by A. G. Mayes
‘What are you talking about?’ I turned back towards her, wondering if she was just trying to mess with me.
‘Hm,’ she said, sizing me up.
‘What have you heard?’ I hated that I was asking her for information.
She picked up the small blue porcelain soap dispenser that sat next to the sink. She sniffed it and tucked it in her purse.
‘We all have secrets, dear.’ Then she brushed past me and was out the door before I could say another word.
I was out the door half a second behind her, but she was nowhere to be seen. I looked up and down the narrow hallway, but she had just vanished into thin air.
Chapter 9
Day 8 - Wednesday, November 9th
Someone was in the apartment. I sat straight up. My brain still felt fuzzy from the margaritas. The fairy lights cast a dim glow around the room. I held my breath. I didn’t hear anything besides the beating of my heart and Mitzy snoring softly. Her head rested on one of the cookbooks I’d bought. She had somehow managed to pull it off the shelf and drag it over to her bed.
‘Psst.’ I crept over to Mitzy’s bed and nudged her shoulder. She cracked an eye open. When she didn’t see a treat, she closed it. I nudged her again. Despite her tiny size, I wanted back up as I checked the apartment for intruders. She began snoring comically loudly. Was she pretending to be asleep? After a few more nudges, I gave up.
The sun was starting to rise, and it was getting brighter in the apartment with each passing minute. I grabbed the remote control and a coaster and crept around the perimeter of the apartment. I rounded every corner spy-style, pressing myself against the wall, and then quickly turning into each room brandishing my remote ready to throw it at an intruder’s head. All the rooms were empty, except for the little brown spider that had built her web in the corner of Aunt Erma’s bedroom two days ago. I had named her Mavis and had a stern talk with her to make it clear that she was not, under any circumstances, to crawl into my mouth while I was sleeping.
Once I was convinced that Mavis, Mitzy, and I were alone in the apartment, I made coffee and sat down at my computer. I checked my email, scanning through countless ads, hoping to see one from Aunt Erma. I found the email she had sent to me before I came, and replied to it. Just a simple how are you, where the heck are you, and when in the world are you going to be back? Please reply right away, I thought, touching the necklace she left me through my shirt with one hand and crossing my fingers with the other. I refreshed my email ten times, but no response yet. So, I grabbed Mitzy’s leash, and she led me outside.
The early morning air was crisp. I hurried Mitzy through the alley so we could stand in the sun by the street. That stupid silver cat was there, standing at attention as though she’d been waiting for us. Before I could stop her, Mitzy was in front of the cat licking her face with her little tail wagging faster than I’d ever seen.
‘No Mitzy,’ I cried, half expecting the cat to claw at her face. I stopped myself from pulling the leash back when the cat just closed her eyes and purred. Then she put her paw on Mitzy’s shoulder as though petting her. What kind of strange love affair was this?
The cat looked up at me with her big blue eyes, then came over and rubbed against my leg. Mitzy followed the cat wagging her tail, just trying to be a part of it. Despite my general aversion to cats, it felt nice, and I bent down to pat her head.
Flora had hung Christmas lights in the window of her shop and around the front door. A little thrill ran through me.
I still felt traces of that magical feeling that surrounded Christmas when I was a kid. My parents would let me spend all of Christmas day in my pajamas. Aunt Erma would come over with stacks of sugar cookies and tubs of frosting. We would decorate them while watching whatever Christmas movies were on television. I was allowed to eat as many cookies as I wanted while we decorated. Usually I ate too many and got a stomachache, but I never complained because I didn’t want the grown-ups to tell me I couldn’t have as many cookies next time.
The last Christmas we were all together, my dad was sick and my mom was snapping at everybody. After Mom had yelled at me for licking my fingers and then touching the cookies, Aunt Erma ushered me into the kitchen to help her bake a pie for dinner. I tried to blink back my tears as Aunt Erma began pulling out all the ingredients.
‘Did I ever tell you about the time I met one of Santa’s elves?’ she asked me.
I shook my head, swallowing the lump in my throat.
‘I was hanging up Christmas lights all over my house. When I got done, I plugged them in and not one of them lit up. I plugged them in and unplugged them and thought I was going to have to take every last one of them down and then I heard some bells tinkling, and I turned around to see a woman dressed in bright red from head to toe. She asked me if she could help me with anything. I said, “No thank you.” It was cold out and I wasn’t sure what she could do besides stand there and help me test every bulb. She said, “Let me try plugging it in.” I didn’t know why she wanted to try. I was pretty capable of plugging things in, but I let her. The whole yard lit up. Lights I hadn’t even hung sparkled in the trees. I marveled for a minute, and when I turned to thank her, she was gone. All I heard were sleigh bells ringing.’
I had watched Aunt Erma breathlessly. She’d told the story all while putting together a beautiful pie. By the time I had helped her pinch the top and bottom crusts together, a specialty of mine, I had forgotten all about my mother yelling at me.
I shook my head to bring myself out of my daydream. I told the cat to go home, a little more gently than usual this time, and Mitzy and I went inside.
Dear Elodie,
All of my friends have gotten into rock climbing. Suddenly it’s all they ever want to do. I’ve tried going with them, but I don’t get any enjoyment out of hanging on by my fingertips, only being held up by my own strength and what seems to be to be an all too skinny rope. Should I keep trying and risk falling to my death?
Sincerely,
Not a Rock Star
Dear Not a Rock Star,
It’s hard when our friends go in one direction and we go in another. It can happen to the closest of friendships. Try inviting your friends to occasionally do activities that you enjoy. They’re still probably going to spend a lot of their time rock climbing, but maybe you can compromise so you can maintain your friendships. I would also encourage you to join some groups, maybe a curling team or a book club, so you can make some more friends who enjoy doing the same activities you do.
Ask and I’ll Answer,
Elodie
I began to feel like I was honing my baking skills. I had finally figured out how to make a French silk pie that wasn’t crunchy.
That was why, when I overheard Flora telling Lena and Mr Barnes that my pies were getting better, but were still missing that ‘little something,’ I felt deflated. I searched my brain for anything Aunt Erma might have taught me. Any special thing that she did that no one else knew about. It had been over twenty years since she taught me things in the kitchen though. I couldn’t even remember what I’d learned on the news last night, much less any potential baking secrets from my childhood.
Everyone I asked said that she was very tight-lipped about her recipes. They were a family secret they told me. Hello! I’m family, I thought. I found myself wishing several times a day that Aunt Erma would come back. What if she died? I wondered. Would I be left here disappointing people forever because I could never live up to the standards she set?
My pies were always ‘missing something.’ I heard it time and time again. Usually it was not-so-quietly whispered, but every now and then someone would tell me I was getting close to Aunt Erma’s baking, but I was just missing ‘something.’ If only I could find a jar of that ‘something.’ A note, a recipe, a can of ‘something.’
I had checked the bookshelf a hundred times since I’d arrived, always hoping to see some magical cookbook appear. The one I expected to be labeled ‘Secret Family Recipes.’ I
hadn’t found it yet, but maybe the one hundred and first time was the charm, I thought, staring at the book spines and willing something to appear. When nothing did, I grabbed one of the cookbooks I’d bought from Flora and flipped through the pages. Today I was going to try something different. Triple chocolate pumpkin pie.
With a deep breath, I imagined I was starring in my own cooking show. I measured ingredients quickly, only occasionally glancing at the recipe before casually adding a dash of this or that.
Holly came in shortly after the first set of pies came out of the oven. I wasn’t going to win any awards for presentation but I brought a pie out front to show her.
‘It looks good,’ she said. Her words said, ‘supportive friend,’ but her tone and darting eyes said, ‘please don’t make me eat that.’
‘I’m doomed,’ I groaned. ‘In just over a week, I’m going to run the pie shop into the ground.’
Holly looked at my forlorn face for a minute. ‘I’ll take a piece of your pie,’ she said throwing down the money before she could change her mind.
‘Great.’ I quickly cut a generous slice and handed it to her. She perched herself at the closest table and took a bite. I watched her face. A look of horror flickered across it before she composed her features back into a neutral expression.
‘Susie, I don’t know if we know each other well enough for me to be this honest with you, but that’s not so good.’
‘I was afraid of that.’
I tried to give her the money back, but being the sweet person that she was, she refused to accept it. She told me I could keep the money as long as I didn’t make her eat any more of it. Maybe this was my new way of making money, forcing people to eat gross pie until they paid me to let them stop. After a couple more minutes of chatting, I went back to the kitchen to try again.
I was in the middle of scraping a gloppy mess of chocolate and cherries into a pie crust, another new recipe, when Stan appeared at the back door.
‘Hey Stan,’ I said, carefully using the spatula to wipe a blob of chocolate off the side of the pie tin. ‘It’s not delivery day, is it? Are you here for pie?’ I asked hopefully. I could really use another sale or two – or fifty. He was peering around the kitchen. What was he looking for?
‘Nah, but I know I didn’t deliver enough cinnamon last time.’ He held up a crumpled brown paper bag. ‘I thought I’d drop some off so you didn’t have to go to the store.’ He was fidgeting and still looking around the kitchen.
Could he be a spy for that inspector, Violet? Was he trying to look in to see if Mitzy was chewing on a rolling pin or if I’d left milk out on the counter? Was Violet ready to burst in and shut me down?
‘Thanks,’ I said, grabbing the bag from his hand. ‘I saw your parents yesterday.’
He looked me in the eye for the first time, and I took a step back. His green eyes had a trace of the sharpness that I saw in his mother’s eyes at the hardware store. I shivered. Was it the chill in the November air, or was there something about Stan? Who was I kidding? Stan was about as sinister as a bunny.
‘I’m always glad to have them visit and even happier to have them leave,’ he said with a good-natured shrug.
‘Do you have any big plans while they’re in town?’
‘Nope. See you later,’ he said, turning abruptly and heading out the back door.
Later on, I was just plopping a large dollop of whipped cream on a piece of apple pie a la mode for Mrs Lanigan, when Gina burst through the door.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she spat at me. I froze, mid-dollop.
‘Playing the banjo,’ I said, a phrase my dad always used when I would ask him what he was doing and it was really obvious. I handed the piece of pie to Mrs Lanigan, who thanked me and then went to sit in the corner to watch the scene that was about to unfold in front of her. She didn’t even try to hide her curiosity. In fact, she had pulled a notebook out of her purse and watched us over the top of her half-moon spectacles. She was looked ready to take notes. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the front page story in the gazette tomorrow.
‘Look at this.’ She waved her hand angrily at the display case. She was wearing her gold Gina’s Gym tank top and her arm muscles bulged as she waved them. I briefly considered how glad I was that Mrs Lanigan was there because Gina could kick the crap out of me if she wanted to.
‘Looks delicious, doesn’t it?’ I felt confident with my witness in the corner.
‘You didn’t take a single one of my suggestions.’ Her voice rose in anger.
‘Gina,’ I began slowly as though I was explaining something to a small child. ‘This is a pie shop. People don’t come here for the cardboard flavored low-fat option.’
‘We need to win this weight loss challenge. The prize is $20,000, and I would finally be able to get those deluxe rowing machines.’ She leaned in close to me, lowering her voice, which oddly enough turned out to be way more terrifying than when she was yelling. ‘I want those rowing machines.’
The bell rang, and I looked up to see Alice walking through the door. Perfect.
‘Hi Alice.’ I gritted my teeth and tried to smile.
She surveyed the place with disdain before greeting me. ‘Hello Sue. I just came to check out the competition.’ Her laugh grated my ears. Nobody called me Sue.
‘What can I get you?’ I asked. She stared at the case through narrowed eyes, the corners of her mouth slightly turned down.
‘Alice offers low-fat cookies,’ Gina chimed in. Of course she did.
Alice smiled warmly at Gina. ‘I just want to make sure there’s something for every single person in town to eat at my shop,’ she said.
Gina returned her gaze with pure admiration. Finally, Alice chose the peach pie. ‘Just a small slice, thanks.’ She and Gina stood at the front talking loudly about how great it was to have a new dessert place in town that offered such a wide variety of delicious options. Of course they were talking up the cookie shop in front of my customer. Alice took small careful bites as though analyzing the ingredients of the pie.
I was wiping down the top of the display case when Gina turned to Mrs Lanigan and said, ‘You should really go to Alice’s. She has so many different kinds of delicious cookies and her prices are really reasonable.’
‘That’s it,’ I said, throwing down the rag in my hand. ‘You need to go.’
‘And you need to offer some low-fat options!’ Gina turned to leave.
‘Thank you for the pie,’ Alice set down the plate with her half-eaten piece on it. ‘It was…’ She paused for a minute. ‘Unique.’ They left the shop together whispering conspiratorially.
I tried taking one of those deep calming breaths Mr Barnes was always talking about. While my back was turned, Mrs Lanigan slipped out, leaving some money and most of her pie sitting on the table.
Apparently watching Lady and the Tramp three hundred times as a kid did not leave me qualified to make decisions such as how often a dog should go out. Mitzy greeted me with indignant prancing the second I opened the door of the apartment. I followed her downstairs and put on her leash. She refused to look at me even when I said her name.
I jumped when I saw a figure standing on the corner of the alley leaning against the brick building across the way. The streetlight on that corner had burned out, and I couldn’t see very well. I could just see a silhouette. The hair on my arms stood up. I had seen a movie once where a vicious attack had happened in an alley. Why did we need alleys anyway? Why couldn’t we just have streets or no streets. What was with this in between stuff?
‘Hi,’ I said, my voice a little too high-pitched. Mitzy growled. Didn’t she realize she was the size of a football? The figure silently took a couple menacing steps towards me before heading off in the opposite direction. I stayed frozen in place until the figure was well out of sight. If Mitzy wasn’t still growling, I would have almost been able to convince myself that I’d imagined the whole thing.
‘Mitzy,’ I said disapprovingly
. For the first time tonight, she looked at me. She stopped growling for a second before turning back in the direction where the figure had disappeared and started up again. Finally, she must have decided that he or she had gotten far enough away, and she quietly took care of her business.
We headed back inside. Mitzy paused at the door, sniffed the air, and let out a final warning growl before turning to walk inside. I still felt a little strange. Maybe it was being in a strange town in a strange apartment with a strange dog or maybe it had something to do with the person in the alley. Either way, I double checked that all the doors and windows were locked.
Later that night I was pacing around the apartment. Who was that creepy person? Why was Gina always harassing me? Where was Aunt Erma? Why didn’t she leave me with any recipes or special instructions? How could I make Alice and her cookies disappear?
Mitzy watched me, her head following me back and forth from her perch on the arm of the sofa. I stopped to stare out the window.
All of the shops on the block were dark. The streetlights cast a warm glow around them – except the burnt-out streetlight on the corner by the pie shop. I wondered who I could contact about that. I could see a few lights on in the apartments above the shops up and down the street. Flora’s light was on, but her pink curtains were closed. I was just about to turn back to my pacing when the front door to Flora’s shop opened, and Lena slipped out.
She glanced up and down the street and went over to the dark streetlight. In the shadows, it looked like she reached out and touched it. What was she doing?
The light lit up, brightly illuminating the street. Lena gave a satisfied nod and walked away. I stepped back from the window, my mouth hanging open. Maybe there was a secret switch on the side of the pole, or perhaps it was just some strange coincidence.
So many things in this town just didn’t add up.
Chapter 10
Day 9 - Thursday, November 10th
Dear Elodie,
I feel like the universe is trying to tell me something. Last week I tripped over a rock on the sidewalk and spilled my coffee. The puddle of coffee on the sidewalk looked like the silhouette of a dog. I think that means the universe is trying to tell me that I should get a dog. My family thinks I’m crazy, but I don’t want to ignore such a clear sign as this one. What do you think? Should I get a dog? Or should I listen to my family and ignore the sign?