Free The Joyce Maynard Collection by Joyce Maynard

doesn’t matter. Feel what the moment calls for.
    Which—back to pie—might mean more lard than butter on some occasions. More butter than lard on others. The water, too, was a variable, depending on weather, of course. And we were speaking about ice water, naturally.
    You need to use as little water as you can get away with, Frank said. Most people, when they make their crust, put in way too much. They get themselves a perfect-looking ball of dough naturally, but nobody’s giving prizes for that. They’re going to end up with a pasty crust. You know the kind I’m talking about. A person might as well be eating cardboard.
    Here was one thing I must never forget: You could always add more water to your dough, but you could never take it out. The less water, the flakier the crust.
    Mostly I was paying attention to Frank when he told me these things, and definitely, he was paying attention to me, and to the peach pie we were making. He had this way of focusing that made it seem as if the rest of the world didn’t exist.
    There was something in the way he talked about the process of making a pie that commanded a person’s attention, to the point where it was hard to look away even for a moment. But every now and then, as we worked, I’d look over at my mother, standing at the counter, watching us.
    I might almost have thought there was this whole other person standing there, she looked so different.
    She looked younger, for one thing. She was leaning against the counter, holding a peach. Now and then she’d take a bite, and when she did, because of how ripe the fruit was, the juice ran down her face, onto the flowered blouse, but when it did she didn’t seem to notice. She was nodding, and smiling. She was having fun was what it looked like. I got this odd feeling, when I looked at her—and then at him. It was like some kind of electric current ran between the two of them. He was talking to me, and paying attention closely, too. But there was this other thing going on, underneath all that, not recognizable to most people, or any people for that matter. Like some kind of high-pitched frequency only certain very rare individuals could pick up. Only them.
    He was talking to me. But he was sending his real message to her. And she got it.
    Not that he was finished with the pie lesson: now he was telling me how you made a well in the center of the bowl and splashed in only enough ice water for the top crust first, gathering up the dough to make a ball—not a perfect round ball; that would require more water than you wanted. Let it hold together just enough so you can roll it out.
    We didn’t have a rolling pin, but Frank said no problem, we could use a wine bottle, with the label taken off. He showed me the motion first—swift, brisk strokes, from the center out. Then he had me try. The only way to learn anything, to do it.
    Our dough, when we rolled it out on the counter, seemed hardly to hold together at all. His rolled-out dough only vaguely took the form of a circle. There were places where the pieces didn’t even hold together at all, though these he pressed together with the heel of his hand.
    Heel of the hand, he said. It’s got the perfect texture and temperature. People buy all these fancy tools. When sometimes the best tool for the job is right there attached to your own body. Always there when you need it.
    For a bottom crust, there was no big problem getting it in the pie dish. Frank and I had rolled out the dough on wax paper, and now that it was thin enough for his liking, and holding together, if just barely, he flipped the plate over, so it lay upside down over the rolled-out dough. Then he picked up the wax paper and turned the whole thing over. Peeled off the paper. Presto.
    He put me in charge of the filling. He let me sprinkle the sugar on the peaches first, and a little cinnamon.
    It would be great if we had Minute tapioca to soak up the juices