Whoopie Pie Betrayal - Book 2 (The Whoopie Pie Juggler: An Amish of Lancaster County Saga series)

by Price, Rebecca

  We don’t normally drink or even serve wine, but I do in this case - a lovely Amish wine that is both delicious and not imposing. Ruth gives me the stink-eye as I pour Jacques a glass, and then others for her and the rest of my guests. Most of the glasses remain ignored.

  I say, “We’re grateful that you’ve come all this way, Monsieur Cherierre.”

  “Jacques, si’l vous plait.”

  Well, I know what that means. So I say, “Jacques, I’m looking forward to cooking my pies for you tomorrow. Your crew has really been hard at work putting it all together.”

  “We’re just using the same platforms they built for Kain Park,” Ruth says. “With new schools going up in two other counties...” Ruth shoots a little sneer at Rebecca, who bravely tries to ignore it. Ruth adds, “Plus a new house going up on our own property...” but her voice says what her words do not: Against my wishes!

  My daed and mamm share a worried glance, and I know they’re concerned for Rebecca’s stability. She seems closer and closer to the edge, and at the moment there’s not much any of us can do but hope Ruth eases up so the rest of the evening has a chance of going smoothly.

  Simon, also sensitive to the tension, says to Beau, “How do you two enjoy being engaged?”

  Beau sets his hand on Rebecca’s. “I’d say I would wish it could go on forever, but the only thing I want more than to be engaged to Rebecca...is to be married to her.”

  Nice, I think to myself. I really like you, Beau.

  Ruth says, “Well, we all have to settle eventually, don’t we?” She glares at Samuel, her shrinking husband. “It seems a mortal certainty that the people in this family marry poorly. Whereas those who marry into it find themselves doing quite well indeed.” She glares at Samuel. “Isn’t that true, Samuel?”

  “You don’t hear me complain,” he says.

  Sure, I think, she doesn’t hear it...because you’re very, very careful. And I don’t blame you. Samuel.

  Jacques turns to Abram. “Are you are the young juggler, the eggs on the ice picks? Vos astuces sont incroyables! Vous êtes très talentueux, jeune homme!”

  Abram can’t disguise his pride, and Mamm and Daed don’t seem too eager to reprimand him.

  Jacques adds, “You will be in the crowd when we shoot our program, oui?”

  “Um, I think yes,” Abram says, delaying a mouthful of corn fritters, “if you agree I am, then I think I am.”

  Ruth rolls her eyes. “A boy juggling on television. I guess some parents will go to any lengths to avoid raising their own children.”

  My daed turns toward Ruth, his severe expression hardening, ready to burst forth a tide of retribution for her poorly aimed rebuke. My mamm puts her hand on his chest to quell his wrath, and it works.

  For the time being.

  I turn back to Jacques, smiling and increasingly aware of the cameras as they capture every bit of the tension and conflict that they love so well.

  Their lifeblood.

  “Jacques, have you ever eaten Amish food before?”

  “Looks as if he’s eaten it all,” Ruth mumbles, loud enough for us all to hear.

  “Now that is enough!” Rebecca shouts at her. The sheer volume of her shriek, along with the angry pitch, the quivering flex of patience pushed beyond endurance, takes the entire room by surprise. A quiet pallor falls over the table, all eyes on Rebecca and Ruth.

  Rebecca doesn’t seem aware than any of us are in the room with them. It doesn’t seem to matter to her if we are. “My God, you are the most sour, angry, bitter, hateful, awful woman I’ve ever known!”

  “How dare you?” Ruth starts, with no time to continue.

  “No,” Rebecca says, “how dare you?! You’ve done nothing but spew your bile all over me and everyone I know and love ever since you’ve laid eyes on me. I’m sorry you can’t deal with the idea that your son is going to love a woman who isn’t you, but that’s really your problem to sort out, Ruth, not mine!”

  We all just sit and watch, unable to speak. There’s nothing to say anyway, at least apart from things that Rebecca is saying, which are long past needing to be said. And it’s way too late to stop them.

  I sure don’t want to be the one to do it.

  Ruth says, “Well, I never...”

  “Maybe that’s your problem,” Rebecca says. “You never faced anyone who could say things you need to hear. But here’s how it’s going to be, Ruth: I’m marrying your son and you’re going to go on with your life and deal with it, and if you can’t do those things then you’re going to find yourself having a very hard time visiting your grandchildren.”

  Ruth begins to huff and scoff, saying nothing and effecting even less. She looks to Samuel for some support, but he just looks at Ruth with a kind of helpless agreement, a little shrug and a nod that says, She’s right. I’m sorry, but...she’s right.

  Because, of course, Rebecca is right.

  But right or not, Ruth is not about to give up so easily. In the thickness of the silence swirling around her, Ruth says, “I do not have to sit here and be insulted...” After an almost lethal silence, she glares at Rebecca and adds, “From a known lunatic!”

  Rebecca freezes, the weight of her past suddenly crashing down upon her. Everybody looks at her, stunned by the ill-mannered remark, no matter how defensive it may have been in spirit.

  In practice, it was a deep and possibly deadly blow.

  And, reeling from the cut, Rebecca stands up. Beau is the first to join her, but she’s already running away from the table, muttering, “Oh no, oh no no no no no...”

  Beau turns and sneers at Ruth. “That’s it! I’ve had enough of your abusive bullying! She’s right, Mamm, and you are a shameful person and a horrible parent.”

  He turns to follow Rebecca out the door, but I’m already on my feet, holding my hand out to stop him. I know it’s my table in my house with my guests, which all mean I should stay.

  But she’s my sister, and she’s in pain.

  So of course, I go.

  Running out of the house, the cool autumn night opening up around me as the dark threatens to swallow my sister whole, once and for all.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I call out, “Rebecca, stop!”

  She turns, still staggering backward, tears streaming down her face. “She hates me!”

  “No, Rebecca, she hates herself!”

  Rebecca stops, my logic stymieing her escape. She stands, panting, helpless. “What’s the difference? Me, her, you? It doesn’t matter what we do, they’ll never accept us. Look at you, poor thing, you jumped through every stupid hoop and these people are still laughing at you behind your back!”

  That’s when I notice the camera crew spilling out of the house behind me. I turn on them. “You, back in the house!”

  Cam says, “But...”

  “Get back in that house!” I holler, pointing their way back into the house before turning to the darkness, which has now swallowed my sister alive, leaving no trace.

  “Rebecca? Rebecca?!”

  I walk off into the distance, knowing I’ll find her. I won’t lose her again.

  After a few moments of calling her name and listening for her footsteps, and her sobs, I find Rebecca leaning against an oak tree, moonlight streaming through the branches over her head to cover her in uneven specks of light.

  I say, “Are you all right?”

  In a very weak voice, small and trembling, my sister says, “No.” Crickets fill the silence that lingers between us as Rebecca sighs and gathers enough breath and courage to say what she feels she must say, however much neither of us wants to hear it.

  “I’m mad, Hannah. I’m...I’m sick, insane...”

  “No, Rebecca...”

  “It’s true,” she says, louder, more desperate, with sorrow curling in her throat. “We all know it. The way I fell apart in that classroom, just now with Ruth. I can’t control myself. It’s like...it’s like I can’t speak, like I’m mute, and then all of the sudden I can’t
stop speaking, like I’m somebody else, like I’m watching myself becoming hysterical and there’s just nothing I can do about it.”

  I stand, not sure what to say, or what she’ll believe. She adds, “I know that’s why Ruth hates me, why she thinks I’m no good for Beau.” After a trembling little moment of doubt, she says, “Maybe she’s right.”

  “Don’t you believe it,” I say, “she taunted you beyond endurance. Anybody would have snapped at her. I almost thought Daed was going to reach across the table and rip her head off!”

  We share a tense chuckle, Rebecca’s dimmed in flecks of her throaty sadness.

  “Anyway,” I go on, “it doesn’t matter what she thinks, it’s what Beau thinks, and what he feels. And what he feels for you is love. Rebecca, we can all see it; anybody could see it, in pitch black from a hundred miles away. Your love burns that bright.”

  “What about everyone else, the way they’re talking about you...?”

  “I don’t care!” I shake my head and shrug it off, as if it means that little to me. Which it does. I say, “Little secret, after this thing is over, I’m done with the pies. These people can take care of their own pastries. I’ll be raising your little nieces and nephews, and playing with plenty of my own, right?”

  Rebecca nods, a grateful smile breaking out across her face. Then she looks back at the house and her smile fades, her sad frown replacing it all-too-readily. “I’ve made a fool of myself in front of those cameras, that’ll all be shown on television. Hannah, I’ll be a laughing stock!”

  I look back at the house too, not wanting her to see my expression too closely while I think about it.

  She’s right, I have to admit, that was nasty and ugly and horrible, exactly what they love to put on television. I guess this experiment has gone on long enough, maybe too long. Mamm was right, I’m over my head, and I’ve wound up doing more harm than good.

  Those holy words ring in my heart’s memory: “With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.”

  But it’s a little too late for of 2 Chronicles 32:8 now. I’ve got to save my sister’s reputation and reverse this madness now, before it’s too late.

  But a creeping suspicion in the bottom of my stomach tells me it won’t be easy.

  Or even possible.

  By the time we get back to the house, Cam’s crew have taken Chef Cherierre back to his hotel, but one camera and an attending crew does wait around to catch any more drama which may erupt.

  We’re all very careful to see that it doesn’t. I know there will be plenty of drama the next day, even if I manage to stop the taping of the television episode’s finale, to take place in Lancaster Square.

  My call time is eight o’clock, which gives me precious little time to find a way out of all this. My first choice is the direct approach, and after hours of working through different alternatives, I decide to go with my first choice.

  It will not, however, be my only choice.

  * * *

  The next morning is filled with predictable chaos. We get up early and arrive at the location (another word Cam keeps using) and it looks a lot like the stage for the competition between me and Grace from weeks earlier. But there’s only one setup.

  Mine.

  I’ll be alone, walking Jacques through the baking process and then watching him eat my hopefully delicious pies. I’m not sure if this is usually the way they do it on shows like these, but I do as I’m told. And it does make a good degree of sense, after all. They want something big: production value as Cam put it. And with what looks like a crowd of locals several hundred strong, they’re going to have it.

  Plenty.

  Cam is busy dealing with his camera crews when I get his attention and he crosses over to me. “There’s my star, the Amish Rachel Ray. Anything you need, Hanna? Water?”

  “Um, no, actually,” I say, unsure how to frame my next few words, but knowing I have little choice. “Look, I was wondering, do we really have to go through with this?”

  He looks at me, confused for a moment, then smiling to have resolved the issue in his own mind at least. “I get it, you’re afraid. Hannah, relax. He’s gonna love your pies. Even if he doesn’t, he’s a pro, he won’t make you look foolish. You can trust me.”

  “Well, Cam, it’s not that I don’t trust you, not at all. But, well, this show’s been difficult on everybody here, my sister especially, and...”

  “Hannah, I know why you’re worried. But what happened last night, in the end, that will all wind up being healthy, good for her and her mother-in-law, good all around. It’s better to get these things out in the open. You live with ‘em too long, they tear you apart, am I right?”

  He does have a good point, although it conveniently dances around my own point, which I’m not managing to get to quickly enough.

  I say, “Well, in private, that’s all well and good, but this is going to be a very public broadcast, and my sister, well, she’s sort of...unstable...as you can see.”

  “She signed a release,” Cam says, his voice losing its friendly tone. “You all did, those of you we have on camera anyway. This is the big leagues, Hannah, you don’t think we’re stumbling in here without knowing what we’re doing?”

  “Um, no, of course not...”

  “That’s why we have contracts, to keep people from changing their minds, letting their imaginations or their emotions run away with them.” After a mean little minute, he adds, “That’s why we have lawyers, Hannah.”

  I say, “Are you threatening me?”

  He smiles, then turns to point out the vast array of workers, spectators, and other activity growing in front of us. I spot Lilly and Jessup watching me from the crowd. She seems to detect that I’m in some distress.

  She’s smiling.

  Cam says, “Look out there, Hannah. What do you see?”

  I wrestle with it for a moment. I know it’s a trick question, and I hope he’ll just move on so I don’t have to be involved in his little grammatical tactic. Ultimately, I have to guess, “People, a lot of work being done...”

  “Money,” he says, “a lot of money being spent. And it’s not just being spent here, but up and down the line: sponsors, airtime, salaries, union wages, expenses for travel, overtime, the list goes on. You think a show like ours could survive, or a production company or even the entire industry, if we had to toss out all our hard work every time somebody had second thoughts about one thing or another?”

  I give it some thought. Not much. There isn’t much point. So I offer a weak, “I imagine there is some...loss in your business, like any other.”

  “There is,” he says, his voice quick and direct, “it’s called the minibar. Everything else is on the clock, Hannah. And that includes you and all your friends. Now you’re going to get your things ready, because Jacques will be here in five and we’ll start baking the best Whoopie pies which you’ve ever made. Understood?”

  I nod. What else can I do? I tried the direct approach and it failed. Miserably. But I’m not surprised.

  And I’m not beaten yet.

  People cheer as Chef Cherierre climbs onto the stage with a camera crew around him. He kisses me on the cheek, we share a smile, and taping for the show’s big finale, begins.

  He makes little jokes and mutters in French a lot, and I walk him through every step, speaking out the instructions the way they do on the few cooking shows I’ve come across from time to time: “Now I’m going to heat the oven to four-hundred-fifty for five minutes, and slide in the cookie sheet...”

  The cameras loom, people watch from the foot of the stage. I know the crowd is more-or-less torn on the whole ordeal. Half of them are put off by the TV presence in town, and half of them are putting all the town’s eggs in this frail, fragile basket.

  Either way, I know I’m in for a rough time from a good amount of people (maybe all of them if they can manage it). But I go on showing Jacques my techniques, step-by-step, in what
feels like a cheerful death march.

  Finally, a familiar voice is surrounded by a confused murmur from the crowd. Paulie Carapucci says, “‘Ey, yo, yo yo yo yo yo yo...”

  Jacques and I turn, the cameras following this new distraction to find Paulie and Vincenzo Carapucci as they approach us from across the stage. In his thick Jersey accent, Paulie says, “”Ey ‘ey ‘ey ‘ey ‘ey, what’s all ‘is?”

  Jacques looks offended, spewing a stream of French at Vincenzo, words I don’t even scarcely recognize. And Vincenzo hits him back with an Italian diatribe which I imagine would set the entire Venetian navy to blushing.

  I push myself between them, saying, “Okay, now, everybody relax here, just relax!”

  Vincenzo smiles at me. “Ah, La principessa della pasticceria.” I think about it for a second: The princess of pies. Oh nuts, I knew it!

  Cam comes up to me, gesturing in Vincenzo’s direction as he says to me, “You know this guy? What’s going on here, Hannah?”

  Before I can answer, Paulie says, “We’re da ones what own this whole cake thing now, see? D’is’s our t’ing now, right? You can’t be showin’ how she makes these pies on TV, ‘cause we own that!”

  Cam looks at me, his expression a cold mask. “You signed an agreement that you owned the rights to this process.”

  “I didn’t realize I’d given away any rights to anyone,” I say, completely honestly and innocently, even if I know those things are far from assumed. “They asked me how I did it and I told them. I didn’t sign any contracts or agreements or anything...”

  Paulie pulls out a letter-sized document, several pages thick stapled at the corner. “Well, we registered it, with trademarks and whatnot and everything. All nice and legal-like.”

  Simon steps up behind me, whispering, “Who are these men?”

  I shrug, eyebrows high and innocent. “Just customers.”

  Vincenzo steps up to Chef Cherierre and says, in his thick Italian accent, “I’m just a businessman, y’understand. But we have filed these papers, and if we have to make it a long, legal issue, well...”