Whoopie Pie Secrets Read online

  I know what he means, of course. Abram and I are each other’s confidants. When he’d decided a year ago that he didn’t want to be a professional juggler, but rather a detective or maybe a government agent, of course I swore to keep his secret. Our daed would go nuts if he thought one of us was going to work for an outsider police department or, worse, the United States government. Even the idea of being a private detective, one of the things Abram was considering, might throw Daed over the edge. Neither of us wanted to see what that looked like.

  And, unlike our parents, I didn’t disapprove of Abram’s choice at all. I didn’t much like his idea of being a street performer, but I knew that wouldn’t last. And when he said he wanted to dedicate his life to helping people, solving crimes, making the world a safer and better place, I couldn’t discourage him and I never would. I didn’t like the idea that he was practicing his detective techniques by spying on people, but I never let go of how important it is for me to be supportive of him.

  Who else will be?

  So we made certain rules, and as long as he stuck to them, I would keep his secret.

  Rule number one is: Don’t spy on me.

  Rule number two should have been: No juggling in the grocery store.

  “Excuse me,” a voice says behind us. I turn, a chill creeping up my spine, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. A very handsome young man stands between us and the grocery store, he’s tall, his blond hair falling over his forehead, his eyes piercing blue. “That was the worst display I’ve ever seen.”

  My body is flushed again, this time with disappointment. “I’m sorry, I’ll pay whatever damages are...”

  “Oh no, no,” he says, shaking his head and waving his hands subtly, “not you, them! I saw the way that guy deliberately caused that fracas. And all those jerks screaming. I tried to get a word in, but I guess nobody heard me over the din.”

  I sure didn’t, so I suppose it’s reasonable that nobody else did either. I smile to show my gratitude. “Well, thank you for coming to our defense then.”

  “Not much of a knight in shining armor,” he says, returning my smile and extending his hand. “Simon Troyer.”

  “Hannah Schroeder, and this is my brother, Abram.”

  “Good juggling, Abram,” Simon says, shaking my brother’s hand. “Guess you gotta learn how to pick your audience though, eh?”

  Abram smiles and nods. “I see three round things and I just can’t help myself.”

  Simon nods with a chuckle, then looks back at me. “Don’t worry about those fools in there. And there’s a better grocer about three blocks down. Like an escort?”

  I feel a smile stretch across my face. I can’t help it. And I don’t want to.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Because Simon has set out to do his own errands on foot, he joins me and Abram in the carriage and even takes Adeline’s reins. He shakes them and barks his commands and the horse turns and trots to his every tug. Adeline seems to detect his authority, his mastery, even at such a relatively young age, which I guess is close to my own.

  Twenty-one.

  At the second store, we stroll through the aisles, collecting the few items I am sent to retrieve: some flour, fresh milk, eggs. We won’t have our own dairy until we can get a proper cow and some chickens, but we haven’t even pulled the weeds out yet, nor cut back the grass.

  Simon is only interested in me, it seems, where we’re from, how long we’ve been in Lancaster, whether or not I have a boyfriend. His attention to me is flattering, and it’s a pleasure to be around somebody who, unlike my sister or parents, actually seems interested in me, in who I am, where I’ve been and especially where I’m going.

  I’m a little surprised to learn that I don’t actually have the last one figured out.

  After some prodding, Simon opens up about himself. “Not much to tell, really. Daed left me the beet farm. Between that and taking care of my gramm, there isn’t much time for anything else.”

  “Your gramm...your mother is...?”

  “In childbirth, I’m sorry to say. Never knew her. It was Gramm who raised me. You’ll love her. Gramm’s parents came straight from Germany and that was the language she spoke growing up, never let it go. It’s nice, being around her, a taste of our history, really.”

  “She sounds wonderful.”

  Simon gazes into a distant memory, smiling to recall some private moments, which I admire him for having and which I hope one day to share or even create for another, happier generation of my family. Family seems important to Simon.

  And that’s important to me.

  I say, “And your father?”

  “Yeah, he was...I was lucky to have him. Good guy, went too soon.”

  “I’m so sorry, Simon,” I say, quickly at a loss for words. This isn’t where I want the conversation to go. “I know how it is to lose a family member like that.” It’s a little much, I admit, but I’m flying by the seat of my pants, and it’s getting gustier and gustier.

  But at least I haven’t crashed yet, and that’s something.

  Right now, that’s everything.

  “Well, God never gives us more than we can handle,” I offer, hoping it lends him some comfort. Actually, it winds up bringing me a little ripple of warmth to be reminded of this, even if I did remind myself.

  And unwittingly too.

  “It does sound like you’ve got your plate full. Do you, um, not have time for a girlfriend?” I ask, failing to hide a flirty little grin and ignoring Abram as he rolls his eyes behind us, shaking his head with embarrassment.

  “Not as such,” Simon begins to explain.

  He doesn’t have time before another voice cracks behind us. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  We turn to another new face. She’s small, a bit broad, with a plain face that looks rather pinched in its current grimacing expression. Her chin is jutted, her mouth a tiny slit, lips pressed angrily together.

  Simon’s smile is a nervous wriggle as he says to me, “Hannah Schroeder, this is Lilly Zook, a very old and dear friend.”

  “A friend?” she repeats.

  “Aren’t we friends?” Simon asks.

  Lilly begins to stammer a bit. “Well, yes, of course, but...”

  “And as I was doing some errands,” Simon calmly explains, “I came upon a new neighbor of ours and I thought I’d help her get the lay of the land. ‘Have we not power to lead about a sister?’”

  Lilly sneers. “...A wife?”

  As if expecting this, Simon counters with, “As well as other apostles,” gesturing to Abram standing just a few feet away.

  Lilly looks at him, then at me and Abram. She looks back at Simon, struggling with her words. It’s a struggle she cannot win.

  Finally, she turns to Simon. “Will I be seeing you at services this Sunday? They’re at my house.”

  “You know I never miss service,” Simon says. “I’m sure our new neighbors are more than welcome to join us?”

  Lilly’s face goes a shade darker.

  And redder.

  Then she turns to me, trying to force a smile. “Of course. It’s the Zook home, at the end of Horrace Avenue. We appreciate punctuality.”

  I am about to thank her for her offer and reassure her that we will be there promptly, but she turns and walks off without even giving me a chance, much less saying goodbye. I turn to Simon.

  “Doesn’t seem very welcoming,” I say. “How long?”

  After a curious silence, Simon asks me, “How long what?”

  “How long has she been in love with you?”

  Simon seems to consider it, for what feels to me like far too long a time. Finally he gazes at her across the store and shakes his head. “We grew up together; Lilly, me, my best friend Jessup, like the Three Musketeers. We’re just good friends.”

  Even Abram doesn’t seem to believe this, half his mouth curling down in a disbelieving frown. I say to Simon, “I don’t know you very well, Simon, but some things about you I
can already tell. You are a decent, noble man, caring of others, considerate. You are attractive and charming, I don’t think anybody could doubt that. You are also either coy, humble, or simply dim to the ways of love.”

  Simon stands in a shocked silence, then breaks out laughing. “Maybe all of the above.”

  I smile again. “Maybe.”

  And again, Abram rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

  * * *

  We have a hearty dinner of maple chicken, corn on the cob, and string bean casserole. The cucumber slaw is cool and creamy between the sweet sauciness of the chicken and the crunchy and delicious corn, fresh from a new neighbor’s field, another little welcoming gift.

  The conversation isn’t nearly so palatable.

  “How was your first day with the schoolchildren?” Mamm asks Rebecca.

  “Fine, I guess.” We all sit in silence. “It’s just like Indiana, I’m afraid I’ll wind up an old schoolmarm.”

  Daed says, “You will marry, child, and another will take your place. This too shall pass, Rebecca.”

  “But...when?”

  “When you marry, dear,” Mamm says.

  Rebecca’s voice gets louder as her impatience rises to the surface. “And when is that going to happen?”

  “When we find a young man good enough.”

  “But you’ll never find a young man good enough,” Rebecca snaps back, earning a rare rebuke from our daed (rare when directed at her, anyway). “What about Patton, or Jacob, or Will?”

  “None were ...”

  “Then who will be, Daed? Who will be good enough?”

  Daed’s voice becomes louder to match Rebecca as his ire rises to meet hers. “You are my firstborn, Rebecca, my treasure; I will not turn you over to a lesser man.”

  Abram says, “You should just send her to the grocery store, she’ll meet a man in no time.”

  All eyes fall on Abram, theirs with curiosity, mine with urgency.

  I want to yell, “Shshshsh, Abram, don’t tell them about Simon!”

  But that wouldn’t have been very discrete, would it?

  So I sit in tense anticipation as Daed asks Abram, “What do you mean by that, boy?”

  Abram shrugs. “There are lots of guys there, they’re all around.”

  “How do you know this?” Mamm asks,

  Abram seems to read my expression, feeling my silenced pleas. I keep your secrets! I’m trying to communicate to him. And a good detective or secret agent lives or dies by the secrets he keeps!

  And, as intelligent and as shrewd as ever, Abram turns back to our parents and says, “I went with Hannah for groceries, and we were looking for husbands for Rebecca, that’s all.”

  Now Daed, Mamm and even Rebecca turn to me. “You were doing that,” Rebecca asks, “for me?”

  Of course I hate to lie, and I’d never encourage my brother to tell an out-and-out fib. I was hoping he’d have sidestepped this conversation in a more honest fashion, but now that he’s committed to a story, in this case at least, I have to stick with it.

  I did make him do it, after all.

  Sort of.

  “Rebecca,” I say, choosing my words carefully to be as scrupulously honest as I can be, “you’re my sister and I love you. You know I want you to be happy, to find a man you love and be married. You do want those things, right?”

  “Of course I do,” Rebecca says, unable to disguise the desperation in her voice. “More than anything.”

  So I simply shrug and return to eating my cucumber salad, not needing to say more.

  They smile, having believed what I allowed them to believe without ever lying about it. I don’t like having to pull such trickery. But I think about Simon and how excited I am to have met him. Then I think about being disallowed to see him because of my parents’ imbalanced love for my sister over me, caring for her happiness over mine.

  So I say nothing and keep eating. I glance at Abram with a little wink that says, Thanks, little brother, I owe you one.

  And he just nods, not needing to say, Hey, we’re in this together, right?

  Right.

  * * *

  That night I start preparing a fresh batch of Whoopee pies. We’ll be selling them at the local marketplace just as we did in Gary, Indiana. And although I know pride is a sin, I do take pride in my pies. And I work hard to make them the best they can be.

  For me, it’s all about the process, the creation of the thing, just like I imagine it would be for a painter or a sculptor. And, like a sculptor or even a songwriter, I’m ultimately investing a part of myself in the creation: my view, my passion, my basic and essential self.

  I mix the cream, shortening, sugar, egg and cocoa together by hand, of course, squeezing and crushing and letting the sweet slurry sift between my fingers, getting smoother with every stroke. The cocoa is strong in my nostrils and the cream is cool in my palms as I hand-blend my cake batter into readiness. I breathe it in and it becomes a part of me. I squeeze, and I become a part of it.

  I sift the flower myself too, adding the soda. Experience tells me just how much salt, instinct guiding my hand. When I add milk and vanilla and hand-whip the entire concoction, a transformation occurs and a creamy, buttery batter rises from the crumbled ashes of ground cocoa and salt.

  My tongue begins to moisten just to imagine the warm, airy cakes this will be. The muscles of my right arm have a memory all their own, knowing just how fast to stir, changing the rate and direction to keep the mixture airy and smooth. Even though the long wooden spoon stands between me and the batter, it’s almost as if I can feel it, as if my hand were pressed deep into the bowl. The thickness, the texture, the consistency - this information carries up the spoon, into my hand, then up my arm and into my brain.

  Finally, we are all in accord. I carefully set the tablespoons of batter onto the sheet of parchment paper which I have placed over the cooking sheet, making sure they’re all consistent. Ultimately, it is the final presentation people remember, not the unseen preparations behind it.

  I beat the shortening, butter, and confectioner’s sugar, then the vanilla and marshmallow; once more letting the muscles of my hand guide me, the filling itself telling me how long to stir, and how much pressure to apply.

  Then my signature twist, a sprig of mint stirred lightly into the filling, dragging its perfumed flavor so subtly through the whipped wonder that it leaves just a trace upon the tongue; just a hint to the imagination of what is to come, of what could be.

  But preparing them isn’t the end of it. Once they’re done, they go to market.

  And so do I.

  * * *

  The marketplace is crowded with Amish and even outsiders, coming in from various towns, cities and even states nearby. They come to look at us, to gawk at us, like some kind of human zoo. They don’t realize how unremarkable we are; just people who choose to live simply, as simply as we can, far more simply than others. That’s really all there is to it; we’re dedicated to our God and to each other - what’s so freakish about that?

  But they come for more than our appearance or our carriages. They come for our quilts, unique and well known throughout the country and, if I’m not flattering our contribution, even the whole world! They come for our delicious pies and our tender, slow-roasted venison.

  And, in Indiana at least, they came for my Whoopee pies.

  To my relief, the folks in Lancaster have similar tastes, and their smiles tell me everything I need to know about the success of my pies in their new location. Leaving my mother to tend to selling the pies, I take a brief and rare walk around in privacy; no chores, no kid brother, no older sister.

  I breathe in the homey scent of the hay in the air, the clops of horse hooves, and the murmur of conversations tickling my ears with the sounds of the familiar, the welcomed, the loved.

  But not every sound is so pleasant, even the ones I cannot hear.

  Especially those.

  And, out of the corner of my eye, I see a familiar face: L
illy Zook, the lifelong friend of the handsome and charming Simon. She sits with another young man whom I don’t recognize but whom I guess straight away to be Jessup, the Third Musketeer.

  Then, as if sensing my proximity or feeling my gaze, Lilly turns and looks straight at me. With no time to change her expression, I can see the icy glare, the hateful sneer.

  But I know I can’t back down. We’ve made contact and I have to do something or I’ll appear to be weak or fearful, and I am neither one of those. So, even though it may seem strange, I cross the marketplace to Lilly and extended my hand in friendship.

  “Lilly, it’s nice to see you again.”

  Lilly looks at my hand but doesn’t shake it. Jessup does. But before he can introduce himself, I say, “Jessup, right?”

  He nods, smiling. “Yes, Jessup Pratt. But how do you...?”

  “I met Simon yesterday, with Lilly here, and he told me all about you.”

  “Yet he told us nothing about you,” Lilly says.

  I ask, “What is there for him to say? We only met briefly.”

  Jessup observes the tension between me and Lilly, clearly recognizing it from their previous conversation. They’d been talking about me, and about Simon, I’m even more sure of it now than before. But it doesn’t change my position.

  I will not be pushed around.

  Jessup says, “Simon is certainly a great guy, very special person.” Reading Lilly’s razor-sharp glare at him, he chuckles nervously. “Well, he’s not perfect, of course. But, I mean...”

  I know what he means, and what Lilly intends.

  Lilly says, “What brings you here, Hannah? Offering your services in the plow field?”

  I am taken aback by the insult, but I won’t give Lilly the satisfaction of knowing she’d landed a good blow. Instead, I offer her the most telling retort I can.

  The truth.

  “I’m here with my family, selling pies I’ve made; shoo fly, Whoopee, even zucchini pie.”

  We all look over at our booth, which is already crowded with people, nobody walking away without at least one pie and some carrying several stacked up in their arms.

  Jessup says, “You must be quite a baker. My cousin in Indiana raves about the pies out there.”