Free Pies and Prejudice by Ellery Adams Page A

dress and a stunning necklace of platinum beads. Her black hair tumbled down her shoulders, the strands of silver framing her face reflected the light from her necklace, and for a moment, standing beneath the purpling sky, she appeared far younger than her fifty-eight years.
    Ella Mae’s aunts were already seated at a table with a stunning view of Lake Havenwood when she and her mother strolled into the restaurant. Every head in the room turned to watch their progress.
    Verena, attired in a black dress with a white jacket embellished by a fuchsia silk flower, shouted for champagne and the waiter hustled off to obey. Sissy wore a silk poet’s blouse and several strings of pearls while Dee wriggled uncomfortably in a form-fitting dress made of yellow linen.
    “Stop
fidgeting
,” Sissy chided amiably. “You can’t wear those overalls every day!”
    Dee pulled on the tail of her braid and flashed a self-effacing smile. “I like all the pockets. It feels strange not to have gum or Life Savers or my phone on hand.”
    “Gum? You used those pockets to conceal your cigarettes back in high school,” Adelaide teased.
    “And
other
things,” Sissy added with an enigmatic wink.
    The waiter arrived carrying an ornate silver ice bucket on a tall stand. A second waiter held a tray of champagne flutes aloft and deftly placed a delicate crystal glass in front of each of the women at the table.
    Verena waited until their glasses had been filled with the golden sparkling wine and then rose to her feet. “To The Charmed Pie Shoppe. May everyone who steps through its pink raspberry doors be changed by the experience!”
    As Ella Mae raised her glass toward the center of the table, gently clinking rims with her mother and her aunts, an orb of light formed, like an immature planet within the center of their circle of glasses. It was too bright to look at directly, so Ella Mae averted her face. She’d done the same thing at the lake earlier, when the sun had reflected off the water’s mirrored surface. But this light was more complex. It had the shadowy depth of a cut diamond and hovered in the air like a Fourth of July sparkler freed from its stick.
    Ella Mae caught her breath in disbelief, the hairs on her arms standing on end as a feeling like an electrical current shot through her body. She felt infused with a rush of unadulterated power. It was intoxicating and frightening and yet she did not want the sensation to stop. Not ever.
    What’s happening?
She wanted to speak but her thoughts refused to string together coherently. The white light turned her fingertips a glittering alabaster.
    Then, one of her aunts retracted her glass to take a sip of the dry champagne, and just as suddenly as it had sprung out of the air, the light disappeared. Ella Mae nearly moaned in disappointment, but she was so thirsty that she closed her eyes and took a deep swallow of the sparkling wine, the image of the strange orb still etched on the dark canvas of her eyelids.
    “So what will you do first, Ella Mae?” Verena asked as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
    Taking another substantial swallow of champagne, Ella Mae almost asked if anyone else had seen the supernaturalglow but decided it must have been created by light ricocheting off the crystal glasses.
    “I drove to a restaurant supply company in Fair Oaks and showed them my proposed floor plan.” Blinking hard, she forced herself to focus by handing Verena a copy of the design she’d created on her mother’s computer. “I thought I’d have to go to Atlanta, but these folks have everything I need.”
    “Do we have enough cash to cover the start-up costs?” her mother inquired as she closed her menu.
    Ella Mae was about to answer when the waiter came to take their orders. When his leather pad was filled with an array of dishes, including cold avocado soup, grilled lobster, spinach and grapefruit salad, smoked salmon with mustard and dill, gazpacho, chicken with mushrooms and