Eva’s father called her that until the day they died.”
Lucy didn’t quite know what to do with that. “That’s charming.”
“The judge was a charmer. Does your daddy have a special name for you?”
“He sometimes calls me Lucy Belle.”
Charles laughed. “That sounds like something Alden would have come up with too. Brantley’s very like him.”
“Apart from his eyes, he looks like you,” Lucy said.
“Yes, he does. But I wish you could have known the judge, heard him speak. Brantley sounds like him—the cadence of his voice, his wit, and those odd phrases he comes up with. That’s his grandfather all over again.”
“I’ve wondered about his colorful vernacular.”
“That’s where he got it. I interrupted your reading.” He nodded to the face down recipe.
“Oh, this.” She turned it over again. “It’s a recipe for pumpkin pie. I was going to try to make one.” Her face went a little hot at this revelation, though she wasn’t sure why.
Charles looked beyond pleased. “So you’re going to make my boy his favorite pie?”
“I’m going to try.” She bit her lip. “The thing is I don’t know what a sugar pumpkin is.” She also didn’t have a pastry blender for the crust or a nutmeg grater. No doubt Missy would be scandalized but Lucy was just going to use the powdered nutmeg. However, she was going to make the crust. “Do you know anything about pumpkins?”
“I know there are some different kinds at the Publix, though I don’t know what kind.” Charles smiled the Brantley smile. “Tell you what. I’ve got to be out that way this afternoon. I’ll check in there. If they have any, I’ll leave one on your porch. If not, I’ll call you so you’ll know.”
“That would be great. It will save me going all the way out there after work,” she said, relieved. “I’ve got just enough time before my next appointment to run by the hardware store and get a pastry blender and a rolling pin.” And it wouldn’t take much time to go by Big Starr after work for the other ingredients.
“I’d get that for you too, but I have no idea what a pastry blender is.”
“I’m not sure I do either,” she admitted. “I hope it works out. I told him this morning I would have a surprise for him when he gets home.” Hell and double hell! Why had she let that slip out? Now Charles would know Brantley had woken up in her bed. But he just smiled broader. Maybe he assumed she’d told him on the phone.
Charles rose and picked up her check from the table. She opened her mouth to protest but he smiled and said, “Don’t even say it.”
Making pumpkin pie was harder than it sounded in the recipe and that had sounded plenty hard. That afternoon she’d written out a timeline. It took an hour and half to bake the pumpkin Charles had left her and then it was supposed to cool before she mashed it, mixed it with the other ingredients, and poured it in the crust to bake. She figured she’d tackle the pastry while the pumpkin was baking so hopefully she’d have a crust by the time she needed one.
It took a while to fight through the pumpkin with the best knife she had, which wasn’t saying much. She disregarded the footnote on the recipe that suggested saving the seeds to roast for snacking. She could buy SunChips. Those slimly seeds and the gunk attached to them were going in the garbage, or—oops—almost in the garbage. Some of it was sliding down the side of the can. Some it was sticking to her arm. Well, she’d clean it up later. She had pastry to make.
First, she was to measure out the flour and mix it with salt. Easy. Then cut the butter into small pieces and mix it into the flour with the pastry blender until it resembled course meal. She knew what that looked like from making cornbread. Next came the ice water, a tablespoon at a time, except she had to stop and make ice water. This part was tricky. It said between four and six tablespoons, depending on the amount of protein in your flour and the humidity. Well, dandy. Her flour was low protein soft winter wheat. It said so right on the White Lily bag. But did low protein flour want more or less water? And what did the humidity have to do with it? She picked up her phone and called Missy but her phone went straight to voicemail. Great. That meant that there was no cell phone coverage at Harris’s grandparents’ house. Missy never turned her phone off. Well, fine. Lucy didn’t need Missy. She started adding water and stirring it with a fork until she had something that looked like dough. It was a little crumbly so she added the rest of the water. Still crumbly. Well, too bad; that was all the water allowed. Maybe it would work out while it chilled for twenty-five minutes.
Okay. Pumpkin still cooking, dough chilling, pie pan out of the cabinet, new rolling pin washed and ready to go. It was going to be fine. There was time to mix the sugar with the spices, measure out the milk, and beat the eggs. At this rate, she’d be done in no time, certainly in plenty of time to talk to Brantley when he called later.
And he would call, wouldn’t he? He hadn’t said he would, but after last night . . . yes, he would. Certainly. Probably.
The baking pumpkin smelled good, which reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since her BLT at lunch. The crust had seven minutes left to chill, but it could go a little longer while she heated a Lean Cuisine and ate. A little extra would probably be even better.
She got distracted with a magazine while she ate her sesame chicken, and the pastry had enjoyed a full forty-five minutes in the refrigerator by the time she took it out and laid it on the floured wax paper. She picked up her rolling pin and started to roll, except it wouldn’t roll so she patted it for a while with her hands. The recipe said not to handle it, but how else were you supposed to get a pie out of this shit? Maybe she needed to dump it back in the bowl and add some more water. But did that mean she needed to chill it some more? She grabbed up the recipe with her greasy fingers and started looking for a loophole, though there was no point. She’d practically memorized it and there was no advice for when things went wrong—no advice from this greasy piece of paper and no advice from the no-cell-phone-coverage-having-Missy, who’d given her the recipe from hell and left town.
The good news was Brantley didn’t know what his surprise was supposed to be. She could throw it all in the garbage and he’d never know. She’d get a different surprise. Maybe a lemon icebox pie. Graham cracker crust, lemon juice, Eagle Brand Milk, eggs, Cool Whip—you got pie and a darned good one. He’d never know—except, damn. She’d told Charles.
Okay. Calm. Calm. Calm had always worked for her. Millions of people did this all the time, many of them dumber than she. Okay. Flour the rolling pin and roll. Short careful strokes. Yes. That was better. Hey, this wasn’t so hard after all. It was becoming a sheet of pastry! Just a little more. Yes. That looked big enough to fit in the pie pan. Now all she had to do was carefully, carefully, pick it up and transfer it. Yes, yes. There.
Hell and double hell! It fell apart in her hands.
And the doorbell rang.
Damn, damn, damn. She looked down at herself. Somewhere along the way, getting the pie crust in the pan had become more important than anything else in life—certainly more important than neatness. There was flour on her sweater, flour handprints on her bottom, and flour on her shoes. With Tolly and Missy gone, there was no one in this town she was all right with seeing her like this except Aunt Annelle and Lanie. Please let it be one of them or someone she didn’t have to let in.
She pushed her hair back as she walked toward the door. She was already swinging it open when she caught sight of herself in the hall tree mirror and saw the flour on her face and in her hair. Too late to pretend she wasn’t here.
And there stood Caroline Brantley, every hair in place, lipstick on, rust colored turtleneck tucked into brown wool pants, beige cable knit wool cardigan thrown around her shoulders.
“Oh, my,” Lucy said.
Caroline smiled. “Charles told me you were making a pie and you were starting with a fresh pumpkin.”
She did not know a word bad enough to describe this situation.
“Yeah.” Might as well admit it. “It’s not going all that well. Come in.”
“Let me get something out of my car first,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
So much for being Charles’s baby girl. He’d told on her. She tried to rub some of the flour off her face. What was that smell? Oh, damn. She’d forgotten about the pumpkin. There was smoke pouring out of the oven by the time she got there.
“Damn it all to hell!” she said as she threw the pan of blackened pumpkin in the sink. The smoke detector went off and she turned to see Miss Caroline standing behind her holding a Big Starr bag. She set the bag on the table, calmly opened the back door, turned on the exhaust fan over the stove, and started fanning the smoke out.
