It's Raining Cupcakes (4 page)

Now Sophie smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand in a very dramatic way, snapping me back to reality about my moneymaking dilemma. “Oh my gosh, Is, I have the perfect solution. I can't believe I almost forgot to tell you. Does your mom still get
Baker's Best
magazine?”

“I don't think so,” I said. “At least, I haven't seen one lying around lately. Why?”

She reached over and opened the top drawer of her desk. I sat up as she handed me a magazine, open to a
page that read
BAKING CONTEST FOR KIDS AGES 9—14.

“A baking contest?” I asked her, my heart starting to pound inside my chest. “Are you going to enter?”

She nodded, and her eyes got really big. “Grand prize is a thousand dollars. But you have to come up with a recipe on your own. No one can help you. Not your mom, not your grandma, no one.”

My eyes skimmed the rules. They were looking for a completely original dessert recipe. Each entry would be graded on easiness to prepare, uniqueness, presentation, and taste. All entries had to be postmarked by August 1, which wasn't that far away.

When I got to the bottom of the paragraph, I jumped off the bed. “Finalists will be flown to New York City along with one parent or guardian for a bake-off!” I yelled. “Sophie, we could go to New York! The Statue of Liberty. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Radio City Music Hall!”

“Does it say how many finalists there'll be?” she asked.

“No. But wouldn't it be fun if we both made it?”

She sat down on her suitcase, reached down, and flipped the latches closed. “It would be a blast.” Then
she pointed her finger at me. “As long as you know I'm in it to win.”

I smiled. “What do you want the money so bad for, anyway?”

She stood up and took the suitcase off her bed, and then, with a loud grunt, dropped it on the floor. “The future. As for the present, I think I packed too much. I have to pack in case it's ninety degrees or forty. How come Oregon's weather is so unpredictable, anyway?”

“Wait a minute. What do you mean the future? Like college?”

She took the magazine from my hand and threw it on the bed. “Maybe. Come on. Time for you to go home so I can get my toiletries packed. Isn't that a stupid word? Toiletries? It makes it sound like the stuff comes from the toilet.”

She walked me to the door, and I gave her a quick hug. “See you when you get back,” I told her. “I'll be practicing recipes while you're gone.”

“I should have waited and told you after camp,” she said. “Now you have the unfair advantage. Especially since I'll only have a few days to make the deadline
when I get home. I'll have to work fast.”

“Hey, maybe while you're at camp, you'll come up with a new and improved s'more recipe.”

“How can you improve the s'more? It's, like, chocolaty marshmallow perfection.”

“Bye, Sophie Bird. See you in three.”

“Bye, Chickarita. Be good.”

I made a quick note in my passport book:

I've heard walking down a busy sidewalk in New York

is like swimming in a sea of people.

I love to swim and I love people,

so of course I would love

New York!

—IB

I hopped on my bicycle, my thoughts turning faster than the spokes underneath me. A trip to New York and a thousand dollars!

I knew I just had to win that baking contest. Even if it meant, for once, that something didn't go Sophie's way.

W
hen I got home, Grandma was there, helping Mom in the kitchen. The apartment smelled spicy, like cinnamon.

“Izzy!” Grandma said when I walked in. She was the only one who ever called me that. “Just in time to try our latest creation. After I get a hug, of course.”

I wrapped my arms around her tiny waist and let
her squeeze me real tight, being careful not to bump her pink pillbox hat.

Grandma always wears a hat. Her closet has two long shelves with stacks of hatboxes piled high. Inside are hats with veils, hats with beads, hats with feathers, hats with sequins—just about any kind of hat you can imagine. My grandpa was in the hatmaking business for a long time, until hats went out of style. He moved on to other things, but he always had a soft spot for hats, and it made him happy when Grandma wore them. Even after he died a few years ago, she kept wearing them. Some of the hats she has are probably sixty years old, and she usually has a crazy story about each one. I never know if she's serious or just making it up.

“Nice outfit,” I told her when I pulled away. Underneath her apron, I could see she had on a tailored white and pink pantsuit. Since she always wore a hat, she felt like she had to dress up to match.

“Thanks, cupcake,” she said. “You're looking quite ducky yourself.”

“Ducky” is Grandma's favorite word. Says it all the time. Drives Mom crazy.

“This hat,” she continued, “is just like one the First Lady Jackie Kennedy wore that sad, sad day her husband died. I met Jackie Kennedy once, many years ago, at a fundraising dinner, did you know that? Lovely lady. We exchanged the usual pleasantries, then she leaned in to whisper in my ear. Why, my heart started racing, because I thought she was going to tell me some big secret. But you know what she said?” She paused to give a little giggle. “She told me that I had a smudge of lipstick on my teeth. Wasn't that kind of her? It really felt like we had been friends forever.”

I nodded like I always did when she started talking about people like that. Then my eyes traveled around the kitchen. A stack of dirty bowls sat next to the sink. About eight trays of cupcakes, most with one missing, were scattered across the gray Formica countertops. “Doing a little baking, huh?”

“Oh yes. We've been perfecting one of our eight flavors. Carrot cake with cream-cheese frosting. Want to try the latest batch? We just frosted them.”

I shrugged. I didn't really
like
carrot cake. “No, thanks. Are you sure you want carrot cake as one
of the eight? I mean, is anyone really going to pick carrots over chocolate?”

The whole time Grandma and I had been having this exchange, Mom stood there, not saying anything. But as soon as I said that, she snapped out of her trance, throwing her towel on the counter. “She's right. She's absolutely right! What are we doing? We keep trying and trying to get this recipe right, when it shouldn't even be one of the eight flavors. It's boring. Vegetables are boring! We can't do carrot cake. We can't, Mom. We need to find something better.”

Grandma wrapped her arm around Mom's shoulders and started leading her out of the kitchen. “Why don't you go take a rest? We've been on our feet all afternoon. Izzy and I will clean up in here. We can try again tomorrow.”

“Wait!” I said. “Mom, before you go, I have the best news. Sophie told me about a contest in
Baker's Best
magazine. It's a baking contest for kids, ages nine to fourteen. We're both going to enter. The grand prize is a thousand dollars!”

They both turned around and looked at me,
Mom's eyes much brighter. “A baking contest? Will the finalists be on TV?”

“Um, I'm not sure. Anyway, I have to come up with a recipe and enter by the first of August. And the finalists are flown to New York City. Can you believe that? New York!”

“Oh, Isabel, you should come up with a cupcake recipe. If you make it into the finals, it could be great advertising for our little cupcake shop. We could even feature your cupcake—Isabel's cupcake—as one of the flavors of the month.”

I looked over at Grandma. She just smiled, not saying anything. It felt like my heart had jumped up into my throat.

I tried to choose my words carefully, so I wouldn't upset her. “But Mom, cupcakes are your thing. Why can't I do my own thing? Besides, if I make cupcakes, they'll think you helped me with the recipe.”

The corners of her lips turned down just slightly. “If you tell them you came up with it yourself, they'll believe you. Please, Isabel? This could be a chance for us to show the country our great little shop here. What does it matter what kind of recipe you enter, anyway?
As long as you're in the finals, right?” She smiled again. “Oh, this is going to be great. I can't wait to see what kind of cupcake recipe you come up with. All those times we've baked together will come in handy now, won't they?”

And with that, they turned and walked toward Mom's bedroom.

I went to the sink, put the stopper in the drain, and turned the water on full blast. I threw beaters, scrapers, and silverware into the water, creating splash after angry splash.

How dare she tell me what to bake for the contest! Why was everything about
her
? Couldn't she think of
me
just once? What a stupid idea. They'd call me a cheater for sure. I didn't care what she said. I wasn't doing it.

Grandma came back in and stood beside me at the sink. She reached over and turned the water off. I hadn't noticed that the water in the sink was about to overflow. “You didn't add soap,” she said softly.

I reached under the sink, grabbed the bottle of dishwashing soap, and squirted a bunch into the sink. “There. Now we have soap.”

She rolled up her sleeve, stuck her hand in the water, and stirred the water hard. Bubbles rose to the surface. Then she turned and looked at me, her eyes soft and warm, like a blanket you reach for when you want to curl up and read a book.

“I know it must be hard, honey. You had to move. Your mother is stressed about getting this business off the ground. Your dad is busy working downstairs. All I can say is, follow your heart. Think about it, and do what your heart tells you to do. You have a good heart, I know that as sure as I know your grandpa loved hats.”

Well, my heart sure didn't
feel
very good. “Grandma, I thought this was all going to make her happy. I mean, it's been me and Dad walking on eggshells around her for so long, and then, with this cupcake idea, she was finally thinking about something besides her problems for once. I thought things were going to be different. Better, you know?”

I blinked real fast, trying to keep my eyes from getting teary.

She gave me a squeeze, her wet hand cool on my shoulder. “You are an amazing girl, Izzy. I'm sorry it's so hard for you sometimes, but your mother loves
you very much. Thank goodness she has you, honey. And you know, I think deep down she is happy. We just can't see it right now because of all the other stuff she's feeling too. It's stressful right now, but it'll get better. So try not to worry, okay?”

Easy for her to say. She didn't have to live with Mom.

While Grandma went to work washing the dishes in the sink, I walked over to a pan of cupcakes, ready to change the subject. I might like parties, but pity parties aren't my idea of a good time.

“What are we supposed to do with all these cupcakes?” I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled. “Those are the rejects. They weren't quite moist enough. They may not have had enough oil in them. Or she may have overmixed them. I'm not really sure. In any event, you can throw them away. The good batch is over there.”

I followed her pointed finger to a plate of cute little cupcakes set aside, all nicely frosted, with two sliced almonds crisscrossed in the center of each.

“I'm going to go see if Stan and his wife are
around. Maybe they'll take some of these. We can't eat them all.”

“That's a ducky idea, Izzy. I'm sure they'll appreciate that.”

I walked down the hall to Stan's apartment and knocked, but nobody answered. Wondering if they'd already left for their trip, I went down the stairs and out the door, to see if the barber shop was open.

I hadn't been inside his shop before. There were two stations with big, black swivel chairs in front of mirrors along the right side of the shop. Along the back wall was a sink with a chair in front of it, and a shelf of shampoos and other products sitting above the sink. Up front, by the large picture window, sat a row of chairs with a coffee table in front of them, piled high with magazines. Two old guys sat there, reading the newspaper.

Stan was cutting a kid's hair, while the kid's dad stood beside him, watching.

“Well, Isabel, how nice to see you,” Stan said, holding his scissors up in the air. “Need a trim?”

Without thinking, I reached up and touched my straight, short brown hair. Did it look like I needed
a trim? Wasn't a barber just for men? “No, thanks. I'm good. I actually brought you some of my mom's cupcakes. We're doing a lot of baking and sampling, and one family can only eat so many, you know?”

“Pass them out,” he said, waving the scissors around. “Except for Phillip here. He needs to wait until he's done. Otherwise he'll be picking hairs out of his food right and left. And it won't be the chef's fault.”