Friendship Bread

by Darien Gee

  Clyde looks up, suddenly interested. He does love banana cream pie.

  Hazel preheats the oven, then starts combining ingredients. The pharmacy doesn’t open until nine, but Clyde likes to get there early even though he has an assistant who checks the packages and makes sure everything’s in order before they open.

  “When’s it gonna be ready?”

  Hazel shrugs nonchalantly as she greases two medium-size bundt pans and then dusts them with sugar. “In about an hour.”

  An hour! He could easily wait an hour. Clyde folds the paper and brings his empty bowl to the sink. “I’ll just go check the weather channel,” he says.

  “That’ll be fine.” Hazel watches him leave out of the corner of her eye. She isn’t surprised when a yelp comes from the living room.

  “What’s this?!”

  “That would be the church’s volunteer form for the Easter potluck.”

  “I can read, Hazel. What I want to know is what is it doing in my chair?”

  “They need big strong men to help set up tables and chairs, then go out and hide the Easter eggs for the kids. Pen’s clipped right there on the top and your spare reading glasses are on the side table.”

  Clyde groans. “Hazel!”

  She pours the first batch of batter into the pans and slides them into the oven. “Should be ready in about forty-five minutes,” she calls out to him. “And I’m putting on a fresh pot of coffee for you. I got that vanilla-flavored kind that you like. On sale.”

  Clyde grumbles as he slips on his reading glasses. He works six days a week as it is, and he likes to keep his Sundays free for sleeping in. He’ll go with Hazel to church so long as it’s the 10:30 service and not the 8:30 service, but this is really pushing it.

  He holds the form out in front of him and reads the long list of volunteer duties. This is an all-day gig! Well, forget it. Hazel can keep her banana-Amish-whatever bread. He doesn’t appreciate being coerced into anything.

  He stands up, ready to march into the kitchen and give her a piece of his mind when the smell of cinnamon and bananas hits him. There’s a hint of walnuts, too. Hazel is humming, and there’s the sound of coffee percolating. Suddenly his entire house smells too damn wonderful for words. He sits back down with a sigh and begins filling out the form.

  Dang that woman.

  CHAPTER 12

  “Tell me again,” Livvy says eagerly. Her eyes are lit up with interest.

  Edie tears off a piece of pizza. “Okay. Supposedly there’s all this cake batter floating around Avalon. Amish Friendship Bread, though it has nothing to do with the Amish.” She picks off the pepperoni slices then takes a bite of her pizza, chewing thoughtfully. “I did some research online and apparently it’s pretty popular. It’s like a chain letter, except it doesn’t say anything bad is going to happen to you. Just that you’re supposed to take care of this batter and then, ten days later, split it up into four cups. You bake with one and give the remaining three cups to three friends.”

  Edie holds up a plastic bag filled with the starter. She got it from Bettie Shelton at last night’s scrapbooking meeting. Turns out the women of the Avalon Scrapbooking Society know more about this town than she’ll ever find out on her own so she plans on attending their meetings for just a little while longer. For research.

  “Got another meeting,” she told Richard last night as she headed out the door, letting out an exaggerated what-can-you-do sigh. “It’s for work.” Under her jacket she hid the small plastic box that contained an X-Acto knife, plastic erasers, glue erasers, scissors, an assortment of colorful eyelets and mini brads. The group is always happy to share supplies and paper, but Edie already favors certain scrapbooking tools over others and just figured it would be better for her to get her own. It’s a legitimate business expense because, of course, she wouldn’t be doing this otherwise.

  “Whatever you say,” Richard had responded good-naturedly.

  Now, Livvy takes the plastic baggie from Edie and stares at it in wonderment. “This is the same thing that Miss Sunshine—I mean, Cora Ferguson—had at the police station?”

  Edie nods. “And, given the way this stuff proliferates, it probably came from the same original starter somewhere down the line.”

  “Where?”

  “Or, more precisely, who? That’s what I want to find out. Nobody was doing Amish Friendship Bread in this town when I arrived, and now everyone’s got a bag.”

  “I don’t.” Livvy looks disappointed.

  Edie grins as she helps herself to another slice of pizza. “Well, you’re in luck. In nine days I’ll have to split this, so you can have one of my bags. How does that sound?” She begins to pick the rounds of pepperoni off this slice, too, adding it to the pile, then looks up to see Livvy beaming at her.

  Judging by the pleased look on Livvy’s face, Edie can tell that it sounds pretty good.

  Livvy is grinning. “That sounds great, Edie.” Livvy likes that their friendship has evolved beyond the office, that Edie has taken her into her confidence. She doesn’t quite understand what the big deal is with this Amish Friendship Bread thing, but she likes that Edie wants to include her. She wonders what she can do for Edie in return. “Thanks!”

  Edie barks out a laugh. “Don’t thank me yet,” she says. “From what I’ve read, plenty of people will disown blood relatives if they show up with a bag of this stuff. You’ll hate me in a month when your house is overflowing with starter.”

  Livvy knows that Edie is joking, because Livvy could never hate Edie, never hate anyone. Not even Julia who has been freezing her out for so long that Livvy is starting to think that there’s no real hope of reconciliation. It’s sad and unfair, but Livvy still doesn’t hate Julia. She feels her eyes getting wet so she blinks quickly as she clears her throat. She wants this friendship with Edie to work. “What is it that you want me to do?”

  “Help me ask some questions—you know this town better than I do. We’ll start tracking when people started getting bags, who they got it from, when they got it, and so on. Eventually we’ll find the source. I know we will.” Edie takes a swig of soda.

  “Okay.” Livvy tries to remember what Edie just said. Maybe she should have taken notes. “And, um, why again?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why are you writing this? Is it like a cooking piece?”

  Edie shakes her head. “No, no. It’s like … a reminder of how we waste our time doing things that don’t matter, when there are things we could be doing that do matter. I mean, if you’re going to have a chain letter thing going on, why not ask people to give a dollar a day and ask three other people to give a dollar a day and so on? Or plant a tree? Or give up some useless piece of crap that just clogs up our landfills and depletes our ozone? I think we could all do well to have one less lipstick in our purse, you know?”

  Livvy makes a note never to let Edie look inside her purse.

  Edie continues on, talking about social mores and how, if they do this article right, they’ll be able to set an example for how people can better use their time and resources to help the greater good. “I mean, you should have heard the women last night. It’s all they talked about! And then you factor in the time to shop, bake, care for the thing, pass it on to others. There are so many other ways people can make a bigger impact on the world in much less time. It’s like, get real. This is cake we’re talking about here.”

  “Okay.” Livvy nods. This could be fun, an adventure almost. She wants to help, wants to make this into the great story Edie is talking about. “Patrick must be pretty excited. He loves human interest stories.”

  Edie lowers her voice, suddenly serious. “Livvy, I’m not doing this for the Gazette. I mean, I might if it turns out to be nothing, but I think I can really angle it and get some of the larger metropolitan papers interested. That’s why he cannot know, okay?”

  “But why?”

  “Because even though Patrick knows I want to write for other publications, he may want this f
or the Gazette. I think it’s a much bigger story. A piece that goes beyond this small town.”

  Livvy winces. Is being in a small town a bad thing? “But it’s about Avalon …”

  “Look, Livvy, you don’t have to help if you don’t want to.” Edie gives her a look, then shrugs.

  Livvy feels a rise of panic, not wanting Edie to find someone else. “No,” she says quickly. “I do want to help. I was just asking.”

  Edie raises an eyebrow as she chews on some crust. “Are you sure? What about Patrick?”

  “What about him?” Livvy forces herself to give an indifferent shrug. Livvy still doesn’t get what the fuss is about, but she doesn’t have a problem doing something behind Patrick’s back, especially after he praised Tracy for the Web-based advertising proposal that Livvy wrote. “I’m in sales. He doesn’t care what I do so long as I show up at the meetings and make coffee.”

  Edie nods, at ease again. “Great. So I’ll take care of this bag and see what happens. If you want, you can come over when I’m baking and tell me what you’ve found. Each starter bag makes two loaves, so you can take one home.”

  Livvy brightens. “When? Today?”

  “What? No, Livvy, I told you. In nine days.” Edie gives her head an impatient shake.

  Livvy picks at her pizza, wishing she hadn’t said anything. She’s going to blow it if she’s not careful, asking questions Edie’s already answered. “Oh, right. Nine days. Okay.”

  This friendship is important to Livvy, not only because no one has really talked to her since Josh’s death, but because Edie is the friend that Livvy’s never had—smart, conscientious, worldly. She’s seen so much and done so much that Livvy could listen to her all day. Edie is so sincere in her desire to make the world a better place that Livvy wants to help, even if she doesn’t quite understand exactly what they’re doing.

  The other thing Livvy likes about Edie is that she never says anything negative about Richard, never complains about him or says anything that’s less than complimentary of him, unlike Carol and Jo Kay who are constantly lamenting about their demanding children and hapless husbands. Next to Mark and Julia, Richard and Edie are the kind of couple Livvy hopes she and Tom might be someday.

  She feels Edie’s eyes on her, but doesn’t look up, afraid she’ll give herself away or say something dumb again.

  “Hey, I have an idea,” Edie says. She wipes her hands on a napkin and stands up. “Want to go do a pregnancy test?”

  It’s humiliating, peeing on a stick. Edie’s done stranger things living in a third-world country, but Avalon is not a third-world country. Richard would crack up if he knew what she was doing.

  Edie sighs as she shifts uncomfortably in the tiny stall. She’s only here because she could tell that somehow she’d let Livvy down, could sense her pulling back. Livvy has become a part of Edie’s day in an unexpected sort of way and Edie has gotten used to it, even looking forward to their coffee breaks and pizza runs. So when Livvy looked uncomfortable, she decided to propose the one thing she knew would cheer Livvy up.

  “Is it doing anything?” comes Livvy’s voice from outside the stall. “A minus means you’re not pregnant. Plus means you are.”

  “There’s nothing, Livvy. I just went to the bathroom.” But there’s a tinge of pink already starting to form. A faint minus, thank God. Not that she was worried, but …

  “The instructions say it may take longer if it’s early in your pregnancy.” Livvy had selected a brand that boasted the highest accuracy five days before your period was even due. It had cost almost eighteen dollars for the two-pack box with one “bonus” test. How accurate can it be, Edie had asked, if they have to give you three?

  It was difficult handing over the cash, especially when she knew that the same amount easily could buy three mosquito nets in Africa, where a child died from malaria every thirty seconds. Grrr. But Edie forced herself to keep the big picture in mind. The sooner she could start freelancing for the larger papers, the higher her income, which would then let her do a lot more good.

  “Anything?” Livvy’s voice is both excited and anxious.

  Edie unlocks the door and shows the stick to Livvy. “Minus.” She tosses it in the trash then goes to wash her hands.

  “What are you talking about, Edie? That was a plus.” Livvy goes to the trash can and uses a paper towel to fish it out. “See?”

  Sure enough, in pink and white, there is a plus.

  Edie grabs the instructions. Livvy must have read it wrong.

  Livvy looks a little surprised, too, as if she really hadn’t expected Edie to be pregnant. But a second later she’s giddy and giving Edie a big hug. “Congratulations! You should wrap this up and take it to Richard. What do you think he’s going to say?”

  Edie honestly has no idea. He’ll probably be overjoyed, having dropped the hint repeatedly about babies and marriage, not necessarily in that order. But he’s not the one who has to carry the baby or give birth.

  “This can’t be right,” she says instead. She skims the directions once, then twice, then checks the stick again. “Look, it says there’s a chance of a false positive …” She shakes the remaining two sticks out of the box. They’re individually sealed. “I’m taking it again. You take the other one.”

  “Me?” Livvy looks alarmed.

  “I need a control group.” Edie storms back toward the stall. This can’t be happening.

  Livvy opens her mouth to protest, then shuts it. “Honestly, Edie, I’ll just waste it. I’ve done these tests before and I’ve never seen a plus. I’m not even late. It’s pointless for me to take a test.”

  Edie rips off the paper and slides a new test out of the wrapper. Her mouth is dry and she feels nauseous. It’s all in her head, she tells herself. “Livvy, this was your idea to begin with. Come on.” The stall door closes with a slam.

  “Okay, fine.” She hears Livvy walk into the stall next to hers.

  Edie stares at the stick, willing a single horizontal line. A minus. A minus, that’s what she wants. One line. She hears the toilet flush next to her as a pink plus forms in the window.

  Shit.

  Edie is in a daze as she exits the stall and goes to wash her hands. Her only hope is that somehow they got a batch of irregular tests. She dries her hand with the coarse paper towel as she waits impatiently outside of Livvy’s stall. “Well? Tell me yours is a plus, too. Then we can throw this whole test into the trash.”

  Livvy unlocks the door and steps out of her stall. “Here,” she says, and holds up the stick.

  Plus.

  Four boxes and nine tests later, Edie and Livvy have confirmed the unexpected.

  They’re pregnant.

  Edie had practically frog-marched Livvy back to the drugstore, then proceeded to buy four more tests from different brands, some with two tests, some with three. Then they went back in the bathroom, Edie gloomy, Livvy ecstatic, as each test came back positive.

  They’re standing in the bathroom, unsure of what to do next, when Livvy’s cell phone rings. It’s Patrick, and he wants to know where she is. It’s an hour past their lunch break, and she missed the meeting with him and Tracy. What the hell?

  “I’m sorry, Patrick,” Livvy starts to apologize, and then stops. She hasn’t missed a day of work since she started at the Gazette, nor has she taken a single vacation day since she came on board three years ago. She thought her dazzling work ethic would impress him, but clearly the only thing she’s good for is another warm body around the conference table. “I’m taking the rest of the afternoon off,” she informs him.

  “What?”

  “Sick day,” she says. She hasn’t taken any sick days, either, not even when she had what she was sure was bronchitis. “Maybe two.” Maybe the rest of the week. And then to stop him from asking more questions, she adds, “It’s a female thing,” and shuts her phone.

  Edie is starting at her pile of pregnancy tests. Livvy feels bad, can tell that this isn’t good news. Will Edie keep the
baby? Take maternity leave? Livvy’s mind swirls with the possibilities. She knows Edie is focused on her career, but lots of women do both. And if Edie keeps the baby, Livvy can help. She’d love to help. She missed that part of Gracie’s life, those early months, those early years. She’d been just as excited if not more that Julia was having a little girl. Seeing Gracie grow up without really knowing Livvy is almost as painful as Livvy’s estrangement from Julia.

  But this is a sign, a sign that everything will be okay.

  She’s pregnant.

  “Edie, are you okay?” Livvy can’t wait to get home to tell Tom. She used to dream about this day so she knows exactly what she’s going to do. She’ll buy a card, make a nice dinner, a nice dessert. She’ll put the pregnancy test in a box with a note that says, “Your real present will be here in nine months!” and give it to him once they’ve finished eating.

  Or maybe she’ll just show him as soon as he gets home.

  “I need to see Richard,” Edie says abruptly and then turns to Livvy. “Are you okay?”

  Livvy is touched that Edie is asking after her since she knows Edie’s been dealt a blow. She nods even though she’s shaking, and applies a fresh coat of lipstick to her lips. At this moment, there is a baby growing inside of me. While Livvy never said it out loud, there was always the fear that she wouldn’t get pregnant because of what happened to Josh. After all, what kind of mother would she make? Mothers don’t make the kind of mistake that Livvy did, do they?

  Olivia Scott is going to be a mother.

  Madeline squints at the computer. She finds it both fascinating and a little disconcerting that so much personal information can be easily obtained on the Internet. Or is it the Web? She doesn’t even know what to call it.