Pies & Prejudice

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  “Do you know where Stewart is?” I ask.

  “He and Yo-Yo are back there somewhere,” she replies, waving her trowel vaguely toward the shed. “Would you like some lemonade? I think I’ll take a break and make some.”

  “Thanks,” I tell her. “Maybe in a while.”

  As I cross the lawn, I can hear Stewart talking to his dog. I flatten myself against the shed and peer around the corner, trying to sneak up on the two of them, but the second I poke my nose out Yo-Yo spots me. With a gleeful bark, he hurls himself through the air and a second later I’m lying flat on my back in the grass with his paws planted on my shoulders. I am one of Yo-Yo’s favorite people.

  “Hey, boy,” I say, breathless, squirming to avoid his slobbery dog kisses. “Good to see you, too.”

  Yo-Yo is a Labradoodle, and the sweetest dog in the entire world next to Pip. He’s not very well trained, though.

  “Where are your manners?” scolds Stewart. He grabs Yo-Yo’s collar and pulls him off me, then reaches out a hand and helps me to my feet.

  “Hi,” I say, a little breathless. We stand there holding hands, beaming at each other. I suddenly remember my parents at the breakfast table this morning doing the same thing, and that reminds me why I’m here. “I, uh, have something to tell you.”

  “You won the Nobel Prize for literature.”

  “Shut up! I’m serious.”

  “You were named the first teenage poet laureate of the United States.”

  “Stewart!”

  “Sorry,” he replies, grinning. Stewart loves to tease me. “What’s up?”

  “Um, I don’t really know how to say this, so I’ll just say it. We’re moving to England.”

  Stewart’s smile fades. He stares at me, openmouthed. Uh-oh, I think. Just like Jess.

  “It’s only for a year,” I add hastily, and explain my parents’ plan.

  Stewart doesn’t take his eyes off me as I talk. He has beautiful eyes, deep gray with a thick fringe of dark lashes. I love to look at them. Right now, though, I’m just relieved to see that he doesn’t have the same deer-in-the-headlights look that Jess did when I broke the news to her.

  “A whole year, huh?” he says when I’m done talking.

  I nod.

  “So you won’t be going to Alcott High, obviously.”

  I shake my head.

  “And we won’t be working on the school newspaper together.”

  I shake my head again. “Not this year.”

  I can tell by the way he’s chewing the inside of his cheek that he’s thinking things over. That’s another thing I really like about Stewart. He always thinks things through.

  He lets go of my hand and leans down to grab the tennis ball by his feet, then throws it—hard. It soars across the yard and Yo-Yo tears off after it. Stewart turns back to me and before I realize what’s happening, he puts his arms around me. And then, just like that, as if he’s done it a million times before, he kisses me.

  It’s a real, proper kiss this time too, not a peck on the cheek or a forehead kiss like before. Maybe it’s because he didn’t give me any advance warning, but I don’t feel awkward at all. All I feel is thrilled. My heart is pounding like it’s trying to leap out of my chest. Stewart’s is too, I can feel it. I close my eyes and kiss him back, trying to memorize every single thing about this moment. I don’t ever want to forget it as long as I live. I don’t want to forget the warm sunlight filtering down on us through the branches of the apple tree overhead, or the distant buzz of a neighbor’s lawnmower, or the sound of Yo-Yo’s happy bark as he brings the ball back and drops it at our feet. And I especially don’t want to forget the way Stewart’s lips feel against mine.

  It’s a perfect first kiss.

  There’s only one problem.

  I’m moving to England.

  CASSIDY

  “’My dear Mr. Bennet,’ said his lady to him one day, ‘have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?’”

  —Pride and Prejudice

  My stepfather wads up his napkin and chucks it at the TV in disgust. “Aw, come on!”

  “You should have had that one!” I groan in agreement.

  The camera zooms in for a close-up, and the outfielder in question looks away in embarrassment, as if he can hear us. Even though he’s a moron for fumbling such an easy pop fly, I can’t help feeling a little sorry for him. I know exactly what it feels like to mess up like that in public. I’ve had my fair share of mess-ups playing hockey. It must be worse, though, knowing you’ve done it in front of a gazillion disappointed fans.

  The Red Sox are having a mixed season so far this year. They’ve been doing okay at home—one benefit of having a stepfather who’s nuts about sports, and baseball in particular, is that he springs for tickets to Fenway Park as often as he can, so I’ve been to a ton of games this summer—but the minute they hit the road, it all falls apart. Like today, they’re in Kansas City and the Royals are beating the pants off them. Our outfield has completely collapsed, plus nobody’s batting worth beans. I could do a better job.

  I heave a sigh and reach for another slice of pizza. A piece of pepperoni slides off and lands tomato sauce-side down on the couch. I shoot Stanley a guilty look, but he’s not paying attention and even if he were, he probably wouldn’t say anything. This is another benefit of having Stanley Kinkaid for a stepfather—he’s really easygoing. Stuff that drives my mother nuts never seems to bug him. He doesn’t pester me about my manners all the time, or bark at me when I forget and chew with my mouth open or accidentally spill something or let a burp slip out now and then.

  I pick up the piece of pepperoni and pop it in my mouth, then wipe up as much tomato sauce as I can with the hem of my T-shirt. Mom would have a cow if she saw me, but she isn’t here. She’s out in California helping my older sister Courtney get settled at UCLA. We were supposed to go too, but it turned out that Courtney’s freshman orientation was the same week as my hockey camp. Stanley offered to stay home with me, which was really nice of him. He hasn’t complained once, even though I know he misses Mom and my baby sister, Chloe, and even though he’s been spending an extra two hours in the car every day hauling me and my gear over to the rink in Acton in the mornings and home again in the afternoons.

  Stanley’s definitely growing on me.

  “Like moss,” he joked, when I told him so the other day after he let me order takeout from our favorite Chinese restaurant.

  But it’s true. He can be a pain sometimes, but we both like the same things—sports, fast food, TV, all that good stuff. This is the first time I’ve been with him all by myself for more than a few hours, and we’ve had a great time. All week long it’s been eat, sleep, hockey, and Red Sox. What could be better? Plus, we’ve had almost all our meals in here watching the games, which I normally never get to do. Mom is all about families having dinner together at the dinner table, and that definitely doesn’t include junk food or eating in front of the TV.

  The other thing my mom is all about is cleaning. She keeps our house spotless. Partly that’s because our old Victorian is the set of her TV show, Cooking with Clementine, and she’s always saying she doesn’t want to be disgraced on national television, and partly it’s because she’s a neat freak. So is my sister Courtney. I have no idea whether Chloe is too—she’s not even walking yet, so vacuuming is out of the question—but I know for sure I missed out on that particular gene.

  I think Stanley did too, because I noticed that since Mom’s been away he’s done pretty much squat in terms of cleaning. He ran the dishwasher through once three days ago, but that’s about it. Right now there are empty soda cans stacked on the coffee table in front of me, and a pile of pizza boxes teetering on the edge. Our dog, Murphy, managed to snag one of them and drag it over into the corner behind Stanley’s leather recliner, where he’s busy gnawing it to death.

  The Red Sox continue to make a mess of things through the last half of the eighth inning. When the game cuts to commercial, Stanley
looks over at me and makes a face. Then he grins and pulls the lever on his recliner, catapulting himself into a standing position.

  “Blitzkrieg!” he cries in this fake German accent that is incredibly stupid but makes me laugh anyway.

  I hop up and salute, and we race each other out of the family room. I easily beat him to the doorway (my stepfather likes to watch sports but isn’t much into playing them himself), then peel off toward the stairs while he heads for the kitchen.

  Mom left us with a huge long list of chores to do while she was gone. Stanley and I checked it over that first night we were on our own, and I must have looked pretty grim because he laughed at me. Then he said, “I’ll make you a deal, Cassidy. Let’s put this list away for now, and just have a good time this week. But you’ve gotta promise to help me blitz this place before your mother gets home.”

  That was a no-brainer, and we clinched the deal with root beer floats.

  Now, though, there’s only an hour left until we leave for the airport. I still have to change the sheets on the beds, throw some laundry in, and dust and vacuum the upstairs. So far during the commercials I’ve managed to tidy up my room, which was a sty as usual, and scrub both bathrooms—Mom and Stanley’s and Courtney’s and mine, which is all mine now that Courtney’s gone off to college. It doesn’t feel real yet. The going-off-to-college part, I mean, not the bathroom-being-all-mine part. I know it will, though.

  Grabbing fresh linens out of the linen closet, I jog into my mother’s room. I definitely got the better deal when we divided the house up for cleaning. Stanley got stuck with the kitchen, which is pretty gross after being ignored all week.

  I’m just stuffing the pillows into fresh pillowcases when I hear him holler, “Game’s back on!” I grab all the dirty laundry and dump it into one of the big sheets that I stripped off the bed, then tie it up and throw it over my shoulder like Santa Claus’s sack. Jogging back downstairs, I sling it onto the floor by the family room doorway, where it can wait until next commercial.

  “C’mon, Sox!” I cry. “You can still turn it around!” Which is a complete lie. They are so going down in flames. It’s important as a fan to try and encourage your team no matter what, though.

  Giving myself a running start, I leap over the back of the sofa and land with my head on a pile of throw pillows at one end and my feet at the other. I pride myself on this talent, and I’ve gotten really good at it this past week without Mom around to yell at me. Jumping on the furniture is another thing she’s definitely not all about.

  Stanley checks his watch. “I hope they wrap up this miserable excuse of a game up soon,” he says. “I want to leave plenty of time to get to Logan. You know what traffic is like.”

  Boston traffic is legendary. Even those of us who don’t have our licenses yet know that.

  Mom didn’t want to miss the going-away party for Emma and her family, so she and Chloe are flying back home a day earlier than planned. There’s a big potluck at Half Moon Farm tonight for the mother-daughter book club and our families.

  Somehow, between hollering at the TV screen and finishing our pizza, Stanley and I manage to squeeze in the rest of our chores before it’s time to leave. We spend most of the drive to the airport trash-talking the Red Sox and their pitiful performance and then arguing about whether there’s even a chance, statistically, of a pennant run this year. After we manage to convince ourselves that maybe there’s a glimmer of hope, our conversation turns to hockey.

  “You had fun at camp this week, didn’t you?” my stepfather asks, glancing over at me.

  “Yeah.”

  I’ve been to hockey camps before, of course, but this one was different. It was for elite players, for one thing. And it was just for girls, for another. Ever since we moved here to Massachusetts from California a few years ago after my real father died, I’ve been playing hockey with boys. The schools here don’t have girls’ teams. It worked out fine and everything, but it’s been totally sweet to play with other girls again. They came from all over New England for a chance to work with one of the former starting centers for the University of Wisconsin Badgers.

  “You know,” Stanley continues, “I was talking to the coach, and she says you’re a gifted player. She told me you should be playing for a Division One club.”

  I make a face. “Mom said I can’t, remember? Too much driving. It was the school team or nothing.”

  “Well, that was before she married me, back when she was the only one doing the driving,” Stanley replies. “What if I were to take you to all the practices and games?”

  “Really?” My heart gives a happy lurch. “Dude, that would be awesome!”

  Stanley grins, and the top of his bald head turns pink the way it always does when he’s pleased. “I had a feeling you’d think so. I’ve looked into it, and tryouts for the U16 team are this weekend. I haven’t talked to your mother about it yet—”

  I groan and he laughs. “I can be pretty persuasive, so don’t give up all hope just yet, okay?”

  “Okay,” I reply glumly, and we drive along in silence for a while. I know what the schedule is like for select teams—practices three or four nights a week, games on the weekend, and all over New England too. Plus, there are tournaments just about every holiday, and Division 1 has a much longer hockey season than schools do. If I play for Alcott High on the boys team, the season goes from Thanksgiving through February, plus playoffs. Division 1 goes from September through March. I can’t imagine Mom will go for the idea, no matter what Stanley says.

  The airport is mobbed as usual, and it takes us a while to find Mom and Chloe.

  “Hold your sister for me, would you, honey?” Mom asks, giving me a hug and a kiss as she hands her to me. Chloe makes happy-baby sounds and grabs my hair.

  “Good to see you, too, monkey face,” I tell her.

  “Don’t call her that,” my mother says automatically, keeping one eye on the baggage carousel. She can’t stand that nickname, but I think it fits. My little sister has the cutest little face, especially when she smiles and her nose scrunches up.

  I press my lips against her ear. “Monkey face,” I whisper, and she squeals with delight.

  I can’t believe how much Chloe has changed in just a week. She definitely feels a little heavier, and when she smiles I spot a new tooth poking through her bottom gum. I can’t wait until she’s old enough to walk. I figure once she can walk, she can skate. I plan to teach her the way Dad taught me, by having her push a chair around on the ice. I’m determined to make a jock out of her, because between my mom and Courtney our house has enough girly-girls.

  “I need a shower,” says my mother as we pull into our driveway a while later. “I smell like stuffy old airplane air.” I grab her suitcase out of the van, and as I pass her to go into the house, she makes a face. “Phew! Maybe you should freshen up a little before the party too, sweetheart. At least put on a clean shirt.”

  I swear, my mother has a sense of smell like a basset hound. I glance down at my Red Sox T-shirt. Aside from the small pizza stain on the hem, it’s pretty clean. I lift an arm and give a tentative sniff. I don’t smell all that bad. It’s not like I wore the shirt to hockey camp or something—I’ve only been wearing it to watch the Red Sox games this week. I figured it would be good luck not to wash it. Fat lot of good that did.

  Arguing won’t win me any points in her upcoming discussion with Stanley, though, so I dutifully go and change into a fresh T-shirt. My baby sister’s room is right next to mine, and I can hear her giggling as Stanley changes her diaper. When she’s bigger, Mom’s planning to move her into Courtney’s room unless I want it instead. But I don’t want to think about that yet. I’m not even used to the idea of Courtney being away.

  I pull out my cell phone—the new one Courtney managed to talk Mom into getting for me, since I don’t have a very good track record with cell phones—and send her a text: HEY!

  HEY BACK! comes her reply.

  DID UR ROOMMATE SHOW UP?r />
  YES! FAB!! LUV HER, LUV UCLA! HOW WAS UR LAST DAY OF CAMP?

  SWEET. TWO GOALS AND A BUNCH OF ASSISTS.

  YAY U! R MOM AND CHLOE HOME?

  YUP. HEADING TO EMMA’S PARTY SOON.

  GIVE HER A HUG 4 ME! GOTTA RUN. CIAO 4 NIAO!

  Courtney’s only been gone a week and I already miss her. Slipping the phone back into the pocket of my shorts, I head downstairs to wait for Mom and Stanley and Chloe.

  “Too many things are changing around here,” I tell Murphy, who is now innocently gnawing on a rawhide bone instead of a pizza box. Stanley destroyed all the evidence of our junk-food-a-thon, stuffing our trash way down deep into the recycling bin beneath a week’s worth of newspapers.

  Murphy looks up at me and cocks his head.

  “Right, boy?” I scratch him behind the ears.

  He doesn’t reply but I’m sure he’d agree with me if he could. First my sister leaves, and now Emma’s going away too. With Jess heading back to Colonial Academy, that leaves me starting Alcott High with only Megan Wong and Becca Chadwick for friends. Well, girlfriends. I have a bunch of guy friends from sports. Becca barely qualifies as a friend, though. She’s okay, but we have absolutely nothing in common besides book club. Plus, she’s the most boy-crazy girl I’ve ever met in my life, which can be really annoying.

  I’m starving by the time we get to Half Moon Farm. Jess and her mom have looped crepe paper around everything and put flowers everywhere, and there’s a big sign above the back porch door that says BON VOYAGE, HAWTHORNES! It looks great.

  The food is good and there’s plenty of it, which is always the case when the mother-daughter book club gets together. Mr. Delaney and Mr. Chadwick are in charge of the grill, and there are hot dogs and hamburgers and corn on the cob and baked beans and watermelon from the Delaneys’ garden.

  Megan’s grandmother brought the same yummy Chinese dumplings that she made last Thanksgiving, which more than makes up for the bowl of mushy brownish something-or-other that Mrs. Wong plunks down beside them.