Is This Tomorrow: A Novel (21 page)

She brought more pies into work and suddenly people were not only friendlier to her, they seemed to be waiting for her. “I know it’s only nine, but this key lime pie is screaming my name,” Betty told her. “I’ll just have a sliver,” Charmaine said and cut a thick slab. “Now, this pie is something you want in your hope chest.” The men in accounting and sales had their secretaries cut them big slices and bring them into their offices. By ten, the pie was gone. “Great, now I can never fire you,” Richard said.

“Maybe you could give me a raise,” Ava said. “Then I could make more pies.”

Richard laughed. “You’re such a card,” he said.

That night, when Ava got home, she was planning on making three new pies: orange cream, lemon cream, and raspberry, made with frozen berries. She had never tried cream pies and she was a little anxious, but when she opened the door, she nearly skidded on the mail. She picked up the envelopes: bills, more bills, a postcard from Lewis of a snowstorm, and on the back he had written, “Doing fine, love Lewis.” She traced his words with her finger. “Love.” It got her every time.

She was spending more money now on groceries, which made her worry a little about her bills. She always paid them on time, and she was careful about money, but how she wished she had a cushion in the bank. How many more times could she ask Richard for a raise and hear him say no? She knew how lucky she was that he had put her on full-time, but his face closed up every time she mentioned salary.

She went into the kitchen, knowing she’d feel better as soon as she could get her hands in dough. She poured out the flour and it spilled on the floor. She put too much water in and, almost instantly, the dough turned sticky. Her mother had been right, emotions did get into the food. She looked at her messy kitchen. If she kept on, she knew the crust would be hard and the filling too sweet.

Ava sat heavily at the kitchen table. She looked at all the rows of spices on the shelf and wanted to clean and alphabetize them. She wanted to scrub the walls and the floor and then make herself a bath so hot, the tension would float away, but she knew the way she felt, that as soon as she started to touch the spices, they’d spill. As soon as she got in the bath, she’d scald herself.

She had to get out. She needed to do something. She got her coat, then went back to the kitchen and took one of the pies she had forgotten to bring to work, a chocolate mint pie. She put it on a plate and wrapped wax paper over it. Maybe it was time to try to sell her pies. The worst that could happen is she’d get some advice on how to make her pies better.

She drove to Bell’s because it was closest. As soon as Ava walked in, she felt suddenly bold. The café was filled with people, couples holed up in the back, a family arguing over spaghetti. It was freezing outside, but the café was warm and welcoming. There were only two waitresses, both in black aprons, gliding among the ferns and the rustic wood walls. And there, in the back, was Bell, who looked up at Ava and then glanced suspiciously at the plate. She strode over. “Excuse me? You’re bringing pies into my café?” Bell said.

“I guess I am.” Ava pulled back the waxed paper. The sugar on the crust glistened.

Bell studied her. “And?”

“I thought maybe you might want to buy my pies,” Ava said.

“We make our own pastries here.”

“Try a bite.” Ava knew she was begging.

“Let me see your hands,” Bell said.

“My hands?”

Bell gestured. “Hands,” she said. She took the plate from Ava and then she waited until Ava held out her hands, and then she took them. “Cold hands,” she said.

“I have a circulation problem,” Ava told Bell. She ran one hand against the other.

“Don’t do that.” Bell said. “Don’t rub your hands that way.” Ava stopped, confused.

“You don’t want to warm them up,” Bell said. “Every time I hire a pastry chef, I check if their hands are cold or warm. If they’re warm, too much dough is going to stick to their fingers, but cold, you get perfect crust every time. The art is in the crust.” She glanced at Ava’s pie and pulled off the wax paper. “Don’t get your hopes up, though. Still doesn’t mean the pie will taste good,” Bell said.

Ava scrutinized her crust. She had spent nearly an hour crimping the edges, making sure it was perfect.

“Crimping’s not bad. That’s a nice signature.” Bell touched the crust. “Different people crimp differently. It gets so I can see a pie, look at the crust, and I know who baked it.” She touched the edge of the crust and then reached behind the counter and took a fork. She took a bite while Ava waited and then she put the fork down.

“If it’s not good enough, why isn’t it good enough?” Ava said.

“I didn’t say that,” Bell said. “I’ll buy this pie, slice it up. If it does well, I’ll order more.”

Ava felt like throwing her arms around Bell, but the other woman stepped back from her. “This isn’t charity,” she said. “I just think you might have a white thumb.”

The only thing anyone had ever told Ava she was good at was in bed. She couldn’t help smiling.

“What?” said Bell.

“My ex-husband thought I was a lousy cook.” As soon as she said ex-husband, she wondered if she had made a tactical mistake, but Bell nodded thoughtfully.

“Well, what did he know?” she said. “There’s a reason he’s your ex.” She leaned on the counter. “Men expect you to cook up a storm at home, but if you dare to go in a professional kitchen and there’s money involved, forget it. Do you think it’s in their genes to be such stinkers?”

Ava laughed, and then Bell did. “My husband was different, but he’s gone now,” she told Ava. “Anyway, right now, we’ll see how this goes.”

The next day, when Ava got home from work, she was too anxious to bake anything. Instead, she was watching Jimmy Cagney on
Million Dollar Movie,
when the phone rang. She backed toward the phone, watching Cagney smash a grapefruit into his girlfriend’s face.

“The pie is gone,” Bell said. “People want more. And so do I.”

I
NSTANTLY,
A
VA HAD
a new schedule. She got up two hours early on workdays to bake, so the pies would be fresh when she brought them to Bell. Money changed everything, Bell had told her, and she had to admit it did. The whole process of baking became different, more exciting somehow. It wasn’t very much money, just three dollars a pie, but it was twice what it cost her to make each pie. She set up a little savings account at the local bank, and by February, she was seeing it grow. She began to dream about all the fresh fruit she could buy when they came in season, expensive things like raspberries. Every time she made a deposit, she couldn’t help smiling. Plus, it made her bolder. She knew her chocolate pies sold out, but what if she grated a dash of ginger in there? What if she put in orange peel? What if she let the dough sit even longer than usual?

Being up so early made her see and hear things she had missed before in the neighborhood. She spotted the milkman now, in his dapper white uniform and cap, and she waved him over, because now that she had a little more money, she could afford delivery. Early one morning, when she was retrieving the bottles and cartons out of the metal milk box, she heard a door slam across the street. She looked up and saw Dick Hill stride of the house with a suitcase, his face set. Debbie was flying out after him, in her robe and fluffy slippers, her hair in pink sponge curlers, and it wasn’t hard to tell Debbie was crying. Debbie reached for Dick, but he peeled her hands off his shoulders as if he were removing sticky tape. He strode to the car and drove off. Debbie looked up and saw Ava and immediately turned and went back into the house, which was a shame because Ava could have told her something about how to heal heartbreak.

Ava had to be at work by nine, but she left the house at seven, carefully balancing the pies in boxes, stacking them carefully in the passenger seat.

“People say the lemon makes them think of their childhood,” Bell told her when she arrived. “Couples in love order the chocolate mint, and lonely people go for your Boston cream. How do you do that? How do you make pies that speak to people?”

“I don’t know,” Ava said.

“How about four more for tomorrow?” Bell said. “I admit the chocolate made me feel my Henry close by.”

Ava stopped baking for work. She didn’t have time, and besides no one was paying her. She saw the women from the typing pool milling about the coffee area, looking at her expectantly when she came in and then turning, disappointed, when they saw her empty hands. “What, no goodies?” Richard asked and Ava shrugged.

“I’ve been busy,” she said.

“Doing what?”

“I’m selling my pies now,” she told him.

He tilted his head, blinking as if he didn’t understand her. “You’re selling them?”

“To Bell’s Café.”

Richard frowned. “For money?”

Ava nodded. “That’s what selling means,” she said.

“Well,” he said, suddenly brisk. “Don’t forget your real job. And don’t forget us here.”

It you want pies, then you’ll have to buy them, Ava thought, but she was smart enough not to say that aloud. Instead, she smiled and went back to typing letters about faucets. Charmaine leaned over and tapped Ava. “I don’t know if I’d sell pies,” she said.

“Why not?”

“I used to be a really good swimmer,” Charmaine said. “Once, this boy challenged me to a race. I did everything right. I hyperventilated so I was really oxygenated. I let out only a few bubbles as I swam, and when I got to the surface I turned around and there was the boy, standing up to his knees in water, way behind me, and he wouldn’t look at me. Wouldn’t talk to me. When I got to shore, my mother was shaking her head. ‘Don’t ever do that again,’ she said. ‘Showing a man up. Taking over his terrain. Men don’t like that sort of thing.’ ”

“That’s crazy,” Ava said, and Charmaine shrugged. “Think what you like,” she said.

Ava went out and bought two starchy white aprons and some hairnets. It became more important to her that her kitchen be spotless, and she willingly got on her hands and knees now to scrub. She went out and bought a new smooth wood rolling pin and six new pie pans. Now when she looked at her kitchen, she had a whole different feeling about it. She could make things happen. She was in charge.

One Friday night, after she finished testing out a new pie (raisin apple custard), she felt antsy. She showered and changed, and even though it was starting to snow, she went out to the Club
47
in Cambridge to hear music. She didn’t care who was playing, and it ended up being a young woman with long fuzzy hair and a voice like a bell, singing with her guitar about how her lover stabbed her by a raging river. The club was blue with smoke so you couldn’t really see clearly, but even so, Ava felt a man watching her. She felt him sitting beside her before she looked over and saw that he was younger than she was, with longer hair than she had on her own head, and before the first set was over, she knew two things: that his name was Damien and that she was taking him home.

When he automatically slid into the driver’s seat, his hands primed on the wheel, Ava said, “No, I’m driving.” He shrugged and let her, but he kept one hand on her thigh. As soon as they got in her house, he put his mouth on her neck and drew her so close she could feel the heat of his skin, but she gave him a gentle shove away from her. “Playing hard to get?” he said, amused.

“Come with me,” she said. She took him to her kitchen, sitting him down at her red Formica table. She went to the refrigerator and took out the raisin apple custard pie. He looked at her curiously. “Really? You want me to eat right now?” he said.

She cut him a thin slice and put it on a plate, got him a fork and a napkin and set them both in front of him. “Yes,” she said.

He took a bite and then looked up at her, as if he were taking her measure. She saw the surprise in his face, the pleasure. “Cloves,” she whispered into his ear. “Nutmeg.” He took another bite and another and soon finished off the whole piece. “Is there more?” he said and she laughed.

“Yeah, there’s more,” she said. She kissed him and tasted the cinnamon. She took his hand and lifted him up so he was standing, facing her, and she put his hand on her breast. “Maybe I’ll stay the night,” he whispered. He told her she looked like Joan Baez, which made her laugh, because she looked as much like Joan Baez as she did Marilyn Monroe. Ava rested her head against his chest so she could feel his breathing, so she could remember this moment, so she wouldn’t forget, because she knew after this night, she wouldn’t see him again.

He wasn’t a bad lover, but he was quicker than she would have liked, and when he started to fall asleep, his head on her breast, Ava pushed him awake. “Did I do something wrong?” Damien asked. He reached for her, but she slid out of his arms. “You have to go,” she told him. She got up, pulling on her clothes, glancing at the clock.

“You want me to go?”

“Yes,” she told him. “Please.” She kissed his nose, handed his clothes to him, and watched him tug them on. He called a cab, and the two of them waited by her front window. When the cab arrived, he turned to her. “Wait,” he said. He spotted a pen and paper and wrote his number down for her. “See you soon,” he said, and then went out the door.

Ava felt ridiculously free. She dropped his number in the wastebasket and then she headed for the kitchen.

It was still night, but she began to bake, and by early Saturday morning, she had six new pies for the café. She was used to just walking into the kitchen and setting them there, leaving her list for Bell to tally up and pay her later. The café was always busy, and Bell barely had time to even say hello to her, which was fine by Ava. Ava liked walking by, like a voyeur, seeing who was eating her pies, whisking by the circular display Bell had at the front of the café to see which pies were going the fastest. She was pleased to see the circles of them growing smaller and smaller. Her arms were lighter without the pies, and she started walking out when Bell stopped her at the door. “You know, you can’t be selling pies here without knowing my menu,” Bell told her.