It's Raining Cupcakes (10 page)

“Mother!” Mom gasped. “We have to talk about ourselves in comparison to Beatrice's? I don't want to do that. Why can't we just talk about It's Raining Cupcakes? You know, what we have to offer and why we're special?”

“Because,” said Dad, “your mother is a genius. A story like this will garner sympathy. It will get people in our corner. It's exactly what we need. Nice job, Dolores.”

My mom sighed. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Grandma nodded. “Completely ducky. Beatrice's Brownies will be the villain. We'll come out smelling like roses. Or cupcakes, in this instance.”

I smiled as I finished the last bite of pancake. I was right. We were
really
lucky to have Grandma.

“So when's the interview?” Dad asked.

Grandma tapped her watch. “Today. One o'clock.”

“Today?” cried Mom. “No, no, no. I can't do it today. That's too soon.”

Grandma reached over, put her hand on Mom's arm, and spoke in her calm but firm voice. “It's not too soon, Caroline. It's just in time. We need to get the word out about the shop now. And honestly, I don't want to give you a whole lot of time to fret over it. We'll do it today, and it'll be over with.”

Mom stood up and paced the floor. “I just don't know. I don't know if I can do it. David, can he interview you? I'm not good at this kind of thing.”

“How about if he interviews all of us?” I suggested. “He can ask a question and whoever wants to answer it does.”

“Sure,” Grandma said. “I think that's a fine way to handle it. After all, every one of us is invested in this thing one way or another. Not just Caroline.”

I looked at the clock in the kitchen. It said 10:10. “We have three hours to clean the place up and get ready. What should I wear, Grandma?”

She smiled. “It's all taken care of. Your mother and I bought you some new clothes yesterday on our shopping expedition. Wait until you see what I picked out for you!”

I stood in my bedroom, looking in the full-length mirror hung on the back of my door. How do you spell style? G-R-A-N-D-M-A! Boy, did she know how to pick it out.

She'd bought me a cute pink sundress with a black, short-sleeved jacket trimmed in pink that went over it. I hardly ever wore dresses, but this one made me want to wear them more often. She'd also bought me a pair of black sandals with short heels (which I now wore), two pairs of pants, and some fun summer tops to go with them.

I heard the doorbell ring and looked at my watch. It wasn't quite one o'clock, so I assumed it was Sophie. She'd called while I was dusting earlier, and when I told her we were getting ready to meet with a newspaper reporter, she'd asked if she could come and watch.

I heard Grandma's heels
tap
,
tap
,
tap
across the
hardwood floor. I decided to let her greet Sophie and send her back to my room so I could surprise her with my newfound style.

When she opened my door, she gasped and cried, “Whoa, Chickarita!”

I spun around. “You like?”

“But you're not done yet,” she said, as if she was talking about a tray of cupcakes baking in the oven. “We need to do something about your hair. Come. Sit down.”

She nudged me over to the chair in front of my desk and grabbed my hairbrush off the dresser. “Do you have any barrettes or ribbons or anything?”

This coming from the girl with the best hair in town. Natural blond, wavy—but not in an obnoxious frizzy way—and totally cooperative with whatever she wants to do with it on any given day.

“Sophie, my hair is short. I don't need barrettes, and I never put anything in my hair. You know that.”

“You don't have
anything
?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“Hold on. Let me go see if you have something I can work with.”

She walked out and left me sitting there, wondering what was so wrong with my hair. It was brown, it was short, and I never had to do anything to it. Just wash it and go. Then I realized, maybe
that's
what was wrong with it. Maybe it looked like all I did was wash it and go.

She came back with a bottle of gel Mom had gotten ages ago at the salon. I think she used it one time and never touched it again.

“Sophie? What are you going to do exactly?”

She squirted some of the gel into her hands and rubbed them together. “I don't know. I just want to try something.”

I sat there as she rubbed the stuff through my hair, trying to sculpt it this way, then that way. She worked a lot on my bangs, trying to force them over to one side. She was taking forever. Then the doorbell rang.

“He's here!” I yelled, jumping up and whacking her in the chin in the process.

“Ow!” she cried.

“Sorry. Come on. We have to go.”

I turned and faced her.

“Oh no,” she said.

“What? What's wrong?”

I dashed over to the mirror. And shrieked. “Sophie! I look like Elvis. Only uglier!”

She tried to laugh. “I guess a little of that gel goes a long way. But come on, it doesn't look
too
bad.”

“Doesn't look too bad? Are you kidding me?”

I grabbed the brush, bent over so my hair hung upside down, and brushed my hair as hard as I could. I thought maybe I could brush some of the gel out and fluff my hair a little bit. But when I flipped my head back and stood up, my hair stuck straight up everywhere.

Sophie burst out laughing.

“Girls, come on, the reporter's here,” I heard Grandma say.

I peeked out of my bedroom. Grandma was looking right at me, and she clapped her hand to her mouth.

“I need another minute, Grandma.” She nodded, her eyes wide with both shock and amusement.

I shut the door again and started brushing, my best friend laughing so hard she was absolutely no help. Not that I wanted her help, of course. I decided I never wanted her help again.

At least when it came to my hair.

W
hen Sophie finally stopped rolling around on my bed and wiping tears from her eyes, the first words out of her mouth were, “Put on a hat!”

“A hat?” I cried. “Okay, if it were the middle of February, maybe a stocking hat and some gloves
would work. But it's summer, ya loonhead.”

She started to laugh again. “Not a stocking hat. You know, a fancy hat, like your grandma wears. Don't you have any old hats she's given you?”

It seemed like the only solution. I ran to my closet and started digging through the piles of old clothes I'd set aside to be taken to Goodwill. Underneath the pile, I found a funny-looking black hat with a little piece of netting that hung in front. Right. Perfect if we were going to a funeral.

“Isabel!” my dad called. “Hurry up. We're waiting for you!”

I tossed aside a blue one with a big white flower on the side. Ug-lee! And then, from way in the back of my closet, I pulled out a little pink hat with a bow along the side.

I dusted it off and fluffed it up, then stuck it on and ran to the mirror. It wasn't bad. “What do you think?” I asked.

“Just ducky. Now go out there and sell cupcakes!”

I walked out like I'd been planning to wear the hat all along. Grandma gave me the biggest grin when she saw me.

“Like grandmother, like granddaughter,” Dad said to Mom.

“Hi, Isabel,” the reporter said, sticking his hand out. “I'm Patrick.”

“Very pleased to meet you,” I said, trying to sound as sophisticated as Grandma when she says it.

The four of us sat on the couch, while Patrick sat across from us in the La-Z-Boy. Since there weren't any more seats, Sophie stood next to the end of the couch.

Patrick started off by asking Mom and Dad questions about the original concept of a cupcake shop, who came up with it, why did they think it would be successful, that kind of thing. Then he got into asking us how we felt about Beatrice's Brownies.

“Well,” Grandma said, “I'm sure you can understand our lack of enthusiasm over the opening of the store. They are a huge corporation and have mostly targeted large cities. Until now. Why come here, to our cozy town of Willow? What is there for them to gain? Not a thing, except crushing the hopes and dreams of families just like ours, who are trying to make a decent living in the neighborhoods where we grew up.”

“What do you think, Isabel?” Patrick asked me. “Have you ever had a brownie from Beatrice's? Think the kids will prefer them over your cupcakes?”

I put my hand on my stomach, the butterflies flapping their wings hard in there. He'd asked me a question directly. I had to answer him.

I smoothed my dress across my lap and started talking. “No, I've never had one of their brownies. But we watched a special about them on TV. Their brownies look pretty good, I guess. And people seem to like them. Will kids want brownies or cupcakes? Well, I hope they'll want cupcakes, but we'll just have to wait and see.”

I sat back and breathed a sigh of relief that it was over. I'd been as honest as I could be. I glanced over at Sophie, expecting to see a thumbs-up. Instead her eyes were bugging out of her head; she was waving her hands back and forth and mouthing the words,
No,
no, NO!

Dad noticed and spoke up. “Sophie, is there something you'd like to say? We've known you for so long, you're like part of the family now. Come over here and take a seat.”

He got up and made room for Sophie to sit next to Mom. Patrick asked Sophie for her full name and wrote it down in the little notebook he'd brought with him.

“What about you, Sophie? Think the folks in Willow will prefer brownies over cupcakes?”

“Are you kidding me?” said Sophie. “No way. Those brownies are terrible. They aren't chock-full of chocolaty goodness like the commercials say. More like chock-full of artificial flavors and preservatives. We can guarantee you that It's Raining Cupcakes will give you a fresh, homemade cupcake just like Grandma used to make every single time you come to visit.”

And with that, she pointed to Grandma and smiled, like the reporter had a TV camera in his hand instead of a notebook.

I sat there fuming, my hands balled up into tight fists. The nerve! How could she make my answer sound completely wrong? It wasn't wrong. It was honest. Besides, how did she even know the brownies were terrible? Had she ever tried one? What if the company sued her for saying something mean like that?

I started to speak, to add something more newsworthy to my answer, when Sophie piped in with some more words of wonderful wisdom.

“I'm so sure people like cupcakes better than brownies, or any other dessert for that matter, I entered a cupcake recipe in a special baking contest for kids. Just you wait. I bet my cupcake recipe will win!”

I couldn't believe it. Out of all the desserts she could have entered, she'd picked a cupcake recipe? I glared at her and almost said something, but just then the doorbell rang.

Patrick jumped up from his chair. “That'll be the photographer. I want to get a picture of all of you downstairs, in front of the shop. Then I'll have a few more questions for David and Caroline, if that's okay.”

They nodded, and we all stood up. When Sophie finally looked at me, she gave me the thumbs-up sign. By then I was sure she was out to make me look as stupid as possible. First the hair and then making me look bad during the interview. What was next? Pushing me out of the photo at the last second?

Dad greeted the photographer, and then we all walked downstairs. Sophie walked beside my grandma, chatting it up with her like they were best friends.

I reached up and fixed my silly hat, knowing I needed to stand next to Grandma for the photo, so people would think we dressed up like that on purpose. As I walked down the stairs, I saw Lana getting her mail.