A. G. Mayes - A Slice of Magic

Just like when I was a kid, I closed my eyes and wished Aunt Erma would come back. I was just getting ready to go upstairs and check the apartment for recipes when the timer beeped, letting me know it was time to take the first set of pies out. After a frantic search, I found oven mitts in a drawer to the left of the ovens. The mitts had cow faces on them and mooed every time I grabbed a pie.

Once all the pies were cooled and cut, I lined them up in the display case and wrote the different flavors on the chalkboard out front. I took one slice from each kind of pie and stashed them in the kitchen. If I was going to bake tomorrow, I had to have something to study I reasoned.

I flipped the sign from closed to open and unlocked the door just after noon. According to the sign in the front window, I should have opened at 11 o’clock, but I hadn’t anticipated doing this on my own, and baking the pies had taken awhile.

My heart was pounding and I couldn’t decide if I wanted someone to walk through the door or if I wanted it to stay safely empty in here. I was suddenly aware that the only sound in the shop was my breathing, so I found a CD player behind the counter and hit play. Show tunes filled the air. I slowly swayed and was just about to burst into the main chorus of ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ when I noticed some people were approaching the door. I quickly turned the music down as the group walked inside.

The first one through the door was a man in a red fedora who wore a royal blue shirt with a red vest and dark brown pants. His slightly overgrown white hair stuck out the sides under his hat and dark thick rimmed glasses sat on his face. He looked like Spider-man’s grandfather.

Next through the door was Flora, and right behind her was a pleasantly plump woman with her white hair pulled into a bun on the top of her head. Her bright blue eyes sparkled, and she had a face that looked like it spent a lot of time smiling. She was wearing a lime green sweater with jeans and carried a very large yellow purse.

‘Hello, Susanna,’ Flora greeted me in her soft sing-song voice. ‘I want to introduce you to Lena and Mr Barnes.’ She gestured towards her two companions.

‘Nice to meet you.’ I was relieved that Flora was going to be one of my first customers. She seemed so sweet, like one of those people who would tell you what a wonderful job you were doing even if you were totally messing everything up.

‘I am not formal,’ the gentleman said, ‘but I go by Mr Barnes because my first name is just too embarrassing. I don’t think my parents wanted to have children.’ He gave me a wink and took off his fedora.

‘We don’t even know what it is,’ Flora said.

‘We’re the Morning Pie Crew. We’ll probably always be your first customers of the day,’ Lena chimed in, heaving her large purse onto its own chair. ‘We’ve been trying to come up with a cleverer name, but nothing has stuck. Sometimes Henry joins us, but he had to work today.’

I had no idea who Henry was, but I just nodded and smiled.

‘We need our daily pie fix,’ Flora said, eyeing the case.

‘I always tell people they should start their days with some cleansing breaths and a piece of pie,’ Mr Barnes chimed in.

‘And a little gossip,’ Lena added.

‘What can I get for you?’ I asked.

After some hemming and hawing, I served up two mocha creams, one blueberry, and three coffees.

‘You should probably make that four coffees, sweetheart,’ Mr Barnes said to me.

‘Why’s that?’

‘You have to join us, of course,’ Lena said, patting the chair next to her, ‘Grab yourself a piece of pie too. I recommend the blueberry.’

This seemed like an offer I couldn’t refuse, and I filled a coffee cup and heaped a plate with one of the larger pieces of blueberry pie. I felt a little weird sitting down for a break already, but I was the boss so who was going to stop me?

‘Lena and I live in apartments over our shops, and Mr Barnes lives in a house at the edge of town,’ Flora said.

‘So about three blocks away,’ Mr Barnes said with a chuckle.

I learned that Lena owned the hardware store, and Mr Barnes owned the yoga studio on the other side of town. According to him, I could use a little meditation in my life.

‘Come in for a free class,’ he offered.

My mouth said, ‘Of course,’ but my mind said, ‘heck no.’

I took a bite of my pie and sighed with pleasure as the flavors hit my tongue. The sweet crumbly topping mixed with the slightly tart juice of the blueberries created the perfect combination. I was still savoring when Lena launched in with the questioning.

‘Why haven’t we seen you around here before? Erma talks about you but hasn’t told us why you don’t keep in touch. Was there some sort of falling out? Why haven’t you tried to reach her before?’ she asked.

‘Lena,’ Flora gently swatted her arm. ‘Don’t be rude.’

‘I am not being rude, I am just trying to get to know the girl,’ Lena said defensively. ‘Fine,’ she said, responding to Flora’s very scary stern librarian face. ‘What do you do for a living?’

‘Are you a baker like your aunt, dear?’ Flora asked.

‘Not exactly,’ I said, ‘I work for a handyman company back home. My baking is usually limited to take and bake cookies.’

All of their eyes widened a little, and they plastered nervous smiles on their faces.

‘I’m sure you’ll do great,’ Mr Barnes said after a slightly awkward pause.

Day 1 ― Wednesday

Word must have spread through town because I didn’t get to sit for too long. People started pouring through the door. I noticed they weren’t as concerned with ordering a piece of pie as they were with asking me questions. Where are you from? How long are you here? What did you do back home? Are you in a relationship? How long was your last relationship? Why do you think you aren’t in a relationship? What kind of experience do you have with making pies? What is your favorite pie? Will you be able to make pie just like Erma does? Where is Erma? When will she be back? It made the questioning by the Morning Pie Crew seem tame. I tried to deflect their questions by giving short answers or awkwardly changing the topic to the weather.

It didn’t take many people to fill the pie shop. They squished inside standing shoulder to shoulder and spilled outside onto the sidewalk. Somewhere in the blur of scooping pie and questions, I noticed the pie tins were getting empty. I glanced at the clock. It was only 1.30 p.m. I felt a trickle of sweat run down my back as I served the last piece of pie to a middle-aged man who wore a jersey with a picture of a cat holding a bat. He was asking me if I played softball and inviting me to join his team the Killer Kittens but all I could think was, how could this happen? What was I supposed to serve for the next four and a half hours? I thought a little guiltily about the pieces of pie I had stashed in the fridge. Not quite guilty enough to put them out though.

My hand shook a little as I wrote ‘Out of Pie’ on a piece of notebook paper and taped it to the front of the display case, cringing at the thought of people storming out in a fit of rage. Nobody stormed out. People just ordered coffee instead. Then they used the time when I was serving their coffee to ask me if I’d ever traveled out of the country, if my hair was naturally curly, and if I wanted children.

‘OK, all you nosy Nellies.’ Flora appeared in the middle of the crowd. Her quiet voice commanded attention. ‘Leave this poor girl alone. She’s got plenty to worry about without you all giving her the third degree.’

The crowd grumbled a little and began to shuffle out the door. I began to breathe a little easier once it was just me and Flora. She rolled her eyes at me.