LITMIR.BIZ

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I found that hard to believe, but as I flashed the light back and forth, I couldn’t figure out where she had ended up. I did four more laps around the kitchen dropping to the floor to check every nook and cranny. She must have gone out the back door when I wasn’t looking.

      I closed the back door and locked it for good measure, then finished making the blueberry pies. Every now and then I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye, and I turned my head expecting to see a cat. It was always my imagination.

      I found the plates in one of the upper cupboards, all stacked and clean. I stood on my tip toes and carefully pulled the whole stack down. Whew, no problem. I balanced the plates in my hands and turned to bring them out front.

      Something wrapped around my foot. Oh no, it’s the cat, I thought. I danced around trying to free myself before I realized that my computer was sliding precariously towards the edge of the kitchen island. I was tripping over my computer cord. Instinctively, I lunged to save my computer, dropping all the plates I had in my hands. The crash was still ringing in my ears as I froze, holding my computer. Every single one had broken. ‘Into a million pieces’ didn’t seem at all like an exaggeration. I crunched through the plate bits and found the broom and dustpan. I swept it up all the while wondering what I was going to serve pie on today.

      With the pies still in the oven, I couldn’t run to the store to buy paper plates so I searched the cupboards for the second time today. The best I could come up with was a stack of pie tins. I was hoping that word would get out that I was quirky and fun with my innovative idea of serving pie in pie tins instead of the truth that I was a bumbling butterfingers.

      My phone beeped and I jumped for it. It was a text from my friend, Michelle, asking if I wanted to go out for a drink tonight. Michelle and I had been friends since college when I helped her fix the desk in her dorm room. It had broken after she’d danced on top of it during an overly enthusiastic round of karaoke.

      She considered it her job to make sure I got out on the town at least one night a week. I guess we hadn’t talked for a couple days. I explained where I was.

      ‘Whoa, that’s major. Keep me posted,’ she wrote back. We texted back and forth a little more, and I already felt homesick as our exchange reminded me how nice it was to talk to someone who knew me so well. ‘I have to go, but hurry home and bring pie,’ she wrote.

      ‘Will 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

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