“What came to you in a flash?” asked Alice.
“We ought to make a pie.”
“Oh, no,” said Alice, covering her face. “You’re not thinking about trying to win the Blueberry now, too, are you? Isn’t it enough that we got our pictures on the front page of the paper?”
The Ipsy News had printed a big picture of Alice and Charlie standing arm in arm under the headline REAL LIFE SKY KING AND PENNY SOLVE LOCAL MYSTERY.
“I wasn’t thinking about the Blueberry,” said Charlie. “I was thinking about my grandma’s perfume. Since peach was your favorite pie, I thought maybe if we made one, the smell of it would do the trick for you.”
That was the moment when Alice knew for sure that she and Charlie Erdling would be friends for the rest of their lives.
“I have something to show you,” Alice said.
She led Charlie out into the kitchen and handed him a battered old cigar box. Inside were dozens of folded-up pieces of paper, all of them stained and tattered from years of use.
“Aunt Polly’s recipes,” Alice told him. “The police found them in Jane Quizenberry’s suitcase.”
Charlie’s eyes got very wide.
“Is the secret piecrust recipe in here?”
Alice shook her head.
“No,” she said, lifting one of the papers from the box and unfolding it, “but this one is.”
It was the recipe for Aunt Polly’s peach pie. On the bottom, she’d written: Alice’s favorite.
• • •
Polly had always started by making the crust, but since there wasn’t a recipe for that in the cigar box, Alice found one in a cookbook.
“It says here use thirty-four cups of vegetable shortening,” Charlie said, reading from the book.
Alice leaned over his shoulder and looked at the page.
“That says three-quarters of a cup,” she told Charlie.
“Maybe it would be better if I just watched,” he said.
Alice sent Charlie to the pantry for the can of LARDO! while she gathered the other ingredients for the crust. Following the directions, she mixed flour, shortening, salt, and water together until it formed a ball. It didn’t look exactly the way Aunt Polly’s pie dough had looked, but it was close enough. When she had finished, she sprinkled flour on the counter and, using the new rolling pin her mother had purchased, she began to flatten the dough into a round crust. Carefully lifting the edge with a spatula, she gently folded the circle over her forearm, to keep it from tearing as she transferred it into a pie plate; then she pricked the bottom five times and set it aside.
“Wow,” said Charlie. “You’re good.”
Lardo wandered in at that point and started yowling to be fed.
“You want me to fry him up some sardines?” asked Charlie.
“He already ate,” Alice said. “Mom falls for it every time. She’s a total pushover just like Aunt Polly was.”
As soon as Lardo realized Alice wasn’t going to feed him, he quit the starvation act and waddled out of the kitchen, his big belly dragging along the linoleum. As he passed through the living room, Alice’s father sneezed.
“Good morning, Lardo,” he said from behind his newspaper.
Alice rolled out a second crust and with a table knife she carefully cut it into narrow strips.
“What’s that for?” asked Charlie.
“We’re going to make a lattice top later.”
“We?” said Charlie.
“I’ll show you how. It’s easy.”
Next it was time to prepare the peaches for the filling.
“Your auntie’s recipe says they’re supposed to be peeled, but it doesn’t say how to do it.”
It was almost as if Aunt Polly was there inside Alice’s head, telling her what to do.
“Like this, Alice. Remember?”
Alice placed a peach in a big slotted spoon and lowered it into a bowl of hot water. She counted slowly to twenty, then she lifted the peach out and put it into the bowl of cold water Charlie had filled and placed on the counter for her. She counted to twenty again, then she removed the peach and held it in her hand.
“Good gravy,” said Charlie as Alice slipped the loosened skin off with her fingers, revealing the glistening yellow flesh beneath it. “It’s like magic.”
“Your turn,” said Alice, handing Charlie the spoon.
When they had removed all the skins, Alice’s mother joined them in the kitchen just long enough to help cut up the peaches and chop the crystallized ginger. After that, Alice measured granulated sugar and sprinkled it over the sliced peaches. Then she showed Charlie how to scoop brown sugar out of the box and pack it down in a measuring cup with the back of a spoon. They used a set of little tin spoons to measure the cinnamon and tapioca pearls.
“Now what?” asked Charlie.
Alice poured the peaches into the pie pan and lay four strips of dough across the top. Then she handed Charlie a long strip and told him to start in the center.
“Weave it over one and under the next until you get to the other side.”
Alice had to help, but eventually Charlie caught on.
“That was fun!” he said when they were finished.
Alice carefully slipped the pie into the oven. The lattice was uneven, and she’d had trouble getting the edges of the crust to hold together properly when she crimped them, but it didn’t matter. She was proud of the pie she and Charlie Erdling had made, and she smiled, remembering something Aunt Polly had told her once —
“The most important ingredient in a pie is the love that goes into making it.”
• • •
Alice had just set the oven timer when the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it!” she heard her mother call.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Anderson,” said a man with a deep voice. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Gerald P. Hammerschlacht. President of Hammerschlacht Products and Services out of Cincinnati, Ohio.”
Hammerschlacht. Why did that name sound so familiar to Alice?
“Whatever it is you’re selling, Mr. Hammerschlacht, I’m afraid we’re not buying today,” said Alice’s mother. She started to shut the door.
“Who is it, Ruthie?” Alice’s father called from the living room.
“Salesman,” she called back.
“Wait,” said the man. “I do apologize for not being more clear about the purpose of my visit. I assure you, I’m not here to sell you anything.”
Then he told her that he was sorry that he’d missed the funeral; he’d been away in Europe on business. Now he had come to pay his condolences and to thank the entire Anderson family on behalf of LARDO! for Polly Portman’s generous gift.
“What do you mean, on behalf of Lardo?” Alice’s mother asked. “Do you know Lardo?”
The man chuckled. “Know it? Why, I invented it!” he said proudly. “LARDO! vegetable shortening is the cornerstone of Hammerschlacht Products and Services, and I expect our sales will be even higher now, thanks to your sister’s generous gift.”
“What gift?” asked Alice’s father, who had joined his wife at the door now to see what was going on.
“The piecrust recipe,” said Mr. Hammerschlacht. “I met with Miss Portman some years back, not long after she’d won the first of her Blueberry Awards. I’m here to honor my part of the agreement we made.”
This was the point at which Alice’s parents invited Mr. Hammerschlacht to come inside. A few minutes later, Alice’s mother came into the kitchen, weeping uncontrollably, and asked Alice to come join them out in the living room.
“You’re not going to believe it,” she told Alice, hugging her tightly. “You’re just not going to believe it.”
RHUBARB PIE
8 cups cut rhubarb
1 ½ cups sugar
½ cup flour
2 TBS butter
cream
cinnamon sugar
Mix sugar and flour. Wash, string, and cut rhubarb into ¾-inch pieces. Press unbake
d piecrust into pie pan and prick with fork. Place some of the sugar mixture on bottom, then layer of rhubarb, repeat, etc., until rhubarb mounds high; top with the remaining sugar/flour mixture. Top with 2 tablespoons of butter cut in small pieces. Place top crust and seal edges and cut vents. Brush top crust with cream. Sprinkle lightly with cinnamon sugar.
Bake at 425 for about 20 minutes, then reduce to 350 until bubbly and done. About 1 hour+ total cooking time. Cool and serve with vanilla bean or honey ice cream.
Reminder: This is another one of those juicy pies that always runs over, so make sure to place a jelly roll pan or a piece of foil underneath it while it bakes.
Chapter Thirteen
The reason Mr. Hammerschlacht’s name had sounded familiar to Alice was because he was one of the two people Mr. Ogden had mentioned having witnessed her aunt Polly’s will. Polly Portman had requested that Mr. Hammerschlacht be present when she signed her will, and then she had sent him back to Cincinnati with a copy of the piecrust recipe, which he promised to keep under lock and key until the day she died.
“I don’t understand,” said Alice. “I thought Aunt Polly left the recipe to Lardo.”
“She did, honey,” said Alice’s mother. “Just not the way we thought she did.”
It appeared that Mr. Odgen had missed a small but terribly important detail in Polly Portman’s will. When he’d read the will aloud to Alice, he’d said that Polly had left her recipe to her beloved Lardo, and her beloved cat Lardo to Alice. But in fact what she’d written was that she’d left her recipe to her beloved LARDO! — and her beloved cat Lardo to Alice.
Polly Portman had a gift for pie making, and since her greatest pleasure was sharing that gift with others, she had decided that the best thing to do would be to leave her piecrust recipe to the company that made LARDO! so that they could print it on every single can. Anyone who wanted it could have the recipe now. But there was more. In exchange for the piecrust recipe, Mr. Hammerschlacht had agreed that after Polly passed, he would come to Ipswitch with two things in hand — a contract for Alice to write an advertising jingle for LARDO! and a contract for Alice’s mother to sing it.
• • •
That afternoon after Mr. Hammerschlacht left, Alice went out to the kitchen and told Charlie everything that had happened.
“Good gravy!” he said. “Congratulations.”
Alice felt a song coming on, but instead of pushing it away she sang it right out loud in front of Charlie.
A cat, a key, a clink, a clue,
A chocolate pie, a friend that’s true,
A mystery that is finally through,
And now a happy ending, too.
Aunt Polly had sent her a message that day — one that she would never forget. Alice was a songwriter, and she was grateful for the gift she had. The fact that she was already on her way toward making her first million dollars was just a scoop of ice cream on the pie.
“If you want, I’ll tell Nora Needleman I made you ask her to go to the movies with you,” Alice offered later that afternoon. She and Charlie were playing a game of checkers on the living room floor.
“That’s okay,” said Charlie. “It’s not like asking a girl to go to the movies means you have to marry her or anything.”
Mrs. Anderson invited Charlie to stay for dinner. While Charlie called home to ask permission, Alice went out to the kitchen to check on the pie. When she opened the oven door, the smell of fresh-baked peach pie filled the room. It didn’t smell the same as Aunt Polly’s pie, and it certainly didn’t look the same, but she knew in that instant that everything was going to be okay. She could almost feel Aunt Polly lean down and kiss her on the forehead.
“I’ll miss you,” Alice whispered.
And she was sure she heard Aunt Polly say —
“I’ll miss you even more.”
• • •
Dinner that night at the Andersons’ house was meat loaf and mashed potatoes with gravy. For dessert there was peach pie. Alice’s mother served up four slices.
“Looks delicious,” said Alice’s father, as he lifted his fork.
“It certainly does,” said her mother.
Alice looked at her parents and smiled. She had wondered if she would ever feel happy again, and now she knew the answer.
Charlie touched the edge of his piece of pie, then licked his finger.
“Good gravy!”
“What’s the matter?” asked Alice. “Is it awful?
“See for yourself,” he said.
Alice took a bite of pie. The crust was a bit rubbery, and the filling wasn’t nearly as good as Aunt Polly’s had been, but to her surprise, it was actually not half bad.
“Pretty good,” she said.
“What do you mean, pretty good?” Charlie cried. “It’s great!”
And they all four burst out laughing.
• • •
In the fall of 1955, several important things happened. On Monday, September 5, a housewife in Haddonfield, New Jersey, won the Blueberry Award for her groundbreaking Mississippi mud pie, thus ending Polly Portman’s thirteen-year winning streak. Jane Quizenberry was not available for comment. In November, the town of Ipswitch got a new mayor. Henry Needleman decided he’d had enough of politics and didn’t want to run for reelection. Since the VOTE FOR NEEDLEMAN posters were already printed up, Melanie simply pasted her picture over her husband’s smiling face and won the election by a landslide. Right before Christmas, the new LARDO! jingle began playing on TV. Alice saw it for the first time on a Saturday morning during a commercial break on Sky King.
“Mom, Dad, come quick!” she shouted. “It’s on!”
LARDO! you really oughta try it.
Buy it — betcha’ll be a fan.
LARDO! makes a perfect pie dough.
If you wanna know the secret,
It’s written on the can!
L-A-R-D-OH! OH! OH!
LARDO!
“Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” said Alice’s father, putting down his paper. “Ruthie, you sound like a dream. And, Alice, that tune of yours is downright catchy.”
Alice’s mother beamed and put her arm around her daughter.
“Did you notice, George? Every single one of those rhymes is perfect. Now, that’s what I call talent.”
Alice and her mother had gone to New York City to record the jingle. While they were there, Alice sent Charlie a postcard of the Empire State Building. She signed it Love, Alice. When they returned home, Ruth Anderson went straight to Reverend Flowers to ask if maybe they could use another voice in the choir. She’d also started singing in the shower, which made everyone in the Anderson household very happy, especially Lardo, who sometimes liked to sing along.
Polly Portman had spent her whole life expressing gratitude for the gift she’d been given. She baked pies for the pure joy of it and delighted in the pleasure it brought to others. Alice could only hope that she would be able to live up to the example that had been set for her. Sitting on the couch that December morning, snuggled between her parents, Alice decided a good place to start might be right where her aunt Polly had left off.
“Thank you very much,” she said, to no one in particular, and she meant it with all her heart.
Forty Years Later …
PEANUT BUTTER RASPBERRY CREAM PIE
½ cup peanut butter
½ cup powdered sugar
2 cups milk
1 egg yolk
3 TBS flour
¾ cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt
1 small box raspberry Jell-O
2 cups raspberries (fresh or frozen)
whipped cream
Mix peanut butter and powdered sugar together till it forms little balls. Put the mixture on the bottom of a cooled prebaked crust.
Heat milk in saucepan. In separate saucepan, combine egg yolk, flour, sugar, vanilla, and salt. Once milk is heated, slowly add to flour and sugar mixture in saucepan, stirring const
antly. Continue stirring until mixture comes to a boil. Cool, then pour on top of peanut butter crumbs. Prepare a small box of red raspberry Jell-O according to package directions. Cool, then add about 2 cups raspberries to Jell-O (can be fresh or frozen). Let Jell-O cool and thicken slightly (it should be thick enough to be firm but not so thick that it isn’t pourable), then pour on top of pudding. Add whipped cream and serve.
Epilogue
August 1995
Alice Anderson was standing on a step stool, rummaging around in the back of a high cupboard in the kitchen, doing a little spring cleaning even though it was the middle of August. The church was having a rummage sale, and Alice was hunting for her mother’s old coffee percolator, which she thought she remembered having stashed up there. She didn’t find the percolator, but what she did come across was Lardo’s little blue china plate. In science fiction movies, time machines are always depicted as complicated metal contraptions with flashing lights and bundles of coiled wires coming out of the top, but that little blue plate transported Alice back in time to the summer of 1955 so fast it took her breath away.
The plate was dusty, and there was a dead fly lying on its back in the middle of it, so Alice climbed down and took it over to the sink to rinse it off. When she had finished drying the plate with a dish towel, she carried it outside to a big rock where she sometimes went when she needed a quiet place to think. It was a nondescript gray boulder in a shady corner of the backyard, near the rosebushes her mother had planted back when they had first built the new house. Alice’s mother had passed away several years ago and her father had followed just six months later.
The house was much bigger than Alice needed it to be — it had four bathrooms, for heaven’s sake! But thanks to the royalty money she got every time they played the LARDO! jingle on TV, the Anderson family had lived there together comfortably for years, and until the time came for Alice to join her parents and Aunt Polly in the great beyond, she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.