“If she released it, she’d have to get him to sign a consent form first.” He shrugged. “I’ve been at the other end of this argument. Personally, I think you have to respect a person’s right to stay out of the viewfinder. The world is full of people who actually want to be filmed. Might as well focus your attention on them.” Max took a sip of his coffee. “But those are never the people Kit is interested in filming.”
“That sounds like my little sister.”
“What does?” Kit asked as she made her way down the counter, a grilled cheese in hand. “Are you guys talking about me?” She sounded pleased.
“What else would we be talking about?” I punched Kit lightly in the bicep. “Did you patch things up with Sam? It took me two years of terrible line cooks to find him. Don’t mess things up.”
“Me, ruin the equilibrium of the Miss Guthrie Diner?” Kit held her hands up in mock horror, twisting her face into Janet Leigh’s right before she is stabbed in the shower in Psycho.
Max, catching the reference, sang the violin shriek of the score while making exaggerated stabbing motions.
“That reminds me,” Kit said, “I convinced projectionist guy—”
“Stan Wilkerson,” I interjected. Kit never bothered to learn people’s names, even when we were kids. It was always droopy-suspenders guy or hot grocery-bagger guy or world’s saddest baby.
Kit rolled her eyes. “I convinced Stan Wilkerson to show Road House at the Nickelodeon next week, when he told me that the distributor had accidentally sent The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover instead of Babette’s Feast.”
I shuddered, thinking of how the elderly women who made up the bulk of the Nickelodeon’s customer base would have responded to that feast scene. “Isn’t Road House a Patrick Swayze movie?” Kit had eclectic tastes, but I thought that was stretching it even for her.
“It’s quarter to three,” Max began to croon.
“There’s no one in the place, ’cept you and me,” Kit joined in.
“So set ’em up, Joe, I’ve got a little story I think you should know,” they sang in unison.
“It’s this amazing film noir, starring Richard Widmark,” said Max.
“And Ida Lupino,” Kit added excitedly, “who plays a tragic cabaret singer at a bar-slash-bowling-alley.”
“And the owner, Jefty, is in love with her—”
“Jefty!” Kit shouted.
“But she loves his best friend.”
“And she sings this absolutely heartbreaking rendition of ‘One for My Baby.’”
Max stood. “Before she starts playing, she lights a cigarette.” Max acts out the action, putting two of his fingers to his lips, flicking the thumb of his other hand on an imaginary lighter, and taking a long, deep drag. “And instead of putting it in an ashtray, she balances it precariously on the edge of the piano.”
“And she just lets it burn as she plays,” Kit added. “Like she couldn’t give a single fuck. It’s so badass. You have to see it.”
If someone were to ask me what was the one thing that Kit and I had in common, no question it was the movies. Both of our parents were film geeks. While other kids were watching Saturday morning cartoons, our mom sat us in front of the entire Frank Capra canon. When our peers were playing with Barbies, Kit and I were acting out scenes from Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy movies. (I always played the Spencer Tracy role, at Kit’s insistence—she was a director even then.) John Hughes and Steven Spielberg were our surrogate parents. By the time we were in high school we could sing all the lyrics from every Judy Garland film and none of the lyrics of any pop song on the radio.
“Count me in,” I said, making a mental note to pick up some popcorn kernels on the way home. A movie wasn’t a movie without popcorn.
The bell over the door chimed, and with a burst of cool air, Walt, who runs the Guthrie recycling center, ambled in.
“Hey, Walt,” Kit said and leaned over the counter to kiss his cheek. “How are you doing? Are the recyclers of Guthrie sorting their plastics like you told them to?”
“I heard you were in town, Katherine.” He took Kit’s hand in his. “Nice to see you’ve finally come home.”
“Can I get you anything, Walt? Charlie made that split pea soup you like.” I pulled out my order pad and a pencil.
“Wasn’t here for dinner, though I’ll have to take some of that to go. The missus will be happy.” Walt pulled a folded piece of notebook paper out of his jacket pocket. “Mary wanted me to ask about our great-granddaughter’s first birthday cake.”
I looked at him blankly. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
Walt unfolded the paper. “Mary ordered a cake for Masie’s birthday from Peggy. We figured since you inherited Peggy’s estate, then you must be taking over her business.”
I had never really thought of Peggy baking cakes as a business before. I thought it was just Peggy, being . . . Peggy the cake lady. The woman who likes to bake cakes. But of course I knew that she charged for the cakes. And I didn’t remember her ever having another job. It suddenly struck me how easy it is to think you know a person without really knowing them at all.
“The party is on Saturday.” Walt read from the paper. “Vanilla sheet cake, with a drawing of a clown holding a bunch of balloons. Happy 1st Birthday Masie to be written in green icing. My daughter says green is Masie’s favorite color. Don’t know how you would come to know the favorite color of a one-year-old.” Walt shrugged. “Will it be ready by eight on Saturday morning? If that’s too early, Mary could swing by here and pick it up after her Garden Club meeting.”
I looked at Kit. She held up her hands in surrender. Neither of us had inherited our mother’s talent in the kitchen. I couldn’t even manage to bake the Jiffy mix muffins when Charlie was busy. The one time I tried they came out like pasty, artificial-blueberry-flavored hockey pucks. Charlie wouldn’t let me near the oven for a week. “Walt, I’m so sorry, but—”
“We’ll have it for you by eight,” Max interjected.
“But—” Kit and I said.
“By eight. No problem,” Max repeated. He pointed to Walt’s piece of paper. “Do you mind if we keep that?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks, Walt,” I said, handing him the brown paper bag with the soup. “You can settle up on this when you pay for the cake.”
Walt tipped his scally cap and shuffled out the door.
Kit and I both stared at Max.
“Max, it’s kind of you to say yes, but I don’t think you realize—” I started.
“You know how I am in the kitchen,” Kit said at the same time. “What were you thinking?” Kit turned to me. “Wasn’t there a bakery over in Barton? Maybe they could—”
“They closed a couple of years ago.”
“What about the place where you get your desserts?”
Max looked shocked. “You don’t make your desserts? What kind of diner doesn’t make its own desserts? What about that ‘Homemade Desserts’ sign?” He pointed to the painted sign that hung behind the counter.
My cheeks burned. “When my mom hung the sign, we did have homemade desserts.” I looked at Kit. “My shipment from them just arrived yesterday. They have a five-hundred-dollar minimum.”
Kit chewed the end of one braid. “There isn’t any place a person can get a cake?”
“Peggy filled a niche. I mean, there’s Price Chopper, but they use shortening and—”
Max swallowed the last sip of coffee in his cup. “I’ll make it.”
We both stared at him again.
“I used to be a baker.”
The braid fell from Kit’s lips. “You used to be a what?”
Max shrugged. “When I was in my twenties, I lived at a Zen center in California. I was in charge of baking. It’s been awhile . . . but it’s not like the technology has changed or anythi
ng.”
“You are a man of mystery,” Kit said with admiration. “What other secret lives have you had?”
I had more practical matters on my mind. “What do you need?” I asked.
“People like what they are used to. I’ll need her recipe. First step is finding Peggy’s cookbook.”
I grabbed my car keys. “Let’s get to Peggy’s, then.”
CHAPTER THREE
We drove slowly down the long dirt road, the darkness swallowing the fields I knew lay beside us. It was a clear, moonless night. The sky above us was thick with stars. With Kit and Max in the car, it felt like we were driving home, not to Peggy’s empty house.
“That’s where we grew up,” Kit said to Max, pointing at our old place. I kept my eyes trained ahead. The new owners had chopped down the willow tree that I used to read under when it was too hot to be inside. The windows were dark, the driveway empty. Summer people had bought the place, but they couldn’t even be bothered to be here in the summer.
I pulled up to Peggy’s little red house—looking lonely without the lights on—and turned off the engine.
“All right, here we are,” I said, trying to sound more cheerful than I felt, but I couldn’t shake the sadness of wondering what it was like out here at night for Peggy, all by herself. Plenty of the old-timers liked their solitude, I reminded myself.
The sound of peepers and cicadas rose up from the field. A bright yellow pinpoint of light flashed and faded.
“Lightning bugs,” said Max. He and Kit sprang from the car. I watched Kit capture one with cupped hands, show it to Max, then let it fly away.
Max climbed up the stairs to the front porch in two long steps. “Cool place.”
Kit peered in the window. “I remember this house so well, but not the inside. Were we ever invited in?”
“Not that I recall,” I said, noticing that the bowls of kibble and water I left out for Freckles sat untouched on the porch. I pushed open the door.
The house had held on to its vanilla sweetness, but it was chilly. Inside, it was pitch dark.
“Do you think her spirit is still here?” Kit asked from behind me. “Do you think she’ll haunt the place because she left things unfinished?” She put her hand on my shoulder. “We’re here for you, Peggy! Anything you need. Just give us a sign.”
“Kit, can you wait until I find a light before you start a séance?” I moved farther into the kitchen, my left hand on the wall, searching for a light switch.
“I’m just saying—Peggy hasn’t been gone for too long. I’m planning on sticking around in spirit form for as long as I can.”
“Nah,” Max said, teasing. “You’re going to be reincarnated as a bodhisattva. But if it ends up ghosts are real, you can haunt me all you like. Ow,” Max said.
“You okay?” Kit asked.
“Just hit my shin on the edge of something. Nothing supernatural.”
“I don’t think Peggy is going to haunt her cottage over an undecorated sheet cake,” I said, finally finding the string to the overhead kitchen light. A field mouse stood perfectly still, staring at us before scurrying underneath the refrigerator. “And if she does, according to Max it will be finished by Saturday, and then she can rest in peace.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Max said, holding up a red-vinyl-covered book.
“Did you find her recipe book?”
“Not exactly.” He turned the pages. “Saturday—W&M—vw/rb, gl Happy 1st Birthday Masie,” he read.
“What does ‘vw/rb’ mean?” I asked, peering over to see what he was reading. It was a datebook. Peggy’s tiny, precise letters filled the Saturday square in pencil.
“That’s the cake flavor—vanilla with . . . raspberry, maybe?”
“Walt didn’t mention any filling,” I said, squinting down at the book. I needed reading glasses.
Kit elbowed me. “Nora, what if this code refers to something other than cakes? What if she were a spy?”
“Who hid her information in between the layers of cake and frosting.”
“And her old Border collies were trained assassins,” Kit said, laughter already rising up from her belly.
“Who were working as double agents—”
“Peggy’s. Accident. Was. No—” Kit had to gasp for breath.
“It was Freckles!” I choked out, laughing so hard tears ran down my cheeks. “It was Freckles. We have to capture him!”
“Was there some pot smoking I missed out on?” Max asked, but he looked amused.
“It’s a game Kit and I used to play when we were little,” I explained.
“We called it What If,” Kit said, wiping her eyes.
“We tried to top the other in silly ideas,” I added.
“It usually ended with one of us peeing our pants.”
“I see,” Max said, smiling.
I reached for the datebook. “Anyway,” I said, feeling a little embarrassed, “this must be some sort of shorthand. I’ll call Walt and confirm the filling, just to be safe.” I closed the book and tossed it onto the counter.
“Wait,” Max said. “You’re missing the big picture. Look.”
Max lay the book on the counter so we all could see it, and slowly began to turn the pages.
Sunday—FF—12cc—s/o.
Tuesday—CSF—c/c 10”r w/wt Good Luck Father Gene.
Thursday—Rotary Club—3L hbc—no coconut. No writing.
Max turned the pages faster. Day after day, week after week, filled with Peggy’s clear handwriting. I started to feel a little queasy.
“How far into the future is she booked?”
Max kept flipping. “Things start to slow down in March.”
I leaned back against the kitchen counter. I didn’t know how long Max would stick around, because I didn’t know how long Kit would be able to stay in Guthrie. She was a restless person. Only her lack of resources would hold her in place.
“That’s a lot of cakes,” was all I could manage.
“Let’s just worry about Saturday’s cake, and maybe next week’s, for now,” Max offered, reading the worried look on my face. “We need to find that recipe book.”
Max and I dug through all the pine cabinets and drawers of the kitchen and pantry, and looked between the worn copies of Betty Crocker and The Joy of Cooking. I even checked the refrigerator, remembering my father and the odd places he would put things when the Alzheimer’s started to progress. You never know.
“I found it!” Kit called from upstairs, stomping quickly down the narrow staircase. “It was in her room, bedside table, next to a pad of paper. She was making a grocery list.”
In Kit’s hands was an old biscuit tin with an illustration of a bouquet of English wildflowers barely visible on the lid. She pulled off the top. Inside were greasy index cards, their corners rounded and soft from being touched. A berry-stained 4x6 index card with a recipe in Peggy’s now-familiar handwriting slipped to the floor.
1-2-3-4 Cake
4 eggs, separated
1 cup milk
3 cups cake flour (sift and then measure)
4 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsweetened butter, softened
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
“It’s just a list of ingredients,” I said, flipping through the cards. “All of these ‘recipes.’ None of them have instructions. How are you supposed to know what to do?”
Max took the stack of cards from my hands. “That’s all I need.”
I looked at him doubtfully.
Max sat down at the kitchen table, pulled a clean sheet of paper from the pad Kit had brought downstairs, and began writing down ingredients. “I’ll make a list, then check to see what Peggy already has here in the kitchen. I’m guessing she
might have some big flour and sugar bins in the basement. Otherwise she would have needed to go to the market a couple of times a week.”
“The fridge is packed solid,” I said, patting the door. It was covered in magnets in the shape of woodland creatures. “You shouldn’t need much in the way of butter and eggs.”
I left Max scribbling away in the kitchen, and went in search of the thermostat. It felt as if the chill of the woods was seeping into the house. Kit must have had the same thought—I found her in the living room, building a fire in the fireplace.
“We’ll have to stay here until that burns out,” I said. “We don’t want any accidents.”
Kit balled up some newspaper and placed it under her perfect teepee of kindling. “Nora, I was just thinking.” Kit pulled a Zippo lighter from her back pocket, popped it open with a flick of her thumb, and sparked a flame.
I had wondered when this was coming. “Let me guess: you and Max would like to stay here?”
“No. I mean, yes, we’d love to stay here. I know we’re driving you nuts.”
“You’re not driving me nuts,” I said, knowing it sounded a little forced.
Kit rolled her eyes. “You do realize that everything you feel gets shouted out through your expressions, right? I’ve seriously never met a person with a worse poker face than you. It’s not a big deal. It’s a small place, and if we clear out, you’d have the space to paint again.”
“I don’t need space to paint.”
“Yeah, you do. You can’t paint in that tiny bedroom. The fumes will kill you.”
“You sound like Sean.”
“How is Sean?”
“Who’s Sean?” Max called from the kitchen.
“Nobody,” I said.
“Nora’s husband,” Kit said at the same time.
“Ex,” I said, shooting Kit a look. Kit and Sean were like Abbott and Costello when they got together. And the joke was always on me. They loved nothing more than to make me squirm.
“Did I mention a tarot card reader told me that you and Sean are karmically linked? I don’t think this divorce is going to last.”
The Late Bloomers' Club Page 6
