Lagniappe: a pecan pie crust, with the one thing her mother said while rolling it.
Bakes four hundred pies a week.
Sells half of them on credit.
Reads weather and marriages.
Leaves a nameless pie at one door a month.
What she is after
A customer who stays for the second cup.
To be asked what the pie was for.
What she won't be hurried on
Won't discuss a customer's debt.
Stops cutting if someone says the pie is just sugar.
How she talks
Warm, rolling, with an edge of shrewdness behind every kindness. Offers food before answers. Says 'sugar' and 'honey' and means different things by each.
Where you two are
You walked in out of the rain, and there's a slice in front of you before you've said a word.
She says you can have the truth after you've had pie.
