A Good Day to Pie


 Contents
 
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Chapter 1
 Chapter 2
 Chapter 3
 Chapter 4
 Chapter 5
 Chapter 6
 Chapter 7
 Chapter 8
 Chapter 9
 Chapter 10
 Chapter 11
 Chapter 12
 Chapter 13
 Chapter 14
 Chapter 15
 Chapter 16
 Chapter 17
 Chapter 18
 Chapter 19
 Chapter 20
 Chapter 21
 Chapter 22
 Chapter 23
 Chapter 24
 Chapter 25
 Chapter 26
 Chapter 27
 Chapter 28
 Chapter 29
 Chapter 30
 Chapter 31
 Chapter 32
 Chapter 33
 Chapter 34
 Chapter 35
 Chapter 36
 Chapter 37
 Chapter 38
 Chapter 39
 Chapter 40
 Chapter 41
 Chapter 42
 Chapter 43
 Chapter 44
 Chapter 45
 Chapter 46
 Chapter 47
 Epilogue
 Recipes
 
 Create Your Own Cookies
 Concoct Your Own Quick Bread
 Design Your Own Donuts
 
 
 Acknowledgments
 Also available by Misha Popp
 Author Biography
 Copyright
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Start of Content
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Chapter 1
 Epilogue
 Acknowledgments
 Copyright
 
 
 
 Pagebreaks of the print version
 
 Cover Page
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 A Good Day to Pie
 A PIES BEFORE GUYS MYSTERY
 
 Misha Popp
 
 
 
 To all the readers who came back for seconds
 
 
 
 Chapter One
 
 This is the pie that’s going to kill me.
 No, not the pie.
 The process.
 It’s one thing to bake a honey crunch pie, but it’s a whole other thing to bake it in the glare of studio lighting with a pair of cameras tracking my every move.
 I know it’s my own fault.
 I have no one to blame but myself.
 And Noel.
 I’m definitely blaming Noel too.
 I keep that thought out of my head as I work my hands into the flour and butter in front of me, though. Yes, I’m out of my comfort zone, but that’s no excuse for accidentally working a bit of magical vengeance into this pie dough.
 Especially with cameras watching.
 So I smile and bring my hands up for the cameras. One zooms in on the flakes of flour-coated butter I’m holding, and I turn to the other and say, “I wish I could say I learned this from my mother, but the truth is, she could barely handle boxed brownies.” I laugh, and the memory of smoke alarms cheering on my mother’s baking efforts makes it even feel natural.
 I stir water into the dough and continue narrating. “Baking just makes sense to me. It’s like some people are naturally good at art, or sports, or languages.” I gather the dough into a ball and flatten it into a disk, prodding a few of the visible lumps of butter out of habit. “For me, pie is my language, or my art, if I want to be extra pretentious about it.” I shoot a look at the camera that I hope makes it clear I do not want to be pretentious. “Baking is my life. It’s my identity. It’s what I’m good at.” The woman behind the camera holds a hand up in a stop gesture, and I wait, keeping my eyes on the camera like we discussed, and can practically hear the dramatic music they’re going to add in when this airs. Then she drops her hand, and I have my signal to wrap it up. “And that’s what I want to show the world on Bake My Day.”
 There’s a silence as the cameras record their final seconds, and I hope the smile on my face doesn’t look too deer-in-headlights. I have a flash of panic that I said the wrong title—the show has already gone through four puntastic iterations since I applied—but Kate looks pleased when she calls wrap and steps out from behind her camera.
 Her assistant lowers his handheld and nods. “Plenty of close-ups,” he says, swiping a hand across his forehead.
 “Good. Get these goddamned lights down. This place is like a sauna.” Kate starts packing her camera away and, at that moment, the door swings open and Frank, owner and official curmudgeon of Frank’s Roadside Diner, stomps into the kitchen.
 “We done in here?” he barks. “I got a business to run, you know. This ain’t Hollywood.”
 “It most certainly isn’t,”