New Beginnings Pie
By: Jess

for Elizabeth

.i. lonely mama pie

Not long after Lulu turns two, Dawn asks to take her overnight.

"I know she's not really a baby anymore, but Ogie and I still want to practice a little bit," Dawn says, resting her hand on her belly in that unconsciously protective way Jenna never had. "Then you can have a night to yourself, a night to do whatever your heart desires."

Jenna smiles. "Of course you can take her. But you don't need any practice, Dawn. You're gonna be a great mama right away, with no help or training in advance."

Dawn tilts her head. "I don't know, Jenna, you think that because it came so natural to you. Once the baby came along, I mean. It's not like that for everyone."

"I know that," Jenna says. "But you're not everyone, Dawn. You've got the kind of warm heart every mama should have. You're a step ahead of where I was way back when, and you're gonna do fine. Better than me. Remember how helpful you were with Lulu when I came home with you from the hospital?"

"Yeah, but that was two years ago, now. I want to practice what it's like to take care of a little one overnight, be the one to make her dinner, and tuck her in, and read her a story."

The sing-song lilt of Dawn's voice trails off, and Jenna reaches over to squeeze her hand. "Lulu will love it."

The night Dawn takes Lulu, Jenna's supposed to put her feet up (Dawn's suggestion), give herself a nice manicure and facial (Becky's), but instead she makes pies. She makes more than they're going to need for the next day and more than she can easily give away, but still finds herself rolling out dough for another one two hours after Dawn left with Lulu on her hip.

She makes them mostly because the house is too quiet without Lulu in it, no TV playing her favorite cartoon, none of her little-girl chatter, and Jenna feels strange in the house without her. The only pie Jenna can think of inventing would be

Lonely Mama Pie: A crust without any filling, the best parts elsewhere. What's left, just a shell.

"A little dramatic there, Jenna," Jenna says to herself, but she still can't figure out what to put in the pie.

After a little bit she gives up, cleans her hands and grabs her purse, and goes out to sit on the porch steps of her little blue house. It's a clear night and cool outside, the sun just starting to think about setting, and for a while Jenna sits there, eyes closed, listening to the wind and the crickets and the traffic passing by.

She sits there and thinks, this is mine. Can't be taken away from me. She used to hold onto her pie-making real tight, because she knew it was the one thing she had that couldn't be taken. Now she's got a list of things: the diner, her house, her freedom. She's had a couple of years to get used of this new way of living, but it still feels good to remind herself of what she's got every now and then.

After a while Jenna opens her eyes and takes two envelopes and a pen out of her purse. One envelope has careful handwriting and a Pennsylvania postmark, and she looks at for a bit before slipping the card out.

It's a birthday card, in the shape of a monkey climbing the number 2. The monkey is wearing a party hat on his head, and on the inside, the pre-printed message is, "It's your birthday! Go bananas!" The savings bond that came with the card is still there, folded up, worth $100. Jenna had never seen one before she opened the card two weeks ago. She had to ask Becky how savings bonds worked the day after she got it, and Becky did a good job explaining but was curious about the question. Jenna had to invent a great-uncle in Idaho to explain away the bond.

The note is written on the blank, left side of the card's inside. It reads:

Dear Jenna (and Lulu):

I'm not sure if kids still get savings bonds, but I figured this couldn't hurt.

I hope you're doing well. I heard that you won a pie contest. Congratulations, you certainly deserve it. Dr. Mueller is the one who told me about it. She was really excited for you and kept talking about how amazing your pies were. I agreed, of course. She also said that you'd opened a pie diner, which I think is great.

I think of you often. I hope you're doing well. Best of luck in the future.

Jim

Jenna reads the note two more times, and traces her finger under the second I hope you're doing well. A kind thought made sweeter by appearing twice in the note; it twisted her up inside, a little bit, reminding her of him and what he'd been to her. His awkward kindness and affection, given to her so freely when she needed it the most, were some of the few sweet things Jenna could look back on fondly from that time in her life.

Jenna closes the card and picks up the second envelope, which has a blank thank you card inside. It takes a while for her to figure out what to say. She's not too comfortable with writing in general, since she doesn't read much and most of her writing is abbreviations on an order pad in the diner, but she wants to send something back to him. After tapping the pen against her knee for a few minutes, she begins. She can't think of how to address it, since he signed it Jim but in her head, she still thinks of him as Dr. Pomatter. Finally she decides not to use a greeting and get right to the note, even though it makes the card look a little funny. She writes:

Thank you for the card and the savings bond.

I'm doing well. The diner is busy and I invent a new pie almost every day. I would send you a slice with this card but pie don't travel real well.

Thank you also for being a good friend to me when I needed one. It's a favor I don't think I can ever repay but I thank you all the same.

Jenna


.ii. friendship pie

Jenna doesn't expect to hear from Jim Pomatter again. She thinks of him sometimes: every time someone asks for marshmallow mermaid pie, for example, or when she sees Dawn and Ogie walking out in the parking lot together. Whenever she has a particularly special pie to make, she uses the pan he gave her, but for the most part, she tells herself she's moved on.

A month or so after she sends the thank you card, she's going through the mail in the back room of the diner, Lulu toddling around her feet, when she finds a small white envelope with a Pennsylvania postmark. The way her heart quickens up at the sight of it shows what a lie she's been telling herself.

Dear Jenna,

Thank you for your thank you note. I was happy to hear from you. I appreciate your offer to send a piece of pie along with the card but I agree that the pie probably would have met a sad end along the way. I'll have you know that your pies have ruined me for all others; I've had to become a cake-and-ice-cream person late in life, because every time I have pie up here, all it does is remind me of yours. No pie I've found measures up.

I suppose you're wondering why I'm writing you. I am, too. I guess it's just that I wonder about you sometimes, about what your life is like, whether you're doing okay, how Lulu is. I thought sending Lulu a birthday card would help with that, but it didn't. Hearing from you just made me wonder more.

I appreciate the kind closing of your note, but I have to let you know that my friendship wasn't a favor or a kindness or anything that you ever have to repay. You still have it, as a matter of fact, and I suppose that's the real reason I wrote this letter - to tell you that.

Jim

Jenna folds up the letter back in its envelope and sticks it in the pocket of her apron. She goes over to the refrigerator to check on what fruit looks best for a pie today, since she didn't decide what to make before coming. When she opens the door, though, she just stands there staring at the shelves, until Lulu walks up next to her and leans against her leg.

"Hey there, Lulu-Bug," Jenna says.

Lulu looks up at her, and the sight of her familiar little face settles Jenna down a bit. She picks her up and then gestures toward the refrigerator.

"What kind of pie should we have today, little Lulu? Out of all the stuff we got in there, what do you think would be best?"

Lulu points and says, "Peach."

"Sounds good," Jenna says, even though Lulu was more likely identifying the fruit than stating a preference. Jenna reaches in for the bowl and by the time she's cutting the fruit up, she's already started thinking of other ingredients to put in the pie (almonds for sure, others still coming to her) and come up with a name, with the words you still have it running through her head.

The pie sells out before 11AM and she has to make two more before the end of the day, one of her most successful inventions lately, and she's thinking about it that night when she settles down at her kitchen table with the letter.

She reads it a bunch more times that night. My friendship wasn't a favor or a kindness, he'd written. Well, what was it, then? He hadn't gotten much out of the deal, especially near the end, when the sex stopped and all that was left was her crying against his shoulder. She's seen enough of herself after a good weepfest to know that's not much of a bargain. At the time she'd been so grateful for what he offered that she hadn't let herself think too much about why he was giving it, but after he was gone, she wondered.

She wants to write him back; he gave her a lot back then and didn't ask for anything in return. A letter isn't too much to give someone, but still she can't figure out a way to start. She carries his letter around in her apron pocket at work for a month, six weeks. She reads it almost every night after tucking Lulu in, and finally, on a quiet Thursday night, she sits down at her kitchen table with a piece of stationery and a blue pen.

This time, the greeting is easier to write.

Dear Jim,

I'm sorry for taking a while to write you back. I wasn't sure how to start since I don't write letters much. The last time I did was before Lulu came along. It was part of a baby book Dawn gave me and it was easier then because I knew no one was reading them.

You asked what my life is like. I like it much better than I ever expected to like my life, so that's good. The diner is doing good and I still get to work with Becky and Dawn though Dawn's on maternity leave now. I been filling in waitressing a little more lately and I like it. Feels like going back to my roots or something. Inside a diner always used to be the happiest place for me, especially after I left my mama's house and before I moved into this one, and it's still a place I like a lot. Which is good since the diner isn't going anywhere.

I have a little house of my own now with a bit of a yard Lulu can play in. Lulu is doing great. She talks a lot and is very curious and has none of Earl's meanness or even any of his looks. She looks a lot like my mama. Same blonde hair and blue eyes I always wished for growing up. She's got all these little quirks of her own that surprise me, like loving green beans, which I always hated and Earl was allergic to. She's her own little person and she's got new things about herself to show me every day which gives life some excitement. We are very happy.

Thank you for what you said but I can't help feeling like I got all the good stuff in whatever it was we were. I think I forgot to say in my card that I hope you're happy and pleased with where life's taken you.

Jenna

P.S. The day I got your letter I invented a new pie called Friendship Pie. It's got peaches and almonds and I'm sending the recipe here. Since I can't send actual pie along I figured I'd send this and you could maybe try it.



.iii. good-bye pie

He tries the pie. Jenna knows because he writes to her after he does, tells her it came out great on the second try (the first time he forgot to set the oven timer) and that it's almost the best pie he ever had. He says it's almost the best because he's pretty sure that it would have been better if she made it, since she's got all that pie-making magic.

Pie-making magic.

It's corny but Jenna smiles when she thinks of it a few days after getting the letter, while she's in the middle of closing up the diner, but the smile falters after a few seconds when she thinks a little harder about him and that pie. He said he had to make it twice but didn't say if anybody ate it with him. Did his wife ask about it, where he got the recipe? And if she did, did he lie? He didn't strictly have to, but the idea of her being someone he could be honest with his wife about is as almost as bad as the idea of her being someone he'd have to lie about.

Jenna tries not to think about that part of the pie-making so much.

What Jenna does do is write him back. Mostly because at the end of his letter, he wrote

It's kind of fun exchanging letters the old-fashioned way. It reminds me of when I had a pen pal in Argentina when I was in fifth grade. I wonder what happened to old Rodrigo.

And so that's how Jenna thinks of it to herself. They're friends who exchange letters and tell each other stories and share thoughts. Pen pals, nothing more than that, just like him and old Rodrigo. She tells him about the diner, and Lulu, and her house; he tells her about the things he likes about where he lives now: seeing the Phillies, and how great the cheese steaks really are, and how much he likes the clinic he gets to work at a couple of weekends each month. He also, after a little bit, starts to tell her about the things he doesn't like so much: how the expensive office he's a part of doesn't feel like the kind of medicine he became a doctor to practice, how it's hard to see the stars at night, and how life hadn't turned out how he expected.

After one of his sadder-sounding letters, Jenna writes

I don’t think any of us end up living the kind of life we pictured for ourselves.

What she doesn't write is how her life is better than what she'd imagined for herself.

He writes back

You're right about lives not living up to expectations. By this age, I was supposed to have colonized Mars during the baseball off-season (I would, of course, be playing third base for the Red Sox). My eight-year-old-self would be very disappointed in me and so, in honor of him, I will stop moping and instead live up to another of his wishes and eat ice cream for dinner tonight.

The letter makes her smile, as all of his letters do. The letters and her replies start to come and go more frequently and regularly, and so a few months later, when two weeks go by, and then three, without a letter from him after she's sent two his way, she starts to feel worried. Worried about things like:

Maybe his wife found out – trading letters like theirs may not be as wrong as what they did before, but isn't exactly right either.

Maybe he just got tired of hearing from her. The last letter she sent had a whole two paragraphs in it about the extra waitress she just hired, who she can't really get along with but isn't firing because maybe her problem is simply that she's not Dawn (taking an extended maternity leave) or Becky (who's blessedly still around).

Maybe their pen-pal-thing was just a lark that overstayed its welcome.

Maybe she'll never hear from him again.

Jenna wants to write him again, but worries that will make it worse and so she just goes about her business. She's a little short with her staff and impatient with Lulu, until finally Becky and Dawn pull her into the ladies room on one of the days she and Ogie have come in with the baby to visit at lunch.

"Jenna, we just got to know what's wrong with you," Becky says.

"Nothing," Jenna says.

"Now, Jenna, you know that's not true," Dawn says.

Jenna looks from one of them to the other, at their worried expressions, and feels a sadness rise up in her that she's barely able to keep down. She tucks her chin down and says, in a voice that she can tell doesn't sound right, "I'm fine."

"Now, does this have anything to do with those letters you been getting from that old doctor friend of yours?" Becky asks.

Jenna looks up sharply. "You know about those?"

"Well, of course we do, honey," Becky says. "Can't keep a secret around here."

Dawn nods. "You probably should have had them sent to your house."

"Yeah, probably," Jenna says. "Anyway. It don't matter now since I probably won't be getting any more of them."

"Oh, really, honey? Is that why you're so sad?" Dawn asks.

"Yeah, that's why I'm sad," Jenna says, sitting down on the nice plush chair she'd had put in there when she opened the diner.

"Oh, Jenna," Dawn says.

"Don't you worry, I'll be fine. I've survived worse. I'm just," Jenna says, and then takes a few seconds to figure out exactly what she is. Finally, she says, "I guess I’m just having myself a sad little romantic moment, saying good-bye to something that never really got to be much of anything at all."

"Those are the worst kind of good-byes," Dawn says.

"You think?" Becky asks.

"Well, sure," Dawn says, and the girls goes on to discuss it further, but Jenna isn't really listening. She's got her eyes closed and her head leaning back and in her mind she's inventing a pie: Good-bye Pie, made of the berries in her kitchen that are just about to turn bad.

.iv. new beginnings pie

The night after she talks it out with Dawn and Becky, Jenna goes home and pulls out all the letters he sent to her. There's a lot of them, all in their envelopes in a box she keeps under her bed. They're not kept in any kind of order, other than that certain ones are nearer to the top because she liked them best. Like the ones where he wrote real nice-sounding things, like

I miss a lot of the places I used to be nowadays, some more than others, for reasons you can surely guess.

She should probably throw them out (Becky said that would bring closure) but once she's got them all in a few neat piles, she can't. She wants to pull them out and read each letter again, start at the beginning and go all the way through, but she's already done that twice in the time since he last wrote her, and she knows that course of action comes to no happy end.

She puts rubber bands around the piles and settles them back in the box. Instead of putting it under her bed, she puts it in the crawlspace above the upstairs hallway, a place where the letters will stay safe and out of reach.

She goes to bed and tries to go to sleep but can't, and after a long while staring at the ceiling, she goes into Lulu's room. Lulu's always been a good sleeper and so she doesn't even stir when Jenna picks her up, carries her down the hall, and lays her down on the bed next to her. Jenna falls asleep not long after with her hand resting on the gentle rise-and-fall of Lulu's back.

They sleep like that for a few nights. By the fourth night, Jenna's able to give up the comfort of having Lulu close, and though she doesn't sleep too great, she does get through the night on her own. She's not feeling too great in the morning, though.

Of course that's the day he's waiting for her at the diner. She knows it's him from far away, partly because she's imagined him showing up for a while now. She doesn't have any pictures of him and so she'd kind of wondered if she'd imagined him different than he was, if in person he'd be something less than what she remembered.

He isn't. He's just as tall, and his smile is just as open, his eyes just as kind. He also looks nervous and a little awkward, which she'd remembered with fondness, too.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, once she gets close enough to say something to him.

"Hi," he says, and doesn't answer her question. He puts on the charming smile she'd spent a lot of time trying to forget, and inclines his head at Lulu. "This must be Lulu."

"Yeah, it is," Jenna says. Charming's not too effective on her when she's had so little sleep and been sad and worried so long. "What are you doing here, Jim? I mean, Dr. Pomatter. Either one."

"Jim," he says, a little too quickly. "Jim's best. I came to see you."

Jenna switches Lulu to her other hip. "And you couldn't have called?"

"Well, no. I didn't have your number. Did you know it's –"

"Unlisted, yeah, right. I forgot about that."

He nods, and stares at her for a little bit before going on, "I didn't want to call you at the diner in the middle of the day. I figured you'd be busy and distracted."

"That's true," Jenna says. "But you could've written."

"I could have. I should have. That was definitely an option," he says. His words are getting all awkward and rushed-together and familiar sounding. "And I'm sorry for being quiet in that way for so long. But the truth is, the first time I had news worth writing about was yesterday, and I decided to come down here in person instead, figuring it would be quicker. I got in after the diner closed last night and so I stayed here in town, and came out here bright and early. I figured I'd catch you on your way in."

Jenna switches Lulu over again and says, "Well, you caught me. How about we talk inside, where I can put this little girl down."

"That would be excellent," he says.

She puts Lulu down and goes to open the door to the diner. She uses both hands but still the key isn't quite steady. She can feel that he's watching her, feel it all down inside of her, and all she can think about is how she slept badly and didn't put on any makeup at all and her hair must be a mess, and did they even get finished cleaning the floor last night?

When she opens the door, though, it looks fine inside. She lets out a little sigh once she's gotten all the way in and the lights are on. Lulu makes a beeline for the spot under the counter where her toys are stored, and heads toward her favorite play spot in the front part of the diner, a booth in the corner where there's already a booster seat set up.

"We can sit down and talk for a bit over here," Jenna says, walking over to a small booth a fair distance away from Lulu but where she'll still be in Jenna's line of sight.

When Jenna turns around, Jim hasn't moved from the spot he was when they first walked in. He's just looking, at the booths and the counter and the walls and the specials board. Jenna watches him take it all in, and the way he looks at her when he's done, the happiness in his face and the pride in his eyes, is better than any compliment anyone's ever given for the way she's fixed up the place.

"Come on," she says.

He sits down across from her, and she waits for him to say something, but mostly he just looks at his hands, and then at her, and then back at his hands.

"I know you're a nervous type, but really," Jenna says.

"I know. I know," he says. "It's just – okay. First of all, I'll open with the big news. I'm getting a divorce."

Jenna's mouth drops open. "You're getting a - a divorce?"

"Yes. We've been separated for a while but then a few weeks ago – not long after I got your last letter – my wife told me that she'd met someone. And so things kind of came to a bit of a head, and I needed some time to finalize everything, and I wanted to wait until things were all settled before saying anything to you."

"Well," Jenna says, and then part of what he said sinks in. "Wait, you been separated? For how long?"

"Oh, well. About – I'd say about a year now? More or less?"

Jenna figures back. "Since before you sent me that first card?"

He nods. "Since a few months before, yes."

"And you never thought to tell me?"

"Well, you see, I – I sent you the card, and at first I didn't really expect to hear back from you," he says. "And then I did, and I was so happy that you did write back that I didn't want to do anything that would mess it up."

"So you let me think you were still married," Jenna says. "I been feeling such guilt for so long – did you know that?"

"No," he says, and then leans across the table between them, his expression eager. "No – but were you, really?"

"Yeah, I was! And why are you acting like that's a good thing? Being guilty is not a good thing. It is not enjoyable, and I've had plenty of it already in my life."

"No, no, of course not. Trust me, I'm familiar with guilt. Guilt and I are old friends. And I know, I should have told you about being separated."

"Yeah, you should have."

"Yes. It was not my best choice. It just –" He pauses, opens and closes his hands, and in that moment, in the awkward pleading of his gesture, the truth of the situation becomes clearer to her: How he traveled so far to see her without any guarantee of the welcome he'd get. How he looked at her when she first walked up, like she was the best thing he'd ever seen. How he's looking at her right now.

He says, "You see, since I didn't mention it at first, it got harder to drop in later, and since neither of us ever really mentioned it, I kind of just ignored it. The thing is - I'd missed you. A lot. I was afraid of scaring you away. I was afraid that if you thought I was free, you'd think that I would want to come down and find you right away and see if there was a way we could be together. Really be together."

"I wouldn't have thought that," Jenna says, looking down at her hands.

"Well," he says. "It's kind of what I ended up doing, so."

"Is it?"

"Yeah," he says, reaching out for her hands but stopping short. "It is."

Jenna looks down at the space between their hands, and closes her eyes.

"What, uh," he says. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm inventing a pie," she says, moving her hands until she can feel his under her own. "New Beginnings Pie, I think I'll call it."

He kisses her before she can think of even one ingredient.

.end.

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