[GP/EP] Pie for Pi Day

[st_ackeddeck]

The only ones who might have known yesterday held any significance were Jag and Sunny, and if they did, they also knew her well enough to know she wasn't big on celebrations. Her one tradition, a new deck for her birthday, hadn't been possible this year, since she hadn't found anything like a tarot deck on Asphodel Station. But that was okay.

Pi Day, on the other hand, was worth celebrating. Everybody liked pie. Last week, she'd talked to Pike, who had been curious and excited about a holiday for pie, and seemed eager to help. Yesterday, she'd put a notice on the bulletin board, hand-lettered over a watercolor scene of pies and more pies. She'd also made ice cream in a variety of flavors, since she wasn't Bobby to freeze it on demand, in less time than it took to prepare the custard base. Today, she left the non-pie food preparation to Ignis, the chicken chef, and anyone who wanted to fend for themselves.

Today, along with Pike and anyone else who wanted to and knew what they were doing, Emma baked pies. Fruit pies and cream pies. Quiche and pot pies. Shepherd's pie and meat pies. Hand pies, savory or sweet, baked or fried. As close as she could get to real Brooklyn-style pizza this far from Brooklyn. Some were decorated with the symbol π or the first few digits of the number it represented, as a vent in a top crust, piped in whipped cream, or carefully laid out in caramelized onions depending on the pie. And because she couldn't resist the visual pun any more now than she could the first time she celebrated Pi Day at the castle, a square apple pie (one of Bobby's favorites) and cherry tart (a recipe she'd learned from Sabine, the fruits a deep ruby red against white cream and pale crust that would have appealed to her cousin's aesthetics).

It wasn't the same as Pi Day at the castle, but there was a bustle and energy as people moved between the kitchens, the bakery, and the cafe, sitting to talk over a slice, or helping each other choose what to taste next. As long as Emma stayed busy, she could enjoy the memories without dwelling on the people she missed.

And there was pie. Everybody likes pie.

Comments

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_hotflashes]

See Liz.

See Liz with cream pie.

See Liz fall with cream pie.

See pie fall all over the front of Liz's shirt.

See Liz, an embarrassed 16 year old, climb back up to her feet, red in the face while trying to clean the mess up.

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_oneswidow]

It wasn't that Curnen didn't care, so much as her standards were so low that she didn't understand what the poor kid was so embarrassed about. It was a fall. Everybody took them. It was a little mess. It was easily cleaned up. And besides, as she was currently finding the floor rather comfortable, she didn't much see why being on it would be a big deal.

Still, Liz was a nice enough kid from what she could tell, and her and Peter mooning over each other was one of the cuter things to watch people do around here. "Hurt yourself, baby?"

Though she looked like she couldn't be that much older, and she wasn't unaware of this fact.

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_hotflashes]

Liz was very grateful that Peter wasn't around to see her make a fool of herself, even though deep down she knew he'd just be more concerned about her fall than anything else.

She looked up from where she was trying to uselessly clean off the cream from her chest. She was going to need more napkins. "Oh, um... No. I mean, maybe my pride a little." She offered a sheepish smile. "and I ruined the pie."

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_oneswidow]

"I reckon Emma's not gonna chew you out for an accident," Curnen assured her with a little smile. "And there's still enough pie to feed the whole in for half a week. As for that," she nodded to the smear all over Liz's front, "that's what laundry's for."

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_hotflashes]

"I guess I'm just used to it being a bigger deal back home." She flushed a little. "Back home this would have been a customer's pie and there'd have been like five people from school would who have cared and then I'd have to spend the next three hours with this on my uniform."

It might have happened a few times to her.

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_oneswidow]

Curnen pulled a face. "High school is shit." Then she shrugged. "Course I'm used to being some degree of mess, so being embarrassed would be a constant state if I bothered."

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_hotflashes]

Liz laughed softly. "Sometimes high school can kind of suck, I guess... but I miss it, being here. I miss the challenge, which I'm sure sounds super lame, but, um, it's true." Not that Liz had any desire to leave the Inn at this moment, what with what was going on with Peter.

"I'm Liz, by the way." She offered a friendly smile.

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_oneswidow]

"I know," she said after swallowing a mouthful of pie. "Curnen." Because if the kid didn't expect Curnen to know her name, she probably didn't know hers either. "And I guess it's a little different if your school ain't like a daily family reunion."

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_hotflashes]

Growing up in a small town Liz had gotten used to not prying into other people's lives unless invited. She knew Curnen could sing, but had never asked around for her name.

"Did you grow up around a lot of family? I don't have any siblings or even any cousins..."

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_oneswidow]

Curnen had to smile at that question. "Cloud County ain't got a lot of people in it, and I'm related to a lot of 'em in one way or another. Sometimes the connection's a few generations back, but it's there." Some people from the outside thought the Tufa looked like one giant family. It was, of course, considerably more complicated than that. "People got roots that go a long way back, and anybody new coming in from the outside's rare."

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_hotflashes]

"No one really moves into Roswell too. Actually most people try to get out after high school. It's not as small as Cloud County sounds like, but sometimes it seems like that." Liz had always thought she'd leave to Harvard right after high school. Get out from Roswell. She wasn't sure anymore.

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_oneswidow]

"Town proper's called Needsville," Curnen explained. "And people don't much leave it. Least not long-term. It's part of who we are."

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_hotflashes]

"No one ever wants to leave?" Liz thought about Kyle. He seemed pretty happy to stay in Roswell. Most people, though, seemed to think Roswell was just a temporary place they were growing up in and then leaving for somewhere else.

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_oneswidow]

"Oh, some try," Curnen admitted. She'd ended up in the mess she had because of all people Rockhouse had tried to leave. "But it's where we belong. With our kin. The whole idea that you strike out on your own and maybe see your family once a year is just real alien."

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_hotflashes]

Liz knew alien in a totally different sense.

"I want to move across the country when I'm out of high school... sometimes I wonder if I'll actually be able to. I'm surprised my parents are even letting me apply to Harvard." She half joked, then paused. "It must be weird to be here then without your, um, your family."

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_oneswidow]

"Yep," Curnen agreed. "I never thought I've be so far from home in my life. 'Til last year I'd barely been out of Tennessee." And only then it had been touring with Rockhouse. She hardly wanted to count that, and not just because touring was an exhausting way to live.

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_hotflashes]

"That's like me, except for New Mexico." Curnen was the first person she met here from a place in the states that wasn't considered one of the cooler or more interesting places like New York or California. It was kind of nice, considering Roswell and New Mexico were mostly forgettable.

"Do you... do you like it? Here, I mean?"

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_oneswidow]

Curnen had to think about that. She would never(?) have met Coby if she hadn't come here, definitely wouldn't have met Kash, or Miguel, or any of the others here. "Sometimes. Sometimes I don't."

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_hotflashes]

Liz could see that. It was harder for her to agree now that there was Peter in the picture, especially since Peter wasn't back home at all.

"A part of me worries about my parents, you know? Like, if I'm missing back home they must be really worried... but then other people think it's something to do with time flow so they won't even know I'm gone or - - I don't really know. But I still wonder what they're going to do if I never go back." And sometimes she didn't want to go back at all. Those thoughts made her feel the most guilty.

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_oneswidow]

"Time don't work the same for everyone," Curnen agreed with a little nod. "And... yeah, it's hard not to worry. We can tell ourselves and each other that there ain't no point to it, but it happens anyway." The grand irony of Curnen's life was that now that she was gone, people probably remembered her better than when she was right there.

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_hotflashes]

"Yeah..." Like falling in love with someone who wasn't Max Evans and it turning your world upside down. "...How long have you been here? At the Inn."

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_oneswidow]

Curnen had to think about that. "August...? August. It was August." And unlike summer in the mountains, summer here had lingered and lingered well into the fall. September nights at home were already freezing.

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_hotflashes]

So, not quite a year. "And I guess the longest anyone knows someone to have been here isn't a lot longer than that, huh?" She wondered if there was a time limit on how long you were allowed to stay. She wondered if her and Peter had a countdown clock.

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_oneswidow]

"Nah, some arrived last Christmas or so?" Curnen hadn't been there, only heard tell of it, but that seemed to be the general consensus. "One of 'em left, but the other three are still here."

Re: Curnen - OTA

[st_hotflashes]

Liz nodded. So not too long ago. "Do you think... our presence here is finite?" She paused, then shook her head. "Nevermind." And she smiled. "Sorry, it's just something that crosses my mind sometimes."