do.’ I blinked back tears as I set down my phone.
Flora, Lena, and Mr Barnes quite literally danced into the shop that morning. Mr Barnes was singing a Frank Sinatra song and twirling Lena as he walked through the door. Then he dipped her. I was amazed at their grace considering she was almost twice his size.
‘Pie’s on me this morning, ladies,’ he said, pausing his singing for a moment. ‘I’m just lucky to have three such beautiful women in my life.’ He looked up at me. ‘Would you like to dance?’ he asked, extending his hand in my direction.
‘I think I’ll just stick to serving pie for now,’ I laughed.
They all ordered blueberry pie and insisted that I sit with them again. I tried to turn them down as I still had a lot of baking practice to do today, but in the end, they wore me down. I was hungry, and anyway, it’s pretty much biologically impossible for me to turn down pie.
Flora said that the pie tin plates were fun, but she gave me a look that made me think she knew what had really happened. She probably heard the crash all the way over at her shop.
‘Who cleans the kitchen at the pie shop?’ I asked. They all froze with their eyes wide, forks poised over their slices of pie.
‘What do you mean, dear?’ Flora asked. She set down her fork and adjusted the napkin on her lap.
‘Last night when I went to bed, the kitchen was a disaster zone, and this morning when I woke up it was sparkly clean,’ I said.
‘Oh, that’s just…’ Lena began and then paused.
‘Minerva,’ Mr Barnes said just as Flora said, ‘Jane.’
‘Right, Minerva and Jane,’ Lena said. ‘They clean the kitchen every night.’
‘What time do they come?’ I asked. I wanted to be ready so I would know not to be panicked if I heard noises coming from downstairs. It would be best to know when to write it off as the cleaners and when to call the police.
‘They come different times each night,’ Mr Barnes said. ‘Usually when you’re sleeping.’
‘Like Santa Claus,’ Lena offered with a forced laugh.
‘OK,’ I said. I wondered why they were so acting so strangely. It seemed like a simple question.
My attention shifted, and I watched them all closely as they took their first bites of pie.
‘Did any of you read today’s “Ask Elodie”?’ Flora asked. She put her first bite into her mouth and sucked her cheeks in for a second before chewing. She glanced at me and gave me a big smile when she saw I was watching. Maybe I should have steered them all away from the blueberry pie and towards the apple pie that Henry had made.
‘Yes, of course,’ Mr Barnes said, and Lena nodded. They turned to me, and I stared at them all blankly.
‘It’s a column in the local paper,’ Flora explained. ‘It’s fantastic! Elodie gives out amazing advice.’
‘There’s usually a little gossip about the happenings in town too,’ Lena said. ‘Which of course we all love.’
‘That Elodie seems like a real spitfire,’ Mr Barnes chimed in taking his first bite and chewing only twice before swallowing.
‘Seems like?’ I asked. ‘Don’t you know who she is?’
Flora shook her head, ‘No, it’s a big mystery!’
‘Every now and then, Crazy Jackie claims it’s her, but that woman couldn’t find a shoe in a shoe store, much less give coherent advice like Elodie,’ Lena said. When she took a bite, her eyebrows rose for just a fraction of a second.
‘Anyway, we talk about her columns a lot, so you should probably keep up with them,’ Flora told me.
‘Of course, I’ll start to read them,’ I said, hoping that I would remember to do it when the day was over. It felt like it was non-optional homework. I took a bite of my blueberry pie, and slowly chewed as all the wrong flavors burst into my mouth. This didn’t taste like Aunt Erma’s pie. It was too sweet and the crumble topping wasn’t crumbling at all. It was too hard and crunchy. I would have to try a different recipe tomorrow. Or maybe I would have to just practice more.
When there was a lull in the conversation, I asked questions about Aunt Erma. ‘Didn’t she give you any idea where she was going?’ I asked.
‘I’m sorry, but she didn’t say,’ Flora said.
‘Don’t worry, she’ll probably be back before you know it,’ Lena offered.
‘But how did she sound when she left?’ I asked, remembering the anxious pitch of her voice in the message on my phone.
‘I didn’t actually see her before she left,’ Flora spoke slowly. ‘She taped the note for you and one for me on the back door of my shop.’
‘But you didn’t see her?’ I was hoping Flora would tell me that Aunt Erma seemed just fine and had a perfectly logical explanation for leaving me here alone. ‘What did she say in the note to you? Can I see it?’
‘She wrote that she had to go take care of something. I think I tossed the note out, but don’t worry, she sounded very calm and said she’d be back soon,’ Flora explained. She glanced over at Mr Barnes.
I wanted to believe her. I got up to serve two customers some apple pie.
‘It’s in a prime spot. It won’t be empty long,’ Lena was saying when I sat back down at the table.
‘What’s a prime spot?’ I asked.
‘There’s an empty storefront in the town square. It used to be McCullen’s Dress Shop until Stewart ran off with that woman who was passing through. What did she do for a living?’ Lena asked.
‘Pinball machine maintenance,’ Flora chimed in.
‘That’s a job?’ I began to wonder how many pinball machines there were in the world, how often they broke down, and how one would train to become a pinball maintenance person.
The conversation slid along while I pondered these things, leaving me no time to ask my suddenly burning questions about pinball machine maintenance.
‘I hope it’s a pet store,’ Mr Barnes said. Apparently, the only thing holding him back from getting a cat was the lack of easy access to pet supplies.
‘He’s been using that excuse for ages,’ Lena said. ‘He’s never going to get a cat.’
‘There’s a cat that’s been hanging around the back door. You could probably adopt her,’ I offered.
‘I think I’ve seen that cat. The one with the silver fur?’ Flora said.
‘Yes!’
‘I hadn’t seen her until recently but I don’t think she’s a stray. She looks well cared for,’ Flora said, shoving the last of her pie into her mouth
