As we carry trays of brownies, cookies, and pies, Mia tells me about Connor playing in the game against Buffalo Hills his senior year. He’d scored the winning touchdown. His teammates had dragged him up onto Cedar Mountain to party late into the night, and Connor had his first hangover the next morning.
I wonder if Connor and I stood in the same spot on Cedar Mountain the last time each of us was there.
“Okay,” Mia says, not knowing she is interrupting my thoughts of Connor. “We push the baked goods and the hot cocoa for our side. The pies are already cut, and we’ll sell them by the slice for three dollars each. The brownies, cupcakes, and cookies are all a dollar fifty. A couple girls from the homecoming committee and their moms will be tselling hot dogs and popcorn from that window,” she says, pointing to the other side of the small building.
“What does it matter which window we sell out of?” Auntie asks. “We’re all in the same stand. There’s no wall or anything.” Auntie waves an arm out on the other side of the concession stand to make her point. “All the money goes into the same till.”
She and Mia had a cold war after their fight in the walk-in cooler that lasted for about twenty-four hours. But then someone left chocolate in someone else’s room, and soon after, regular conversation resumed while watching an old romantic comedy and drinking wine on the dilapidated couch in the living room.
“Mrs. Stuart made sure I was aware that we were to stay on our side of the concession stand,” Mia says, her voice clipped, as if the idea annoyed her.
Auntie wrinkles her nose. “Seems like Mrs. Stuart needs the stick pulled out of her ass. We’re donating all our profits to the stupid homecoming committee. You’d think they’d be a little more grateful.”
“Gemma Stuart has never been grateful for anything in her life,” Mia replies. She hazards a glance at me and Ember. “Forget I said that,” she says.
“Said what?” Ember asks, holding back a smile.
From what I’ve learned over the last couple of weeks of planning this concession stand fund-raiser, Mrs. Stuart is Adalyn’s mom, she was once Rocksaw’s homecoming queen, and something vicious happened between her and Mia when they were in high school.
Sure enough, Mrs. Stuart, Adalyn, Ramani, another girl named Vera I recognize from my history class, and a woman who must be Vera’s mother soon arrive, looking like they’re ready to do battle. They’re all wearing sets of black cat ears, and their faces are painted like tigers, with stripes on their cheeks and black tips on their noses and a set of drawn-on whiskers each.
“Please tell me we don’t have to wear cat ears to work in here,” I whisper to Mia as they fuss around with boxes of food they’ve brought with them.
Mia purses her lips, suppressing a smile. “No, Trix.”
I let out a sigh of relief. It’s bad enough that I’m crammed in this concession stand hawking cupcakes; painted-on whiskers might have done me in.
Not to mention the fact that I’m really hoping to see Jasper, and I don’t want the indignity of cat ears if I do. I smile to myself. And if we had any time alone, he’d definitely smudge my drawn-on whiskers.
Mrs. Stuart says something about a cash box and hurries back out of the concession stand.
As soon as Vera’s mom sees Auntie, she jets to Auntie’s side, holding out her hand and asking questions about her last reading. I manage to catch the words inheritance and estranged. They have a hushed conversation that ends with Auntie patting Vera’s mom on the shoulder and telling her to come by the shop tomorrow for some tea.
“Mia!” Mrs. Stuart coos when she returns with the cash box. “You did make it. I’m so glad. Mrs. Jindal couldn’t make it tonight. Poor thing has the stomach flu.”
“Gemma, so lovely to see you,” Mia says, pasting a smile on her face. She self-consciously fluffs her red hair.
But Auntie is unable to ignore the barb in Mrs. Stuart’s words, and she grumbles, “We said we’d be here, so we’re here.” She arranges cookies nearly twice the size of a grown man’s palm that we spent hours wrapping in clear plastic wrap and tying with orange and black ribbons last night.
Mrs. Stuart’s cat ears seem to prick up when she overhears Auntie, and she gushes, “Well, I know things can get so busy for women like yourself.”
Auntie shoots Mrs. Stuart a look that could melt her whiskers right off.
“Entrepreneurs,” Mrs. Stuart clarifies at the look. “Women like Mia don’t have as much time as stay-at-home moms.”
Mia flushes as she arranges brownies with orange sprinkles on a tray. This is the first time anyone has seemed to dislike the McCabes, and I’m really starting to wonder what happened between Mrs. Stuart and Mia in high school.
“But she does have a business that can donate two hundred dollars’ worth of baked goods,” Ember retorts.
I raise my eyebrows at Ember. This isn’t the Ember from a few weeks ago who hid in the library with her earbuds in. This Ember takes shit from no one.
Adalyn is completely unaware of the entire conversation, focusing on hanging orange and black tulle around their order window, but Ramani looks uncomfortable, toying restlessly with her cat ears.
“It’s lovely that local businesses give back to the community,” Vera’s mother says, trying to make peace. “Especially one as well-loved as the McCabe Bakery and Tea Shoppe.” Vera nods in agreement as she loads the hot-dog roller on the back counter using a set of metal tongs.
Mrs. Stuart opens her mouth to say something again, but Ramani interrupts the awkward moment with exuberant cheer. “Hi, Ms. McCabe. So nice to see you again. My mom said to say she’s so sorry she couldn’t make it. My brother offered to cover for her, but Mrs. Stuart said we’d be okay without him.”
“Your brother is the guidance counselor, right? Is he single?” Mia asks, wasting no time getting down to business.
Ramani winces. “Definitely. The breakup was ugly too. He was all set to propose, and his college girlfriend dumped him. And now I can’t get away from him. Seven years of college and grad school, and he comes back home to haunt me in high school, of all places.” She rolls her eyes, and it makes Mia laugh.
“You know,” Mia says. “Ella, the art teacher, is single, too. And right around your brother’s age. She came by the shop the other day asking me about available guys that I knew of in town.”
“I’ll pass the word,” Ramani says, grinning.
“You tell him to come to me,” Auntie says. “I’ll tell his fortune. Strapping young man like that, I bet he’s got more love lines than he does fingers and toes.”
Ramani laughs. “Ew. I don’t even want to think about that.”
Vera’s mom titters.
Annoyed by the interest in the McCabes, Mrs. Stuart holds up the cash box. “Here’s this,” she says. “Let’s put it on this table in the back by the hot-dog roller so that it’s safe.”
“Of course it’s got to be on your side of the stand,” Auntie mumbles under her breath, opening a stack of disposable plates.
Mrs. Stuart clears her throat and raises her eyebrows, and Vera’s mom looks slightly uncomfortable.
Thirty minutes of subtle gripes later, the stands around the football field are filled with families dressed in either orange and black or brown and white, and there’s a line nearly thirty people deep at our concession-stand window. It’s cold and windy, and the gusts wail through tiny cracks in the stand, threatening to snatch away napkins and plastic cutlery when I hand them out. The pies are selling fast, and I take handfuls of cash from the Rocksaw residents as well as visitors from Buffalo Hills who have heard of Mia’s bakery.
The Buffalo Hills fans seem friendly, and if anything, excited to try food from the McCabe Bakery & Tea Shoppe. I wonder again if the story Jasper told me about the Buffalo Hills mob coming for the McCabe women is true. I wonder if those Buffalo Hills people would be rolling over in their graves knowing that their descendants were lining up to eat Mia McCabe’s pie.
We keep a tally sheet
to mark how much money we’ve made, and I run back and forth from the cash box making change, lifting up the top tray of the cash box to stuff the big bills, twenties and fifties, into the bin underneath.
A little voice in my head says that it would only take one slip of my hand to pocket a couple of twenties and fudge the numbers on the tally sheet to cover it up. That would buy two big, fancy sketchbooks at Jensen’s Office Supply. Or order pizza, breadsticks, and drinks from the Italian restaurant three doors down from the tea shop.
My hand hovers briefly over the cash box.
No.
I’m not that girl anymore. I have a paycheck from the shop, even if it’s not a lot. I earn my money now. I don’t steal it. You don’t steal from a town where you mean to put down roots.
I look over my shoulder and catch Mrs. Stuart looking at me with narrowed eyes.
I snatch two quarters out of the change slot and hand the customer their change and cookie.
Let her stare. I know I didn’t do anything wrong.
The crowd in front of our window keeps us busy, and I can’t see much past them. All I get of the football game are the glaring lights in the sky that block out the stars, and the cheers and sighs of the crowd to indicate how the game is going.
Ember actually helps with the customers instead of staying in the back of the concession stand. Her face is a little grim, as if she’s determined to do her part, but not sure she likes it.
Mia opens her mouth once or twice to say something to her like, Oh, honey, why don’t you stay in the back if you’re uncomfortable? But each time Ember brushes past her, still working, still making herself participate rather than hiding away. I think after joining the lunch table and getting invited to homecoming by Grayson, she’s realizing that hiding away might have been safe, but it wasn’t living. Not really.
I do my best to manage as many of the customers as I can, but I’m proud of the way that Ember is holding her own. I hope that when she looks at me, she sees that I’m trying to change, too.
At one point, there’s a discernable gasp from the football stands, as if the entire audience sucked in their breath at once. Then, a few moments later, the announcer says something about hoping it’s not as bad as it looks, and asks the crowd to move so the EMTs can get on the field.
“What is it?” I ask Ramani, who’s salting a bag of popcorn for a customer. My thoughts immediately turn to Jasper, and I wonder if he’s okay. I’ve seen enough of their practices to know that football can be a brutal sport.
Ramani asks the Buffalo Hills man ordering the popcorn if he can tell us what happened, and the man stands on his tiptoes to look out onto the field over the concession-stand crowds. “Looks like someone got hurt,” he says. “One of the Tigers.”
Jasper, is all I can think.
The announcer says something, but through the ringing in my ears, all I catch is “number fifty-two.”
“Who is that?” I ask, my heart hammering in my chest.
“It’s Linc!” Ramani cries. She puts a hand over her mouth, her class ring flashing in the fluorescent lights.
Her gesture frightens me because I have seen it before.
Charly stands in the doorway of room 7, her dark hair damp and clinging. It’s raining outside behind her, the soft kind that mists until everything glitters. Her eyeliner is smeared, and her mascara is beginning to drip in dark lines down her cheeks.
“Charly, are you okay?” I move aside so she can come in.
But she stands rooted, immovable. Instead, Charly lifts her hand to her mouth, her gold rings glinting on her fingers, like she could push the words back in, make the truth stop being real.
“It’s Shane,” she whispers finally, removing her hand.
“Where is he?” I ask, pushing past her into the dark, wet parking lot, searching for him, for that crooked grin and the wide shoulders beneath his leather jacket. The neon sign flashes NO VACANCY, reflecting in puddles and mist to cast an eerie red glow.
Red like blood.
I whirl on Charly. “What happened?”
“He got shot,” Charly cries, throwing her arms around me and sobbing into my neck. “You told him not to go alone, but he went anyway.”
“Trix!” Ramani yells over the roaring applause of the crowd, bringing me back to this moment. “The announcer says he hurt his shoulder, but he’s up on his feet now. I’m going to go out and see if someone can tell me what happened.” She tugs off her cat ears and runs out the back door of the concession stand, letting in a huge gust of wind as she goes.
I am frozen in place near the cheerfully decorated cookies, goose bumps rising on my arms as if I am still standing out in the rain.
“I hope Linc’s okay,” Ember says, coming to stand next to me. She is real, and warm, and smells of coconut. She reminds me that I’m in Rocksaw, not the Starlite. “But at least Ramani ought to make him happy.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, attempting to look like everything is normal. I shuffle cookies around on the tray like I’m organizing them.
Ember bites her lip. She looks around, and when she decides that the stand is too loud and busy for anyone to pay us any notice, she continues, “Linc accidentally high-fived me in PE last week when I spiked the volleyball into Nancy Miller’s face—not on purpose—and I saw that he’s got a thing for Ramani, but he’s afraid to ask her out because Jesse was his friend and Jasper is his friend, and he doesn’t want to make things weird.”
To me, this is yet another moment illustrating how everyone’s stories in Rocksaw intertwine, sometimes so closely it seems like they’re chapters in the same book. “I guess that might be awkward. But why doesn’t he just talk to them?”
“And say what? Jasper, I want to date your dead brother’s girlfriend?” Ember asks.
“Yeah, exactly that. And anyway, it’s Ramani’s business if she wants to date him.” I look out the front window of the concession stand and catch a glimpse of Ramani waiting for Linc as he comes off the field. An assistant coach is carrying Linc’s helmet, and Linc is walking, but cradling his left arm, his face tight.
“I picked up something about a bro code.” Ember continues, “That part was a little fuzzy. His high five was pretty fast.”
“Do you think we should say something to Ramani about it?” I ask. “She must care about him a little bit if she went out there to check on him.”
Ember shrugs. “I’ve never had close girlfriends. I don’t know the protocol. Also, I think it might be spying, since technically Linc didn’t tell me on purpose.” She sighs. “I probably shouldn’t have told you, either. But it’s one of those problems that you wish you could fix for them.”
I nod. Ember’s got to figure out her own set of rules for her gift, the same as I have.
“Maybe we could convince Linc and Ramani to go on a triple date with us to homecoming?” Ember says hopefully.
I tease her, “You sound more and more like your mom. The next thing we know, you’ll be matchmaking full time and baking pie.”
Ember pulls a face at me.
“Girls!” Mia chides. “Stop playing around and help me out. I need six chocolate-chip cookies, two slices of Lucky Lime, and eight cups of hot chocolate, three with marshmallows and five without.”
“Yes, Mama,” Ember says, hurrying to get the cups.
Ramani returns to the concession stand, breathless and pink-cheeked. “Linc’s okay,” she says. “It looks like a dislocated shoulder, but nothing broken. His mom and dad are taking him to the emergency room.”
“Did you get to talk to him?” Ember probes.
“Yeah,” Ramani says. “He says he’ll be back in fighting shape by homecoming.”
“Well, yeah, priorities, am I right?” I manage to say with a straight face.
Ramani rolls her eyes. “Says the girl selling tiger muffins.”
“They’re cupcakes,” I correct her airily.
Ramani and Ember laugh, and even though I’m in a tiny concession stand with wome
n wearing cat ears, I feel pretty damn happy now.
With five minutes left to go in the game, the Tigers are only one point ahead, and Mrs. Stuart decides it’s time to shut down the concession stand and count the cash box. We’ve sold out of nearly everything we brought; only a half-dozen white-chocolate-macadamia-nut cookies are left on the back table. There are still at least three dozen hot dogs and bags of chips on the other side of the concession stand, as well as a thick layer of burned popcorn on the bottom of the popcorn machine from when Vera forgot to put in the oil.
“Let’s load up the trays in the Suburban,” Mia says to Ember and me.
“What do you want me to do about the cookies?” Ember asks. “There are only a few left.”
“We’ll see if Mrs. Stuart and the girls want them,” Mia answers. “As a thank-you gesture for including us in the fund-raising.”
I want to say that they ought to be thanking us for donating all the baked goods in the first place, but I hold my tongue. How Mia wants to navigate these waters is up to her.
Mrs. Stuart is hunched over the cash box with a calculator, furiously hitting the keys with her orange-and-black fingernails.
When we’ve loaded up the Suburban with our trays and the remaining disposable plates and cups, Ember and I stand outside the concession stand for a few minutes and watch the game. “See that?” Ember says, pointing to the Tigers player with a seven on his jersey. “That’s Jasper.” She finds the player with the number nineteen. “That’s Grayson.”
“How do you know that?” I ask.
“I picked up a program,” she says, handing me the folded piece of orange paper she’s pulled from her pocket.
“I thought maybe you’d been studying without me.”
Ember smirks and shakes her head. “We should probably go see if Mama needs any more help. Plus, I’d like to rub it in Mrs. Stuart’s face that we pulled in more money than she did.”
I laugh because I really like this Ember that stands up to jerks.
Back inside the concession stand, everyone but Mrs. Stuart is gone, probably taking out the trash to the dumpsters or running things back to their vehicles. She stands in the middle of the room that still smells of burned popcorn and hot dogs, her hands on her hips, her face red beneath her whiskers. “All right,” she says to me. “Where is it?”
A Constellation of Roses Page 18