The Cupcake Queen (13 page)

Miss Beans has been collecting the yearbooks from each table. When she comes over to us, I hand her ours and say in a wobbly voice, “This one has a page missing.”

Before I can say any more, she looks into my eyes and says, “Hmm. I guess I need to be more careful about who I trust with these. Not everyone is as mature as you are, I’m afraid. Thanks for letting me know, Penny.” She gives me a little pat on the shoulder before she walks away.

“She’s totally onto them,” Tally says.

“She’d have to be blind not to be,” I say, wondering why Miss Beans doesn’t do more to stop Charity. But I can feel some of the tension seeping out of me.

Tally elbows me and points out into the hall. Blake is leaning against the lockers, wearing his sunglasses and looking half asleep. His hair is hanging in his face, making him look less like a pineapple and more like a puppy. The bell rings, and he jumps.

“Late night?” Tally asks, ruffling his hair.

Blake smiles and nods, pushing away from the lockers. “The heater broke in one of the greenhouses. I was up most of the night hanging blankets across the windows to keep the plants from freezing.” He yawns and leans against the wall while I get my lunch from my locker.

“Come on, sleepy,” Tally says, pulling the sleeve of his jacket. After the frigid night, it’s an oddly warm day. Way too warm for this time of year. We head out onto the front lawn, where Blake stretches out under a tree and promptly falls asleep.

“Are you going to submit a design for the parade?” Tally asks. I shrug and bite into my sandwich. “You should, Penny. I’ll bet it’d win.”

I chew, not sure what to say. Having my design built would be cool, but it’s like every time I sort of get into a groove here, Charity is right there to push me off track again. I look over to the wall where a lot of people are sitting eating lunch. Charity is standing with some guy, laughing as she touches his arm. They’re both looking at a book he’s holding. Then I realize it’s not some guy, but Marcus.

Tally is talking about the parade, about how much money we’ve raised for the ARK, about the movie she and Blake are going to see. I force myself to listen and not look back at the wall, back at Marcus. It’s as if he’s two people. One I like a lot. But the other one, the one who is always letting Charity hang off him, I’m starting to like a lot less. My sandwich is hard to swallow. I’m just so tired of everything. Tired of just taking it. I try to think what I’d do if this were happening at my school in the City. But maybe it’s like I’m two people now, too—a “before” and an “after.” I drop my sandwich onto my lunch bag. By the way it bursts apart, it’s really more of a throw.

“Tell me about Charity,” I say. Tally raises her eyebrows at me. “What’s the saying? Know your enemy?”

“Know thine enemy,” Blake mumbles. Then he yawns again and puts his arm over his eyes.

“Sleeping Beauty probably knows a lot more about her than I do,” Tally says, smiling over at Blake. “My interactions with her have been limited to the pageant brouhaha last year and the fruitcake thing at the Winter Carnival.” I want to ask
What fruitcake thing?,
but she keeps talking. “She was in France all last spring, doing some student exchange thing.” She shrugs and reaches into her lunch sack. “I wish I knew more. It would make getting back at her easier.” She pulls out her sandwich and lays it in front of her on the flattened bag. “All I really know is she’s vain and mean and superficial.”

“And dumb,” Blake says from beneath his arm.

“And dumb,” Tally echoes.

“And into Marcus,” I say softly, glancing over to where they are still looking at the book spread on his lap.

Tally picks up her sandwich and then puts it back on the bag without taking a bite. “He’s not into her,” she says.

“You should tell him that,” I say.

Blake just moans under his arm, earning a shove from Tally.

“If you don’t like what we’re talking about, stop eavesdropping,” she says.

“What kind of sandwich is that? Cheese?” I ask, looking at the pieces of white goo peeking out from between her bread. Tally shakes her head and leans back on her hands. A group of Charity’s friends walks by, and I notice them all looking at us. It’s not so much us they’re staring at, but Tally’s sandwich. Tally has repeated the
spoon-in-the-can
trick several times, earning her weird eating habits a reputation. “When are you going to tell me what’s going on?” I ask.

“I’ll tell you what my sandwich is made out of,” she says. She doesn’t have to. I’ve already guessed: lard. I just shake my head. She opens her Ziploc full of grapes and pops one into her mouth. “What is lard?” she asks.

“Animal fat,” I say. I look down at my sandwich. This whole conversation is taking away my appetite.

“More specific,” Tally says. She watches me with a half smirk on her face. I shrug. I’m not much of an expert on lard. “Pig fat,” she says. She pops two more grapes into her mouth and starts pushing everything back into her sack. She is careful to fold her sandwich so anyone watching would think she ate most of it. People start packing it in and walking toward the school. I shove the rest of my lunch into my sack and slip my sneakers back on.

Tally is still talking as she stands up and brushes off the back of her jeans. “Lard is the traditional source of fat in our diet. It wasn’t until we started eating so many fat-free and low-fat foods that we all got fat.” I nod, still wondering why the sudden interest in rendered pig fat. She’s talking louder than she needs to, and I notice Charlotte listening off to one side. The first bell rings, clearing the lawn. I stand up. Blake seems to actually be asleep. Tally bends to try and wake him up. Charity and her friends are clustered at the door, watching us. Something’s brewing. There are popping noises all around us.

“Oh man!” Tally says. She shakes Blake’s shoulder. “Go!” she yells to me. “Hurry!” Blake sits up and rubs his eyes behind his sunglasses. I stand there, not sure what the noise is. The water is cold when it hits me. The sprinklers. Blake stands up on wobbling legs. All three of us run for the sidewalk, but it’s a long way, and by the time we get there, we’re drenched.

“Talk about a rude awakening,” Blake says, shaking his head, sending droplets of water flying in all directions.

Tally peels off her sweatshirt and uses it to rub at her hair. “Since when do they water the lawn during the day?”

“Since Charity paid off the janitor,” I say, wringing out my ponytail.

You-Know-Who and her friends are still on the front steps, now pointing and laughing at us, along with dozens of other people who have gathered there. Still more are watching from the windows overlooking the lawn.

“Everyone’s looking,” I say.

Tally turns toward the building and waves, making a few people laugh. Blake bows deeply, and the laughing gets louder. They both turn and look at me. I curtsy, holding out a fake skirt in my hands. Charity and her friends push through the crowd and walk back inside, but not before I see her face. She’s no longer smiling.

“It’s all in the way you spin things,” Tally says as we walk inside. I now know that’s Classic Tally. Spinning things. Blake holds out his arm and Tally takes it. By the time we enter the hallway, I’m smiling. Blake keeps doffing an invisible hat at everyone we pass, and Tally gives everyone her best queen wave.

Maybe she’s right. Maybe I just need to spin things a little on my own instead of letting everything else spin me. I, too, wave at everyone hanging out of their classrooms to gawk at the three of us. I make sure to take a little extra time in front of Charity’s classroom, giving her my best red carpet smile.

chapter fourteen

I can’t believe I have been re duced to this. Sifting through garbage. Although to be honest, bakery garbage is probably pretty low on the disgust-o-meter. I mean, a butcher shop would be worse. I volunteered to close up partly just to have something to do. Tally and Blake are at the movies in Lancaster. Picking tomatoes with them is one thing. Going with them on, as they call it, “a nondate” is another. A movie on a Friday night? That’s a date. The other reason I decided to stay late is because I am tired of always being the last to know everything. After my mom gave Gram another one of her
I’ll talk to you later
looks, I decided I wasn’t going to wait. I push past carrot peelings and dozens of strawberry tops. The envelope I’m looking for is blue. I saw my mother throw it away before she left. The fact that my mother, the Queen of Recycling, threw something in the trash was the big clue she was hiding it. I dig farther into the garbage, feeling old coffee grounds work their way up under my fingernails. Gram and Mom had this hushed discussion out on the back porch, and when they came back inside, they kept giving each other these looks across the kitchen. The longer we’re here, the more my mom has been treating me like I’m four. She actually spelled something to Gram the other day, like I couldn’t manage to figure that one out.

I keep digging, tipping the big trash can slightly so I can reach deeper. I push past eggshells and wads of plastic wrap. Finally I see it, way down at the bottom, resting on a pile of lemon rinds. I pull it out, scraping a blob of buttercream off the top. I open the envelope. Empty. I start to tip the can back up to standing, but another scrap of paper catches my eye. Unfortunately, that’s all it is, a scrap, but the scrap has words on it, and among them are
separation agreement
and
assets
and
visitation.
I tip the can farther and look for the other pieces of the torn-up letter. I have to dump almost all of the garbage onto the floor, but I finally find them all. I sit on the rubber mat in front of the sink and piece them together. It’s a cover letter from someone named Thomas J. Hall, Esq. It’s written to my mother, but it says my father has a copy, too. You always think you’re going to feel at least a little better when you find out the truth. I start scooping the trash back into the can, shoving the pieces of the letter in along with all the scraps and empty cartons. I think about saving it, but I’m not sure what I’d do with it. It’s not like I’m going to keep it in my scrapbook at home. Look, kids, this is when Mommy took a trip to Disney World, and here’s when we visited the World’s Biggest Ball of String. Oh, the coffee stains? That’s a funny story. I had to dig it out of the trash. Yep, that’s when I found out my mom and dad weren’t just taking a break. That’s when I found out that things were a lot worse than I thought.

 

 

It’s dark by the time I lock the back door of the bakery behind me. I tried to call my dad, tried to make someone talk to me, but all I got was his voice mail. Some electronic voice telling me to leave a message or push five if I wanted to page him. I left a
Call me, I need to talk to you
message.

I start heading down Main Street. It’s only a little after seven, but the whole town looks deserted. Add a few tumbleweeds and a hitching post or two and you’d have the perfect set for an Old West ghost town. The moon is just coming up over the trees. It’s full and yellow, so round it looks like it could just roll across the sky. A harvest moon, my dad once taught me. I remember walking through Central Park with him when I was little, playing hide-and-seek with the moon as it appeared and disappeared among the skyscrapers. It’s like the moon is the only thing connecting then to now.

I turn down the road to the beach, leaving asphalt for packed dirt and rock. I keep tripping on the rocks, because I’m watching the moon instead of my feet. I hear footsteps coming toward me, and I move to the side of the road to give whoever it is room. I can see the silhouette of someone running. Before my brain can even process it, my heart starts beating faster.
Marcus.
I tuck my hair behind my ear, a nervous habit I wasn’t aware of until Tally pointed it out. Of course now I notice it all the time.
Thank you, Tally.
If I had to come up with a list of things I wouldn’t want Marcus to see me covered in, trash is pretty high up there. I tried to wash it off in the sink before I left, but I was in a hurry to get out of there, and I figured I’d just shower when I got home. So far he’s seen me covered in paint, sand, tears, and now garbage.

“Hi,” he says, when he spots me. I’m at a disadvantage (besides being covered in old coffee grounds and bits of eggshell). With the moon behind him, it’s hard to see his face.

“Hi,” I say. I try to think of something else, something funny maybe? Something smart about the moon. If I were talking to Tally, I’d have ten things to say, but all I can come up with is “hi,” and I’ve already said that.

Marcus runs his hand over his hair. “I was hoping I’d see you,” he says. Even though he just ran up the steep hill from the sand, he isn’t even out of breath.

Wait. Did he just say he was hoping to see me? I do the hair tuck thing again, unsure of what to say. I want to ask why he talks to Charity at school and me only when no one’s around. I want to ask him what makes him think I want to see him? Then it hits me. “Your sweatshirt. I keep meaning to get it back to you. I just wanted to wash it first.” I know I’m talking too fast, my words coming out like they’re tacked together. Even in the dark, I can see Marcus starting to smile. This only makes me talk faster. “I should have brought it up to school. I just . . .” I stop. What can I possibly say I was doing? Crying? Pulling dead fish out of my locker? Trash can diving?

“Penny,” Marcus says. I exhale softly, realizing I’ve been holding my breath. “I wasn’t thinking about my sweatshirt.” I feel my cheeks heating up. I hear more footsteps coming up the road, but this time there’s also the distinctive click of toenails on the rocks. “Brace yourself,” Marcus says. Sam runs past him and slams into my legs. This time I’m ready for him. He’s panting hard and trying to lick my fingers and do his chuffing thing, all at the same time. I laugh as Sam keeps licking me. “He can smell the bakery on you.” I feel my cheeks heating up again. I probably smell like sour milk and banana peels. “Even in school, I can smell the vanilla and sugar when you walk by.”