Katie Starting from Scratch (4 page)

“Emily, you can help us anytime you want,” Alexis said.

“Thanks, that would be great,” she said, beaming.

I guess I should have been happy about this. I mean, I was worried that she would interfere with our baking, right? And the exact opposite happened. So that was great.

Only it didn't feel great. Okay, I'll admit it. I was jealous. Jealous from the top of my limp hair to the bottoms of my dirty sneakers. I could live with the fact that Emily was neater than I was and had nicer hair than I do and whatever. But making cupcakes is my thing.
My
thing.

And maybe it sounds immature, but I didn't want cupcakes to be
her
thing too.

M
ia's mom drove Emily and me back to our house around five, so we had about an hour to kill before my mom and her dad came home.

“I'm going up to my room,” I said. “I guess you can watch TV or whatever.”

“Oh, okay,” Emily said. I'm not sure, but maybe she looked a little disappointed that I wasn't going to hang out with her. For a split second I thought maybe I was being rude. But I mean, come on, we spent the whole day together! Was it too much to have an hour to myself?

I was deep into this computer game where you catch flying carrots with bunny rabbits when I heard a commotion downstairs. Mom and Jeff were home.

“Katie, come on down!” Mom called.

I reluctantly quit the bunny game and went downstairs. Jeff was holding two pizza boxes.

“Emily has started to set the table,” Mom said. “Why don't you help her?”

I nodded. “Sure.” Although, as I went into the kitchen, I was wondering why Mom had sent Emily to do that. I mean, she doesn't even know where the plates are.

Emily had set up four red dinner plates on the table.

“Oh, we don't use those for pizza,” I said. It wasn't exactly true—sometimes we did, but they weren't the plates that I liked. I went to the cabinet and picked out four yellow plastic plates. “We use these because they're smaller and they leave more room for the pizza boxes on the table.”

“Oh, sure,” Emily said. “Sorry.”

“No biggie,” I told her.

When the table was set, we sat down for pizza. Mom and Jeff told us the whole entire plot of the Broadway show they saw, and Jeff even sang some songs from it. Mom was laughing so hard.

“I'm sure the girls are getting bored,” she said. “Save some singing for the barbecue tomorrow.”

“What barbecue tomorrow?” I asked.

“Jeff has invited us over for lunch tomorrow at his house,” Mom said.

“But I have to set up cupcakes for the flower show,” I protested.

“I know, but you'll be done in plenty of time for lunch,” she pointed out.

I looked down at my pizza. It wasn't really the flower show that bugged me. It just started to feel like we were seeing Jeff and Emily all the time. And, technically, I see Mr. Green in school every day, so I see even more of him than Mom does!

When Jeff and Emily left, Mom asked if I wanted to watch a movie with her, but I didn't feel like it. I went upstairs and started catching more flying carrots with bunnies. Carrot after carrot after carrot . . . until I got bored and started looking up carrot cake recipes online.

The next morning, Mom drove me to the Women's Club so I could help set up the cupcakes. We pulled up at the same time as Mia and her mom, and we helped them bring in the cupcake carriers. Alexis was already inside, putting a pale-green tablecloth on our table.

“Emma's got an emergency modeling job,” she informed us.

I giggled. “A modeling emergency? I need
someone to wear this little black dress, quick!”

Alexis shook her head, laughing. “I think one of the models canceled and she had to fill in. Anyway, this is an easy setup.”

Sometimes we have to do fancy displays, but we decided that since the cupcakes were so pretty, they could go on our plain white cupcake towers. As we were carefully setting the cupcakes down on the stands, a woman walked up to Alexis. She wore a pretty yellow flowered dress and had a daisy tucked into her curly brown hair.

“You must be Alexis,” she said, shaking her hand. “I'm Rose.”

“Nice to meet you,” Alexis said. She looked at us. “Rose is the flower show organizer.”

I couldn't help giggling again. “You have the perfect name for the job.”

She smiled. “I know. I get that all the time,” she said. “So, anyway, I set aside some lovely flowers that you girls can add to your table.”

“I was thinking we could put them around the base of the towers,” Alexis said. “What do you guys think?”

“That would be really pretty,” Mia said.

Rose walked off and came back with a basket of flowers. Most of them looked sort of like
pom-poms, with lots of rows of petals in pink, white, and yellow.

“Zinnias and pinks,” Rose said, handing Alexis the basket. “They'll look great with the colors you've chosen. The cupcakes look beautiful.”

We carefully arranged the flowers around the cupcake towers and then stepped back to look.

“Gorgeous!” Mia said.

I snapped a picture with my phone. “This is really nice. And wait until they taste them.”

“I'll put some flyers over by the front door, and then I'll tell Rose we're done,” Alexis said, heading off.

Mia turned to me. “Do you want to go to the mall? My mom said she'd take us.”

I looked at Mom, who had been watching us set up. “Can I?”

Mom sighed. “Katie, you know we have plans. Jeff and Emily are expecting us. Both of us.”

I wanted to argue, but I knew it wouldn't do any good. I turned back to Mia.

“Sorry, Mia, but Mom wants me to hang out with
Emily
again,” I said.

“You say that like it's a bad thing,” Mom said.

Now it was my turn to sigh. “Well, it's kind of like we're seeing them all the time.”

Mom looked uncomfortable. “We can talk about this in the car.” Then she said good-bye to Mia's mom, and we left.

We didn't talk about it in the car, though. I stuck my headphones into my phone and listened to music. A few minutes later we arrived at Jeff's house.

I have to admit, I was kind of curious to see what kind of house Mr. Green lived in. It was weird, when I thought about it, that he had always come over to our house, but we had never been over there. Well, at least I hadn't. I was sort of disappointed that it wasn't green. It was gray, with white trim and black shutters, and sort of small, like my house. The lawn was very neatly trimmed, and it was big and went all around the house.

“We're back here!” Jeff called out, and we walked around the house to the backyard. It was pretty nice back there, with a big patio and a giant metal grill. Jeff was standing in front of the barbecue, and Emily was setting a round table that had a big umbrella stuck in it.

Mom walked over and kissed Jeff on the lips. Gross!

“Hi, Katie,” he said, once their lips were unlocked. “How did the setup go?”

“The table looks great,” I said. I took out my phone and showed him the picture. “See?”

“Very professional,” Jeff said approvingly. “Well done, Katie!”

“And Emily's decorations looked beautiful,” Mom said. “You did a great job, Emily.”

“Well, Mia did the decorations too,” I reminded my mom. For some reason she kind of glared at me. But Mia actually did most of the decorations. I sighed to myself.

“So the chicken will be done soon,” Jeff said. “I've got a green salad inside.”

“And I brought the potato salad,” Mom said, holding up the bowl. “I just need to pop it in the fridge until we're ready to eat.” Then she looked at Emily. “Why don't you show Katie your room while your dad and I get lunch ready?”

“Sure,” Emily said.

I followed her into the house. Emily's room was upstairs.

“Um, well, here it is, I guess,” she said, kind of shyly.

Her room was small, but it was superneat. Her bed was perfectly made, without a wrinkle in the yellow bedspread. There was a really cute rag rug on the floor, one of those kinds with rainbow
colors, which I love. Her dresser was painted yellow, and on top she had a bunch of trophies. And there wasn't an extra scrap of paper or cookie crumb on top of her desk.

“I like your rug,” I said.

She smiled. “Me too.”

Then there was an awkward silence.

“I don't know why parents always want us to show people our rooms,” I said. “Although Mom stopped asking me to do that a few years ago. Mine's always a mess.”

Emily laughed. “Lucky!”

I didn't know what she meant by that, and I didn't ask. Then we heard Jeff calling us down to eat.

The chicken was really good, and Emily had made chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Mom made a big fuss over them.

“Emily, you are such a good baker,” Mom said. “These cookies are really moist. I can never get mine like these.”

What she really meant to say was that
we
could never get ours like these, because Mom and I always make cookies together. So that kind of made me mad. Perfect Emily baked perfect cookies. Of course!

And then, after that, Mom and Jeff were just talking and talking, so Emily and I went inside to
watch the cake contest show on the food channel. Then, finally, Mom said it was time to go home.

On the ride to our house, Mom remarked, “Wasn't Emily's room nice? She keeps it so clean. It would be nice if you could keep yours the same way.”

That is when I lost it.

“Could you
please
stop talking about how perfect Emily is?” I asked. “I'm getting pretty sick of it. And I'm getting really, really sick of you comparing me to her all the time. All. The. Time! Because we spend all our time with them!”

“Calm down, Katie,” Mom said. (I hate it when she says that.) “I never said Emily was perfect. And what's wrong with having a clean room?”

I ignored the question. “You said her cookies were perfect. Her room is perfect. She orders water perfectly. And everyone knows her hair is perfect. Seriously, I'm beginning to wonder if she's human. Are you sure she's not an android that Jeff built in his basement?”

“That is not funny, Katie,” Mom said. Her voice was tight.

Then we pulled into our driveway.

“I'm tired,” I said when we got into the house. “I'm going upstairs.”

Mom didn't say anything. I knew the sun was still shining outside, but I didn't care. I flopped onto my bed.

I obviously was not dealing with this “blended family” thing or whatever was happening with Mom and Jeff and Emily and me. It felt like I didn't fit into that equation. A Brown in a sea of Greens.

That got me thinking. My dad is a Brown. He lives in the next town, and he's been trying to reach out to me. If Mom and Jeff got married, I could always go live with him. If I was with my dad, I'd be a Brown in a family of Browns.

I reached under my bed and pulled out my Secret Shoe Box. It's where I keep stuff that's important. Inside was the news article that the local paper printed about my dad's restaurant. There was a picture of him with his wife and their three little girls—my half-sisters. Weird, right? They were my sisters, and I'd never met them.

Suddenly the idea of living with my dad didn't seem so great. I was doing a lousy job of getting used to Emily. How could I possibly get used to having
three
sisters? No, reaching out to my dad was not the solution to this problem.

I leaned back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
Things were changing all around me, whether I liked them or not.

And at that moment, I didn't like them one bit. I wanted things to be the way they used to be—just me and my mom. No boyfriends or potential little sisters to have to deal with in my life.

What I really wanted was a time machine.