The Apple Dumpling Girl

Photo by Kateryna Hliznitsova on Unsplash

Kyle got out of bed dreading the day ahead of him. In other countries, May 1st was International Workers’ Day. When he was a freshman, a history teacher tried to explain the labor movement and unions to him, but all he remembered was a picture of people wearing folk costumes and dancing around a maypole.

Kyle would have preferred that activity today rather than the one that was facing him. Namely, getting “The Place on Batchawana Bay” ready for the season. And even though everyone called it “The Place,” technically, it was “Nancy’s,” named after his mother.

Kyle used to love summer, especially when he was in elementary school. But by the time he was 16, his parents insisted he help them get through the summer months by serving the tourists who would drive up to see the lake. They’d need gas and food his mother always told him. His father would occasionally nod and sometimes add, “bait and booze, too.”

Which is how Kyle found himself this May Day making a list of everything they needed to start the season. It was usually the same every year – paper products, t-shirts, magnets, car decals, and basically anything that could have the name of the bay printed on the merchandise. One year he made the mistake of ordering too many t-shirts in a small size when it seemed that everyone who came in was overweight.

It didn’t help that their signature item was a huge fried apple fritter that they called a “dumpling” (more dough than apples really) that they sold at a counter right when you walked in the store. Kyle always thought it was funny that most of the people who came in to buy not just one dumpling, but two or three, were the heaviest.

But Kyle wasn’t going to worry about the dumplings yet. He was hoping there’d be a cute girl or two who’d need a summer job that he could hang out with. He hoped it wouldn’t be like last summer; most of the girls he saw only came in when they needed tampons, diet sodas, or an occasional brownie. Those were the girls he knew were wealthy, their parents probably renting a house on the bay for a couple of weeks, or if they were really rich, the entire season.

Last summer, Kyle’s mom showed him how to bake the brownies. She told him she’d let him try his hand at the apple dumplings this year, but he wasn’t too keen to take over that particular job. He knew he wouldn’t mind mixing the batter together with the apple mixture, but standing in front of a big vat of hot oil for eight hours a day? Well, he might as well just drive down to the local Burger King and ask them if they were hiring. He already knew if he went there that he’d make more money than what his parents were paying him.

Kyle was sitting in front of the office computer using the spreadsheet his mother said he needed to use to make a list of supplies. He’d found a mistake in the excel spreadsheet one year that was doubling all of their business expenses. When he told his dad about it, his dad’s eyes got really narrow. When he told his mother about it, her eyes got really big. Neither of them said anything to him about the mistake, but later in the week he heard them talking about how their expenditures weren’t as much as they thought, and maybe this season they’d actually make a little bit of a profit. And maybe they could even take a vacation when the summer was over.

Kyle never quite understood why they would go on vacation since he felt the location alone, with a view of the bay, was kind of like being on a holiday all the time. When he had mentioned this to his mother, she had looked at him like he was crazy and said, “Kyle, your father and I work all summer, how is this possibly a holiday?”

“But where would you go?” Kyle had asked.

And his mother just shrugged. “Maybe Europe,” she had said. “Or a city. Yeah, a really big city with no trees, and just lots of noise and people and restaurants and museums.”

Kyle nodded. He understood that part - the lure of an urban area.

Kyle looked out at the bay. The wind was picking up and the pine trees were swaying a bit. He was hoping there wouldn’t be a storm since he knew they were expecting a big delivery today and often the UPS guy would just dump the boxes outside near the porch. Then he’d be the one who’d’ have to carry them inside and unpack everything.

But it didn’t rain that day. And he got an email from UPS saying their “scheduled delivery” was delayed, so it almost felt like this May Day might in fact be celebratory if he didn’t have to work as hard as he had anticipated.

Kyle looked at the fryer. They always cleaned it at the end of the season, but it still looked dirty. He started to pull the baskets out of the well and put them in the sink. He turned on the water and it was ice cold. He heard the pipes rumble a bit and heard someone open the front door.

“We’re not open for the season yet,” he called out from the kitchen.

He picked up a towel to dry off his hands when he noticed a girl standing by the counter with a dog.

“Are you hiring?” she asked.

Kyle nodded. “Yeah, always.”

“Are you the manager?” she asked.

Kyle started to laugh. “No, that’s my mom.”

“Is she here?” the girl asked.

Kyle thought she seemed a bit anxious, and he didn’t want to make her nervous, so he looked at the dog instead.

“What’s your dog’s name?” he asked.

“Cherry,” she said.

Kyle thought that was kind of a stupid name, but didn’t say anything.

“It’s not mine, I’m just walking her,” she continued.

Oh.”

“Can I get an interview?” she asked.

“Um, well my mom’s not here, so.”

Kyle was distracted by this girl. She wasn’t really his type, but she wasn’t ugly to look at either.

“I need a job right away,” she said.

“I can call her,” Kyle offered.

The girl nodded.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Viv,” she said.

“Like vivid?” he asked.

“Vivien,” she said. “Like Vivien Leigh.”

Kyle didn’t know who Vivien Leigh was, and he didn’t want to sound stupid, so he said nothing.

Kyle picked up the phone and tried to call his mother, but it went right to voice mail.

“Um, I can’t reach her,” he said.

Viv nodded. “I’ll come back,” she said. “Tell her I’ll make the apple dumplings all day if I have to.”

“They’re really good you know,” she added.

Kyle nodded. “Yeah, that’s why people come here.”

Viv left that day with Cherry, and a week later she still hadn’t returned. Then right before opening day, she was suddenly standing in front of him again. This time with no dog.

“Hey,” she said to him. “Your Mom called me to come in.”

Kyle didn’t know this had happened.

“Well, I called her first, but then she called me right back. So yeah, I have the job. She told me you’d teach me how to make the dumplings.”

Kyle started to laugh, “Okay, but she didn’t tell me you were hired and she never taught me how to make them.”

Viv looked at him for a moment. “How hard can it be?” she asked.

Kyle thought about this and decided it probably wasn’t hard at all. He looked at a huge bag of flour that was on the floor, a big bag of sugar that was on a shelf, along with containers of baking powder and salt, and then he saw a jug of oil he knew they used. Without saying a word, he pointed to some big cans of apples on the shelf, too, and handed her a can opener.

“You don’t use real apples to make the dumplings?” Viv asked.

Kyle shook his head. “Apples aren’t picked in May. We only get them in September, and by then we’re almost done for the season. Besides, we wouldn’t have time to peel and core all the apples we need. This is a lot easier.”

Viv looked disappointed. “Oh, I always thought you guys served real food.”

“The apples are real, they’re just in a can,” Kyle said.

Kyle thought he saw Viv roll her eyes but then she closed them.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Viv nodded. “I really need this job. Your apple dumplings taste really good, so I will ignore the fact that your apples aren’t fresh off a tree.”

Kyle was tempted to ask her if she was a snob or something. Or, one of those back-to-basics people that he sometimes heard his parents talk about. Like they only eat organic stuff and are strong believers in knowing where your food comes from.

Kyle picked up a can of apples and read that these apples came from four different countries, none of which he’d ever been to. He suddenly felt embarrassed about the apples they used in the dumplings. He had never really thought about that before Viv brought it up.

Instead of contemplating the origin of the apples though, he wanted to ask her a bunch of questions. Starting with “What happened to Cherry? Who is Viven Leigh? And why do you need a job so badly?” But then his mom showed up.

“Okay, let’s do a trial run on the apple dumplings,” she said.

Kyle watched as she handed Viv an apron and started talking really fast about how to make the dough. Before Viv even had a chance to put the apron on, she was asking questions.

“Do you have the recipe written down?” she asked.

His mom looked at her. “Not really,” she said.

“If you write it down, it will be easier for me that way.”

His mom looked at them. “I’ll show both of you.”

It seemed like Kyle and Viv made apple dumplings non-stop for the rest of the summer. Viv would work any shift she was offered. She was never late, and she never called out sick. Not even once. They didn’t talk much even though they were working side by side, dropping batter into the fryer, and making sure each dumpling had enough apples in the mix. Kyle occasionally saw Viv dip her finger into the glaze they’d pour on the dumplings once they came out of the fryer and then lick it. But he didn’t say anything.

Suddenly, the summer was over. Kyle realized he would miss Viv, and he suddenly felt self-conscious about not really getting to know her more. None of the questions he had thought of at the beginning of the summer had been answered, but now he felt it was a moot point. He couldn’t let her leave though without asking if she’d come back next summer.

Viv looked at him. “I’m moving,” she said.

“Oh, where?” Kyle asked.

“California.”

Kyle repeated what she said, but with a question mark at the end.

“Yeah, I want to work in a winery. And learn how to grow grapes. And maybe produce, too. If I can find an interesting farm.”

Kyle must have looked like he had no idea what she was talking about because Viv started to smile. “Or maybe you thought I was going there to do the whole Hollywood thing. Like my namesake?” she asked.

And then she started to laugh. “I was named after Vivien Leigh, Kyle. Because my mom loved that movie Gone with the Wind.”

“Oh,” Kyle said, not really knowing what else to say.

“It could have been worse, she could have named me Scarlett,” Viv continued.

Kyle didn’t know if he should tell her that his mom had nicknamed her, “The Apple Dumpling Girl” by the end of the summer. But he did.

Viv looked at him and just smiled. “What you and your folks have here is good, and the season was busy, right?”

Kyle nodded.

“But I think you guys need a different name for this place. No disrespect to your mom but ‘Nancy’s’ is kind of boring, and no one calls it that anyway.”

“I guess renaming it “Can-to-Stand” would be kind of lame though, right?” Kyle suggested.

“Clever,” Viv said.

Kyle suddenly didn’t want Viv to leave, and he guess she sensed that since she started telling him that the canned apples weren’t so bad after all.

“If you were open year-round, I bet people would still come here just to eat the apple dumplings,” Viv said.

“It’s too cold and the snowplows don’t come up this far,” Kyle said.

He didn’t want to tell her that he and his parents embraced the dark winter months because it meant not having to get up early or work 12-hour days, seven days a week.

“By the way, if you need a job, even in the winter, the people who own Cherry always need a dog walker. I’ll give them your number if you want,” Viv suddenly said to him.

“Yeah, sure that’d be great,” Kyle said.

“Well, um, if you ever get to California, let me know,” Viv said.

Kyle looked at her and remembered when he had first seen her and how she seemed really desperate for a job. So, he asked her why.

Viv stared at him for a bit and then started laughing.

“How am I getting to California?” she asked.

Kyle kind of shrugged.

“I need wheels Kyle!”

Kyle was trying to figure out how long it would take to drive from the shores of Batchawana Bay to wherever in California she was going. And the only answer he came up with is a very, very long time.

“Did you call me ‘Apple Dumpling Girl,’ too?” she asked.

But before he could answer, Viv did something unexpected. She leaned over and kissed him right on the mouth. And since he kissed her right back, he figured that was the only answer required.