R ick walked past the church office, waved at Lynette’s father, and continued into the kitchen. “I’m here. Are we ready?”
“Yes. I’m so glad you could get the day off too. I can’t believe how this project has snowballed. I’ll never do this by myself,” Lynette said.
Rick glanced toward the back wall. He’d never seen so many apples at one time in his life, not even at the grocery store.
Every day they’d met with the youth group at the church to build and plan the booths and displays. Today was Friday, the day before the fair, and everything was ready. Everything except the pies.
“Yeah. I can see why you took the day off.” He glanced again at the wall of apples. “How many pies do you think this is going to make? I hope you know I barely cook, and I’ve never made a pie in my life.”
“That’s okay. It’s my granny’s recipe, and it’s the easiest apple pie recipe in the world. Besides, I’m not a good cook either. If I can do it, you can do it.”
“How many contest entries did we get? We had seventy a few days ago.”
“Ninety-something. But we have to remember there are bound to be some entries from the people who don’t come to our church and will come tomorrow. We have to count on that.”
Rick rolled up his sleeves. “Tell me what to do.”
He watched and listened carefully as Lynette mixed up some vinegar, water, and an egg, combined some flour and stuff with some lard and then dumped the liquid in.
“Watch carefully,” she said then reached into the bowl with her hands.
Rick shuddered. “You’ve got to be kidding. I’m not touching raw eggs.”
She grinned, and his stomach did a strange somersault. “Don’t be such a wimp.”
“Sticks and stones,” he grumbled as he drew in a deep breath and slowly stuck his fingers in to start the mixing process.
After considerable poking and prodding, Lynette held up a big ball of pastry dough. “See? When yours looks like this, then you roll it out. Just be careful not to overwork it.”
Rick poked the mushy lump in his bowl with one finger. “Overwork it?”
Lynette looked into his bowl. “You mix it until it’s like mine; then stop. There, like that. Now it’s ready to roll.”
He couldn’t help but smile as she picked up a rolling pin. “I always thought rolling pins were for chasing errant husbands. Would you like to chase me with that thing someday?”
Her mouth dropped open, and she fumbled with the rolling pin for a few seconds. “Quit it. We have too much to do to be fooling around. This is how it’s done.”
Rick watched her start from the middle and roll it outward, pressing evenly as she worked. She made him help slice up enough apples to fill the crust, and then they sprinkled flour and sugar and cinnamon on top. To finish it off, he watched as Lynette laid the pastry top on and pressed it down around the edges with a fork.
He grinned. “I can do that.”
Without a word, Lynette pointed to a box on the counter, where he found another rolling pin. As he began to roll his lump of dough flat, he snickered to himself. “This is so domestic. Wait until the guys hear about this.”
Lynette sighed. “Just keep rolling while you’re talking. We’re going to keep making pies until we run out of apples. You shouldn’t be eating the dough—it isn’t good for you when it’s raw like that. Don’t think I didn’t see you eating the apples either.”
Rick grinned around the chunk of apple in his mouth then picked up the rolling pin and continued to flatten more pastry dough.
At first he thought rolling out pastry and slicing up the apples was fun, but the more he did, the less interesting it became. Since they could only fit three pies in the oven at one time, it didn’t take long for the pies to start lining up on the counter. By the time they filled up one side of the counter with pies, Rick no longer thought making pies was a fun way to spend the day.
By noon his back was feeling the effects of lugging around the heavy bags of flour and leaning over the counter while he worked. Lynette didn’t complain, but he thought she was definitely slowing down, too.
He pressed his floury fists into the small of his back. “I think it’s time to quit for a while.”
“We can’t. We’ve got nearly a hundred done, but we’ve used only half the apples, and we’ve baked only eighteen. I don’t know what we’re going to do. We can’t put uncooked pies out for the contest, despite the fact that you seem to prefer them raw.”
Rick covered his stomach with one hand. At first he thought he was being funny; but he’d eaten a little too much dough, and now his stomach didn’t feel so good. Since it was lunchtime, he hoped some real food would cure what ailed him.
Lynette walked to the fridge. “I didn’t want to leave because I knew we’d have pies in the oven, so I made sandwiches for lunch.”
“Sounds good to me.”
He noticed she had made only two sandwiches. With her father in the same building, in the room next to the kitchen, Rick wondered if she’d left her father out of their lunch plans on purpose.
As they always did, they paused for a prayer of thanks and began to eat.
In an odd sort of way he was having a good day. After Lynette had explained what happened with her family, he could understand why she worked so hard to avoid him, even if he didn’t agree. Also, now that he knew, a burden seemed to have lifted, and she acted relaxed with him. In his heart he knew it was because she trusted him not to step beyond the guidelines she’d drawn for their relationship, now that everything was out in the open.
If he had to see a bright side, it would be that she trusted him enough to be honest with him, and she trusted him to respect the lines she had drawn.
He knew he would always want more, but if friendship was all he could have, then Rick intended to be the very best friend he could be. Of course, what he really wanted was the best friendship of all, the special friendship of the bond of a man and wife.
For the balance of the afternoon they continued making more and more pies. He did his best to keep the conversation cheerful, even though both of them were becoming increasingly tired. By the time they were finished, it was suppertime. But more than supper, Rick wanted a nap. He wondered if it was a sign of old age creeping up on him and then shook the thought from his head.
Since they still had pies in the oven, the second the new batch went in, they took off for the drive-thru so they could be back quickly. They talked nonstop the entire drive, neither of them breathing a word about apple pies or anything to do with church business. They simply had fun.
With the arrival of the youth group members, between baking pies, they set everything in order in the lobby, ready to be brought outside first thing Saturday morning.
When all was complete, Rick stood on a chair amidst the mayhem and clutter, stuck two fingers in his mouth and let out a sharp, piercing whistle. The room quieted instantly.
“Attention, everyone! Now for the last job of the day!”
Everyone in the room groaned.
“If anyone here hasn’t seen them, Lynette and I made two hundred and seven pies today, and we could bake only fifty-one.” He paused while he counted everyone in the room. “There are thirty-two of you here, and I know it’s late, but I’m going to give each one of you three pies to take home with a note of how long to cook them. Bring them back, cooked, tomorrow morning at eight o’clock sharp, or earlier if you’ve been assigned to help with the goats. Class dismissed, and I’ll see you all tomorrow.”
As everyone left, Lynette counted the remaining pies. “We still have sixty pies to bake. I’m going to be up all night, and I still won’t get them all done.”
“I’ll take half.”
She counted on her fingers. “That will still take five hours to bake. The night’s too short. We have to sleep.”
“Then what about your parents? That’s only twenty pies each.” Rick paused to calculate three pies per half hour baking time. “No, that’s still not good enough. I need a church directory. I’ll be right back. You start packing three pies per box. I’m going to be making some deliveries.”
Before she could protest that it was too late to be phoning around for favors, Rick took off into her father’s office, closed the door, and locked it behind him. In less than twenty minutes he had acquired the help of the eighteen families he needed.
He returned to Lynette in the kitchen. “Let’s load up the car. I’m on my way. I’ll see you in the morning. And don’t forget your three pies.”
It took him an hour to deliver all the pies to be baked, which was much better than the original five hours it would have taken if he and Lynette had to bake them all themselves.
As soon as he arrived at home, Rick put his pies in the oven, but they weren’t fully cooked by the time he was ready for bed. He waited out the last ten minutes standing near the stove, because he knew if he sat down he would never get up.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so tired, but the day’s efforts had been worth it in more ways than one. He’d spent the entire day with Lynette, and for the first time in ten years she had made no efforts to get away from him. Not once had she appeared nervous or uncomfortable in his presence. Just as she’d promised, they had spent time together as real friends, sharing and talking about everything with no holds barred. By the end of the day he loved her even more than he did before, if that were possible.
Today a large barrier had crumbled, and with that barrier gone, he knew she loved him as much as he loved her. She just didn’t know it yet.
Tomorrow, before the fair was over and life returned to normal, he had to do something about it.
The timer for the oven dinged, and Rick removed the pies from the oven.
Tomorrow would be another day.