March fourteenth is Pi Day. I have often blogged about Pi Day because my blog day is the fourteenth of each month. This year I was thinking that Pi Day may only apply in places that write their dates with the month first, rather than the day first.
We recently went to Cancun, Mexico, on a vacation with our younger daughter and her family. When we were filling out the forms for immigration when we arrived, we were reminded to put the day of the month first, which is opposite of the way we here in the USA write our dates. So I'm thinking a lot of places that write their dates with the day first wouldn't even think of March fourteenth as PI Day. Maybe they like to think of it as PIE Day.
Here is a blueberry pie, marked with the Pi symbol, that I baked on Pi Day a few years ago just for fun.
In the sixth book of my Front Porch promises series, A Baby to Call Ours, a marriage of convenience story, my heroine doesn't know how to cook, but she is learning. She wants to bake an apple pie, but while she's at the store, she hears some disturbing news.
Here's an excerpt.
Now
everything was different. She had no baby on the way. Did Jimmy feel trapped in
this marriage? She wanted to talk to him about it, but she didn’t know how to
bring it up or what to say. He still needed a wife. A divorce wouldn’t look
good to his uncle. She wished she knew what Jimmy wanted. She wished she knew
what she wanted. Her emotions floundered in a sea of confusion.
Shaking away
all the troubling thoughts, Kelsey got out of the car. Jimmy would be home
tonight after another out-of-town trip. She wanted to buy some groceries to
make him a special supper to celebrate his return. She had surprised herself at
how much she enjoyed cooking. Besides fried chicken, Mary had told Kelsey that
he loved steak and baked potatoes. That should be easy to fix, if she could
figure out how to light the grill.
Kelsey
grabbed a shopping cart and pushed it into the store. She headed for the
produce department in search of the perfect baking potatoes. After she selected
two, one large and one small, she spied the apples. Did she dare try to make an
apple pie, another one of Jimmy’s favorites? She would try.
After she
selected the apples, she moved on to the large display of cheeses. Jimmy loved
cheese in the sandwiches he often took in his lunch, and she wanted to get him
something special. While she perused the cheeses, she heard two women talking
as they stood on the opposite side of the display. The mention of Jimmy’s name
caught her attention.
“Do you know
who’s back in town?” asked one woman, not waiting for the other woman to
respond. “Whitney Hamilton.”
“She hasn’t
been back in years, even to visit. Why is she back?”
“Her dad’s
health has really declined in the last six months. I think her mom begged her
to come home to help.”
“I wonder
what she thinks about both Mitch and Jimmy being married.”
“I don’t
think she cares that much about Mitch. She always had her sights set on Jimmy.
He was the one she was in love with, even when she dumped him for Mitch.” The
woman sighed. “Jimmy Cunningham can sure turn some heads with those good looks
of his.”
“Yeah, but
then he runs off and marries some young thing that he barely knew.”
“Someone told
me they thought she was pregnant, a one-night stand that resulted in a rush to
get married.”
“I heard they
don’t even live together. Is that true?”
“I don’t
know, but it wouldn’t surprise me, if Whitney has her way, that Jimmy won’t be
married for long. Those two couldn’t stay away from each other even when she
was engaged to Mitch.”
Kelsey wanted
to run out of the store. If those women saw her, would they know who she was,
or were they just talking about some nameless, faceless woman who was part of
the small town’s rumor mill? She would forget the cheese, grab the steaks, and
get out of this store.
Hoping the
women couldn’t see her, Kelsey kept her face turned away as she found her way
to the meat department. Hurriedly she looked over the steaks and grabbed a
couple of packages and threw them into her cart and barreled down the aisle
toward the checkout lane.
When Kelsey
finally reached her car, she tossed the plastic bags containing her purchase on
the passenger seat as she slid behind the wheel. While she drove home, she let
those women’s comments replay in her mind. Had people guessed about her
pregnancy? Well, now there was no baby.
Kelsey’s
heart twisted, and the tears flowed. She wasn’t even sure she knew why she was
crying. The loss of her baby. All the pretending. The thought of losing Jimmy.
Maybe all of it pressed down on her spirit. What had happened to the cheerful
college student she’d been last fall when she’d first met Jimmy?
Is Kelsey able to make a pie? Does Whitney go after Jimmy? Grab a copy of A Baby to Call Ours and find out. Click on the title to find buy links.
So whether you celebrate Pi Day or Pie Day, celebrate with a book.
If you live outside the USA, how do you write your dates? If you live in the USA, have you ever had to write the date starting with the day rather than the month?
Merrillee
Whren is the winner of the 2003 Golden Heart Award presented by Romance
Writers of American. She is married to her own personal hero, her
husband of forty-plus years, and has two grown daughters. Connect with
her on her Facebook page and sign up for her newsletter.