Authors: Anna Staniszewski
When Steve Mueller sees me coming toward him, he stands up straight and runs his hand through his spiky hair. Steve Mueller is looking at me! Steve Mueller is smiling at me!
“You’re Rachel, right?”
Steve Mueller is talking to me! I nod and bite my bottom lip to keep down a hysterical giggle.
“Listen, I wanted to ask you something.” He waves me over as if he has a secret to tell me. I float toward him, my feet numb, as if my brain needs extra blood to process what’s happening. “So,” he says in a low voice, “Briana was telling me you’ve been cleaning her house.”
Oh, holy eggplant. Is Marisol right? Is Steve really just a jerk, and he’s here to make fun of me too? What if he heard about my hallway wipeout?
His eyebrows go up. “Is that right?”
I nod again, my head moving in slow motion. Why does my whole body seem to slow down whenever there’s a cute guy around?
“So listen,” Steve goes on. “I was wondering if you could do me a favor. See, Briana’s been acting kind of weird lately. I’m not saying she’s cheating on me or anything, but…” He shrugs his perfect shoulders. “Anyway, I thought maybe you could keep an eye out when you’re at her place and let me know if you find anything.”
I blink back at him. The thought of anyone cheating on Steve Mueller is insane. He’s the hottest guy in school! Those sparkling eyes. That strong chin. And those dimples!
“Well, what do you think?” he says.
Wait. Is he really asking me to spy on Briana? If he thinks she might be cheating on him, shouldn’t he just talk to her?
“Hello? Anyone in there?” Steve laughs, but I can tell he’s getting impatient.
“Um. Er,” I articulately reply. “Maybe?”
“Okay, you’re right.” He holds his hands up in defeat and takes a step closer, his blue-smelling cologne washing over me. “You’re wondering what’s in it for you.” He pulls a twenty-dollar bill out of his pocket. “How about I give you this now, and when you have some info for me, I’ll give you twenty more. Deal?”
I stare at the bill like it’s made out of gold. It took me all day to earn that much on Saturday, and here Steve Mueller is giving it to me for nothing. Okay, for spying. But if Briana really is cheating on him, then doesn’t he have a right to know?
“Well?”
“Um.” I know I shouldn’t agree to this. It’s wrong. Even though Briana is evil. Even though Mom will murder me if she finds out I spent some of my college money. I’m not the kind of girl who spies on people.
But when I open my mouth to say so, a long squeaking sound comes out instead.
“All right!” says Steve. “Thanks for helping me out.” He slips the bill into my hand, and I almost faint at the feel of his warm skin on mine. Then he flashes a bright smile, dimples and all. “I’ll see you around.”
My heart melts and starts oozing down the insides of my chest like chocolate sauce. Wait, did I just agree to spy on Briana Riley? And, more importantly, does that mean there’s a chance Steve Mueller might actually talk to me again?
That night I spend almost an hour rearranging my bookshelves to get them back to normal. Mom snuck into my bedroom while I was watching a cooking show and put all my books in alphabetical order. If Dad doesn’t come home soon, I’m afraid she’ll start trying to alphabetize my clothes next.
As I finish putting the last of my cookbooks on one shelf, my cell phone rings.
“Hi there, Rachel Roo.”
“Hi, Dad. How’s Florida?” I try to keep the bitterness out of my voice. If I let on how upset I am about him leaving, it might scare him off and then he’ll never come home.
“Oh, you know,” he says, chuckling. “I’ve got sand everywhere, even in my ears. But otherwise good.”
“How’s the scuba business going?” I ask. What I’m really asking is: Have you finally given up on your crazy-face dream?
“There’s been a little more red tape than I expected with permits and things, but it should all be sorted out soon. Tell your mom I’ll be sending her some money any day now.”
“I’ll tell her.” Of course I won’t, because he made the exact same promise last month, and we never got any money.
“What’s new with you, Roo?”
I want to tell him about Mom’s latest weird behavior, but when I mentioned her labeling obsession to him last week, he just laughed it off like it wasn’t a big deal. I hope he’s right.
Since I don’t even want to think about everything that’s been happening at school, I start telling him about all the brownie recipes I’ve been trying out for the bake sale. “I was thinking of perfecting cheesecake brownies next, since they’re your favorite.”
“What does your mom think about you spending so much time baking?”
So much for luring Dad back home with baked goods. “She keeps saying that if my grades start slipping, I’m cut off. But I don’t know if she’d really do that. Her boss has been way nicer to her ever since she started bringing leftover brownies in to work.”
Dad laughs. “Even stuffy lawyers love chocolate.” He starts doing an over-the-top impression of Mom’s boss, which makes me laugh too. But laughing with Dad only makes me miss him more.
“Don’t you want to come home?” I can’t help asking, my voice wobbling.
“Roo, of course I do. But this was just something I had to try out. When you come to visit this summer, you’ll see just how great it is down here.”
My heart starts hammering away. I just have to act normal so he doesn’t suspect anything. To make my Get-Parents-Back-Together Plan work, I had to tell Dad that Mom knows all about the trip. Since she still refuses to talk to him after what he did to us, I can get away with lying. At least for now. Normally I’d feel horrible about being so sneaky, but I don’t really have a choice.
“While we’re on the topic, I have a special surprise for you,” Dad goes on. “I was going to wait until you came down here, but I just can’t keep it a secret any longer. How would you like to go see a taping of your favorite show?”
I blink. “Do you mean
Pastry
Wars
?”
“That’s right. It turns out they’re shooting an episode right near here in July. So I was thinking that I could buy some tickets and we could go see the taping together.”
“Holy avocado dip, are you serious? That would be amazing!”
“I’ll have to clear it with your mom, of course. But I don’t see why she should object.”
“
No!
” I yell, almost dropping the phone. “Er, I mean, don’t say anything to her yet. She’s been on this real money-saving kick, and she might not approve of us going to see the show.” My lungs feel like they’re burning. I hate lying, but there’s no other choice.
“It’s my money I’ll be spending,” he says. “She should be all right with it.”
I want to ask Dad how he has money to spend on the tickets and none to send to us, but I don’t want to start an argument. Besides, how can I pass up a chance to see my favorite show? “Dad, she still doesn’t want to talk to you. Just give her some more time.” At least that part’s mostly true.
“I guess you’re right.” He sighs. “I can’t wait for you to come down here, Rachel. We’ll have a great time, just the two of us, okay?”
I close my eyes. It sounds perfect. “Okay,” I tell him. “I’ll be there.”
The next morning I go to grab my journal and almost shriek when I see tons of little neon tabs sticking out of it. I flip it open, and sure enough, Mom went through and labeled all my recipes. As if that’s not bad enough, she tried to put the recipes into categories, ones that are completely wrong. And she used the permanent kinds of tabs that’ll rip the pages if I try to take them off. It’s like someone taking a Bible and drawing on it with glitter paint.
When I flip to the “Dirt Diary” part, I almost shriek all over again as I remember what I wrote about how cute Evan Riley is. I expect there to be a tab with “Rachel’s Crush” scribbled on it, but I guess I’m in luck because the pages are untouched. Thank goodness I wrote down my notes in the very back of the notebook where Mom wouldn’t think to look.
“Mom!” I yell. “Mom, come here!”
She comes running, clearly thinking there’s a fire or something. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“How could you do this?” I say, holding up the journal. I’m so mad that my hands are shaking.
She looks at me like I’m the crazy one. “What do you mean? I just organized it for you. It should make things easier now.”
“Easier? You messed it up! You had no right to take my personal property!”
“Oh really, Rachel. You’re being so melodramatic about this. It’s just some recipes.”
“Not just some recipes, Mom.
My
recipes. My
life
is in here!”
She rolls her eyes. “Fine, that’s the last time I do you a favor. Now finish getting ready and come eat breakfast.”
As I hear her go down the hall, my whole face is throbbing like it might explode. I suck in a few breaths, trying to calm down. I wish more than anything that Dad were here. He’d wrap me up in a hug and tell me he’d find a way to make things better. Then again, if Dad hadn’t left, Mom would never have attacked my journal in the first place.
I let out a sputtering sigh and carefully put my journal down like it’s a burn victim, hoping Marisol might be able to figure out a way to fix it. When I stomp into the kitchen to grab some cereal, Mom’s sipping coffee and looking at house listings online.
“Before I forget, we have a couple new cleaning jobs,” she says, all calm and normal as if nothing happened. “So have your homework done and be ready to go when I get home from work tonight.”
“Tonight? I thought we were just going to do weekends.”
“We were, but I can’t say no to new clients. You don’t have anything else going on Thursday nights, right?”
That’s not exactly true. They always replay episodes of
Pastry
Wars
on Thursdays, and I like to study the episodes to see what wisdom I can get out of them. But that doesn’t mean anything to Mom except time away from my schoolwork. Anyway, more houses equal more money.
“Whose places are we doing?” I ask, expecting her to list more names of kids I know.
And sure enough, she says: “The Singhs’. Their sons go to your school. They’re twins.”
I nod. The Singh twins are a year younger than me, but since they’re the only pair of completely identical twins in the entire school, everyone knows who they are. Luckily, I’m almost positive they have no idea who I am, so hopefully I can get in and out of there unscathed.
“And also Robert Hammond’s house,” Mom adds.
I almost spit out a bite of cereal. “Robert Hammond as in my vice principal?”
“It’s funny how things work out,” Mom says, sitting down beside me at the table. “He called me to talk about you last night, and somehow we got on the topic of cleaning.”
Oh, holy mango sorbet. “Mr. Hammond called you about me? What did he say?” I can just imagine him telling Mom all about my wardrobe malfunction and emotional meltdown in the hallway.
She laughs at what must be total terror on my face. “Don’t look so worried, Rachel. I guess he heard our family was going through a rough patch, and he wanted to see if there was anything he could do to help.”
“And now we’re going to clean his house?”
“His wife passed away a few years ago, and he doesn’t have any children. I think it’ll cheer him up to have us take care of things.”
After everything that happened in school the other day, how can I face Mr. Hammond? I was hoping to get through the rest of the year without crossing paths with him again, and now I’m supposed to go mop his floors? I just have to keep thinking about the money, I tell myself. And hope the humiliation doesn’t kill me.
Mr. Hammond’s house is nothing like I expected. I thought everything would be beige and blah, but it’s actually kind of amazing. He has sports memorabilia everywhere, including more Red Sox stuff than I’ve ever seen in one place. And even though his kitchen isn’t as gleaming as Briana Riley’s, it’s huge and stocked with every gadget and utensil you can imagine.
“I love to cook,” he says. “And, if you can’t tell, I love to eat.” He jokingly grabs his belly, which makes my cheeks flush as I remember how I slammed into him in the hallway. He hasn’t mentioned anything about that whole mess. I’m hoping it was so traumatic that he permanently blocked it out.
“Don’t be silly, Robert,” Mom says. “You look great. Most men your age would kill to be as fit as you are.”
Mr. Hammond grins, while I stare. Since when is Mom so chummy with my vice principal?
“Where should we start?” she asks.
“Wherever you like, Amanda.” His grin widens until it’s in Cheshire Cat territory. “I know you always have a plan.”
Mom giggles, actually
giggles
. “Oh, Robert,” she says. Then she glances at me, like she just remembered I’m in the room. “You probably don’t know this, but Mr. Hammond and I went to school together.”
Seriously? I thought Mr. Hammond was about a million years old. But as I look at him again, I notice he actually has less gray hair than my dad.
“Your mom was one smart cookie back then,” he says. “Still is.”
Mom giggles again and tucks her hair behind her ears. Why is she acting so weird? Wait. Is it possible she’s actually
flirting
with Mr. Hammond?
“All right, we don’t want to take up your whole evening,” she says, still smiling. “I guess we can start in the kitchen.”
“No need to hurry,” he says. “My evenings are pretty boring. Mostly catching up on work and trying out new recipes.”
My ears perk up. “Recipes? What kind?”
Mr. Hammond shrugs. “Anything, really. I used to want to be a chef when I was younger. But I never quite had the talent for it.”
“Wow, really?” I’ve never met anyone besides Ms. Kennedy who’s as much into food as I am.
“Your mom tells me you like to cook too. Have you taken any classes?” Mr. Hammond asks.
“I want to. There are a few at the community college, but they’re pretty expensive.” I’m about to tell him about a candy-making class I’d like to sign up for, but Mom calls me over to help her clean the counters.
“Don’t want to keep your mom waiting,” says Mr. Hammond. “I know how impatient she can be.”
“No kidding!” I hurry over to the kitchen while he goes into the living room and turns on the TV. I can’t believe I just had something like a friendly conversation with the vice principal and survived!
“Do you mind doing the bathroom?” Mom asks.
I grab some supplies and head down the hall. The bathroom looks pretty spotless, but I start spraying every surface anyway.
When I’m done cleaning, I notice the cabinet under the sink won’t close all the way. I open it and find a sponge blocking the door. After I move it aside and go to shut the cabinet, I spot something that nearly makes me shriek.
Adult diapers. Tons of them. At least three packs. Oh my goldfish, Mr. Hammond wears diapers!
“Rachel, are you done in there?” Mom calls.
I slam the cabinet shut, trying to swallow down the laughter bubbling inside me, and hurry out into the hallway. As I pass by the living room, I try not to look in Mr. Hammond’s direction or I’ll totally lose it.
Diapers
!
“Do you need help finding anything?” he asks me.
I shake my head, biting my lip so hard I can almost taste blood, and quickly get to work dusting a nearby bookcase. I can hear Mom whistling from down the hallway, like she’s never been happier.
“Rachel,” says Mr. Hammond, turning down the volume on the TV. “I just wanted to say that I was really sorry to hear about your father leaving. I know how hard that can be.”
The laughter I’ve been holding in disappears. I keep dusting the same shelf over and over, not sure what to say.
Mr. Hammond clears his throat. “I guess what I’m getting at is that I know your mom’s tough, that she can handle it. And I know you’re tough too. You two will be just fine.”
I can’t believe it. He’s talking like it’s over, like my dad deserted us and there’s no chance he’ll ever come back.
“We’re already fine,” I blurt out. “My dad’s just away on business. He’s coming back.”
Mr. Hammond blinks in confusion. “I thought…your mother said…I’m sorry. I must have misunderstood.”
“You did.” I grab the dusting spray and storm away. “Mom, I’ll be in the car,” I call. I don’t even wait for an answer before I turn and get the Helsinki out of there.