Stars So Sweet

by Tara Dairman

  She knew that telling them the truth was a risky move; her best friend and neighbor, Sandy Anderson, thought it was an awful idea. But Gladys was tired of lying to her family. And besides, they had all grown over the summer. In the past, her parents had only ever had a taste for microwaved meals and fast food, but with Gladys’s encouragement, they’d been learning to eat more adventurously and trust her in the kitchen.

  But when the front door of the house opened that evening, it wasn’t her mom or dad who walked through. Instead, stepping across the threshold with an enormous rolling suitcase was a woman Gladys hadn’t seen since she was seven years old.

  “My sweet Gladiola!” the woman cried. “Your auntie has returned at last!”

  Gladys could hardly believe it, but as she threw her arms around her aunt, she knew she wasn’t dreaming. Aunt Lydia was here, in America—in her house!

  They had talked on the phone just a few weeks earlier, and Aunt Lydia had made no mention of an upcoming visit. In fact, Gladys knew that she barely made enough money to cover the rent on her tiny Parisian apartment, let alone a transatlantic flight.

  “What are you doing here?” Gladys blurted. “I mean, I’m so happy to see you!”

  “Me too,” Aunt Lydia said, but already her tone sounded sadder and more subdued than her initial greeting. Gladys waited for her to say more, but she didn’t.

  Then Gladys noticed that her aunt’s outfit wasn’t the type of thing she remembered her wearing. Whenever Gladys pictured Aunt Lydia, she was dressed in a flowing silk dress or a bright printed pants set. But today, her aunt wore a ratty pair of sweatpants, an oversized gray T-shirt with the Eiffel Tower on it, and worn-out sneakers. Aunt Lydia even smelled different from how Gladys remembered: less like flowery perfume, and more like . . . cheesy nacho chips? Gladys shuddered. Her aunt was a foodie, just like her; she must have gotten desperately hungry on her flight if she’d actually eaten her free airline snacks.

  Gladys’s parents followed Lydia through the door and set more luggage down. “Surprise!” her mom cried. “We probably should have called, but we thought that showing up with Aunt Lydia would be way more fun.” She beamed, then reached out to give her sister’s arm a happy squeeze. Aunt Lydia did her best to smile back, but Gladys could tell she was forcing it.

  Not knowing how else to react, Gladys forced herself to be as cheerful as possible, too. “It’s a great surprise!” she cried. And it was; Gladys’s brain felt like a cone in a cotton candy machine, gathering up idea after idea for restaurants she and her aunt could eat at and recipes they could cook together. “How long are you staying?” she asked.

  It didn’t sound like a weird question when she said it, but the look her parents exchanged behind her aunt’s back made Gladys feel like she had just asked something embarrassing.

  Aunt Lydia simply sighed. “I think I’d like a bath, if you don’t mind, Jen?”

  “Of course,” Gladys’s mom replied. “George, Gladys, would you help bring Lydia’s things up to the guest room while I get the tub going?”

  Gladys darted forward to grab the trunk her mother had been carrying. It was heavy, and the contents inside clanged when she tried to lift it.

  “You can leave that one down here,” Aunt Lydia said. “It’s just my pots and pans.”

  Gladys smiled. It was a little strange that her aunt would carry pots across the ocean when she knew Gladys had some, but at least that meant they’d be cooking together, right?

  As Gladys’s dad headed for the stairs with a suitcase, Aunt Lydia turned to follow. Gladys no longer had anything to carry, but she went along anyway, her mind now replaying happy scenes from her aunt’s last visit, when they had traipsed around New York City together eating. It was on that visit that they’d discovered Mr. Eng’s Gourmet Grocery, an oasis of high-quality ingredients in the culinary wasteland of East Dumpsford. Aunt Lydia and Mr. Eng were the only adults who knew about Gladys’s work for the Standard.

  That was when Gladys remembered the newspapers on the table. Would telling her parents about her job be such a good idea now? They seemed pretty preoccupied with their new houseguest—and Gladys couldn’t help but wonder what that guest would think about her plan. Maybe she should take advantage of her aunt’s visit and discuss it with her first. Aunt Lydia might be able to help her come up with an even better way to reveal her secret.

  Quietly, Gladys slipped into the dining room. Lifting the corners of the first newspaper as if she were scooping a crepe out of a hot pan, she folded it in half silently, then repeated the process with the second paper. She tucked them under her arm, tiptoed into the living room, and slid them under the sofa.

  I will tell them, she promised herself, just as soon as the time is right.

  But over the next two weeks, the timing never seemed right to bring up the issue with Aunt Lydia, much less make a new plan for talking to her parents.

  First off, while Lydia took her bath on that first night, Gladys’s mother forbade her from asking any questions that might upset her aunt. “She’s a bit fragile,” her mother explained quietly. “She lost her job at the café and couldn’t keep up with her rent, so she’s going to stay with us for a while.”

  So that was why Aunt Lydia had brought her pots—and why she seemed so melancholy. Gladys was sure, though, that a few days of cooking and eating together would cheer her right up.

  But Aunt Lydia seemed to have lost all interest in good food. Instead of planning outings to Mr. Eng’s or into the city, she seemed perfectly content to lie around the house all day in her sweatpants, watching hours of TV and snacking on whatever junk food Gladys’s parents brought home. Her trunkful of pots remained unopened. And when Gladys cooked some of Aunt Lydia’s favorite foods for her, she hardly seemed to notice. Gladys wanted desperately to help, but she just didn’t know what to do or say.

  Now, as she let herself into the house after orientation, Gladys heard the familiar strains of the Purgatory Pantry theme song blasting from the den. Aunt Lydia was in her now-familiar spot on the couch, no doubt watching another marathon of Planet Food’s worst show.

  Gladys shouted, “Bonjour!” but if her aunt responded, Gladys couldn’t hear it over the TV.

  “She just needs some more time,” her dad had said the night before. “I think your aunt’s heart is still in Paris.” That was one of the reasons Gladys wanted to learn French—maybe that would make it easier to communicate with her aunt. But for now, she felt as alone at home as she had that day at school. Turning away from the den, she slunk upstairs to her parents’ office to log on to the family computer.

  She was hoping to catch Sandy online—his grounding sentence for getting kicked out of karate camp had finally ended this week, which meant he was back to using computer screens as much as he could. Just as she expected, his username (“rabbitboy”) was lit up on DumpChat.

  Gladys was just about to message him when she noticed a new e-mail in her inbox from her editor at the New York Standard, Fiona Inglethorpe.

  Her heart fluttered. A few weeks had passed since her last review had been published, and Gladys knew that Fiona had been busy restructuring the Dining department since her head restaurant critic, Gilbert Gadfly, had resigned. Maybe, finally, Fiona was getting in touch about her next assignment!

  Gladys opened the message.

  Dear Gladys,

  Once again, I want to thank you for doing such a fantastic job with your hot dog roundup. Even though that was not the review I had intended for you to write, your hard work turned it into a piece that we were very proud to publish.

  An effort of this quality deserves a reward—and in any case, I feel that you and I have worked together long enough without meeting face-to-face. So I hope you will accept my invitation to dine as my special guest in the executive dining room on the forty-ninth floor of the New York Standard building. Eating here will let us enjoy the culinary creations
of the Standard’s private chef without compromising your identity (which would unfortunately be the case if we ventured to a real restaurant together, since most of the chefs around town would recognize me, even if they do not know you).

  Are you free for lunch this week? Please let me know at your earliest convenience. I look forward to sharing a meal, and also have something important to discuss with you.

  Cheers,

  Fiona

  Gladys stared at the screen, dumbfounded. Her editor wanted to meet? In person?

  Fuuudge. This was not good news at all.

  Chapter 3

  FRUIT OF THE DRAGON

  BACKYARD. NOW!

  Gladys typed the words to Sandy with shaking fingers. This was too sensitive a topic to discuss online. Finally, a single word, justasec, popped up in the chat box. Gladys closed the browser, shot down the stairs, and burst into the backyard, heading straight for the gap in the hedge that separated her yard from Sandy’s.

  “Fiona wants to meet me in person!” she squeaked the moment he arrived. “She’s invited me to lunch! What do I do??”

  Sandy ran a hand through his thick blond hair. “And hello to you, too,” he said, grinning.

  “Hello,” she snapped irritably. “Now can we focus, please? This is a serious situation!”

  “Very serious,” he agreed. “So serious, in fact, that I don’t think I can help you on an empty stomach. My mom needs some things from Mr. Eng’s—maybe she’ll give me extra money for a snack if I pick them up for her. Wanna come?”

  Gladys sighed. “Sure.” She was eager to hash things out with Sandy, but she was also never one to turn down a trip to her favorite grocery store.

  “Okay,” Sandy said. “I’ll go get some money from Mom. Meet me out front in two minutes?”

  Sandy disappeared back into his house, and Gladys made her way to the front yard. Unfortunately, her own snack funds were pretty low; she’d spent all her allowance on cooking ingredients for French dishes that she’d hoped would tempt Aunt Lydia.

  Of course, the Standard sent her checks for her published reviews, but she’d gotten into the habit of destroying them straight out of the mailbox so her parents wouldn’t learn about her work. They had accidentally stumbled across her first check, and she’d barely been able to explain her way out of that situation. And anyway, she constantly reminded herself, I’m not doing it for the money. I review restaurants so I can try exciting new dishes and see my writing published.

  As they walked to Mr. Eng’s, Gladys and Sandy began to brainstorm. Sandy had a great mind for solving these types of problems and had helped Gladys plan her other restaurant-reviewing trips to the city. But this situation had him stumped.

  “Maybe the best response is no response,” he said, kicking a pebble down the sidewalk.

  “What?”

  “Just ignore the e-mail,” he elaborated, “and if she asks you about it later, say you never got it, or that it must’ve gone to spam. Happens all the time, right?”

  “I don’t know,” Gladys replied. “Fiona’s pretty savvy. If I say I never saw it, I think she’ll just invite me again.”

  “But what other choice do you have?” Sandy asked. “It’s not like you can actually go have lunch with her.”

  “Of course not,” Gladys said. Telling her parents about her secret job was one thing, but she had no intention of ever revealing her age to Fiona, who thought Gladys was a professional adult restaurant critic. And it wasn’t that Gladys had lied to her—she had just never directly mentioned how old she was.

  They were approaching the entrance to the Gourmet Grocery now; maybe Sandy would have some better ideas once he had food in his stomach. “What kind of snack are you looking for?” she asked.

  “Something unusual,” Sandy said. “I need to start thinking about my legacy.”

  “Your . . . legacy?” Gladys stared at him. Sandy tended to bungle words; maybe he meant something else.

  “Yeah, my legacy. You know, the way people will remember me?” He scratched a bug bite on his arm. “School starts next week, and it’s my last year at St. Joe’s. I’ve got to do something that’ll leave a mark.”

  So he was using the word legacy properly—but Gladys still didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” he said, “a lot of the boys in my grade have these . . . reputations, I guess you could call them. Like, ‘The Boy Who Gets 100 on Every Math Test’ and ‘The Boy Who Can Dunk a Basketball.’ So I’ve decided that I want to be known as ‘The Boy Who’ll Eat Anything.’ I was thinking about the meatloaf your parents cooked that time I came over, and it gave me the idea. What could be grosser than that? So if I can just find a few really nasty foods to bring to lunch, my legacy will be in the bag. You know?”

  “Um . . . sure. I guess,” Gladys murmured, though she couldn’t help but think back to the way her classmates (mostly girls) used to make fun of her love of arugula. And that was just a salad green! Now Sandy actually wanted to have a reputation at his school for eating gross foods?

  Boys were weird.

  Gladys pushed open the door to Mr. Eng’s and the bell tinkled overhead, but the sound was immediately swallowed up as they entered the shop. Customers’ voices echoed in the small space, and wheels on shopping carts squeaked. In the background, a phone was ringing.

  Gladys could hardly believe her eyes or ears. Mr. Eng’s Gourmet Grocery was busy!

  That was a good thing, she knew, but she still couldn’t help feeling a tiny pang. Gladys was used to having Mr. Eng all to herself when she came in. She had been planning to ask him for help with Sandy’s quest for an unusual snack—but now, as she glanced around, she realized that wouldn’t be possible. The line at the checkout counter was four people deep, and Mr. Eng—who had finally picked up the jangling phone—was attempting to take an order and ring someone up at the same time.

  “Yes, yes,” he was saying into the receiver. “You’d like fifteen Vidalia Visas—I’m sorry, Vidalia onions . . .”

  Gladys and Sandy would be on their own. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s check out the produce bins first. Sometimes Mr. Eng has new, exotic fruit on sale.”

  Just then, a shopper with a full cart bustled by, almost knocking Sandy over. Gladys grabbed his arm and yanked him down the nearest aisle.

  “Okay, let’s see . . .” she said when they got to the produce section. The bins were, uncharacteristically, in disarray. The one that was normally filled with plums was almost empty, and several cherries from another bin had fallen onto the floor and been crushed by shoes and shopping-cart wheels. It looked like it had been a while since Mr. Eng had had time to restock and clean up.

  “Oh, here’s something.” Gladys reached into a smaller bin with a label that read NEW FROM VIETNAM: DRAGON FRUIT! She pulled out a bright pink fruit accented with pointy green dragon-like scales. “I’ve seen pictures of this,” she said, holding it out to Sandy. “The flesh inside is white, with tons of tiny black seeds. I don’t think its flavor is very strong, but—”

  “Yeah, but it looks cool!” Sandy grabbed the fruit out of her hand. “How long do you think these’ll stay fresh?”

  That would have been another good question for Mr. Eng, if he was available—or to look up online, if Gladys had a phone (the rule in her house was that she could get one when she was thirteen). Most of the time, she didn’t mind not having one, but in a situation like this, Internet access in her hand would be pretty convenient.

  “Omigosh. Gladys?”

  Gladys looked up from the bin to see Charissa barreling toward her, a pink pair of ballet tights covering her legs. “I didn’t know you were coming here today! I asked Mommy if we could stop in to grab a few snacks.” She grinned back at her mother, whose arm was weighed down by a full basket. Charissa’s super-busy schedule of physical activities meant she was always hung
ry, and Gladys was glad to see that her mom was finally letting her indulge in some snacks that were more substantial than lettuce.

  “Cool. We’re here for a snack, too,” Sandy said.

  Charissa turned, apparently noticing him for the first time. “Oh, hi,” she said casually. Sandy was yet another of Gladys’s friends with whom Charissa didn’t get along particularly well.

  “Hey, can you look something up on your phone for us real quick?” Gladys asked. “We need to know how long a dragon fruit will keep at home.”

  “Sure.” A few swipes later, Charissa had an answer. “Three or four days is the max, if it’s already ripe,” she said, showing Gladys and Sandy her screen.

  “Ah, thanks,” Gladys said. “Sandy, let’s find one that’s a little less ripe to be sure it will still be good next week.”

  “Nah, I’ll just stick with this one,” Sandy said. “An overripe dragon fruit would be even crazier than a dragon fruit! Am I right?”

  Charissa’s button nose wrinkled like it had just gotten a whiff of that overripe fruit. “That’s disgusting.”

  “Exactly!” Sandy cried. And with that, he grabbed a produce bag from the nearest roller and tossed in the fruit in his hand and a second ripe fruit from the bin. “To try now,” he said.

  Gladys could only offer Charissa a shrug.

  “Ris, come on—you said you were hungry,” her mother called.

  Charissa gave Gladys a finger wave. “See ya when school starts,” she said.

  Fifteen minutes later, after gathering the groceries on Mrs. Anderson’s list and waiting in the longest-ever checkout line at Mr. Eng’s, Gladys and Sandy were back on the street.

  Sandy had pulled out his Swiss Army Knife and was now crunching on the melon-like flesh of one of the dragon fruits as they walked home. “Wow, this is bland,” he observed. “So, why do you think Fiona wants to meet you in person?”