The Cupcake Queen

by Heather Hepler

  She pours me a glass of lemonade and slides it toward me. “My dad’s busy, too,” she says. She looks at me, as if daring me to say something.

  “Where is he right now?” I ask.

  She takes a long drink from her glass, watching me over the rim. When she doesn’t answer right away, I wonder if maybe I’ve overstepped. I’m about to tell her never mind, that it’s none of my business, but she finally answers. “Don’t know.” She pulls a sheet of paper off the refrigerator and reads it. “Looks like Seattle.” She tosses the paper on the counter. “Maybe.”

  “Why maybe?” I ask.

  “Probably,” she says. She finishes her lemonade and puts her glass back on the counter. Hard. Probably sounds only slightly more solid than maybe.

  “Do you miss him?” I ask.

  She shrugs and picks up her father’s schedule. She folds it in half, then half again. She flips it as she folds, making hard creases with the side of her fingernail. “Sure,” Tally says. “Of course I miss him.” She keeps fiddling with the schedule, folding and refolding, not looking at me. “It was really good for a while, you know?” Her voice gets so quiet I have to lean forward to hear her. “It was just him and me. I’d always sit right up front when he played.” She smiles at the folded paper in her hands. “At first it was just small places, clubs and bars, but then one of his songs started getting a lot of play time.” She peeks at me through her hair. I nod, encouraging her. Her face is so sad, I feel like hugging her, but she’s still messing with the paper. Tally looks down again and continues. “He got better gigs. Bigger venues. He started leaving me back at the hotel sometimes.” She smiles over at me. “I used to raid the vending machines and stay up watching television or playing on his laptop until he got back.”

  “That sounds fun,” I say. She nods. “And lonely.”

  Tally frowns. “Yeah, sometimes.” Her voice gets softer. “A couple of times he didn’t come back until the next day.”

  From the look on her face I’d be willing to bet that it was more than a couple of times.

  “Were you scared, all alone like that?” I ask.

  “He said he didn’t have a choice.” She looks up at me. I nod, unconvinced. “It wasn’t like I could just tag along all the time, you know?”

  “Then what happened?” I ask gently. “What brought you here?”

  Her eyes get wet, and she brushes them with the back of her hand. “There was this one time he didn’t come back for three days.”

  I can’t keep the shock from my face.

  “The maids were coming by the room, wanting to clean it. And someone from the front desk kept calling and asking when we were checking out. I didn’t know what to tell them. I mean, I wasn’t supposed to let anyone in. Or go anywhere.” A couple of tears splash onto the counter.

  “What did you do?” I ask, trying to think of what I’d do if I was stranded in a hotel somewhere.

  “I called Poppy. When I told her where I was, she got on a plane.” She wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. “Just because I said I needed her.” From the tone of her voice, Tally still seems awed by what Poppy did for her, as if she didn’t deserve it.

  “You did the right thing,” I say.

  She nods halfheartedly. “It didn’t exactly win Poppy any points with my dad. That was over a year ago.”

  I don’t know what to say. When we first met, she told me she was just here for a while. That her dad was coming back to get her soon.

  She opens up the paper, revealing a sleek airplane, all points and angles. She lifts the plane and looks down its back. She pulls back her arm and lets the plane fly. It goes straight and fast, the way my paper airplanes never do. Until the end, when, instead of landing smoothly, it suddenly just drops to the floor, its folds opened up.

  The phone rings, making both of us jump. Tally wipes her eyes again and sniffs before picking it up. “Talk to me,” she says. She listens. I take a sip of lemonade and try to let her story sink in. “Hey, Monkey Toes,” Tally says, her voice happy. I look up and see she’s smiling at me. “Want to go somewhere?”

  “Where to?” I ask.

  “It’s a surprise,” Tally says, making her eyes go big. “You in?”

  “Sure,” I say. I drain the last of my lemonade and put my glass in the sink. I follow Tally onto the front porch and out onto the road. I want to say something hopeful, something that will make everything better, but I can’t even make my own life okay. How can I possibly make Tally’s life okay?

  But she seems back to her old silly self. “Monkey Toes,” Tally says, pulling her hair back into an elastic. “I like it. It could totally be your RPS name.”

  “I have to be Monkey Toes?”

  “It could be worse,” she says, checking Poppy’s mailbox among the clump of them at the entrance to the cove.

  “Monkey Face?” I ask.

  “Yeah, that would be worse.” Tally flips through several envelopes, then puts them all back in the box. “But I meant Blake’s.” We head out onto the main road, where she stops. “Blake’s mom is picking us up,” Tally says. We wait, watching the storm clouds blow across the sky. “You’ll like her. Although, sometimes she’s too mom-ish,” Tally says, stuffing her hands in her pockets. “Always worrying if I’m warm enough or if I’ve had enough to eat.”

  “My mom does that, too,” I say. Or did, I think.

  “Between Poppy and Blake’s mom, I’ve got a double helping.”

  I want to ask about her real mom, but I figure talking about one missing parent was enough for today. So instead I ask about Blake. “What’s the deal with Blake’s hair?”

  Tally laughs. “When I first moved here he had this sad mullet thing.” I squinch up my face, making Tally laugh harder. “It was bad.” She shakes her head. “He was my first friend when I moved here. My only friend.” She’s quiet for a moment, thinking. Then she smiles at me. “So, want to know Blake’s nickname?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “Major Manure.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “That is worse,” I say. “Why?”

  “One, he lost a bet. And two—you’ll see.” Tally lifts her hand to wave as a red farm truck slows down and pulls onto the shoulder. As we walk toward the truck, a rich earthy smell gets stronger and stronger. Tally pulls open the passenger door and slides into the middle. I say “hi” when she introduces me to Blake’s mom. It isn’t until we’re under way that I realize what’s in the back. Even a city girl like me knows what manure looks like, and lucky me, now I’m aware of what it smells like when a mountain of it is about three inches away. Tally laughs when she sees my face.

  “Sorry about the smell,” Blake’s mom says.

  “What smell?” I ask, making them both laugh. I laugh, too, but the whole way to their house, I breathe through my mouth.

  The air in the greenhouse is thick, so thick you can see it moving in the breeze from the overhead fans. “It’s a little humid in here,” I say. Blake just nods, but I notice that the points of his hair look like they’re wilting a bit. Tally is near the back of the greenhouse, trying to open one of the crank windows. Blake walks past with some sort of brown liquid in a bucket. He ladles a spoonful over each plant as he passes.

  “Yum, huh?” Tally says, walking back over to me. “Poop Soup.” I wrinkle my nose and she laughs. “It’s all-natural.” She laughs again as my face stays contorted.

  Blake walks past again and I catch another whiff of the mixture. “Manure du jour,” he says. He makes his way down a long line of tomato plants.

  “Cream of Crap,” Tally says.

  “Dung Drop Surprise,” Blake says. By now they are both laughing. I can’t help but smile.

  “Jus d’excrément,” Tally says.

  “Lame,” Blake says. He walks back over to us and points the spoon at me. “Now you.”

  I close my eyes and try to run through all the words I know for poo. “Reese’s Feces?”

  Blake squints at me for a moment. “Not bad,” he says. “For a
beginner.” He puts the bucket down beneath the table and pulls out cardboard trays. He thrusts one into my hands and gives one to Tally, who tries to protest. “Oh, hush. It’s not like you have anything better to do.” She frowns at him and he frowns back, making her smile. “Here, Penny, you take the middle aisle.” Tally makes her way over to the right. “Only pick the red ones,” Blake says loudly. She waves the back of her hand at him and disappears behind a forest of tomato plants.

  “Couple weeks ago Tally was here helping me and she picked a bunch of unripe ones. My mom had a fit. Luckily she convinced her buyer that green tomatoes were all the rage.” He reaches into the leaves of a plant. When he pulls his hand out he’s clutching an orange-and-red-striped tomato about the size of a grapefruit. “Okay, this is what you’re looking for,” he says. He pushes his thumb gently against the tomato and pulls it away, leaving a faint mark. “Pretty, aren’t they?” I nod. “They have a gruesome name, though. Bloody Butcher.” He puts the tomato in my box. He works alongside me, trying to look like he’s not checking every tomato I pick.

  “So what’s the mystery with Mr. Fish?” I ask, trying to keep my voice neutral. What I really want to know is more about Marcus, but talking to Blake about him is too weird.

  Blake pulls a tomato off the next plant and examines it. It’s dark purple, almost black. “He’s building something up in the woods above town,” he says.

  “Building what?” I ask.

  “Not sure,” Blake says. “Radio towers or something.” He puts another tomato in my box. “Maybe he’s trying to contact aliens.”

  I keep picking, working up my courage for another question. Finally I ask, “Do you know Marcus very well?”

  “I did,” Blake says. “I mean, before.” He’s quiet for a minute. All I can hear is the whir of the fans above us. “I don’t think anyone knows him now,” he says.

  “Except Charity,” I say.

  “I doubt it,” he says. He makes his way around the corner to the next row, and I think we’re finished, but he pauses. “Don’t let Charity get to you. She’s mostly harmless.”

  Mostly, I say to myself as he walks away, his box slapping against his leg. I’m not so sure. I’ve seen her be nasty to other kids, but with me she turns the meanness volume way up. She doesn’t even try to lower her voice when she’s ragging on me. About my hair, or how I’m dressed, or just how I talk. And she never lets up. But it’s the Marcus stuff that drives me really bananas. She’s always talking to him or walking with him. And she makes sure I notice.

  “Hey!” Tally yells over the buzz of the fans. “When do we get a break?”

  “When you’ve actually done some work!” Blake yells back, making me laugh. Not even the thought of Charity can ruin my mood for long. I vow never to eat another tomato as I fill my box. Every once in a while Tally yells a gripe about working conditions or child labor laws, and Blake tells her to hush and get back to work. The humidity is making my hair stick to my neck, but as I get into a rhythm of picking, I realize I’m humming—something I haven’t done in a long time.

  After working in the hot greenhouse for more than an hour, I’m happy to take a break. We sit on the back porch of Blake’s house. Me in an Adirondack chair overlooking the pond, Blake and Tally squished on the glider.

  “So how come you don’t have seventeen pets?” I ask Blake. Tally has been going on and on about this new kitten at the ARK. I’m just not sure my cat, Oscar, is ready for a sibling.

  “Allergies,” Blake says. “I have to take an antihistamine to get within a hundred feet of Tal’s house.” He kicks the ground and the glider starts to move. “Of course I’m allergic to everything. Animals, peanuts . . . you name it.” As if on cue, he sneezes. He smiles at me. “Living in the country is rough when you have allergies.” He takes a handkerchief out of his pocket—one of those blue ones you always see on cowboys—and blows his nose. “What was it like living in Manhattan?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I guess it was like living anywhere else.” Blake takes a bite of his tomato, eating it like an apple. He swears it’s good.

  “Yeah, except there’s actually things to do there,” Tally says. She pulls her knees up, hooking her heels on the edge of the glider. “There we could be going to museums and bookstores and sitting around in cafés.” She sounds wistful, and it makes me miss the City for a moment. “Here, we have what? Picking tomatoes.” Tally leans into Blake with her shoulder. “No offense.” Blake smiles at her with tomato in his mouth, making Tally wrinkle her nose.

  “Do you miss it?” Blake asks me.

  I nod and look at Tally, but she’s rubbing at the toe of her sneaker, trying to make a tomato stain go away. “Some things,” I say.

  “Your friends?” Tally asks. She doesn’t look up when she talks—just keeps rubbing the toe of her sneaker.

  I haven’t been in contact with anyone that much. I want to be, but I’m afraid that if I tell my old friends about my new friends, they might make fun of them. They wouldn’t understand it if I told them I picked tomatoes and had fun doing it. “It’s mostly my dad I miss.” I feel like a jerk as soon as the words are out of my mouth. After what Tally told me, I have no right to whine.

  Before I can think of something to say to make it better, Tally looks up at me. “It’s hard,” she says sympathetically, and I just nod.

  “Know what else is hard?” Blake asks. We both look at him. “Listening to you two sometimes.”

  “What do you mean?” Tally asks.

  “Girls are so dumb.” Tally squints at him threateningly, but he continues. “With guys it’s simple. When I hang out with my friends, we just chill. You two are all with the ‘Oh, I wonder if so-and-so likes me.’ ” Blake makes his voice high when he says it.

  “Is that supposed to be me?” Tally asks.

  “Yes, you.” Then he points at me. “And Penny. All of your kind.”

  “Are you as offended as I am?” she asks me, pretending to be insulted. I nod.

  “I’m going to end this thing,” Blake says. “Tally, do you take Penny to be your friend?”

  She looks at me and says, “I do.”

  “Penny, do you take Tally to be your friend?”

  “I do, too.” A tiny spark glows inside of me, one that I didn’t even know had gone out.

  “I now pronounce you two friends,” Blake says. He kicks the ground to make their glider swing. “Now can we please talk about something more interesting?”

  “What could possibly be more interesting than our friendship ceremony?” Tally asks.

  “Anything,” he says. “As long as we don’t have to talk about how we feel about it.” Blake takes another bite of tomato and then throws the stem end over the fence to the chickens. We laugh as one of them grabs it and runs off, making the others chase it around the yard. If only my City friends could see me now.

  chapter thirteen

  Sunday morning Gram gets me up early to pick blueberries. I mean early—like dark-thirty. She wants to make enough jam to last the winter. Even though it’s before dawn, Mom is already gone. She’s been working long hours at the bakery. Twice this week I found her asleep on the couch, a book tented on her chest and her reading glasses still perched on her face. I’ve tried to help, but Mom and Gram keep reminding me that school comes first.

  “I can see my breath,” I say, dropping a handful of berries into my pail. Gram just smiles at me—or I think she does by the look in her eyes. Her mouth is mostly covered by her scarf.

  “Autumn is just around the corner,” Gram says. She rakes her fingers through the bush, making blueberries fall into her pail. “You’ll love the fall here, Penny. Once the leaves start turning, the hills look like they’re on fire.”

  She’s quiet for a moment, then she looks over at me, sliding her scarf down so I can see her whole face. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m cold,” I say.

  “I meant more in general.”

  If it were Tally I’d say I was g
enerally cold, but I know better than to push my luck with Gram. “I’m okay, I guess.”

  “You want to try again?” Gram asks. She rakes more blueberries into her pail. Already she’s more than doubled my haul.

  I sigh. “It’s hard.” I pull another berry from the bush I’m working on and pop it into my mouth, buying myself a little thinking time.

  “You already have a couple of friends,” Gram says.

  I nod. And enemies, I think. “I like being with you. And I like school—mostly.”

  “Any cute boys there?”

  “Gram! I am not having that conversation with you.” She laughs, and I immediately give in. “Well, there is one. . . .”

  “Mmm-hmm. One is all you need.”

  Yeah, too bad there are at least two of us interested in him, I think.

  We work for a while longer. Just as the sky is starting to brighten, Gram tells me she has enough berries for two cases. She’s nice enough not to mention that she has about seven times as many berries in her pail as I do in mine. We start walking back down the hill toward her house. The closer we get, the more we can smell the ocean. Gram stops when we hit the sand and looks out over the water. I think she’s going to make some comment about the gulls or the clouds or some other part of nature she’s forever trying to make me notice, but she doesn’t.

  “Your parents love you,” she says.

  “I know.” Coming from Gram, it doesn’t sound hollow. “I just wish—” Wish what? I don’t know anymore. “I just wish she’d talk to me,” I say.

  “You should tell her that. Goodness knows I’ve tried.”

  I want to tell Gram that I’ve actually heard her trying. And I know Mom’s just trying to shield me. Dad, too. But part of protecting someone is letting them know what they’re being protected from.

  “Just give it a little time,” Gram says. I nod. Since it looks like we’re staying for the near future and then some, I have time to give. A lot of time.