Her Name in the Sky (3 page)

“Sorry,” says Luke, “but they’re
not-chos
.”

“I’m stealing one because that joke was offensively bad,” Hannah says.

“Back off, demon sister,” Joanie says, swinging the nachos toward herself. “They’re only for us.”

“Joanie, I will scoop up some of that fake cheese and put it in your hair.”

“You are disgusting. You will not do that.”

“Just give me one.”

“Fine.” Joanie bites a nacho in two and hands Hannah the smaller half. “Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

Before Hannah can eat her small half of the nacho, Baker swipes it from her hand and eats it herself. “Are you kidding me?” Hannah half-shouts, and the dad in the row below them turns around in confusion, thinking Hannah is responding to the game. 

Baker shrugs and looks at Hannah with a straight face. “Sorry. I was hungry. Big speech earlier today.”

Joanie, Luke, and Wally crack up laughing. Hannah rolls her eyes and shoves Baker lightly until she breaks her straight face and grins. “At least give me my drink back,” Hannah says.

“Okay.” Baker takes a long gulp, her eyebrows raised as she waits for Hannah to smile. “Here you go.”

St. Mary’s wins the game, mostly due to Clay’s efforts, and the St. Mary’s fans make so much raucous noise that it drives the Mount Sinai fans out of the stadium like demons out of a possessed person. Hannah stands in the middle of her friends and cheers the team off the field until her throat starts to ache, watching Clay raise his helmet into the air while he cranes his neck up at the stands, looking to the parents, to the teachers, to the student body, to the senior class, and, Hannah knows, to them. 

“Hey, how are y’all celebrating?” Colby asks as he hugs them. “Are you having a party? Or know of any going on?”

“We have to head out, actually,” Hannah says, gesturing at Baker, Wally, Joanie, and Luke. “We have some stuff to take care of.”

“Is Clay going with you?”

“Yeah, he’s meeting us,” Wally says.

“Aw, c’mon, you’re gonna take the MVP away from us?” John Strawburn says.

“We thought y’all would organize something,” Katie says. “That’s what everyone’s been saying.”

“Sorry,” Hannah says, leading the way out of the stands. “I’m sure tomorrow night or next weekend we’ll be doing something!”

“What’s going on?” Baker asks as the five of them clamber down the bleachers.

Hannah turns around and places her hands on Baker’s shoulders. “I have a secret errand to take care of.”

“A secret errand?”

“Yes. It may or may not involve your natal day celebration.”

Baker’s eyes fill with light. “What are we doing?”

“Just something small. Just the six of us. I didn’t think you’d want anything crazy, especially after that pep rally and the game—”

“I don’t—”

“Good, then drive to my house and I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Where are you going?”

Hannah raises her eyebrows but doesn’t answer, and Baker assumes her challenge smile—the one that means Hannah has surprised her and she wants to see what’s next. Hannah locks eyes with Joanie and Luke, and Joanie grabs the arm of Baker’s jacket and tugs her away. Baker looks back just once, so Hannah shrugs—
You’ll see
—and then turns to follow Wally in the opposite direction.

Their friends are standing around the front yard when Hannah and Wally drive up to Hannah’s house. Luke and Clay look up from throwing a tennis ball back and forth and Luke waves his arms overeagerly at them as they turn into the driveway. Baker stands with a hand on her hip, her purse slung across her body, talking to Joanie on the front walk.

“Food time!” Joanie sings when Hannah and Wally step out of the car.

“Luke, are you seriously standing on our dad’s flowers?” Hannah says as she crosses the driveway, balancing the cake box awkwardly under her arm. “Don’t you know better by now?”

“Hannah, it’s
January
,” Joanie says. “I doubt Dad cares. What took you so long?”

“What? We were quick.”

“I did three thousand push-ups in the time you were gone,” Clay says. He tosses the tennis ball to Wally and runs out into the street. “Throw it long!”

“Clay, get back here!” Hannah shouts. “It’s birthday time!”

“Hold on, just let me get a few more throws in! I’m trying to stretch out my arm!”

Wally cups the tennis ball in his palm and looks to Hannah for permission. Hannah looks to Baker, who smiles. “I don’t mind,” she says.

“Come on, Wall!” Clay shouts from across the street.

Wally throws the tennis ball out into the night, and they all strain their eyes to see Clay catch it triumphantly. He lets out a whoop and holds the ball above his head; Hannah sees a sphere of neon green against a black backdrop.

“Alright, man, come on,” Wally yells.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Clay says as he hustles back to the yard. He tosses the tennis ball to Hannah. “Are you gonna hug me, or what?”

She grins and allows him to sweep her up in a hug. “Awesome game,” she says into his hair.

“Best we’ve ever seen you play,” Wally says, clapping Clay’s hand.

“Thanks,” Clay says, his smile stretched wide.

“Okay, and now…” Hannah says, turning to Baker, “cake time! Ready, Birthday Girl?”

“Ready,” Baker grins.

Hannah leads Baker and their friends back toward the carport and in through the side door. She can hear Clay and Wally lagging behind them, their voices joining in laughter with Luke’s and Joanie’s.

“I’m going to cut them small pieces for making us wait,” Hannah whispers.

“Tiny slivers,” Baker says, playing along. 

“Maybe we can throw Clay’s to him.”

“He would probably go for that.”

“Probably. And then you and I can have all the leftovers for breakfast tomorrow.”

Baker’s eyes brighten just before the boys run in and wrap her in a hug. “Deal!” she says, grinning at Hannah over Clay’s shoulder.

Hannah’s mom walks in from the family room to say hi to them all, and Baker and the boys hug her while Hannah and Joanie gather everyone’s jackets. “So how’s the birthday girl?” Hannah’s mom asks, her voice thin but warm, and Baker leans her forearms on the kitchen high counter and tells Hannah’s mom all about her day at school and her dinner with her family. Luke, Wally, and Clay step around her to walk into the family room, where Hannah can just see her dad’s bristly gray hair poking out from his armchair, and Hannah watches out of the corner of her eye as the boys shake hands with her dad.

“Heard you gave ‘em quite a show tonight,” Hannah’s dad says.

“Yes, sir,” Clay says, his deep voice vibrating with pride.

“That’s great,” Hannah’s dad says, and then he says nothing else. Hannah strains her ears past Baker and her mom’s conversation to listen to the pocket of silence in the family room. She pictures her dad shifting his eyes from boy to boy, wondering what to say, his mouth half-open around another pleasantry. Joanie gives her a look.

“We’d better get back in there for cake,” Wally says, his voice more robust than normal. “Good to see you, Mr. Eaden.”

“See you later, Mr. Eaden,” Luke and Clay say.

The boys come back into the kitchen and there’s a spike in volume from the TV in the family room. Hannah looks automatically at Wally. His mouth curves in a simple smile to let her know everything is okay.

There are remnants of Christmas littered all throughout the kitchen: a plate of stale gingerbread cookies that Joanie never finished decorating; a collage of holiday greeting cards tacked up with magnets on the fridge; a dying poinsettia in the middle of the table, its blood red petals withering right in front of them, though none of them notice. Hannah gathers silverware from the drawer in the counter and her mom’s mint green dessert plates from the cabinet above the coffee maker, and all the while she feels a beating thrill in her stomach, that same thrill she feels every year at the start of Carnival season, when the King Cakes first appear on store shelves and the neighbors on the corner hang their purple, green, and yellow flag off the side of their house, and her classmates at school talk about which Mardi Gras balls their older siblings are going to or where their family plans to go skiing during the long weekend. “It’s the best damn time to be a Louisianan,” Clay always says, and Hannah, glancing at her friends, agrees.

“How can I help?” Baker asks, appearing at Hannah’s side.

“You can go enjoy your unofficial birthday party.”

“I
am
enjoying it,” Baker says, “but let me help you.”

“I’m pretending to be a domestic goddess right now,” Hannah says. “Just let me have my moment.”

“What kind of cake did you get?”

Hannah slides the cake box toward her. When Baker glances down at it, Hannah says, “Open it.”

“You got a King Cake?” Baker exclaims, looking down at the icing-coated cake ring.

“Are you surprised?” Luke calls from the table. “We’re obviously going to use your Epiphany birthday to kill two birds with one stone. What kinds of friends would we be otherwise?”

“I can’t wait to eat it,” Clay says, reaching his hand out.

Hannah slaps his hand away. “I will punch you if you try to eat this before we sing.”

“Sorry, Mom,” he says, licking his finger and sticking it in her ear.

“Stop! Stop! Oh my god, just go make sure everyone has their drinks!” 

“Did we get candles?” Luke asks. “Or are we gonna sing without them, hard-ass style?”

“We got some,” Wally says, fishing them out of the grocery bag. He places them carefully into the King Cake, spacing them equidistant from each other and taking pains not to mess up the icing more than he has to, and Hannah imagines him doing this for his mom or his little brothers with the same deliberate care.

“You really didn’t have to do this for me,” Baker says, resting her eyes on the cake, then glancing up at Hannah.

“Of course we did, goober,” Hannah says, taking Baker’s glass from the table and refilling it with sweet tea for her. “This is actually probably the lamest birthday party we’ve ever had for you.”

“Well, nothing tops the one at California Pizza Kitchen,” Luke says.

“When you and Clay got her that
Hannah Montana
card and walked around the restaurant asking everyone to sign it?” Joanie asks.

“And then we went over to Urban Outfitters and Wally and I got her that book about hamsters dressed as Renaissance painters?” Hannah says.

“I still have that book,” Baker says. “And that card. My mom keeps trying to steal it off my dresser and throw it away, but I always catch her.”

“How could she ever want to throw away something like that?” Joanie says. 

They light the candles and gather around the cake, each of them leaning in on their elbows and yelling at each other not to breathe too hard over the 18 tiny flames. “Ready?” Hannah says in a hushed, excited voice, and then five of them start to sing, with Clay and Luke affecting bullfrog voices and Wally pretending to conduct them, and Joanie laughing at Luke across the top of the cake, and Hannah watching Baker the whole time, watching how her eyes get even softer and her face looks disbelievingly happy, and how she tucks her hair self-consciously behind her ear when they all sing her name.

“Make a wish!” Hannah reminds her, and Baker glances at her for a lightning-quick second, happiness evident in her eyes, before she blows out the candles on her cake.

“How has nobody found the baby yet?” Joanie says, stabbing her fork back into her cake. “Someone
always
finds the baby during the first cut.”

“This Baby Jesus is holding out on us,” Hannah answers around a cream cheese-filled bite. “Playing hard to get.”

“I’m cutting seconds,” Clay says with his mouth full. “I want that baby.”

“
I
want that baby,” Hannah says.

“Careful, Clay,” Joanie says. “Hannah gets really competitive about finding the Baby Jesus. She once pushed our cousin Warren into the refrigerator just to beat him to seconds. He had a bruise on his chest for a month.”

“That’s an exaggeration,” Hannah says.

“Not so much. And I bet everyone here can believe it.”

“I can absolutely believe that,” Baker says, catching Hannah’s eye.

Wally ends up cutting seconds for everyone—“We need a fair judge,” he says, elbowing Clay out of the way—and they all eat eagerly, watching each other’s plates to see who unearths the plastic pink Christ child hidden within the cake.

“Bam!” Hannah says, digging the Baby Jesus out from beneath layers of bread and cream cheese. She holds the inch-long plastic figurine up for the others to see. “I got him!”

“Goddamn it,” Clay says.

“Well, how does he look?” Luke asks. “Do we have ourselves a bouncing baby boy?”