The Cupcake Diaries Collection: Katie and the Cupcake Cure; Mia in the Mix; Emma on Thin Icing; Alexis and the Perfect Recipe (48 page)

Jake went up to Mia and tugged on her dress to say hi, and they and Katie began chatting about law enforcement, Jake’s favorite subject.

Sam said, “Great party. Oh, wow, there’s Dylan!” and he walked over to her.

Then it was just me, Matt, and Emma. It felt
really awkward. I hadn’t made eye contact with Emma yet.

“Hey, would you guys like a soda?” I finally said, looking somewhere between the two of them.

“Sure,” Matt answered. “Why don’t I get something for you two?”

Emma and I looked at each other, and suddenly we both burst out laughing. Hard! We couldn’t stay mad at each other, especially not on such a big night.

Emma put her arm through mine. “Sure,” she told Matt. “I’ll have a Sprite.”

“Me too, thanks,” I said, giving him my best smile.

Matt grinned, and as he walked away I pretended to swoon. “He is too cute!” I whispered. “Sorry!”

“It’s okay,” said Emma. “I’m sorry I was so mean earlier. I guess it was just a little hard to take.”

“I know I’ve been kind of annoying about it,” I said, thinking about the story Skylar told earlier. “Anyway, I would never sacrifice our friendship for love. If it came down to Matt being my boyfriend or you being my friend, I’d pick you. I swear.”

Emma looked like she didn’t believe me, but she hugged me and said, “Thanks, but I don’t think you
need to make a choice. I love my brother too, you know.” She swatted my arm playfully, then gasped.

I looked over to see what she was looking at and rolled my eyes. I had, for five minutes, forgotten about Sydney and Callie, but there they were, still standing around. “Yeah, can you believe they had the nerve to show up?”

“Unbelievable!” Emma said in a disgusted tone. When Katie and Mia came back (without Jake, who was now with his mother), we started trying to figure out what we should do. We decided that Emma would say something to Sydney, since Sydney had approached her about the party in the first place. I wondered if we should kick them out, but Mia thought that wouldn’t be very ladylike and suggested we tell the manager that there were crashers.

Emma took a deep breath before crossing the dance floor toward Sydney and Callie, who had just spotted Matt. I watched in horror as they surrounded him, and Sydney snaked her arm through his. It made me wonder about Emma’s comment about Sydney doing all the work for Callie. Maybe Sydney secretly liked Matt herself.

When Emma joined them, she began talking, and they were all listening to what she was saying. Then Sydney began gesturing and telling some sort
of story. Matt watched the whole thing in silence, I was glad to see, and when the bartender handed him the sodas, he took them in his hands and took a few steps away from the group.

Emma must have made Sydney and Callie feel bad enough to leave, because Callie suddenly grabbed Sydney’s arm and was pulling her toward the door. I hoped they would leave!

When Emma and Matt came back with the drinks, Emma looked really mad, but Matt was laughing.

“I hate those two. They are so evil!” Emma exclaimed. “They said Callie’s sister, Jenna, had ‘lost’ her precious cell phone, so they had to deliver it to her. They didn’t want to look out of place, so they dressed up.”

I looked at Sydney and Callie, slowly making their way to the door. “I wonder how it got ‘lost’ in the first place if it was so precious?”

“Exactly! So I told them to go,” said Emma.

Matt was still laughing. “The drama with all you girls!” he said. “I can’t believe it. It’s so dumb!”

“Believe it, mister,” said Emma as she took our drinks from him.

“Thank you,” I said to Matt. But as I took a sip, I saw my mother talking to Sydney and Callie at
the door. She seemed to be guiding them toward the refreshments instead of the door! What was she doing?

Now Sydney and Callie headed toward us. That made me madder than ever, and when I am mad, I think the adrenaline makes me do things I would normally be too afraid to do! I looked over at Matt, and he was looking at them, then at Emma, then at me. And right then he and I both said at the same time, “Wanna dance?”

I couldn’t believe it! I know where my courage came from (the adrenaline from being mad!), but I will never know what made Matt ask me to dance. I don’t know if Emma said something to him before the party, or his mom, or if he decided it himself, but whatever it was, the timing was great.

Matt and I laughed and hit the dance floor just as Sydney and Callie arrived where we’d been standing. Emma winked at me and went off with Mia and Katie to get some hors d’oeuvres.

The truth is, Matt and I didn’t have anything to say to each other. We smiled a lot, and since I am a good dancer, I think I impressed him. He is an okay dancer, but for someone so athletic, he’s not that great. I don’t want to say I fell a little out of love with him right then, but between Emma’s
and my friendship being on the line, us having nothing to say to each other, and him being only a so-so dancer, my crush kind of lost a little fizzle that night. And I was okay with that. I was proud to have set a goal, and to have reached it!

As Matt and I danced, I thought about all of my equations and my research. Oh, I was superhappy the whole time I was with Matt, but I decided that when it comes to love, there is no perfect recipe. There are so many ingredients, and things just have to happen naturally. If you need to force them or manipulate them, then they just aren’t meant to be.

There was a lot of crushing going on that night at Dylan’s party: I liked Matt, Callie liked Matt, maybe even Sydney liked Matt, Dylan liked Noah, Sam liked Dylan . . . and I’m sure there were a lot more equations that may not have a solution. All I know is this:

Nothing > friends

I repeat: Nothing is greater than friends!

Later that Night . . .

D
ylan’s friends freaked out over the cupcakes. People came up to her all night to rave about them, and in the end, Dylan declared that the s’mores disco gift cupcakes made the party. That and Noah coming. They had a plan to go to the movies the very next night, which just goes to show you that if something is meant to happen, it just does.

For me, what made the party were the dance with Matt, the look on Callie’s and Sydney’s faces when he and I danced, making up with Emma, Dylan loving the cupcakes, and my big moment on the dance floor with Dad. Everyone gathered around and cheered. We were so good! We would have won if it was a contest! At the end he gave me a big hug and said, “Alexis, you are wonderful.
Just the way you are!” I looked over and saw Matt smiling at us, and I smiled back.

When we got home that night (along with Meredith and Skylar, who were sleeping over), I opened my locked drawer and took out the Matt notebook. It had been fun doing the research online and reading all the studies and their results, but it had been hard to quantify the results in a real-life setting. I needed data that was more concrete. And real feedback. Like tonight. I had reached my goal, and I could cross it off in my planner. Matt and I had danced together.

I read a quote somewhere that said, “The essence of mathematics is not to make simple things complicated, but to make complicated things simple.” Someone named Gudder said it. I think he or she was right. The whole math thing complicated a simple crush. But on the bright side, I got a great makeover, some good love advice, and a dance with a cute boy. It was all good.

I wasn’t sure what would happen next with Matt, if anything, or if I even wanted anything to. I needed a new goal, whether it was love-related or not, because when it comes down to it, I am all about setting and reaching my goals. Failing to plan is planning to fail. That’s one of my mottoes.

So maybe it was time to focus on business again, instead of love. One thing is for sure: If I’d spent as much time on the Cupcake Club this month as I did on Matt, my friends and I would all be a lot richer!

I ripped the pages out of the Matt notebook. Then I dumped them into the shredder under my desk. It was time for a new goal. I picked up my planner again and on a new goal page I wrote:

SELL MORE CUPCAKES

I sent an e-mail to the Cupcake Club:

Great work! Thanks for putting up with Dylan. And me. Now on to the next assignment!

xoxo,

Alexis

Then I grabbed some SweeTarts and went to see if anyone wanted to watch
Dancing with the Stars
with me.

Coco Simon
always dreamed of
opening a cupcake bakery but was afraid she would eat all of the profits. When
she’s not daydreaming about cupcakes, Coco edits children’s books and has
written close to one hundred books for children, tweens, and young adults, which is a
lot less than the number of cupcakes she’s eaten. Cupcake Diaries is the first
time Coco has mixed her love of cupcakes with writing.

SIMON SPOTLIGHT

Simon & Schuster, New York

Cover illustrations by Abigail Halpin

Cover design by Laura Roode

Ages 8–12