Scrappy Summer by Mollie Cox Bryan Read Free Book Online Page A

straight. The lid is not quite on.”
    “Okay, okay. What next?” Annie asked.
    “I usually check the schedule, but that morning I was in a hurry. I had already made
     the crust. It was chilling in the fridge.”
    She opened the fridge. Good God, the fridge needed cleaning. What was the evening
     shift accomplishing? Not much, by the look of things. She made a mental note to investigate.
     What was going on here last night?
    “I took out the crust, walked over to the counter, reached in here for the pie pans,”
     she said and reached in and pulled out a few. “ Mise en place. I got all the ingredients and equipment gathered.”
    She gathered up everything, including the spices, and sat them all on the counter
     in front of her. Mace. Sugar. Allspice. Flour. Rolling pin. Pie beads.
    “There,” she said. “Everything but the apples.”
    “Pretty can,” Sheila said, holding up a can.
    “Bradley’s spices. I love their designs, too.”
    Sheila studied it. “I thought you said you don’t have cumin in the bakery.”
    “I don’t,” she said.
    Sheila held up the can. “Says cumin right here.”
    “Here’s the cinnamon can,” Annie said, holding up an identical can.
    “It must be a new sample! I didn’t realize we even had it in!” DeeAnn said and drew
     in a breath, teared up, and then howled with laughter. “After all that, it was my
     mistake. The cinnamon and the cumin cans are the same color, the same company, everything.
     I don’t know who let the sales guy leave one of his cumin samples. But I can’t tell
     you how much better I feel.”
    “What? Why? You ninny,” Paige said, smiling but rolling her eyes.
    DeeAnn clutched her ample chest. “I thought someone hated me. Or I had offended someone.
     Me being careless, I can handle.”
    The women stood a moment in stunned silence. After everything they had done, the answer
     was right here with DeeAnn.
    “Does anybody want to sample some of these vegan chocolate chip cookies?” DeeAnn finally
     said.
    Of course they all did.
     
     
    Sheila moved the weekly crop to Friday because tomorrow the closing ceremonies at
     the fair were being held and her husband needed to be there—which meant she did, too.
     He was receiving a community service award for his work with troubled youth.
    DeeAnn’s new “thing” scrapbook was spread out on the table, and the scrappers were
     checking it out.
    “I loved the way you journaled in the shape of a rattle!” Paige said. “Very clever.”
    “Thanks,” DeeAnn said. “I used the negative space from a rattle cutout as a template
     and sat it down on the page.”
    “What I like are the actual journal pieces on the page. The torn paper,” Annie said.
    “I love torn papers, too,” DeeAnn said. “I’ve seen scrapbooks that use that technique
     on almost every page.”
    “That’s one thing you don’t get with digital. I mean, you can make it look torn on
     the computer, but when you print it out, you don’t really have the dimension or the
     texture,” Sheila said.
    “I’ve heard some people don’t even print out their digital pages,” Paige said. “The
     keep everything on CDs and JumpDrives. I think that would drive me a bit bonkers.”
    Sheila shrugged. “To each her own, I always say.” She flipped open her laptop. “Oh!”
     she squealed.
    “What?” Vera said, dropping her scissors.
    “I have an e-mail from the competition!”
    “The design competition?” Vera asked, slapping her hands together in a clap.
    “Well, open it, for God’s sake!” Paige said. They gathered around Sheila. Her heart
     raced. Heart, don’t fail me now. She knew better than to get her hopes up. But still, once they had told her she was
     one of the finalists, she could not help but imagine what winning the contest would
     and could mean to her. She placed her hands in her lap and twisted them together.
     White knuckles.
    “I just don’t know,” she managed to say. Suddenly, she felt as if there wasn’t