Miracle Pie (12 page)

Sometime during all the hugging and crying,
Katie’s mom had left. Driving away from Katie as fast as she could.
With Katie turning to run after her. Screaming, “Mommy! Mommy!”

“Anyway,” Katie continued, “when we were in
Chicago, one of our neighbors ran a mini daycare in her
apartment.”

“I’m sure that was illegal.”

“And I’m sure it was cheaper than a licensed
daycare. I don’t remember the woman in charge, I just remember
Gabe. He had leukemia and was pretty sick.”

Rosa made a soft noise of sympathy, her
features softening.

Katie nodded. “I know. So when I think of
Gabe, I’m just glad he’s alive.”

“You’re a better woman than I am,” Rosa
said. “I’d still want him to walk along the city street, not notice
one of the sewer covers was missing and fall into it.”

Laughter bubbled up in Katie, but it quickly
turned into a smile that she didn’t feel. “I try to avoid anger.”
Besides, she didn’t have room for anger. Or regrets or sadness.
Though like dustballs, the unwanted emotions gathered in the
corners of her mind when she wasn’t looking.

Rosa shrugged and gave her
good luck with
that
grimace. “How’s the video doing?”

“It has over nine hundred views.” Katie
laughed, pushing away the remnants of sadness. “I know it’s mostly
people from Miracle and some from my Tomahawk customers, but I feel
good.”

“You’ll get more.” Rosa reached over and
touched the back of Katie’s hand on the table. A motherly touch,
her face beaming with pride, as if Katie were her daughter.

Katie blinked then beamed back. “It doesn’t
matter. At this rate it will be a loooong time before anyone wants
to do advertising on my video.”

“That’s because it’s just one,” Rosa said.
“You need more. Gabe needs to come back and film you. I don’t mind
if you do the short videos.”

Sadness stirred inside Katie again. “It’s
better that I don’t make anything with him.”

“Men.” Rosa scowled. “If only they’d think
with their minds instead of their lower parts, the world would be
in a better place.”

Katie’s laughter was hollow, and she pushed
her dish away. She didn’t even want any of her sweet potato pie.
She wanted something light. Something happy. With strawberries or
even key lime. Both cheery, light pies. Pies that said
Life is
good
.

“What about the pilot? Any bites?” Katie
nodded at Mo who stopped at the next table to chat with the Miller
sisters. Mo was in his upper thirties, Katie guessed. She wasn’t
sure where he came from or why he was there. Linda Wegner was
telling people he was hiding out from the Mafia, something Katie
suspected she made up because of his New Jersey accent. No one with
any sense believed her.

Rosa shook her head and made a face. “I’ll
have to get a job, but there’s nothing for me here. I’ll have to go
to Oshkosh or Tomahawk, and I hate driving in snow.”

“Cook at my place. You can do what I do.
Make your cannelloni and your other dishes. Deliver them to
restaurants.”

“It works for pies,” Rosa said. “Not food. I
can’t see—”

“Work for me.” Mo leaned over their table,
his expression intense. “My business is growing. And with you
here...” He swept out his arms, missing Katie’s head by an inch.
“The sky’s the limit.”

“Compete with Fabrini’s?” Rosa shook her
head again though less firmly this time. “I don’t know—”

“Not Fabrini’s.” Mo gestured again, as if
throwing her comment away. “I’m not aiming for the fine dining
crowd. I want the working crowd.” He cocked his head. “I’ve been to
Italy.”

Rosa raised her eyebrows. “Me, too.” Her
accent, usually not noticeable, thickened.

“You know the little cafes, where you can
just have pasta and sauce and a meatball?” He steepled his
surprisingly small hands under his chin and closed his eyes in the
silent, appreciative prayer that Katie often felt about her pies.
Then his lids opened and he leaned down again, his mouth inches
from Rosa’s. As if he were her lover.

Around them, the sound level dropped. Katie
could feel about thirty pairs of eyes on their table.

“That’s what you and I can do. Delicious and
fast.”

“And cheap,” Rosa said.

Grinning, he nodded, smile lines on his
sallow face making multiple parentheses. “And cheap.”

“I still want to be a chef on a TV
show.”

“Knock yourself out.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’ll come by tomorrow
and talk about money and hours.”

“You got it, babe.” He slapped his hand on
her shoulders, stood, grinned as if he’d won the lottery, then
swaggered to the bar.

The noise level rose as if everyone in the
bar area talked at once.

“Wegner’s is going to be busy tomorrow,”
Katie said. “Are you really doing this? You have other
options.”

Rosa laughed low in her throat. “You know
why I have to do this?”

Katie shook her head, though she
guessed.

“Mike is going to hate it.”

“Ahh.” But Katie didn’t think that was the
only reason. She’d seen the way Rosa and Mo looked at each other.
As if they wanted to throw spaghetti sauce on each other’s bodies
then lick off every inch.

“You like him, don’t you?” Katie asked.

“Mo?” Rosa shrugged, and her smile was like
a shrug, too. “I’m not sleeping with my boss again. That’s how I
married Mike. I’m older now, and wiser.”

“I don’t think Mo is like Mike.”

Rosa put her elbows on the table and leaned
forward. “Maybe not,” she said, her voice pitched low, her
expression serious, “but when you work for someone else, they
always think they’re the boss. Especially if they have Italian
blood in them.”

Katie’s cell phone trilled, and she dug her
phone out of her purse. The phone number on the display was local,
but no name showed up. She put it to her ear and clicked on
Talk
, expecting a pie order.

“Hi, Katie, guess what?”

Katie sat up straight. “Trish! What happened
to you? I’ve been so worried.”

“You don’t have to worry anymore. I’m
home.”

Chapter Nineteen

Thirty was too old to be a disappointment to
your parents, Gabe thought as he led his mom and stepfather into
the apartment where he was staying until he found his own place.
Don took in the pink, purple and turquoise colors and he looked as
if he wanted to be somewhere else.

Gabe’s mother, Heidi, furrowed her forehead.
“What are you doing now?”

The question hung in the air so heavy that
Gabe thought he might glance up and see a giant question mark
hanging from the high ceiling. “Getting you coffee.”

He had to turn his back on her. What she
wanted him to be was something he wasn’t ready for. Not now. Maybe
not ever.

When Gabe returned to his parents with their
coffees, he wanted to tell Heidi he was sorry he disappointed her,
but he held back the words. She would deny it even as she looked at
him with her forehead puckered with worry. He’d seen that look too
often.

“I’m freelancing,” he said. A euphemism for
doing wedding gigs. Not for Cherise—that hadn’t ended well and he
wasn’t going back to her. He’d also filmed videos for two budding
comics. The comics weren’t very good yet, but they wanted it and
were working at their craft. When they got better and had a
following, there was a chance they’d want him to film them
again.

Right now he felt rudderless, spending his
days talking to friends, getting ideas. When he’d first seen Katie
and Rosa’s pictures three weeks ago, he’d felt the fire in his
belly. But now...the fire had damped down with every mile that he’d
driven away from Miracle.

As if his miracle was back in the village
he’d sped away from.

“Anything you can show us?” Don asked.

“The cooking video,” Heidi said. “I want to
see it.”

“Rosa’s shopping the cooking show around,
but I did a three-minute video with the younger one.” Gabe headed
for his laptop on the tiny dining table near the kitchen end in the
open concept living area. “I’ll bring it over to you.”

“We’ll watch it at the table,” Heidi said,
and Gabe heard the sofa creak as they got to their feet. “It will
be better to see it there.”

“Isn’t that what the Big Bad Wolf said to
Little Red?” Don asked.

“Don! Will you stop?”

By the time they reached Gabe, the video was
up. He didn’t look behind him, too busy staring at the small image
of Katie’s face and feeling as if a hand reached inside his chest
and squeezed his heart.

Then his parents were leaning to peer at the
screen as he took a deep breath and told himself whatever he was
feeling, he’d get over it.

“You sit,” he got up and stood behind them.
“I’ve seen it before.”

It must’ve been the mother thing, because
Heidi shot him a
something’s wrong
look. But Don sat and so
did she, more slowly. Gabe leaned between them to click on the
video. As he straightened, the video started with Katie’s nervous
smile and scared eyes that hurt Gabe to look at. “I’m Katie
Guthrie,” she said, “and I make pies.”

Then his voice, the unseen interviewer,
advised her to pretend she was talking to her lovers, and she
responded by saying she didn’t tell her lovers how to make a pie,
she baked the pies for them.

His parents chuckled and he had to look at
them, away from the screen because he didn’t want to show his
emotions in front of his mom. That’s when he saw they were bending
forward, grinning, listening to Katie talk, fully involved.

The video only lasted two minutes and
forty-two seconds, but Gabe counted the laughter: ten times for his
mom and twelve for his easygoing stepdad. Not loud, belly-grabbing
laughs, but chuckles. And when they weren’t chuckling, smiles
stretched across their faces.

After it ended and the credits rolled across
the scene, he was sorry. He wanted these few moments to stretch
longer.

“Oh, look! There’s your name!” His mom
pointed, sitting back. She glanced over her shoulder at him. “I
enjoyed that. You should do more of it.”

“I’m waiting for the right project.”

“You’ve got the right project.” Don jabbed a
finger at the screen. “It’s got almost three thousand views. A lot
more than Ash and Ally’s videos. That’s good, isn’t it?”

“It hasn’t gotten viral yet, but the views
are growing.” Pride rose in him, a bitter-sweet feeling. He
wondered if Katie looked at it every day. Wondered if she cared
about the views.

“Why not do more videos with her?”
Frustration edged Don’s voice.

“That’s her, isn’t it?” Heidi looked at Gabe
with pity in her eyes. “The girl from the babysitter’s. The one who
came to the hospital.”

Gabe shrugged. “It’s her.”

Heidi stood, and Don got up, frowning as if
he were trying to understand what they were talking about.

“Is that why you’ve changed?” Heidi asked.
“Is that why you’re different?”

“Yeah, I noticed, too.” Don shook his head.
“You were always so calm and confident. Now you’re...I don’t know.”
He peered at Heidi. “You’re better at this stuff. What’s he like
now?”

“In love,” she said, and her face softened.
“He’s in love with the girl.”

The words were like blows, and Gabe turned
his head away, then turned back. Some things he couldn’t run away
from. “It’ll go away.”

“She doesn’t love you?” Indignation sparked
in Heidi’s voice.

“I don’t know.” He didn’t want to know. “We
want different things out of life. We’d be miserable together.”

Don clapped his hand on Gabe’s shoulder.
“You’re right. You’ll get over this. It just takes time.”

Heidi put her hand on his other shoulder,
looking at him with tears in her eyes. “You’ll get it together. I
know you will. You’ve gotten over worse, haven’t you?”

“And you’ll soon find what you want to do,”
Don said.

His mom frowned. “You know what’s so
interesting about the girl?”

Gabe kept his mouth shut. How could he pick
out one thing? To him she was interesting when she scratched Happy
behind her floppy ear. When she was nervous of the camera. And when
she was naked. Then she was
very
interesting.

“She loves what she does,” Heidi said.
“That’s always interesting.”

“You’re right.” Don slid his hand on the
back of Heidi’s neck.

“I’m always right.” She and Don laughed,
sharing a meaningful look before she turned back to Gabe. “Maybe
pies aren’t the most important things. Not like building a hospital
or catching murderers, but she has a
passion
for it. That’s
why I liked watching her. Her passion and love shines through
everything she says. You should do more of that.”

Looking at them, the two of them in perfect
harmony, he
knew
. His mojo. It was here, right in front of
him. Not the whole picture, but a little piece of it.

Telling Heidi and Don to wait, he headed for
his camera. There was no sound man around, but he set up the boom
himself, telling them to sit on the couch. He checked the sound and
the lighting. Made adjustments. Finally he was ready.

“What do you think is love?” he asked.

Chapter Twenty

“I live on a farm, not in a barn,” Trish’s
mother’s stern voice scraped into the kitchen with the gleaming
white appliances and the black and white squared vinyl floor that
Katie remembered from her childhood, as spotless as ever.

Watching Trish put tea bags in two mugs
filled with microwaved water, Katie winced and wished she could
bake a pie that would cure Mrs. Brauer’s OCD. But though her pies
made people feel as if the world wasn’t a bad place, they didn’t
cure diseases or meanness.

The TV went on. Katie peered into the living
room to see Mrs. Brauer glare at Trish’s two boys then head to her
bedroom. Katie grimaced and turned back to her friend. Trish was a
good six inches shorter than her and she used to be a wisp of a
girl. She still had stick-figure arms and legs, but her belly stuck
out like she’d swallowed a small blimp.