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“Uh uhn, no way, no how, not happening.”
Olive slid into the booth, passing out glares and tureens of Martha’s mac’n’cheese (gruyère and organic peaches – ‘so good you’ll be willing to go to jail for it’) to its original occupants, neither of whom had actually placed an order.
“You are not doing this to me in my own restaurant, Pie Boy”.
“O-Olive!” Ned exclaimed attempting to surreptitiously slide the letter he’d been holding back into his pocket. “What a surprise to see you here.”
Ned glared across the table at Emerson, who was managing to look both mildly surprised at Olive’s interruption and only moderately interested in lunch. Neither of these things were true.
“At my own restaurant?” Olive bit out as she crowded Ned into the booth and blocking off possible escape routes. “You can’t exclude me from investigations at my own restaurant!”
“There’s no investigation happening here.” Ned said, pushing himself up against the wall. “We’re just friends, old friends meeting for a reason completely unrelated to an investigation related with any other old friends that may or may not be here.”
Ned trailed off under Olive’s glare.
“You are excluding me, in my own restaurant, from an investigation about CHUCK?!” Olive said, sliding Ned’s untouched plate in front of Emerson, who’d finished his portion and had been openly considering the remaining portion.
“Excluding? We aren’t excluding-” Ned began nervously.
“Yes, yes we are.” Emerson said, reaching out to tug the plate from Olive’s grip. “We are excluding you. You have been excluded from this investigation. Now leave.”
Olive narrowed her eyes and pulled the plate back from Emerson, letting its delicious scent waft across the table in protest.
“You can’t exclude me. There is no EƧ Investigations, with the S backwards like a Z so we can pronounce it “easy”, without the S.” Olive said logically, repositioning herself on the bench and wrapping her foot around the table leg in case Ned tried to make a break for it. “And I am the ‘S’.”
“Olive,” Ned said pleadingly. “Look, there’s no investigation. We’re just catching up on some old news.”
“News like that letter in your pocket?” Olive glared at him, appreciating that even after all these years, he was still moderately cowed, unlike her erstwhile partner. She stabbed a fork resentfully into the mac’n’cheese, determined to withhold it from the table’s other occupants.
“Lying liars, who are lying to me in my own restaurant don’t merit gruyère.” Olive said, chewing purposefully towards Ned. “That letter in your pocket is news if I’ve ever smelled it and I think I should be knowing if you’re coming here to discuss it. I don’t come to your restaurant and make all judgy, judgy with the excluding.”
“Why can’t we come here?” Emerson asked, eyeing the forkful mac’n’cheese she’d scooped up like it was a glass of water in the desert. Olive stared at him, unblinking, while she chewed it.
“I like being here.” Emerson continued, his nonchalance at odds with how his hand was creeping towards the tureen. “Here is a place I like. Although I usually like it more when I’m actually given my order.”
“You didn’t order anything.” Olive said, blocking his fingers from the tureen with her fork.
“Exactly,” Emerson agreed, reluctantly pulling his hand back. “Which should make it very easy for you to provide. Much easier than the 25 lunch orders you are currently ignoring to come over here.”
“Pigby’s taking care of it.” Olive assured him before turning back to Ned. “Now about Chuck’s letter.”
“The letter isn’t Chuck’s, Chuck has nothing to do with this letter.” Ned rambled. “In fact, I would go so far as to say that Chuck never needs to know about this letter, as it has nothing whatsoever to do with her.”
“Pie girl applied to college.” Emerson clarified, making a happy noise as Olive slid the remaining mac’n’cheese towards him. “Pie girl got into college.”
“You opened her mail?!” Olive turned on Ned, outraged at the invasion of her friend’s privacy.
“I didn’t know it was hers!” Ned responded. “It didn’t have her name on it! I mean it did, but not her real name. There is another name; a name that doesn’t exist.”
“Wait, so this isn’t about Chuck going off to college?” Olive asked, confused. “Since we thought this here ‘secret, hush-hush, nothing to see here Olive’ meeting was all about Chuck going off to college.”
“No, it’s –” Ned began and paused. “We? We?”
“I thought we agreed not to tell Olive!” Ned said, turning to Emerson.
“No,” Emerson said as he scrapped determinedly at the last morsels of gruyère. “You said we shouldn’t tell Olive and I made agreeing noises, which you thought meant I agreed. Which I didn’t. There’s no EƧ Investigations, with the S backwards like a Z so we can pronounce it “easy” without the S.”
“Or free gourmet mac’n’cheese either. That’s me too.” Olive pointed out. “So we want the full skinny, the brass tacks, the scoop, the score, the inside dope, you dope.”
The facts of the case are this. 4 years ago Ned's life was turned upside down when he heard his childhood sweetheart Charlotte Charles, or Chuck, had been murdered. Blinded by a hefty reward, and his partner Emerson Cod’s rather lackluster acting, Ned brought Chuck back to life to assist in finding her killer. Overcome with love and remorse for accidentally killing her father when they were children, Ned had been unable to return Chuck to the sweet, and slightly larcenous, hands of death. Chuck had found a new life at Ned’s side, although she generally maintained a distance of approximately one foot due to safety concerns, and had, by her own accounts, become Mrs. Pie Maker in all but name. Until now.
“Enough with the backstory,” Emerson said. “Ain’t like we don’t know it.”
“No we don’t,” Olive countered, leaning in interest towards Ned. “There were definitely parts of that that I did not know.”
“Those aren’t the important parts.” Emerson said dismissively to her. “Except for the part where lover-boy here almost got me killed bringing back dead girl. I noticed that part was left out; that was an important part.”
“No,” Emerson said, returning his focus to Ned. “No the important part is that you called me out because pie girl wrote ‘Mrs. Pie Maker’ on her application and now you’re terrified that you might have done the deed somehow without noticing. ‘Cause I have to tell you, that is the type of thing you notice.”
“Well, yes, I guess?” Ned said, eyes still locked on Olive in trepidation. “I would think so?”
“I can’t believe you got married and I wasn’t invited!” Olive snapped.
“That’s the part that you are having problems with?” Emerson swung his focus back to his partner. “That pie girl’s a zombie ain’t clueing in?”
“Un-alive,” Ned corrected diffidently. “I prefer the term un-alive.”
“And you’re annoyed that you weren’t a bridesmaid,” Emerson continued, ignoring Ned entirely.
“Please,” Olive said. “I would have been the best man.”
“Hell no, you wouldn’t!” Emerson shot back.
“Guys! Guys!” Ned cut in. “No one was the best man. There was no best man, a best man was not had. We didn’t get married.”
Ned wilted slightly under their stares. “I don’t think so?”
“Wait, I did miss that part. You don’t think so?!” Olive screeched, causing heads around to turn towards their table. Seeing the table’s occupants however, most of the regulars returned to their meals.
“How can you not know if you got married?” Olive asked, turning back to the problem at hand, namely Ned.
“It’s not like you two could just pop down to city hall, have a quick peck on the lips and call it done.” Emerson reasoned.
“And I’m sorry,” Emerson continued turning to Olive. “Are we not dealing with the fact that you ain’t running for the hills screamin’ ‘she’s gonna eat our brains!’”
“Oh, I’ve known about Chuck’s condition for years,” Olive assured him. “You know I have a cousin, she’s a coroner’s assistant now, I always thought ‘eating brains’ was just fancy medical talk. Just shows you.”
The two men stared at her, trying to process her explanation.
“Chuck talks in her sleep,” Olive explained.
“Yeah, yeah she does, doesn’t she.” Ned said, gazing adoringly into the distance.
“Wellllll,” Emerson said, trying to regain control of the conversation. “So, we just need to, what? Break into city hall? Peruse a few records?”
“Or we could ask her,” Olive said.
“Ask who what now?” Chuck interrupted, the door swinging in her wake. “You wouldn’t believe how long it took to get here! I swear, it’s like all of the morning’s orders were on opposite sides of the city. We should really see about getting a new system.”
“Uh, yeah, a new- new system, for sure. Since that’s obviously why you were driving all over the city and therefore couldn’t have possibly known where I was going or when.” Ned turned and looked judgingly at Olive. “Unless someone here told you…”
“Oh!” Chuck said, sounding shocked. “I just figured that if everyone was meeting for a big case, I should be here as well. Makes it easier since you don’t have to catch me up later. I mean, Olive posted a shot of you all on her facebook wall.” Chuck explained as she scrolled to the relevant post. “See it’s tagged #BIGCase #EƧ-Investigations-with-the-S-backwards-like-a-Z-so-we-can-pronounce-it-“easy”-without-the-S @IntrepidCow.”
“So did you?” Olive asked, turning to Chuck.
“Did I what?” Chuck replied, seemingly confused.
“Tie the knot, walk down the aisle, get hitched, drop anchor, wive?” Olive clarified.
“To whom?” Chuck asked, looking around startled.
“To- to me!” Ned stuttered, seemingly startled into engaging by Chuck’s apparent consideration of potentially marrying other people. “You- you marry- me?”
“Of course!” Chuck said immediately, with a blinding smile on her face.
“What?” Ned said, seemingly having lost track of the conversation. “I did… Did I just? No, not ask you to marry me. That’s not what I meant.”
Ned laughed a little nervously as Olive elbowed him furiously in the side.
“It wasn’t?” Chuck asked quietly.
“Ahhh, I mean,” Ned said, before visibly taking a deep breath. “I mean, I would love to?”
“Yes,” Chuck said. “Me too.”
“Don’t think I didn’t see what you two did there.” Emerson growled at Olive under his breath from where he was trapped against the wall at the far side of the booth. Not that he needed to be concerned, as the table’s other occupants seemed completely oblivious to anything other than each other.
“It’s the best man’s responsibility to step up.” Olive said, smiling impishly at her partner.
“Fine,” Emerson conceded, as he pulled out his knitting; it looked like he’d be here for a while. “But Penny is the flower girl and I ain’t wearing coral; it washes out my skin something fierce.”
“Jewel tones look better on Pigby anyways.” Olive agreed as she slipped out of the booth and went back to the kitchen; seemed like everything was taken care of.