Miracle Pie (17 page)

Earl plunked his wide butt in the brown
chair, saying he used to visit the former owner and always sat in
the leather chair. The blue chair was too dainty. A ladies’ chair.
He said that last with derision.

Gabe checked the lighting and decided
nothing would make Earl look good, so he said they were running.
Leaning forward, he told Earl to tell the camera who he was.

“I’m Earl Raasch, the owner of Miracle
Taxidermy and Reupholstering. I’m also the village board
president.”

“Why do you think you were voted in as
president?”

“No one else wanted it.”

Taz laughed.

Earl grinned, his teeth yellow.

“And you did?” Gabe asked.

Earl’s bushy eyebrows slanted down, his grin
gone. “I’ve lived in Miracle my whole life. Never married, never
had children. But I’ve got a family.” He spread his arms wide.
“Everyone in the village is my family. Good or bad.” He leaned
toward the camera, his brows bristling at it, as if two fuzzy
caterpillars were glued to the tops of his eye sockets. “And you
better believe, we got ’em both. The good and the bad.”

Gabe saw why Rosa listed Earl first. And why
she hadn’t wanted to explain him. Some people had such big
personalities they could only be experienced.

“What do you love?” Gabe asked, expecting
something about the village life or, considering Earl’s occupation,
hunting.

“Life. Myself. God.”

“You go to church?”

“I did until the preacher cheated on his
wife.” His face creased into a satisfied smile, and he nodded.
“Guess what? The wife’s going to have a baby. And it’s not the
preacher’s.”

Taz made a small choking sound and Gabe held
back laughter.

“What are you grateful for?”

“That’s easy. My mom and my dad. They
brought me up to be a good man. Me and my brother Herman who died
in Vietnam.”

“That must’ve been tough.”

“’Course it was tough. Kids nowadays,
they’re babies. Always whining about stuff. They don’t know yet
that life doesn’t last forever. You gotta enjoy it while you
can.”

“What about money?” With every answer, Gabe
liked Earl more.

“What about it? I got enough for myself and
some in the bank. I can’t keep up with all the jobs I get. I just
hired Gunner Klumb to help at the business.”

“It’s because of Gunner that we’re doing
this. You have anything to say about that?”

Earl stared right at the camera, a spark in
his eyes, as confident and commanding as if he’d been speaking in
front of cameras his whole life. “Gunner and Trish ain’t no
freeloaders. They’ve always worked hard. They have two boys. Trish
didn’t use any of those baby enhancements to get pregnant. They did
it the natural way, and now she’s having quads.”

Frowning, he stopped talking. Then his face
smooshed into a wrinkled smirk. “And that should be a warning to
all the boys and girls who do it in cars.”

Taz gave another muffled laugh. Earl
grinned, then his expression sobered. “It’s not funny what’s
happening to Gunner and his family. He had a good job with good
insurance, but after they found out Trish was pregnant with four
babies, Gunner got laid off.” His face twisted into a scowl. “I
don’t know if it’s a coincidence. Gunner said a bunch of other
people got the pink slip the same time, so maybe not. Gunner’s
paying for his own insurance, and it ain’t cheap, no matter what
those idiots in Washington say. He tried hard to find another job,
but finally they had to come home, broke and without a whole lot of
hope.”

“So you gave him a job to help him out?”

Earl turned his snarl at Gabe. “I gave him a
job ’cause I needed him. Don’t think I got a soft heart that I can
throw money away.” He shifted to the camera again, and this time he
wasn’t smiling. “Maybe five or ten bucks. I can give that away. If
you’re watching this, maybe you can, too. If it’s too much, don’t
send anything. But if it isn’t, you might want to send what you
can, big or little. It will all go to Gunner and Trish. The
information will be somewhere, right?”

Gabe nodded.

“He says I’m right.” Earl pointed at him,
but Gabe kept the camera on Earl as he returned his gaze to the
camera. A guy who knew his audience. “Someday it’s gonna be your
turn to ask someone for something. Sooner or later, it happens to
everyone. Send the money, and when you need it, it’s going to come
back to you.” He nodded, his lips pressed tightly and his chin set
like a mule’s. “And that’s the truth.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

“I lived in Manhattan for five years.” The
middle-aged real estate agent with layered, chestnut hair and
discreet makeup carried a hint of city air about her as she gazed
into Gabe’s camera. “I wanted to be an actress. I waited tables, I
bought my clothes at consignment stores. The first year, I used to
joke about the small village I came from. The second year, it
wasn’t funny to me. I missed Miracle so much it was a dagger in my
heart.”

She stopped to swallow, and Gabe thought it
was for effect. Gloria had said she was an actress wannabe. This
was the kind of thing they did before continuing.

But she didn’t continue, swallowing again.
Her face looked suddenly haggard, as if she were staring back at
some horrible memory.

He never knew what was going to happen
during these interviews.

“But you stayed for another four years,” he
said.

She nodded, pulling herself together as if
aware of the camera, shaking off whatever memory had dragged her
into the dark side. Once more an impeccably made up woman in her
prime. “My mother was sending me money to supplement my income. She
had the only brokerage firm in Miracle. She was a great
businesswoman. A great woman all around.”

A small smile played upon her face, then she
shifted in the blue wing chair and looked straight into the camera.
“I’d been working my way up from waiting tables to walk-ons to
small parts, and I’d finally gotten a second lead role in an
off-Broadway play. The day it was supposed to open, I got a call
from a friend that my mother was sick but didn’t want to tell me. I
called an airline, then the director to tell him I couldn’t make
it. I was home that night.”

“Your mom...? How was she?”

“She died two weeks and one day later.”
Tears gleamed in Gloria’s eyes. “I was devastated. The village
rallied around me. I found out she’d been sick for a year and her
friends took her to the hospital, brought her groceries, shoveled
her sidewalks, did her laundry...”

Gloria stopped to blink furiously. “I never
went back to New York. I heard you were asking what we love...” She
swept her left hand out in an encompassing motion. “
This
is
what I love. The way we watch over each other. The way the while
village watched over my mother. Right now the village is rallying
around Trish and Gunner, but there are only 629 of us and we can’t
do it all. A local farmer gave an acre of land to Trish and Gunner.
Nearby businesses donated some of the building materials.” She
gazed at the camera again. “You can see their names on our website.
But they need more. And Trish might have to go to the hospital
early and stay there...”

There was another pause while she looked
sad, tilting her head so the camera caught her glittering eyes.
Gabe mentally applauded as he watched with quiet breaths, waiting
to see what she’d do next.

“Aren’t we all one global village?” Emotion
thickened her voice. “I can speak for a lot of villagers and say we
contributed after 911, Katrina, Sandy, and other disasters. I’m not
saying that Trish and Gunner’s situation is as big as any of that.
But doesn’t the small stuff count, too? The small towns? The small
people?” She smiled with her eyes still glittering. “Whether you
contribute or not, God bless all of you.”

“That’s it,” Gabe said. He pushed back from
the camera and then he stood and applauded her. Someone else
applauded behind him. He turned to see who it was and saw
Katie.

He’d expected her, but he hadn’t expected
the impact, the way this tall woman who looked at him out of
vulnerable eyes took his breath away. He hadn’t expected the punch
in his heart. And he really hadn’t expected the lift of his soul,
as it said,
This woman. This is the one for you.

He took one step toward her, and she took
one step back.

“Hey, Katie,” Taz said. “You’re looking
good.”

“And you look gorgeous. But you know that.”
She turned to Gloria, her arms out. “You were stupendous!”

Gloria fluffed her hair. “I know.” They
hugged then Gloria talked about a commercial she did when she was
in New York. Gabe stood in place, watching Katie. Not saying
anything. Not able to. Still stunned by his reaction to her.

It seemed like moments thumped by before his
heart beat slowed and his thoughts regained coherency.

He reminded himself about the kids at the
hospital in Chicago and his project there. That was
important
. He needed to do that. No one else could do that
as well as he could.

And Katie needed to stay here with her
friends and her father and her dog. And most of all, her pies.

He was supposed to be here for a couple
days, then he’d be gone. Starting anything again wouldn’t be good
for either of them.

Then she turned to him. And she smiled.

His breath caught again.

His heart felt the punch again.

She took a step toward him, and he took one
toward her, as if a string between them was pulling them
together.

He couldn’t stop himself, and he knew, deep
in the recesses of his sneaky brain, that
this
was the
reason he returned to Miracle. For Katie. Even if it were just for
a short time, and afterward they’d both be left in a big hurt.

He was going to hell.

But not until after he experienced
heaven.

Chapter Thirty

Katie had woken up that morning with the
need to make her Happy Pie.

An awful, awful need. She didn’t want to be
happy because of Gabe.

Making it anyway, she told herself it was
because the Miracle Project was going to be a huge success. A lie
she didn’t believe even as she walked into Mo’s and found an empty
bar stool. She was relieved to find out Gabe was interviewing
Gloria and he’d finished with Earl. She relaxed slightly. If she
were lucky, she might not even see Gabe.

She felt a twist in her heart. She’d never
been good at lying to herself.

She was sipping coffee and chatting with a
former schoolmate when Rosa announced she was next. Katie gave her
a startled look and pushed off her stool reluctantly. Rosa hadn’t
warned her that she’d be interviewed. But it wasn’t the worry about
being filmed that made Katie’s heart thump.

On autopilot, she stood and headed toward
Mo’s office. Once she slipped inside, her gaze zoomed to Gabe, like
Happy smelling food and scampering straight toward it as fast as
her arthritic feet could move. Never mind that Happy could hardly
see. The nose knew.

Something in Katie knew, too. One glance at
him and her heart hammered so loudly she was surprised he didn’t
hear it. Her skin heated so hot she expected smoke to hiss out of
her pores.

She vaguely heard Gloria speaking. Gabe said
something and then stood. He clapped and so did the others. Katie
clapped, too, doing the
monkey see
thing.

As if in slow motion, he turned and saw her.
His eyes widened and darkened, and he took a step toward her. She
stepped back, because if she stepped forward it would be a running
step. She would be like one of those girls in a TV commercial who
ran toward the boy who would catch and twirl her, her legs floating
in the air. But with her tall and lanky body, he would probably
grunt and fall backward. And drop her. Mustn’t forget that.

Taz said something to her about looking
good. She replied something silly to him, forcing her lips into a
smile. Then she hurried to Gloria to tell her how wonderful she
was—though her heart was thundering loudly and everyone in the room
but Gabe was wallpaper.

Gloria’s two-hundred-watt smile broke
through the spell that seemed to have caught her up. Once again
Katie told her how good she was, as if Gloria’s response to Gabe’s
questions hadn’t been a buzz in her ear, saying “blah, blah,
blah.”

With great concentration, flexing her brain
like a muscle, Katie had a two-minute squeal with Gloria, who said
something about New York, her words turning into more “blah, blah,
blahs.”

It seemed like forever before Gloria
squeezed her shoulder and headed to the door, leaving Katie with no
choice but to turn to Gabe. As she did a ray of sunshine beamed
through the window and illuminated him while he stared at her as if
he were starving and she were the only food around.

Just like that, as easy as a breath, her
worry evaporated. She smiled. No pretenses. Her defenses
melting.

So what if she made a fool out of herself?
It wouldn’t be the first time. Not even the hundredth time.

He smiled back, as if he was ready to make a
fool out of himself, too. They’d be two fools together.

Gazing into his eyes, she stepped toward him
and he stepped toward her.

He took her hands and smiled at her. Her
heartbeat slowed, her skin turned to normal and her brain seemed to
be in control again. As if she’d been spinning out of control and
his grip stopped her freefall and the brains rattling inside her
head. As if their clasped hands turned wrong into right.

This is the way it’s supposed to be
.
Then the hurt came, because
supposed to be
was
never
going to be
. Yet she still smiled at him. Just for today, she
would live for the moment.

“It’s your turn,” he said.

“If you say so,” she replied and immediately
felt like one of those dippy girls who did whatever the male told
her to do. She pulled her hands from his and stepped back, keeping
the smile on her face. “Rosa said so, anyway, and once she makes up
her mind, it’s like talking to Happy.”