Pies and Prejudice Read Free Page A

and slept with it under my pillow until high school,” Dee continued dreamily. “Mack was my first crush.”
    Verena broke off a piece of crust and popped it into her mouth. She chewed, swallowed, and sighed wistfully. “I fell in love at church. John David Appleby. We sang in the children’s choir together and he stood right behind me. His breath was like a cool peppermint on the back of my neck. Four years of imaginary candy-cane kisses. We never spoke a word, but he sang like an angel.”
    Sissy put her hand over her heart and sighed theatrically. “I kissed
my
first boy on a dock, watching fireworks reflect on the surface of Lake Havenwood. I thought I’d marry J. P. Littleton after that night, even though we were only
twelve
. I often wonder where he is now, what his life is like….”
    Ella Mae looked from one face to another, stunned at the transformation that had occurred around the tea table. The sisters’ banter, light and airy as a cream puff, was gone, replaced by the blue tinge of heartache and regret.
    “The pie,” Dee whispered in awe. “It made those memories swim to the surface.”
    Verena and Sissy stared at their empty plates and then exchanged knowing glances.
    “Were you thinking about Sloan when you baked this pie?” Verena demanded.
    “Yes,” Ella Mae answered.
    Sissy put a hand over hers. “Tell us
exactly
what you felt.”
    Ella Mae hesitated and then whispered, “That I alreadymiss belonging to someone. That my chance for happily ever after has slipped away.”
    The yellow roses in the center of the table seemed to lose their luster as the three sisters studied their niece. No one noticed when her mother returned with the teapot.
    “Verena? Dee? Sissy?” she cried, setting the pot so roughly onto the table that the urn toppled, scattering rose petals into the overturned porcelain cups. “Why are you crying?” She reached out to Dee, catching a teardrop on her index finger, and then raised the vibrant bead of moisture closer to her face, her eyes widening in astonishment. “And why are your tears blue?”
    Dee dabbed at her face with her napkin and then, inexplicably, she smiled. “Not blue, Adelaide. Indigo. They’re the shade of blueberries. Blueberries and heartache.”
    Sissy and Verena reached into their purses, popped open compacts, and examined their own stained cheeks.
    “How marvelous!” Verena declared with a joyful laugh while Sissy looked thoughtful.
    Grinning mischievously, Sissy grabbed her niece by the hand and gave it an excited squeeze. “Ella Mae, I have a
proposition
for you, my darling.”

Chapter 2
    Ella Mae came to Havenwood with two sets of clothes. She’d arrived on her mother’s doorstep wearing a pair of black slacks, a sleeveless silk tank top, and a pair of sandals. She had Chewy’s leash in one hand and a duffel bag containing the food-encrusted clothing that she’d worn that day in culinary class in the other. Now her jeans, black T-shirt, and socks had been washed and folded into a neat pile on the wing chair of the guest room. Her mother had loaned her a white cotton nightgown, which Reba fanned out on the bed just as she’d done when Ella Mae was a girl. This was the extent of her current wardrobe.
    The feel of the nightgown, coupled with the lavender scent of the guest room’s floral sheets, helped pull Ella Mae from a fractured dream involving a pair of naked redheads baking pies in her mother’s kitchen. Rolling onto her side, Ella Mae blinked the dream away by kissing Chewy on his nose. She accepted an affectionate face washing in return and then headed into the bathroom for a shower.
    Inside the steam-filled stall, Ella Mae thought back onyesterday’s bizarre reunion with her aunts. How could the pie have caused a discoloration of their tears? Perhaps some unusual pesticide had tainted the blueberries. And why had her aunts been so delighted by the odd physical reaction? Sissy had barely cleaned her face before digging out her