The Pickle Queen: A Crossroads Café Novella

My quirky talent was sensing a person’s soul food—not just a favorite dish, but something that has special meaning. Gus got a sweet or sour sensation about people, and when he described it to Mama and Daddy, using words like “apple cider, lemonade, the smell of an old tennis shoe or maybe burned coffee,” Daddy grinned and told him he was cut out to be a beer tester. Tal’s foodie talent was a little hard to decipher so far, but Mama was betting on something to do with smells. For one thing, the first time baby Tal said “Mama” was when Mama was waving a spoonful of warm apple pie under Tal’s nose.

  The Boy turned to tuck his ear wires into his pocket. Under that shaggy black hair were serious dark eyes, a long sturdy nose like Ralph’s, and a sad mouth that quirked at the edges when he scuffed a hand over Ralph’s head.

  My heartbeat was very attached to The Boy already. My spoon-wielding hand wavered by my bean-smeared apron. Bees buzzed around my knobby knees under the hems of cut-offs, and the hot July sun was making the freckles make baby freckles along the straps of my tank top. I ignored it all to gaze in hypnotized wonder at the sweet-deprived prince who had won Ralph’s lickability award and my forgiveness for invading the smoker herd.

  But then he turned back to the smoker in front of him, and opened the lid.

  Not that one. If he’d meddled in any other smoke-puffing cooker, I’d have sauntered over calmly. But he opened the canister that included a big aluminum pan full of my personal specialty, my signature dish, the homemade dill pickles stuffed with bacon, minced hotdog, and sweet cheese.

  At only eight, I was already the self-proclaimed Pickle Queen of West Asheville.

  He reached into the smoker, plucked a Smoky Dill Oink from its bed, sniffed it, and nibbled one end. I held my breath. My Oinks were a big hit with Mama’s customers.

  His face scrunched as if he’d swallowed pure vinegar. He spit the piece on the grass, then walked over to a hedge of honeysuckle and tossed the Smoky Dill Oink into its guilt-hiding tangle.

  By then, I was heading for him with the spoon raised for attack.

  Jay

  Gabby swings a spoonful of love at first sight

  GABBY LEFT HER mark on me. In my scalp, to be precise. A half-inch gash at the edge of my hairline. Draw a line ten degrees off plumb from the end of my right eyebrow to hairline, and there’s the fine white scar to this day.

  I bled like a razor-sliced street fighter, which didn’t stop her from whacking me on the forearms as I gallantly shielded myself without running or fighting back. Ralph barked merrily. Gus ran around front to see if his sister was being attacked; he got a laugh out of that, later. I was a little unhappy about being cracked on the skull with a spoon, so when he shoved me away from Gabby and yelled at me as if I were to blame, I punched him in the shoulder. I was nobody’s wimpy little orphaned rich kid. Unfortunately, Gus was trained in the fine art of My Old Man Is A Cop And I Can Kick Your Ass, and so he tackled me.

  We rolled around among the smokers, slugging and grunting, sharing my blood, while Gabby danced around us, hitting me with the spoon again at every opportunity. In the background I heard “Ka pow, ka pow,” which I’d later learned was Tal, cheering us on.

  Gnarly hands dug into my neck. Gus and I were dragged apart by a skeleton with dead blue eyes.

  “What are you doing here?” the skeleton yelled at me. “Wakefield! Tom Wakefield’s boy! He’s dead and now you come creeping around! Why?” He snatched me by my shirt front. “Your uncle sent you. Admit it. It’s a trap. Well I won’t let you get them! You won’t get your claws into this family!” He shook me hard.

  “Mr. Sam!” Gus yelled.

  I jerked angrily. “Let go of me, sir.”

  By now, Gus had a strong hold on Mr. Sam’s arm, Tal was hiding in the honeysuckle by the side yard fence, and Gabby bounded forward, dropping her lethal spoon. She squirmed boldly beneath the old man’s other arm, wrapping her arms around his and bracing herself against his leg like a chock block. “Come on, Mr. Sam,” she said softly, “Get your mind back to today. Let go of him. He’s just a pickle thief, that’s all.”

  I scowled at her. “Not a thief. I planned to pay for it. I don’t steal. Not anything from anybody.”

  “Food waster.”

  “I do not . . . it was only because . . .”

  “He’s a Wakefield!” the man yelled again. “Don’t you understand? A Wakefield!”

  “Hey, Mr. Sam, hey,” Gus said, putting a raw-knuckled hand on his forearm. “Remember what Mama and Daddy said. Stay peaceful. Or they won’t let you have your flask back.”

  “The Buddha,” he drawled in a hoarse but elegant voice, as he reached out to thumb the charms that hung from my leather wrist cuff. He bent low, swaying like a scarecrow sagging off its pole in the wind. “And a crucifix, and a Star of David. Your Daddy was looking to protect and guide you in every way he could. Because he knew what it means to be a Wakefield!”

  “He’s gone crazy,” Gabby whispered to her brother. “He’s gone nut-pickled candy-corn bonkers, this time. Mr. Sam. Please. Please calm down.”

  A shiver went through me. It was as if the Grim Reaper had paid a visit to me—again. He had stark white hair and a dirty gray beard with bare patches around his pale lips. He wore a faded, double-breasted suit over a David Bowie t-shirt, a strand of love beads, and cheap metal necklace with a tarnished charm on it: an old-fashioned type of bicycle. On his feet were thick leather hiking sandals. He wore no socks, and he had painted his long, blunt toenails pink.

  He stared down at me with those sunken eyes burning inside folds of skin mottled in veins and red splotches. Suddenly, he snatched my wrist in his bony grip.

  “I’m not condemning your daddy. He’s the only good Wakefield ever born, as best I can tell. It’s up to you to be like him. Or be damned! I’ll come back from my grave and haunt you forever if you stray down the path of Augustus! And so will he!”

  Augustus? He’d known my great-grandfather?

  “Let me go, sir,” I repeated.

  “Mr. Sam,” Gus warned.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Sam Osserman,” the old skeleton said, yellowed teeth bared at me. “Why are you here? I guard this family! From Wakefields! Tell me why you’ve come here, boy! And who is that yellow-haired hired gun you sent inside?”

  “His name’s George Avery. He’s here to offer Mr. and Mrs. MacBride a lease on a building in town. Because I asked him to.”

  Gus and Gabby stared at me, then at each other, then at me again.

  Mr. Sam’s putrid eyes narrowed into a sinister squint. “Why’d you ask him to?”

  “Because . . .”

  Because Delta Whittlespoon was with me when Dad died, and now, every time I miss him so much I think I’ll explode, I think of biscuits and remember her hug. Because she sends me biscuits every week in the mail. Because she told me that Mrs. MacBride’s mother was a cousin of Mary Eve Nettie’s.

  Mary Eve Nettie is the reason Dad died knowing Free Wheeler would stay in one piece and that he’d beaten E.W for once. Mary Eve Nettie gave Dad a kind of peace. And she’s why I can keep Free Wheeler away from E.W. Just like Dad wanted.

  So I’m going to take care of her family. A family that loves and hugs and believes biscuits can heal the world. A family that’s nothing like mine.

  “Because I like biscuits,” I said. “Because I’m rich, and I own buildings all around Asheville, and I want a diner around the corner from where I live, and I hear that Mrs. MacBride makes good biscuits.”

  “Liar!”

  “No, it’s true,” Gabby put in. She was watching me closely. “It’s true. Mr. Sam. He’s got biscuit witchery around him. Gus?”

  Gus nodded. “Yep. Not sure how it got there, exactly, but it’s there.”

  The old skeleton sneered. “He’s hiding something.”

/>   “Come on, Mr. Sam,” Gus soothed.

  I looked up into those strange eyes, and that bicycle charm necklace, and said, “Did you know a bicycle man named Arlo Claptraddle?”

  He froze. I could almost hear his bones rattle. Fear whitened his ashy skin even more. He began to shake. He released me and stumbled backward, shaking his head. “Oh, no, you won’t fool me. You won’t pull me into your web. You’ll not get to my loved ones through your wily Wakefield ways. No no no.”

  Gus and Gabby looked embarrassed. “Sorry,” she said. “He won’t hurt us or anybody else. He lives in our garage. With his bikes.”

  “Don’t tell him about my bicycles, child!” the old man shouted. Then he hunkered over and waved his hands at me. “You’re the only hope for Wakefield redemption! Swear it! Swear on her soul! Swear!”

  “Whose soul, sir?”

  “Swear it,” the old man roared. “Jayson Wakefield, son of Thomas Anthony Wakefield, rest his soul, grandson of the worthless William Wakefield, great-grandson of Augustus Wakefield, damn his bloody soul! Swear you are not bred to sink into greed and lust and meanness and cruelty and the pride that stalks and betrays any and all who trust your bloodline. Swear you will be the man your father wanted you to be! Swear!”

  Part of me just wanted to get his cold, dead stare off my brain, but something deeper provoked me to make a promise. “I swear,” I said grimly. I had come here on the first of three long-term missions: to take care of Mary Eve Nettie’s family, to protect Free Wheeler, and to destroy E.W. If I had to swear allegiance to causes I didn’t understand, so be it.

  Sam searched my eyes until I thought my head would melt. He swiveled toward Gus. “He’ll need your friendship.”

  Gus cocked a scraped eyebrow. “Sure, Mr. Sam. You bet.”

  “Don’t you joke with me, sir! Swear it!”

  Gus frowned at me. “I don’t even know him.”

  “Use your gift, Groucho MacBride!”

  “Groucho?” I intoned.

  Gus looked like he might slug me. He leaned toward me, tilting his head.

  One time in New Orleans, a woman who worked for Dad’s architectural consultants, knowing that Dad was friendly to the subjects of all things metaphysical, studied him and me with the same crow-watching-a-cricket stare. “What is it?” Dad said, encouraging her.

  “My grandmother believed in African Voodoo. Me, no. But I see . . . spirits around some people. Your son is . . . accompanied. They follow him. He’s a magnet. He’s a key.”

  Dad had simply nodded. “A turning point, I hope.”

  “Smooth,” Gus finally said. “No burn.” He looked at Mr. Sam. “Clean. I swear. I’ll be Jay Wakefield’s friend.”

  Sam dragged Gabby from under his arm, but gently. She continued holding onto him, scowling from him to me to Gus. He pointed at her. “He’ll need more than your friendship. He’ll need your womanly love.”

  Her mouth fell open.

  So did mine.

  “Swear you’ll love him!”

  “Mr. Sam, I’m . . . I’m just a kid . . . and . . . he threw my Smoky Dill Oink away!”

  “I don’t eat pork,” I said quickly. “I’m a vegetarian.”

  “I don’t care what church you go to, you don’t throw my stuffed pickles in the honeysuckle!”

  Sam jabbed his finger at her. “Close your eyes, Greta Garbo MacBride! Tell me what your food angel thinks about him.”

  I gave her a look. She shot back, “You repeat that name and I’ll whack you again.”

  “Truce.”

  “Concentrate!” Mr. Sam bellowed.

  “I already know, Mr. Sam. Chocolate ice cream with Reese’s Pieces! He loves that more than any food in the whole world. But he won’t eat it because . . .” She looked at me, frowning harder. “Oh. Oh.” Her face softened. Her red brows shifted.

  “Private information?” Sam asked.

  I stared at her in disbelief, but there was no doubt. She pinned it. My favorite. And I never let myself eat it; I’d taken a vow not to eat any sweets, because . . . Dad couldn’t. She knew.

  You just want to fit in. You want a family.

  The thought came out of nowhere and hit me in the chest. No. I was here to take care of business.

  “You think a lot,” Gus said. He snorted. “I see smoke coming out of your ears.”

  I snorted back. “I don’t see anything coming out of yours.”

  We shoved each other, but it was half-hearted. Gabby hissed at us. “Boys!” She went over to the smoker, opened the lid, reached into the pan of Smokey Dill Oinks, retrieved one and set it delicately on the palm of her hand, though her hand was covered in bits of grass from scuffing around on the lawn while hitting me with the spoon. She prodded the innards, flicking all the meat out of the pickle. Ralph caught most of the bits in mid-air and vacuumed the rest. Gabby carried the de-Oinked Smoky Dill to me and held it out. A peace offering. “Pickles. Your new favorite food.”

  I had blood all over my face, some dirt in the back of my mouth, and felt not only the freaky mysterious ray of Sam Osserman’s gaze on me but also Gus’s head-cocked scrutiny, since the old man was sort of marrying his sister to me.

  Somewhere in the honeysuckle bushes, Tal said, “Pineapple. Pine and apple. Piney apple. That’s his smell. Good good good. Appley pine. I swear to be his friend, too! I swear, too. Hey. A snake.”

  Which sent Gus hurrying over to check it out.

  I took the warm pickle from Gabby and made sure I didn’t hesitate. I shoved the whole thing in my bloody, dirty mouth, chewed hard, and swallowed in three big gulps. The actual taste was lost on me. But the soul taste was fine.

  What I really remember was the way Gabby watched me, with worried green eyes in a face spattered with freckles the color of ginger. A mass of cinnamon-red hair spilled around her shoulders and arms in poofy braids. I wasn’t sure if the orangey smears on her girl-sized chef’s apron were food or the blood of some animal she’d brained with the spoon.

  My world was an island up in the loft of a building where I lived with people I liked and respected but who were not my family and who, though very trusted, were paid well to stay there. I had only ever had one true emotional connection to another person—the pure jolt of love that came from Dad. That was the only time I’d felt I mattered much to any other person on the planet. Until now. Gabby MacBride lasered a lightning bolt of belonging into me that lit up all sorts of untested circuits. It wasn’t romantic, or sexual, not for a long time to come.

  At any moment she might pulp me with a kitchen utensil. But the mere fact that something made her care—that something she saw in me was so special she offered me her sacred smoked pickle without the holy Oink—made me happy in ways I couldn’t describe.

  “I swear,” she said to Sam.

  Gabby

  EVEN IN THE high mountains of western North Carolina, the rain can scare people. That’s why Asheville was built at the top of a ridge over the Swannanoa and French Broad Rivers, safe above the floods. Down in the lowlands, those waters killed people; there were flood marks twenty feet high on the aged sides of the river buildings, even at the fancy English-cottage-style village outside the Vanderbilts’ estate, where the workers had lived at the turn of the century. But high up on the humpback of the Asheville peak, we were dry and happy in the echoing emptiness of our dream come true, the brick-over-granite two-story shop building that had been built in 1910 by Benjamin Ackman Wakefield, elder brother of Augustus, using granite mined in Wakefield quarries and bricks made in Wakefield kilns. The entrance walkway said P, B, and S in black-and-white ceramic tile, for the original owners—Parner, Brewster, and Sons Leather Goods.

  We were surrounded by tools, saws, sawdust, lumber and plans, as a river of water sluiced down Lexington’s old gray pavement and cracked sidewalks.
Thunder rumbled and lightning cracked.

  Me, Gus, Tal, Mama and Daddy ate a feast from plastic bowls set out on a folding table covered in a celebration table cloth—old linen embroidered with roses—that Mr. Sam had given Mama. Where he got such a fine thing, and what the roses meant, no one knew.

  “He was mean to Jay,” Tal said.

  “You know why?” Daddy said that day, as we sat around on the floor of our dream come true. “Because something got hold of his heart, something hateful, and he won’t let it go. People who won’t let go are ruined.”

  Mama peered at him, a half-smile on her mouth. “You sure you’re from around these parts? Scots-Irish? Feuds aren’t feuds until they’re two generations old.”

  “That’s just the point, Jane. It’s crazy to have hates and feuds and wars that drag on. Heartbreaks and even misunderstandings. It’s a rot. If I were a Bible thumper, I’d call it a sin.”

  “Is that why we’re doing business with a Wakefield?” Gus asked.

  Daddy’s rusty-brown brows flattened. He gave us his Sarge MacBride chin tilt. We stopped eating and straightened to attention. “Listen up,” he said.

  “Stewart, wait.” Mama got up and said to Tal, “Come on, Biscuit Witch, you’ve got cupcake icing all over you. Let’s go try out the plumbing.”

  “But I wanta listen up,” Tal said.

  Mama led her out of the main room. Ralph got up to follow, then yawned and flopped back down.

  Daddy leaned toward Gus and me intently. “Tom Wakefield was a good man. Loved. I guess I got nothing against mining as a business, if it’s done right, but the Wakefields sure don’t let fairness or common decency stand in the way of getting rich. Tom saw a bigger picture than just making money.”

  I said quietly, “I saw a history book at the library. It says there was a moonshine war between MacBrides and Wakefields.”

  “There’s gossip. Going back to moonshiner days, yep. There were a lot of MacBrides up in the high mountains then, the Little Finn Valley. They farmed, and they mined, too. Mostly mica, but some quartz. There was a war during moonshining times. They fought the law, and the law won. Wiped them out. The Wakefields got hold of the valley. Mined what they could find, decided it wasn’t worth it. Sold out to their cousins from Louisiana. Bonavendiers. Kind of a luckless bunch, those Cajuns. Been there ever since. Tom Wakefield was friendly with them, I hear.” He shook his head. “I don’t think those MacBrides were our people.”