“Yup. The one in the middle.”
“Fantastic. At least my heart and lungs will be superhealthy if I keep living here, with all this walking.”
“You can meet my friends.”
I flash back to my old school. What if his friends are like those kids? What if they’re mean or don’t like me, or—this is the worst—treat me like I’m wearing a magic invisibility cloak? My feet slow down on their own until I’m dragging my toes through the dirt. It should be okay. Nobody knows about my dad’s van. Nobody will think I’m a freak.
But what if they do?
“What’s up?” Jay turns to me.
“The sky.” I don’t want to admit what I’m thinking about. I know Jay will tell me it’ll be fine. What else can he say? He can’t control how other people act.
“Ha ha.” Jay picks up the pace. “Come on. I see them.”
“I’m really bad at baseball.” There’s a rock in my shoe. I lean against a fence post and take it off, shaking my shoe, slipping it back on.
“I’m not a star, either.” Jay tosses me the ball and I scramble to pick it up. “My dad taught me a couple of tricks, though.” He holds his mitt to demonstrate and I try to copy him. “Hold your hand down like this if you’re going to catch it low. Up, if it’s high. And watch the ball.”
“Did you do a lot of stuff with your dad?” My dad didn’t play catch with me. I try to think about what he did teach me. Let’s see. He helped me with my math a lot. And I sure needed it. I hope Shell or Suzanne’s good at math.
“Not too much. He got sent back to Mexico right before Esmeralda was born,” he says in a matter-of-fact voice.
“Oh.” My throat seems to close up. Got sent back isn’t good. “Is he going to come back?”
“Probably not. He moves around a lot. We haven’t heard from him in a while.” Jay looks at some invisible object in the distance, his jaw set. For a second he doesn’t look like a boy anymore, but like a glimmer of his future grown-up self. He sniffs, and when he speaks again, he doesn’t look at me.
I never thought I’d think this, but I might be kind of lucky. At least I know I’ll see my dad someday, even if I don’t want him to come back until he’s totally better. At least I don’t have to be afraid of being kicked out of the country, even if Shell’s Pie closes forever.
And just by chance, my grandfather somehow happened to live in a time when he could come to the US. Who would I be if he hadn’t? I turn Jay’s situation over and over in my head like a Rubik’s Cube I can’t solve. It’s just not fair. “You’re going to make that app and you’ll make so much money that they’ll let you stay.”
“Yeah.” He runs his hands through his hair so it poofs, like it did the first day I met him.
“Come on. I’ll race you there. On your mark . . . get set . . .”
I take off before he finishes set, giggling. I already know he’s going to win, but I’m not going to make it easy.
A couple of hours later, after a bunch of scoreless games, Jay says he’s supposed to meet his mom at the shop. We say goodbye to the kids and head back.
It was like Jay said it’d be. A big group of boys and girls who all said hi to me and acted . . . totally normal. All we did was play ball. Nobody had to talk about anything except how excited they were that school was over. They told me about the upcoming youth group trip to the beach and about how we were all going to love middle school.
No stinky Cady Bennett comments. It’s a summer miracle.
Jay and I discuss baseball as we walk up to the shop. Through the pie shop window, María stands at the register, counting the money. The door sign says CLOSED, though it’s only four and we stay open until five.
Shell’s at a table with papers in front of her. “If we can hold out till fall, it’ll be okay.”
Jay stops me, putting a finger to his lips in the shush sign. We press ourselves against the wall by the open windows, so they can’t see us but we can hear them.
“But everyone who wants money won’t hold out until fall,” María says. “We might lose the business.”
“Don’t I know it.”
María’s voice rises. “What will you do? What will my family do?”
Shell hesitates before she responds, and what she says, barely loud enough to hear, makes me feel cold from the inside of my scalp down to my toenails. “I don’t know.”
Jay and I stand quiet. I think I forgot how to breathe. Then he thumps the baseball against the wall, startling me. The women stop talking. “Cady, I sure am hungry.”
“Me too,” I say, louder than I need to. I step inside. María and Shell both raise their heads. “Hello! We had a fine time. A grand time. I learned how to hit a ball.”
“And her arm’s not too bad. Though her aim could use some work.”
“Hey. I only threw it over you once.”
“Twice.”
Shell wipes her eyes quickly, a gesture so fast I think I imagined it, and then she plasters a smile over her face. I know everything, I want to tell her. You don’t have to pretend. But I don’t want Shell to be upset, so I pretend I’m still in the dark about the shop, and everybody sits around pretending everything is just fine. “You guys ready for a ride home?”
All we can do is nod.
Chapter 23
A week later, Suzanne and Shell drive me back into the city, to my elementary school. Though I haven’t been gone for too long, everything looks alien. The houses seem too packed in, like you could reach out your bathroom window and steal a roll of toilet paper from your neighbor’s house.
Shell parks her car on the street and we get out. “This is a nice neighborhood,” Suzanne exclaims. “Wow.”
I hear the surprise in her voice. I nod. “Dad put me in the best school he could. If you’re transient you check that on the form, so you can go to whatever school you want.” They look confused. “‘Transient’ means homeless.”
Suzanne and Shell exchange a glance, then Suzanne reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “That shows he cares about you,” she says.
I kick a pebble out of my way. If he really cared about me, wouldn’t he be the one walking me into school right now instead of sitting in jail? Couldn’t he have made himself get better or asked Shell for help instead of telling her we moved away?
“Cady!” Jenna’s running toward us from the school. She flings her arms around me. “You look beautiful! I missed you so much.”
I’m wearing a long turquoise cotton dress, with capped sleeves and a tie belt, and I think I look fairly magnificent—taller and straighter and powerful, somehow. Suzanne said the color brings out my majestic olive skin tone, and she lent me a turquoise necklace, too. I have new gold sandals on my feet and Suzanne painted my toenails a bright turquoise to match.
“Thanks, Jenna. I missed you, too.” She’s bigger than I remember. Less skinny. That’s a good thing—whenever she gets too thin, that means she’s been sick. I pick her up and swing her around, even though I’ll get yelled at if anybody sees. “You look pretty.”
I put her down. “This is Jenna,” I tell my aunts.
“Jenna, so nice to meet you.” Suzanne holds out her hand, but Jenna throws her arms around her.
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Jenna says, her voice muffled. She lifts her head up.
Shell blinks. “Um, that’s great.”
Jenna’s teacher calls her back to the lunch arbor, where the younger kids are having snacks. I pry Jenna’s arms off Suzanne, and Jenna waves at Shell. People generally don’t try to hug Shell, and I guess Jenna’s no different.
“See you later!” Jenna whips around and runs off.
“Walk!” some adult cries.
Shell and Suzanne watch her go. “That’s the reading buddy who wrote to you?” Shell says. “She’s small for her age.”
“She’s got celiac disease.” I tell them a little bit about it.
“Well, she’s very energetic anyway,” Shell notes.
I explain how easil
y Jenna gets sick, but we’ve arrived at the promotion ceremony. Ahead of us, on the lower sports field, chairs are set up for the promotion, and some adults are popping up tent covers. The fifth graders are on the upper field, waiting to make their grand entrance below.
“Cady, go up with your class.” Suzanne points.
Suddenly I don’t want to. “I’d rather stay here with you.”
“No.” Shell gently steers me toward the ramp leading up to the other field. “You go. Or else there’s no point.”
I know Shell’s right. Slowly I walk up to the upper field. Everyone’s excited and making a ton of noise, dressed in their best clothes and roaming around.
Then Anna-Tyler spots me. “Cady!” she shrieks, and runs over to me and hugs me as if I rose from the dead. “Everybody, it’s Cady!” The rest of the class crowds over, all talking at once. I don’t know what to think of this. What’s that quote—absence makes the heart grow fonder.
“All right, class. Give Cady some room.” It’s Ms. Walker, her curly brown bob bouncing as she moves. She’s wearing the long blue dress she always wears for special events, printed with pink flowers. Her “parent meet-and-greet” outfit, she calls it. The other kids go back to what they were doing.
I smile up at Ms. Walker, suddenly shy. “How’s it going without me?”
“Things are a lot more boring.” Ms. Walker holds her hand in a fist. That’s like a hug, because adults aren’t allowed to hug kids at this school, so they do the fist bump instead. “I’m so happy you got to come.” Her deep blue eyes grow an even darker blue, until they’re the color of deep ocean. “We’ve missed you.”
I look straight at Ms. Walker. When I walked into her class at the beginning of the year, I had a hard time meeting her eyes. It kind of hurt physically to do it. She used to remind me to try, lifting my chin up gently. I can barely remember being like that now. It doesn’t hurt anymore.
I’ve changed a lot.
I think of all the ways she helped me, all the things I remember from her class. “Thank you,” I whisper, so quietly I’m not sure she can hear me above the din, but she gives me another fist bump and nods.
Ms. Walker grabs my shoulders and bends her knees so she’s at my height. “I want you to know that I’m always here for you. Even if you need something in high school or college. Got it?”
I nod. I believe her.
She pats my shoulder. “Good. And I expect high school and college graduation announcements. So don’t forget about me.”
I wipe at my eyes and have to look at the ground. “I couldn’t.”
We stop at the top of the ramp, in height order. Since I’m basically a giant, this means I’m last. Ms. Walker, her hair flying in the wind, holds up her hands as if she’s a conductor. “Wait for the music.”
The music starts. “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” a Hawaiian version. Down below parents are snapping photos with big cameras and phones. I stop at the top, and for a second automatically search for my dad.
Instead I see Suzanne waiting at the bottom of the ramp, muscled into the very front row of parents with her camera. Like she’s been coming to these kid things for years.
She sends me a thumbs-up and I send one back. I glance toward the audience. Shell waves at me from where she’s saved them seats. They’re here. Both of them. I let out a breath. I hadn’t realized I felt so nervous. But I don’t have time to think about it, because the kids are moving. I follow them down.
Afterward, we take pictures. Suzanne asks the one person she shouldn’t—Anna-Tyler’s mother. She’s an older version of Anna-Tyler, dressed in a pretty pastel-blue skirt and blouse and a purse with some designer logo stamped all over it.
I get right next to Shell and Suzanne and try to smile happily, but it’s hard because Anna-Tyler and a few of her friends watch, whispering to each other. “That’s a nice dress, Cady,” Anna-Tyler says as her mom hands the camera back to Suzanne.
I for real can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic. “Thanks.”
“You must be glad to get some real clothes.” She smiles at me. The other girls titter. I should ignore her, or tell her to be quiet, but a wave of shame washes over me and I want to hide under one of these chairs.
Shell notices, though, and she steps between me and Anna-Tyler. “What’s with the mean-girls routine?” Her voice goes an octave lower. “That wasn’t a very kind thing to say.”
Whoa. Who knew Aunt Shell was so savage? I kind of like it. “No, it wasn’t. You hurt my feelings.” I stick out my chin toward Anna-Tyler. She does her whatever head roll.
Now Anna-Tyler’s mom gets defensive. She puts her hand on her hip. “Oh, you know. Kids will be kids. It toughens them up for the real world.”
Shell and I snort at the same time. Like I don’t have experience in the real world. “Listen here,” Shell says, her voice getting loud. “If you want to raise—” People stop and stare.
Suzanne slides her arm through Shell’s and interrupts with her trademark Suzanne tenderness. “You know what they say. The energy you put out is the energy you receive. Good luck with all that negativity.” She pulls Shell away toward the front of the school, leaving Anna-Tyler and company to huff and puff with nothing to blow down. “We’d better get going.”
“You didn’t let me say what I wanted,” Shell complains.
“And what was that?” Suzanne rolls her eyes at me with a smile, but I want to hear it too.
“I was going to say, ‘If you want to raise a pack of trolls, I guess that’s up to you.’” Shell narrows her eyes. “Either that or I was going to have to challenge that mother to a duel.”
For the first time, I feel sorry for Anna-Tyler. It must be hard to go around looking for bad things to point out about people. It doesn’t leave you time to do anything else. “Anna-Tyler needs to get a hobby,” I say. “I bet baking would calm her down.”
Suzanne’s laugh tinkles like crystal chandelier chimes. “I bet it would.”
I link my arm through Shell’s other side. Instead of shame, I’m proud. Proud of both my aunts. Shell for being so passionate, and Suzanne for being so sweet.
Nobody’s ever stood up for me like that. My heart swells like the Grinch’s. I lean my head against Shell’s arm, and she puts it around me.
I close my eyes and let Shell lead me out of the school.
As we step out through the gate, Jenna runs up. “Wait, wait!” She’s sniffling like crazy. “Do you really have to go?”
“I do.” I put my hand on her head. “Wow, you’re getting tall. Pretty soon you’ll be taller than me.”
“Maybe I’ll be ten feet tall!” Jenna giggles. “I’ll be the Big Friendly Giant!”
I hug her. If I had a sister, I’d want her to be like Jenna. Maybe that’s why she was my reading buddy, because I didn’t get a little sister of my own.
“Anyway.” She steps back, looks up at me. “I have something for you.” She holds up a small brown bag with handles. “I hope you like it,” she says, suddenly shy.
“Of course I will.” Jenna could literally pick a leaf off the ground and call it a gift and I would love it.
“Honey.” Suzanne touches me gently on the arm. “I’m sorry, we have to go.” She smiles at Jenna. “Maybe Jenna could come visit you sometime.”
Jenna nods vigorously. So do I.
As we walk to the car, Shell turns to me. “We took lots of pictures for your dad. He’ll be sorry he missed it.”
I don’t want to think about him and start being sad. I pull the handle.
“He cares a lot.” Shell says this so quietly I almost miss it, as I’m shutting the door.
I wonder if she’s thinking of the day my dad will come get me. Another bad thought pops into my head. It’d be better for Shell if I weren’t around, especially with her shop troubles. I’m one more thing to worry about.
Suzanne slips in and turns to me. “That was a lovely ceremony, Cady. I’m glad we got to share it.”
I hesitate. On o
ne hand, I wish Dad could have been here to see the promotion. On the other, it was a lot different to have Suzanne and Shell—different in a good way. I wish they could all be here together. I jerk my head in a quick nod. “Yeah.” That’s the best I can do as far as emotion sharing right now.
I pull out several things from Jenna’s gift bag. A package of stationery with dancing teddy bears and kittens across the top and matching envelopes. A stamp booklet. And—there’s a bookstore gift card. “Ohhhh,” I say involuntarily.
“Oh, my!” Suzanne sees the card. “Would you like to stop there on the way home?”
Would I? Do I have two eyes? I nod, and though I think I should try not to be too happy, I can’t help it. I hug the gift card to my chest. I’ve never had a brand-new book.
I wish I had something to give to Jenna, too.
July
385 Pies Down
615 to Go
Chapter 24
My pie crusts ramp up from meh to okay to good. By mid-July, my pastry is finally pretty much perfect. I’ve got a lot more tally marks on my sheet now, rows and rows of them.
The machine rolls the crusts out smoothly, and I drape them over a tin as gracefully as a lady curtsying in a hoop skirt. It’s a long way from when I knocked that pie onto the floor. With every crust I make, I feel like I’m stamping an invisible sign on it that says CADY SEAL OF APPROVAL.
But the customer situation isn’t getting any better. Shell spends a lot of time out doing errands—María says she’s trying to get other restaurants to take our pie.
“You should be like the Julian Pie Company and open a factory so you can sell pie everywhere,” I say to Shell one morning while we eat cereal—Honey Nut Cheerios for me and Shell and plain granola for Suzanne.
“We’d need a factory first.” Shell rubs her eyes.
Suzanne pours them both more coffee. “You never know, Shell. Dream big.”
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