Cherry Pie and Heartache

This is my half of a challenge I put to MorningMist. The challenge: in two weeks, write something for this prompt [potential for mature language in link]. My holiday: Cherry Pie Day.
This is about 1600 words. Of those, I like about 100.

Addie used to say that heartache tastes like cherry pie.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she’d say. “I’m not a romantic soul. But I’ve felt my heart aching, and cherry pie’s the flavour.”

There was a story behind it – of course there was a story behind it. She loved to tell that story. I reckon I had the tale down pat before I was fifteen. Even now, when I pass it on to someone else – that’s what stories are for, after all – I can hear the rhythm of her voice in my own words.

“It was Cherry Pie Day,” she’d begin, every time. “Cherry Pie Day – in February.”

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Cherry Pie Day wasn’t a real holiday, not one of the big ones with cards and days off. It was a week after Valentine’s, or thereabouts, and all you really had to do for it was eat cherry pie, and appreciate it. Addie and her friends celebrated it every year since they discovered it – because let’s face it – who doesn’t appreciate cherry pie?

They’d been having the Cherry Pie Party for about six years when it all went wrong. And it was all Diana’s fault.

The day was on a Friday that year, and the plan was a pretty standard one. The six of them were going to meet up – at Diana’s place this time. They’d have a nice meal, have a few drinks, and then between them, they would devour enough cherry pie to feed an army. Everyone would make a pie, or more than one, so there was never any danger of running out. And they’d swap some gifts, just little things, because what’s a holiday without presents?

It was the Sunday before that Diana called.

Addie was wrapping her gifts at the time – she did like to be prepared for that kind of thing, and what with work and all she might not have time for shopping in the week, after all. She had them all laid out on the table, next to the wrapping paper and the Sellotape and the ribbons. Belgian chocolates for Julie and Dustin – gorgeously marbled, melt-in-the-mouth treats. A fancy set of bath soaps for Diana, because although she had cupboards full of the things, in every flavour you could think of, she always seemed to be after more. Joke-shop fake thumbs for Taylor, because you can never have too many in-jokes.

And for Scottie… She’d put his to one side, resting on the tissue paper it had come wrapped in. Nothing too big or fancy – they were supposed to be little gifts, after all – but it was small and shiny and… well. It’s hard to explain how something as simple as a slightly melted-looking statuette of a penguin could be perfect for someone, but this one was perfect for Scottie.

She laid out the wrapping paper in the middle of the table, and was just folding it over the bath soaps to work out sizing when the phone rang. She let the paper spring open again, and reached for the handset.

“Hello, who’s speaking please?”

“Hey Addie – it’s Diana. Listen, about Friday–”

“You’re still ok for then, right?”

“Oh, yes, no, I’m fine. It was just – my cousin Leah is going to be in town this weekend, and she’s super busy on Saturday and Sunday – do you think it would be ok if she joined us on Friday? I haven’t seen her in months…”

“Oh, uh…” Addie stared at the wall, frowning. She didn’t recall meeting any of Diana’s cousins before, but that hardly meant anything. “I guess I can’t see a reason why it wouldn’t be ok.”

“Brilliant. I’ll check with the others. And I’ll try and get her to bring some pie along, too. See you then?”

“See you then.”

Diana hung up. Addie held the handset for a moment, thinking, then shrugged, and returned to her wrapping.

She didn’t think anything more of the matter.

That is, she didn’t think anything more of it until Friday.

Diana’s place was a spacious apartment in the flash part of town. Addie and Scottie met up at the bus station, and made their way over together, each bearing a box of pie. As they got to Diana’s block, Scottie was recounting the highlight of his week.

“…so there’s a pause on the other end, and then she says, ‘…so, should I plug them in?’” He pressed the button for Diana’s apartment. “And I’m there, can’t quite believe she just asked me that, like, ‘…yes. Yes, that might just help.’ I mean, seriously. They let these people own computers? –Oh, hey Di. We’ve got piiie…”

There was laughter on the entryphone, and the door buzzed its electronic greeting. Addie leant on it, balancing her box on one arm to use the door handle.

Up in the lift, to the sixth floor, and when they got to Diana’s door it opened before they’d touched it – “I heard you laughing all the way down the corridor, guys. What are you talking about this time?”

“Ah, nothing much,” Scottie grinned, sweeping in. He wrapped Diana in a one-armed hug, holding his pie precariously over her head. “Are we the last?”

“Of course.”

“Brilliant.”

They were indeed the last - Julie and Dustin waved from over by the sofa, while Taylor bounced over to greet them more enthusiastically. Diana swept the pies away to the kitchen, and returned with an unknown woman following behind – the cousin, presumably. She was almost exactly like Diana in looks, but her hair several shades blonder and her outfit several shades lower on the immaculately-pristine scale.

“Scottie, Addie - Leah. Leah - Scottie, Addie.” She leaned to her cousin’s ear, grinning at the two in the doorway. “Addie makes the best  cherry pie – make sure you get to it before Scottie does, yeah? He’ll eat the lot.”

General laughter swept Addie and Scottie the rest of the way into the apartment, and the festivities commenced.

Addie tried not to watch Scottie too intently as he opened his gift from her – and failed, of course. The smile that leapt across his face swept a matching one onto her own. He caught her eye, and grinned at her, and she restrained the urge to bounce around the room. 

He’d got her a photo frame, border decorated with tiny, silver penguins. Unexpected, but as she unwrapped it, her mind flooded with recollections of photos that would look stunning in it. The grin remained plastered on her face, her cheeks almost aching from it.

Diana produced some marvellous food from the kitchen, as if by some enchantment. Leah helped her serve it – and apparently had helped to prepare it, too, or at least, seemed very keen to tell Scottie all about the finer points of its creation.

Very keen.

By the end of the main course, Addie’s grin was slipping. She tried to brush away the suspicions. They were just talking. There was no law against talking.

But there was a knot in her stomach, and her smile made her face hurt now.

“Are we all done, then?” Diana reached out for the plates nearest to her and began to stack them. Everyone began to pass theirs down to her, praising the food enthusiastically.

“Shall I…?” Scottie offered, half-rising from his chair. There was a chorus of cheers, for this – this was the moment. Cherry Pie Time.

“I’ll help you with that-” Addie leapt up, too, and followed him through to the kitchen.

“Thanks,” he smiled, and for a moment her smile felt happy again. She took the pies he handed her, each now centred nicely on its own pretty plate (and why Diana had so many decorative plates, nobody could know), and ferried them out to the table as their hostess brought the old dishes in. Scottie was a step behind, pies artfully balanced all along his arms.

“Oh, Addie,” Dustin moaned, leaning closer to her cherry creation. “You know I spend the whole year waiting for this pie, right?”

Laughter, and each of them broke into the crust of a pie, carving out careful slices to pass around the table. Dustin proclaimed his love for each and every one as it passed him, and eventually each of them had a tower of cherry pie in their place.

“Ready?” Diana looked around the table. “Then it’s Cherry Pie Time! Happy Cherry Pie Day, guys!”

They raised their spoons in toast, and dived into the dessert.
 
Half an hour later, dessert defeated, they retired to the comfier haunt of the sofas. The pie had calmed Addie’s stomach-macramé, but Leah’s flirting had continued to cause winding of tension in her chest.

Scottie and Leah were over by the kitchen, now, refilling their glasses. Addie could see them, out of the corner of her eye, joking and laughing. She tried not to stare, tried to listen to the conversation at hand.

A burst of Leah’s high laughter caught her attention. She glanced sideways to see the girl fall into Scottie with the hilarity of his comment. Scottie caught her, and for a moment, they were still, nose-to-nose in the doorway.
They didn’t kiss. But Addie’s heart twisted all the same, because there was no doubting that look that passed between them. The flavour of cherry pie was on her lips, and the feel of heartache was in her chest.

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“I don’t normally go in for the whole physical-pain-of-heartache thing,” she’d say. “I’m not a romantic soul. But that moment felt like a punch in the chest from the inside, and I won’t ever forget it.”