The plan, insofar as it was a plan, was this. He would bring the pie. He would tell his mother that Linda had baked it for her, that Linda was terribly sorry, that Linda had come down with something, possibly the cat had given it to her. He would weather the disappointment. He would make it to Christmas. It was not a good plan. It was not even, strictly speaking, a plan. It was a pie.
Moretti's was a narrow, steamy, wonderful place with a black-and-white tile floor and glass cases full of cannoli and sfogliatelle and pignoli cookies and loaves of bread so crusty they crackled when you looked at them. Old Mrs. Moretti sat by the register doing the crossword in pen. And behind the counter, in a white apron with flour on her wrists, was the blonde girl.
Wes had been coming to Moretti's every Saturday morning since the spring. He came for one cruller and one black coffee, and he came, if he was honest, partly for the blonde girl, though he had never done anything about it except say thank you and count his change twice and leave a quarter in the jar. She had a way of looking at him while she bagged his cruller, a long, level, faintly curious look, as though she were waiting for him to say something in particular and he kept failing to say it. It made him nervous. It made him come back every week.
Sometimes there were two crullers in the bag instead of one. He had never mentioned it. Neither had she.
"You're early," she said now. "It's not Saturday."
"I need a pie," said Wes.
"What kind?"
"The kind a dental hygienist from Hartford would make."
She paused with her hand on the case. She looked at him with those arched brows, and he saw her take in the stubble, the shadows under his eyes, the mustard sweater he had slept in, and he understood that he had said that out loud, and then, because he was tired and desperate and because there was something about the way she was standing there with flour on her wrists that made lying feel suddenly pointless, he told her the whole thing.