Truth Game

by Anna Staniszewski

  Chapter 20

  When I go to meet my dad at his new job at the canoe shop, I find him inside a huge box truck unloading kayak after kayak with one of the younger guys who works at the store.

  “I’ll be with you in a minute, Rachel Roo,” my dad says. “Only thirty more to go!” He has a huge grin on his face, as if he’s having a great time, even though I can tell by how filthy and sweaty he is that he’s been doing this for at least an hour. The guy he’s working with looks at him like he’s insane.

  As I sit in the corner of the shop, my phone beeps. It’s a new message from Mom. Robert said we can start bringing things over this weekend.

  Before I know it, a couple of tears have trickled down my cheeks.

  “Ready to go get some dinner?” Dad asks. Then he must see my face because he rushes over. “Roo, what’s wrong?”

  I can’t exactly pretend that nothing is wrong, so I tell him about Marisol and Evan being mad at me and about the stupid mix-up with Chip-Chet. “And on top of all that,” I say, “I thought I was okay with the whole moving thing, but now I’m not so sure.”

  Over the summer, I even told my mom that she should go ahead and look for apartments for us since it was getting harder for her to pay our mortgage. But after her cleaning business merged with Ladybug Cleaners, it looked like we might be able to stay in the house after all. Now I have to get used to the idea of moving all over again.

  “Oh, I know, Roo,” Dad says, putting his arm around me even though he’s covered in grime. “You’ve never been that great with change.”

  His words make me feel better, but it’s not because of his sympathy. It’s because I realize that I’m being my old self, the one who was afraid of changing the way she cut her caramel squares because she’d always done it a certain way. But new-and-improved me isn’t afraid of new things. I mean, she climbed a wall! That means she can deal with moving too, right?

  “I’ll get over it,” I say, wiping my eyes. “And my room at Mr. Hammond’s house is going to be twice the size of my room now. That’s definitely a plus.”

  “There you go,” Dad says as we head over to his car. “And if it makes you feel any better, I looked at an apartment down the street from our—ahem, I mean, your mom’s house. So if I wind up getting it, you’ll at least be in the same neighborhood when you come stay with me.”

  “You did? No more living in a hotel?” I ask, getting into the passenger seat.

  “Nope!” Dad says. “And the place has a nice big kitchen, so you’ll have plenty of room to bake your amazing creations.”

  I sigh. “I don’t know how amazing they are. I’m supposed to be working on a birthday cake for Angela Bareli’s birthday party, but I can’t come up with any good ideas.”

  “What have you tried so far?”

  I list off the different ideas I had, but all of them seem so boring. “I feel like I need to do something really big, you know? Something that people won’t be able to miss.”

  “You know, I feel like I’ve spent years trying to find something big,” he says. “Switching jobs, moving to Florida. But all it did was make me realize that the stuff that mattered to me was the everyday, ordinary stuff.”

  “Are you calling me ordinary?” I tease.

  He tugs on my ear. “You? Never. All I’m saying is, maybe you don’t always have to go for something over-the-top to make a big impression.”

  That sounds nice, but Dad doesn’t get it. Angela’s party is going to be as over-the-top as it gets. The cake has to match it. And I have to come in with a cake that blows Chef Ryan’s cake out of the water, one that Angela will definitely choose. But maybe Dad is right. Maybe if I put a few boring things together, I might wind up with something interesting.

  • • •

  I spend the next few days furiously testing out ideas for Angela’s cake. I even try an ants on a log–inspired cake just in case Mrs. Da Silva is secretly a genius. (Verdict: dis-gus-ting!)

  At least focusing on Angela’s cake helps distract me from the fact that Marisol and Evan may never speak to me again. I’ve tried calling and texting and emailing Marisol, but she hasn’t been responding to any of my messages. And the one time I got up the courage to call Evan, I hung up before he answered. He must have seen that he had a missed call from me, but I haven’t heard back.

  Ugh. I can’t think about that right now. Cake first. Personal crisis second.

  Finally, the morning of Angela’s party, I finish the cake and step back, admiring my work. It’s huge and sparkly and the definition of over-the-top. It’s covered with flowers and bows and candy, and I even hung a few streamers from the bottom and stuck a shiny birthday hat on top. You can’t get any more little kid birthday party than this, and I know Angela is going to die when she sees it.

  “That looks like it should be in a magazine!” Mom says when she spots the final product sitting on the counter. “Or in an art museum!”

  “Mom,” I say, rolling my eyes, but I can’t help smiling at the compliment. Even though it felt like torture getting to this point, I’m excited to show the cake to Chef Ryan. Yes, he might be mad at me for going behind his back, but when he sees how right I was about Angela’s cake, he’ll definitely have me assist him with the Montelle-Brennan cake. He’d be crazy not to.

  “Can you help me get it over to the bakery?” I ask. “Angela is going to be there in an hour.”

  Mom nods. “As long as you don’t mind stopping at Robert’s house on the way back. I wanted to measure his living room to see if our couch will fit.”

  I swallow. The thought of our furniture sitting in someone else’s living room still makes me a little sick to my stomach, but I force myself to smile and say, “Sure.”

  We oh-so-carefully slide the cake into the back of Mom’s minivan. I’d put it in a large box, and now I stuff blankets and pillows all around it so there’s no way it can get wrecked. When we get to the bakery, Mom helps me carry it inside. It feels like we’re transporting the Crown Jewels instead of baked goods, but I’m so glad that Mom understands how important it is for this cake to get there in perfect condition.

  “I’m going to run to the bank,” Mom says. “Good luck!” she adds in a whisper before ducking outside.

  “Rachel, what are you doing here?” Chef Ryan asks when he sees me. “Isn’t it your day off?”

  “I’m dropping off a cake I made for a client,” I say, trying to pretend it’s the most natural thing in the world.

  He raises a thick eyebrow. “Come again?”

  “Um, Angela Bareli is doing a little-kid birthday party, right?” I rush to explain. “And she was worried that your cake might not be right for it, so I thought I’d go ahead and make a second cake just in case, as a backup, you know? In case she liked mine better and wanted to use it.”

  He stares at me for a long moment. Then his nostrils flare, and he opens the box. He’s totally silent as he examines it. Then he says, “It’s good.”

  I let out a breath. He likes it. He actually likes it!

  Chef Ryan starts to say something else, but at that moment, Angela bursts into the bakery and gasps when she sees my cake on the counter. “Is that mine?” she shrieks and then starts bouncing around the bakery as she gushes about the colors and the frosting. “It’s amazing!” Then her smile dims a little. “Although…it seems a little…busy. Like, my eye doesn’t really know where to look. Is there any way we could, I don’t know, take a couple things off?”

  I swallow. “Maybe the streamers?” I pull them off and hide them behind my back, but Angela’s still frowning. “And maybe the cake topper?” I add as I yank the party hat off.

  “That’s better,” she says, but her forehead is still lined. “And maybe…” She chews on her lip for a second. “We could take off some of the flowers or something?”

  It took me forever to make the flowers, and now she wan
ts to take them off? But the customer is always right.

  Before I can destroy the cake any more though, Chef Ryan turns to Angela and says, “Hold on a second. I want to show you something.” He goes into the back room and emerges a minute later with another cake box. When he opens it, Angela gasps as she looks at the perfectly smooth frosting and the tastefully arranged pink and purple flowers.

  “That’s it!” she yells. “I can’t believe it. Did you guys make two cakes for me to choose from because you knew I was so nervous about it being perfect? That’s amazing!”

  After Chef Ryan’s cake is loaded in Mrs. Bareli’s car, Angela gives me a big hug and says, “Thank you, Rachel! I’ll see you at the party tonight, okay?”

  I nod and manage a smile, but the last thing I feel like doing is celebrating.

  When Angela’s gone, Chef Ryan gets very quiet. I notice his lips are so straight, you could use them as a ruler. He’s usually hard to read, but this is stoic even for him. I can’t tell if he’s proud of me or about to announce that I’m fired.

  “What were you thinking, Rachel?” he finally asks in an odd, quiet voice. “Going behind my back like that?”

  “I-I was trying to help,” I say, but of course that’s not quite true. I was trying to impress him, even if it meant bending the rules a little bit. I guess my new self couldn’t quite shake my old self’s bad habits.

  “You’ve been asking me to let you help with big projects, but how can I do that? Especially after this? I was going to start training you for some more responsibilities, but now I think that will have to wait until you can prove to me that you can be trusted.”

  “But…but Angela’s cake was good! You said so yourself! It was exactly what she asked for.”

  “It was good,” Chef Ryan says, “but it wasn’t your best work. I didn’t see your skill and your passion in it.”

  “My passion?”

  “That’s why Angela wasn’t completely satisfied. It lacked finesse. It was good, but it wasn’t great. It didn’t feel like you.”

  “But…but…” I try to object, but I realize he’s right. Normally when I’m baking, inspiration hits and I make something that I’m really excited about. This time, I focused on something that fit the theme, something bigger and crazier than anything I would have normally made.

  “I know you can do excellent work, Rachel. That’s why I’m pushing you to get the basics down cold. Once you have those under your belt and you know your own limits, you’ll be a fine baker.”

  I know I should be glad that he’s trying to help, but I’ve already come so far and it’s still not good enough. At this rate, it feels like I’ll never get to where I want to be.

  Chapter 21

  When I get to Angela’s birthday party that night, it’s even more extravagant than I’d imagined. Her entire house is decked out like a kids’ wonderland complete with pony rides, face painting, and not one but two bouncy castles. I should be excited to be here. After all, when I was little, no one invited me to their birthday parties because they didn’t even remember that I existed. But being here by myself doesn’t feel much better. I know Marisol and Evan are both in the crowd, but since neither of them is speaking to me right now, that’s not much comfort.

  Clearly, I’m not the only one who’s uncomfortable. I spot lots of kids who look lost or are talking to people they don’t seem to actually like. I wonder if other people’s relationships got totally messed up, thanks to the Truth Game. I don’t know if that thought makes me feel better or worse.

  I position myself near the cotton candy lady—yup, Angela actually hired someone to make cotton candy!—and scan the crowd. After a minute I spot Evan talking to some guy from our gym class. He’s laughing and gesturing like he’s reenacting something that happened during volleyball. I know that if I walked up to him though, his smile would immediately fade.

  Part of me wishes that the tingly feeling I get in my stomach at the sight of him would go away, but another part of me wishes we could rewind time and go back to when we first admitted we liked each other. If I did it all over again, maybe I could find a way to make him still like me, and I’d definitely think twice before saying anything bad about him, anonymous or not. But, of course, that’s not an option.

  I turn away and spot Angela making the rounds, looking more confident than I’ve ever seen her.

  “Rachel, you came!” she says when she sees me. “Everyone’s been raving about how pretty the cake looks. I can’t wait to eat it!”

  “I wanted to come by and wish you a happy birthday. I can’t stay though.”

  “But you have to at least stick around until I cut the cake!” she says.

  I let her bustle me inside the house and into the kitchen where her mom is putting candles on top of the cake. Now that I’m looking at it again, I can see how much more polished it looks than my gaudy monstrosity. Chef Ryan’s cake is like a cherry on top of a great party. My cake would have been like a paint-filled water balloon.

  After we sing to Angela and watch her blow out her candles, she comes over to me, still gushing. “You did such an amazing job,” she says. “I’m so glad you were at the bakery when I went in! I doubt Briana would have been all that helpful.”

  I look at her in surprise until I remember about the Truth Game answers. “So I guess you heard Briana works with me?”

  Angela gives me a conspiratorial smile. “I’m the one who told people,” she says. “I saw her hiding behind the counter when I came to order my cake.” She laughs. “As if she could hide that kind of secret for long! You should have seen how shocked Caitlin was when I told her.”

  “Wait…you’re the one who told Caitlin? I thought people found out about it because of what I wrote in the Truth Game.”

  “Nope! Those answers got leaked on the same day I told Caitlin, but people would have found out without that game.”

  “But why would you do that? What do you care if Briana works at a bakery?”

  “Because she’s always thought she was so much better than everyone else. But now she has a job like a normal person. Besides, it was way too good of a secret to keep to myself.”

  I shake my head. For weeks I’ve thought Angela was a new version of herself, but I guess in some weird way Briana was right. Maybe people never completely change. I thought I could leave my old self behind, but middle school Rachel seems to follow me wherever I go, no matter what I do.

  Angela’s party is suddenly the last place I want to be, so I hurry out the door and wind my way through some jugglers. I swing around a bush at the top of the driveway and smack right into Briana.

  “Ow!” she cries, rubbing her shoulder. “What’s your problem?”

  “You are!” I say.

  She rolls her eyes. “What are you even talking about?”

  “You want to know who spilled your secret about the bakery? It was Angela. And because of that stupid game you signed me up for, Evan and Marisol are mad at me.”

  “Hey, I didn’t say that stuff about them. You did. It’s not my fault if you feel guilty. And seriously, get over it. Some people have real problems.”

  “What do you know about real problems?” I snap. “All you care about is making sure you don’t miss your next manicure appointment. Evan is working his butt off to help your family, and you spend all your time at the bakery not lifting a finger!”

  “I’m not like you, okay? I’m not one of those people who just know how to do stuff. You were probably mopping the floor since you were born. I’d never even touched a mop before I started working at that place. And no one would show me how to use it! You think I like looking like a moron all the time? On top of already feeling like a total loser?”

  I can only stare at Briana for a second. Did those words really come out of her mouth? “What do you have to feel like a loser about?”

  Her eyes just about double in
size. “Are you kidding me? I used to rule our grade, our whole school! And then I get dumped by my boyfriend and my best friend on the same day, and then my dad loses his job and I’m suddenly living in some gross Cinderella story where I have to take trash out and stuff. No one at school even cares about me anymore, and most of my old friends totally ignore me. I mean, Angela Bareli is more popular than I am now. Do you know what that’s like, to think Angela Bareli’s life is better than yours?”

  And the funny thing is, I do know. Because on the first day of school, when everything was going wrong, I was jealous of Angela for having her life together. But it turns out she’s still the same old person she was in middle school, just with a better hobby.

  “It doesn’t matter anyway,” Briana says. “I’m not making nearly enough money at the bakery.”

  “For what, your fancy clothes?” I say.

  “No, for Evan’s tuition,” she says, lowering her voice even though I doubt anyone can hear us over the blaring music from Angela’s house. “God, do you really think I’m that shallow?”

  “You’re working to help Evan save up for school next year?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “But…but why would you do that? You guys aren’t exactly close.”

  “He’s still my brother,” she says like I’m a total idiot for not understanding. Then she pushes past me and goes inside Angela’s house.

  As I watch her disappear, it occurs to me that just because Angela is the same as she ever was doesn’t mean that the rest of us have to be. I might make some of the same old mistakes, but I know I’ve changed for the better over the past few months. Maybe that means Briana can too.

  My phone rings. It’s Cherie calling. That’s weird. Why would she be calling me on a Friday night?

  “Rachel, I need your help,” she says when I answer the phone. “Ryan is in the hospital.”

  “Oh my goldfish! Is he okay? What happened?”

  “He’ll be all right. He was watering the herbs in the bakery, and he fell off the ladder and broke his leg and his collarbone.” She lets out a long breath. “I can’t believe this is happening the day before our biggest wedding! That means I need you to finish the cake.”