William held the car door open for me. I slid in, looking up to see Will waving goodbye to the other family members departing at the same time. He closed the car door, walked around to the drivers’ side, waved again—not unlike the pope, I thought—before climbing in beside me. And exhaling. “Wow.”
“Are you okay?” I resisted the urge to place a reassuring hand on his leg.
“Did you see that? My mom? That was amazing. How did you do that? She loved it. I’ve never seen her like something I’ve given her that much.” He shook his head, his features easy to read because he’d shaved within the past twenty-four hours. “That’s…Wow.”
“She more than liked it—she loved it.” I clicked my seatbelt into place. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she sleeps with it under her pillow.”
“How did you know she’d like it? Sorry—love it?”
I shrugged. “I was at her house. I saw the colors and things she liked to decorate with. The plate fit. Gifts…” I said, trying to phrase my words delicately, “are about paying attention. That’s all.”
“Whatever it was, it was amazing. You’re amazing.”
The warm words took me by surprise. From the way Will suddenly focused his attention on exiting his parents’ driveway, I guessed the words took him by surprise as well.
I let it go and decided to change the subject.
“How did you know about me?” I crossed my arms. “When I told you and Zach about how I grew up Amish, you said you put the pieces together. How?”
Will ran a hand through his hair before shifting his car into third gear. “It was a lot of little pieces. Your complete lack of knowledge of any kind of pop culture or current idioms meant that you grew up separated from those things. You said your parents were nonmaterialists. I figured you hadn’t grown up abroad because several kinds of ethnic foods were new to you. You mentioned once that you grew up on a farm, and it seemed like your family was pretty large.”
He shifted again as he led the car onto Highway 217 North, back toward my apartment. “Most isolated farming families are either true-blue hippies—which you’re obviously not—or part of a very conservative, very religious community. There are Amish and Mennonite communities in Albany and Washington. It made the most sense.”
I suppressed a smile. “You paid attention.”
“Yeah, well…you were a mystery.”
“You paid better attention than Zach.”
“I’ve spent more time with you. And, let’s face it, Zach’s a great guy but not the most observant. At least, not when non-Corleones are on the line.”
I opened my mouth to say something when I felt my phone vibrate in my tiny clutch purse. That was odd—few people called my phone, especially on a Saturday night. “Hang on, my phone’s ringing.” I pulled it out to see it was my brother calling. “Do you mind if I take this? I want to make sure everything’s okay.”
“Go ahead.”
I slid the phone open. “Hello?”
“Sara? It’s Levi.”
“And Jayne!” A second voice squealed. Was that really Jayne? I didn’t think her voice went up that high.
“We’re here together,” Levi said. “We’re on speakerphone.”
“We’ve set a date!” Jayne’s voice was so loud the tiny phone speaker crackled. “We’re getting married!”
“When?” I asked, holding my palm to my forehead.
“April 17. That’s the day, and I’m sticking by it. Like glue. Like duct tape. Like…um…”
“Postage stamps,” I offered.
“Right!” Jayne released another giggle. “Like postage stamps. And peanut butter.”
“We wanted you to be the first to know,” Levi said, interrupting the name-the-sticky-things game. “We were hoping you would be Jayne’s bridesmaid.”
“Hey!” Jayne interrupted Levi right back. “I was going to ask her! The girl’s supposed to ask. The girl bride, I mean. ’Cause I’m the bride. I’m the bri-i-ide. Wow.” Jayne gave a nervous chuckle. “I’m a little loopy.”
“Just a little,” Levi agreed. “So April 17, okay? Mark your calendar?”
“I will,” I said. “Congratulations. I’m so excited for both of you.”
“Thanks, hon. We’ll see you for church tomorrow.”
We hung up, and I put the phone back in my clutch. “Well, my brother’s officially getting married.”
Will shot a quick glance at me. “I thought you said he was already engaged.”
“Oh, he was. Jayne just needed an extra push to set the date and move forward with plans.”
An extra push, like me move out. Suddenly the air seemed lighter, warmer. I’d done the right thing, as difficult as it had been. My older brother and my best friend would finally start a long, happy life together.
I shook my head. “They’re really getting married.” I couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across my face. “I need to make them a pie,” I announced. “They need a date-setting pie. A date-setting engagement pie.”
“Why do I get the feeling Marie Calendar’s has nothing to do with this?”
“Who?”
“Never mind. I assume you’re going to bake when you get home?”
I pressed my hands into my lap. “I am.”
He changed lanes, his movements so subtle I didn’t tense up in the slightest. In fact, I noticed that I never felt uncomfortable riding with Will. I didn’t feel as if we were going to crash and die if he didn’t brake at a stoplight a certain way.
“Want help?”
“What?” I redirected my attention away from the experience of driving with Will.
“Do you want help? Baking your pie? Sorry—your brother’s pie.”
“Well, his and Jayne’s. They’re supposed to share,” I said primly. “Sure, if you want to help.”
“Do you need to pick up ingredients?”
I hadn’t thought about that. “I guess I do. I don’t have much to make a pie with, aside from milk and flour and eggs and butter.”
“Respectable ingredients. I’ve never made a pie, but I thought they tended to have fruit and stuff in them.”
“Not much is in season right now.” I ran through the options in my head. “We could do pumpkin, pecan…apples are easy enough to get. We could use frozen fruit, but it would take a while to bake.”
“Because it’s frozen?”
“Yes.” I frowned. The reasoning seemed simple enough.
“Why not thaw the fruit before you bake it?”
“Oh.” I hadn’t thought of that. “True.”
“Just a thought. It’s entirely up to you, you’re the baker.”
I thought. And thought. “Apple pie is reliable, and unlike a pecan or pumpkin pie, it has a top crust that can have a message carved into it.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
William pulled into a Fred Meyer that was just a few miles from my apartment. Picking up one of the hand baskets by the door, he said, “Produce is over here,” and pointed toward the right. “What all do you need?”
“Granny Smith apples to start.” I surveyed the displays of shiny, waxed fruit. “Maybe some Galas to mix it up. A couple lemons for their zest. I’ve got flour, sugar, and spices. Oh!” A new thought ran through my head. “We could do an apple custard pie. It’s a little more special, a little more wintry.”
“Sounds good to me. What do you need for that?”
“Buttermilk and eggs. The eggs I’ve already got. The prep takes a little longer, but it also doesn’t bake as long.”
That decided, we chose the apples, avoided the lemons since we were doing a custard, and found a carton of buttermilk. Will also picked up a separate carton of eggs. “Just to make sure there’s enough.”
I didn’t argue.
At the apartment, Will rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt and washed the apples. “I don’t know if I mentioned this earlier,” he said, “but you look beautiful tonight.”
My hand paused on the oven dial. “Really?” I didn’t think a young man had ever called me beautiful before. “Thanks.”
After turning on the oven, I showed him the best technique to core and peel the apples. He worked with them while I prepared the crust.
“I know I said something a while ago,” Will said, clearing his throat, “but I want to tell you again that I’m sorry.” He sliced a brightly colored Gala. “I know I didn’t treat you very well when you first came to the shop. I—I shouldn’t have been rude. You’re a good person, smart and kind. You didn’t deserve that.”
I paused in the mixing of the dry ingredients. “You’re forgiven, just so you know. I forgave you a long time ago.”
“Yeah?”
“And all but forgotten by the time you gave me the wooly socks.” I cut the shortening in. “They’re very impressive socks.”
“Glad my footwear could speak so well for me. I wanted to make sure, though. You deserve it.”
“Thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say. I bit my lip. “I’d give you your socks back, but I wore them the other night—the night I called you—and I haven’t done any laundry recently.” I reached for the ice water, adding the liquid until I had the consistency I was looking for.
“You can keep the socks,” Will said, smiling. “I’ve got lots.”
I smiled back. He had such nice, warm eyes.
Will broke the moment, pointing at the bowl of cut fruit. “That’s a lot of apples.”
“Oh.” I stepped back and looked back at the bowl. “You’re right.” If the pie was too full, the custard wouldn’t lay right. “I’ve got a six-inch pie pan. Want to make a smaller pie for us? It’ll bake in less time and cool faster too.”
“You’d share a pie with me?”
I couldn’t hide my grin. “I would.”
I rolled out the first crust and placed it in the large pie pan before looking for the smaller pie pan in the cupboard. Within moments I’d made a second, smaller batch of piecrust while the first chilled in the fridge. The technique worked well because the first crust needed to chill anyway to keep the pastry flaky.
“I’m sorry about how things worked out with that Arin guy,” Will said as he watched me work. “I hope you weren’t…disappointed.”
I dropped half of a stick of butter into my large skillet, turned on the heat, and waited for it to melt. “How so?” I asked.
He watched as I added the sugar, cinnamon, and the apples to the pan. “I didn’t know if you…if you and he…” He exhaled. “If the two of you were romantically involved.” The last words came out in a rush.
I shook my head. “We weren’t. I wasn’t disappointed, not that way.”
“Oh.” Will measured out the custard ingredients. “That’s good.”
I set the apples aside when they were done and focused on the buttermilk, eggs, and sugar. “I’m glad things went so well at your mom’s party,” I said as I whipped the remaining half of the butter stick with the sugar.
Will cracked the first egg into the mixture. “I still can’t believe it. She likes you a lot.”
“Really? That’s sweet.” I waited while Will cracked the rest of the eggs in, waiting for each one to blend before adding another. The tablespoons of flour came next, followed by the vanilla and then the buttermilk. “I miss my mom a lot,” I said. “It’s nice seeing other people’s moms, even if they’re completely different from mine.”
“I imagine our mothers don’t have much in common.”
I poured most of the apple mixture into the main pie pan, leaving just enough for the smaller one. “No. But they’re both women who love their kids. That’s the same.”
Will poured the custard over the top of each pie. I fit the crusts onto both, cutting a heart-shaped hole in the center of Jayne and Levi’s pie to keep the custard from bubbling out the edges and adding vents around the edge. With the scraps, I fashioned two letters—an L and a J—and placed them with a dab of water on either side of the center heart.
We leaned against the counters after putting the pies in the oven. I suddenly felt awkward.
Will broke the silence first. “I’m going to be honest with you, and I’m going to just throw this out there.” He lifted a hand. “When you were in that car crash, it scared me. I know it’s a cliché, but I realized that you’d become…a very important person to me. You make me see the world differently. You’re beautiful in a way that I don’t think you understand, but it blows me away. You have an incredible amount of courage, and that makes me want to reevaluate my life.” He ran his hand through his shaggy hair and took a step nearer. “And…I just like being with you. That’s why…I think we should date.”