What I Like About You
Page 22
I’ve even practiced on Scout.
No more going into this situation and hoping the right words will come out.
Finally, I know they will. He’ll understand, because he’s Nash.
We’ll be okay, because we’re Halle and Nash. And Kels and Nash.
I can’t Saturday. I have a family thing. I’ll probably miss bowling too, tbh
4:51 PM
Oh. I … did not anticipate Nash saying no.
Since we’ve been official, Nash and I have spent every single Saturday together. If I’m working, he hangs around Maple Street Sweets until I’m out. We’ll grab food or catch a movie or even just walk around downtown until bowling. After bowling, we either hang at his house or mine. Usually his, because his house has a finished basement and mine has a living room and a dog who always seems to wedge herself in the space between us. Wouldn’t he have told me sooner?
Is everything okay?
4:52 PM
Yeah. It’s a Nick thing, so like, I can’t really get out of it.
4:53 PM
But Sunday is wide open!
4:53 PM
Sunday works!
4:54 PM
I’ve had this very specific reveal planned for weeks, and not once did it cross my mind that he might not be able to go. I’m running out of time and ways to tell him the truth and I’m afraid that it’s already too late, but I thought the Ariel Goldberg event would work if anything would.
Nothing can be too terrible when surrounded by books and cupcakes, I’m sure.
But now that won’t happen.
BookCon is two months away. I need a Plan B—and fast.
April 1
Kels @OneTruePastry—April 1
See you soon @NYU!!!
[240 comments] [252 ] [2.7K ]
Direct Messages
Nash to Kels
Thursday, January 2, 2:13 PM
I hope everything’s okay. I really wish you would’ve just talked to me if it wasn’t. It sounds so stupid now—but I thought we had something real. I guess we don’t.
Bye, Kels.
Wednesday, April 1, 5:04 PM
[Nash typing]
TWENTY-TWO
As it turns out, it takes minor deception and a lot of planning to bake three hundred bookish cupcakes.
I spent two days baking the cupcakes at Maple Street Sweets. It was the most difficult part, because I couldn’t start until the Davidsons left. Sawyer thinks it’s all for a chemistry project—which is only half a lie. Mr. Portman did assign a creative project where we are supposed to present chemistry in everyday life. Baking is kind of a perfect example of that. But Gramps is okay with baking again, so theoretically I could have done that at home. For the event, though, I need all the industrial equipment—I couldn’t bake this many cupcakes in Gramps’s kitchen even if I wanted to. Between Wednesday and Thursday night, all three hundred vanilla bean and double dark chocolate cupcakes have been baked and sealed unfrosted in airtight containers to keep them fresh.
Since frosted cupcakes don’t last as long, frosting must happen at the last possible second. Which is why I’m spending Friday night not going to Shabbat, but in Gramps’s kitchen, music blasting, meticulously frosting each cupcake with different colors of buttercream. I have three designs—black and white swirled with red sparkle sprinkles, red and gray swirled with edible pearls, and chocolate ganache with a white stripe, to have the whiteout effect of the title.
I don’t know what’s more of a miracle—Gramps letting me use the kitchen, or Gramps letting me skip Shabbat to frost cupcakes. Gramps does okay when I bake the occasional batch, but he keeps himself busy today. He goes to Ollie’s baseball practice; they go out for dinner before Shabbat. All so I have plenty of time to frost and clean up before he gets home.
My phone buzzes. It’s Nash. But not for me.
He liked Kels’s most recent NYU tweet.
Kels @OneTruePastry 1hr
Apparently NYU has a Milk & Cookies club and WOW I didn’t know how badly I needed that in my life?!?!
I switch my phone to silent. It’s jarring, Nash suddenly engaging with Kels again. I have no clue what he’s thinking—and it’s not like I can ask. I wish I didn’t tweet about NYU. Because it’s like Nash suddenly remembered that Kels is real.
Kels ghosted Nash, but for whatever reason, he wants her to know that he’s still here. The more Nash likes and engages with Kels’s content online, the weirder Nash seems IRL. Maybe I’m overthinking. But yesterday, I asked him if he wanted to study for our impending AP exams before I had to work, and he said he had, you know, so much English homework and bolted. It didn’t even occur to me until I got inside that we’re in the same English class. And no, we did not have so much homework.
It’s probably REX related. Or the Nick thing. Whatever that means.
I transfer two finished tubs of cupcakes to the basement storage refrigerator. Each container has two tiers, holding twenty-four cupcakes. Two containers down—eleven more to go. God. How did I think I’d be able to do this myself? These cupcakes are endless.
I fumble with my phone on my way back to the kitchen.
I’m going to text Nash and check in.
Hey
6:50 PM
Nash Kim
Hi.
6:51 PM
Hi? Period? It’s so distant.
What’s up?
6:53 PM
Just at temple, you know, getting ready for services.
6:54 PM
Are you okay?
6:54 PM
Stomachache.
6:55 PM
It’s not even a lie, honestly.
Oh no! I hope you feel better for Sunday.
6:56 PM
Me too.
6:57 PM
The service is about to start, but still I hope for some last message, a flirty emoji, anything. It doesn’t come. Disappointed, I return to my mission of frosting two hundred and fifty-two more cupcakes, alone. I work methodically, focusing on one pattern at a time until I am on autopilot.
Is it self-centered to think his weirdness is because of the renewed possibility of meeting Kels IRL, because of me? It doesn’t even make sense. What happened to Kels isn’t real? He hasn’t brought up Kels to me, not once, since Fireflies and You.
Still, he thought he loved Kels—that can’t just go away. Even if he’s mad or hurt or whatever he’s feeling. But I’m pretty sure he loves me, Halle, too.
To him, it’s a triangle.
But I know it’s just a line.
It’s always been a line.
* * *
It’s Cupcake Day, and Faneuil Hall is the definition of too much.
Quincy Market, the food hall of Boston’s historic shopping center, stretches endlessly in front of us. Food vendors line both sides of the path. Seriously, any food you want? It’s in Faneuil Hall. Sushi. Pizza. Lobster. Ice Cream. Every choice is at your fingertips.
“Gotta get me some chowdah,” Ollie says.
I almost spit up my sip of water. “Never say that again.”
Ollie smirks. “Chowdah.”
“Okay,” Gramps says. “We get it, Ollie. Hal, what do you want?”
We’ve already walked the entire food hall, so I should be able to choose. But I don’t know. There are too many choices. Too many tourists pushing past me every time I pause to read a menu.
“How about we get a pizza?” Gramps asks. “Can’t go wrong with that.”
I nod. Pizza is good. I can do pizza.
Gramps says he’ll handle the food, so Ollie and I go search for a place to sit. It’s nice out, bright and sunny, and everything is crowded inside. Spring is here, so we snag a table outside, in view of the live performers scattered throughout the promenade.
In the open air, away from the claustrophobia that is Quincy Market, I can breathe and enjoy this.
Three hundred One True Pastry cupcakes have already been successfully delivered to Central Square Books. In a few hou
rs, people will be at the event, eating those cupcakes, tweeting those cupcakes. I’ll meet Ariel Goldberg. Maybe, if I’m brave, I’ll tell her they’re mine, I’m Kels. I’ll finally say it out loud, own it. She’ll sign my collection of her books and the weight of carrying them around in my backpack all day will be worth it. Everything about this day will be a success.
You will be a success.
“Ready for tonight?” I ask Ollie.
He looks up from his phone, mid-Snapchat selfie. “I can’t wait. You’ll never be able to top this present. You peaked too soon. I’m sorry.”
I laugh. “Challenge accepted.”
“Are you ready?” Ollie asks.
“I think so. I just hope my cupcakes don’t suck.”
Ollie sticks his tongue out at his camera. “We both know your cupcakes don’t suck.”
“What if Nash hates me?” I ask.
Since I can’t tell him here, today, like I wanted to, I’m going to tell him when we hang out tomorrow. I’ll show him pictures from the event, pictures of the cupcakes, and have a leftover cupcake for him. It’s not a perfect plan, but I’ve accepted that there will never be a perfect plan or the right moment to tell Nash the truth. I can’t force things to stay the same. Honestly, I don’t want them to.
I want him to know. I want him to know me.
Ollie lowers his phone, placing it on the table. “I’m not going to tell you what you want to hear.”
“Great table, kiddos.”
Gramps appears with the food and I’m grateful for the distraction because I almost definitely don’t want to hear what Ollie was going to say. We dig in and I burn my tongue, biting into the gooey cheese pizza too fast. Ollie is obsessed with his chowdah, and I swear he’s going to say chowdah every day for the rest of our lives, just so he can see me cringe when he does. Sometimes, Ollie says the smartest things and I forget he’s fifteen. Then he says chowdah, chowdahhhhh, and I remember.
“Did Mir ever tell you about our first date?” Gramps asks.
We shake our heads and I lean forward, my elbows on the table, anxious for another Grams story. The best part of today, besides not dropping three hundred cupcakes during the delivery process, has been story time with Gramps.
Most of the stories begin with, “In college …”
It’s jarring at first, imagining a Gramps who is in college, a Gramps not too much older than me, exploring these same streets more than fifty years ago. He and Grams met when he was a senior at Boston University. She was an editorial intern at a small press.
“I surprised her at her first improv show—”
Excuse me? This is brand-new information.
“Improv?” Ollie asks.
“Grams?” I ask.
Gramps laughs.
“I didn’t know Grams was funny,” Ollie says.
“She’s not.” Gramps shakes his head. “By first improv show, I meant only improv show.”
Ollie snorts. “Aw, Grams.”
I wonder what else I don’t know about her.
So I ask Gramps questions I thought I never could.
Why did you ever think premed was a good idea?
When did you know Grams was the one?
How on earth did you both end up in Middleton?
Gramps answers every question and it feels so good being able to talk about the past—about her. Some days, I can tell it’s still so hard for Gramps, but it’s kind of amazing how far he’s come, compared to how broken he was when we got here. Maybe it’s being out of Middleton, but today, he laughs through stories, like the revelation that “Islands in the Stream” started as a dare at a frat party.
I hope this Gramps, my Gramps, continues existing when the magic of Boston fades.
* * *
I fall in love with Central Square Books.
This store is particularly adorable—each wall is a different bright and inviting color, the floor is a deep blue carpet, and the shelves are a rainbow of categories and genres and beautiful words. I could spend hours browsing just the young adult section. I could spend an entire Maple Street Sweets paycheck here, I’m certain.
“Enjoy Book Nerd Heaven,” Ollie says at the door.
Gramps hugs me. “Eat an extra cupcake for me.”
“Go Red Sox,” I say.
Ollie and Gramps leave me to my books and my cupcakes and head for hot dogs at Fenway Park. Booksellers are in the process of setting up chairs in the event space that takes up the back corner of the store. I peer from behind one of the middle-grade shelves, watching them as they line up row after row. They come in and out of the EMPLOYEES ONLY door and I wonder if my cupcakes are hiding somewhere behind that door.
Twenty minutes ago, Alyssa Peterson tweeted a behind-the-scenes photo of Read Between the Lies with one of my cupcakes and Twitter freaked out. My mentions are insane. I’ve avoided Twitter since—the hype is way too much pressure, honestly.
I’m not the only teen aware of the chairs; as soon as setup is complete everyone appears out of nowhere, claiming chairs with tote bags and backpacks. I drop my tote on an end seat in the third row. With a decent seat successfully claimed, I weave my way through the crowded space and back to the YA section. I squeeze past people in tight aisles and wow, when did it get so crowded? Seriously, it’s like I turned around and the small crowd became an Ariel Goldberg mob.
My heart spikes every time my skin accidently brushes against a stranger’s. I weave through the aisles of books, past the long line of teens purchasing Read Between the Lies, and push through the doors of Central Square Books. The cool air feels good against my flushed skin. I collapse onto a bench in front of the store, cover my face with my hands, and breathe.
It’s too many people and the space is too small and oh my God, my cupcakes—what if everyone thinks they taste terrible and I am here to witness the embarrassment firsthand?
I imagine the hate tweets.
OTP cupcakes are pretty … pretty AWFUL!
should’ve stuck to the aesthetics, Kels …
The email from Alyssa Peterson was one of the most exciting things that has happened to my blog, besides BookCon, but I’m overconfident when it comes to my cupcakes. My whole life, everyone has told me how great my baking is. By “everyone,” I mean my parents, Ollie, Gramps, and Nash—AKA the people who would never in a million years tell me that it sucks. For all I know, my cupcakes could be the worst.
If they are, the whole Twitterverse will know in an hour.
One True Pastry will never recover. Maybe NYU will change its mind.
Breathe.
I stay on the bench until the speed of my heart slows down and the panic subsides. Until I find the confidence that brought me from Middleton to Boston with three hundred cupcakes. Until I remember that at every one of my parents’ wrap parties, One True Pastry cupcakes were the dessert of choice for entire film crews.
My cupcakes are the moistest, according to Nash.
They got noticed by Ariel Goldberg. By BookCon.
I am good at what I do. No, I am great at what I do.
The event starts in fifteen minutes, so I find the courage to venture back inside the store. I weave my way through the crowd. A semicircle of bodies has formed behind the last row of chairs—and that semicircle is five people thick, with a small gap so that people can walk down the center aisle.
At the end of the aisle, I see the chair that Ariel Goldberg is going to sit in. Two rectangular tables are set up—one for books and wow, yeah, one for my cupcakes.
They look amazing, on display like that next to the book. I got the frosting colors just right. It’s a perfect Bookstagram.
Shoulders back, eyes forward, I march down the aisle and toward my bag—which is miraculously still saving my third-row seat. Book nerds might be passionate AF, but we respect seat saving rules.
It’s a good sign. Tonight is going to be good.
Settled in my seat, I finally feel able to scroll through Twitter to check the pre-event buzz.
Retweets will have to do. I’m not unveiling that I’m here today.
It’s five minutes till six and my pulse quickens—this time from anticipation.
It’s surreal, honestly. Being here and living this moment where online and IRL blurs and it’s okay because I am—
“Halle?”
My eyes snap up and my stomach plummets to the floor. It’s not. I mean, it can’t be. What? He’s in Connecticut. He has a Nick thing.
“N-Nash?” I sputter.
“What are you—?” he asks, eyes wide in alarm.
Then they flicker forward, to the cupcakes.
Back to me.
Cupcakes.
Me.
“Kels?”
April 6
Ariel Goldberg @ArielGoldberg 1 hr
Look at these beauties thanks to @OneTruePastry!!
#ReadBetweenTheLies
|
Sophie @unicornbooks 37min
SOUND THE ALARM, I AM 99% SURE KELS IS HERE
|
Elle Carter @ellewriteswords 5min
… and I’m 99% sure that’s @Nash_Stevens27 with her?! cc
@AmysBookshelf @s_lee244
|
Amy Chen @AmysBookshelf 3min
WHAT.
|
Samira Lee @s_lee244 1min
???
|
Elle Carter @ellewriteswords 25s
lol that hand holding is the opposite of romantic
|
Samira Lee @s_lee244 now
brb blowing up nash’s phone as we speak
TWENTY-THREE
I’m wrong,” Nash says. “Tell me I’m wrong. Please.”
And that’s how I know I’m the reason he’s here.
Not me, Halle.
Me, Kels.
There never was a Nick thing—it was always a Kels thing. With this realization, my cheeks flush pink and I clench my fists so tight I make fingernail marks in my palms. Focus on the pain of nails attempting to break flesh.