Alexis's Cupcake Cupid (7 page)

Emma laughed incredulously. “Oh, Alexis! Don't cry! It's okay. We still love you!”

“I am such a bad friend,” I wailed quietly. “And you guys are so good! I am so selfish! And clumsy!”

Katie scooted over and patted me on the back. “Shh. Don't cry. And if you're really upset, you can get us something later, and all the valentine's stuff will be on sale!”

I perked up a little at this. I do love a bargain. I sniffed hard and patted my eyes with a napkin. “This has just been a bad couple of days. I am so sorry.”

“Besides the falling down and us not being able to go skating yesterday, is it something else?” Mia asked.

I sighed. I didn't really want to get into the Matt/cupcake thing right now, especially in front of Emma. I felt the most embarrassed about it in
front of her. It was all so very humiliating.

Luckily, George Martinez walked up just then. I sat up straight and tried to blink my eyes back to normalcy, but he busted me immediately.

“Sweet tray spill, Becker,” he teased. Then he looked more closely at me. “Jeez, you aren't crying about it, are you? I mean, I dropped my tray on chili day! Chili and banana pudding day! It was such a mess, and it got all up my pants, and it was so uncomfortable. . . . Seriously! Have you ever had pudding in your pants?!”

He started mimicking a funny dance, like he was trying to get pudding out of his pants, and everyone started laughing really hard, even me.

“Hey, did you come over here to bring Katie her valentine, George?” asked Mia.

“I don't see any flowers or candy,” said Emma, craning her neck like he might be hiding something behind his back. “Maybe you wrote her a poem?” Emma suggested.

Katie blushed a little, but she knew it was all good-natured fun, and besides, she
was
a bit curious to see how George would respond.

“A poem!” George shouted. “How did you ever guess? In fact, I'll recite it right now.” He cleared his throat dramatically.

“Roses are red.

Violets are blue.

I like you, Katie.

And your silly arms, too!”

He then took a long exaggerated bow as we all laughed and applauded. “That was fun,” George said. “So much so, I almost forgot why I came over here. Oh, yeah! A bunch of us are going to see Liam Carey's new film when it opens this Thursday afternoon, on Teachers' Improvement Day. It's got everything: Epic chase scenes, lots of fighting, and I think there's even a love story, so you girls will like it.” George cleared his throat and then said in a high falsetto voice, “I love you, MATT!” And then he deepened his voice to an exaggerated masculine tone and said, “And I love
you
, ALEXIS!”

All the girls giggled, but after the tray drop and Olivia's mean comment and Matt's lack of a response to my valentine, it was all just too much for me to handle. I grabbed my books and rushed out before I started crying again in public. In the hall, I ducked into the girls' bathroom to hide until my next class. It was almost like I needed to just cry and get the tears out. I'd been holding
it in for almost two days now. In the stall, I hung my book bag on the hook, grabbed a huge ball of tissues, and wept.

About a minute and a half later, I heard the door open. I knew it would be one of my friends, but I wasn't expecting Emma.

“Lex?” she said.

I sniffed deeply. “Yes?” I croaked.

“Want to come out?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Ever?” she asked.

“No!” I insisted. “Not ever.”

There was a brief silence, and then Emma said, “Want me to take you to the nurse, and she can let you go home?”

Leave school early without being deathly ill? It was unthinkable. I slid the lock and opened the door. I'd rather die than go home sick, especially if I wasn't! Emma sure knew how to get me.

I sighed heavily. “I am such a loser,” I said, leaning against the side of the stall.

Emma laughed. “You are insane. You're not a loser! Seriously? You're the biggest winner of us all! You get the best grades, you're involved in running a business and your business leaders extracurriculars, and you're a great singer and dancer . . .”

“But I'm a terrible ice-skater. And no one loves me,” I said, moping.

“Alexis Becker. You've got to come clean with me. I'm your oldest friend in the world. Is there something going on that I should know about?” Emma asked sternly.

I hesitated.

“Is this about Matt?” she asked gently.

I finally broke down and told Emma all about the valentine cupcake I had given Matt and how I had never heard from him about it. Unsurprisingly, Emma was furious.

“I know he isn't the mushy type, but to not even say thank you . . . that's just so rude and so wrong,” she said. “Just wait until I see him tonight!”

“Noooo! Emma, please! That will only make me feel worse,” I cried. “Please, don't say a word—promise me!” I begged. “That's why I didn't say anything to begin with!”

Reluctantly, she agreed, but she huffed, “Okay, but I still think it's rude. And honestly, it's pretty out of character. I just can't believe he wouldn't even acknowledge it. Even if he only liked you as a friend. It's just weird.”

“Do you think I just totally scared him off?” I asked, wincing.

Emma thought for a minute. “No. Definitely not. Boys like it when girls like them, you know. And it's not like you're some weird nerd. . . .”

“Thanks. Thanks a lot,” I said, and we giggled, which felt good.

Emma corrected herself. “You're a total babe, and he'd be lucky to have someone as great as you as his valentine!”

Turning red again, I said something else that was really bothering me. “Do you think George or any of Matt's friends in our grade will tell Matt about my embarrassing fall?”

Emma thought for a second. “I don't think George will—it's not as good of a story as him getting pudding out of his own pants!”

“Oh, thank goodness!” I sighed with relief. “That would have been the icing on the cake.”

“Or the cupcake!” said Emma, and then we both giggled. Emma gave me a big hug. “That's better,” she said. “Don't worry about stupid boys, anyway. We have lots of fun coming up this week. The new Liam Carey movie on Thursday, the Family Skating Party on Friday . . . you valentine's shopping the bargain basement sale for us!”

I put my head in my hands. “I am so mortified about that.”

“Oh, Lex, I'm just kiddin' ya!” said Emma. “Come on. Let's go, valentine!”

I grabbed my book bag and we exited the bathroom.

“By the way,” said Emma with a sly grin, “George said to tell you that Matt is going to the movies on Thursday. I'm just saying!” She put her hands in the air, palms out, like
Don't shoot the messenger!

“Well, then I'm not going,” I declared.

“Hey, you can't lead your life like that,” Emma scolded. “Stop worrying about embarrassment and just get on with your life. Have fun. Seriously. Who cares what Matt—or anyone—thinks? Where's the bold, brassy future business leader who I know and love?”

“In hiding,” I said. I saw her point, but I still wasn't sure.

“You have all these friends who love you, and a great family, and that is pretty awesome,” she said as we reached her classroom door.

“You sound like my mom,” I whined.

Emma wheeled around to face me. “Then that's a compliment, 'cause your mom is one smart cupcake!” she said with a grin, and she strode into her class.

I went to my next class like a tentative baby
chick, hoping no one would bring up the tray drop or anything else for the rest of the day. Or my life.

I wasn't ready to commit to the movie or the skating party at this point. Bargain valentines shopping for my besties,
maybe
.

T
hat night, after I finished my homework, I spent some time on YouTube, toggling back and forth between Olympic gold medal skating programs and “How to Skate” videos. Both were discouraging. The Olympians looked so much like ballroom-dancing stars that I had to keep reminding myself that they were doing everything while simultaneously gliding on a sharp blades across hard, slippery ice at twenty miles an hour! It was pretty incredible when I looked at it that way. I couldn't imagine the endless hours Sasha had spent at an ice rink perfecting her skills. I didn't have that kind of time before Friday's party.

It must've been ESP, because while I was doing that, Katie sent a group chat to say the Cupcake
Club had been hired by the PTA to bake ten dozen Chinese-themed cupcakes for the bake sale at the skating party on Friday! Now that was the kind of news I liked, because there's nothing I find more fun than making money with my friends.

Since I was already online, I volunteered to google around and come up with a couple of possible Chinese cupcake ideas. I had two criteria: the ingredients couldn't be too expensive, because the PTA had set a small budget for the job, and the design and assembly couldn't be too fussy, or it would take us too long to make them. Sometimes when we have an elaborate job or a huge order, we will do it over a couple of days, but I honestly think our cupcakes taste best when they are superfresh: made, decorated, and eaten all in one day.

When I went on Pinterest to look for Chinese cupcake ideas, what I found was gorgeous, but waaaaay too complicated for us. They looked like something from one of those
Cake Boss
shows we all loved so much. We'd need scaffolding and blowtorches and stuff to make some of those ideas.

I thought of doing a clear or white glaze across a white cupcake, so that it might look like skating “ice” (get it? “Icing”?!), but the more I thought about it, the more I thought people wouldn't get
the joke and also—worse—wouldn't think the cupcakes tasted any good. Taste had to come first.

Then I stumbled upon the perfect idea: panda cupcakes! Pandas are a big thing in China, right? So I started searching all the panda cupcake images I could find (they are so cute—try it sometime!) and finally found one that looked simple enough. We'd only need plain cake (maybe do five dozen yellow cake and five dozen chocolate cake), plain white or silver foil wrappers, white frosting, tubes of brown frosting for piping (maybe a gel, if it looked opaque enough), and brown M&Ms for ears. They'd be easy to make—just frost the cake in white, pipe on the facial features in dark brown, and pop in two M&M's for ears. Done!

I attached a photo to an e-mail and sent it to the others, and within minutes everyone had agreed it was perfect. I volunteered to go buy the supplies, since I was heading to the mall the next day, anyway—for some, ahem, bargain valentines—and everyone agreed.

I closed down my computer for the night with a feeling of deep satisfaction that held my mortification about Matt and the tray drop, as well as my anxiety about skating, at bay for the rest of the night.

I managed to avoid thinking about Matt the whole next day at school, which was a relief to know I could do that. For lunch, I had Mia bring me a sandwich that I could eat in the library to avoid another spill in the cafeteria, and I read some articles about the physics of balancing on ice-skates. It was kind of fun, I had to admit.

After school, I rode my bike to the mall and texted my mom to pick me up after. I'd just put my bike on the rack. I expected I'd have some big packages, and anyway, I am not crazy about riding my bike after dark alone, even though I have a helmet, reflectors, and two flashing lights on it. (Dylan calls me a nerd on wheels when she sees me in full safety gear, but I just don't care.
Better dork than dead,
I always tell her.)

At the mall, I locked my bike and headed in. My first stop was the stationery store, and I hit the jackpot! There was a whole wall of valentine stuff, and I almost didn't know where to begin. I had set a budget of twenty-five dollars for everything, and I was in luck. Everything was 75 percent off for clearance. First, I got each friend a sweet card for about a dollar each. Then I found these adorable little white baskets filled with assorted red candy, topped with a red ribbon that had tiny white polka
dots all over it. So sweet. They were marked down from fifteen dollars to just five dollars each! I was thrilled. I made a mental note to tell the others that next year we are celebrating Valentine's Day on the sixteenth of February. We'd be crazy not to!

I was in heaven as I paid the clerk (same lady as the other day!), and then I headed to Baker's Hollow on the other side of the food court. As I crossed through, I could have sworn I saw someone who looked just like Matt standing at the Panda Gardens counter, but I quickly looked away as my stomach clenched in fear. I tried to steal another glance, but I was at a bad angle, and he might be able to catch me looking if I did. So instead I kept my head high and continued on, my heart pounding and my butterflies fluttering even more than usual.