“Good, good,” he says, but he sounds distracted.
“Dad?” I ask.
“Sorry,” he says. “There’s a guy dressed in a silver jumpsuit serenading his pet goldfish. Listen.” I hear a few guitar chords and a surprisingly deep voice comparing his fish, Loraine, to a sunset. “What do you think?” Dad asks.
“That is one lucky fish,” I say, making my dad laugh. I can tell he’s walking again as the sounds of traffic swallow up the music.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asks.
“Dad, I’m fine. I mean, the leech bites still hurt, but—”
“Leeches?” My dad starts muttering about backwoods medicine.
I can’t keep from laughing. “Dad,” I say. “I’m joking. Dr. Sandford seemed totally legit. He had a white coat and everything.” I don’t tell him that it was pulled over a T-shirt with a dancing hula girl on the front. Some things are best left unmentioned.
“Ha-ha,” my dad says, clearly less amused than I am. “I’d better go, funny girl,” Dad says. “I have a big meeting uptown at Rain. You know. That fancy Vietnamese place you like?” I nod even though he can’t see me. Of course I know. It was where the three of us had our last dinner together before my mom dropped the we’re moving bomb. “If all goes well, I might have a big surprise for you.” I hear voices and the sounds of cabs honking through the phone. “Be careful of those crazy chickens.”
“Rooster,” I say, but he’s gone. Just as well. I’m not sure a rooster would be any less amusing. I scratch Oscar’s ears, wondering if he’s thinking the same thing I am. How did I go from a life of riding the subway uptown to eat Vietnamese food to a life of cupcakes and feral roosters?
* * *
Tally says she doesn’t understand why they call it a black eye when it’s obvious my eye is at least seven different colors.
“Eight,” Blake says, after scrutinizing me for several moments. Tally raises one eyebrow at him. “No, really,” he says. He manages to find indigo, navy, black (to which Tally says, “Duh”), olive, chartreuse, gray, ochre, and melon. He points to each one as he says it.
“Melon?” Tally asks. “That looks more like burnt sienna.”
Blake shrugs. “Tomato tomato.” He says it the same way both times, making me smile and Tally roll her eyes.
“How did you manage ochre and chartreuse?” I ask.
Blake shrugs. “I’m not unsmart,” he says. His shirt has a photo of a swirled mound of what looks like rainbow-colored frosting with sparkling stars scattered all over it. The caption reads: UNICORN POOP.
He sees me reading his shirt and puts up his hand. “I already assured Tally that this is the only one with scatological humor.”
“Yo, Wallace!” a guy calls from across the lawn. He twirls a soccer ball on his index finger. Blake nods, then looks back at us.
“Sorry, people,” he says. “Gotta motor.” He jogs over to where several other guys, who basically all look like clones, are standing. One of them punches Blake hard in the shoulder. Blake punches him back and they both start laughing.
“Boys are—” Tally begins.
“Unsmart?” I ask.
“Definitely,” Tally says. The bell for first period rings, sending everyone running for the front doors. I have to hurry so I’m not late. I make it to my locker and quickly open it, pulling out the books I need for first period. Unlike at the beginning of the semester, my locker is devoid of dead fish, shaving cream, and a tsunami of pennies. Oh, life without Charity is going to be sweet.
In first period, Madame Framboise tries to get me to tell the class what happened to my eye. This would have been embarrassing, but not impossible. However, she wanted me to tell the story in French. Ce n’est pas possible. I finally end up pantomiming most of the story, which makes the class laugh. Charlotte smiles at me as I walk past to find my seat. That’s way different from when she tried to trip me on the first day.
Despite the mountain of homework that every one of my teachers assigns, the thought of life without Charity has me floating down the hall as I make my way to fourth period.
Marcus stops me just before I walk into the art studio. “Hey,” he says. He places his fingers under my chin and tilts my head. “Your eye looks better.” My stomach flutters at his touch and I tell it to hush. “Want to have lunch together?” he asks. “I hear there’s lime Jell-O.”
“I was going to say no, but seeing as there’s Jell-O …” I say.
“So I rank somewhere below lime Jell-O,” Marcus says.
“But you’re totally above blue raspberry or peach,” I tease.
“It’s good to know where I stand.” He smiles at me and the corners of his eyes crinkle in a way that makes me feel all melty inside. “See you at lunch,” he says, and heads toward the front office, where he works during fourth period. I float a few more feet off the ground. I drift into Miss Beans’s class and to where Tally is sitting hunched over her sketch pad.
“Hi,” I say. Charlotte smiles at me from the other side of the table. Looks like she’s officially defected from Team Charity. I slide onto my stool, wondering if the day could possibly get any better.
“She’s here,” Tally hisses at me.
“Who’s here?” Then I hear the too familiar laughter coming from the back table. Charity.
I feel like gravity just reasserted itself, but now it’s about ten times stronger than it should be. “I thought she was in Paris.”
Tally shakes her head.
“This stinks,” I say. Charity chooses that moment to look over. She waves her fingers at me, which coming from anyone else in the whole world might seem friendly, but from her is positively terrifying.
“It gets worse,” Tally says.
“How?” I ask. What could be worse than this? Just then Miss Beans’s office door opens. She steps out, followed by a girl I’ve never seen before. Everyone stops talking and stares at her. And not just because she’s new, but because she is impossibly beautiful.
“That’s how,” Tally whispers. The girl follows Miss Beans to the front of the room.
“I’d like to introduce all of you to Esmeralda Fournier.” The girl beams at us. I swear she actually gets prettier the longer I look at her. “She just arrived yesterday from Paris.” Miss Beans looks at the girl, who just smiles. “She’ll be spending the rest of the school year with us, so I hope you’ll give her a warm welcome.” Miss Beans nods toward the back table, where Charlotte’s old stool sits empty. But Esmeralda isn’t about to give up the floor.
“I am very excited to be here,” she says. Her voice is soft and lovely. Her English is perfect, more than perfect with her exotic accent. “Charity has told me so much about all of you that I feel like I know you already.”
Is it my imagination or did she just look at me? She walks to the back table and slides onto her stool. Even the way she moves seems striking, like she’s a cross between a cat and a queen. Miss Beans begins talking about the next big project, something about public art, but I’m barely paying attention. Charity is leaning toward Esmeralda and saying something. Esmeralda looks up and this time I’m not imagining it. She’s looking directly at me.
The lunchroom is chaotic like always. There’s the usual drama bomb at the cheerleader table. Several of the soccer players are having a belching contest, and two guys near the entrance are taking turns spraying Easy Cheese across the table into each other’s mouths. Tally, Blake, and I sit at a table near the back as far away from the smelly trash cans as possible.
“I so did not see that coming,” Tally says, nodding toward where Esmeralda is sitting with Charity and the rest of her minions. As we watch, Esmeralda laughs and tosses her hair, causing one of the passing soccer players to trip and almost drop his Frito pie. Tally looks slightly horrified.
“What?” I ask.
“The hair toss combined with the giggle is a very advanced move.” She looks dejectedly at her peanut butter and cheese sandwich. (Totally gross, in spite of what she says.)
“We’re doomed,” she says. I make a face at her. This is very un-Tally-like behavior. “She’s like guy kryptonite.”
“Who?” Blake asks around a mouthful of the second peanut butter and American cheese sandwich Tally brought for him. (He admits that it’s gross, but says that if he eats it fast enough, he can mostly ignore the taste.) Tally nods toward Charity’s table, where Charity is attempting the hair toss. She ends up with a mouthful of blonde curls for her effort. “Oh, her. Yeah, she’s in my PE class. She seems cool.” Tally frowns at him. “What?”
“Nothing,” she says. Blake shrugs and returns his attention to his sandwich. Tally turns to me. “Where’d she come from?” she asks.
“France,” Blake says.
Tally rolls her eyes. “I mean why is she here now? I thought exchange students always started at the beginning of the semester.”
“The word on the street is that her parents and the Whartons are old friends,” Blake says. “So while her parents are in China on some business thing, they dumped her here.”
Tally looks at him. “How do you know all this?”
Blake shrugs. “I have my sources,” he says.
“Who?” Tally asks.
“They prefer to remain anonymous,” Blake says.
“Hey,” Marcus says, sliding onto the bench beside me. He bumps his shoulder against mine and smiles. Then he looks at Blake. “Mrs. Pittman told me she likes red velvet.” Blake nods.
“Why would she say that?” Tally asks. Blake shrugs, but he looks shifty. “Wait.” Tally narrows her eyes at him. “The school secretary is your source?”
“One of them,” he says. “You’d be surprised how much intel a cupcake can buy you.” Blake looks at me. “I’ll need you to bring a red velvet cupcake to school tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I say, laughing. Tally just shakes her head, but when Blake steals one of her chips, she smiles at him. They might be only barely at the holding-hands stage, but you can tell they really like each other.
I glance over at Marcus, wondering if that could ever be us. Then I look at his tray. There’s a vaguely gray piece of meat floating in a brownish sauce. “What is that?”
He cuts off a piece and chews it thoughtfully. “Hamburger,” he says. “Or maybe chicken fried steak.”
“Don’t think, man,” Blake says. “Just eat it.”
“Good advice,” Marcus says, taking another bite. “After school, I’m heading back up to Saturn. Want to come?” he asks me.
“I do,” I say, “but I promised my mom I’d work the counter for her. I’m free tomorrow,” I add, trying not to sound too eager.
“Cool,” he says.
Tally kicks me hard under the table. She nods toward the front of the cafeteria. I look over and see both Esmeralda and Charity staring at me. I stare right back, refusing to be intimidated by them. But they don’t look away. It’s then that I realize they aren’t looking at me at all, but at Marcus. Charity leans over and whispers something to Esmeralda, who smiles and nods. Marcus is too busy inhaling his mystery lunch to notice. But Charity sees me watching and grins. I glare at her, but it just makes her smile wider.
In the end I do look away first. I frown at my sandwich. (Peanut butter and honey.) I must make a frustrated noise aloud because Marcus glances over.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Absolutely,” I say. I slide the tiniest bit closer to him until our shoulders are touching. He smiles at me and nods toward his coconut cream pie.
“Want some?” he asks.
“No Jell-O?” I ask.
Marcus shakes his head. “Turns out it was just a rumor. But there was pie.” Even though I loathe all things coconut, I nod back. I take his fork and take a bite, reminding myself of Blake’s advice. Don’t think. Just chew.
“Yum,” I say, earning a raised eyebrow from Tally. She is well aware of my aversion to coconut. I glance over at Charity again, who looks like she just took a bite of slimy coconut pie. I swallow, pleased to see that the bite of nastiness was worth it.
* * *
Gram is hanging a poster in the window of The Cupcake Queen when I arrive. I pause and read it before heading inside. “How many festivals does Hog’s Hollow have?” I ask.
Gram tapes the last corner and turns toward me. “Hog Days, the Sugaring Festival, Spring Breakup, May Days, the Black Fly Jubilee, and, of course, Winter Fest,” she finishes, gesturing toward the poster.
“That’s a lot of festivals,” I say.
“Mm-hmm,” Gram says. She is distracted by something out on Main Street. She narrows her eyes at a truck idling behind a tractor towing a trailer full of pigs. “You have got to be kidding me,” she mutters. She yanks the door open and stomps out onto the sidewalk. Mrs. Hancock, who owns the antique store next door, is sweeping the walk in front of her shop. “What’s he doing here?” Gram asks. Mrs. Hancock turns to see what Gram is looking at. For some reason what she sees is completely hysterical because she lets out the loudest laugh I’ve ever heard. Gram glares at Mrs. Hancock, then marches out into the street where the old blue pickup truck is idling. I walk to the doorway and peer out. A guy with salt-and-pepper hair, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, steps out of the truck and beams at Gram, who scowls back at him.
“This should be good,” Mrs. Hancock says, smirking at me.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve showing your face around here,” Gram says.
The older guy’s smile widens. “Good to see you, too, Joy.” Gram continues scowling at him. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d swing through.”
“Since when is Hog’s Hollow in the neighborhood of California?” Gram asks.
“Huh,” the man says. “Thought you would have heard. You know, small town and all.” I step out onto the sidewalk and let the door shut behind me. “I just bought the old Windham Farm.” There’s a fair amount of traffic backed up behind the man’s truck, but most everyone is hanging out of their car windows enjoying the show. “Just came into town to pick up a few things and have a look around.”
“Well, you’ve looked around,” Gram says.
The man grins at her and then climbs back in his truck. He closes his door, but hooks his elbow out the window, still smiling at Gram. He tips his chin slightly and winks at her. “Guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.” Holy cow, I think. He’s actually flirting with her. He pulls away, leaving Gram in the street watching him go.
“Hey,” Marcus says, walking up. “Is that your grandmother?”
I nod. She’s still standing in the middle of the road, forcing traffic to go around her. Nothing should surprise me in Hog’s Hollow anymore, but seeing my usually unflappable grandmother completely unhinged is definitely bizarre. It’s then that I notice Marcus isn’t alone. Esmeralda.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” she says, all sweetness and light.
“Sorry,” Marcus says. “Esme, this is Penny.”
“Hi,” I say. Esme.
“Enchantée,” she says.
“Esme is in my bio class,” Marcus says.
“Lab partners,” she says, actually winking at me.
“She wanted to know if there was a good bakery in town,” he says.
“I have a terrible sweet tooth,” she chimes in.
I realize I haven’t spoken in several seconds. “So, you brought her here,” I say.
“Best bakery in town,” Marcus says.
Esmeralda gestures at the sparkly gold lettering on the window. “So, all you do is cupcakes?” she asks. And I can’t be sure whether her tone is one of genuine interest or smirky disdain.
“Yep,” I say in what I hope is a nonconfrontational way. Suddenly Tally’s comments about guy kryptonite and the way Esmeralda is standing so close to Marcus she’s almost touching him make me feel very confrontational.
“Well, I can’t wait to try one,” Esmeralda says. I glance back over at Gram and note that she’s still fuming, but at least she’s making her way out of the road. Marcus holds the do
or open for both Esme and me.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Merci,” Esmeralda purrs. She looks around. “What a cute shop.”
Again, it’s impossible to read whether she’s serious or making fun. I walk around behind the counter and watch as she flips through the photo book full of pictures of the cupcakes I’ve designed. She oohs and aahs over them. I’m embarrassed at my jealousy. Esmeralda is new in town just like I was a few months back. If anyone should be nice to her, it should be me. I decide to give her the benefit of the doubt. It’s not her fault that Charity is the Mean Queen. And I shouldn’t judge Esmeralda based on her family association.
“So what can I get you?” I ask.
She holds up one delicate finger and moves away from Marcus, peering into the display case.
“Well, I’d like two mudslides,” Marcus says. “One is for my dad,” he adds. I tilt my head at him, which makes him laugh. “Probably,” he admits. He leans on the counter, watching me while I pull out his cupcakes. “Sorry you can’t come with me today.”
“Me, too,” I say, happy that he actually sounds bummed out. Unfortunately, it also makes me feel even more foolish for being jealous. Marcus was just being nice to Esmeralda. I’m the only one acting weird.
Gram is standing on the sidewalk out front talking to Mrs. Hancock, who is trying her best to match my grandmother’s seriousness.
“Looks like the drama is over,” I say.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen your grandmother that upset.”
“Me neither,” I say, folding a pink bakery box. “I wonder who the guy in the truck is,” I say, mostly to myself.
“You should ask Blake,” Marcus says.
“It will probably cost me another cupcake,” I say.
Esmeralda walks back toward us. “I guess I’ll have one of those blue ones,” she says. Her enthusiasm is underwhelming.
“One blue velvet coming up,” I say. I settle Esmeralda’s round cupcake into a single cup and place Marcus’s in a box. I tuck an extra one in his just in case.
Marcus fishes out a ten and hands it over. I pause, waiting for Esmeralda’s money, but she’s not moving. I make big eyes at Marcus, unsure of what to do, but he nods at the ten. Guess he’s treating. Esmeralda waits until I hand him his change before saying anything.
Frosted Kisses Page 3