Easy as Pie

by M. J. Pullen

  Things didn’t get better once they were situated. Marlowe’s adapter cord wasn’t long enough to reach the electrical source, even after she inched the truck as close as she dared to the truck next to theirs. “Can you run out for it?” she asked Kimber and Annie, sweet girls who were trying their best, but obviously had no real on-the-job experience.

  They both shook their heads. “Steven is our ride.”

  Of course he was.

  The man in question was pacing in front of the truck, talking to someone at a local news station, trying to convince them to send their Dogwood Festival crew over to Life of Pie to do a special feature.

  Marlowe waved at him until he finally hung up. “We need an industrial extension cord. Thirty feet or longer. Can you run out and get it?”

  “No way. I need to be here. I’ve made all these press contacts who are going to come by looking for me. Shouldn’t the festival staff be able to help?”

  “I’ve only seen volunteers pass by so far, and none of them knew who to get in touch with. Jerry made all the arrangements and he’s not here yet.”

  “Well, that’s ridiculous. You should have made sure you had a contact number. Let me see what I can do.” So Steven did what he always did: got on the phone and tried to reach someone to get him what he needed—instead of taking thirty minutes to run out and do it himself.

  Meanwhile, Marlowe directed Annie and Kimber to set up as much as they could without power, and tried not to resent that the camera crew had no power issues whatsoever as they documented her struggle.

  In the growing throngs of vendors and volunteers passing back and forth around them, Marlowe spotted Cindy from the Bun Also Rises and Lynette from Crepes of Wrath, walking together with a beverage tub full of ice between them. Maybe they had an extra extension cord, or at least some extra ice to cool down the beverages and salads. When she called out, however, they pretended not to hear, and sped up the nearest hill toward a cluster of food trucks at the crest. Marlowe squinted up to see the entire Food Truck Mafia lined up together between the kids’ inflatables. Right in the middle, of course, stood the familiar beer kiosk from the Tipsy Trucker. But even when she squinted, Marlowe saw no sign of Kieran’s black hair against the stark-blue Atlanta sky.

  With barely an hour before the festival opened to the Friday afternoon crowd, Marlowe had run out of things she could do without electricity. She’d sent Annie and Kimber in their extra-tight T-shirts and friendliest smiles over to the newly relocated taco truck; they’d not only returned with forty pounds of borrowed ice, the guys had written down the private cell number for the festival operations manager on a napkin. Marlowe passed this on to Steven, fingers crossed.

  Expecting to have refrigeration, Marlowe hadn’t brought extra beverage tubs but she found two of her favorite oversized mixing bowls stashed in the cab of the truck. She passed the time filling these with the borrowed ice and as many of the beverages, salads, and pudding cups as she could cram into each. As the minutes ticked by, she optimistically set up the condiment station, as though her career weren’t hovering on the edge of a horrifying precipice.

  “Are you starting to get worried?” Jo brought Camera Two closer while Marlowe stacked the compostable spoons for the fifth time. She’d been a few yards away for the last half hour, following Steven’s pacing and dramatic hand gestures. Now she was tracking Marlowe’s busywork, as Jerry, who had appeared behind Jo with his arms folded, obviously smelled blood in the water.

  Marlowe took a sweeping look around at the gorgeous green hills against the Atlanta skyline and impossibly bright blue day, gathering herself. There was something mildly humiliating about her most stressful, disappointing moments being devoured by the cameras like this. Even though she liked Jo and the rest of the crew, in this minute it was hard not to see them as vultures, circling her carcass and hoping she’d make a glorious and interesting end.

  Public failure is profitable failure, Jerry always said when they were filming Takeout Takedown all those months ago. People want to see you struggle so they can root for you.

  Right. Might as well be honest. “It is pretty terrifying, to be honest. The Dogwood Festival is one of the most popular festivals in the city, and with this gorgeous weather, we’re going to have people descending on us in…” She glanced at her watch, as if she hadn’t been counting every single minute since they’d parked the truck. “Less than forty-five minutes.”

  “How long does it take the ovens to heat up?” Jo prompted.

  Wincing, Marlowe looked back at the camera and bit her lip. “Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. And the pies cook for thirty-five minutes, give or take.”

  That pretty much said it all, as far as Marlowe was concerned, but Jerry signaled for her to keep going. Amp up the drama. She could practically hear his mantra from the show. Dire situations pay for our vacations.

  Well, in this case, the truth would do nicely. “So pretty much, Steven has disappeared, we start in just over half an hour, and people are already showing up, checking things out. If I don’t get these ovens going soon, we’ll have a line of people and nothing to serve them but lukewarm salad and banana pudding.” She gave a grimacing smile. “At least we have pudding.”

  “Good. Let’s try it with ‘raw dough’ instead of banana pudding,” Jerry said.

  It was a reality show, so the language was supposed to be natural. But sometimes Jerry made little suggestions anyway. You were supposed to try your own sentence again with his preferred wording, and they’d pick between the two in the editing room. Fine.

  “If I don’t get the ovens going, I’ll have raw—”

  Marlowe’s voice failed her as she noticed someone coming down the hill behind Jerry, straight toward them, in familiar jeans and a maroon soccer jersey, a bright-orange coil slung over one shoulder. Before she had time to consider what was coming out of her mouth, she heard herself say it. “Thank God for banana pudding and Irishmen.”

  Jo made an almost imperceptible sound of suppressed laughter, which drew Marlowe’s attention to the camera still pointed in her direction. Her face went hot, and she took off running toward Kieran.

  “Whoa,” he said, as she nearly tackled him in relief on the rise of the hill. He gently removed her arms from his neck, letting the coiled extension cord slip down his arm and onto hers. “I heard you might be needing this.”

  “Oh, you have no idea. It was about to be a complete disaster. Complete.” To her surprise, Marlowe’s eyes were stinging with tears. She hadn’t realized how panicked she was until the pressure was relieved. Now she spewed like an overboiling pot. “It’s just been a hellish morning, everything’s gone wrong, Steven is useless, and I’ve been worried all week that you were angry with me…”

  Huh. She hadn’t meant to say that, either. Interesting.

  “Hush, a chara,” Kieran murmured, rubbing her arm. He glanced over Marlowe’s shoulder where the camera was presumably approaching. “Don’t let them see you like this.”

  Marlowe snorted. “They’d love nothing more than to catch me like this. It makes for great television when someone has a breakdown.”

  “What makes great television isn’t always what makes a great life, princess.” He swiped at a hot tear on her cheek with his thumb. “You’ve got this. Go crush the competition.”

  “But most of the competition are your friends.” Marlowe cringed, remembering how quickly Cindy and Lynette bolted in the other direction when she called to them.

  He shrugged. “And I’ll be there to comfort them with half-price pints when you wipe the floor with them, as any true friend would.”

  “Will you do the same for me if I fall on my face today?” Despite the knowledge that the cameras were surely well within reach by now, Marlowe took a half-step closer, holding the cord between them like a bouquet of flowers. It made a nice barrier to keep her from leaning closer and making an ass of herself. Again.

  “Definitely,” he said, voice low and husky. “We’ve already clearly e
stablished that we’re friends. And that’s part of the deal.”

  “So, you’re not mad at me.”

  He shook his head.

  In place of the panic, a twinge of something altogether more pleasant constricted in her belly. Marlowe hadn’t even solved her problem yet, but she felt better about this damn day already. “God. I am so glad Steven thought to call you. It’s the least useless thing he’s done all day.”

  “Steven—” Kieran’s face twisted. “No. Barbara found me. She heard those gossipy hens talking about how you were scrambling for help, and when she came this way to see what you needed, she overheard your girls asking around about the extension cord.”

  He touched the cord between them, just as the camera made its way around them into view. Jo was doing a slow sideways walk to keep the camera on her shoulder steady. Marlowe became immediately aware of the tiny distance between her and Kieran, the tilt of his head, and the fact that they’d been standing here when the ovens should’ve been pre-heating for ten minutes. This was the point where the audience at home would throw things at the television and tell her she was an imbecile.

  Marlowe jerked backward, putting distance between them and talking way too loudly. “Okay, thanks for this, Kieran! Gotta run!” She turned, nearly tripped over her own feet, and turned back. “I’ll get this back to you as soon as we can get another one.”

  “Keep it,” he said. As she rambled down the hill toward the truck, barely keeping her feet beneath her, she thought she heard him speak again. “What are friends for?”

  14

  Thank the gods of banana pudding and helpful Irishmen. Marlowe danced with impatience as she unloaded pans from the hot box carrier and waited for the temperature to be just high enough to toss them in.

  Things were getting back on track. In the first stroke of luck Marlowe had all day, the tasks of getting the truck plugged in and the ovens running were as simple as she’d hoped. Although poor Annie was still pretty clueless, Kimber turned out to be more useful than expected: calm in a crisis and surprisingly adept at following rapid-fire—sometimes incoherent—shouted directions.

  As a curious line of people began forming outside the truck doors, they were only about ten minutes behind on pies, and Steven—bless his narcissistic heart—kept the customers busy by talking up the show and hamming it up for the cameras. Marlowe kept her head down, barely pausing to breathe, much less to scarf down the occasional bite of food for herself.

  The festival was the largest it had been in years; the perfect April weather had people crawling out of their offices in droves, soaking up sunshine and the richness of Atlanta people-watching. They sold out of pulled pork and kimchi pies late Saturday afternoon, and Marlowe had to send Steven back to the prep kitchen for a few trays she’d stashed in the freezer. But people seemed just as happy with her fried chicken and pea version, and the vegetarian Brunswick stew was a hit. Though he didn’t contribute much in the kitchen, Steven did manage to capture an adorable three-second video of a toddler trying to drink a whole cup of the stuff and the funny little looping image now had more than three thousand likes on Instagram.

  When the festival began to wind down Sunday afternoon, Marlowe was amazed at how little food was left. She sorted what could be frozen for later into a cooler, and what couldn’t into a box for the prepared food rescue charity. Then she sent Annie and Kimber home with a small cash bonus, silently apologizing for underestimating them. Steven gave them a ride, which Marlowe figured meant she might see him again on Tuesday. The production crew set up on a hill to do a time-lapse sequence of the festival ending: people scurrying around like ants while the giant slides deflated, the stages were deconstructed, and the sun set over the Atlanta skyline.

  Even though her legs ached, and her feet were numb from the last seventy-two hours, Marlowe still appreciated the ritual of cleaning her own kitchen alone, with only Mary J. Blige on her headphones to keep her company. She would know where everything was when it was time to unload and wash it all. She could yell obscenities without hesitation when she dropped something on her foot. She could dance around while she stacked the dirty pans. Mary was really belting it out today, which was why Marlowe didn’t hear the knock at the door until it had become a rather startling pounding.

  “Crap!” She’d locked the door out of habit. Fumbling with her phone to turn down the music, she dropped it on the grill, where it nearly bounced straight into the still-hot deep fryer. “Who the hell is pounding on the door like I owe them money…”

  Kieran. She didn’t owe him money, but she did still have his extension cord, and there had certainly felt like some unfinished business between them on Friday. Her heart squeezed as she imagined him using the cord as an excuse to drop by at the end of the day. Maybe he’d bring her the last cup of cold beer from the Tipsy Trucker kiosk, or—better yet—a bottle of that whiskey he’d introduced her to the first day she walked into the pub. Two glasses, please, and one sunset at the end of a very long weekend.

  “Hey,” Steven said, surprising her when she opened the door. “Why’d you have it locked?” He was freshly showered, and there was a guy from the camera crew behind him, getting them both on film.

  “Habit.” Marlowe shrugged. “You don’t have to help clean up. I’m almost done here. We can hit the dishes first thing in the morning.”

  A confused look crossed Steven’s pale, sharp features. His rounded cheeks were pink with sun and glowing with a light sheen of perspiration. “Sure,” he said slowly, holding out his hand to her. “I can do tomorrow. I have meetings in the morning, though. Why don’t we make it late? We’ll grab dinner or something.”

  Marlowe let out an exasperated sigh and pulled her hand back from his, adjusting her apron. She’d told him a hundred times the kitchen was rented through noon on Monday and they had to be finished and out by then. But he’d tried to be helpful this week, and he had managed some press coverage and social media buzz, all the stuff Marlowe hated dealing with.

  She forced a patient smile. “That’s okay. I’ll take care of it. I knew you’d still have your day job when we started this.”

  “Which is exactly what I wanted to celebrate.” He moved aside and gestured for her to come out. “Our successful partnership.”

  Next to the service window, the table they used for condiments had been moved out and covered with a white tablecloth. There was a bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket in the center, complete with candles and the comically cliched single rose in a tiny vase. The sinking sun cast an orange filtered light over the scene. And there were cameras capturing every angle of it.

  “Come get off your feet.” Steven put a hand on the small of her back. “Here, let me take your apron.”

  “No, I still have work—”

  “It can wait. Let’s just relax and enjoy the moment.”

  Easy for you to say, she thought uncharitably. You aren’t the one who’ll have to get up at three in the morning to get out of the prep kitchen on time.

  Steven pulled her apron over her head and tossed it to a production assistant, which annoyed Marlowe more than she could reasonably say in front of the cameras. He led her to one of two folding chairs, both angled toward the camera so the champagne bucket would sit between them.

  “How long have you been planning this?” She turned to him. “Where did you get all this stuff?”

  “I have my methods,” he said cryptically, but Marlowe didn’t miss a quick glance at the PA who’d caught the apron. Lovely. They couldn’t pitch in with a seventeen-dollar extension cord to save her whole business launch, but champagne and linens and a stupid freaking rose were no problem. She plopped into the chair in an unladylike huff. This whole scene: the table, the sunset, the long overdue drink…it was a sad parody of what she’d been hoping for when she’d thought Kieran was knocking. Up the hill, where the Tipsy Trucker kiosk and other food trucks had been, there was nothing but trampled grass and crews loading equipment. Obviously he wasn’t planning to d
rop by.

  Screw it. Marlowe pulled the bottle out of the ice, not even pausing to let it drip into the bucket before she filled one of the glasses all the way and tipped it back, downing a third of the flute in one swill. She didn’t even like champagne.

  “Mar?” Steven’s realtor smile was plastered hard across his face. “You okay?”

  “Oh. Sorry!” She pulled out the bottle again and filled Steven’s glass, clinking it with the neck of the bottle. She didn’t know what he was doing here, but she was pretty sure she couldn’t face it without a bit of liquid courage.

  “I’ve always loved that about you,” he said. “Your sense of humor.”

  Uh oh. Compliments were never a good sign with Steven. It invariably meant he wanted something, and Marlowe had a feeling she wouldn’t want to give him whatever it was.

  “To our partnership.” He raised his glass and waited for her to follow suit.

  “Actually.” She clinked his glass but didn’t take another sip. “I wanted to talk to you about that.”

  “Really?” He leaned toward her, resting his arm on the back of her chair.

  She shifted away to the other edge of her chair. “I’ve been thinking, and I really appreciate how you’ve come to my rescue with this whole situation. I was so upset about Tara skipping out on me, and I really don’t know what I would have done without you.”

  “I told you, babe. I’m here for you. Always will be.” His hand grazed her back, and Marlowe tried not to shudder. She glanced at Jo, whose face was unreadable behind her camera.

  “Anyway, I was thinking that since this weekend was such a success… There’s a little extra cash, and I’d like to start paying back what you’ve put in. It will be small at first, maybe a few hundred dollars, but…”

  Steven sat back, shaking his head. “Don’t be silly. We need to reinvest that money in our business. You’re in the early stages. It’s not time to start taking owner withdrawals.”

  “My business,” she corrected softly.