The Cookie Exchange

Growing up on the same street in the 1960s in Omaha, Nebraska was a fun but quiet life for 5 friends. May, Pollie, Tammy, Richard, and John were all born in 1957 and all went to the same school. They did elementary, middle, and high school together and were inseparable. Especially May and Pollie. They were born one day apart from each other and had a lot in common. While the other three kids loved playing outside, the two of them bonded over their love of baking. 

Pollie’s grandmother, Ruth, was a baker and she lived with Pollie until she died when Pollie was 12-years-old, in 1969. Before she passed, she taught Pollie everything she could, about baking and otherwise.

Once a month, the group would have a cookie exchange. Pollie always won for the best cookies, but they all loved the chance to bake and get together. It was a tradition that kept them together through the formative years of their lives. 

They graduated from high school in 1975. Tammy, Richard, and John got into East Coast colleges and couldn’t wait to leave town. Pollie and May decided to stay and planned to open a bakery together. They found the perfect spot. On Dodge Street, near the University. Pollie had some money her grandmother left her, and she had saved it for this moment. They would call it “Ruth’s Bakery.” 

As the girls were making their big plans, May soon realized there might be a problem. One night she heard her parents talking. “This isn’t even her dream,” her mother said. “It’s Pollie’s.” Her father agreed, “She lets Pollie do too much of the thinking. She needs to go to college and learn about the world, find her passion.” 

It was a brief but heartbreaking moment for May. She’d never thought about it that way, She thought they were equal in everything. This made her mad. At Pollie. She impulsively decided that she was going to succeed but without Pollie. 

The next day, she stole all of the recipes from Ruth’s book, and she left town. No one heard from her for a long time. 

Pollie was devastated. She didn’t believe it at first, she thought it had to be a mistake. Did she think maybe May had taken the recipes to do something special, like turn it into a special book for their bakery maybe? But May never came back. She didn’t call home or send correspondence with a new way to reach her. She was just gone. 

Eventually, Pollie decided to still open the bakery. It was her dream and there nothing else she wanted to do with her time. She tried to remember all of the recipes and re-create them, but they were never the same. Still, she persevered. The bakery did just fine but it was never the success it would’ve been with Ruth’s recipes. 

Everyone settled into their lives as the years passed. They got jobs and families and Pollie heard from her other friends less and less. Tammy ended up in Chicago, Illinois, Richard in Hartford, Connecticut, and John moved with his wife and kids to Miami, Florida. Whenever someone came home for the holidays, they would stop in at Ruth’s and have some cookies. 

In 2020, a grandmother herself now, Pollie received devastating news. May was in Los Angeles, California. She’d been running a successful bakery there for decades. She was releasing a cookbook called, “May I Have Some?”  that was full of “her” famous recipes. To make matters much, much worse, she was about to have her very own reality baking television show. She was wealthy and famous. Her stealing and lying had paid off. She hurt her best friend so much and she didn’t even care. 

Pollie knew what to do at once. She may have lost Grandma Ruth’s recipes, but she did not lose her spirit. She was wise and patient. She slowly formulated a plan to get even…

The letters arrived in four different cities, in four different states. Invitations for a Cookie Exchange: 

“My Dear Friends, 

We’ve all grown apart and it’s broken my heart. I don’t care about recipes. I don’t care about the past. I don’t have much time. Please come humor an old lady for one last cookie exchange.

Yours, 

Pollie” 

She named the time and place, two weeks away. She knew that even though May had done some truly horrible things, she would never forgive herself if she ignored a dying woman’s request to make peace. Pollie waited patiently as Richard called to say he would be there. Tammy sent an email with her flight confirmation number. John sent a text saying he wouldn’t miss it for the world. She didn’t hear from May, but she knew she would be there. 

The night before the cookie exchange, Pollie was hard at work. There were some recipes May didn’t know existed because it was a deep, dark family secret that Grandma Ruth was a witch. She had a book of spells. She had taught many of them to Pollie and forbade her to discuss them with anyone else. Pollie didn’t use them at all before now, but when she learned of what May was doing, she couldn’t stop herself. She poured through the spells to find the perfect one and made a very special cookie, just for her old best friend. 

The next morning, the cookie exchange was to start at 10:00 sharp. Her friends trickled in, one by one, with plates of delicious cookies. They’d all learned a thing or two about baking over the years and had family recipes of their own. The four of them hugged and talked about their lives. They exchanged cookies and recipes with each other and things were winding down when May walked through the door. 

She made eye contact with Pollie at once. She didn’t say a word but the look on her face said it all. There was conflict and shame. There was sadness for lost years. There was so much guilt. She was well dressed and manicured though. Her hair was done perfectly. Her designer purse matched her shoes and her tan legs looked gorgeous in her blue sundress. She was clearly living a life of comfort. She had no wedding ring. She never had a family of her own. She’d lost her friends and her family. She only had money. 

She set the plate of cookies down, of course, she had baked from one of Ruth’s recipes. “Hello, my friends!” she said, unsure of herself, with fake certainty. “I brought cookies from my new recipe book! I also brought you each your very own copy! I hope you’ll enjoy these as much as I have!” 

Pollie felt her face turning bright red and she quickly hid her anger with a huge smile. She watched quietly as the other four friends got caught up. She listened patiently to their conversations about kids and jobs and trips they had taken. When everyone had said everything there was to say, all eyes turned and looked at her. 

“May!” she almost yelled, a little too convincingly. “I didn’t know if you would come! I have a cookie for you too! ” She glanced at her other three friends and said, “I would love to have some time alone with May. Would you mind leaving us now?” 

They all nodded, understanding what Pollie had endured over the years. They said their goodbyes and filtered out the door. 

Pollie went to the bakery counter and found May’s special cookie, the last one on the tray. She slowly walked it back to the stranger she once knew so well. 

They made eye contact once again as May carefully took the cookie. She was curious to see if Pollie could have come up with anything that matched the recipes Grandmother Ruth had left her. It was the biggest reason she was able to take a bite. She knew she should be at least slightly suspicious of Pollie’s motives, but she needed to know. She had looked around Ruth’s Bakery and knew it hadn’t done nearly as well as her’s. 

She felt different almost immediately. Something wasn’t right. She felt the room spin as she searched for a chair to sit in. As she sat, she felt the room go black. Seconds later, she realized she was no longer wearing her tan legs or her blue sundress. She looked down at herself and was wearing the jeans and the red blouse that Pollie had been wearing. 

Before she could say a word, she saw herself walking her way. She felt her body guiding her back towards a room behind the bakery counter and she heard her voice whisper in her ear, “I will take back what is mine. You didn’t get away with this.” May then felt the room go black again and she was fast asleep. 

Pollie had switched bodies with May. She left her, fast asleep at the bakery as she searched through May’s things and found her return flight information. 

She found herself boarding a plane to Los Angeles later that night. She had May’s identification with her address. She had her house key. She had all of her contacts in her phonebook. She had her credit cards and checks. 

Pollie’s plan worked flawlessly. She called May’s agent and scheduled a meeting. She told her that her parents were very ill and that she needed to move back to Omaha immediately. The show was canceled. Her next stop was May’s Bakery, where Pollie emptied the register and put a “Closed” sign up in the window. She turned the bright sign with May’s name off, called the landlord and canceled May’s lease, and had all of the utilities turned off. She donated all of the baked goods and equipment to charity. She then had May’s house put up for sale and asked her agent to take the first offer, without question. 

She wrote a check out to cash for a hefty sum and made a stop at the bank on the way back to the airport. 

Pollie flew back home, feeling truly vindicated for the first time in decades. She’d often imagined what she’d do if she ever got her hands on May, but this far exceeded anything she’d ever dreamed of. 

When she arrived back at the bakery, she took a bite of that special cookie. She felt the room spin as she sat down and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she was herself, lying on the floor in the backroom of the bakery. She knew May was waiting for her out front. 

As she went out to face her dear old friend, she heard the bells on the door chime. May had run out very quickly, in a panic. 

Pollie never heard from her again. She was able to invest May’s money into Ruth’s Bakery and was soon enjoying quite a bit of success. She’d managed to find some recipes May had left out of her first book, and she tasted the sweet treats of her childhood once more. Her local friends and family came to celebrate her newfound success as they bought her new, delicious cookies.