The City Baker's Guide to Country Living (29 page)

“Shouldn't we wait for Alfred?”

“Nonsense,” she said, disappearing into the walk-in. I dashed in behind her to keep her from trying to lift the cake by herself.

It was a stunning evening. The sun was low in the sky, and the white steeples of the churches in the valley glowed. The guests were mingling and refreshing their drinks at the bar. The bride and groom moved from table to table, receiving kisses, congratulations, and not a few white envelopes. The DJ was playing Glenn Miller, and the dance floor was already packed, mostly with the silver-haired crowd. Margaret and I carefully wheeled the cake over to the dance tent. The dance floor was raised off the ground.

“We'll have to carry it from here,” I said, a little nervous about the distance between the cake table and us.

I had decorated the cake on a thick wooden base covered in gold foil. Margaret and I each took hold of a side and carefully lifted it off the cart. It must have weighed fifty pounds.

We were clutching the base of the cake, one foot each on the dance floor, when a voice behind us said, “The two of you could be mistaken for mother and daughter.” I didn't need to turn around to know it was Jane White. I felt Margaret pause, and I gripped my edge tighter, as if that would help.

“Just lift up your other foot,” I instructed, but Margaret remained in place.

“But that's impossible, isn't it? Since you never had any children.” The song ended, and the stage fell silent as the DJ furiously pushed a button on his laptop, trying to get the next track to play.

I craned my neck to see Jane leaning against the cake table, which was inching away from us.

“It's funny, I never thought about it before,” Jane said, her voice at full volume. “She's just about the age your daughter would have been, isn't she?” Jane paused, looking around the dance floor. “Well, we mustn't question God's plan.”

The only sound under the tent was the click of high heels against the floor.

Louis Armstrong's gravelly voice broke the silence.

I gripped the edge of the cake base and looked at Margaret. All the blood had drained from her face and her bottom lip quivered. Sweat gathered at her brow line.

The cake began to wobble.

“Margaret?” I felt the cake slipping from her hands.

My hands gripped the cake base
.
At least it wasn't
on fire.
I tried to reach around to take Margaret's edge, but my belly got in the way
. I will not drop this cake, I will not drop this cake
, I murmured to myself. The baby chose this moment to practice mixed martial arts in my womb. “Oh,” I gasped.

The photographer, who had been capturing the bride and groom's first dance, dropped his camera and raced over, grabbed the cake from Margaret's hands, and together we placed it carefully on the table. I spun around. Jane White was dancing with
a silver-haired gentleman whose resemblance to John White was so striking it startled even me, who had never met the man. Jane gazed up at him, a smug look on her face. Margaret stood at the edge of the floor, frozen.

I climbed down, took her by the elbow, and led her back toward the inn, abandoning the cart near the tents. “That bitch,” I said under my breath as we weaved our way through the crowd. When we reached the sitting area, I brought Margaret to one of the couches in the back and sat down beside her.

“My God. What is up with her? What does she want?”

“Something that she can never have,” Margaret said, her hands folded neatly in her lap. She sat as still as an ice carving, her eyes unfocused and glassy. “And I'll tell you something, Olivia,” she said in a flat tone that frightened me. “I'm tired of it. Tired of running this inn by myself. Tired of being alone. Tired of Jane White. Tired of that goddamned pie contest.” She rubbed her hands on her thighs, rocking slightly. “What's the point of it anyway? I don't have anyone to hand the tradition down to. Foolish.”

Two young women with champagne glasses came giggling into the foyer.

“Margaret,” I asked before I could put all the pieces together, “your daughter?”

Margaret's composure crumpled. She pressed her hands to her face so that I wouldn't see her crying, but her slender shoulders shook.

I ran over Jane White's words in my head. I thought of Margaret's reaction to my pregnancy. My assumptions had been right. “Oh, Margaret.” I placed a tentative hand on her knee. “Did you—I mean, it was you that your aunt helped?”

Margaret brushed my hand away, stood, and walked briskly toward the kitchen. Dotty stepped through the swinging door.

Dotty came into the room. She took in Margaret's expression and quickly stepped aside to let her by. “Livvy, what just happened?”

“I'm not exactly sure,” I said, toying with the cloth buttons of my coat. “Jane White—she said some awful things.”

Dotty looked down at my belly, where my hands reflexively rested. “Come out back with me.”

 • • • 

Salty, lying in a patch of shade behind the inn, thumped his tail against the grass when he saw me come around the corner. Dotty and I sat on a bench facing the apple orchard as strains of music and laughter drifted over from the party.

“You must know what's up between Margaret and Jane,” I said.

Dotty nodded, but she remained silent.

“You're her best friend. I'd understand if you don't want to tell me.”

Dotty settled back and took a deep breath. “When we were girls, Margaret fell in love with a man named John White. He was nineteen at the time; we were only fifteen or sixteen.”

I thought back to my sixteen-year-old self, parentless and alone. It was the age when you thought you were all grown up but were actually still just a kid.

“He worked in his father's grocery store. They were the only market in town in those days. If you needed flour, that's where you went. Margaret's mother had a bad hip and relied on her to go into town and run her errands, so Margaret saw him often enough.”

“He must have been smitten. Margaret was gorgeous.”

“She was a beauty. Still is, if you ask an old lady like me. Well, John asked her to the fair the summer we turned sixteen. Her father wouldn't let her date, and his family wanted him to marry into one of the more established families. They were snobbish like that. So she and John had to hide that they were together.”

“It sounds like a movie.”

“It did seem exciting at the time. She told her parents that she was going to the fair with Henry and me, but she slipped off as soon as we arrived. Her first kiss was at the top of the Ferris wheel.” Dotty looked out toward the apple trees. “From that night on, they would meet up in barns or in the woods or at dances after her parents had left. They were serious about each other from the start. When she got pregnant, John gave her a string of pearls his grandmother had left him, as a promise.”

My heart sank. Margaret wore those pearls every single day.

“He went to his family to tell them he was going to marry her. Of course, his father put his foot down. They were pushing him toward a girl in the next county.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“John had gone out a few times with a girl his parents had set him up with, just to appease them.”

“You mean Jane?”

“Yes It didn't bother Margaret at the time—she knew he loved her and it was all for show. I worried, naturally. I wanted her to be as happy as I was with Henry. It was tough on them, sneaking around.” Dotty smiled and took my hand in hers. “Martin always complains about what a small town Guthrie is. Well, he should have seen it back then.”

“I can't imagine.”

“You couldn't get away with anything. When Jane found out about Margaret, she lied to her parents and said John had taken her virginity. Her parents insisted that he make it right with her, and his agreed.”

“But Margaret was
pregnant
. What about making it right with
her
? What about
her
parents?”

Dotty hesitated. “Margaret thinks John's parents might have given her father money to keep quiet. They'd barely been scraping by. Then, shortly after Jane's engagement was announced, Margaret's father bought this house and turned it into an inn.”

“What about John?” I asked, furious on behalf of Margaret's teenage self.

“His family eventually wore him down.”

“And then Margaret's aunt—?”

“Her aunt came, and they took care of things. John married Jane and moved her here to Guthrie.” Dotty pulled a handkerchief from her skirt pocket and dabbed at her eyes. “But he still loved Margaret, and Jane knew it. Thanks to her, it wasn't long before people in town caught wind that Margaret had been pregnant. No one would have her then. But she refused to leave Guthrie. Folks here have long memories.” She looked me in the eye. “You keep that in mind.”

I nodded, not wanting to interrupt.

“Margaret met Brian Hurley when he came to stay at the inn. They married soon after. Margaret was forty then. She got pregnant right away, but she miscarried. They stopped trying after awhile.”

I swore under my breath. No wonder Margaret wanted to sell the inn and finally get out of here. I thought of the many
generations of Whites out in the field, that big extended family that could have been hers. “That's so unfair.”

Dotty patted my leg. “A lot of things in life are.” She looked down at my bulging belly. “Henry always used to say, ‘It's not what happens to you but how you respond to it that matters.' I've never seen anyone handle hard times more gracefully than Margaret.”

A mixture of sadness and anger washed over me. I wanted to do something for Margaret, to let her know she was worth a million Jane Whites, but the only thing that felt big enough was to win the damned pie contest.

“What about Margaret and John? They must have seen each other. It's a small town.”

Dotty smiled a shy smile. “They met on the Ferris wheel every year until he died. Just to talk, of course,” she added, but her lips curled up into a little grin. “He passed away four years ago.”

I leaned back on the bench, trying subtly to scratch my belly. Salty kicked his legs as if he were chasing rabbits in his dream. “Does anyone else know all of this?”

“Oh, people know bits and pieces. But I'm pretty sure it's just you, me, and Margaret who know the whole story.”

“Why are you telling me? You're her best friend. Aren't you breaking some sacred code?”

Dotty took my hand back in hers and squeezed. “Because we need each other, dear. You don't have to do everything on your own. That's something you and Margaret both need to keep in mind.”

P
our-through, crumb crust, Dutch, and dried apple—I made them all. Hazelnuts in the crumb, in the crust, then pecans. I changed the spices, tried every variety of apple I could get my hands on, but in the end I couldn't improve on what Margaret and I both loved best—Cortland and McIntosh, sautéed in butter and lightly sweetened with good old white sugar, with a half teaspoon of cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg, piled high and tucked in with a top crust. No bells and whistles. Perfect in its simplicity.

The month leading up to the fair drifted by like a dream. A record-breaking heat wave hit the mountains and I would rise early and test-bake a pie before the kitchen grew too hot. The rest of the morning was spent baking desserts for the inn. As soon as lunch service was over, Sarah and I would change into bikinis and drive over to Lake Willoughby, where I would float on my back, my bulging tummy glowing brightly against the dark glacial water, a giant marshmallow in a deep vat of hot chocolate.

I did end up moving into the Sugar Maple, purely for the indoor plumbing, but I liked to go back to the sugarhouse in the afternoons and sit in one of the rockers on the front porch, watching the bees float through the orchard, daydreaming about the baby, until
I was dragged down by the undertow of sleepiness and had to curl up on the futon to rest until sunset. In the evenings, Margaret and I joined Dotty for dinner, and we would try the test pie afterward. Sometimes one of Martin's brothers and his family would join us, but no one mentioned the baby. I felt suspended—as if the baby would live inside me forever, the fair would never come, Margaret would always own the Sugar Maple, and summer would never end.

 • • • 

The first sign that the fair was coming was the traffic. Margaret kept sending me into town on small errands, insisting that the cinnamon wasn't fresh enough, or the butter was too salty, and on each trip I would be gone for hours, stuck behind the trucks that towed the stands from which teenagers would soon be hawking French fries and funnel cakes. Then came the midway crew. The carnival rides seemed to arrive overnight, and with them a rough group of men who filled up the booths of the Black Bear and the Miss Guthrie. The RVs came next, driven by the farmers and their families ready to spend their one yearly vacation camping in style.

I decided to take the back roads up to the inn one afternoon, after finally tracking down the brand of all-purpose flour that Margaret remembered her mother using. I drove slowly by the McCracken land, passing the field of Christmas trees, then the apple orchard, before reaching the driveway to the farmhouse. Mabel and Crabapple looked over the car with their blank almond-shaped eyes. Henry's tune played in my mind, and I tapped the rhythm of it on the steering wheel. With a sudden, sharp turn of the wheel I drove back down the hill, pulled over onto the shoulder where it widened, and pulled out my cell phone.

It rang once before I heard his recorded voice.

“Hey, it's me,” I said lamely. “Um. Livvy. I forgot about the time difference. It says on the band's Facebook page that you're in Berlin. What time is it in Berlin?” I leaned back heavily in the car seat, my heart racing. “I'm here. In Guthrie, and I wanted to say hey. Hey. Also, I'm pregnant. Since December pregnant. You don't have to do anything. Just call me at the end of the tour.” I pressed the red dot, tossed the phone into the backseat, and pushed my foot onto the gas pedal, kicking back rocks as I sped back to the inn.

 • • • 

The Coventry County Fair was always held on the last weekend of July. Members of the high school marching band played on the backs of tractors decorated with yellow and orange ribbons, parading down Main Street to the fairground. Margaret had pressed me to go with her and Dotty on opening night—“It's tradition,” she insisted—but she relented after I showed her my ankles, which after a morning on my feet looked like overproofed croissants. I waved to Margaret and Dotty from the porch as they climbed into Margaret's station wagon, dolled up in cotton sundresses with cardigans draped over their shoulders, looking like schoolgirls off to see which of the farm boys had started shaving over the growing season.

 • • • 

I made three pies Friday night: one for the judges, one for us to taste, and one, at Margaret's insistence, for good measure. I knew the extra pie was really in case I dropped one on the floor, which, given that the baby seemed to be draining all of my hand-eye coordination, was fine by me. When I pulled the last pie out of the oven, golden brown and bubbling, Margaret popped the top off a bottle of sparkling apple juice and poured us each a glass.

“Here's to the pies,” Margaret said.

“Here's to the winning pies,” I offered, clinking our glasses.

Margaret held her glass up. “Here's to an honorable contest. Let the best pie win.”

“Here's to destroying Jane White.”

Margaret actually laughed. She refilled our glasses. “Well. Here's to friendship.” She put her glass down and looked at me. “Thank you for coming back. Olivia . . .” She paused, as if she were searching for the right words. “Guthrie is a good place to raise a child. And Dotty would help you with the baby. As would I. I hope you know you always have a home here.”

“But you're selling the inn.” Margaret had told the staff the week before that she had verbally accepted the Bradford offer and would be signing the papers at the end of August.

“I'll still be here. I'm going to stay with Dotty for a spell until I decide what I want to do.”

“What if we lose tomorrow?” I teased. “Will you still want me around then?”

Margaret looked at me kindly. “Well, I hope we won't have to find that out. This seems like a Jane White–crushing pie to me.”

“Me too.” I pulled off my apron. “Margaret, can I ask you something?”

“Go right ahead.”

“Why did you start losing after all those years?”

Margaret sighed. I thought she was going to tell me to mind my own business. She straightened her back and looked over both shoulders to make sure we were alone.

“My husband did all the baking.”

Apple juice shot out my nose. “What?”

“The pie contest was a tradition in my family. The eldest daughter took over the baking when she married. My mother knew I was terrible at it, so she kept entering her pies, just under my name.”

It was really hard not to laugh, but I kept it together.

“Thankfully, she taught my Brian before she passed.” A tender expression settled on Margaret's face. “That man took home twenty blue ribbons, just for me.”

I smiled, thinking of the elegant Irish man I had seen in photographs and trying to picture him in the apron with the leaping sheep, crimping piecrusts.

“So where does Jane come in?”

“Dotty told me what she shared with you; you don't need to hide it.” Margaret looked out the back windows into the orchard. “For as long as I can remember, Jane has always wanted whatever I had. Altar-guild shift, seat on the gardening committee, first prize at the fair. You'd think she'd be content with her big family and her land and the business. She has everything.” Margaret picked up the two empty glasses. “I know it's silly to care so much about a blue ribbon—but it felt good to have that one thing that was mine.”

“Well, I think we have the pie to put her in her place.” I wrapped my arms around Margaret's neck. She smelled like lilac perfume.

“You get some rest now,” Margaret said, pulling back, her voice sounding a little tight. “Tomorrow is going to be a long day.”

 • • • 

The kitchen was warm when I walked in the next morning. Margaret had already boxed up the two better-looking pies for judging and was cutting into the third, lamb apron tied around her waist.

Alfred walked in, wearing his summer uniform of a tie-dyed T-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts.

“Pie for breakfast? My favorite.”

Sarah appeared with a tray of coffee cups, milk, and sugar. “Decaf is on the right,” she said to me.

Margaret handed us each a slice of pie and a fork. I stood motionless, watching their expressions, as Sarah, Al, and Margaret took their first bites.

“Mmm,” Alfred hummed. “This is so good. Did you change the spices?”

“I took away a tiny bit—maybe a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon. Do you like it?”

Alfred nodded. “You get a cleaner apple taste.”

I looked at Sarah. “How's the crust?”

Sarah covered her mouth with her hand. “Fraky,” she mumbled through a mouthful.

“The bottom's not soggy?” I asked, closing my eyes.

“Crisp and brown,” said Alfred.

I looked at Margaret. “Okay, what do you think?”

“Very good,” she said. “Now drink your coffee before it gets cold, and we can head down to the fairgrounds.”

 • • • 

The road to the Coventry County Fair was jammed with a line of brightly painted cars headed for the demolition derby that would follow the pie judging. I had followed Margaret's style advice and put on a pink linen tunic I had inherited from Hannah and a clean pair of black leggings. Silver glitter sandals, the only shoes I could cram my swollen feet into, completed the look. I was ready for my close-up in the
Guthrie Town Crier
. I
shifted my weight from hip to hip, trying to find a comfortable way to sit, but it was no use.

“When's the cutoff time for drop-offs?” I asked.

“We have plenty of time.”

“Yes, but what time do we actually need to be there?” I scooted my butt toward the edge of the seat and leaned back.

“Entries are submitted between nine and eleven.” Margaret looked at me. “Will you stop fidgeting? You're making me nervous.”

“Okay, Zen master Margaret! How is it that you're so calm?”

“The pies are baked; we're on time; so long as we can manage to carry ourselves and them across the fairgrounds in one piece, there's nothing more to be done. Once we put the pie down on the table, it's up to the judges.”

“Very philosophical,” I mumbled under my breath.

Screams rained down from the roller coaster as Margaret pulled into the freshly hayed field that was serving as a parking lot. I stepped out onto the uneven ground and was hit with the pungent mixture of smells that can be found only at a country fair—frying onions, horse manure, cut grass, and apple cider. Margaret took out the two pie boxes.

“Are you sure we need to bring both? Shouldn't we leave the backup in the car?” I asked.

“They can keep the extra in the kitchen. This way we won't have to make a second trip.”

“We'd better each carry one,” I said, offering both hands. “It's like when parents don't take the same flight. This way at least one of the pies will make it to the grange.” Margaret handed over the top box. The judges had given strict instructions—plain white box, disposable metal pie tin. Nothing decorative, nothing to tip off the judges to our identity.

From every angle I could see folks headed toward the grange hall, clutching white boxes. Margaret and I got in the line, which already stretched the length of the hall and then some. Melissa, wearing her Mrs. Coventry County sash, was overseeing all the baking contests. She walked around with a clipboard, handing out entry forms. Margaret held the pies as I filled out the form. I looked behind us. There were at least twenty bakers lined up, and another thirty or so in front.

The grange was also where all of the arts and crafts were exhibited. Quilts hung from the high ceiling. Photographs lined the walls, and knitted and crocheted pieces were displayed on long tables. Margaret paid no attention to the exhibits, keeping her eyes trained on the back of the hall as we inched closer to a large glassed-in kitchen. She looked at her watch. “Dotty is expecting me to meet her in the flower hall. Will you go over there and tell her I'm running late?”

“Don't I have to drop the pie off myself? Isn't it a rule or something?” I wanted to size up the competition.

Margaret gave me a look that said,
I think I can manage.

I sighed. “Where's the flower hall?”

“On the other side of the fairgrounds. Bring her back here.”

 • • • 

Dotty stopped to admire the lace doily display while I ducked back into the ladies' room for the zillionth time that day. When I returned, I found she and Margaret had already settled in amid the rows of folding chairs set up in front of the glass.

“What's our number?” I asked, taking a seat beside her.

Margaret looked down at a slip of paper. “Fifty-seven.”

Through the huge window I watched the bakers cross the kitchen, boxes in hand. “Good Lord. Do they cut it off, ever?”

“Not in my time. This certainly is a good turnout.”

I eyed the white boxes warily, wishing I had X-ray vision.