Queen of the Cookbooks

by Ashton Lee

  “Do ya? Well, I nearly fainted when I heard a recording of myself once. ‘Who on God’s green earth is that?’ I remember sayin’ to myself. Had somethin’ unholy took possession of my soul? But, anyway, I found me one a’ them substitutes I could tolerate and finally got just the right mixture of it and some cherries and walnuts and a buttery crust, and I come up with my No-Sugar-Added Cherry Cake with Walnuts. It makes you feel like you’ve just sinned, but really, it’s not a diet breaker. Now, I’m not sayin’ it doesn’t have a few calories. Calories is calories. If it tastes good, you know it does. But let’s just say you don’t feel deprived after you’ve had a piece. You feel like you’ve had uh honest-to-goodness dessert. Will you just listen to me? I’ve prob’ly bored you goin’ on and on about my problems.”

  Ana could not help but warm to the woman. Her lack of pretension was endearing, and the lines in her face seemed to demand a certain respect. In her own family, elders were always revered, and she was not about to go against her training.

  “You’ve done no such thing. I’ve loved hearing about your process.”

  Maribelle scowled, cocking her head. “My what?”

  Ana chuckled and gently patted Maribelle’s hand. “I’m sorry. What I meant to say was I loved hearing about how you invented your recipe. Sometimes I get caught up in public relations talk.”

  Maribelle leaned in and lowered her voice, pointing to her scalp. “Well, I thought for a second there, you might be talkin’ about the way my hair gets all frizzed up in this humidity. Seems the worst months is July and August. I can look like a briar bush at times.”

  “Aren’t you the cutest thing this side of the Mississippi River? Anyway, I have a specialty, too. I’m Hispanic, and I’m selling my pigeon peas cake. It’s a favorite down in San Juan where my family is originally from, you know.”

  “You mean like down on the island of Por-da Reek-oh in the middle of the Carry-bee-un?”

  “That’s the spot. Somewhere down there in the tropics,” Ana said. “And I was thinking that you and I might team up today. You steer the ones who don’t have to watch their sugar to me, and I’ll steer the ones who do to you. We’ll catch everybody that way. What do you think? Is it a deal?” Ana offered her hand once again, and the two women shook on it.

  “Well, I guess there might be a market for both of us when you put it that-a-way,” Maribelle said, keeping the smile in her voice. “Although like you say, people usually don’t pay too much attention to their diets on the Fourth of July. I know I never did until I got this dad-blamed diabetes.”

  “That’s why my putting in a good word for you might work wonders. It’s worth a try.”

  “Well, if you can sell customers as good as you just sold me on your idea, I think it definitely will work. Meanwhile, would you like a little bitta taste a’ my cake? I’d be right proud to have you tell me what you think of it, bein’ as you’re a baker yourself and all.”

  “Sure. If you’ll taste mine.”

  “You got yourself a deal.”

  And with that the two women sampled slivers of their cherished recipes on paper plates, rolling their eyes and praising each other effusively afterward.

  “You weren’t kidding, Maribelle. I feel like I’ve just indulged in a thousand sinful calories. Your crust is so rich, and I love the crunch of the walnuts. My compliments to the chef. I just think it’s genius.”

  “It’s right tasty if I do say so myself,” Maribelle said, the color rising in her cheeks. “And I’da never thought your cake had peas in it as uh ingredient. When you first told me about it, all I could think of was it had to be somethin’ savory comin’ down the pike. Actually, I thought somethin’ crazy was comin’ down the pike. But all I tasted is coconut and cinnamon, and I’m just as satisfied with yours as you were mine. Now, aren’t we a pair?”

  “That we are.”

  “Maybe we’ll both win us a prize.”

  Ana crossed her fingers. “Let’s hope so.”

  After the spontaneous mutual admiration society had ended, Ana relaxed and reflected further. Maribelle Pleasance might be competition, but in the larger scheme of things, she was also a citizen of Cherico who ultimately would benefit from the economic boost that Spurs ’R’ Us would bring to the economically depressed town. Ana Estrella was first and foremost a public relations expert and then a baker in her spare time; and if she didn’t win any money today, well, it hardly mattered. She was well-compensated by Spurs ’R’ Us for her work, and she now genuinely hoped Maribelle Pleasance would win the top prize.

  She checked her watch. They were only fifteen minutes away from the brief, perfunctory ribbon-cutting ceremony presided over by Maura Beth McShay, Councilman Sparks, the Crumpton sisters, and Nora Duddney. Then the library doors would open, and the public would also start sampling the tastiest food Cherico had to offer. Maura Beth had told Ana there was something special about this little town and its people tucked away in the extreme northeast corner of Mississippi, and she was truly beginning to feel it.

  * * *

  Renette Posey was already growing restless. No, it had nothing to do with Councilman Sparks and his pompous, self-serving, ribbon-cutting oration during which he was careful to point out more than once how much the new library had “always been his baby.”

  “Legacies are important to our little town, and the new library is mine. I have always been aware of Cherico’s need to move forward with facilities like this,” he had concluded.

  Renette and Maura Beth had exchanged furtive glances at that misrepresentation. Nor had the more self-effacing speeches by Mamie Crumpton and Nora Duddney, two of the other benefactors who had helped to finance the library, been all that much of a trial to bear.

  “We always want to do what’s best for Cherico,” Mamie had begun, hogging the microphone and successfully preventing her sister Marydell from taking her turn and fulfilling the “we.” “The Crumpton family, being pioneers in Cherico, are more than proud to have this facility bear our name. Generations from now, people will recognize our contribution. It is important to leave something worthwhile behind, especially since we live in an age of such disposable things. . . .”

  “I know my father, Layton Duddney, would be proud to know I’ve done this,” Nora had said when Mamie had finally relinquished her self-serving spotlight. “He’s still hanging on out there at the nursing home as he has for years, now pushing one hundred, but I’m sorry to say he doesn’t recognize me or anyone else anymore. Nevertheless, I believe this is the Duddney family’s finest hour.”

  Beyond that, once the tours had begun inside the new library, Renette had more than enough to occupy her. Maura Beth had put her in charge of overseeing the computer terminals, making sure the patrons signed up properly and understood that they were limited to an hour’s use on opening day. The goal was to allow as many people as possible to experience the library’s new toys, and there was no scarcity of questions for her to answer.

  “How do I print out this document, miss?” said an acne-faced, male high school student wearing a T-shirt that read FIRST-CLASS GEEK—but whose “geekdom” at the moment was letting him down.

  At the neighboring terminal: “This e-mail I just sent to my son at the University of Texas bounced back. I know he’s out there. He told me over the phone he wanted me to send along a care package so he can nibble late at night in the dorm. You know how these college kids are. So I thought I’d try out these nice new computers you got here. Can you tell me what I did wrong?” an agitated older woman wearing a burnt orange, LONGHORN MOM T-shirt explained.

  And then there was the young man with a nose ring and a T-shirt that read I LUV THE DARK SIDE who was quite adamant about connecting with “alternative rock” Web sites.

  “Uh, miss, I can’t seem to pull up Well-Done Stake on here. I know they’ve got a Web site.”

  Renette was completely at a loss but smiled gamely. “Uh, is that one of those food sites? Do you like to cook?”

  He h
ad snorted and shaken his head. “No, not S-T-E-A-K. It’s S-T-A-K-E. It’s a rock band. They dress up like awesome vampires and make up their faces with fake blood. They are beyond way cool. Don’t you know about their big hit ‘Blood in the Coffin’?”

  Wide-eyed and somewhat tentatively, Renette said, “I guess I must have missed it somehow.”

  “Bummer.”

  As it turned out, the band’s Web site had been blocked, and the young man shot up out of his seat in disgust when that fact came to light, leaving Renette to call out after him as diplomatically as she could: “Come back soon. We’ll be more than happy to help you find something else anytime.”

  As busy as Renette’s duties were keeping her, however, her restlessness was the result of her secret focus on Waddell Mack, whose concert she could not wait to witness right after the fireworks display at dusk. She longed to rush home to her apartment when the tours were finally over at five and change clothes. This standard-issue, library workplace outfit she was required to wear that consisted of a much-too-large beige shirt over khaki slacks did absolutely no justice to her shapely young figure. Even if she was somehow unable to reach the stage and talk to Waddell Mack again, as she had at The Twinkle when he and his band had come through Cherico just before Christmas last year, she was determined to look good for him in the stands.

  She would pull this off, she had decided, by venturing into the forbidden land of makeup. It was all for a good cause—which was being near all that dark, curly hair and those intentionally scruffy cheeks and those tight jeans and cowboy boots. Why, he was the man of her dreams, and she had spent the last six months or so circling the days on her calendar until his return to Cherico.

  Her warnings about makeup from Hardy and Lula Posey had been frequent and elaborate from before she hit puberty. “It’s something those with idle hands use,” her mother had insisted. “It’s nothing but temptation for a man, and smeared lipstick means a forbidden kiss. You never let a man kiss you that-a-way unless you are married and trying for a child. And, mind me well, your husband must be the one to initiate. That’s the righteous way.”

  But Renette couldn’t wait to apply her newly bought foundation and mascara and lip gloss and all the rest of it in defiance of her strict childhood. She was doing her own makeover. She envisioned a scenario where she would walk up to the makeshift stage after the concert, and Waddell would somehow notice her among the waving, cheering throng.

  He would say to her, “Aren’t you that right pretty young librarian I met last year at The Twinkle, Twinkle Café? You’re . . . wait, let me jiggle my brain cells just a tad bit . . . you’re Renette, right? Musta made a mental note ’cause the name sounded so different.”

  “You remembered, Waddell,” she would answer all aflutter. “That means so much to me—you just can’t imagine.”

  “How could I forget a fan like you? You know, I even spotted you out there in the audience. Why, who wouldn’t with that pretty smile a’ yours, darlin’. You’re knockin’ the strings off my git-tar.”

  Renette’s fantasy would continue as the exchange would somehow ring true in her head. How demure she would be in fishing for compliments! “You’re just way too kind. I’m just your average small-town girl when you come right down to it. Nothing special.”

  “No way. You look like Miss America. In fact, I think you should try out for it. First you’ll win the Miss Mississippi contest, and then I’ll bet you’ll go on television and win the whole shebang.”

  “You think so?”

  He would nod, touch his thumb and index finger to the tip of his cowboy hat, and give her that sexy smile of his. “Great day in the mornin’, little Miz Renette, I shore as heck do.”

  “Really? I didn’t even think you’d notice me with all the thousands of pretty girls out there that you see on tour.”

  “None as purty as you, though.”

  She would, however, stop short of saying, “Oh, shucks!”

  Then, Waddell might even start serenading her with his git-tar. She had almost swooned when he had pronounced the word that way at The Twinkle last year, feeling it as a rush in her blood. The way of the world was this: There were “bad” good ole boys like Councilman Sparks, and then there were “good” good ole boys like Waddell Mack. His long, talented fingers would go to work making his music, stroking those strings, the light from his eyes penetrating her like a laser beam, and before either of them knew what was happening—

  “Renette!?”

  Was her imagination playing tricks on her, or was that Waddell actually calling her name in the real world?

  “Renette!?”

  There it was again.

  Then she came to and realized that she had drifted off into a daydream deluxe, ignoring her duties to the extent that Maura Beth was standing next to her at the computer terminals and nudging her gently. “Renette, the man on the end down there with the gray beard needs your help. He’s been waving at you for a while. We need to pay a little more attention.”

  Renette’s sweet little face blushed. “I’m so sorry about that, Miz McShay. I guess I was doin’ a little daydreaming. I certainly didn’t mean to be ignoring our patrons.”

  “That’s all right, sweetie. It’s all going well, isn’t it? They just keep pouring in and asking questions. I never knew we had this many people in Cherico, and we certainly never had this many come into the old library in one day. Maybe not this many in six months. This is the day I’ve been looking forward to for so long, and I have to keep telling myself that it’s finally here.”

  “We’ve been swamped since we opened. Not an empty seat in the terminals any time, and I’ve seen you and Mr. Jeremy busy as bees showing everyone around. I think we’re a real big hit, Miz McShay.”

  Maura Beth leaned against her and inhaled the smell of the new library’s fresh paint. Was there a sweeter perfume in the world? “Yes, indeedy. I keep wanting to pinch myself, but I hope this wonderful day never ends. It’s the keeper of all keepers in my book.”

  As Renette headed toward her patron, however, she felt exactly the opposite. The sun couldn’t go down fast enough for her, bringing with it the fireworks display and then Waddell singing his greatest country hits. Who knew what romantic adventure might be in store for her?

  6

  Food Fight

  Decked out in a white bonnet, gray wig, red floral granny dress, and spectacles as The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, Miriam Goodcastle was in the midst of her very first story hour on the stage of the sprawling, imaginative Children’s Room. She had just recited the venerable, eponymous nursery rhyme for what was a packed house full of mesmerized youngsters and their obviously delighted mothers. In fact, there was standing room only.

  One little girl in pigtails and a red gingham frock raised her hand. “Why did that old woman live in a shoe? There’s not very much room in a shoe. Sometimes I can’t get my foot in mine without squiggling it around lots and lots, and my mommy has to come in and help me with it. You ask her, and she’ll tell you.”

  A wave of laughter moved across the audience, and Miriam said, “You’re absolutely right, you know. Sometimes I have trouble getting my shoes on, too. Well, I think the answer to your question is that the shoe might have belonged to a giant and was big enough to hold her entire family. That would have made her very happy to find a place to live like that.”

  “What happened to the giant?” the little girl continued. “I think giants are really scary. Did the giant go, ‘Fee, fi, fo, fum’? That’s what all the giants in the storybooks say.”

  Miriam thought on her feet, as all good children’s librarians must do. “He may very well have said something like that. As for my theory on the giant and his shoes, well, I think he probably outgrew his old ones and got a new pair. Then he probably left the old ones behind in the forest one day, and that’s where the Old Woman found one of them when she was wandering about looking for pecans to make into a big pie to feed all her children. Quick, raise your hands right t
his minute: How many of you children like pecan pie?”

  There was a forest of little hands and a few giggles, along with an enthusiastic “I do!” or two.

  “Good. Who doesn’t? I’m afraid I like it too much, and it really ruins my diet, especially when I put vanilla ice cream on top. Now, have any of you ever eaten it like that?”

  There was another display of little hands and voices.

  “So, to get back to the Old Woman finding the giant’s shoe in the forest—she probably thought to herself what a wonderful home it would make for herself and her family. Not only that, but she could lace it up tight to keep out the rain and the wind and the animals of the forest.”

  The little girl spoke up again with a sense of awe in her voice. “You mean like bears and wolves? They could eat little girls up.”

  “Yes, like bears and wolves, and who knows what else might be prowling around out there?”

  “But where were they all living before she found the shoe? You have to have a place to go to sleep at night.”

  Miriam was not rattled in the least as her training continued to kick in. This was what she was being paid to do. “You know, I can’t say for sure. Perhaps they all lived in a big oak tree before they lived in a shoe. Maybe every one of her children had their own branch to live on.”

  The little girl wanted still more. “Like birds?”

  “Yes, like birds.”

  “Was that the same mean giant that was in Jack and the Beanstalk, or was it a good giant?”

  “Well, it might have been either one. All giants wear shoes.”

  “Are you sure? What if they went barefoot? I like to go barefoot, but sometimes I step on something and it hurts.”

  The little girl’s mother finally stepped in. “Now, Wendy, Miz Goodcastle has given you her best opinions, and you’re not letting any of the other children ask her questions. You’re wearing her out.”

  “Don’t you worry about that in the least, Mrs.—?”