figure I’m doing them a favor, though. If they can see themselves the way we all see them, maybe they’ll make better fashion choices.

  Take Tristan Berkeley, for example. Here he is, out in public wearing a blue spandex jumpsuit. Sure, I know, he’s an ice skater. But still—spandex? Not only is it skin-tight, it’s shiny. Plus, he’s been so rude to Cassidy I figure he has it coming.

  Too bad he doesn’t take his fashion cues from her. I never thought I’d say this, but out there on the ice right now, Cassidy Sloane actually looks good. She’s wearing black leggings—non-shiny, non-Spandex leggings—and a black turtleneck. Simple. Chic. Stunning.

  “Like Audrey Hepburn, only taller and with red hair,” says my grandmother, nodding her approval. She elbows me. “You should put her on your blog.”

  Gigi’s in on my secret. She thinks it’s hilarious, and is always trying to give me ideas. She knows a lot of designers—she goes to Fashion Week in New York and Paris every year, and spends a lot of money on clothes—and her latest brainstorm is that I should host interviews with people in the fashion industry. I can’t imagine that any of them would want to talk to me for my blog, but as my grandmother points out, you never know until you try.