Miracle Pie

by Edie Ramer

  His uncle always had great taste.

  “Aren’t you going to answer me?” Cherise asked, her tone edged with anger.

  Focus. He needed to focus. He glanced over his shoulder. “I’m just going to talk to them.”

  “To two women.” She spat out the three words like they were a bad wine.

  He straightened and turned around. “This is nothing to do with them. I’d already given you notice.”

  “You were still going to do jobs for me.”

  “Once in a while.” Until he found his missing mojo. His magic. His passion for life. Lost for four years now. Too long to be floundering around according to his understanding mom, stepdad and father. Too long for him, too.

  “You’re making good money with me,” she said. “My work is steady, which is more than most filmmakers can say. What are you looking for that I don’t have?”

  “My place in the sun.” He kept his tone light when all he wanted to do was leave. “My niche in life.”

  Cherise rolled her eyes at the ten-foot ceiling. “Niche? Antique stores have niches. Little old ladies have niches. You need a plan or you’ll never get anywhere.”

  “These last couple years I’ve been helping you with your dream. You always knew that when I found my dream, I’d—”

  “I have a plan, not a dream.” She crossed her arms, the air around her glacial with icy spikes of anger. “Dreams are for dreamers. Plans are for doers.”

  He ached for her for being so wrong and so cold. For not believing in dreams.

  And he ached for himself, for staying with her while he waited for a dream that never showed up.

  Until now. Not a full-fledged dream, but a glimmer. Bright and shiny, calling his name.

  “Maybe you’re right.” He turned back to his packing. “But I’m still leaving.”

  “I have a wedding in two days, and you won’t be back in time to film it.”

  “I recommended two good videographers. We’ve used them both before and they’ve done good work.”

  “But they’re not you. You have a way of calming people down. Making them do what you want, even if it’s not what they want.”

  “Now you’re trying to make me do what I don’t want to do.” He glanced up and met her glittering gaze. “Making my own films was always my goal.”

  Her mouth pursed and her forehead tightened. “You and about fifty thousand other wannabe filmmakers.”

  “True, but I’m ready to give it a go now. You knew from the first time you booked me to film a wedding that I had other plans.”

  “That was three years ago. Since then, you’ve become more than an employee. You’re only leaving now because of the photo your uncle emailed you. Because of those women.” Her eyes glittered brighter and harder.

  He turned away. He couldn’t tell her he had no choice. Not since his uncle, who delivered fish to restaurants in the middle of Wisconsin, had sent the pictures of the two women to his cell phone. The moment Gabe looked at them he’d felt a stomach punch and something else...something indescribable. Like when he was seven and dying and a small girl told him angels were going to save him. That he was going to live.

  And he did live. Twenty-three years later he was healthy enough for Cherise to consider him as the future father of her children.

  She made an angry sound, and he blanked out the images of the girl and the women. Facing Cherise, he saw her as if she was a character in a story he was going to film and this was a scene. Saw the worry and the need to control and the way she took life so seriously.

  When life wasn’t serious. Life was...wonderful. The first wonder of the world. Living and breathing and walking around on two feet. You just had to open your eyes to it.

  Cherise’s eyes were wide open, but she didn’t see the same things he did. She saw life as a To Do List. He saw life as a To Be Journey.

  These last few years he’d forgotten that and he was just starting to remember.

  He took her hands in his. Hers were cool and limp.

  “My uncle says this woman has it.”

  “It.” She spat out the word. “What is it?”

  “Magic. It is magic.”

  She jerked her hands from his. “Your uncle is a horndog, and I don’t believe in magic.”

  “What if I told you magic happened to me? Would you believe then?”

  “I would believe you were mentally disturbed.”

  For a long moment he studied her. She glared back. Defiant. Angry.

  A vast sadness was a heavy weight in his chest. Not for him or for her. For them. Except there really was no them, and there had never been a them.

  He turned back to the pile of clothes on his bed. He wasn’t good at packing—he saved his meticulousness for his work—so he shoved his jeans in the suitcase. He’d already put a few bags of his stuff in his SUV along with his video equipment where most of his money had gone.

  “You’re taking all your clothes with you?”

  “I have a feeling this will work. You know my feelings are usually right.”

  “With all the talk about feelings, you sound feminine.”

  “If you’re insinuating I might be gay, you should know better.” He shifted to look into her eyes. “If I were even bi, I’d tell you. When have you known me to lie?”

  Frustration tightened her face. “Maybe I just didn’t catch you. You could be a con-man.”

  “The only money I’ve taken from you is payment for my videographer services.” He even paid for his share of the costs since she’d invited him to move in after the fire at his southside apartment. It was never meant to be permanent. At the time, he’d been glad to have a place to stay.

  Now he was glad to leave, though he knew it was her anger talking right now. It wasn’t that she loved him. It was just that he was useful, his appearance and manners were acceptable. Best of all, he was low maintenance.

  And stubborn. But everyone had a fault, and she was willing to overlook it if only he’d be wise enough to change his mind.

  Instead, he packed faster. Five minutes later he stood at the door to the hall with his suitcases.

  “If you waltz out of my life,” Cherise said, her tone sharp enough to slice through the air, “don’t think I’m letting you waltz back in so easily.”

  “If that’s what you want...” He arched his eyebrows.

  “I mean it.” She flattened her lips into a thin line, her arms pressed against her ribs. No give in her.

  The sadness zoomed back to Gabe. This was the woman he’d made love with, slept with, ate with, worked with. He hated to end it this way.

  But a feeling about this job was building inside him. An excitement that reminded him of their first vacation together in Puerto Rico when he stood on the edge of a cliff and Cherise pleaded with him not to jump.

  He hadn’t listened to her then either. The jump had been glorious. He’d felt as if he could fly. It wasn’t magic, but close.

  Their following two vacations had been to Vegas and Palm Springs to visit Cherise’s family. No leaps from cliffs for him anymore. No flying through the air.

  No magic.

  “We had some good times,” he said. But not great. No fierceness. No magic. Just two bodies in proximity using each other.

  Her face pulled inward, her nostrils pinched. “You’re good in bed, but I want more than that. I want a partner.”

  Without hesitation, he took his keys out of his pocket and worked one off the ring. Her breaths quickened. Small puffs like an angry cartoon character. Her face twisted in a classic expression of shock.

  She hadn’t believed he would do it. After three years, she didn’t really know him. Didn’t know he believed in magic. If he told her, she’d think he was mentally disturbed. But he had to believe in it. After all, magic had happened to him once.

  He picked up two suitcases and walked away, hoping that, like lightning, magic would strike twice in the same place.

  Chapter Four

  An angel stood in Ka
tie’s kitchen next to Rosa. Not the little girl and boy angels on greeting cards. A man. Not much older than her and not much taller, with golden hair, eyes like a summer sky and upturned full lips. Gabriel Robbins even had an angel’s name.

  Her skin warmed. She couldn’t say anything. Not even a greeting. Her voice stuck in her chest, lodged there with her fallen brain cells.

  Laughter sparked in his eyes as he said it was nice to meet her. Nothing unusual but his voice wrapped around her like silken strands.

  Rosa nudged her arm and still she couldn’t speak. She was hyperventilating, her heart pounding, her breaths puffing.

  What was wrong with her? He wasn’t a movie star. If he were, she suspected she’d be less bemused. She was acting like a schoolgirl instead of a woman who’d had her share of dates and even a couple serious boyfriends. None of them dogs, either—though in four-legged dogs, even ugliness managed to be cute.

  This man...he wasn’t cute. He wasn’t even the most handsome man she’d seen. But he was the most...angelic.

  He bent to greet Happy, not seeming to mind that Happy smelled in a way that baths didn’t help. An old dog smell that went with Happy’s old dog breath.

  When Katie finally told Trish about this day, she wouldn’t have to exaggerate her social ineptness.

  “How old is your dog?” he asked, pulling the long ears gently.

  “Happy’s nineteen.”

  “Happy? Good name.” Still petting Happy, he gave her a smile that indented dimples in his cheeks.

  The inside of her mouth dried up. She shifted her gaze to the bowl of McIntosh apples on her counter that her dad had picked from their own trees. Thoughts of her apple pies brought moistness back to her mouth and her chest opened up, her breathing easier.

  “My dad got her when I was eight.” Remembering the scampering little pup with the energy of an F-1 tornado, a smile grew inside Katie. “She was the runt of the litter, and no one wanted her. It was either my dad or the humane society.”

  “She kept you company?”

  “What eight-year-old doesn’t love a dog?” Especially an eight-year-old who still wondered why her mother didn’t keep her.

  Boy, did she empathize with that dog.

  Of course, being with Sam and her grandma was the best thing that happened to her. Katie knew Happy felt the same way about her.

  Gabe gave Happy another scratch behind her ears then straightened and glanced around the kitchen at her two ovens, the KitchenAid mixer, the stainless steel refrigerator and in the corner, her old white one. Then there were the gleaming work spaces. Not the normal cottage kitchen.

  She breathed in, feeling double lucky—lucky to have this, and lucky that she remembered just enough of her first five years to appreciate her life now.

  “My dad and I redid it two years ago to meet the Board of Health’s regulations.”

  “I like it. A lot of stainless steel.”

  “Stainless steel is a cook’s best friend,” she said as she watched Happy limp to the rug in the corner where she slept a good part of the day.

  “That and wine,” Rosa said, the first she’d spoken since she’d hugged Katie hello.

  Gabe laughed low in his throat, more like a devil than an angel. “You ladies are going to be naturals. I can tell already. I have an idea.”

  Katie groaned. He looked at her, an eyebrow raised. She shrugged. “I heard that same line from Rosa yesterday.”

  “You’re here because of my idea.” Rosa gave Gabe her I’m-done-with-taking-second-to-a-man look that made his eyebrows rise. “We’re all here because of my idea. To make my show.”

  Katie restrained herself from patting Rosa on the back and saying You go, girl. She knew half of Rosa’s determination to do her show was because of Mike. She wanted to be a huge success to make him sorry he’d cheated, though Katie suspected he was already sorry.

  But the other half...that was for Rosa.

  “It’s Rosa’s dream,” Katie said. That’s the real reason she’d said yes to Rosa. She admired people with dreams.

  “Not yours?” he asked.

  She stepped back and bumped into one of the wooden chairs around the wooden table, an old set that had belonged to her dad’s grandmother and then to Katie’s grandmother. Plain with no curlicues or notches. Plain just like Katie felt inside.

  “I don’t need to dream.” She peered around, and contentment warmed her insides, like a muffin just out of the oven. “I’m doing exactly what I want. I was eleven when I made my first pie for money. A family friend had lung cancer.” She looked at Rosa. “Remember Paul Trilling?”

  “A wonderful man.”

  “He was one of my dad’s hunting buddies, and he loved my apple pie.” She heard her voice soften. “He said it reminded him of his grandmother’s pie.”

  “Now I remember.” Rosa’s throaty voice thickened. “Suzie ordered from us, too. The seafood cannelloni.” She gestured with her hand, as if Paul and his wife were in the kitchen, watching them. “That’s my specialty, but Mike claimed the credit. He didn’t want me to outshine him. Before Paul’s chemo started, Suzie wanted to give him a meal he could remember. We didn’t charge her, but she insisted on paying us. She wanted it to be her gift to Paul.”

  Tears shimmered in her eyes and Katie sniffed her own tears back.

  “That’s perfect.” Gabe’s eyes glowed with approval. “I want you to tell this story on your show.” He leaned toward both of them. “It’s not the cooking that makes people watch a show. It’s not even the attractive cooks.” He paused, and Katie leaned toward him to hear him better, somehow knowing this important. “It’s the story.”

  “Is that your idea?” Rosa asked. “For us to tell stories?”

  “That’s an extra.” He smiled, the kind of smile Katie imagined the Pied Piper gave the kids before he led them out of Hamelin, playing his pipe and dancing. “We can film an episode and then you can send it out to the different stations. A long, tedious, frustrating process. But there’s another way to get noticed.”

  Katie’s stomach tightened and she fought an urge to put her hands over her ears. She didn’t know what he was going to say, but she was sure she didn’t want to hear it.

  It had better not involve wearing a swimsuit while doing her pie segment.

  Or worse, no swimsuit. Their show would be The Nude Cooks. Rosa would have to watch out for grease splatter, while Katie would just get flour splotches.

  “Tell us.” Rosa crossed her arms, her voice heavy with suspicion.

  Katie crossed her arms, too. There was too much change already, happening too fast, and she was pretty sure she wasn’t a fast woman.

  Chapter Five

  Looking at the two women with their crossed arms, Gabe thought, Tough crowd.

  But he would win this.

  His gaze lingered on the younger woman. She was...not ordinary, though she dressed ordinary, as if she tried to fit in. Not slouching but not standing tall, either.

  The camera would show the truth of her. It would love the high cheekbones, the triangular chin, and the angles in her face. The sweetness, goodness and even a bit of edginess.

  When she saw the film, he guessed she would be surprised and pleased—and a little shocked—to see herself as others saw her.

  His gaze switched to Rosa. A classic Italian beauty with the kind of striking looks that didn’t fade with age. As if she were a goddess who’d come down to earth for the span of a human life. He grinned. You could take the goddess out of Mount Olympus, but you couldn’t take the goddess out of the woman.

  He didn’t allow himself to look below their necks. This was business. But when he’d entered the cottage kitchen, he’d given each woman a quick sweeping glance. He’d seen enough to know the pictures his uncle had sent didn’t lie. They weren’t deficient there. Not by any measure.

  The viewers would eat them up.

  “Well?” Rosa asked. In another moment she’d be tapping the toe of her shoe on the floor. Like a bu
ll, she wanted to take charge. Maybe she didn’t have balls, but for a long time Gabe had suspected a vagina was a hell of a lot stronger.

  He held back a laugh. This was the wrong time to think of vaginas or testicles or any body parts. Food and money. That’s what he needed to think about.

  “A lot of chefs are trying to make it,” he said. “On the Food Channel, the Travel Channel, the Top Chef shows, the morning shows, the afternoon shows, any show they can get. Most with impressive credentials and awards.”

  Rosa gave him a stare that reminded him of his fourth grade teacher when he displeased her. “I don’t care.” A faint southern Italian accent thickened her voice like honey sliding out of the hive. “I believe in myself.”

  “You’ll need to believe in yourself. Your competition isn’t coming from neighborhood diners. They’re from four-star restaurants. Everyone wants to be famous.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to discourage us?”

  He glanced at Katie. Her gaze was switching back and forth between him and Rosa, a frown puckering her forehead as she waited for them to duke it out.

  “I’m telling you the truth,” he said, turning back to Rosa.

  “In that case, we don’t need you.” Rosa took a decisive step out the door.

  He stayed planted on the cream-tiled kitchen floor. “There’s another way to get in.”

  Rosa stopped. Her narrow-eyed stare could have bored holes in his brain. “I’m not sleeping with anyone.”

  He laughed so hard he had to wipe tears from his eyes. When he sobered, both women were frowning at him as if he were a turd on the sidewalk.

  “What kind of mind do you have?” he asked.

  “The kind of mind that knows how men think.”

  He grinned. This was turning out to be more fun than he’d hoped. “A friend—a woman friend—is a shoe addict. She started putting videos on YouTube that showed off her shoes. Telling viewers where she bought them and how much they cost, where she wore them, and what people said about them. The videos are fun and funny and short. Viewers have found her. She signed up for an advertising program. It’s been a year. Her views are in the high six figure mark, and she’s making good money.”