Poison & Pie

by Beth Byers

  It was true, I thought. And even though my friends didn’t know it, I had an inheritance from my grandparents that could make it so I’d never have to work again and keep the diner running for as long as I wanted. This wasn’t the end. Not for 2nd Chance, but I could suddenly see why Martha Sloane had been so upset about her Bed & Breakfast.

  I was lucky. I could ride out whatever evil Murphy Jesse could do to me. I had to feel bad for the others who hit the end of this…was it blackmail?

  “Is this illegal?” I asked Simon. “It feels like blackmail, but it isn’t…is it? His reviews might be shady because of this, but….opinion articles on the internet…”

  “I’d have to talk to a lawyer about that one,” Simon admitted, “But I don’t like it regardless.”

  “No one would like it,” Az said. He’d joined us when Zee waved him over and his dark chocolate skin was flushed with a tinge of red. His eyes were snapping with anger just like all of ours were. “This diner has always been a great place to eat. But it has only gotten better since Rosie took over.”

  “Ah…Az….thanks buddy,” I said.

  He patted the top of my head as though I were one of my dogs and grinned when I shot him a dirty look.

  “Can we get some help over here?” Someone asked, and I stood. Zee was hopping mad, and I was afraid we’d get another bad Yelp review given that those were surely Portland or Seattle hipsters who would definitely ‘check-in’ and leave a review.

  They had been the last group to join us just before we switched the sign to closed. There are 4 of them, and they didn’t seem to be irritated by our distraction. They were chatting happily and discussing the desserts under the glass domes on the counter.

  Everyone wanted the meatloaf special, and I went ahead and took the order and cooked it. Standing over the grill in my dream diner was soothing to me. All it took was a few minutes to pan fry up some fresh green beans and serve up the already made rolls, mashed potatoes, and meatloaf. It was a good meal, and if you liked home cooking—you’d like it. I felt a twinge of concern when I served it up and then the one that looked most like a lumberjack grinned up at me and told me it look delicious. I grinned back.

  “You ever hear of Oregon Foodie?" I asked without preamble

  “Yeah,” he said, but there was a dark scowl on his face when he answered. “I read it pretty religiously. We went on over to Sea Witch because of it. It praised the heck out of the clam chowder there. You ever been there?”

  “I have,” I said. “You know where has amazing clam chowder? Blackfish Cafe in Lincoln City. You should check it out. Everything they make is amazing.”

  I chatted with them for a few minutes, recommended the bike rental place even though it was rainy. These folks didn’t strike me as people who cared so much about getting wet. They were more the types who had lived in Oregon for their whole lives and considered never owning an umbrella as a sign of a true Oregonian. Every single one of them had a knit cap and a Columbia rain jacket on. They were all wearing thick boots that would keep your feet dry despite the rain, and I guessed they’d ride a bike like that without a blink.

  I made my way back to my friends. Even though none of us really had anything to say. Eventually, the last of our customers left and the hipsters took a whole pie with them when they did. When we closed, Zee and I used our kitchen to make desserts for the next day of the pie contest together as well as things for the diner. We moved a good amount of pie and cake and there were several regulars who came in daily for dessert and coffee.

  “I’m glad you changed the hours back,” Zee snarled. “It’ll be better for all of us."

  “It was stupid to extend them without a full staff. Even with Roxy, we need at least 2-3 more people.”

  Zee nodded as she worked. She was making something with pears, and I was sure it would be lovely. I suggested she make a few extra for the diner, and she nodded almost pleasantly.

  “You think Simon has realized that I make that cheddar apple pie to torture him?” I was making a simple chocolate cream pie, but I was using coconut extract instead of vanilla and a coconut whipped cream topping. It would be delicious if you like coconut. If you didn’t…well..I wasn’t winning this contest anyway. The mayor of Silver Falls was one of the judges, and she hated me. Add in the review and votes I wouldn’t be paying for, and I was surefire loser.

  “Simon isn’t stupid,” Zee said. She was almost relaxed, so she only sounded kind of mean. “Of course he knows.”

  “Is it bad that I think it’s funnier that way?”

  “Does he torture you back?”

  I shook my head. I think the fact that I teased him was something that he liked. He never blinked anytime I did it, but sometime the corner of his mouth twitched and his eyes glinted at me.

  “What are you going to do about the blogger?” I asked Zee. If any of us flipped out on him, it would be Zee. She deserved to win this contest even though it bothered me to admit it. Working next to her as we made our pies made it apparent that her technique was just better than mine. My pies were getting better because of her, and I admitted that I loved that. I didn’t really care that I wasn’t going to win. Not when Zee, that mean old broad, who was one of my favorite people in Silver Falls deserved to win. If the contest weren’t rigged—there’s no question that she would win.

  Now, however…it was anyone’s game. Anyone who was willing to pay for it.

  TWO

  The town of Silver Falls is adorable. Little one way streets, art galleries, statues of Lewis & Clark and Sacajawea, leaping salmon. The river that runs along the side of the town dumps into the ocean in hundreds of feet of falling water, and the rain in frequent enough that the flowers and lawns stay ever vibrant.

  I walked into the local Lion’s Club where the pie contest was running. They sponsored it every year, it drew a good number of locals, and made money for Toys for Tots. They were working towards bikes for as many of Oregon’s foster kids as possible. That was a charity I could get behind. One of the things I liked best about Silver Falls was the charity work the town seemed to organize without a second thought. They had a soup kitchen and food bank that always had enough. The local animals were never put down. The local families who struggled got holiday boxes, coats for the winter, and school clothes. This was a good town to be in.

  The call center I worked in had endless opportunities for service but it was never heartfelt. They sold overpriced “jeans-days” stickers to staff who could barely afford their rent. They pressured management to give to favorite charities, and they made sure to contribute in the name of the corporation. It would have meant a lot more, in my opinion, to clarify that the funds weren’t coming from profits but from employees. The end game for the business was to look good. Unlike this event. No one had an end game here except for people being warm, housed, and never, ever hungry. I brought eight chocolate coconut pies. One was for the judges and the rest would be sold by the slice to help finance the purchase of bikes. That wouldn’t be where most of the charity giving came from though. It would be donations by those who attended. There was a cash box and other ways to contribute. A couple of local women had craft tables where 100% of the proceeds would go to the Toys for Tots.

  Everything would end in a few days with a big dinner where the proceeds for the tickets would be another way the money was donated. In the end, a good number of kids would have bikes on their birthday or Christmas.

  “Zee,” I said as she took a stack of pies from me. “Hello my friend.”

  “We’ve got to hurry,” Zee said. “The diner is always busy now and leaving Az and Roxy there alone is just mean. And that’s coming from me.”

  “Maddie is helping,” I said, “But yeah, we need to hurry.”

  Zee helped me unload my pies and as we went to her car to get the last of her pies, we saw Martha Sloane crying in the bushes next to the Lion’s club. Our gazes met, and I took the pies from Zee as she crossed to Martha. They had known each other for years even tho
ugh they weren’t particularly friendly. Yet, I guessed that Martha had received a similar offer to the one we got yesterday. The poor woman. I knew that opening the Bed & Breakfast had drained her reserves. Given that the price on the 2nd Chance Diner review was $2500.00, I bet hers was at least that much. It sucked extra because people read reviews of places before they went to stay in them. He could effect her business so much more than mine.

  “Martha?” I heard Zee ask. She didn’t have her mean voice on, but her normal voice was pretty much never gentle.

  I hurried in, dropped Zee’s pies, and returned. Maybe it was living in a small town, but I was dying to hear why Martha was crying in the bushes. It felt a little bit like a girl who’d been snubbed at a middle school dance even though Martha was in her late-40s, beautiful, and a business owner.

  I came upon a slew of curses and paused in shock. I’d never have expected a woman who wore high heels, pencil skirts, and a chignon to run her bed and breakfast to be quite so…blue in her language.

  “He’s going to ruin everything,” Martha wailed to Zee. “I invested everything in my bed & breakfast, and I can’t afford for bad reviews to ruin it.”

  I felt a stab of sympathy. I had guessed, but I didn’t want to be right. She’d spent the evening before sleepless. I’d spent it wrapped up in Simon’s arms, full off of the food he’d grilled me, and certain I’d be ok. It made me feel so selfish to see she’d suffered while I’d recognized that all would be well with me. I might have inherited money from my grandparents, but it didn’t feel real, and I wanted The 2nd Chance Diner to do well on its own. I didn’t want it to be alive because I could throw money at it, I wanted it to flourish because my team was good at what they did. We were good at what we did, actually, I knew we were. And I was proud of the food we served, the thanks we got, and the smiles on the faces of customers.

  “Martha,” I said.

  She spun with eyes wide. Her black and gray hair was lovely and her eyes were wide with worry over who had overheard her.

  “You got an offer of a good review for a price?”

  Her face flushed with fury and that was what I wanted to see.

  “You have a nice place,” I told her honestly. “There is a way out of this for all of us. We’re going to find it and we’ll refuse to let that…man ruin our lives.”

  Zee cursed in agreement and her mean eyes narrowed on the devil we were speaking of. He smirked at us as he strutted past as though he were something special. He was only special if you used that word to describe evil trolls who deserved bad things to come back at them. I found myself swearing in response to that cocky glance.

  “You’re a bad influence,” I told Zee when she laughed at me for cursing. I nodded at both of them and headed down the street to my baby, The 2nd Chance Diner. I’d brought Mama Dog and Daisy today. Mama Dog was a long haired Dauschund and Daisy was a mutt, but she looked a basset hound. I grinned as I thought of them. That stupid man, Murphy Jesse couldn’t ruin my life. I had Simon, my sweet puppies, a job I had dreamed about, and good friends. My only worry was going to be figuring out a way to prevent Murphy Jesse, professional troll, from ruining the lives of my friends in Silver Falls.

  I shot a text out to my two best friends, the local doctor Jane and Maddie who was a hairdresser. It was time for a girl’s night and a little brainstorming. Afterwards, I was going to meet Simon at his place for dinner and—knowing his romantic self—a little dancing in his living room. And this time, I’d be bringing a dessert I knew he’d love.

  The diner was hoping when I arrived and Maddie stayed long enough to help get it under control. Our part-time employee, Roxy, had come in as well, so we were able to handle the rush a little better, but I was moving between seating people, helping Az with the cooking, and washing dishes. While we worked, Az asked me, “What ya gonna do about that offer, little luv?”

  He was a tall man who’d moved from Jamaica and his accent made me happy especially the way it rolled out with his deep voice. He was a good man, and I was grateful he’d rather be a cook at the beach than any of the things he was capable of. He liked cooking, running on the beach, and bonfires next to his little place. He didn’t care about ambition or big houses, so he was perfect for 2nd Chance.

  Appreciating him and our life here probably came from being a cog in the wheel for too long. Once you’d spent enough time as a minion—especially at big corporation—the little things like washing dishes while listening to playlists on your amazon account suddenly became priceless. There were so many things lost when your environment was ancient industrial carpet, windows you couldn’t see, and cafeteria food.

  “I’m not paying a single penny to that creature,” I told Az seriously. “I will do what I can to keep those around here unaffected by what he’s done, but there is no way that I will allow him to affect 2nd Chance, and I think we should do what we can to prevent him from affecting others.”

  Az grinned at me and I knew he felt the same. We weren’t going to be owned by some upstart blogger from Portland. That was the important thing.

  I was kind of surprised that Murphy didn’t try to hide what he was doing, and I’d spent a lot of time thinking about it the night before. I think it all came down to the transitory nature of information on the internet. Sure, he might have some immediate issues if it became known that he was unreliable, but he had so many subscribers who probably didn’t read about what he was doing and the nonsense he was pulling. He was safe because he didn’t work for a real organization like a newspaper. He could get away with a lot of unprofessionalism because he wasn’t a professional.

  He had no business doing the work that he did. He was ruining lives without bothering to think about the consequences of his…well…of his evil. When it came right down to it, he was using his position to mess with people’s lives. There were consequences to that. Hard consequences and, I hoped, terrible karma. I wouldn’t have even blinked if those reviews were his real opinion, but knowing that they were based on him forcing money out of people. He needed to be in a different business. One where he wasn’t touching people’s lives. Like…being a garbage man. Or perhaps, filing in a some ancient law firm basement.

  I growled as I thought that and then took an order for two short stacks, an all American omelet, and a waffle with strawberries. Everyone seemed to be doing pretty well, so I made my way back to the kitchen to do a load of dishes and think.

  Zee got back by the time the dishes were caught up and Az had done most of the prep cooking, so I started prepping the pork chops for our lunch special and looked up to see Simon in the window.

  “Hello,” he said. There was that glint in his eyes that he had just for me. He grinned as I winked at a him and I found myself wondering, yet again, why he liked me when he could pretty much just spin and point and find someone who would be interested in return.

  “Pork chops?” I asked. That flash of self-doubt made we want to tease him a bit and make sure he’d stay around. Maybe our grilled chicken salad with with the fat free dressing and egg whites?

  He cocked his head as he examined me and then rather than staying at the window, he made his way down the hall, grabbed my wrist, and tucked me into my office.

  “What did I do this time?”

  “Nothing,” I said and then laughed when he took my chin.

  “I would actually like pork chops.”

  I laughed harder at that. He’d caught me before I’d even gotten him.

  “With the potatoes, the gravy, and the zucchini,” he said clearly. “Not whatever second rate, calorie free option that won’t even satisfy me before I leave the diner let alone through dinner time.”

  I laughed so hard, I had to press my face into his chest and then when he laid a kiss on top of my head, I knew I wouldn’t be bringing him a salad after all.

  “You’re a good man, Simon,” I said. I leaned down to scratch the ears of my two favorite babies, Mama Dog and Daisy and then said, “You want to sit in the dining room?” />
  “Can you get away?”

  I debated and then reluctantly shook my head.

  “Jane’s coming in then,” he said. “I’ll sit with my cousin. Do you know what’s up with her?”

  I did, actually. I knew that she’d been blackmailed for years, her blackmailer had recently been killed, and she had to reface the fact that she’d never told her husband she cheated on him. One of their sons wasn’t biologically her husband’s. There was a good chance he’d never forgive her. Either of them really. Her husband, or her son, but Jane wasn’t having as easy of a time being brave as her conscience told her to be.

  “Mmmm,” I said, because I wasn’t confessing to knowing her secret, and I didn’t want to be in between them.

  He knew I was hedging and I escaped before he could stop me. Az was back in the kitchen, and there were people waiting to be seated, so I got everyone situated and Simon and Jane in the corner. I didn’t want to be distracted by them with the new rush of people.

  I waited and served and considered, taking a short break to send a recap of what was happening to my friends, Maddie, Jane, and Zee. We needed to conspire. Probably over wine. No… definitely, over wine. And cake.

  Zee took my arm an hour later and said, “Kyle Georgia got the same request. He told Martha.”

  “Semi-blackmail by our local jerk?” I asked.

  “That’s not the word I’d use,” Zee said.

  “Kyle runs that little Italian place in Lincoln City doesn’t he?”

  “Good food,” Zee said. Coming from Zee that meant it tasted as though it were made in the hills of Italy with all fresh, local ingredients and a team of Italian Grandmothers. I immediately wanted to go and I immediately wanted to crush Murphy Jesse even harder.

  “You think you can find out if anyone else is being harassed?”

  “Oh, of course,” Zee said. She knew everyone. She’d been a waitress at this diner in its various iterations since she was a teenager. She’d always lived in Silver Falls, and if she didn’t know someone from around here, she knew someone who knew them.