The Cupcake Queen

by Heather Hepler

  “Smart cat,” I say, placing the final bowl on one of the windowsills.

  Tally opens the door to the rest of the house and calls, “Monica, I’ll be right back.”

  A woman with long blond hair pulled back into a ponytail comes to the door, holding another stack of bowls. “You must be Penny,” she says, pulling the door shut behind her. I nod, smiling. “I’ve heard good things,” she says.

  “I’m going to show her around,” Tally says.

  “I’ll stay here,” Gram says, tossing the ball again. She laughs as the kitten brings it back and drops it at her feet. Poppy picks up a big black cat and cuddles him in her arms. I wonder if he is destined to be cat number ten.

  Tally and I head out to the backyard, where the rest of the animals are kept in several outbuildings. It’s easy to tell which building houses the dogs.

  “I’m staying,” I say.

  It’s barely out of my mouth before Tally grabs my hands and starts jumping up and down. The strands of her hair float up and down as she jumps, making a rainbow around her head.

  “So, what happened to your pageant look?” I ask when she finally stops jumping.

  Tally shrugs. “I guess I just had what my dad used to call a Come-to-Jesus meeting.”

  “A what?”

  “You know, just an honest heart-to-heart.”

  “With yourself?” I ask.

  “Yup.” She wrinkles her nose when she says it, making me laugh.

  “Tally, you are an inspiration,” I say, making her laugh.

  “I should have my own television show,” she says. “Heart-to-Heart with Tally.”

  I shake my head and smile. “So what now?” I ask.

  “I’m just going to let my life be what it is, you know?”

  I do know. “So, you’re not doing the pageant? But what about the money for the ARK?”

  “I’m totally doing it. I’m just doing it my way.” She flips her hair with her hand, making the rainbow effect again. “Do you doubt my ability to win?”

  I shake my head. I don’t doubt much of anything anymore.

  “You’re still going to help me, right?”

  “Absolutely,” I say.

  “Good, because I’m going to need a new dress and new shoes and . . .”

  “They’re not going to know what hit them,” I say.

  “You got that right.” We walk through the dog building. The barking is so loud I have to cover my ears as we step inside. Tally pauses and greets each dog as we pass, offering a scratch behind the ears or a pat on the head. We walk all the way to the end and then out into the yard.

  “What are in the other buildings?” I ask as we step back outside.

  “That’s just a storage shed,” Tally says, pointing to the nearest building. “That one has rabbits, ferrets, and rodents.” I squinch my nose up. We had a rat problem in our building in the City. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to think about rodents as pets.

  “What about that one?” I ask.

  “That one holds the exotics,” Tally says, pointing to last building on the lot. We are about halfway there when something white and round comes barreling through the yard straight toward me. I barely have time to scream before it’s on me. It hits my legs and bounces off. I look over at Tally, expecting her face to be a combination of terror and surprise, like mine, but she’s just laughing. I look at the round ball of what I now can see are feathers. A completely bald pink head pokes out of the top of the ball. Matching pink feet poke out of the bottom.

  “What is that?” I ask.

  Tally is laughing so hard she can barely speak. I glare at her as the white thing hops around us in circles. “That’s Snowball.”

  “What is Snowball?” I ask.

  “She’s a turkey vulture.” Tally bends and taps Snowball on the beak, causing her to make a noise that sounds like a cross between a sick bullfrog and a creaking door. “She’s sort of the ARK mascot.” Tally straightens up, and Snowball hops over to me. “Pet her. She won’t bite.” I bend and tap Snowball on the head as Tally did. Snowball starts hopping across the yard to where Gram and Monica, followed by Poppy, are coming out of the back of the house. Tally bends and picks up an apple that has fallen from one of the trees. “Snowball lost both wings in a hunting accident.”

  “Whoa,” I say. I watch as Monica bends to tap Snowball. Gram and Poppy each take a turn greeting her.

  Tally nods. “But she’s really happy here.”

  “Seems like you are, too,” I say.

  “Yeah,” Tally says. “I am.” She pauses and watches Snowball hop back toward the exotics building. “When I first moved here, I spent a lot of time just thinking about myself and my problems.” I nod, feeling guilty. Even though she’s talking about herself and not me, it’s hitting close to home. “Here I get outside of myself, you know?” We start walking back toward the house.

  “Yeah,” I say, thinking I sometimes feel like that when I’m designing cupcakes. “I’ll bet it’s really expensive to keep this place running.” I think of the twenty-dollar bill I have sitting in the top drawer of my desk.

  Tally nods. “I need to win the pageant. That money could really make a big difference around here.”

  As we walk toward where Gram and Poppy are standing, I can see Gram holding the tiny white kitten in her hands. Tally reaches out to pet the purring kitten. “Someone seems really happy,” she says.

  “I know I am,” says Gram.

  “You’re taking it?” I ask, joining in the petting. “What about Oscar? He might not be so happy about it.”

  “Oh, he will,” Gram says. “Who could resist this face?” As if on cue, the little kitten gives a tiny meow. “Isn’t she cute?” Gram asks. I smile and shake my head. Tally was right. She couldn’t resist.

  “What are you going to name her?” Tally asks.

  Gram tilts her head to one side, studying the wriggling kitten. “Cupcake,” she says with a big grin.

  “That reminds me,” I say, and I tell Tally to follow us to the car. I lift the box out of the backseat and hand it to her. She starts laughing as soon as she peeks inside. “Choose wisely,” I say. This time I made an even dozen. Four of each design.

  Tally lifts a cupcake with a big mound of chocolate on it out of the box. “Rock is my new favorite,” she says before taking a big bite.

  We climb back into Poppy’s car, leaving Tally to finish up her rounds. I wave as we start to pull away.

  “Wait!” Tally says, making Poppy stop. She hurries over to my window. “I almost forgot. Blake told me to tell you that Marcus is failing French.”

  I just look at her for a while, not sure how Marcus’s academic status is relevant to anything. But then I realize what that means.

  “Ohhh,” I say. Tally backs away from the car, smiling.

  “She’s really great,” I say, holding Cupcake in my lap as Poppy backs out of the driveway.

  “Who?” Gram asks. “Cupcake, or Tally?”

  I smile. “Both.”

  “I think you’re right,” Gram says. Cupcake meows in agreement, making us all laugh.

  We turn onto the road, passing a clump of trees that have turned orange. I smile when I think about Snowball, probably the weirdest animal I’ve ever seen. She lost both her wings and yet seems completely happy. I think about what Marcus and Mr. Fish lost, and Tally . . . and me, and how we all have to adapt, too.

  The car kicks up the colored leaves as we make our way down the narrow road toward home. And it occurs to me that it’s the first time I’ve thought of it like that. Home.

  chapter twenty-five

  When we got home, there was a message on my voice mail from Dad. Just a Call me. We need to talk message. I call him back after we get Cupcake settled in the laundry room. Monica said it would be best to ease into introducing her to Oscar. As it is, Oscar is just walking back and forth in front of the closed door, making weird noises in his throat.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” my dad says when he answer
s. He sounds a little nervous, which makes me nervous.

  “Hi, Dad,” I say. Oscar works half of one of his legs under the door, trying to touch Cupcake. I push him away and sit down in front of the door, where I can keep an eye on him. “I got your message,” I say. I wonder if he knows Mom talked to me. I really don’t want that announcement twice.

  “Yeah,” he says. I can hear a faint scratching sound through the phone. When I close my eyes I can see him smoothing his beard, his nervous habit. “I just wanted to see how you were feeling today,” he says.

  Now I’m guessing that Mom did talk to him. Did she already tell him my decision? “I’m okay,” I say.

  “Listen, Penny, we have to—”

  “Dad,” I say. I decide just to tell him. It’s not like it’s going to get any easier. “I’m going to stay here.”

  He’s so quiet that I’m afraid the call dropped, but then I hear him take a breath. “Are you—?” Then he stops himself. “That must have been a hard decision,” he says. All emotion seems to have drained from his voice.

  “Yeah,” I say. “It was.” I pause for a moment, willing the tears to go back into my eyes. “Dad, I really miss you, and I want to see you. I just want to stay in one place for a while. Please understand.”

  He clears his throat. “I do. I’m sorry I jumped the gun. I got too excited, I guess. . . .”

  This is almost worse than if he were really angry. “Dad, I want to come for a visit soon, okay?” I say.

  “I’d really like that,” he says. His voice sounds a little better. “Your mom and I talked about Thanksgiving. You know, my new place is right on the parade route.”

  “Cool,” I say. “Can we go the night before and watch them blow up the huge balloons?”

  “That sounds great to me,” he says, and I can tell that he means it.

  “Or we could just hang out . . . ,” I offer. Oscar is back. He starts working his leg under the door again.

  “Whatever you want to do,” he says. Through the phone I can hear someone talking to my father. “Penny,” he says, “can you hang on just a minute?” I start to say yes, but he’s already talking to the other person, his voice muffled, like he has his hand over the mouthpiece.

  I pull Oscar away from the door again, but as soon as I do, Cupcake slides her paw under the door. “Penny?” my dad says. “Listen, I need to call you later, okay? We’ll work something out.” His voice is so sad, so apologetic.

  “Of course,” I say. Oscar pulls away from me and goes over to the door and sniffs Cupcake’s paw. “Dad?”

  “Yeah, Bean?”

  “I love you.” Oscar puts his paw under the door, and when I bend down, I can see Cupcake sniffing his paw, too.

  “I love you, too,” he says. “Can’t wait to see you.”

  “Me neither,” I say. After I hang up, I sit there for a while, watching Oscar and Cupcake try to touch each other through the closed door.

  After dinner, I decide to go for a walk on the beach. It’s snowing a little, just a dusting. I’ve never seen it snow on the beach before. The snowflakes sit on the sand for a moment before melting. They look like the ones kindergartners make and hang in the school windows during the holidays. I hear a dog barking down the beach and wonder if—and hope that—it’s Sam. I haven’t seen Marcus since the library. So much has happened since yesterday.

  Each of the houses along the beach has an automatic lantern at the top of its steps down to the sand. It’s now dark enough for them to come on. Even the Fishes’ place has its lantern lit.

  “Hey,” a voice says from above me.

  I look up, but it’s hard to see. I have to blink to keep the snow out of my eyes. “Marcus?” I say. I hear a soft chuckle, followed by Sam’s whine. “What are you doing out here?” I walk over to the base of the steps to his old house.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” he says. “Want to come up?” Sam chuffs, and I can hear him straining against his collar.

  I step onto the porch, careful of the third step, and sit. I put my hand out for Sam to lick. I think about making Marcus squirm for a bit. I don’t understand why he didn’t tell me about Charity for so long.

  “So, I’m failing French,” I say. I have to force myself not to look at him. “Madame says I need to get a tutor.” I can barely keep a smile from my face.

  Marcus takes a deep breath. “I’m failing French, too,” he says.

  I can’t help it anymore. I start giggling.

  “What’s so funny?” Marcus asks. “Wait, you already knew, didn’t you?”

  I nod, still laughing.

  “How did you—?”

  “Small town,” I say.

  Marcus runs his hand through his hair. “I should have known,” he says.

  “You should have told me.” All those times I saw him with Charity. Being tutored.

  “I know. I mean, I wanted to. I started to.” He talks fast, his words rushing against one another.

  I put my hand on his arm. “It’s okay,” I say. “But no more secrets.”

  He smiles over at me, his eyes crinkling. “What about your birthday present? Can that be a secret?”

  I nod. “But my birthday is still almost two months away,” I say.

  “That’s a long time to keep a secret,” he says. Marcus reaches over and takes my hand. “A nonbirthday present, then,” he says. I feel something being placed around my wrist. When he releases it, I can see the bracelet he always wears is now on me.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “I made it this summer.”

  I touch the braided leather with my fingers. Knowing he made it himself makes it that much better. “Thank you.”

  “You already said that,” Marcus says, laughing.

  “Well, that makes it doubly true,” I say.

  He keeps holding my hand as we watch the snow falling on the sand. “My mother had this poster. It was of the birth of a star.” He looks at me. Sam looks up at me, too. I reach out and stroke his ears, but I keep watching Marcus. “Do you know what happens when a star dies?” he asks. I shake my head. “Stars don’t just burn out. It’s always a huge event. Sometimes they explode and leave a black hole that sucks in anything that comes near it.” He shifts slightly, leaving space between us, and the side of my body where he was leaning is suddenly cold. “I think that’s what happened to my dad and me when my mom died. It was like all of the light got sucked out of our universe.” He is quiet again, and I hear the sounds of Sam’s breathing and the waves pulling at the stones on the beach.

  “What else can happen?” I ask. “You said ‘sometimes.’ ” He moves his foot out from under Sam’s body. “Sometimes when it dies, it leaves part of itself behind. Bits that turn into other things.”

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “Sometimes other stars. But every once in a while”—he glances over at me—“a dying star becomes a pulsar. One of the brightest stars.”

  We both look up, but there are no stars to see tonight, only a few lanterns fading into the snow flurries.

  “I bet your mom was one of those kind,” I say. “She had to be, if she inspired you and your dad so much.”

  Marcus smiles over at me. “You make me believe that’s true.”

  I hear a car pull onto the driveway above us and Sam is off my lap, pushing past me on the steps. He runs around the house toward the road. I hear the low creak of a truck door and then the sound of boots on gravel.

  Marcus smiles and stands up, pulling me up with him. He puts his arms around me. “So, the dance . . . ,” he says. As he talks I can feel his breath on my cheek, then in my hair.

  I nod, smiling.

  “Good,” he says, pulling back slightly. “Now go. I don’t want you to get grounded or anything.”

  I step down off the porch and turn and smile at him again through the falling snow.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says. “I can’t wait to get to work on your float.”

  “Marcus, you down there?” A
voice calls from inside the house. Marcus looks at me and smiles. Crinkle.

  I can’t stop smiling. I don’t even feel cold anymore.

  “I’m right here, Dad,” he says. He waves at me before walking across the porch.

  I head up the beach, watching the fat snowflakes slowly sink into the sand. I turn and see a light go on inside the Fishes’ place, then Mr. Fish silhouetted in the doorway. “Night, Miss Cupcake Queen!” he calls.

  I wave and keep walking down the beach through the softly falling snow. The light glowing on Gram’s path pulls me forward, beckoning me home.

  chapter twenty-six

  I can see my breath even in side the barn. It’s been snowing on and off for the last week, but Gram tells me this weekend is supposed to be warm (well into the fifties) and sunny. Not that it matters. In the fifty-three years they’ve been having the Hog’s Hollow Days Festival, they’ve only canceled the parade once, and that was because there was a tornado warning.

  Blake leans over the side of the float, painting the giant pair of scissors with silver paint. “The tornado picked up a cow and put it down a mile away.” He sees the look on Tally’s face. “It was fine. Just dizzy.”

  “Is that how they make a milk shake?” Tally asks, earning her a silver nose. I laugh but duck when Blake comes at me with the paintbrush. I finish adding the oversize sprinkles to a Styrofoam cupcake and step back to take a look at my work. It’s weird seeing my design in three dimensions. At first, I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to get it finished. Last Sunday only Miss Beans, my mom, Poppy, Gram, Marcus, Tally, and Blake came to help. Late in the day about half a dozen people from my art class showed up, but the group has been growing slowly over the last week. There’s probably about twenty-five here today, although it’s hard to keep track of them. Someone’s always off getting more paint or coffee or doughnuts—or a new blowtorch, when Mr. Fish’s stopped working.

  The door opens and someone else walks in. It’s hard to tell who she is with her scarf wrapped around her face, but I recognize her voice as soon as she starts talking. “What can I do?” Charlotte asks, unwinding her scarf and removing her gloves. She gives me a small smile, which grows when I smile back. I direct her toward where my mom is fighting with the giant tomatoes.