Authors: Mollie Cox Bryan
Scrappy Summer (6 page)
“I just don’t know,” she managed to say. Suddenly, she felt as if there wasn’t enough
air in her basement.
“Give me the computer,” Vera said.
“No,” Sheila said. “I’ll do it. I will. Just give me a minute.”
She took a deep breath, brought her hand to the keyboard, clicked on the email and
read aloud: “Dear Mrs. Rogers, we are pleased to inform you that you have won the
grand prize. . . .”
She looked up at Vera. “Vera,” she said and grabbed her. “I won. I’m a designer. It’s
true.” Sheila’s vision started to blur, and she felt woozy.
“Sheila! Get her some water!”
But it was too late for Sheila, the new scrapbook designer, as all went black.
Beatrice and Jon sat in the middle of the crowd in the fire hall, awaiting news of
the winners. They watched as Vera came in with Eric and Elizabeth, who was sticky
with cotton candy but grinning. Then came Annie with her boys. Lawd, they were getting
big. One lugged around a wagon with stuffed animals he’d earned playing games at the
fair. Sheila and Paige came into the hall together. Beatrice wondered where DeeAnn
was. Surely, she would not let these folks keep her away from seeing who the winner
was.
Jon reached for her hand and winked at her. She smiled back at him, her old heart
fluttering. Who knew that at eighty-three years old she’d find love again?
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to get started,” one of the judges said, then tapped
the mike. “Is this thing on? Can you hear me?”
“Jesus,” Beatrice muttered.
“Of course,” Jon yelled along with everyone else’s replies.
As if they even needed a mike.
“Good,” the judge said, grinning. “First. I want to thank . . .”
He went on and on. Beatrice wasn’t paying a bit of attention. She often tuned out
these locals when they were speaking at an engagement. It was painful to hear them.
She was thinking about time and the movement of it. The way her daughter and the scrapbookers
tried to capture it. It was futile. Time rolled on. It was as it should be. She was
also thinking about Emily McGlashen’s mother and father and was wondering how they
were getting on back at the commune. Poor Emily had been killed about a year after
she moved to Cumberland Creek.
“Third place goes to Macy Freed,” the judge said. The words
third place
snapped Bea back to the present. She needed to pay attention to this.
Lawd, she couldn’t believe how short Macy’s shorts were. If they came up any higher,
everybody would get a good view of what was meant to be private. She hoped the woman
would stop bouncing. Beatrice was afraid something would bounce right out of place
and embarrass all of them.
“Congratulations, Macy,” the judge said. “Your prize is a free haircut at Hair Cuttery.
Now, on to the second place winner, who gets a free haircut, as well. Rachel Burkholder!”
When Rachel stood, Bea saw the disappointment emanating from every pore of her body.
A staged smile spread across her face as she accepted her prize.
Goodness, Beatrice should not be taking so much pleasure in this. It was mean-spirited,
and she was ashamed of herself. But at the same time, this woman had won three years
in a row. She needed to get over it.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the blue ribbon and the Walmart gift certificate go to a new
person in town. Nobody on the board had heard of her before. She made an exquisite
red velvet pie. One of the judges said the pie is ‘a culinary culmination of creativity
and delicious excellence.’”
Jon grabbed Beatrice’s hand.
Murmurs from the crowd. A sense of anticipation sparked through the crowd.
“Ms. Dixie Smith!”
Applause erupted, then quieted as people began to look around. Where was she?
“Dixie Smith?” The judge spoke the name again.
This was the first time the winner hadn’t raced up, squealing, to the podium in all
the competition’s long history. The judges squirmed.
“I’ve never heard of her,” someone in the crowd said.
“She must not be local. What gives?” another voice said.
“Dixie Smith?”
Nobody came forward.
Beatrice and Jon dared not look at one another, or else they’d erupt in a fit of giggles.
Revenge was, indeed, a dish best served cold, and, as it turned out, as sweet as a
perfect little slice of ol’ red velvet pie.
Note from Mollie: This recipe is a perfect example of how versatile pie is. Once you
have a good, solid recipe that works, it’s fun and easy to experiment with it. I call
this pie my “Lovey-Dovey Red Velvet Pie” because I’m honoring my husband’s Southern
traditions and tastes, while also acknowledging my own pie-loving Yankee family and
traditions. Perfect for Valentine’s Day.
Makes one 9-inch pie.
Dough for 1 nine-inch pie crust
1 cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly
cooled
1 cup sugar
½ cup all-purpose flour
3 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 heaping teaspoons cocoa
2 tablespoons (1 ounce) red food
coloring
Preheat the oven to 325°F. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough to
form a circle that is about 11 inches in diameter. Line a 9-inch pie plate with the
dough and crimp the edges.
In a large bowl, combine the butter, sugar, and flour, and stir well. One at a time,
add the eggs, mixing well after each addition. Pour in the buttermilk and vanilla,
and stir until blended. Next, stir in the cocoa. Then add the food coloring, mixing
until well combined. Red, isn’t it?
Pour the filling into the prepared pie crust.
The original buttermilk pie recipe calls for baking for 25 to 35 minutes, or until
a thin knife inserted in the center comes out clean. But the pie filling takes 45
minutes to thicken in my oven. When you insert the knife in the pie, there will be
a little filling on it, but it will continue to firm up as it cools.
Transfer the pie to a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes, or until the filling firms
up.
Serve the pie warm, at room temperature, or chilled. You can top it with just about
anything. I once used a cream cheese icing, but it was a bit too sweet. I’m still
searching for a better cream cheese icing for this pie.
In this story Paige is making a scrapbook about her carnival glass collection. The
glass has meaning in her life, and there are stories about it that she wants to pass
down. If you have a collection of anything, this kind of scrapbook serves many purposes.
DeeAnn doesn’t have any collections, but she does have items she has hung on to through
the years. They happen to have belonged to her children when they were small, so she
makes a scrapbook chronicling each item and her memories. She also pulls in her journal
pages from the time the children were born and adds the old to the new. If you have
items like this, this approach serves as a way of gathering and sorting—and preserving.
This idea is a natural tendency some children have, and I think it’s useful for adults,
too. How about a “wish book” of the things you wish you could have? Why do you want
them? What meaning would they give your life? Is it a goal to get these things? Or
just a dream?
If you are a crafter of any sort, start taking photos of what you make. A craft scrapbook
serves as a good reminder of homemade gifts you’ve made. And it could be a sort of
dream book, as well, as you could list the crafts you want to make.
Thanks so much to my editor Martin Biro for his astute help and patience as I crafted
the first novella I have ever written. It’s always fun to stretch, learn, and play
with new forms. Much thanks to Kensington’s digital guru Alexandra Nicolajsen. Thank
you to the whole Kensington crew for their support and professionalism.
As ever, my heartfelt thanks goes to my agent Sharon Bowers.
But mostly, thanks to all of you readers who love my pie-baking scrapbookers. I am
honored.
In gratitude,
Mollie
The ladies of the Cumberland Creek
crop circle celebrate the holidays and solve a
murder in Mollie Cox Bryan’s new mystery
A CRAFTY CHRISTMAS
A Kensington mass-market paperback and e-book on sale October 2014!
Was that a person lying half in the shadows of the ship’s deck?
When Sheila had tripped, her eyeglasses flew off her face. She’d stumbled and landed
on her knees, groping around for them. On this, her second day of running on the deck
of the cruise ship, images of disaster ticked at her brain. What if she couldn’t find
her glasses? What if they were broken? She didn’t have a spare. Finally, she found
them and slipped them on.
Now, what was it that she tripped over? What was she touching as she groped around?
She tried to get a better view as she struggled to get to her feet. But the sun hadn’t
cracked the Caribbean sky yet this morning, and the ship’s lights were dim. The glasses
weren’t helping, either. It looked like there was a sack shaped like a body lying
on the deck, with an arm strewn over the path.
That can’t be right.
She pulled the glasses off her face.
These were not her glasses.
Just then a huge floodlight flicked on, and Sheila now saw that the object she was
looking at was indeed a person lying there in a most uncomfortable position.
Drunk, of course.
Just beyond the person’s arm, she thought she saw her own glasses, and as she reached
for them, a member of the ship’s crew came walking over.
“Is everything okay here?”
“My glasses. I tripped,” she said, stumbling backward over the person’s arm again.
“What’s this?”
“It looks like someone had quite a night,” Sheila said, smiling. She was no prude
and enjoyed a drink or two, but she’d never seen so much drinking in her life as what
she had witnessed on this cruise.
The crew member’s expression grew pained as he leaned in closer, shaking the person
gently.
“Dead,” the man said.
“What?” Sheila said with a sharp tone, dropping her glasses. Was he joking with her?
What a sick joke.
“Stay right there,” he said and pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll call security.”
“I’m in the middle of my run,” she said, dazed.
“Ma’am,” he said. All business. Very stern. “I need you to stay here.”
“Well, all right,” she said, slipping her glasses on. Her heart was thumping against
her rib cage.
As she stood next to the crumpled body on the deck, she crouched over to take a better
look. She blinked. The side of a face was clear: mouth open and skin sickly blue.
Sheila stood fast. Yes, that was a dead person on the deck. And she had been groping
around the body. Touching the body as she searched for her glasses. As soon as it
sank in, she proceeded to do what any normal, red-blooded woman would do. She watched
everything melt around her, and she swooned.
When she came to, she heard a familiar voice. “She runs every day,” the voice said.
“Nothing unusual about that.”
Sheila blinked her eyes. Where was she? She looked around. There was a CPR poster,
a table with medical supplies, and she was lying on a cot, underneath a soft blanket.
She figured she was in the infirmary—and, man, her head throbbed. She reached her
hand to her forehead and felt the swollen area. It hurt to touch it. When she’d passed
out, she must have fallen forward. Of course. She was such a klutz. Why couldn’t she
have swooned with grace, like they did in the movies?
As she lay on the cot patching together what happened in her mind, she began to feel
sick. She’d tripped over a dead person, and what was more, she’d been pawing around
the body to find her glasses. Where were they, anyway?
She started to sit up, but dizziness overtook her. She wanted to cry.
Here she was on a scrapbooking cruise, as the guest of honor, a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity, and she couldn’t even sit up.
“Mrs. Rogers? Please don’t sit up yet,” said a male voice coming from the side of
the room. She couldn’t see without twisting her aching head. “You took quite a fall
and have a nasty head injury. We don’t think it’s a concussion, but we need to keep
an eye on you.”
“Sheila!” a familiar voice said, and Vera’s face came into view. “How do you feel?”
“Like hell,” she managed to say. “What happened?”
Vera’s presence calmed her. She was her best friend. They’d known each other their
whole lives. It was hard to imagine life without Vera.
Vera’s mouth twisted. “I was hoping you could tell us. We were paged. They said you
had an accident. We came rushing down here. And this security guy starts questioning
me like I’m a common criminal. Then he starts questioning us about you.”
“Vera, you’re babbling,” Paige said as she came up behind Vera.
Paige was here, too. That was good. Another friend whom she’d known for a long time.
And for some reason, Sheila felt like she needed as many as she could get.
“I tripped and fell during my run,” Sheila said, nearing tears.
“That’s not like you,” Vera said. “You’ve been running your whole life. I don’t think
I’ve ever known you to fall.”
“She said she tripped,” Paige said. “Anybody can trip.”
“Yes, I fell over a . . . body,” Sheila said. “I’ve got this horrible headache. Anybody
know where my glasses are?”
“Here.” Paige handed them to her.
“No, these aren’t mine.”
“You fell over a body?” Vera asked, ignoring the part about the eyeglasses.
Sheila nodded.
“These are the only glasses I see here,” Paige told her and then turned. “Any idea
where her glasses are?”
“Those aren’t hers?” the male voice said.
Sheila sighed in frustration. “No, they are not mine. I’m sure I had them when I passed
out. I think. Maybe they fell off again. These glasses must belong to the . . . the
deceased.”
“Which means that the dead woman has your glasses on,” Vera said, smirking, then giggled.
“What’s so funny?” Paige asked.
Vera shrugged and laughed. “It just seems funny. I don’t think she has any need for
eyeglasses if she’s dead, is all.”
These two had been sniping at one another since they’d gotten on board. Paige was
mad because Vera had brought Eric along on what was supposed to a girls-only trip.
Vera became upset when she realized that Paige was mad, yet Paige’s son had joined
them on board to surprise his mother. Yet another man.
“Hi, Sheila.” The male voice suddenly merged with a face as he gently moved the two
women away. “I’m Doctor Sweeney. How do you feel? Head hurt?”
She nodded. A nurse brought her an ice pack.
“Let’s keep the ice on that bump for a while. I’ll get you some pain medicine. Are
you allergic to anything?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I’d really like my glasses. Everything is a blur.”
“We have someone working on that,” he said. The nurse brought water and some pills.
“This should help with the pain. I hope your vision is just a blur because you don’t
have your glasses. You really smacked your head.”
“Well, here they are,” said another man, who walked into the room. He was tall, well
built, and was wearing a linen suit. His long black dreadlocks were pulled back into
a ponytail.
He handed Sheila her glasses, and she slid them on her face. The world around her
took on a familiar clarity.
“Mrs. Rogers, I’m Matthew Kirtley, from Ahoy Security. I have a few questions for
you,” he said. His voice was softer than what his body and his professional attitude
would have led one to believe.
“Can it wait?” the doctor said. “We’re not sure how she’s doing.”
“Certainly,” Matthew said and smiled. “Whenever you’re up to it. My vic is not going
anywhere. Well, nobody is. That’s one of the interesting things about security on
a ship. Nobody’s going anywhere. Not even the murderer.”
“Murder?” Sheila said. Her hand went to her chest. Paige and Vera rushed to her side;
both paled at the word that stuck in the air and hovered around them.
Finally, Matthew Kirtley cleared his throat in the quiet room, which made Sheila’s
heart nearly leap out of her chest. They were on a cruise ship with a dead body and
a murderer.
Nobody’s going anywhere. Not even the murderer.