Confectionately Yours #4: Something New (2 page)

“W
hy are they staring in the window of the Tea Room?” Meghan asks as we walk down the street. We’re still a few doors away, just passing the new Mexican restaurant that recently opened up, but I can see my little sister, Chloe; her best friend, Rupert; and my ex–best friend, Artie, standing in a clump. They’re all frowning at the window the way people frown at art in a museum. Like they’re thinking about it.

People don’t usually think about our windows.

It’s a beautiful day out, and the sidewalk is crowded with people enjoying the sun. They keep having to go around the Window Starers. Three steps later, I can finally see what they’re all gawking at, and I let out a little gasp. “Who did that?” I ask.

Chloe looks at me. “Artie did.”

“These guys helped,” Artie says quickly. “But we’re not quite finished.” Her auburn hair gleams in the spring light.

“It’s gorgeous!” Meghan gushes. “Wow! Incredible! I didn’t know you could paint!”

“Artie’s a Renaissance woman,” I say, which is true. Artie is a terrific singer, dancer, actress, and painter. And she also gets straight As. And she’s really pretty.

It was never easy to be her friend, to tell you the truth.

Now she has painted our windows with a Beatrix Potter–style tea party. Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter are all seated around a table, eating delicate little cupcakes and pastries. Mrs. Tiggy Winkle is brewing tea on a nearby old-fashioned stove. It’s really cute and cozy looking.

“It needs something,” Artie says.

“Maybe someone could be coming through the front door,” Chloe suggests. “Like the Easter Bunny! Maybe carrying a basket of dyed eggs or chocolates or something.”

Rupert shakes his head and shoves his glasses up on his nose. His dark eyes are huge behind the lenses. “The Easter Bunny isn’t textually accurate,” he says.

That’s the kind of thing Rupert says.

“What does that mean?” Chloe demands. “Easter is three weeks away!”

“He means that these are all Beatrix Potter characters,” Artie explains. “We can’t just stick the Easter Bunny in there — it’s too random. Which I kind of agree with. What do you think, Hayley?”

Artie turns toward me, twirling a thick strand of hair around her finger. It feels a little strange for Artie to be asking my opinion. She’s my ex–best friend, but we’ve stopped hating each other recently. I don’t know if we’re exactly on the path to becoming best friends again. But it seems like we’re off the path toward being dire enemies.

“I think the Easter Bunny is a cute idea,” I admit, “but Rupert has a point. What about Benjamin Bunny, though? He could be carrying a basket.”

“Perfect!” Artie says. “Done,” and she heads for her brushes.

“I love it,” Meghan agrees.

I’m a little worried that my sister will be disappointed her idea isn’t going on the window, but when I look over, I see she’s already moved on. Chloe bends down to pet a little white dog. Its hair is wiry, sticking out all over its body like
a bristle brush. It has one floppy ear and one that stands straight up. This is one seriously raggedy-looking dog, but Chloe is petting it and cooing over it like it’s cuter than a baby panda.

“Cutie, cutie, cutie!” Chloe sings out. “Cutie patootie!” The dog rolls over onto its back and puts its feet in the air while its owner — a man in a baseball cap — laughs.

“That dog has charisma,” Rupert says, which makes me giggle.

I hold up Mr. Malik’s slim poetry book and say, “I’m heading inside to give this to Gran.”

Meghan is watching Artie paint the latest character into the corner near an unfinished doorway. “I’ll be right there.”

The café is crowded with people having murmured conversations and working on their laptops. Mrs. McTibble waves to me from her usual corner, and I wave back.

“Gran?” I call.

“Oh, hello, Hayley dear!” My grandmother pops her head out from behind a giant bouquet of roses and lilies that is stationed by the cash register. I could guess who those are from. “Look what Uzma brought by!”

Uzma is Mr. Malik’s sister. She’s a force of nature, and has been helping Rupert by taking him to school in the mornings and bringing him to our place in the afternoons. She and Gran haven’t always gotten along, but lately, they have been growing on each other. “I absolutely adore stargazer lilies.” Gran breathes in the scent of the large pink blooms with the red center.

“I ran into your fiancé,” I tell her, handing over the book. It’s kind of fun to tease Gran about being engaged.

“Oh!” she says, turning pink. But when I hand her the book, her eyebrows pull together, and she sucks in her breath, as if a sharp pain has just stabbed her.

“Are you okay?”

Gran’s blue eyes meet mine for a moment, and pause there. It’s like she isn’t looking at me, but through me, to something far away. “Thank you, dear,” she says, placing the book on a shelf beneath the cash register.

It doesn’t seem quite right. I’m about to ask if she’s sure, when the bell over the door jingles and Meghan bursts into the café.

Meghan is always bursting into places. She never just walks, like the rest of us.

“Artie’s going to help with the decorations for the fling!” Meghan does a little victory dance, a booty wiggle and finger snap thing.

“That’s great,” I tell her. “What are we talking about?”

Meghan stops her dance and gives me a look that could freeze water. “The Spring Fling Barbecue,” she says slowly. “The seventh grade puts it on every year? I’ve been looking for someone to help out.”

“Oh.” Meghan is our seventh-grade class representative, so she’s in charge of putting on a lot of events. “Okay. But, uh — are you sure it’s a good idea to work together?” Artie and Meghan have a “special relationship.”

And by that I mean, “they drive each other nuts.” They tried to put on a talent show together, and it didn’t exactly work out. Like,
Ka-Boom!

“We might both lose our sanity,” Meghan admits. “But I know Artie will do a good job, so that’s all that matters.”

“Would you like to have a few cupcakes for this event?” Gran asks, her eyes sparkling at Meghan.

Meghan clears her throat. “Well …,” she says playfully, “I was just about to volunteer Hayley for some baking.” She pokes me in the shoulder. “You know you want to!”

I look over at Gran, who is smiling in this dimply way she has. “Sure,” I tell Meghan.

“It would be our very great pleasure,” Gran says. She’s English, and can get away with saying things like that.

If Artie is going to be helping Meghan, maybe it’s a good idea for me to be involved
, I tell myself. Just to help keep the peace. Besides, I like baking cupcakes. I don’t really need an excuse.

Meghan points to the paper bag in my hands. “Should we look at your new cookbook?” she suggests.

“What else are we going to do with it?”

But even as Meghan and I head over to a table to flip through the cookbook, I think about Mr. Malik’s poetry book lying silently beneath the cash register.

And I wonder.

I
just remembered.

It used to sit on the far left middle shelf in the living room. But it had a dust jacket. The dust jacket was dark red, with gold lettering that matches the lettering on the cloth cover that you can see now.

Gran used to read from it a lot. Before we moved in with her, sometimes Chloe and I would come over for a weekend visit. In the evenings, Gran would read us a poem or two. I remember part of one:

I always thought that was a great poem for the end of winter, when you’re really ready for the ice to break up and unleash the grass below. I know Gran loved it, too.

It’s so amazing that of all the books in the world Mr. Malik would choose that one. It seems so romantic.

So — why isn’t Gran happy?

“S
orry I’m a little late, Mom.” She’s seated on the hard wooden bench in the front hall of my school, and I plop down beside her. Around us, the hallways rattle and crash as students slam lockers and dash for the bus. Usually, I would be dashing, too, but I have a dentist appointment.

Mom peers toward the sixth-grade hallway. “Why are people shrieking?” she asks.

“A toilet in the boys’ room overflowed,” I explain. “Half the hallway is freaking out.”

Mom grimaces. “That’s disgusting!”

“It happens a lot,” I tell her, and she looks even more horrified. “Really, it’s not a big deal. They always get it cleaned up. The sixthies are just being dramatic.” Just then, a little
knot of three sixth-grade girls trots down the hallway, holding their noses and pretending like they’re going to barf.

Mom watches them. “Did that happen when you were in the sixth grade?”

“A couple of times,” I admit. “Everyone’s always really thrilled to move on to seventh grade. The restrooms in that hallway are perfect.”

Mom stands up and we start toward the double doors. Two guys race by me. As they slam outside, I realize it’s Omar and Jamil. Mom watches them streak across the front lawn — Jamil is holding a book over his head, and Omar is chasing him — and she has this worried look on her face, as if she never really realized how crazy my school is. It makes me feel a little defensive. I mean, I love my school, even if it isn’t perfect.

“Hey, I just remembered.” I dig around in my messenger bag until I fish out a pink paper. “Señor Derby asked me to give this to you.”

Mom parked across the street, so we pause-and-dash through the slowly creeping traffic — packs of kids and slow-moving vehicles all navigating around the half circle in front of the school. We pause at our car and Mom somehow
manages to unlock the door with her key while reading the note from my Spanish teacher. She’s really good at multitasking like that.

“This says he wants to give you an accelerated curriculum,” Mom says.

“Yeah. There are five of us who are pretty good at Spanish, so he let us work ahead,” I explain. “Now we’re finished with the textbook.” I yank open the door and duck into the car. Once the doors are closed, it’s quiet in here. Like we’re in our own bubble.

Mom’s still frowning at the letter. “But the school won’t provide a textbook for you,” she says.

“I know.” I nibble my thumbnail. “Because I’m already in Advanced Spanish.” This is the catch — the school provides textbooks for free, if you’re in a class. But Señor Derby’s class is as high as my school goes in Spanish. If I want to work ahead, I’ll need my own book, because there technically isn’t a class for ninth-grade Spanish at my school.

“I’ll be ahead when I get to high school,” I point out. “I could take the Advanced Placement test my junior year.” Señor Derby had explained about the Advanced Placement
test — if you do well on it, you can get college credit. Mom is usually really enthusiastic about anything college-related, but this time, she sighs.

“It’s just … money’s a little tight right now. And this says that the book costs over a hundred dollars.” She doesn’t look at me when she says this. She looks straight through the dashboard. Ever since my parents got divorced and my mom got laid off, money has been an issue. She’s helping Gran by managing the Tea Room now, and it’s going okay, but we aren’t exactly planning a European vacation right now. Or even a trip to Goshen, where we used to go every summer.

“I know it’s expensive.”

Mom folds up the letter and puts it in her purse. “I’ll think about it, sweetheart. I’ll talk to your dad and see what we can do.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I say.

The car coughs and starts up, and Mom slowly merges into traffic.

Here’s the thing about money: People always say that it can’t buy happiness. But I’m not sure that’s exactly true. I don’t think being rich guarantees that you’ll have a perfect
life, or that being poor will make you miserable. But I know that not having money means you have to miss out on things sometimes. And not all of those things are shallow. Sometimes, they’re important things. But you have to miss out, anyway.