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“Hello, Mrs. Kenny,” I said to one of my mom’s knitting friends. She’d no doubt tell the entire town I stopped by today, so I had to be extra friendly, lest I get a verbal ass kicking from Mama Gagnon.
Thank God I’d moved into the small cabin on Henri’s property outside of town. A few months of living with my mother at almost thirty years old was more than enough for me.
I was waving at the Lowerys and checking my phone when a small shriek sounded behind me. I spun and instantly collided with the source of the noise. And before I could get my bearings, I felt it.
Warm, sticky, and sweet, all over my face and neck.
“What the hell?”
My vision was blurred purple as I held my breath so I didn’t inhale the goopy mess clogging my nostrils. I used a sleeve to wipe my eyes, and when the violet haze had been cleared, a small woman in front of me came into focus.
“I didn’t see you. I’m so, so, so sorry,” she cried, looking utterly terrified as she frantically scanned the mess oozing down my shirt.
I recognized that voice. Taking a napkin that Mrs. Kenny offered, I worked at the remnants of what appeared to be fresh blueberry pie still adhered to my face so I could get a good look.
“Pip?” I studied her face, streaked with pie filling, and smiled. Hazel Markey was the last person I expected to see. Yes, she was one of my oldest friends—we’d known each other since childhood—but she had lived in Boston for years and only came around during the holidays. The girl was destined for great things.
“Hi, Remy.” She peeked up at my face, then focused on my shirt again with a grimace.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, following her line of sight, and winced. My shirt was deep purple, and pie filling dripped down the front of my favorite jeans.
“I was taking these pies to the counter for Bernice before you crashed into me.” She’d also become a victim of the blueberry pie. The filling was sliding down her collarbones and all over her white T-shirt. There was a smudge across one lens of her glasses and a glob on her cheek. And it was just so absurd. All of it.
The phone call from Tim, the bullshit at work. And now pie. Fucking pie in my nostrils.
So I laughed. Because there was no other way to react to taking a motherfucking pie to the face on a Tuesday.
And I couldn’t stop. The laughs came from deep in my gut, and pretty soon Hazel joined in. Tears rolled down her face, the tracks tinted purple. It wasn’t just funny. It was the kind of thing that could only happen to me.
The entire diner disappeared as we laughed. Hazel was doubled over now, an arm banded around her middle. I hadn’t seen her giggle like this since we were kids. There would no doubt be photo evidence of this moment. This town had a long memory. I’d be long dead before people in this diner stopped talking about the day hotshot athlete Remy Gagnon took a pie to the face.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” a familiar voice boomed. “What is going on in my diner?”
Bernice emerged from the kitchen, massive tray in one hand and coffeepot in the other, looking horrified.
“I give you two pies to carry to the counter. Was the task really so difficult?” She glared at Hazel, who was wiping tears from her eyes, still chuckling.
“And you?” she said, turning that death stare on me, still balancing a tray full of tuna melts and fries. “I know she’s small, but use your damn eyes. You could have hurt someone.” She huffed a breath and slipped past us. “Go get yourselves cleaned up. Then grab the mop and deal with this mess. I’ve got tables.”
Still laughing, I headed to the bathroom, Hazel behind me.
I popped the top on the paper towel dispenser and handed the roll of coarse brown paper to Hazel, who tore off a long strip and got to work wiping at her neck.
“What are you doing here?” I asked again, rubbing at the pie clinging to my hair.
“I’m back. Got here yesterday, actually. Staying with Dylan.”
Hmm. Dylan hadn’t said a word. Hazel and I kept in touch mostly through Dylan, who was constantly telling me about her life as a graduate student in Boston—the classes she took, what she was studying, the unique spin she put on the subjects she wrote about. He was so proud of his little sister.
“It’s a shame,” she said, wiping a glop of blueberry off her cheek with a finger. When she brought it to her mouth and licked it, the bathroom suddenly felt way too small, and I was way too warm. “Such a good pie.” She tilted forward awkwardly in the cramped space so she could rinse her hands in the sink.
Hazel had always been like my little sister. The kid who tagged along with Dylan and me. And when she wasn’t trying to keep up with us, she had her nose stuck in a book. She was the unlikely third musketeer of my childhood, the one who would shake her head with scorn when Dylan and I got into trouble. The smart, precocious child who would help me with my homework and come up with genius pranks to play on my older siblings. We had always been friendly, but life had taken us in vastly different directions. She’d ended up in the city, and I remained in the woods.
“Jesus. You’re a mess. You got the worst of it.” She unwrapped another long piece of paper towel and used it to wipe the pie filling off my shoulders. With her free hand, she plucked chunks of crust from where they were drying to my shirt and tossed them into the trash bin.
Then she was wiping my shirt. She moved in from my shoulders and across my pecs, then lower again. And I froze, holding my breath and unable to form the words to tell her she could stop.
But did I flex my abs? Yes.
