Truth Game (10 page)

The minute Briana comes into the bakery, she shoots me a look that could easily slice someone in half. That's not unusual for her, but the fact that she's not on her phone tells me something is up.

“What's wrong with you?” I ask. I'm in too foul of a mood to even try to be nice.

“As if you don't know,” she says.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Oh come on, like you couldn't wait to tell everyone that I worked here the minute you saw me in this stupid apron. I bet you loved seeing the ‘queen bee' taken down, right?”

And suddenly I understand why she's so angry. She must have seen the stuff I wrote about her in the Truth Game.

“Thanks to you,” she goes on, “Caitlin and Steve and everyone else think I'm a complete loser.”

“I didn't even use your name!” I say, but she's glaring at me as she goes to lean against the counter.

“Why do you care so much about people finding out you work here, anyway?” I say. “You're not the first person to ever have a job, you know.”

“Just because you don't care about being a freak doesn't mean I have to be happy about it,” she spits out. Then she does something I would never, ever, ever expect from Briana in a gazillion years. She starts to cry.

I stare at her in total shock for a second as tears drip from her perfectly mascaraed eyes. And then she turns and runs into the bathroom, pushing past Cherie who's coming out of the kitchen.

“Is she okay?” Cherie asks.

“I don't know.” I go to send Evan a message about it, only to realize that he probably doesn't want to talk to me. “I'm sure she'll be fine.”

“Well, I have some goodie bags that need filling,” Cherie says. “Are you up for it?”

Great. More grunt work. “Can't I help with the cupcakes for this weekend?” Chef Ryan has been working on a crazy cupcake tower for a sweet sixteen party.

“He told me you'd ask about that,” she says with a chuckle. “He said he'll let you put the sprinkles on top when he's done. How's that?”

I sigh. It's better than nothing, I guess. I really wish Chip Ackerson would get in touch with me already, but I still haven't heard anything. And if Chef Ryan doesn't let me anywhere near the Montelle-Brennan wedding cake, then I really might miss my chance.

When Cherie's gone, I hesitate for a second and then pick up the phone and dial the Town Center Inn. I cross my fingers that the old lady I saw the other day answers, and I'm in luck!

“Um, hi,” I say. “I don't know if you remember me, but I dropped off some pastries for one of your, um, lodgers the other day.”

“Oh yes, for Mr. Ackerson. He said he quite enjoyed them.”

“He did?” I almost shriek. “Did he say anything else?”

“No…” she says slowly. “He did seem a little confused about the whole thing, but then he said it had to be the universe telling him he was on the right path.”

Oh my goldfish. Chip Ackerson believes in that kind of stuff too!

The old woman laughs. “I guess when you spend most of your life staring into a crystal ball, you should know a thing or two about life's many paths.”

I pause. “Crystal ball?” Is Chip into that kind of stuff and I had no idea? It's never been mentioned in any of the articles I've read about him.

“Yes, that's what people like him do, isn't it? Crystal balls, tarot cards, that sort of thing. I imagine they have pretty much everything at that convention of his.”

“Convention?” I echo, remembering how she'd mentioned one when I'd been at the inn the other day. “He's here for a convention?”

“Yes, a spirituality and healing one, I think it's called. A lot of New Age nonsense, if you ask me, but his business seems to be doing well, so good for him.”

“His business?” I ask, feeling like a parrot.

“Yes, he sells crystals, the healing-energy kind, I guess. He tried to sell me one, but I told him that at my age it's too late for any of that.”

“Are you talking about Chip Ackerson?” I say.

“No, no,” she says. “Not Chip. Chet. Chet Ackerson. Wait, I thought you knew him. Isn't that why you brought those pastries over?”

I close my eyes, defeat slowly creeping through my entire body. “I guess I was wrong,” I say.

• • •

“What are you doing here?” Marisol demands when she opens her front door.

“Did you really see Chip Ackerson at the grocery store, or were you playing a prank on me?”

She blinks at me, obviously surprised. “Yeah, I saw him. Why would I lie about that?” She snorts. “Oh wait, I'm not as honest as I seem, right? Isn't that what you said about me?”

“Marisol, I'm serious. Was it him?” I hold up my phone and show her a picture of Chip. She studies it for a second, and her dark eyebrows knit together.

“It looked like him,” she says slowly, “but the guy I saw had more gray hair. And…well, maybe his nose was a little different.”

I let out a long breath. “And when you called hotels, who did you ask for?”

She looks at me like I'm crazy. “I told you, I asked around for Chet Ackerson. What's going on? You say all that stuff about me in your stupid game, and now you show up and start grilling me about Chet?”

“Chip!” I cry. “It's Chip Ackerson! Not Chet! The guy you found is some healing-crystal salesman. I knew it was weird that he'd be staying at that inn, but I figured you were trying to help me, so why would I doubt what you said?”

“I
was
trying to help you!” Marisol says. “I feel like all I do is try to help you, and it's never good enough.”

“What are you talking about? You spend all your time focused on the Fashion Club or on Andrew. You don't even care what's been going on with me.”

“Are you kidding? That's all I hear about! ‘Chip has to know what a great cook I am. What recipe should I make for Chip? Do you think I'll ever get on TV?' Since when do you care about that kind of stuff? And the minute I ask you for help, you tell me you're too busy.”

“That's not true!”

“I asked you to pick out fabric with me and to help me come up with club goals and stuff, and you were so busy thinking about getting on TV that you just brushed it off.”

I want to deny it, but I can't. Because she's right. “But you don't understand. I've been so—”

“Not everything is about you, Rachel!” Marisol cries. “Don't you get that?” Then she does something I would never, ever expect of my best friend. She slams the door in my face.

When I go to meet my dad at his new job at the canoe shop, I find him inside a huge box truck unloading kayak after kayak with one of the younger guys who works at the store.

“I'll be with you in a minute, Rachel Roo,” my dad says. “Only thirty more to go!” He has a huge grin on his face, as if he's having a great time, even though I can tell by how filthy and sweaty he is that he's been doing this for at least an hour. The guy he's working with looks at him like he's insane.

As I sit in the corner of the shop, my phone beeps. It's a new message from Mom.
Robert said we can start bringing things over this weekend.

Before I know it, a couple of tears have trickled down my cheeks.

“Ready to go get some dinner?” Dad asks. Then he must see my face because he rushes over. “Roo, what's wrong?”

I can't exactly pretend that nothing is wrong, so I tell him about Marisol and Evan being mad at me and about the stupid mix-up with Chip-Chet. “And on top of all that,” I say, “I thought I was okay with the whole moving thing, but now I'm not so sure.”

Over the summer, I even told my mom that she should go ahead and look for apartments for us since it was getting harder for her to pay our mortgage. But after her cleaning business merged with Ladybug Cleaners, it looked like we might be able to stay in the house after all. Now I have to get used to the idea of moving all over again.

“Oh, I know, Roo,” Dad says, putting his arm around me even though he's covered in grime. “You've never been that great with change.”

His words make me feel better, but it's not because of his sympathy. It's because I realize that I'm being my old self, the one who was afraid of changing the way she cut her caramel squares because she'd always done it a certain way. But new-and-improved me isn't afraid of new things. I mean, she climbed a wall! That means she can deal with moving too, right?

“I'll get over it,” I say, wiping my eyes. “And my room at Mr. Hammond's house is going to be twice the size of my room now. That's definitely a plus.”

“There you go,” Dad says as we head over to his car. “And if it makes you feel any better, I looked at an apartment down the street from our—ahem, I mean,
your mom's
house. So if I wind up getting it, you'll at least be in the same neighborhood when you come stay with me.”

“You did? No more living in a hotel?” I ask, getting into the passenger seat.

“Nope!” Dad says. “And the place has a nice big kitchen, so you'll have plenty of room to bake your amazing creations.”

I sigh. “I don't know how amazing they are. I'm supposed to be working on a birthday cake for Angela Bareli's birthday party, but I can't come up with any good ideas.”

“What have you tried so far?”

I list off the different ideas I had, but all of them seem so boring. “I feel like I need to do something really big, you know? Something that people won't be able to miss.”

“You know, I feel like I've spent years trying to find something big,” he says. “Switching jobs, moving to Florida. But all it did was make me realize that the stuff that mattered to me was the everyday, ordinary stuff.”

“Are you calling me ordinary?” I tease.

He tugs on my ear. “You? Never. All I'm saying is, maybe you don't always have to go for something over-the-top to make a big impression.”

That sounds nice, but Dad doesn't get it. Angela's party is going to be as over-the-top as it gets. The cake has to match it. And I have to come in with a cake that blows Chef Ryan's cake out of the water, one that Angela will definitely choose. But maybe Dad is right. Maybe if I put a few boring things together, I might wind up with something interesting.

• • •

I spend the next few days furiously testing out ideas for Angela's cake. I even try an ants on a log–inspired cake just in case Mrs. Da Silva is secretly a genius. (Verdict: dis-gus-ting!)

At least focusing on Angela's cake helps distract me from the fact that Marisol and Evan may never speak to me again. I've tried calling and texting and emailing Marisol, but she hasn't been responding to any of my messages. And the one time I got up the courage to call Evan, I hung up before he answered. He must have seen that he had a missed call from me, but I haven't heard back.

Ugh. I can't think about that right now. Cake first. Personal crisis second.

Finally, the morning of Angela's party, I finish the cake and step back, admiring my work. It's huge and sparkly and the definition of over-the-top. It's covered with flowers and bows and candy, and I even hung a few streamers from the bottom and stuck a shiny birthday hat on top. You can't get any more little kid birthday party than this, and I know Angela is going to die when she sees it.

“That looks like it should be in a magazine!” Mom says when she spots the final product sitting on the counter. “Or in an art museum!”

“Mom,” I say, rolling my eyes, but I can't help smiling at the compliment. Even though it felt like torture getting to this point, I'm excited to show the cake to Chef Ryan. Yes, he might be mad at me for going behind his back, but when he sees how right I was about Angela's cake, he'll definitely have me assist him with the Montelle-Brennan cake. He'd be crazy not to.

“Can you help me get it over to the bakery?” I ask. “Angela is going to be there in an hour.”

Mom nods. “As long as you don't mind stopping at Robert's house on the way back. I wanted to measure his living room to see if our couch will fit.”

I swallow. The thought of our furniture sitting in someone else's living room still makes me a little sick to my stomach, but I force myself to smile and say, “Sure.”

We oh-so-carefully slide the cake into the back of Mom's minivan. I'd put it in a large box, and now I stuff blankets and pillows all around it so there's no way it can get wrecked. When we get to the bakery, Mom helps me carry it inside. It feels like we're transporting the Crown Jewels instead of baked goods, but I'm so glad that Mom understands how important it is for this cake to get there in perfect condition.

“I'm going to run to the bank,” Mom says. “Good luck!” she adds in a whisper before ducking outside.

“Rachel, what are you doing here?” Chef Ryan asks when he sees me. “Isn't it your day off?”

“I'm dropping off a cake I made for a client,” I say, trying to pretend it's the most natural thing in the world.

He raises a thick eyebrow. “Come again?”

“Um, Angela Bareli is doing a little-kid birthday party, right?” I rush to explain. “And she was worried that your cake might not be right for it, so I thought I'd go ahead and make a second cake just in case, as a backup, you know? In case she liked mine better and wanted to use it.”

He stares at me for a long moment. Then his nostrils flare, and he opens the box. He's totally silent as he examines it. Then he says, “It's good.”

I let out a breath. He likes it. He actually likes it!

Chef Ryan starts to say something else, but at that moment, Angela bursts into the bakery and gasps when she sees my cake on the counter. “Is that mine?” she shrieks and then starts bouncing around the bakery as she gushes about the colors and the frosting. “It's amazing!” Then her smile dims a little. “Although…it seems a little…busy. Like, my eye doesn't really know where to look. Is there any way we could, I don't know, take a couple things off?”

I swallow. “Maybe the streamers?” I pull them off and hide them behind my back, but Angela's still frowning. “And maybe the cake topper?” I add as I yank the party hat off.

“That's better,” she says, but her forehead is still lined. “And maybe…” She chews on her lip for a second. “We could take off some of the flowers or something?”

It took me forever to make the flowers, and now she wants to take them off? But the customer is always right.

Before I can destroy the cake any more though, Chef Ryan turns to Angela and says, “Hold on a second. I want to show you something.” He goes into the back room and emerges a minute later with another cake box. When he opens it, Angela gasps as she looks at the perfectly smooth frosting and the tastefully arranged pink and purple flowers.

“That's it!” she yells. “I can't believe it. Did you guys make two cakes for me to choose from because you knew I was so nervous about it being perfect? That's amazing!”

After Chef Ryan's cake is loaded in Mrs. Bareli's car, Angela gives me a big hug and says, “Thank you, Rachel! I'll see you at the party tonight, okay?”

I nod and manage a smile, but the last thing I feel like doing is celebrating.

When Angela's gone, Chef Ryan gets very quiet. I notice his lips are so straight, you could use them as a ruler. He's usually hard to read, but this is stoic even for him. I can't tell if he's proud of me or about to announce that I'm fired.

“What were you thinking, Rachel?” he finally asks in an odd, quiet voice. “Going behind my back like that?”

“I-I was trying to help,” I say, but of course that's not quite true. I was trying to impress him, even if it meant bending the rules a little bit. I guess my new self couldn't quite shake my old self's bad habits.

“You've been asking me to let you help with big projects, but how can I do that? Especially after this? I was going to start training you for some more responsibilities, but now I think that will have to wait until you can prove to me that you can be trusted.”

“But…but Angela's cake was good! You said so yourself! It was exactly what she asked for.”

“It was good,” Chef Ryan says, “but it wasn't your best work. I didn't see your skill and your passion in it.”

“My passion?”

“That's why Angela wasn't completely satisfied. It lacked finesse. It was good, but it wasn't great. It didn't feel like you.”

“But…but…” I try to object, but I realize he's right. Normally when I'm baking, inspiration hits and I make something that I'm really excited about. This time, I focused on something that fit the theme, something bigger and crazier than anything I would have normally made.

“I know you can do excellent work, Rachel. That's why I'm pushing you to get the basics down cold. Once you have those under your belt and you know your own limits, you'll be a fine baker.”

I know I should be glad that he's trying to help, but I've already come so far and it's still not good enough. At this rate, it feels like I'll never get to where I want to be.