Now Josh watched as she walked toward his truck, her ponytail swinging behind her. As she climbed into the passenger seat, he caught a whiff of something sweet and kind of girly. Coconut cream. He hadn’t noticed a girl’s smell since his last girlfriend, and that had been over a year ago.
“Pie there,” Penny greeted him.
“Pie yourself.” Josh suppressed the urge to lean closer to her and inhale. “Butter put your seatbelt on.”
She smiled. Josh’s heart did that weird twirly thing again.
He shook his head and drove to the shop. This didn’t make sense. Besides, Penny had loved another guy for a while. She’d kissed him. It would be a huge mistake for Josh to start thinking of Penny romantically now, since she obviously wasn’t available.
Besides, his dad was sort of right. Not a minute passed that Josh wasn’t working, studying, in class, at practice, or thinking about doing one of those three things.
He and Penny went into the pie shop’s kitchen and put on aprons. Josh began getting out the stuff for the breakfast pies. Penny brought pots to the stove, made coffee, preheated the ovens. Soon the kitchen was filled with the familiar scents of dough and butter, the sound of his rolling pin hitting the wooden counter, the bubble of fillings on the stove.
“So… who’s the guy?” Josh finally asked as Penny stood beside him, trying and failing to weave a lattice-work crust over a cherry pie.
“What guy?”
“The guy you’re in love with. The guy you kissed.”
“Why are you so interested?”
“I’m curious. I’ve never seen you with a guy. Didn’t even know you were interested in one.”
She shrugged and stretched one of the dough strips too thin, ripping it.
If it weren’t for the fact that he and Penny had never kissed, Josh might have hoped he was the guy Penny loved. He knew girls liked him. Though Penny had never indicated that she might like him that way, it wouldn’t have shocked him if she did.
But it couldn’t be him… so who the hell was it? And why did he care? Penny was always alone. At work or in class or holed up in her room writing stories. She wasn’t a girl who got around. That was just one other thing he’d always liked about her.
He watched as she mangled another strip of dough.
“Look.” Josh rolled out the dough and sliced off more strips. “Lay out the strips parallel first, then fold back every other one before putting the others perpendicular. Like this.”
He wove the crust, then trimmed and crimped the edges. He felt her looking at him. He glanced at her. She looked like the same Penny he’d always known—coppery red hair, freckles across her nose, blue eyes. The same, but… different.
Now she was a girl who loved a guy Josh didn’t even know.
His chest tightened. “It’s not Leo, is it?”
Penny blinked, then laughed. “Leo likes sultry blondes, but even if he did like ordinary redheads… no. I’d never trust an eighteen-year-old who wears a fedora.”
“Then who is it?” The more Josh stewed over the question, the more he wanted the answer.
“I’ll tell you the day you believe in happy endings.”
“Not believing in happy endings doesn’t mean I’m some kind of jerk.” Josh pushed the stupid pie away and wiped sticky dough from his fingers. “It’s just that there’s a bunch of stuff that comes afterward, right? So the hero and heroine fall in love and find the treasure… then what? Do they sell it? If they get married, do they have kids? What about their families? What if the bad guy escapes from prison? Even if it’s happy, it’s not the end. Other stuff happens afterward.”
Before Penny could respond, Josh grabbed a tray of pies and went to the front. The display cases were filled with yesterday’s pies. Cream pies, fruit pies, cheese pies, chicken pies, chocolate pies.
Lotta fucking pie.
Josh wondered how many pies had paid for his tuition at King’s. He felt Penny behind him.
What was up with that? Feeling her looking at him, feeling her near him?
Who the hell had kissed her?
He dropped the tray onto the counter. It hit the edge and tilted, sending a pecan pie crashing to the floor in a heap of broken crust and filling.
“Shit.”
“It’s okay.” Penny picked up a towel and dragged the trash can over. She knelt and began shoveling the mess into the can. Josh bent to help her.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
Penny didn’t respond until they’d cleaned up the broken pie and straightened.
“Josh, you need to do what you want,” she finally said.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ve been snarly and irritable ever since you started at King’s. You need to tell your father you don’t want to go there.”
“My father worked his ass off to afford to send me to King’s. I can’t drop out.”
“Then you need to at least tell him you’re not going to be a doctor or lawyer or whatever.”
Josh stared at the golden brown crust of an apple pie. The sugar crystals kind of sparkled in the light.
“What do you really want?” Penny asked.
She knew what he wanted. She was just making him say it aloud, even though it sounded stupid.
“I want to be a chef.” Josh swiped a drop of cream off the counter. “Own a restaurant one day. Maybe two or three. With no pie anywhere on the menu.”
“I want to be a writer,” Penny said. “But that’s a totally impractical profession, right? I should be an accountant or a reporter or sell insurance. So why am I taking night classes at a community college so I can go to King’s and take courses in eighteenth-century French literature? Where’s that going to get me in life?”
“It’ll get you to the top of the bestseller list,” Josh said.
“The universe doesn’t discriminate, Josh,” Penny said. “Not in success or failure. But if you don’t try, you’ll never get to where you want to be.”
She shook her head, and again that disappointment flashed in her blue eyes. “And then you’ll really never find out what happens afterward.”
~~~~
Professor Dean West had his shit together. Even Josh could see that.
Professor West wore good suits, he was a good teacher, he had all sorts of papers and books published. He was also just a good guy. Fair to his students but no pushover. Smart as hell. Played football. He wore a wedding ring and had a picture of his pretty wife beside his computer. He never stumbled over his words. He was never awkward. Never seemed like he didn’t fit.
All of that had never been more glaringly apparent to Josh than when he was sitting in the professor’s office, feeling like an asshole because he hadn’t turned his paper in on time.
“How much have you written?” Professor West asked.
“Uh, couple of pages.” That was a lie. He didn’t even have a file created yet.
“Send me what you have so far, and I’ll look it over.” Professor West flipped a calendar on his desk. “I can give you until next Monday to finish it. I’ll have to take off points for lateness, but if you don’t turn it in at all, you won’t be able to take the final, and you’ll fail the class.”
He looked back at Josh. “Okay?”
“Okay.” What else was he supposed to say?
“Good. Email me what you have. One of my grad students is working on a similar topic, so he’d be glad to talk with you too.”
“Thanks.” Josh hefted his backpack onto his shoulder and trudged out of the office.
He didn’t get men like Professor West. As decent a guy as the professor was, Josh couldn’t imagine being stuck in an office or classroom all day. Nose in a bunch of boring books. Brain clogged with useless stuff.
Josh wanted to do something, not just sit around thinking. And at King’s, that was all anyone seemed to want him to do. For the next three years.
He didn’t even know what he was supposed to do with his degree, whatever it would be in. They
didn’t give Bachelor’s degrees in cooking, and that was the only thing he was really good at. The only thing he liked doing.
Well. Maybe not the only thing.
He looked at his watch. It was Tuesday. Penny would be at the shop now. And he had two hours before practice started.
Fifteen minutes later, he walked in the door of The Pied Piper, trying to pretend like he hadn’t rushed over like a kid needing to pee.
Leo was sitting at a table eating pie and yammering about some new girl he’d set his sights on. Penny was behind the counter drizzling chocolate over a whipped-cream topping.
Her apron stretched across the front of her body. Josh thought he’d probably worn that exact same apron. Many times. He suddenly wanted to wear it again, knowing it had just been wrapped around Penny.
“Hey.” He paused beside her, feeling awkward in his father’s shop for the first time. “How’s it going?”
“Not bad. I finally learned what a docker is. Now I just need to learn how to use it to make a perfect crust.”
“Easy as pie,” Josh said, and was rewarded when she laughed.
“You have class today?” she asked.
He nodded. “So… you’re a good student. You ever tutor anyone?”
“Are you asking in general or are you asking if I’d tutor you?”
“Both.”
Penny wiped her hands with a towel. “Why do you need a tutor?”
“I’m supposed to write a paper on some medieval legend. If I don’t finish it by Monday, I can’t take the final and I’ll fail the class.”
He hated admitting that. Penny always had all her papers written early and started studying for exams weeks in advance. She wrote outlines, took good notes, knew how to format a bibliography.
“I’ll… um, I’ll pay you,” he said.
“I don’t want you to pay me.”
“What do you want in return, then?” He wasn’t about to take a free handout, no matter how desperate he was.
“I want you to enter a bake-off,” Penny said.
“A jerk-off?” He blinked at her in feigned disbelief.
Leo gave a shout of laughter.
Penny flicked a spray of melted chocolate at Josh. “A bake-off. There’s one at the County Fair the weekend after next. The sign-up form is due tomorrow.”
She was serious.
“Why do you want me to enter a bake-off?” Josh asked.
“Because you have a great shot at winning,” she replied earnestly. “And because it could lead to some great opportunities for you.”
Even if that were true, it didn’t matter. Josh would be at King’s for at least the next three years. If he didn’t manage to flunk out first.
“I don’t even like baking,” he reminded her. “Why would I enter a bake-off?”
“Because two of the judges are chefs of local restaurants, and the third is the head of a culinary school over in Forest Grove,” Penny said. “The prize is the winner’s choice of either five hundred dollars or a semester’s tuition at the school.”
He could use five hundred dollars, Josh thought, though he wished the second choice was actually an option for him.
“Look, I’ll get all the forms for you,” Penny said. “All you have to do is bake the best pie you’ve ever baked. Preferably apple.”
“That’s all you want in exchange for helping me with the paper?”
“That’s all.”
“When do we start?”
After they made arrangements, Josh went to take Leo’s empty plate since he knew his friend wouldn’t do it himself.
“Dude,” Leo said with a shake of his head. “The power of the Penny.”
~~~~
Penny and Josh studied at The Pied Piper after closing. The front of the shop was dark, the cases empty, the countertops gleaming. Josh set up his laptop and books on one of the counters in the kitchen. They sat on tall stools while Penny read the assignment instructions, and Josh fidgeted with a pen.
“First you need an outline,” Penny said. “It’s like a map of where you’re going to go.”
Josh sighed. He realized this was the reason he liked cooking rather than baking. He had to follow a recipe while baking, use exact measurements and ingredients. But when he was grilling steaks or making quesadillas, he could taste, adjust seasonings, add this or that. He could improvise.
“I don’t like maps,” he told Penny. “I like to just hit the road and see where it takes me.”
“That approach could take you in the wrong direction.”
“How would you know it’s the wrong direction if you don’t know where you’re going?”
“Exactly,” Penny said.
~~~~
Once Penny helped Josh figure out the medieval legend, he admitted it was kind of cool. All about this guy Beowulf who kills a monster with his bare hands, slays a dragon and battles a lot before getting killed by a poisoned sword.
Over the next week, he rewrote the paper a few times under Penny’s instruction before she finally deemed it worthy to send to Professor West.
A day later, the professor responded with an email: Excellent work, Josh. You earned an A. I put the paper in your school mailbox with comments. Good luck on the final. —DW
Though Josh was pleased by the grade, he knew he’d never have gotten it without Penny’s help. And he’d be on his own for the final, which was just a few days away, the day before the County Fair.
As a small thanks for helping him get an A, Josh made Penny dinner one night in the pie shop’s kitchen. He seasoned filets, prepped artichokes, cooked rice pilaf. He didn’t want to make it seem like he was doing anything romantic, so he put out plates on the counter and kept the overhead fluorescents on.
Penny always complimented his food, which was kind of nice. So he cooked, they talked and ate, and for an hour everything was good.
Then his dad walked in.
Simon Piper took in the scene in a glance and tossed his keys on the counter. “Hello, Penny.”
“Hi, Mr. Piper.” Penny put down her fork, giving Josh an uneasy glance.
Josh nodded to the still-simmering pots on the stove. “You want dinner, Dad?”
“No. Just came to get today’s sales reports.”
“On the desk.”
Simon went into the office. Penny slid off the stool.
“I should go.”
Josh put out his hand to stop her, his fingers brushing against her thigh. A warm feeling ran clear up his arm. His breath got a little shaky.
Penny stopped. “Josh?”
“I… I don’t want you to go.”
“But your dad—”
He shook his head. He didn’t just not want her to go. He wanted her to stay.
“You ready for the final?” Simon asked as he came out of the office with the sales reports in hand.
“Yeah.” Josh tried to ignore a stab of guilt because he wasn’t really ready for Professor West’s final. And worse, he didn’t much care.
“Better wrap things up here, then,” Simon said.
Josh’s jaw clenched. “We’re fine, Dad.”
“You need to be up early tomorrow.”
“I know what I need to do. I don’t need you to tell me.”
He felt Penny beside him. Felt her, the girl who’d set her sights on what she wanted and would get it. The girl who made it seem easy, even though it was anything but.
Maybe that was why Josh had been looking at her differently now. It was more than jealousy over the fact that Penny had kissed another guy. It was that she had figured out she was the only person who would ever live her life.
“I’ll see you later, Dad,” Josh said.
Simon looked as if he were about to protest. So Josh shocked his father and shocked Penny and shocked the hell out of himself by putting his arm around Penny and bending toward her. Unfortunately, she turned right at the second that his mouth would have met hers, so he ended up kissing the side of her chin.
But it was a ki
ss.
A hush descended. Penny stared at him, her face flushed.
“I’ll see you at home, Josh,” his father said. “Just watch the time.”
The door closed behind him. Penny jumped off the stool and gave Josh a shove so hard he stumbled backward.
“What was that?” she snapped. “Don’t use me to get at your father, you ass.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Yes, you were. Grow the fuck up, Josh.”
She grabbed her bag and stalked out of the kitchen. Josh sank against the counter. His heart raced. He couldn’t grab hold of a single thought, but his brain was whirring. He dumped the rest of the uneaten dinner into the trash and cleaned the pots and countertops.
Then he got out the mixing bowls, flour, sugar, butter, cinnamon, and apples. And he started to bake.
He baked through the night, testing recipes, mixing cherries and blackberries, whipping chocolate with coconut cream. As he made crusts, poured pie fillings, tasted different mixtures, he became aware that there was something else he should be doing.
He stopped and looked at the clock. Two a.m. Nerves tightened his stomach. He returned his attention to a cheese filling and kept baking.
Penny showed up at dawn—neither of them mentioning the misplaced kiss—to help with the morning’s prep work. Though she raised an eyebrow at the mess of the kitchen, they didn’t speak aside from remarks about what needed to be done.
Finally when Penny went to open the front doors, Josh took out his phone and sent her a text: Pie’m sorry.
Her response came in a few seconds: It was muffin.
The tension in Josh’s shoulders eased. After getting the daily pies out, he returned to experimenting with his own recipes. He baked a boysenberry pie that turned out too sour and a peach pie that was too sweet. He baked a lemon meringue pie, a strawberry-rhubarb pie, and a brownie pie. He also baked three different versions of an apple pie, one with pecans and one with caramel.
Hours later, Josh swiped his forehead with his sleeve and looked at the clock. He was hot, sweaty, covered in flour and pie filling. His eyes burned with exhaustion.
Stories for Amanda Page 20
