Fiction | March 01, 1989
Eating Air
Ellen Lesser
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When the ride got bumpy over the Adirondacks, Rachel’s hand automatically reached for the bakery box, strapped in on the seat next to hers. She’d been traveling with the box for so many hours, it had become a sort of companion. Maybe like traveling with a sleeping baby, she thought–the way you’d instinctively check, touch, adjust it. She smiled to herself, imagining Susan’s face when she saw her coming in through the gate with the outsized white box, held ceremonially in front of her. For the upteenth time she pictured the towering creation inside, mentally crossing her fingers that the moats and turrets of meringue cream hadn’t gotten mashed by the box top, that the green candied cherries still sat primly aloft on each turret. The most extravagant Key Lime Pie on Miami Beach, the paper’s veteran food writer had assured her. God knew what the thing tasted like, but it was a vision.
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