Authors: Mar'ce Merrell
Wicked Sweet (20 page)
Che
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W
e drink at the deserted tennis courts. Parker convinced Coach Fenton to give him the key for our Friday night tournaments last year, before the turn-the-lights-out initiative killed late-night tennis. You can’t play tennis with battery-operated lanterns. Which sucks. Because I kick ass at tennis. Instead, we sit in the backcourt on camp chairs and drink beer. And, tonight, talk about what the hell I’m going to do about these cakes. It’s ridiculudicrous, even if Parker doesn’t agree.
e drink at the deserted tennis courts. Parker convinced Coach Fenton to give him the key for our Friday night tournaments last year, before the turn-the-lights-out initiative killed late-night tennis. You can’t play tennis with battery-operated lanterns. Which sucks. Because I kick ass at tennis. Instead, we sit in the backcourt on camp chairs and drink beer. And, tonight, talk about what the hell I’m going to do about these cakes. It’s ridiculudicrous, even if Parker doesn’t agree.
“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.” Parker holds up his hand. “It’s cake, not hate mail. Chocolate and … pink … whatever flavor it was, it was damn good. Anyway, it’s just a challenge.” Parker tips back in his camp chair.
“As in you issued this challenge?” Why would he be going against me?
“No, man. It’s a challenge for the person baking them.”
“And that is …”
“Annelise.” He drains the rest of his beer in one go. “It’s so obvious. She’s trying to get me back.”
“I’m the one getting the cakes, not you.” I stare him down. Does he really believe the crap that’s coming out of his mouth?
“Doesn’t matter. What she wants is attention. And once everyone
is paying attention to her, she’s going to start texting me and calling me and she’s gonna try to sneak her way back into my life.”
is paying attention to her, she’s going to start texting me and calling me and she’s gonna try to sneak her way back into my life.”
“But you’re not interested. In Annelise.” I’ve got to know for sure.
“Exactly. I’ve got Jillian and the boys. Something important.” He pulls the label from his beer without ripping it.
“I don’t know. It’s gotta snow reindeers in the summertime before I’ll believe that Annelise baked even one of those cakes.”
“She’s paying someone.”
“I guess that could be true.” Annelise has unlimited funds, but I doubt she’d come up with such a complicated plan. To use me to get Parker back. Am I the ass under Don Quixote’s butt? “You know what, I’m not going to be the ass end of this joke.”
“Challenge.”
“I’m going to talk to her. I’ll be straight up—she doesn’t have a chance with you so she can stop playing sugar fairy with me.”
“No … man … no. You don’t get it.” Parker cracks his second beer as he winds up his lecture voice. He starts in on how we can use this to our advantage.
“Wait,” I interrupt. “Maybe you didn’t hear me. I’m stopping this thing. I’ve got junior high girls taking pictures of me with the cake. They want to know what’s on my iPod. It’s like they finished their vampire books and they see me as their new Edward. Dude. They made a Facebook page. They’re posting photos of me on it. And there’s like two hundred and twenty-seven fans.”
“Even better. One thousand, one hundred and thirty-five more dollars.” Parker tells me that is what 227 fans at five dollars per fan will add to our fund-raising efforts via the hockey tournament. “I never thought I’d hear you complain about too much action.”
“Frick. Dude. This is over.” I chuck my beer bottle into the pine trees and stand up. I can’t reason with him. He’s turned into one of them. A guy with a cause.
“Sit. There’s something in this for you.”
“And for you, I’m sure.” I take my third beer from the zip-up cooler bag. He refuses the one I offer him. Parker is almost always a beer behind, as if he’s better than me.
“Hey, we’re a team, right?” He holds his beer up to toast. I ignore it and look out into the dark.
“Maybe.”
“Look. I know you want Annelise.” I don’t respond. I’ve never told him. But I’ve never really gone out with a girl for more than a week of text messaging. And the deal with Chantal is only for my mom’s benefit. “And I know a way for you to get her.”
Swarms of kids will pay to get into the hockey tournament, he explains, if we convince the secret admirer to reveal her true identity between the second and third periods. And with the stands full of the student electorate, and all the attention focused on me, the secretly admired, it will be the perfect time.
“For what?”
“For you to announce your candidacy for class president.”
“Class president?” Do I look, I want to ask him, like a pig wearing a blindfold on the way to the barbeque spit? “You want to be class president.”
“My mother wants me to be class president. I want to be … something else.”
It occurs to me that he’s been thinking about this for a long time, judging from the smoothness of the details, and he hasn’t talked to me about it. Not at all. Is this like one of those double-cross things? Maybe I am the pig who doesn’t know he’s about to be skewered and bathed in barbeque sauce. Is Parker in on the cake baking with Annelise? “What if the secret admirer refuses to show?”
“Moot point. It’d be like the icing on the cake. Ha. People will still give the money. They’ll have a good time. And they will associate you with the good time. Voters vote for charisma. And you’ll have it on that night. Man, this is brilliant.”
I sink half my beer. “So what do you get out of it?”
“I want to be vice president. In charge of fund-raising and special projects. You’ll be class pres. And Annelise wants to date the guy at the top. We all get what we want.”
Uh … problem. “The vice president doesn’t do fund-raising and special projects.”
“Yet.” Parker reaches in for his third beer. “What we’re talking about is the making of a legacy.” He stares up at the stars and makes me wait while he composes and delivers a soliloquy. “Only once in every few generations comes a thinker who changes a system so dramatically that his innovation is remembered for decades afterward. My contribution to the bureaucracy of class office will be to forever alter the mandate to serve not only the senior class, but the community. And not just through bikini car washes, bake sales, and cheesy Halloween haunted houses. From now on, students will seek to give to greater causes than themselves. I’ll be like Bill Gates. Warren Buffett.”
“Parker …” Like a stray dog staring at a bologna sandwich, I want to put an end to my misery. “Parker …” But he continues. And I drink my beer in silence. Really, I guess I get to be class president. And get the hot girl. That’s all I ever wanted, isn’t it? It’s another two beers down before Parker winds up his plans to show his mother who he really is, save Jillian and her brothers from a life of certain poverty, and build a school in Africa with bricks we’ll make by hand from the abundant red clay.
“We’ll be revolutionaries, man.” He fist-punches me and fixes his glassy-eyed stare, finally, at something other than his imagination. “You and me.”
Revolutionaries. Frick. What a guy. “Che Guevara.” I hold out my hand. I remember why I love hanging out with Parker. He can be just as stupid as me and no one else knows but us. I hope he remembers all this in the morning.
“Mahatma Gandhi.”
“The greatest man challenge yet.”
“Man.”
“Dude.”
We shake our secret handshake. “Stealth.”
Fraud
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A
lone with my yellow mixer and pink spatulas, I rest my head on the table in the fan’s cool breeze. I daydream about a bike ride that weaves through wildflowers. In my bike basket, a few cupcakes, carefully wrapped to protect their delicate buttercream swirls. In Mitch’s, a picnic blanket, an iPod of oldies, and a thermos of lemonade. “Sugar, Sugar,” the song Mitch has played again tonight in honor of Cake Girl plays first. (I really have to do something about that name, it sounds like Cat Girl who dressed like a cat. I’m not a walking cake.) His smiling face comes closer and closer to mine.
lone with my yellow mixer and pink spatulas, I rest my head on the table in the fan’s cool breeze. I daydream about a bike ride that weaves through wildflowers. In my bike basket, a few cupcakes, carefully wrapped to protect their delicate buttercream swirls. In Mitch’s, a picnic blanket, an iPod of oldies, and a thermos of lemonade. “Sugar, Sugar,” the song Mitch has played again tonight in honor of Cake Girl plays first. (I really have to do something about that name, it sounds like Cat Girl who dressed like a cat. I’m not a walking cake.) His smiling face comes closer and closer to mine.
The phone rings. I race to pick it up without even looking at the call display; I am that sure that Mitch is on the other end.
“Chantal?” It’s a girl’s voice.
At least it’s not my mother. “Annelise?”
“We have a problem.”
“A problem?” How could Annelise and I have a problem? We’ve had fewer than five conversations.
“We’ve got a copycat baker. Someone just left a cake on my doorstep. And it’s definitely not from the Cake Girl.”
“Annelise.” I slip to the floor, lean against the wall. I don’t need this complication. “I don’t mean to … like … not support you in this
crisis, but why are you calling me? I don’t know anything about cake.” Oh please, please believe that I am not lying.
crisis, but why are you calling me? I don’t know anything about cake.” Oh please, please believe that I am not lying.
“You do! Remember when you sat in my car? I told you that Will thought that I was the one who left him that chocolate cake. And then you told me that if I flirted with Will, then Parker would get jealous. So I just let Will think the cake might have been baked by me. The next thing I know, there’s a cake on my doorstep. For Will. From a secret admirer. Ta da. Parker is getting more jealous with every bite!”
“The details are a bit hazy.”
“Doesn’t matter. The point is that someone has left a cake. Again. For Will. But … it’s not the same baker girl. This cake is disgusting. It tastes like sugar and cardboard.”
“What? Wait a minute. What are you saying?” As Annelise repeats herself, the pounding begins at the back of my head. I only had to get through one more cake delivery and I was set to watch Will’s misery in motion. If someone else sends him cakes his plunge from fame will not happen.
“Chantal. Are you there? I don’t think you understand how serious this is. Parker is not going to be jealous of Will if the cakes taste like caca!”
“Right. You’re absolutely right.” There’s this: in Annelise’s mind this whole cake-baking thing is about getting Parker back. And this: some silly girl could be making substandard cakes for Will to get attention for herself. “Um … um … I’ve got an idea.”
I tell Annelise that if this copycat baker wants Will, maybe we could scare her off. Maybe we throw the copycat cake away. Maybe someone starts a rumor that Will has figured out who the secret admirer is, and that she is totally hot and that no girl in her right mind would try to compete with her.
“Oh … I get it. So … we don’t tell anyone about the copycat cake, we just make it clear that the real Cake Girl …”
Here’s my chance. “Annelise. Don’t you think Cake Girl is an unremarkable moniker?”
“A what?”
“A dumb name. How about … uh …” I try to sound spontaneous. “The Cake Princess.”
“Oh … nice … the Cake Princess. Okay, tiara and lots of pink. That works. So she’s hot and no one can compete. Hey, can you hold on a second? I got another call.”
“Sure.” I think it’s a solid plan. I think it is. I crawl on my knees to the living room window. What if the copycat baker is out to get me? What if she or he is watching me? On my hands and knees, I stop at every window on the main floor. When I reach the back of the house, I telescope my neck around the edge of the patio door. No spies with floured hands. Finally, I can return to my princess quarters, the kitchen, and lean against a cupboard door. I breathe deep.
“Okay, I’m back.” Annelise is breathless again. “I got the rumor started on Facebook.”
“On Facebook?”
“Yeah, on the Cake Girl, correction, the Cake Princess fanpage. It has two hundred and twenty-seven members. No … wait, two thirty-one.”
“A fanpage?”
“Du-uh. The Cake Princess is the most popular girl at the lake. Okay, the rumor is: Will knows who the Cake Princess is and he said that she is totally hot and in charge and a girl going up against her would be a fool.”
“It’s only been two days.” Two hundred and thirty-one people are following my cake exploits? My mouth goes dry. Annelise reminds me that two days is all you need to make a trend happen. As proof she points out that last March she wore pink leg warmers to
school and the next day seventeen other girls wore leg warmers, too. Like, OMG. I was not one of those seventeen girls.
school and the next day seventeen other girls wore leg warmers, too. Like, OMG. I was not one of those seventeen girls.
“I’m famous for being a trendsetter,” she adds. “Chantal. You need to friend me on Facebook. And join the fanpage, too. Okay?”
“Sure.” I don’t tell her I’m not on Facebook, because, honestly, when she said friend, I sort of liked it. I think I want to know what everyone else is doing. Especially if it involves my secret identity.
“And Chantal, thanks. People say you’re stuck up, but I don’t think so. You’re actually easy to talk to. Well, you are very smart. But like, you’re nice.”
“Oh. Um … you’re welcome.” Maybe it would be nicer for me to tell her what I know—Parker dumped her to compete in a man challenge. Doing that might compromise my secret identity.
“Okay, one cake in the garbage. Friend, I’ve got to go. Wait—”
“You gotta hear this. Danielle says she just saw Parker and Will walking away from the high school. Without Jillian. And she thinks they’re drunk. Chantal, this Cake Princess is so getting to Parker. By the end of the summer he’ll be mine again.”
Not if Parker turns out to be Jillian’s real Prince Charming.
Waiting for Parker
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.
I
saved our two allotted pieces of the Epitome of Refinement Chocolate Cake for my after-hours date with Parker. We were supposed to meet in the backyard. I lit candles and draped blankets over our plastic lawn chairs. In the dark, it whispers romance. The two cake slices hug each other on the one unchipped plate we own, to make the sharing obvious, intimate. It’s after after-hours, though, and I haven’t heard from Parker. I’m not going to call him because that’s something my mother would do. Me? I take a fork from the drawer, poise it over the top of the deep chocolate cake that everyone said was “to die for,” then pause at the last second.
saved our two allotted pieces of the Epitome of Refinement Chocolate Cake for my after-hours date with Parker. We were supposed to meet in the backyard. I lit candles and draped blankets over our plastic lawn chairs. In the dark, it whispers romance. The two cake slices hug each other on the one unchipped plate we own, to make the sharing obvious, intimate. It’s after after-hours, though, and I haven’t heard from Parker. I’m not going to call him because that’s something my mother would do. Me? I take a fork from the drawer, poise it over the top of the deep chocolate cake that everyone said was “to die for,” then pause at the last second.
If I take a bite, I know I won’t stop at one. Should Parker show up, we wouldn’t have cake to share. Worse, he’d either think I was a pig or he’d know that I gave up on him and ate it solo. But I’m pretty sure if he was going to knock on my door he would have been here by 12:02 A.M. I stare at my fork.
I could call Chantal.
Are you sure he said he was going to come over? She’d ask.
I’d answer, Well, he either said he might come over or he would come over.
Hmm … she’d say … do you think he’s been in a car accident?
Unlikely, I’d say. He was going to walk over to Will’s house and then walk here.
He probably doesn’t intend to disappoint you, she’d say.
And I’d say, Yeah, you’re right. He’s such a good guy. With the boys, especially. Thanks. See you tomorrow.
I wouldn’t tell her that I’m thinking my mother has put a curse against men in this house. I wouldn’t ask her to come over here and watch the boys while I go out looking for Parker and proof that he’s ditched me.
She probably wouldn’t tell me that she’s sort of suspicious of him, but I can tell that she watches him and she wonders the same things I wonder. Why is he so interested in hanging out with my brothers? Why doesn’t he seem to notice when I’m wearing certain clothes that make me look really good? Why does each conversation he initiates start with a story about hanging out with the boys? Why are Parker and my brothers the lead actors and I’m the supporting cast?
I pick up my fork. One bite. My lips drag along the fork tines, making sure to pull every chocolate molecule onto my tongue. It’s fireworks in my mouth, a continuous burst of chocolate, spice, and sugar dancing with butter. This is not my only bite. My fork dives.
Sometimes I get tired of being vigilant. I want to stop looking at each situation in my life as a complex puzzle that I can rework, solve, and erase. Sometimes I get this sharp pain in my brain that makes me say, Hello. It’s like the knock at the front door that I don’t expect. I hear it no matter where I am in the house and I run to answer it. Always. I run to the door and then I stop, right as I’m reaching for the handle, and I wish, the same silent wish that hovers over my birthday candles, that my dad was on the other side.
I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.
I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.
My fork slides effortlessly through the chocolate cake. Each bite takes me deeper.
Sometimes I don’t want to wake up in the morning, reminding
myself that my most important job is being a good sister, that doing the right thing will make me feel right inside. Sometimes, I just feel taken advantage of, used.
myself that my most important job is being a good sister, that doing the right thing will make me feel right inside. Sometimes, I just feel taken advantage of, used.
I scrape the last bit of cake from our one unchipped plate.
Sometimes I want to ask for help. Salvation. I slide my index finger over the remains of the chocolate frosting, lick the sweetness from my finger.
But I know the only thing that will make me truly happy is to save myself.
I open the dishwasher. Slide the plate in the bottom rack.
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