Bittersweet (27 page)

She smiles. “Afraid so. But, Hudson, I’m serious about Will. Right now he needs you for the team, but after that … just be careful, okay? And that’s all I’ll say about it.”

I drop her hand and nod toward her skates. “Fifteen minutes before I have to get back to work. Feel like giving those things a workout? Letting me kick your ass for old times?”

Kara raises an eyebrow, and for a second I think she might join me. I know we’re not friends anymore—not really. But I want her to say yes. I want her to skate with me again—to
want
to skate with me again. Because after everything that happened, if things can be okay with Kara, maybe it means my skating doesn’t have to be an either/or, a bittersweet choice that always leaves something else behind, some other dream unfollowed.

But Kara’s smile fades fast, her eyes turning serious and regretful. “I should let you get back to your training.”

“No, it’s cool. We could—”

“Some other time, maybe.” She taps her toe pick against the ice. “Good luck at the event, Hudson. I’m sure you’ll win the judges’ hearts. You always did.”

I nod, blinking back tears. Winning the judges’ hearts always meant more to me
off
the ice, after the roses and ribbons and camera flashes, when Kara and I sat side by side with a tuna melt platter in the window booth at Hurley’s, the
celebration twice as special because we could share it, no matter who took first.

But things are different now. I made my choices, and so did Kara, and three years later our paths are as divergent as fire and ice.

Kara Shipley and I were supposed to skate around the world together. But now?

“Bye, Hud. See you at school.” She glides to the edge of the rink and slips the blade guards over her skates, and I take a deep breath, skate back to the center line, and without an audience, give that triple/triple another go.

Raspberry-vanilla cupcakes topped with chocolate Chambord icing, a fresh raspberry, and a scarlet monogrammed
A

“I have news,” Will says in the hall outside my French classroom the following
week. “Pun intended.”

It’s the first Friday after winter break, and despite Kara’s warnings, he’s been walking me to my classes every day, warming up my car in the school lot, dazzling me with his smile and unfailing intensity and all-around good-smelling-ness.

“Give it to me,” I say.

“You’ll never guess who’s coming to the game tonight.” Will slides his hand across my lower back, fingers curving around my hip. “My good buddy Don Donaldson.
Heyyy
.” He makes a shooting gesture with his free hand and clicks his tongue.

“Cheesy news guy Don? Why?”

“What can I say? I look good on camera.” Will flashes me his TV-ready grin. “I totally boost their ratings.”

I punch him in the arm.

“Hey! They like the human interest angle. Hometown heroes, underdogs, all that stuff. We
are
doing better than the Buffalo Sabres this season, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I smile. “What about Dodd? He’s cool with the media attention?”

“Not a chance. I’ve been dodging him since the interview last week. I figured I’d set this up now and apologize later.”

“You’re living on the edge, boy.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” Will leans against the lockers and looks down the hall, his eyes suddenly dark. “Dodd doesn’t want any attention on us. My dad thinks he’s trying to get Watonka High to drop the hockey program altogether and funnel the leftover money into the football program.”

“Why?”

“Dodd wants a college football gig, but first he’s gotta make a winning high school team. To do that, he needs cash. Right now the Wolves are a money pit for the athletics department. By the way, this is all highly classified, need-to-know-basis type stuff. None of the guys—”

“Dirty secret, got it.” I smile just as the one-minute warning bell buzzes. “Hey, you okay? Should I be worried?”

“I’ll worry about me. You worry about this.” He slips his hand behind my neck and pulls me in, lips melting against mine in a totally sickening PDA special. Thankfully, the only
witness is Dani; she sighs as she ducks behind us into the classroom.

“Gross. Get a room.”

It’s the most she’s said to me all week.

“Bonjour, étudiants. C’est une journée excitante!”
Madame Fromme’s got her laptop open, rockin’ the I-can’t-wait-to-torture-you-with-a-pictorial-from-my-1980s-French-excursion glow. From her seat near the projector screen she prattles on, but I don’t pick out the French words for “vacation,” “trip,” or “boring as hell,” so maybe we’re safe.

“Dani,” I whisper as the room darkens and the presentation begins—French Impressionism. Much better than watching Madame traipse through the City of Light with her mall bangs and stirrup pants.

“Dani!” I say again, a little louder. Still no response.

I sneak my phone out of my pocket and send her a text, but when her purse buzzes on the floor, she ignores it, twirling her corkscrew curls around a pencil. Desperate, I go low-tech, pen and paper, and quickly sketch a pirate with Dani’s name tattooed on his chest. I even dot the
i
with a little heart and add a parrot on his shoulder. At the top I write, “A Pirate Sonnet: Roses
arrr
red. Violets
arrr
blue. I know we
arrr
fighting. But I miss talking to you.
Arr
.”

Pretty impressive, considering I’m not exactly a sketch artist. Or a poet.

I fold it into a triangle and toss it onto her desk. Casually,
she stretches out her arm and nudges my note to the floor, unopened and unacknowledged.

At least … unacknowledged by Dani. Madame Fromme, on the other hand, swoops down like a vulture, capturing my note in her talon and tossing it into the trash without missing a beat on the slide show narration.

For the rest of class, I sit with my hands folded on my desk, face forward, soaking up some art
en français
. It’s slightly less lame than I predicted. Madame shows a bunch of winter scenes from Alfred Sisley, and they totally remind me of Watonka. Like first thing in the morning, when the sun’s just coming up and everything is quiet and undisturbed, snow still fresh and white, the day uncharted—on those mornings, you look out the window and you know anything can happen, because nothing’s gone wrong yet. No best friend fights or lying to your mom or kissing boys in the hallway. It’s just clean, pure potential. Hope.

I haven’t had a Sisley kind of day in a long time.

When the class bell buzzes, Madame Fromme flips on the lights and Dani packs up her stuff, rapid-fire. Before I can say
attende, s’il vous plaît
, she’s out the door, and Trina Dawes is perching her tiny little ass on the edge of my desk.

The girl is glammed to the max, eyes coated with thick black liner and hair pinned into a prom-style updo behind a rhinestone tiara. In her left hand she’s holding a thin silver wand.

“Hey, Hudson.” The queen bee fairy hooker taps me with
the wand and sticks out her chest, letting her tight white T-shirt do the explaining:

Kiss Me, I’m the Birthday Girl!

“Happy—” Ohmygod. It’s January tenth. Friday, January tenth.
A hundred people at least …

“Birthday,” I stammer.

She whirls her magic wand between us and bounces on her toes. “Are the cupcakes just
so amazing
?”

I nod emphatically. Bubble-Gum Bling, her signature theme? I had major plans. Heart-shaped dark chocolate and white chocolate cupcakes, a thick pillow of pink strawberry whipped cream frosting with a light sugar glaze, edible silver glitter, hard candy gemstone accents, all arranged on mirrored trays twined with white Christmas lights. Photo-worthy, cupcake-archive quality all the way.

Too bad they don’t exist.

“
So
amazing,” I say.

“Yay! Mom will be at Harley’s at five to pick them up.” Trina taps me once more with the magic wand and bounces into the hallway with her girlfriends, giggling about their
so amazing
Friday-night party plans. Best birthday
ever
!

“Hurley’s,” I say, but she’s already gone.

I look at the clock over Madame’s desk and do some quick calculations. I still have three more hours of classes, which leaves less than two hours after school to make two hundred blinged-out cupcakes for the birthday fairy. That’s barely enough time to mix and bake them, let alone cool, frost, and
hand-decorate. I don’t even remember where I stashed the mirrored trays.

Attention, ladies and gentlemen, this is not a test. I repeat, this is not a test. This is a bona fide, break-the-glass cupcake emergency.

And there’s only one desperately shameful way to fix it.

Operation Bake-and-Switch commences at the Front Street Fresh ’n’ Fast immediately after school.

I check my last shred of self-respect at the entrance, snag a rusty shopping cart, and beeline for the bakery. And by bakery, clearly I’m talking about the shelves where they stack all the stuff that was created by machines on an assembly line in Tulsa, injected with preservatives and high-fructose chemicalness, and shipped here on a truck for our postproduction enjoyment.

I’m pretty sure it’s one of those moments where everything is supposed to stand still for a few seconds so you can recognize the impending disaster and redirect the course of your life, but I don’t have time for any of that nonsense, because there’s a two-for-one special on prepackaged confections today, and I’m about to go bulk wild on this bargain.

Shame creeps along my neck and face, but I ignore it and load up the cart with enough flats of white-frosted cupcakes to feed Trina’s party people. Two hundred and ten tasty treats later, I zoom through self-checkout, stack the goodies in the backseat of the Tetanus Taxi, and floor it over to Hurley’s,
eighty bucks less independently wealthy than when I left the apartment this morning.

Inside the diner, Mom’s office door is closed; her all-consuming preparations for the food critic should keep her off my apron strings awhile. In three quick trips, I unload the cupcakes and trash all the packaging, just in case Mom pokes her nose out of the office for a report. I ignore Trick’s raised eyebrows as I dive into the walk-in cooler for my leftover stash of buttercream, add a few drops of red tint, whip it into a nice, mellow pink, and load the whole mess into a frosting gun. I’m generally more of a pastry bag kind of girl, but hey, this is war. Or it
will
be, if I don’t get these babies done in time.

“What are you
doin’
?” Trick finally demands.

“Target shooting, Trick. What does it look like?” I raise my cupcake weaponry and get to work, squirting pink, lopsided hearts into the center of the white-frosted Fresh ’n’ Fast cakes.

Trick stomps over and grabs my arm. “Hudson Avery, you been doin’ some
messed
up stuff lately, but I
know
this isn’t what it looks like. Right?”

“Um … no.” I swallow hard. I’ve never seen him angry—not even when I screw up orders or we run out of bread on French toast day. “I don’t know. What does it look like?”

He lowers his voice and leans in close, bacon fumes emanating from his pores. “It
looks
like you’re tryin’ to pass off those cupcakes as your own, but I must be wrong. The Hudson Avery
I
know would never sink to that level.”

I look at the floor and shrug, eyes burning with near tears.

Trick sighs, but he doesn’t loosen his grip on my arm. “Let’s forget for a minute that there’s probably some kinda tax law against reselling those things. But come
on
, girl. Cupcakes are your art. How can you put your name on something like that? That’d be like Dani buying a frame and telling everyone the fake picture that comes with it is hers.”

“No, it’d be like Dani forgetting a major order and trying her best to make it right before it’s too late.”

Trick shakes his head. “That’s a load of crap and you know it.”

My cheeks go hot. Trick’s the closest thing to a dad I’ve had in years, and the disappointment in his voice stings. But still, I’m out of options on this one, and the clock is ticking. I pull free from his grip.

“You think I’m proud of this? Think it’s my shining moment? I’m barely keeping it together over here, okay?” I continue my mission, applying pink hearts with machine-gun speed. They’re actually less heart-y and more round-y, but to the untrained eye, which I hope includes the Dawes family, they still look halfway decent. “Mom’s breathing down my neck, Dani’s not speaking to me, I haven’t seen my brother for more than five minutes all month, and—”