by Tonya Kappes
Tiara’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. “You just… hired her?”
“I know, it’s so unlike me,” Marilyn nodded, pleased with her decision.
Mother and daughter were in the shop, sliding forks through a midday slice of Key Lime bliss, having formed a tentative truce after their last disagreement.
“Ladies,” a man’s voice boomed out, announcing his arrival in the most boisterous manner possible.
“Fergus, would you like a slice, or the whole thing?” Marilyn asked the flamboyant gent, who was one of her favorite regulars.
Fergus stopped in every Wednesday and Saturday without fail, and quite often several times in between, when the mood struck him. Today he was decked out in blue and pink plaid pants, with a white track-suit top. His curly salt-and-pepper hair was carelessly tousled from his walk to the shop.
“That depends, lovely lady” he sidled up to Marilyn. “Will you be joining me or will I be eating alone?”
“Alone,” Marilyn laughed.
Fergus had been attempting to ask her out for four years now, and it was more of a running joke between them then an actual offer, but he always held out hope.
“Fine,” he blew out an exaggerated sigh, sinking into a chair on the patio.
“Ouch,” Marilyn groaned, kneading the back of her neck, and feeling stiff and sore all over.
She had a sneaking suspicion that the pain stemmed from the positions into which she’d contorted herself in her extreme effort to chaperon Drew and her daughter at yoga yesterday.
“Need a massage, my damsel in distress?” Fergus cracked his knuckles and waggled a set of profoundly bushy eyebrows in anticipation.
“Have you ever tried online dating?” Tiara asked, her voice dripping sweet sarcasm.
“Heavens no, dear girl, I’m all talk and no game. If I were to take a lovely lady out on the town, I wouldn’t know what to do with her. Besides…I’m too grumpy to keep polite company,” he gave her a wicked grin.
“You’re never grumpy,” Tiara observed, enjoying a bite of pie.
“That’s only because you see me while I surrounded by beautiful things,” he glanced at Marilyn and the pie in the middle of the table, gazing hungrily at both.
“Ugh, mom make him stop,” she put down her fork, rolling her eyes.
“Really? Is that what you want?” Marilyn asked, blinking with mock-innocence. “Weren’t you the one who tried to sign me up on one of those internet dating sites?”
“Yes, but I didn’t want to have to watch the results, I just wanted to instigate them. Completely different,” she shuddered playfully.
Tiara was in a much better mood today since she’d heard the news about her mother hiring Susan. Marilyn hadn’t heard a peep out of her daughter all night, and when she walked in this morning, she’d had a feeling it was going to be a quiet day between them, so the light-hearted banter that she was engaging in at the moment was encouraging.
“Careful now, I haven’t threatened to sink Mr. Yoga’s boat, so you shouldn’t rain on my internet dating parade,” she teased.
“That was incredibly random. Please refrain from picking at yesterday’s conversational threads,” Tiara warned lightly, no longer joking.
“Whose boat?” Fergus piped up, hoping for a healthy dose of gossip.
“I meant it metaphorically…you know, to sink someone’s boat,” Marilyn floundered, wishing she’d never brought it up.
Tiara shot her mother a withering look and stuffed a huge bite of pie into her mouth.
“What would you like today Fergus?” the young woman asked, her mouth full, grabbing her now-empty plate and heading toward the display cases. “You can see our lovely array of sweet treats ready to please your delicate palate.”
“Wow, she’s good. You should give her a job,” he teased Marilyn, with a chuckle.
“As a matter of fact I already have. But I appreciate your reaffirming my decision,” she said dryly.
“Actually it was my decision,” Tiara commented, moving behind the counter.
Marilyn stared at her daughter, not knowing how to respond. Fortunately, Fergus took the comment as a good-natured ribbing, rather than a rude remark, and grinned at the young lady.
“Now,” she continued. “My suggestion for you today would be a chocolate covered key lime pie bar on a stick. You can take it with you and eat it as you are walking home, contemplating life, love and internet dating.”
She leaned across the counter and handed him the luscious-looking treat. Fergus strode forward and accepted it almost reverently.
“And we’ll send you home with this lovely dessert for a special treat tonight.” Tiara pulled a particularly perfect pie from its spot in the case.
She tilted it toward Fergus, who nodded approvingly, his mouth full of chocolate-covered Key Lime bar. Tiara gently placed the pie in its box with a flourish.
“Now for the piece d’resistance, four key lime cream puffs, one in each corner of the box.”
She tucked each fluffy delight into an empty corner of the box and tipped it toward Fergus for the final reveal.
“Sold,” he exclaimed, licking a smear of chocolate from his thumb. “How much do I owe you?”
“Let’s see, that will come to forty five seventy nine,” Tiara replied, keying the items into the register.
“Oh, my…It costs me a pretty penny, to enlarge this waist line,” he grumbled, reaching for his wallet.
“Consider it a peak experience. What could be more important than that?” Tiara challenged, eyebrow raised.
“How much pie do you two actually eat?” he asked casually, handing over his credit card.
“More than you would ever believe possible, but we also eat vegetables occasionally,” Marilyn intervened, before Tiara could think of another snarky remark.
She was proud of the figure that she’d managed to maintain despite her incredible sweet tooth. She’d thought about writing a cook book, filled with her amazing recipes, called “Take Time for Key Lime.” It would be the ultimate anti-diet book and just so much fun. It was one of the more frivolous ideas she’d had, but the thought made her smile.
“He really is a sweet man,” Marilyn commented when Fergus left.
“I’m a big fan of the quirky characters in this town. It’s like no other place in the world.” Tiara said with a wistful look that made Marilyn take notice.
“So you really liked her?” Tiara said, snapping out of her reverie and returning to the previous conversation about Susan, her mother’s newest employee.
“Yup, I did…and I hired her on the spot. I said you would be the money person since I take care of the creative side of things. She completely understood, and when she asked about her pay schedule, I referred her to you.”
“I’m on it.” Tiara said. “Isn’t this fun?”
“It really is,” Marilyn leaned over and gave her daughter a little squeeze. “I think you’re brilliant and beautiful and if you stay here long enough every man on the island will be lining up outside the door just to order from you.”
Shaking her head at her mother’s fantasies, the young woman smiled indulgently, and closed the cash register with a flourish.
Chapter 6
It was a busy Saturday morning, and one of the main ovens had just stopped working. Susan had jumped right in to her first weekend shift, and Marilyn was about to run an order of seven pies out to a garden party on the other side of the island.
“I’m taking the pies to Sandra Harrison’s house, Joe and Larry should be here to get that oven running again in five to ten minutes, tops,” Marilyn assured her new employee.
Frazzled, she headed for the door, holding up her cell on her way out, in a gesture for Tiara to call if anything else should go wrong. Her daughter frowned. There was a line of customers that reached out the door and beyond, some of whom were more patient than others, and Susan was too new to run the cash register efficiently.
“Do you want me to take these over?�
�� Susan called tentatively from the kitchen, looking at a veritable mountain of unprepared strawberries.
“No, actually if you could just work on the getting the pie shells that we already have into the freezer and then prep a few dozen more, we’ll be ready to go when the ovens are working again,” Tiara replied, feeling a bit overwhelmed.
“You got it,” Susan called out with enthusiasm, and dove into her task.
Tiara wasn’t so sure things would run as smoothly as her mother had indicated. Joe and Larry were a father-son mechanical team who gave Marilyn good rates in exchange for a significant discount on pies. They were usually prompt but they frequently took a long time to diagnose and fix the issues.
“Ok, yes…what can I get for you?” she smiled, at the woman in front of her, determined to be a professional, despite the concerns which were weighing heavily on her mind.
“Two slices for here, please.”
Tiara plated the slices, garnished them with two whipped cream filled strawberries, rang them up and moved to the next person. After seven minutes of dedicated hustle, the line had diminished and she was ready to pull her hair out.
“How does my mother do this every day?” she exclaimed, venting to Susan via the pass-through to the kitchen, now that the last customer had gone.
“She’s a talented and determined woman,” the placid baker replied, washing her hands and wondering if the question had been rhetorical.
“Hey, Tiara,” a male voice called out from behind her.
She turned around, catching sight of Drew, standing there looking tanned and adorable. Tiara moved from behind the counter, and sauntered over to where the yoga instructor lounged casually in a chair near the door. She didn’t smooth down her hair, not wanting to be obvious about her attraction, but she did give him a brilliant smile.
“Hey Drew, what can I get for you?” she asked, delighted to see him outside of class, but trying hard to play it cool.
“Oh, uh nothing, actually…I don’t eat sugar…” he said it proudly and Tiara could see why—six packs don’t lie. “I just dropped in to see if you might be up for a dive, maybe tomorrow?”
Tiara recognized a perfect opportunity when she saw one. She could make a date with Drew that her mother wouldn’t even know about.
“Tomorrow would be great—” she began, only to be interrupted by a new arrival.
“Hey ho,” Larry the handyman called out, as the bell over the door jangled announcing the arrival of him and his son.
Father and son were complete opposites. Joe was tall and thin with a receding hairline, Larry had a full head of hair, and a girth that made Tiara wonder how he was able to fit into some of the spaces that needed his attention.
“I’m so glad to see you two,” Tiara breathed a sigh of relief. “We are absolutely stalled out here without our oven. I hope you can save the day,” she smiled sweetly, hoping that her shameless flirting would spur them to work faster.
She could feel Drew’s eyes on her and her face flushed with color that had nothing to do with the island heat.
“Give me a sec,” Tiara said to her Yogi, and turned to Susan who had just come back from the walk-in freezer. “Would you mind?” she asked, inclining her head toward the new customer who had walked in just behind the repairmen. “I’ll only be a minute.”
“Of course, take your time” Susan smiled knowingly, before turning to the woman who had approached the register.
The customer’s cloyingly sweet perfume permeated the entire shop.
Tiara turned back to Drew. “Is there anything that I should bring?”
“Tiara,” Susan called out softly. “She would like to use the restroom…?”
She phrased the situation in the form of a question because they actually had no public restroom and she didn’t want to offer the employee restroom if it wasn’t allowed.
“Oh, no problem, it’s in the back on the right. Just be careful, there are some men working on the ovens, so there might be tools on the floor,” Tiara advised, with a polite smile, hoping that her frustration didn’t show.
“Thank you,” the woman bolted rather quickly to the back of the shop.
“Tiara, you are a genius!” Fergus burst into the store with greater enthusiasm than usual. she glanced apologetically at Drew and mouthed ‘sorry’.
“So you liked it, did you?” she replied, her patience wearing thin.
“Those little puff things. Exactly right, hit the spot!” Fergus noticed Susan with obvious appreciation, and Tiara looked at him pointedly, warning him without speaking, to stay away from the kitchen staff.
“You must be new…” he commented to the baker, who smiled and returned to the kitchen after placing the two fresh pies that she had carried out of the freezer into the chilled display case.
“Down boy—” Tiara warned, aloud this time. Fergus merely winked at her and began perusing the selection of goodies behind the glass. “So what’ll it be today?” she asked.
“Same thing as last time. Only hold the popsicle,” he rubbed his hands together in anticipation.
Tiara smiled at his antics, despite herself.
“You got it.”
Pulling out a pie box, she carefully loaded up a full key lime pie, four key lime cream puffs in each corner, and four of her new whipped cream stuffed strawberries on top, tilting it up for approval.
“Genius,” he pronounced, dramatically plucking one of the strawberries from the pie and popping it into his mouth.
Tiara took another strawberry from her tray and replaced the missing one, then sealed the box. Fergus paid and dropped a dollar bill into the tip jar, whistling a happy tune as he made his way out the door and back to the boardwalk.
Tiara returned to the table where Drew reclined in his chair, taking in the entire situation.
“I am so sorry. This has been the craziest morning…the ovens aren’t working, my mother is out on a delivery, it’s just been bananas,” she sighed, shaking her head.
“You seem pretty yogic about it,” he observed kindly, his eyes sparkling.
A piercing scream suddenly shattered the lull of the now nearly-empty shop.
“Someone help that man!” the lady who had just come out of the rest room yelled, staring in horror through the glass at the front of the shop.
Tiara followed her gaze and leapt to her feet.
“Fergus,” she cried out, tearing out of the shop at a dead run.
Drew got to the man slumped on the sidewalk before she did and was already assessing the situation.
“Fergus, what’s wrong?” Tiara whimpered.
The older gentleman’s face was drained of color and his eyes were wide with pain and shock.
“Call an ambulance,” Drew yelled back into the store, while Tiara held Fergus’ hand, frightened tears streaming down her face.
Marilyn saw the ambulance out front when she was still two blocks away from her shop. She sped through a red light, pulled over, and left the car running, getting to the scene just in time to see Fergus being placed quickly inside the waiting ambulance. After the emergency vehicle departed, lights flashing and sirens blaring, she turned to her pale and trembling daughter.
“Tiara,” she pulled her daughter into a tight hug. “I saw the ambulance…is Fergus ok?” she asked, concerned for her friend, but far less panicked now that she knew her daughter wasn’t bleeding out in the shop.
“I don’t know,” Tiara said in a small voice, shaking her head.
“He had a heart attack, but I’m sure he’ll be ok now that he’s with professionals,” Drew spoke up with what seemed like misplaced confidence.
“Ok,” Marilyn took a breath. “I’d better go park the car…I just left it running out there.”
She came in moments later, still shaken but trying to relax.
“Do you want to go home?” she asked Tiara, who appeared to be pretty profoundly impacted by the experience.
“I can give her a ride, if you’d like,” Drew volunteered
.
“Yes, that would be nice,” Marilyn sighed, hoping that he wouldn’t try to bowl over her traumatized daughter with a “knight in shining armor” routine.
She watched thoughtfully, as he led the way to his car, with Tiara trailing slowly behind him, still in a state of mild shock. She waited until they were out of sight, then went into the shop. Susan had finished the crusts on eight more pies and had begun mixing the ingredients for the filling.
“Susan, are you ok?”
Marilyn noticed that the traumatized woman’s hands were shaking.
