Mia's Recipe for Disaster (2 page)

W
hen I actually sat down to start sketching that night, creating my fantasy dress was way harder than I thought. What did it actually mean to make a “fantasy dress”? Should it be sophisticated, like something you'd wear to an art gallery opening, or runway-ready glamorous?

And even though I had said that I didn't want to worry about what other people might do, I
was
kind of worried. It was so hard to keep up with all the changing trends. Not that I wanted to follow them, but I knew I had to be ahead of them. My mom is a stylist, which means she helps pick out outfits and whole wardrobes for people. She helps magazines figure out which clothes to show, or she will help actresses with their wardrobes for a TV show
or movie. She even styles “regular” people too. It's pretty cool. Anyway, Mom was always talking about “being on trend,” so I know it's important.

I opened up my laptop and started searching for the fall runway shows. My head was pretty much in Paris when Mom stepped in through the open doorway.

“Mia, did you finish your homework?” she asked.

“I just have one worksheet to do,” I said, quickly closing the window on my screen so Mom wouldn't see the model in the slinky sequined gown. But she already had me figured out.

“Honey, I know you're excited about the contest, but school first, okay?”

I sighed. “Yes.” I shut the laptop. But inside I was thinking,
If I win that contest, school won't matter!
Which, okay, to be honest, deep down I knew wasn't true, but it was still fun to dream.

I quickly finished my homework and then went back online. There were so many trends: hot pants with blazers, retro-looking dresses, lots of leather and fake fur. How was I supposed to come up with the
next
big thing?

As I flopped down onto my bed, Mom came back in.

“Bedtime, Mia. Laptop off, please.”

“I know,” I said, but I didn't move. I was too depressed. Mom sat down next to me.

“What's wrong?” she asked.

“I don't know how designers do it,” I said. “How do you create something that nobody's ever done before and that everybody wants?”

Mom thought for a moment. She knows a lot of designers. “As a stylist, I listen to what my clients want and then try to find a designer who shares that same kind of style. Most designers have a specific style. The most successful ones have a style that appeals to a lot of people and that is wearable for a lot of people. I love leopard-print jumpsuits, but that is not something everyone can pull off.”

I shuddered, imagining some of my friends' moms wearing leopard-print jumpsuits. “Yeah, not a good look for normal everyday wear.”

“Talk to your friends,” Mom suggested. “Find out what they would want in a fantasy dress. It may spark some ideas.”

“That's a great idea!” I said, jumping up. I rooted under my bed and pulled out some fashion magazines from the stack that has piled up under there. Then I stuffed them into my backpack. “I can ask them at our Cupcake meeting on Saturday. Oh by
the way, they want Eddie to make his spaghetti.”

Mom smiled. “He'll be thrilled.”

Mom said good night, and I got ready for bed. That night I dreamed I was walking down a runway, wearing my gym uniform, leopard-print boots, and a fake-fur vest.

I can't believe I didn't wake up screaming!

Convincing my friends to help me out was easy. But it was almost as if Katie
wanted
to give me a hard time. When I handed her some magazines to look through at lunch the next day, she looked at me like I was handing her a dirty sock.

“So you want us to do what?” she asked.

I handed her a purple marker. “Just look through it and circle the stuff you like. Stuff you might wear. You don't have to do it now—just bring it Saturday.”

“Ooh, this is going to be fun!” Emma said.

“Are you sure you want
me
to do this?” Katie asked. Her idea of dressing up is to wear a clean pair of jeans with her T-shirt and sneakers. But once in a while she lets me pick out clothes for her, and she looks totally adorable.

“Yes,
you
,” I insisted.

My friends didn't disappoint me. Saturday at five o'clock, the house smelled like tomato sauce
and garlic, and when the doorbell rang, my dogs, Tiki and Milkshake, started yapping like crazy. When I opened the door, Katie, Emma, and Alexis were standing there, carrying the magazines I had given them.

They came inside, and Katie bent down to pet the dogs. They adore her.

“Emma, how was your modeling thing?” I asked. She gets professional modeling gigs sometimes.

“Another catalog,” Emma said. “Winter coats. And it felt like ninety degrees in the studio. Gross!”

“Well, I got pretty sweaty during the race this morning,” Katie said.

“Did your mom and Mr. Green run too?” I asked. Katie's mom is dating a math teacher, Mr. Green, in our school. It's really nice, but weird for Katie. Katie and her mom run, and Mr. Green does too, so now they all run together sometimes.

“Yes, and Emily, too,” Katie said—Emily is Mr. Green's daughter—and grinned. “But I beat them all.”

“So how do you want to do this?” Alexis asked. “Fashion first or cupcakes first?”

“Let's do fashion, then spaghetti, and then talk about cupcakes for dessert,” Katie suggested. “It's, you know, fitting.”

“Okay, let's go to my room,” I said.

I had cleaned up my room (well, I shoved a few things under the bed), but I keep it pretty clean because I have loved it ever since Eddie helped me redo it. The walls are turquoise, and Eddie and I painted over the old furniture a glossy white, with black trim. Mom helped me with the colors but mostly it was my design.

I tossed some turquoise and fuchsia throw pillows from my bed to the floor.

“Okay, let's see what you've got,” I told my friends.

“Me first!” Emma said, handing me a magazine. “I found tons of beautiful dresses in here.”

I flipped through the pages. The dresses she had circled with the pink marker I gave her were—what else?—pink and fluffy, or they had floral prints.

“These are so
you
,” I told her. “So, do you think ‘romantic' would be a good way to describe your style? Or ‘sweet and flirty'?”

Emma nodded. “Definitely,” she said, looking down at the white peasant top and pink skirt she was wearing.

“Well, I didn't circle anything with flowers,” Alexis said. She handed me back the stack of magazines I had given her, with the pages neatly flagged.
“The ones I liked best looked nice, but they were practical, too.”

Katie frowned. “You mean like uniforms?”

“No, I mean—well, turn to page thirty-seven of that one,” Alexis said, pointing, and I quickly obeyed. “See that black dress? You can wear it to work during the day, and then you can dress it up and wear it to a party at night. It says it right here: ‘One dress, two different looks, pretty and practical!' ”

I nodded. “My mom's clients love stuff like that.”

Then I looked at Katie. “Sooooo . . .”

Katie sighed and handed me the magazines. “Well, I didn't find my fantasy dress. I found some stuff I wouldn't mind wearing, though.”

Looking through the pages, I saw that Katie circled a lot of pictures of models wearing jeans and shirts, or shorts and shirts. No surprise there.

“Well, what would your fantasy dress look like?” I asked.

“I was thinking about that,” Katie said. “I guess if I had a really special thing to go to, I would want something completely different and amazing. Like a dress with a rainbow swirl all around it, or maybe a silver space-looking dress with a hat that had spirals coming out of it.”

Alexis laughed. “I could so see you in that!”

“I tried to draw it, but it came out terrible,” Katie said.

But I was already sketching. After a minute I held out my sketch pad to Katie.

“Like this?” I asked.

Katie looked at my drawing, which showed a sleeveless dress that was short in the front and long in the back. The hat on the figure I had drawn was a small cap topped with a twisting spiral, kind of like what DNA looks like.

Katie's brown eyes lit up. “That is awesome!”

“I think it might be too . . . creative for this contest,” I said. “But it's really fun. I will totally design that for you someday.”

“You'd better!” Katie said.

Then we heard Eddie's voice call up the stairs. “Who wants some of Eddie's spaghetti?”

“Meeeee!” Katie yelled back, and she raced out of the room ahead of all of us.

Downstairs, we all sat at the dining room table with my mom and Eddie. The table was topped with big bowls of food: spaghetti, meatballs, salad, and a basket of garlic bread.

“Where's Dan?” Emma asked.

“Basketball practice,” Eddie replied. “But that just means more spaghetti for us!”

“Well, we should save some for poor Dan when he comes home starving,” Mom interjected with a laugh, and started passing around the bowls, and we piled food onto our plates.

“Thanks for making spaghetti for us,” Katie said, twirling the pasta around her fork. “One of these days you need to tell me the recipe for your sauce.”

“Well, it's a secret recipe, but for you I might make an exception,” Eddie told her with a wink.

“I can repay you in cupcakes,” Katie promised.

“Are you girls baking tonight?” Mom asked.

I shook my head. “No. Just talking business.”

“Jake's best friend, Angelo Ricco, is having a Halloween party,” Emma explained. “Last week his mom asked me if we could bake Halloween cupcakes for it.”

“This is going to be so much fun!” Katie said. “Mia, I bet you can come up with amazing Halloween designs.”

Normally, I would have been excited too, but honestly, cupcakes were the last things on my mind. All I really wanted to do was figure out a design for my contest dress. But I didn't want to let down my Cupcake Club friends.

“I haven't thought of anything yet, but I can start sketching after dinner,” I said.

“And I've been researching Halloween cupcake designs online,” Alexis reported. “I downloaded my favorites.”

“You girls impress me,” Eddie said. “You've got a great little business going here.”

“And it's fueled by Eddie's spaghetti!” Katie added, just before she slurped a long strand of pasta into her mouth.

Eddie laughed. Since he was used to living with just Dan for a while, I don't think he knew what to do with a house full of girls at first, but now he totally loves it when my friends come over. It doesn't hurt that we all love his cooking.

After we ate, we cleaned up the table and then got ready for our meeting. I got my sketchbook and some colored pencils, Alexis had a laptop open, and Katie had a purple binder with cupcake stickers all over it. It was Alexis's idea. Katie used to just shove her favorite cupcake recipes into a pocket into her backpack. Now they're neatly organized (well, as neatly as Katie can organize anything).

“So, Mrs. Ricco wants four dozen cupcakes,” Emma began. “She's inviting, like, the whole first grade.”

“Because it's little kids, we might want to do
simple flavors,” Alexis suggested. “Vanilla and chocolate.”

“Maybe we could do a dozen pumpkin ones?” Katie asked. “It's Halloween, and everybody loves pumpkin.”

“Yes! Do pumpkin!” Eddie called from the kitchen, and we all laughed.

“Eddie, no input from nonmembers!” I yelled back, but I didn't really mind. Eddie's sweet, and if I have to have a stepdad, I'm glad it's him.

“Vanilla, chocolate, and pumpkin,” Alexis said, making a note. “What about decorations?”

“I think we could do a whole bunch of different ones,” Emma suggested. “Jake loves anything with a lot of colors, so I think they'd like something fun.”

Alexis turned the laptop around and showed us a screen with a grid of the photos of Halloween cupcakes she had found. The designs were really cool. Some cupcakes had orange icing and candy faces that made them look like jack-o'-lanterns; others had white icing with lacy black spiderweb designs on top. I even saw some vampire faces drawn on with icing, with little candy fangs.

“I want to do them all!” Katie said.

Seeing all the pictures got me really inspired. I started sketching like crazy.

“We could do a cemetery cupcake,” I said. “Chocolate icing, with cookie tombstones on top. We could write ‘RIP' on each one.”

“Cool!” Katie said. “But is that too scary for little kids?”

“Well, we could do some fun monsters,” I continued, still sketching. “With funky-colored icing, like purple and lime green. We could use candy to make the faces.”