Pie

Charlie is a tall, gangling, strong, red-headed classmate of Alice. He is guileless, honest, and extremely loyal. Though he admits to not being particularly bright, Alice records hearing Polly describe him as having a good head on his shoulders. Charlie is good with mechanical things, leading to him constantly having grease under his fingernails. Universally trusted in the village, Charlie is the person many citizens use to deliver their groceries. Since most of the narrative takes place during summer vacation, the only three children who appear in the story are Charlie, Alice, and Nora, the pretty daughter of the mayor, whom Charlie finds quite attractive.

During Polly’s funeral, Charlie inserts himself into Alice’s life, later explaining that he suffered the loss of his cherished grandmother and understands what Alice feels. Charlie is quite observant and emotionally engaged, bringing Alice the same peaches Polly used to make her favorite pie as a way of remembering and honoring her aunt. Alice does not hesitate to use Charlie’s loyalty for her own purposes, spying on their principal and baiting Sylvia, the mystery lady, into sneaking into her bedroom in search of Polly’s recipe. Charlie never hesitates to fulfill Alice’s requests.

Polly receives an inheritance when her parents die in 1941 and uses it to build a pie shop with an attached apartment. She carefully plans her finances so that she has enough money to live and bake pies, not for sale but to donate to whoever wants them. Polly’s entire life revolves around making splendid pies and showering love on those around her. Because her pies are literally the best anyone has ever tasted, her fame takes on national proportions. Though she will not accept money for her pies, people come from all over the nation, bringing her the best ingredients so she can make more pies. While she never enters the contest on her own, outsiders surreptitiously enter her pie in the annual Blueberry contest to pick the best pie in the country. She wins not once but 13 consecutive times. Her shop brings many visitors to the tiny village of Ipswitch, indirectly providing jobs for many locals.

Polly catalyzes the feelings of many people. As revealed during her funeral, the majority of Ipswitch’s citizens think she was a saint. However, her sister, Ruth, continues to feel jealous and resentful of Polly. Jane, the Blueberry Bridesmaid who perpetually finishes second in the pie contest, detests Polly, as revealed in her destruction of Polly’s pie shop and apartment when she searches in vain for Polly’s recipe. With Alice, Polly shared accepting love and wisdom centered on setting one’s own course in life. Weeks implies that while everyone loved and accepted her pies, no one understood her motivations. Alice emerges as the individual who grasps and embodies Polly’s nature.

Ruth is the younger sister of Polly, the wife of George, and the mother of Alice. Polly confides to Alice that Ruth has a magnificent voice, though Alice never hears her sing. This symbolically implies that Ruth, unlike Polly, has unexplored, undeveloped potential. The narrative reveals several major points of contention between the sisters that Polly’s death only exacerbates. Ruth resents the adoration most residents feel toward Polly, whom she believes always needed to be the center of attention. Ruth takes it as evidence of her sister’s hatred that Polly apparently did not leave any type of bequest to Ruth. In a moment of vitriol, Ruth reveals her feeling that Polly also stole Alice’s love and that Alice showered love on Polly rather than her mother.

Beginning with the description of Ruth at her sister’s funeral, Ruth is presented as an anxious person who believes she has been unfairly treated. She is prone to sick headaches, resulting in her going to bed and sending George for aspirin. The narrative has two scenes that present as a potential denouement. One, regarding the mystery of the catnapper and burglar, is the apprehension of Jane in Alice’s bedroom. The prior, pivotal scene is the confrontation between Alice and Ruth in which Alice, having suffered reproach from her mother for her unrequited grief over Polly’s death, cries out that Polly showed love to her when her mother did not. As Alice flees, riding her bike away, Ruth follows, calling for her to return. This moment is the first sign of openness Ruth expresses, and it leads to a full reconciliation with Alice.

For his part, Alice’s father, George, remains largely in the background, depicted as someone who just wants to escape Ruth’s screed by reading the newspaper. When Ruth launches into a tirade, he tries to leave the room. With any conflict between Ruth and free-minded Alice, his invariable response is to warn Alice not to sass her mother. George is a control character against whom other individuals react to reveal their thoughts and progressions.

George is also a source of humor, sometimes of a self-deprecating nature. When Alice wakes up, uncertain as to whether Lardo ended up at the pound, and asks her father if the cat is still present, her father—allergic to felines—responds with a sneeze.

Lardo is the pure white stray cat adopted by Polly. After living with her for several years, he becomes rotund, his belly nearly dragging the ground when he walks. Polly names him not after his physique but after her favorite vegetable shortening, Lardo, which matches his pure white color. The cat is legendary for being disagreeable, hissing and clawing at everyone except Polly. In her will, Polly leaves the cat to Alice, who alone knows how to care for him. Symbolically, leaving the ornery cat to Alice is tantamount to leaving Ruth and Ipswitch itself to Alice, whom Polly believes has the inner resources to embody for these needy folks the love that she shared.

Another provision of the simple will is that Polly leaves her pie recipe to Lardo, seemingly implying that she left the recipe to the cat. However, the Lardo mentioned in the will is the shortening company, which agrees to put the recipe on the side of its shortening containers.

Lardo the cat is the focus of controversy in the narrative. Ruth tries repeatedly to send him to the pound, despite Alice’s observation that it should be her decision. The cat is catnapped, drugged, recovered, and returned to Alice. Lardo’s moment of glory comes when his catnapper, Sylvia, returns to Alice’s bedroom, and the cat attacks her.

Alice and Charlie’s school principal is the enigmatic Miss Gurke, a strict disciplinarian who does not tolerate tardy students. Weeks describes Miss Gurke as a large woman who wears clothes several sizes larger than necessary. This tendency causes students to speculate as to why she dresses oddly. Mistakenly believing she is the catnapper, snooping Alice and Charlie see Miss Gurke in tight, red workout clothes punching a weight bag. She informs them that she desires to be a great female bodybuilder.

Miss Gurke is also a suspect in ransacking Polly’s pie shop and apartment because Alice witnesses her taking something from Polly’s open casket and assumes it is the key to the pie shop. The principal reveals it was a large ring bequeathed to her by her mother.