Page 24 of Never Your Valentine

Annabelle: I could block this number. Then I’d never have to deal with you again

Grant: Then how will I tell you about your package? What did you order that’s so important anyway?

Annabelle: I ordered a large helping of nunya

Grant: What’s that?

Annabelle: Nunya business

Emerald Gifts is a darling shop full of tourist bait like t-shirts and keychains. The owner takes all six of my greeting cards on consignment and encourages me to make more local-focused designs. “You put a lighthouse on it and I can sell it all day long,” she says.

On the way home, I pass the Methodist church, where there’s a line of people standing outside. Nobody’s dressed for a wedding or a funeral, and people are leaving with paper bags of something that smells delicious.

If life has taught me anything, it’s that this is the kind of line to get into. I join the end of it, standing next to a woman about my age. She’s wearing chunky boots and Carhartt overalls topped with a thick down coat. A pink buff holds back her dark hair. She looks like the kind of girl you follow in the apocalypse, if you want to live.

“What’s this for?” I ask her.

“It’s a fundraiser,” she says. “They’re selling pasties. You know what those are, right?”

Oh yes. I know all about the giant hand pies of beef and vegetables in a tender crust. Pasties are comfort food at its best. “I love a good pasty,” I tell her. I’m careful to pronounce it pass-tee, the way Yoopers do.

She indicates the long line that formed behind us. “You’re lucky you got here early because they always sell out. People buy multiples for their freezer.”

As we shuffle through the church vestibule, I learn that the woman I’ve been chatting with is named Sophie, and she’s an Echo Creek native who runs her own tour company. “It’s kind of what we do up here,” she says.

She asks me what I do for work, so I tell her about my cards, and show her a few. We compare websites and commiserate about how marketing is the hardest part of our jobs.

Before I know it, we’re at the front of the line, where we each buy a single pasty. It’s warm and heavy, and feels like holding a tinfoil-wrapped meteor. “Do you want gravy?” the white-haired woman at the checkout table asks us.

I wrinkle my forehead. “You can eat them with gravy?”

Next to me, Sophie’s shoulders relax a fraction, and I feel like I’ve passed a test. She grabs two ketchup packets and drops them in her bag. “You know,” she says on her way out the door. “Most tourists get pasties from Super Savers or The Up and Away Café.”

“I’m not a tourist,” I say around my first bite. “Oh my God, this is incredible.”

Sophie nods. “They use a recipe that’s like a hundred years old.”

The beef mingles deliciously with the potatoes, carrots, and rutabagas. The crust is beautifully flaky. It’s everything I could want on a cold day. If the filling wasn’t rocket hot, I’d inhale my entire pasty right here in this church parking lot. “Best lunch ever,” I say.

Sophie lifts her paper sack. “I’m taking mine back to work. But hey, if you ever want to go bird watching or need someone to take you ice fishing, I know all the best spots. I also have stargazing trips that are very popular.”

“That sounds cool,” I say. “And what I mean is that it sounds very, very cold.”

“It’s fine if you dress for it,” Sophie tells me. “The trick to getting through a Michigan winter isn’t to go outside less. It’s to go out more.”

Chapter 10

Grant

The Chamber of Commerce meets on the last Thursday of the month in the middle school library. It’s empty in the evenings and centrally located, so it works for all our members. The janitor lets me in and turns on the lights. I brush my hand over old favorite books as I pass—Hatchet, Ranger’s Apprentice, The Lightning Thief.

I make a pot of coffee in the librarian’s alcove in the back, and pour some into my travel mug. I sip it while I wait for the others to arrive. I’m always first. Lia calls it oldest child syndrome. I call it looking out for my people. Rumor has it that Ted Ender plans on crashing today’s meeting and I want to see him coming, so I take the chair facing the door, keeping a sharp eye on it.

Lia marches to the table and starts unpacking her briefcase full of notes. Dove Jackson comes in with Michelle Turner, who’s chatting about an expensive wool coat that came into The Restyle Room. Dove sets a bakery box in the middle of the table.

Oscar Point arrives with a paperback for Michelle and a reminder about book club. He takes off his coat and flicks his long, black braids over his shoulder. They fall forward again as he opens the bakery box to help himself to a cookie.

Lia hands out minutes from our last meeting. “Shall we get started?”