Confectionately Yours #1: Save the Cupcake!

by Lisa Papademetriou

  I get to work frosting more cupcakes, and the door bursts open with a jingle and an explosion of pink and purple flowers. A dark head peeks out from behind the flower arrangement, and Mr. Malik gives me a smile, nearly dazzling me with his white teeth. “What is smelling so delicious in here?”

  “Oh, Mr. Malik, what have you brought for us this week?” my grandmother asks. Do you see how British she is? She’s known Mr. Malik for eight years, and she still calls him “Mr. Malik.” He’s from Pakistan, so he’s just as bad, calling her “Mrs. Wilson,” even though my grandfather died before I was born.

  “Mrs. Wilson, I have brought for you some alstroemeria, freesia, and a few orchids — all arranged by my own hands.” He bows his head slightly as he places the bouquet by the cash register.

  Gran flashes him her twinkliest smile and reaches under the counter for an empty blue vase and a bag of scones. “And I have here some ginger-pear scones, made by my own hands,” she says as she gives Mr. Malik the bag and the vase from last week’s arrangement.

  I’ve seen this ritual many times before — it happens every Thursday afternoon at 4:15, regular as the changing of the guard. I even know what Mr. Malik will say next: “Manna from heaven.” And then my grandmother will say, “Will you join me for tea, Mr. Malik, and perhaps a madeleine?” And then Mr. Malik will say, “Yes.”

  They are like two peas in a pod. I have no idea how they ended up with shops beside each other on the same street in Western Massachusetts. It’s enough to make you think about God and fate and luck and all kinds of deep stuff.

  Except, this time, Mr. Malik doesn’t say yes. Instead, he says, “Of course, Mrs. Wilson, but I think I might prefer one of these delectable-looking cupcakes in your granddaughter’s hands.”

  I’m so surprised, I nearly drop my cupcake.

  “Not a madeleine?” My grandmother is as shocked as I am.

  “How can I resist the aroma?” Mr. Malik asks. “You don’t mind, Hayley? You aren’t keeping them?”

  “I’m honored,” I say, which is completely over-the-top, I guess, but also true. I place the cupcake on a white plate and hand it over.

  He takes a bite. “Ah!” And he laughs, as if I have fooled him. “Sweet and fiery! You can’t tell where one stops and the other begins.”

  “They’re called Hotheads,” I say. “Cocoa, cinnamon, and a little cayenne pepper.”

  “Just the thing to get the blood moving! We’ll all be in a fit of passion later, I presume.”

  I blush a little, until I remember that “a fit of passion” is a British expression for getting angry.

  My grandmother has a pot of Earl Grey all ready, and she and Mr. Malik bustle off to have their Thursday chat about politics. The only two people in Northampton who care about high tea.

  I look down at the cupcake in my hand. Sweet and fiery. I suppose I was thinking of Marco when I made these, though I didn’t realize it. That’s him.

  It’s him exactly.

  Marco backs into the door, smooshing his backpack against the metal bar and forcing it wide open, then stands stiff as a soldier so Artie and I can walk through. “Thanks,” I say, and he nods at me with this raised-eyebrow look that manages to say You’re welcome and Whatever at the same time.

  Marco had apologized again the minute he saw me at the bus stop. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “Ezra just —”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Not really.” Marco shrugged. “It’s not really okay that I lose it sometimes.”

  Then he’d been quiet on the ride to school, which wasn’t hard, given that Omar and Jamil had been rapping at the top of their lungs in the back row. We have a crazy bus that always manages to smell like sweaty feet, and it’s usually a lot of fun. But earlier today — with Marco so quiet and Artie busy chatting with Alison Noel, an eighth grader I don’t know — I’d been missing our quiet walks to and from the elementary school.

  From third to fifth grade, Marco, Artie, and I walked together every single day. Back then, I would have had a chance to ask Marco what made him so mad, or else we would have been able to talk about something else that would have smoothed over the awkwardness.

  Now we just give raised-eyebrow looks and move around each other in silence, like fish in a bowl.

  “Hayley! Hey — Hayley!” A redhead with purple bangs rushes up to us, waving a pile of papers. She grins and announces, “I’m on a project.”

  “Hey, Meghan. What’s up?”

  “We’re ditching the mascot,” Meghan tells us.

  “Who’s we?” Marco asks. “Is this official class-rep business?”

  Yes, this is our seventh-grade class rep — this girl, right here, wearing a headband with a pink sparkly flower on it, and a black-and-white tunic over a pair of black leggings. “Hopefully, official business. Seriously, we’ve been the Purple Pintos since 1974.” She holds out her clipboard, and I notice that she has on blue sparkly nail polish.

  “What’s wrong with the Purple Pintos?” Marco asks.

  Artie looks at him. “Are you serious?”

  “No,” Marco says.

  “It’s ridiculous, right?” Meghan shakes her head, her blue eyes wide. “You’re on the soccer team. Do you want to go to another tournament with a purple horse on the van?”

  A shadow falls over Marco’s face at the mention of the soccer team, but he just says, “No, thanks.”

  “So what’s it going to be?” I ask.

  “I’m hoping for the Giant Squids,” Meghan says. “You know, they can kill whales and they’re dangerous and mysterious — only one has ever been photographed alive! Or I was thinking we could be something really rad — like, you know, Pi.”

  “Pie?” Marco asks. “Like, blueberry pie?”

  “No — pi, like the mathematical constant. I just thought it would be different, you know? Like we’re getting down to the essence of the universe.”

  I notice Artie rolling her eyes. Right. In addition to looking like she just got kicked out of an all-girl funk band, Meghan Markerson is a big science and math nerd.

  “Pi is even worse than the Purple Pintos,” Artie says.

  “Really?” Meghan looks a little surprised, but seems to accept Artie’s opinion. “Okay, then I’m for the Giant Squids. But, whatever, this petition isn’t for either one of those things. It’s just to get rid of the Purple Pintos. Then the whole school can vote on a new mascot.”

  “I kind of liked Blueberry Pie,” I say. “Like, ‘Come and get a piece of this.’”

  Meghan laughs, and then holds out the petition again. “You’ll get a chance to suggest it once we get rid of the Pintos,” she says. “Just sign at the next space.”

  I pull a pen out of my bag.

  “Are you seriously signing?” Artie asks.

  I look at her a moment, her head cocked, her hazel eyes wide. “Why not?” I ask.

  She just shrugs. When I’m finished, Meghan holds out the clipboard to Artie, but she shakes her head.

  “I’ll sign,” Marco says.

  “Thanks,” Meghan says warmly when he hands the clipboard back to her. “Giant Squids, here we come!” She gives us a wink, then shouts out, “Jamil!” and runs after her next victim.

  “We have a lunatic as class rep,” Artie says, watching Meghan corner the lanky, dark-haired boy.

  “At least she’s doing something,” Marco replies. “I’ve always hated that stupid mascot, but I never even thought of getting rid of it.”

  Artie looks at me, but I just press my lips together. This isn’t really something I feel strongly enough about to get into an argument either way.

  “Come on, you guys. Meghan Markerson is nuts!” Artie hitches her messenger bag higher onto her shoulder. “Who even voted for her?”

  “I guess the two Jameses split the vote,” Marco says.

  Philip and Scott James both ran for class rep against Meghan. They’re both wildly popular, but they’re identical twins, and I secretly think that lots of people aren’t s
ure which one is which. If you put their votes together, they beat Meghan by a good margin. But individually, they were each fifteen votes shy of victory.

  “I don’t know if she’s crazy,” I say. “She just has her own ideas.”

  “She’s so loud,” Artie says, and that’s that.

  I’m not about to argue with her about it. We’ll see.

  Crazy is as crazy does, right?

  Well, first off, I have to admit that I didn’t really think she would win. I mean, the Jameses are popular. Way popular. What I didn’t realize was that they are popular as a unit. The Twins. And the Twins weren’t running. In fact, they were running against each other, which freaked some people out, to be perfectly honest. It didn’t help that they both had campaign posters with their faces plastered on them. Eerie.

  But that’s not the real reason that I voted for Meghan.

  I know that Artie has a point. Meghan can be loud and in-your-face. And a lot of people don’t like the fact that she’s always talking in class, answering questions or giving her opinion, like that we shouldn’t study wars because it only encourages bad behavior in governments and low expectations in voters. I don’t always agree with everything she says, but at least she’s interesting. She doesn’t wear the same thing that everyone else does, which right now, at our school, is skinny jeans and flats. And she doesn’t look like everyone else, and she sure as heck doesn’t think like everyone else.

  I like those things about her, but that’s not why I voted for her, either.

  I voted for her because she helped me with my locker.

  It was a week after my dad had moved out, a rainy Monday morning, and I was dripping all over the place, standing at my locker and twisting the built-in combination lock … but I couldn’t remember the numbers. All I knew was that there was a seventeen in it. Somewhere.

  And I was about to cry, but I didn’t want anyone to know, so I just kept turning the knob, hoping the numbers would come to me.

  Meghan’s locker is three down from mine, and she pulled out her book and notebook, and clanged the door shut. She leaned against the bank of lockers and watched me for a minute, then said, “Blanking?”

  I looked at her. She was hugging her notebook to her chest, and her eyes were kind.

  “Yeah,” I admitted.

  “I’m lucky — my combination’s so easy. Nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-nine.”

  “What’s so easy about that?”

  “Three prime numbers in a row!” Meghan smiled, like she’d drawn a winning lottery ticket. “Can you believe it?”

  “Um.”

  We were silent for a moment, and I expected her to walk off, but she didn’t. “You probably just have a lot on your mind,” she said at last.

  “Yeah.” And the Understatement of the Year Award goes to…

  “Are you okay?”

  I thought it over. “Not really.”

  She waited, like she thought I might want to spill my guts to her. But I really didn’t. I mean, I hardly knew her. She wasn’t my best friend, or anything.

  But Meghan didn’t push me. She just put a hand on my arm. Then she said, “I know — I totally space out sometimes, too. Like, I have this stupid crazy crush on Ben Habib, and sometimes I just float off ….”

  “Ben Habib?”

  “I know. Dumb!”

  “Why? He’s cute — and nice.”

  “Eh! His parents are strict Muslims! He’s not going to date some crazy Jewish girl like me. We’re like Romeo and Juliet … except that he has no idea I’m alive.” She sighed dramatically and put a hand to her forehead. Then she looked me dead in the eye. “If you tell anyone, I will kill you.”

  That made me laugh. “Okay. Promise.” I smiled at her. “Oh!”

  “You remembered it,” she said.

  “Yep.” I turned the dial, and the locker popped open.

  “Good job.” And she walked off down the hall, her crazy fuchsia scarf trailing behind her.

  So that was it. I voted for Meghan Markerson because she was the only person who noticed that I seemed down while my parents were splitting up.

  Artie never asked me how I was. I tried to talk to her about it once, but she just changed the subject. I guess she couldn’t handle hearing what it was like to have your dad move out. Not that I had any idea, anyway. What’s it like? It’s like … like feeling frightened all the time. Not knowing what to say to your parents, what might make them burst into tears. It’s like realizing that they don’t love you as much as you thought, that their own lives are more important to them than your life is.

  It’s just like that.

  Artie didn’t want to hear it. And Marco — that’s a whole other story.

  But Meghan actually seemed to care. At least she was willing to listen.

  And she got my vote.

  “Artemis!” a tall guy with blond hair calls as Artie and I are yanking books and binders.

  My heart stumbles a bit and I glance at Artie as she smiles and shouts, “Hey, Devon!”

  “Do you know Devon McAllister?” I’m whispering, because he’s actually walking toward us. It’s a bit of a surprise, because he’s a year above us, in eighth grade.

  “Yeah,” but she doesn’t have time to explain before he props himself against the locker beside hers.

  “Hey,” he says warmly, smiling at her, and for a moment, my head is spinning. He has the most beautiful lips. It’s embarrassing to say that, but it’s true. Like, he should be a lip model, if that even exists. He could model ChapStick. And his eyes — they’re blue, but not bright blue, more like slate blue, and serious.

  I’ve been crazy about him since the first day of school last year. I was running to class and trying to shove two books into my backpack at the same time, and I ran smack into him in the hall. He reached for my dropped books at the same time I did, and we cracked our heads together.

  He winced and rubbed his head while I picked up my books and mumbled that I was sorry. Then I ran off.

  Wow, it’s really romantic when I write it down like that.

  Anyway, the point is that he is the kind of guy who would totally pick up your books for you. Unless you head-butted him, like I did.

  And also, he’s really good-looking. And did I mention he’s an eighth grader?

  So, naturally, I tried not to think about him. I had never mentioned my crush to anyone — not even Artie.

  And here he is, standing one person away from me, on the other side of my best friend. I just might pass out and drop my books again.

  “Callback list goes up on Friday,” he says to Artie.

  “I know; I’m so nervous.”

  “Don’t be! You’ll make it. Your cold reading was great.”

  “Really?” she asks.

  I’m about to die. He’s so sweet! And I know Artie is really grateful to hear this; she was so nervous about auditioning for the school musical that she nearly refused to try out. I had to drag her there. But she’s got a great voice, and Artie doesn’t seem to realize that she’s totally gorgeous. She belongs onstage.

  I’m leaning toward them now, nodding and smiling like I’m part of this conversation, but Devon doesn’t look my way.

  “Hey, did you hear about that guy who shoved Ezra at the soccer game?” he says out of the blue.

  “Oh, yeah.” Artie blushes. “That’s Marco.”

  “You know him? Wasn’t that weird?”

  “Not if you know Marco.”

  “Really?”

  I want to say something here, but nobody’s actually talking to me, so I just lean back and sort through my books, pretending I’m really absorbed in putting them in alphabetical order and not just eavesdropping and thinking about Devon’s lips.

  Devon and Artie chat a little while longer, then his friends shout to him from across the hall and he says good-bye.

  Once he’s gone, Artie turns to me and smiles but she doesn’t say anything.

  “So …” I prompt.

  “So.
” She pulls out another notebook and slams her locker shut.

  “So — I didn’t know you knew Devon.”

  “I don’t. I mean, I just met him at the audition the other day.”

  “And?” I prompt again.

  Artie shrugs. “He thinks I’ll make the callback. I’m not so sure. He will, though. He was great.”

  “Well, would you mind introducing me next time he comes over?”

  Artie turns to me, her mouth open. “Ohmigosh, Hayley! I’m so rude!”

  “No big deal.”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “Seriously, no big deal,” I say, but I’m glad she feels a little bad. Artie can be a space case, and she’s awful at introducing me to people.

  “It’s just — everyone knows Devon. I was wondering why you were being so quiet.” Artie bites her lip.

  This irks me. Everyone knows Devon. She didn’t even know him until two days ago!

  “Next time,” Artie says with a smile.

  “Sure,” I say, hoping against hope that there actually will be a next time.

  “Need some help?” my mom asks as she slips into my room.

  “What makes you ask?” A giant poster of Monet’s Water Lilies peels off my wall and falls on my head. “Grr! Why doesn’t this stupid sticky stuff ever stick?”

  Mom laughs. “It’s not straight, anyway.” She kicks off her shoes and steps onto my twin bed. She holds up the poster, rubs the sticky stuff between her fingers, and replaces it on the back, then smashes it up against the wall. “You’ve got to make it stick,” she says. “Straight now?”

  I jump off the bed and sit down on Chloe’s. “Looks good.”

  Mom smiles and plops down beside me, cross-legged. She looks young in her pink sweatshirt and jeans, even though she’s kind of an older mom. She was thirty-five when she had me, thirty-nine when she had Chloe. Mom doesn’t like me to tell people her age, but anyone who can add could figure it out. “How’s the room working out?”

  I shrug. “It’s okay.”

  Mom looks around and sighs. The room is pretty disorganized. Chloe and I are still trying to figure out where everything goes. The biggest problem is that Chloe doesn’t really care, but I don’t want to make all the decisions by myself. So we have a pile of boxes in the corner.