“Denki.” He brought it to his mouth and sank his teeth into the cocoa-colored dough, only to sputter. “Ach, this is greislich.” He washed it down with a couple swallows of coffee. “How can this be?”
Sadie mashed her lips together, but her eyes remained bright. “Maybe she doesn’t cook as well as Olivia.”
I stepped in. “We’re not sure what went wrong, but we can’t serve those. Stephen drove out to buy some for today. This afternoon or evening, Beatrice and I will bake more.”
“I have work to do.” Mark lumbered off wearing a surly expression. An idea took shape in my mind, but I’d keep it to myself until I spoke to Stephen.
An hour later, he returned with the Marshmallow Fluff and Dutch-process cocoa powder and handed the bag to me. He had a dozen whoopie pies too.
I turned to Sadie. “Would you like to lend a hand in the baking?”
“Yah, I would. My mamm says I bake as well as she does. Not that I should brag.” Her blush permeated her translucent skin.
“Stephen, Sadie wants to help us cook too. Would you mind?”
“Not one bit,” Beatrice said to me before Stephen could answer. She bustled over to retrieve the bag.
“Glad to have her help,” he said. “But then we really must hire someone else to bus the tables.”
“I can stay late, seeing as I’ve nothing else to do.” Sadie moved to his side. “I won’t even make you pay me.”
“Thanks for your kind offer,” Stephen said, “but as long as you’re working, you’ll earn a wage. I’ll ask around the nursery and see if anyone’s sister wants to come in and work here. In fact, doesn’t Mark have a couple of sisters?”
“Susie, but she has her hands full already with laundry.” Shaking my head once, I silenced myself. “I mean, I’d rather you didn’t hire her, if at all possible.”
Understanding seemed to dawn. “All right. Whatever you say.”
“I know someone,” Beatrice said. “A fine young woman from church who mentioned she needs a part-time job. She’s worked in fast-food places in the past.”
“Please ask her to come in for an interview with me and Evie, who is the café’s manager, after all,” Stephen said.
“Thank you, I will.” Beatrice glanced to the ceiling for a moment. “What should we do with Emma’s whoopie pies?”
“Dump them in with the food recycle if you think the hogs will eat them. Better save a couple in case she or her brother come back demanding proof.” He aimed his voice at me. “Call her, will you, Evie?”
“Ach, I already did, and our conversation didn’t go well. She hung up on me.” I hoped Stephen wouldn’t take it as an indication that I couldn’t manage our staff.
“Women.” Stephen slapped his thigh. “Sorry, ladies, but sometimes I just don’t understand you. Why take everything so personally?”
I wanted to tell him I didn’t understand men either. But he was correct. At least about me. I took most everything personally, often for no tangible reason. Another hurdle to surmount, I decided.
Beatrice was right about her soup. Customers came back for seconds, and we served her fresh-out-of-the oven corn bread and bran muffins with raisins, as well as buttered toast and the whoopie pies Stephen bought. Fortunately, the crowd thinned out quickly, and Sadie and I could clear the tables and fill the dishwasher in a timely fashion.
Beatrice swabbed the cooking counter and brought out ingredients. Here I was twenty-nine, and I had never baked a whoopie pie.
She turned to me. “Always preheat the oven. This recipe calls for 400 degrees. We’re going to make a double batch, so we should get out the baking sheets ahead of time and grease them to make sure we have enough. Otherwise, I have plenty of pans in the house.”
Beatrice asked Sadie to combine the sugar, oil, and eggs in a large mixing bowl and beat until creamy. “Then stir in flour, dry cocoa, and a teaspoon of salt.” Beatrice scanned the recipe. “Come on, Evie, I want you to also mix the ingredients for the cookies.”
With trepidation, I brought out a stainless steel bowl and followed the directions as she read them aloud. “Stir until thoroughly mixed.” She spoke over my shoulder. “No lumps, mind you.”
When I finished mixing, she steered me to the baking sheets and handed me a teaspoon. Moments later, I was dropping rounded teaspoons of the mixture onto the greased sheet. “They’ll need to bake for eight to ten minutes.” She held the recipe out so I could see it. “Says here, we mustn’t let them overbake. Then they’ll need to cool completely before cutting them in half. That will give us plenty of time to make the filling. I give that chore to you, Evie.”
“But I’m your boss at the café. And I give Sadie that job.”
Beatrice raised an eyebrow. “Evie, it’s time you learned your way around a kitchen. Whatever you make has to be better than Emma’s.”
“Yah,” Sadie chimed in. “Ach, hers was the worst ever.”
An hour later, as Beatrice and I assembled the whoopie pies to be served the next day, Stephen ambled in.
“Well, the locks to the café are changed. How goes the battle?” he asked, handing both Beatrice and me our new keys. “Smells good in here.”
“We were just about to sample our first one.” Beatrice placed a complete whoopie pie on a plate with flourish. As she cut it, I prayed all our labor had produced a good result.
She put the plate out for Stephen to sample it. He took his time, probably recalling the appalling pie he’d eaten earlier. He cut into it again until his portion was the size of a grape. Finally, he closed his eyes and plunked the morsel into his mouth. His eyes flew open, and a grin spread across his face.
