Frosted Kisses

by Heather Hepler

  “Charity wouldn’t do that,” Esmeralda retorts, but something flickers in her eyes. Like she might believe Tally that Charity ratted her out.

  “Oh yes, she would,” Tally says and then laughs coldly. “She most definitely would.”

  It’s clear from the look that crosses Esmeralda’s face that she knows Tally’s right. Pressing her more, I say, “But what I don’t get is why. Why me?”

  She sighs, like there’s no point in denying it anymore. “What else was I supposed to do? Dumped here in this horrid little town with you people while my parents travel all of China.”

  “So you tried to ruin my life to get back at your parents?” I ask.

  Esmeralda shrugs. “You made it so easy. And I figured I’d either get caught and then my parents would have to come get me, or I wouldn’t and I’d at least have fun.”

  “Fun,” I say. Tally is almost vibrating with anger beside me. “So you trashing my locker, ruining my project, and trying to destroy my friendships was fun?”

  “Yes,” she says simply.

  “You’re not going to get away with this,” Tally says.

  Esmeralda laughs. It’s that same melodic laugh, but now it seems cruel. “I’ve already gotten away with it,” she says. “You have no proof. And if anyone is blamed, it’ll be Charity.”

  “But she’s your friend,” I say.

  “Please.” She makes a face and suddenly she’s not pretty at all anymore. “Just because our parents are friends doesn’t mean we are. Charity might be the queen of pigs or whatever here, but in my world, she’s nothing.”

  “You’re evil,” Tally says.

  Esmeralda laughs again. “Well, I should really go,” she says. “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow at the festival.” She walks past us. The heels of her boots strike the marble with each step.

  “She sounds like a horse,” I say.

  Tally smiles a little. “She’s not getting away with this,” she says.

  “No,” I say. “She’s not. But right now there’s nothing we can do.” I pull her down the sidewalk and toward the bank. “Let’s go in and see the sculptures.”

  “Wait,” Tally says. “Why aren’t you angrier?”

  “I guess I just realized while she was talking that she’s the sad one.”

  The scream behind us makes both of us turn. “What is this?” Esmeralda shrieks, examining the sole of her boot. She makes a face and lets loose with several French words I’ve never heard before. She starts furiously trying to wipe off her boot in the grass. Her heel catches and down she tumbles, landing on her hands and knees. Then she lifts her hand. It’s covered in poop.

  “Ew,” Tally says. We turn and head into the bank.

  “She really should look where she’s going,” I say.

  “No telling what you’ll step in if you don’t,” Tally says.

  After we browse the auction, we head over to where Gram is supervising the swimming pool setup. She nods at us before striding over and telling one of the workers that he’s going to get hurt holding the pipe that way.

  “She seems like she’s got this,” Tally says. I nod. We head over to where Dutch is helping three men pour bags of powdered instant pudding into the hopper of a cement truck.

  A guy with HANSON’S CONSTRUCTION written on the back of his jacket looks at us and then at Dutch. “Are these the ones?”

  Dutch glances over and nods. “Yep,” he says.

  The construction guy turns and looks at us. “Me and the guys have got five hundred dollars if you can get Jed Hanson into that pool.”

  “No problem,” Tally says. The construction guy picks up another giant bag of pudding mix and rips it open. We back away to avoid being covered in pudding dust.

  “Do you even know who Jed Hanson is?” I ask.

  “Well, I’m assuming he has something to do with Hanson’s Construction,” she says.

  “How are you going to get him to agree to jump into the pudding?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “I’ll figure it out.” If anyone else said something like that, I’d be skeptical, but Tally seems to have a gift for figuring things out.

  Blake comes by after soccer practice and helps us unload the last of the bags of pudding. Who knew you could get fifty-pound bags of instant pudding? I look for Marcus, but he’s nowhere to be seen.

  At a quarter to five, Tally tells us she has to get home. “And then you’ll tell me?” I ask.

  “As soon as I know,” she says.

  “Good luck,” I say.

  “You don’t even know what you’re wishing me luck for,” she says.

  “Well, you can always use luck. Right?” Tally smiles, but she’s nervous. She was able to forget about whatever it is while we were working, but now she’s worried again. Tally checks her watch again. “Go,” I say. She hugs me and Blake and then hurries away down the sidewalk. “Do you know what this is all about?” I ask.

  Blake rubs the back of his neck and looks up at the sky. “Looks like snow,” he says. I roll my eyes. I guess there’s my answer. We help Dutch until more Hanson’s Construction workers show up in their matching coats. Apparently Tally’s assurance that Jed would take the plunge was enough to get all hands on deck. I tell Blake and Dutch I’ll see them later and head over to the bakery.

  The Cupcake Queen is slammed. The front is so full that I don’t bother trying to find a way in. I decide to walk around back. Like Tally, the business of the festival was good at distracting me, but now that I’m alone again, I can’t help but think about Marcus. He must hate me. Or at least think I’m completely mental. I know I need to talk to him, but what do I say? Sorry I lost it? Sorry I didn’t trust you?

  I pull open the back door to the bakery and head inside. My mom is standing at the island, piping frosting onto cupcakes. “Hi,” she says. She pauses in the middle of a cupcake. “You okay?”

  “I’ve had better days,” I say.

  “Me, too,” she says.

  “You’re swamped,” I say.

  She nods. “I only just got here. I had a meeting in Lancaster that ran long and I only just got back.”

  “Was it about Tally?” I ask. She bites her lip and nods. “She told me she’d tell me everything”—I check the clock—“in two hours and seventeen minutes.”

  My mother nods. “Good,” she says. “I’m tired of keeping things from you.” She looks at the trays of cupcakes littering the kitchen. “How many cupcakes do you think you can frost in two hours and seventeen minutes?” my mother asks.

  “A thousand?” I guess.

  “Well, I don’t think we’ll need that many, but that’s good to know for the future.” She puts down her pastry bag and wipes her hands with a towel. “I’ll be out front,” Mom says. “Mrs. Hancock’s been helping out.” She makes a face. I’m sure Mrs. Hancock is excellent at antiques, but maybe not so much at cupcakes. I head to the sink to wash my hands and then grab an apron. I refill the pastry bag with ice-blue frosting from the mixing bowl, and then I start frosting. When I run out of blue, I switch bags and continue with white.

  Mom comes in to grab a tray of cupcakes to replenish the front. She pauses next to me and sniffs. Then she leans toward me and sniffs again. “Why do you smell like maple syrup?”

  “It’s a long story,” I say.

  “I definitely want to hear it.” There’s a crash out front. “Later,” she says, hurrying back through the door to the front.

  I quit at 648 cupcakes. Then I start cleaning up. Gram shows up just as I am wiping down the counters.

  “Brr,” she says, rubbing her arms to get warm.

  “How’s the Pudding Plunge coming along?” I ask.

  “The pool is almost halfway full,” Gram says. “Those boys from Hanson’s told me they’d finish up. They’re really motivated.”

  “Well, that’s good” is all I say. I just hope Tally can come through on her promise.

  I’m standing with Gram on the back porch while Mom locks the back door. On the way to the car
, Gram says she almost forgot to tell us, but we’re having dinner with Dutch.

  “Who’s having dinner with Dutch?” Mom asks.

  “All of us,” Gram says.

  Mom sighs. She looks exhausted. “Mom, can’t we do this another night? I’m tired.”

  “Nope,” Gram says. “I already told him we’d come. Besides, there’s nothing but PB&J’s waiting for us at home.”

  “But I need to talk to Tally,” I say. And Marcus, I think.

  “Tally will call when she’s ready,” Gram says. “I told him we’d be there at half past six.”

  “We’d better get going, then,” Mom says. We head toward Gram’s car. I pull open the back door and slide in. Mom and Gram get into the front seat.

  Gram turns to look at both of us. “I really appreciate you coming,” she says. “The truth is he asked me to dinner, but I didn’t want it to seem like a date.”

  We head out toward the street. Gram turns right onto the county road. They already have Main Street blocked off, so we need to go the long way around. “So, Gram,” I say, “when are you going to tell us about what happened between you and Dutch?” I decide to use her gratitude as a little leverage to see if I can get any information out of her.

  Gram looks at me in the rearview mirror. She knows exactly what I’m doing. “It’s not really that complicated,” she says. “After your granddad died, Dutch started helping out. Mowing the grass. Replacing some shingles on the roof. I’d known him for years, of course, and we’d dated a few times, but nothing serious. About two years after your granddad died, he popped the question.”

  “He asked you to marry him?” I ask.

  “He asked me to go to California with him. Marriage was mixed in there somewhere, but I didn’t want to leave here. I was a single mom with a toddler and no money. I didn’t want to move two thousand miles away from everything I knew.”

  “So you told him no,” I say.

  “I told him not yet,” Gram says. “But he was impatient. And we fought. Then one day he said he was going and I could come or not. I chose not.”

  I lean forward so that I can see my mom. “And you didn’t know anything about this?” I ask.

  “Not a thing,” she says.

  “So that’s it,” Gram says.

  “And you never spoke again?” I ask.

  “There were a few letters back and forth,” she says. “But eventually we didn’t have much more to say to each other. The day I saw him on Main Street was the first time I’d seen him in almost thirty-five years.” Gram turns left and heads back into the woods. We ride along in silence for a few minutes. Then Gram looks at me again in the mirror. “Your turn,” she says.

  “My turn to what?” I ask.

  “Well, for starters, tell me why you smell like the International House of Pancakes.”

  I take a deep breath and begin. I just finish telling about Esmeralda falling in dog poop as we are pulling into Dutch’s driveway.

  Gram makes me tell Dutch about Esmeralda while I help her make the salad. Dutch is a good audience. He asks the right questions, has smart comments, and laughs in all the right places.

  “But I’m not sure I understand why she had you so upset,” Dutch says as we are sitting down to dinner. “Seems to me a little syrup, a little cheese, and a sculpture wouldn’t rile you up that much.”

  “Well,” I say, feeling my cheeks burn. “There was something else.”

  Dutch passes me the bowl of pasta and looks at me for a moment. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with that boy I met on the beach. Would it?” I nod. “Well, from what I could see, that boy is pretty taken with you.” I spoon pasta onto my plate and try not to make eye contact with anyone else at the table. “You want some advice?” Dutch asks. I look over at him. “You can say no.”

  “I’d like some advice,” I say. Because, in truth, I really have no idea what to do.

  “If he messed up, forgive him. If it was you, apologize and try to make it right. The rest is up to him.” I sigh. “Hey,” Dutch says, smiling around the table. “This is good stuff. I should be writing this down.”

  “I hate to admit it,” Gram says. “But he’s right.” My mom nods her agreement.

  “Yeah,” Dutch says. “I’m a genius. Please pass the salad.”

  During the rest of dinner, Dutch entertains us with Joy-as-a-teenager stories. “You should have seen your grandmother,” he says to me. “Pretty as a picture, but crazier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”

  Gram swats him with her napkin. “I was not.”

  “Pfft,” Dutch says. “No sane person dumps a milk shake on another person’s head for no reason.”

  “I had a reason,” Gram says. “You were talking to Mary Grace.”

  “She was talking to me,” Dutch says. Gram shakes her head. This is clearly not the first time they’ve had this conversation. Dutch looks at me. “Mary Grace just liked to stir up trouble. Plus, as far as I knew, your grandmother was only interested in me as a friend.”

  “Well, who gave you that idea?” Gram asks. Dutch mumbles something. “What’s that?”

  “Mary Grace,” he says.

  “So what did you do?” I ask.

  Dutch shrugs. “I was sweet on your grandmother plain and simple. If she just wanted to be friends, that was fine.”

  “Fine?” Gram says. “You didn’t talk to me for almost three years.”

  “We talked,” Dutch protests. “Besides, by then you were going out with Charlie,” he adds softly.

  I glance at my mother. Charlie was her father, who was killed in a car accident when she was just a baby. Gram’s green eyes are filled with sadness even after all these years. Then she smiles. “But after Charlie died, you were there.” Dutch nods. “In fact, as I remember I had a hard time being rid of you.”

  Dutch laughs. “You loved me,” he says.

  Gram nods. “Maybe.”

  “It was the pineapple upside-down cake I made for your birthday.”

  Gram shakes her head. “You know what it was.”

  “Butterflies,” he says.

  She nods.

  “Butterflies?” I ask.

  Gram smiles. “He showed up at my door and asked me to come outside. He had this container full of butterflies he’d been raising. He released them into the air. I’ll never forget those orange-and-black butterflies against the blue sky.” She looks wistfully at my mom. “You already thought Dutch hung the moon, but you loved those butterflies.”

  I look at my mom, trying to see her as a toddler clinging to Gram and watching butterflies gliding up into the sky.

  “What did you do?” I ask Gram.

  “Well, I kissed him.”

  “Wow,” I say. “And then what?”

  “Well, a couple of weeks later, he left.”

  Dutch nods. “Biggest mistake of my life.” Dutch tells us he’ll be right back. He walks toward the back bedroom and returns with a box draped with a piece of fabric. He puts it on the table in front of Gram.

  “What’s this?” Gram asks.

  He pulls off the cloth, revealing a cage full of what look like gray leaves. He grins. I lean forward and peer into the cage. What I thought were leaves are actually a dozen or more caterpillars tucked away in their cocoons. “Wrong time of year for butterflies,” he says. “They’ll hatch in the spring when it’s warm enough. I just didn’t want to wait that long.” I glance over at Mom, who looks like she’s about to start crying. “Joy, I was a fool not to come back. I thought I needed to find something out there, but what I really needed was right here all along.”

  Gram looks at the cage full of cocoons. Then at me and at my mom. She finally looks at Dutch. Then she kisses him. And I know it’s all kinds of weird to see your grandmother kissing someone, even someone as awesome as Dutch, but it was nice. At least the first time. The second time after pecan pie and the third time while doing dishes was too much. And I let them know it.

  Gram laughed and sa
id I better get used to it. Dutch smiled. I can tell he liked that idea just fine.

  “Thank you for dinner,” I say as we’re heading out. “And for the advice.”

  “You are mighty welcome, Miss Penny.” Then he turns to Gram, who is organizing his bookcase. “Hey,” he says. “I had everything just where I wanted it.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time you had no idea what was good for you.” Then they’re off again.

  Mom smiles at me and I shake my head. Love can sure be weird.

  Where’s a line of cars driving past Gram’s house. People are holding their phones out of their windows and snapping photos of all of the Christmas decorations. We have to wait for a gap in the line before we can pull into the driveway. The yard is so bright, it almost looks like it’s the middle of the day. Gram has everything on a timer, so pretty much the minute the sun is gone, her house lights up like—well, like Christmas. The lights are blinking, the polar bears are dancing, and Tally is waiting on our front porch.

  “Hi,” I say. Mom and Gram both say hello to Tally before walking around us and into the house. I sit beside Tally on the porch. The wind is starting to blow, but we’re protected where we’re sitting.

  I check my watch. Almost nine. “How long have you been here?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “Not long. Ten minutes maybe.”

  “I thought you were going to call me,” I say.

  “Well, you weren’t home,” Tally says.

  “You could have tried my mom’s cell. I asked her to keep it on during dinner.”

  “You’re right. I should have called,” she says. “I’m sorry.” Her sorry is very different from my dad’s. His was barely an apology. I know Tally means hers. She looks at me, waiting.

  “I forgive you,” I say. “But next time. Call.”

  “Done,” she says. And unlike when my father assures me of something, I believe her.

  “So, what happened?” I ask.

  “There was a meeting. And then Poppy and I needed to talk and then there was ice cream.”