The Cupcake Queen (11 page)

Most of me says to forget about all of this. By the time the festival comes around and Charity is up onstage vying for the crown, I’ll have figured out a way to get my old life back. I’ll be back in the City and telling all my friends about this and they’ll be laughing and saying, “No way!” I’ll have to keep saying “Way!” because they’ll never believe a place like this exists. Unfortunately it’s only most of me and not all. There’s this tiny part of me that actually does care about all of this, and I need to get out of here before that part takes over.

 

 

I’m supposed to deliver the message about the apartment papers to my mom and I will, but only if she talks to me first. I know it’s stupid. I know it’s just a dumb game that I’m playing, but we’ve been in the house together, just the two of us, for almost three hours and she hasn’t said one word to me. Not one. Since we’ve moved here, she keeps drifting further and further away, drifting back just enough to make a comment about how what I’m wearing or what I’m doing is wrong before she floats away again. If she isn’t going to talk to me, then I’m not going to talk to her. I even put my shoes on the couch, but all she did was look at my feet and frown. She’s been going through pictures, putting some in a box marked ME and some in a box marked PETER. I notice that all of the photos of their wedding go in my dad’s box. I’m not an idiot. It’s not like I need a big flashing neon sign to tell me that things have gotten worse between them since we moved to Hog’s Hollow. But for once I’d like someone to just talk to me. I want to shout that at the back of my mother’s head:
Just talk to me!
But I don’t, because maybe if no one says anything out loud, it can still change.

Oscar walks through, holding his stuffed bear in his mouth, and my mother smiles over at him. The cat gets a smile. She doesn’t even look at me when I stand up. I walk into the library and sit down in front of the computer. I check my e-mail. Nothing. I e-mailed my two best friends in the City last night, mostly questions about what they’re doing, but also wanting to talk to someone about things. Normally I’d just call or text one of them, but it feels weird now. I feel the same disconnect that I have with my dad. Like everyone is pretending that everything is normal and nothing has changed, but the reality is that everything has changed and nothing feels normal at all.

The phone rings and my mother answers it. I brace myself, hoping it’s not my father.

“It’s Tally,” my mom says. So, officially I should tell her about the papers because she talked to me, but she
had
to talk to me, so it doesn’t count. I’m not sure what I’m trying to prove. I mean, the papers are going to get signed and they are going to sell the apartment and no one’s going to tell me anything until it’s done.

“Hello?” I say when I pick up the phone.

“What are you doing right now?” Tally asks.

I look around the room for a moment before admitting the obvious. “Nothing.”

“Good,” she says. “Then grab your umbrella and get down here. I have something to show you.” The phone goes dead.

I’m not sure I’m up for being around other people right now. I think about calling her back. Think about making up some reason that I can’t go, but then my mother walks past on her way to the stove and she doesn’t even look in my direction.

“I’m going to Tally’s,” I say, my hand already on the back doorknob. She looks at me and nods, then considers the kettle in her hand. I pause for a moment with the door partly open. She looks so sad. I should say something. I want to say something, but I don’t know what. I start to ask if she would rather I stay, if she wants to talk or play chess or make cookies, but then she looks at me again, the frown back on her face.

“Close the door. You’re letting all the heat out.”

I shake my head, grab my windbreaker off the back hook, and put it on, pulling the hood over my head. I have to run all the way down to Tally’s to keep from getting drenched, but the cold feels good on my face. I let my hood fall away from my head and feel my hair whip behind. I wonder if Marcus feels like this when he runs. Like he’s able to get a couple of steps ahead of everything.

I can see the lights from Tally’s house up ahead. They seem to glow in the fog. I feel winded when I slow down in front of the stairs leading up to her house. As I climb the warped steps, I think about the problem with running from your trouble. The problem is in the stopping. The whole time you think you’re getting away from everything, the trouble is running like mad, too, trying to catch up with you. And it doesn’t slow down when you do—it keeps on sprinting. So when trouble finally reaches you, it hits you hard.

chapter twelve

You have got to see this,” Tally says, pulling the sleeve of my jacket and leading me to her computer. Almost the whole screen is filled with an image of a can of lard. Along the bottom are some of those before-and-after photos you see of women on infomercials. The first shows each woman in a too-small bathing suit, standing in bad lighting. The second shows them smiling, in full makeup, and pushed and pulled and tucked until they look fit. I push my damp hair out of my eyes and sit in the other chair in front of the screen. I think about Tally’s weird new eating habits.

“Tally, are you on a diet?” I ask. She pretends not to hear me and clicks the mouse. Another site pops up, this one much busier, with links for instruction manuals, videos, application forms, and something called “Domination.” Tally clicks the
Play
button on one of the videos. First it’s just a close-up of two pairs of hands in fists, then they do the triple up-and-down move. One hand opens into paper while the other forms scissors. “This is from last year’s championship in Seattle.” A girl who looks to be about our age is handed a trophy with three faux-bronze hands, one in each position. A guy behind her, wearing a Jedi costume, looks like he’s about to cry.

“What’s with Luke Skywalker?” I ask, pointing to him.

“There are all kinds of kooks who go to these things.” I can’t help but wonder what kind of kooks
we
are.

We watch the rest of the video as they run highlights from the competition. They actually have a reporter doing the voiceover, like it’s a real sport. Tally clicks through more videos and I half watch, half listen as she talks about more strategies and tricks. She clicks the window closed, and there’s the diet site again.

Beneath all the noise coming from the videos, I can hear music playing. Soft guitar, slow and sad.

“What is that?” I ask.

Tally squints at the screen. “Just a Web site I’m fooling around with.”

“No, I mean the music.”

“Just music,” she says, quickly muting it.

“I liked it,” I say, but she’s already up and on her way to the kitchen. She takes out two glasses and opens the refrigerator. She stands there, staring at the carton of milk, the pitcher of lemonade.

“Do you ever talk to your dad?” Tally asks, still peering into the refrigerator.

“Yeah,” I say, although the truth is I don’t very much. “He’s pretty busy, though.” He’s always been busy, and not just since we moved here. Too busy for me at least.

Tally grabs the lemonade and shoves the refrigerator shut with her hip. She hits the door too hard, sending several magnets spinning across the floor. I slide my foot out of my sneaker and use my toes to pick up a broccoli magnet. She watches me and smiles. “That’s a real talent you have there.”

She pours me a glass of lemonade and slides it toward me. “My dad’s busy, too,” she says. She looks at me, as if daring me to say something.

“Where is he right now?” I ask.

She takes a long drink from her glass, watching me over the rim. When she doesn’t answer right away, I wonder if maybe I’ve overstepped. I’m about to tell her never mind, that it’s none of my business, but she finally answers. “Don’t know.” She pulls a sheet of paper off the refrigerator and reads it. “Looks like Seattle.” She tosses the paper on the counter. “Maybe.”

“Why maybe?” I ask.

“Probably,” she says. She finishes her lemonade and puts her glass back on the counter. Hard.
Probably
sounds only slightly more solid than
maybe.

“Do you miss him?” I ask.

She shrugs and picks up her father’s schedule. She folds it in half, then half again. She flips it as she folds, making hard creases with the side of her fingernail. “Sure,” Tally says. “Of course I miss him.” She keeps fiddling with the schedule, folding and refolding, not looking at me. “It was really good for a while, you know?” Her voice gets so quiet I have to lean forward to hear her. “It was just him and me. I’d always sit right up front when he played.” She smiles at the folded paper in her hands. “At first it was just small places, clubs and bars, but then one of his songs started getting a lot of play time.” She peeks at me through her hair. I nod, encouraging her. Her face is so sad, I feel like hugging her, but she’s still messing with the paper. Tally looks down again and continues. “He got better gigs. Bigger venues. He started leaving me back at the hotel sometimes.” She smiles over at me. “I used to raid the vending machines and stay up watching television or playing on his laptop until he got back.”

“That sounds fun,” I say. She nods. “And lonely.”

Tally frowns. “Yeah, sometimes.” Her voice gets softer. “A couple of times he didn’t come back until the next day.”

From the look on her face I’d be willing to bet that it was more than a couple of times.

“Were you scared, all alone like that?” I ask.

“He said he didn’t have a choice.” She looks up at me. I nod, unconvinced. “It wasn’t like I could just tag along all the time, you know?”

“Then what happened?” I ask gently. “What brought you here?”

Her eyes get wet, and she brushes them with the back of her hand. “There was this one time he didn’t come back for three days.”

I can’t keep the shock from my face.

“The maids were coming by the room, wanting to clean it. And someone from the front desk kept calling and asking when we were checking out. I didn’t know what to tell them. I mean, I wasn’t supposed to let anyone in. Or go anywhere.” A couple of tears splash onto the counter.

“What did you do?” I ask, trying to think of what I’d do if I was stranded in a hotel somewhere.

“I called Poppy. When I told her where I was, she got on a plane.” She wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. “Just because I said I needed her.” From the tone of her voice, Tally still seems awed by what Poppy did for her, as if she didn’t deserve it.

“You did the right thing,” I say.

She nods halfheartedly. “It didn’t exactly win Poppy any points with my dad. That was over a year ago.”

I don’t know what to say. When we first met, she told me she was just here for a while. That her dad was coming back to get her soon.

She opens up the paper, revealing a sleek airplane, all points and angles. She lifts the plane and looks down its back. She pulls back her arm and lets the plane fly. It goes straight and fast, the way my paper airplanes never do. Until the end, when, instead of landing smoothly, it suddenly just drops to the floor, its folds opened up.

The phone rings, making both of us jump. Tally wipes her eyes again and sniffs before picking it up. “Talk to me,” she says. She listens. I take a sip of lemonade and try to let her story sink in. “Hey, Monkey Toes,” Tally says, her voice happy. I look up and see she’s smiling at me. “Want to go somewhere?”

“Where to?” I ask.

“It’s a surprise,” Tally says, making her eyes go big. “You in?”

“Sure,” I say. I drain the last of my lemonade and put my glass in the sink. I follow Tally onto the front porch and out onto the road. I want to say something hopeful, something that will make everything better, but I can’t even make my own life okay. How can I possibly make Tally’s life okay?

But she seems back to her old silly self. “Monkey Toes,” Tally says, pulling her hair back into an elastic. “I like it. It could totally be your RPS name.”

“I have to be Monkey Toes?”

“It could be worse,” she says, checking Poppy’s mailbox among the clump of them at the entrance to the cove.

“Monkey Face?” I ask.

“Yeah, that would be worse.” Tally flips through several envelopes, then puts them all back in the box. “But I meant Blake’s.” We head out onto the main road, where she stops. “Blake’s mom is picking us up,” Tally says. We wait, watching the storm clouds blow across the sky. “You’ll like her. Although, sometimes she’s too mom-ish,” Tally says, stuffing her hands in her pockets. “Always worrying if I’m warm enough or if I’ve had enough to eat.”

“My mom does that, too,” I say.
Or did,
I think.

“Between Poppy and Blake’s mom, I’ve got a double helping.”

I want to ask about her real mom, but I figure talking about one missing parent was enough for today. So instead I ask about Blake. “What’s the deal with Blake’s hair?”

Tally laughs. “When I first moved here he had this sad mullet thing.” I squinch up my face, making Tally laugh harder. “It was bad.” She shakes her head. “He was my first friend when I moved here. My only friend.” She’s quiet for a moment, thinking. Then she smiles at me. “So, want to know Blake’s nickname?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “Major Manure.”

I raise my eyebrows. “That
is
worse,” I say. “Why?”

“One, he lost a bet. And two—you’ll see.” Tally lifts her hand to wave as a red farm truck slows down and pulls onto the shoulder. As we walk toward the truck, a rich earthy smell gets stronger and stronger. Tally pulls open the passenger door and slides into the middle. I say “hi” when she introduces me to Blake’s mom. It isn’t until we’re under way that I realize what’s in the back. Even a city girl like me knows what manure looks like, and lucky me, now I’m aware of what it smells like when a mountain of it is about three inches away. Tally laughs when she sees my face.