Alexis's Cupcake Cupid (11 page)

After the movie, all the girls jumped up and ran to the ladies' room. There was lots to discuss.

“Okay, start from the beginning!” commanded Mia.

“Didn't you hear what happened? You were only a seat away,” I said.

“We were busy watching the trailers,” Katie said. “Now spill!”

I explained everything, and Emma moaned and put her hands on her head. “This is what I am always telling you guys! Jake is a menace! He ruins everything!”

“Awww, come on. He's so cute! How can you even stay mad at him?” Mia defended him.

“He's not cute,” insisted Emma.

“I think he's a cute menace,” I said with a grin.

“So does this mean you'll come to the skating party tomorrow?” asked Katie.

“I'll definitely come,” I agreed. “I have to help bring the cupcakes, anyway. I don't think I'll skate, though.” Now that I was fired up about Matt again, I
really
didn't want him to see me wobbling around on ice skates, Sasha or no Sasha.

“That's so lame! You have to skate. You took that lesson!” said Katie.

“I know, but I'll look like such a fool in front of Matt. You can't believe how bad I am.”

“You'll just have to skate with us,” said Katie. “We're your friends, and we don't care how you look on the ice. It will be fun. And we can hide you from Matt if you need us to. That's all there is to it.”

“Maybe,” I said, knowing there was no way I'd do it now. “Come on, we'd better get out there, or those guys might leave.”

“Trust me, they are not leaving,” Mia said with a laugh. But, still, we all took one last look in the mirror (I still hardly recognized myself), and we turned to leave.

But Emma caught me by the arm and whispered so the others couldn't hear. “I knew he liked you! Don't you ever worry about it again, and don't ever change. He likes you just the way you are—straight hair or curly, fancy clothes or plain, good skater or spaz. He likes you, and
I love you
!” She gave me a tight sideways squeeze.

“Thanks, Em. Love ya, too.”

“I knew I'd seen that little candy basket and ribbon somewhere before,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Oh, Jake. That little rat!”

Outside, the boys were playing arcade games, and we stood around and watched for a little while. It was almost six o'clock, and I'd have to get home soon, but George suggested we all walk across the mall for some pizza. We checked with our parents, and they extended our pick-up time to six thirty, so we raced to the pizzeria.

I caught up to Jake as we speed walked and said, “Hey, Jake, uh, do you think you'd let me have that ribbon for my memory box? I'll give you another one just like it.” I knew Mia would let me have hers. I knew it was silly, but I just wanted some part of the very first gift I'd ever received from a boy, even though I didn't actually receive the gift.

“Sure,” agreed Jake, stopping dead in the middle of the mall. He unzipped his backpack, carefully undid the ribbon, and handed it to me with a serious look on his face. “I'm sorry, Alexis. I shouldn't have taken your things.”

“That's okay, bud. I forgive you. And I know how hard it is to resist a Cupcake Club masterpiece.” I tousled his hair and he grinned.

The boys came up behind us then, and I shoved the ribbon into my pocket before Matt could see what we were doing.

“Alexis wanted your ribbon,” said Jake, and I turned beet red.

Oh, Jake!
I thought.
Right after I defended you!

“Oh yeah?” said Matt. “And I wanted her cupcake!” he added, without missing a beat.

Now Jake blushed. “Sorry, Matty.”

“Aw, that's all right. I'll just have to shake it out of you!” And he whipped Jake off his feet, turned him upside down and began shaking him by the ankles, while Jake laughed hysterically and I admired Matt's strength.

“Come on!” George called. “Stop showing off for Alexis and let's get this pizza, or it will be too late!”

Matt put down Jake, and we three walked toward the food court. Panda Gardens was closed.

“Ooh, sorry,” I said to Matt. “We'll miss you, Panda Gardens!” I called, cupping my hands on either side of my mouth.

He laughed and pulled my hands away.

“Nice try. They don't serve dinner on Thursdays. Night off.”

“Oh! Phew!” I said. “That's good news.” I really didn't want Panda Gardens to close because I know how much Matt loves their food.

“Hey, Valentine's Day is kind of a silly holiday,
isn't it?” Matt asked as we arrived at Pinocchio's Pizza.

I hesitated. I wasn't sure how to say what I felt. But then I took a deep breath. “I think it sometimes causes more harm than good, unless you sell greeting cards and candy.”

Matt laughed. “That's true,” he said.

My mom would have been proud.

P
anda cupcakes aren't as easy to make as they look.

For one thing, M&M's for ears are heavy, and they don't want to stay put when you wedge them into the outer edge of soft frosting, which is where they show them in the pictures online.

For another thing, it takes a skilled hand and lots of time and patience to make little brown-featured faces over and over again.

We learned this the hard way, at Katie's house on Friday.

The four of us Cupcakers had gone to Katie's straight from school, and we'd planned to decorate the cupcakes, then head to our respective homes to shower, change, and primp (except Mia, who'd brought her stuff, so she could get ready at Katie's).
Then we agreed we'd regroup at Katie's to bring the cupcakes to the skating party together.

Only with the cupcakes taking so long, we ran out of time to go home. And to shower. And to change.

Did I mention that making panda cupcakes is also messy work?

Here's what happened: We frosted the chocolate cupcakes in white frosting, then we let that set for a little while. We were thinking we'd just whip through the faces, so . . . maybe we watched
Ballroom Dancing
for a little too long. But we were also tired, it had been a long week—the usual. So we had about an hour left to do the decorating, then an hour to go home and change.

Mia and Katie started on the decorating, with me and Emma kind of watching, since they're the two who are good at “pretty.” (Though I am a wiz at fondant flowers; it's my specialty.)

Mia cut the end off a tube of brown gel frosting and put the M&M's in a bowl. Then she looked at the photo I'd printed from the Internet and began to do the first face.

“Wow, this is kind of . . . hard,” she admitted. “You have to stop after each feature and get the frosting to stop coming out before you can move
on to the next. See? Each cupcake is going to take a long time.”

“What?” I asked, peering over her shoulder. I knew they had this covered, so I wasn't that engaged.

“Watch.” Mia piped a blob for one eye, then she reached for a knife on the table and nicked the drip of frosting, so it wouldn't drag across the bear's white face. Then she did a blob for the next eye, then she had to do the same thing with the knife again to stop the frosting. Then she piped a nose. (“It's impossible to make this a triangle. Sorry, Lex,” she said with a shrug. “I can't imagine how they got it to look like that in the photo.”) Then she nicked the drip and then piped the mouth with a line connecting it to the nose.

“Wow. Slow,” she said, blowing upward with her mouth to get a stray strand of hair off her face.

“Who's doing the ears?” she asked.

Katie offered, and she took the cupcake and stuck the ears into the top edge of the cupcake frosting, right above the eyes.

Emma tipped her head and looked. “Cute. Ish. It will get better as you do more, Katie, I'm sure. That's just the first one.”

And then—
plink, plink!
The M&M's fell out of the frosting and onto the table.

“Wait, why's that happening?” I asked.

“The frosting's not stiff enough, darn it!” said Katie. She reached for two new M&M's (the previous ones were covered in white frosting and wouldn't work). “What if we put them in a little deeper, like this?” she asked, wedging the M&M's more on top of the frosting, kind of above the panda's eyes.

“Well, they're supposed to be coming off the top of its head. That's what makes it look like a panda,” I said. “How long will it take for the frosting to stiffen?” I asked.

“Longer than we have,” Mia said with a grimace as she looked at the clock.

Emma was biting her lip. “Also, I hate to say it, but if we have the ears coming off the head and we try to put them in the cupcake carriers, they might not fit. They'll just get knocked off as we put each cake into its slot.”

I put my head in my hands and moaned. “Is this just a total fail? Now we have three-day-old cupcakes that look bad, too.”

“They'll be fine. Kids don't care, anyway,” Katie said, bustling over to help Mia. “But I think it's all hands on deck now. Just put the ears where they'll stay.” She handed us each a tube of brown frosting,
and the kitchen fell silent as we all got to work. Soon we each had a knife in one hand as we got better at wielding the gel tubes. The M&M's ears looked funny, but it was too late to do anything else.

“These don't really scream panda,” Emma said at one point.

“Panda!” I screamed, and everyone laughed.

“Well, it
was
a good idea,” Katie said kindly. “Thanks, Alexis. Very creative.”

“Don't worry, my feelings aren't hurt. It's fine,” I said. “I just wish we had done a test batch first, the way we usually do. But these looked like they'd be easy from the photos! Oh well. Live and learn.”

I'd set a pretty high bar at the movies yesterday, appearance wise, and I knew I'd have to look great again tonight. Dylan had laid out another outfit for me and had promised to help with hair and makeup. (I'd taken perfect care of her sweater, leaving it neatly folded, with tissue, on her bed, and a five-dollar iTunes gift card I'd gotten for my birthday, sitting on top as a thank-you gift, so she was waaaay into me right now.)

At some point, Mrs. Brown came home from work, and she began helping, too. Because she's a dentist, she has a steady hand, so she can pipe frosting like a pro. I kept looking at the clock as we
went into our final hour, and with not a lot of time left until we had to leave, and with flecks of white frosting, as well as blobs of brown, all over my blue T-shirt and jeans, I started to panic.

“I . . . Would you guys mind if I called home to see if someone could bring my outfit over here?” I asked. There goes Dylan's professional hair and makeup; now Matt will probably think I look awful, I thought sadly.

“Great idea!” agreed Emma.

I dialed home and was lucky enough to get my mom on the phone, and she agreed to bring the outfit on my bed, plus swing by Emma's to pick up her outfit. So Emma called her mom to tell her what to put out, and then we went back to the decorating. It was just. So. Slow.

My mom arrived about fifteen minutes later and stayed to chat with Mrs. Brown. After a few minutes, she realized we were totally in the weeds, so she sat down and got to work too.

And then disaster struck.

With about two dozen cupcakes left to go, we ran out of brown frosting!

We had to leave for the party in fifteen minutes.

My mom and Mrs. Brown told us to run upstairs and change, and they'd figure it out. So we raced
up to Katie's room and put on our outfits. There was no time for showers, so we took turns washing our faces in the bathroom and brushing out hair. Katie generously offered us makeup and perfume and anything we wanted, but I'm not so good at putting that stuff on, and I was so stressed about the cupcakes, I just wanted to get dressed and get downstairs.

I threw on the cute outfit, which wasn't too dressy (certainly not like yesterday's)—dark-washed jeans; a pink long-sleeved T-shirt; a raspberry-colored, fitted fleece vest; and a batik scarf in pinks that I'd wound around my neck a few times, like Dylan showed me. To finish it off, my new pink ski hat. Dylan had also lent me these elaborate lace-up brown leather boots that were really complicated to put on and take off. Since I wouldn't be skating, I hadn't minded when she'd shown me how long it would take to put them on. But now that we were running so late, I didn't have time to fuss with them. I jammed my feet back into my plain brown clogs and clomped back downstairs to see if the moms had come up with a solution. And they had!

Mrs. Brown was at the stove, stirring something in a pot. I sniffed the air.

“Yum! Chocolate sauce?” I asked.

“I had an idea!” said my mom. She looked down into the pot. “That looks about right. And we don't want it too hot.”