Read Online A Catered Fourth of July by Isis Crawford - Free Book Online Page A

polish on them.”
    â€œBut they look so naked.”
    â€œAnd yours look so . . . so . . .”
    â€œGood.” At the moment, Bernie was wearing green nail polish with blue tips.
    â€œNot the word I was going to use.” Libby totally changed the topic, going off on a food tangent because it was just too early in the morning to argue. “I’ve been thinking. Maybe we should sell ice cream or frozen yogurt.”
    â€œFrozen yogurt is the new big deal,” Bernie reflected. “It would give us another income stream. Especially if weather like this becomes the new norm.”
    Libby looked up as she finished her first pie crust and went on to her second. Only ten more to go, she thought. For some reason, lemon meringue and chiffon pies of various kinds were turning out to be their best sellers this summer. Maybe it was a retro thing, since those kind of pies were particularly popular in the fifties. Or a comfort food thing. The dessert equivalent of meatloaf, so to speak. Or perhaps they were a hot weather thing, because they were light and refreshing.
    In any case, Libby wasn’t complaining because the chiffon pies were easy to make, their ingredients were cheap, and their profit margins were large. The pie crusts were baked blind, cooled, and then filled with a variety of flavors.
    She rolled the portion of pie dough she’d been working on into a circle. “We could always rent one of those frozen yogurt machines with an option to buy,” she suggested as she transferred the dough to the waiting pie pan, patted it down, and began to crimp the edges. She loved the way the pie dough felt like velvet underneath her fingers.
    â€œThen we’d have to break it down and clean it every night.” Bernie added a stream of cocoa powder to the contents of the mixer bowl. Red velvet cake was a Southern thing that had suddenly become popular in the northern states. “Remember. All those little tubes have to be cleaned with brushes. Or have you forgotten?”
    Libby wrinkled her nose. “God, what was I thinking? How could I forget?”
    â€œProbably because you repressed it.”
    â€œI think you’re right.”
    Libby’s memories of working at the frozen custard stand in the Catskills were not good. Aside from having two sex-crazed coworkers who insisted on indulging in that activity every time they got a break—unsettling since she never knew where she was going to come across them—it had taken her the better part of two hours every evening to dissemble, clean, and reassemble the custard machine. Eventually, she’d broken one of the little tubes and gotten herself fired—which had been fine with her.
    â€œIce cream would be better,” Bernie continued, thinking out loud. “We’d just need a larger freezer and cooler.” Her voice gathered enthusiasm as she went on. “We could do all local fruit and maybe a few exotics like vanilla with black pepper or lavender and cardamom or avocado ice cream.”
    Libby smiled. She liked the idea. “I heard the pizza place in the strip mall near town is selling their freezer. Someone said they’d be willing to take two hundred for it.”
    Bernie nodded. “Not bad. We could sell ice cream for—” She stopped. Price point calculations had never been her thing.
    â€œGive me a sec to figure it out,” Libby said, being the better of the two at that particular task. Her lips started moving, but no sound came out as she did the arithmetic in her head. “Ballpark, I think we could sell the ice cream for two-fifty for a single scoop, three dollars for a double.”
    â€œIncluding the cones?”
    â€œThey can’t be more than a nickel each. And I’m being generous.”
    Bernie nodded. “That would work. We’d be undercutting Schneider’s by a nickel a scoop.” Schneider’s was the only place in town at the moment that sold