All morning long, I kept a hopeful eye out for Lars. Yes, my decorated locker was lovely, and yes, I blushed adorably (or so I hoped) when my French class sang
Bon Anniversaire
to
moi.
But Lars was my boyfriend, my yummy, wonderful boyfriend, and I couldn’t wait to find out what kind of birthday surprise he had up his sleeve.
Seeing Lars at school was tricky, however, because Lars was in ninth grade, not eighth. Unlike me, he was already
in
high school. Lars had gone where no man had gone before (not counting the fifty jillion men and women who had), and who did he leave behind?
Me.
It was a sticky wicket, and since the high school was on a physically separate part of campus, our paths didn’t usually cross unless we made a point of making it happen. Like, he’d text me, or I’d text him, and we’d plan a quickie by the stone bench outside Pressley Hall at ten o’clock or whatever.
(By “quickie,” I didn’t mean anything obscene. Just a smile and a brush of our fingertips,
possibly
a kiss. Lips only, no tongue. Because it’s school!
Der!)
But our texting days came to a screeching halt last week when my cell phone, a cheapo from Best Buy, went
fllllemph
and never worked again. I shared with Mom and Dad my very good idea of how they could get me a new one for my birthday—
like for example an iPhone, *big smile*—
and they shared with me their exceedingly unsatisfying opinion that if I wanted an iPhone, I was going to have to save up for it myself.
Sadly, that was unlikely to happen in the next millennium. I barely had enough cash to support my Java Chip Frappuccino habit, which frankly was getting out of hand.
At any rate, being without a cell phone meant that I couldn’t text Lars and ask him what was up; I could only gaze longingly across the quad and wish he’d miraculously appear. I suppose I could have called him last night and said, “Hey, since tomorrow’s my birthday—and let’s be honest, I
know
you want to see me—let’s meet at blankety-blank after third period, ’kay?”
But I would have felt weird doing that. I would have felt like I was being needy, and I refused to be needy, because our relationship had only recently normalized after a brief breakup that had to do with that very thing. A quick and sad recap: Lars had been flirting with other girls.
Bad Lars.
He’d been especially flirty with one girl in particular, a
cough-cough
high school girl named
cough-cough
Brianna.
Bad bad superbad Brianna.
I should have been strong enough to confront Lars and say, “You’re being a jerk.” But I wasn’t. Instead, I cried and cried, until Sandra finally said, “Woman up, little sis! Wake up and smell your ultra-fabulous girl power!”
So
—big breath—I worked up every ounce of courage I had and told Lars he had to treat me right if he wanted us to get back together. And happy happy joy joy!
He listened!!!!
And things got better.
Really
better. Matter of fact, things were pretty darn fab between us these days, and I didn’t want to jinx it by turning back into Needy Girl.
Anyway, what was I worried about? Lars knew I was celebrating my b-day with Dinah and Cinnamon tonight. Therefore, he also knew that any quality time he wanted to have with me was going to have to happen here, at school.
For the record, I would have celebrated with him tonight if he’d asked. We could have gone to Sugar Sweet Sunshine for cupcakes, which was my secret birthday fantasy. Or possibly not-so-secret, since I might have mentioned it to Lars one or two times. Possibly three.
But I figured he didn’t want to get in the way of my girl time, which was gentlemanly and sweet ... except for the one small fact that I would have rather spent it with him.
Ag
, I told myself, not wanting to go down the road of wishing for things that weren’t going to happen.
Stop that right now. Say “no” to needy!
I wondered what sort of birthday treat he’d planned. A present slipped into my locker? Flowers delivered to the school office? A candle stuck into a cafeteria brownie, which he’d bring me during my lunch period?
Or ...
I know!
A cake, to make up for the one that Dinah and Cinnamon forgot to bake ! ! !
Of course,
I thought. I was finally putting the pieces together, and I felt foolish for being so slow. As if Dinah and Cinnamon would really forget to bring me, their BFF, a cake on her fourteenth b-day. They might “forget,” but they would never
forget.
Last year, when Sandra turned seventeen, her boyfriend, Bo, threw her a moonlight-picnic surprise party. She never saw it coming. And then—
ta-da!
Turned out he’d orchestrated the perfect romantic evening for her, complete with a lopsided three-layer cake he baked and frosted himself.
I wasn’t Sandra, and Lars wasn’t Bo. I knew that. And I knew I shouldn’t use Sandra’s life as a model for my own.
But still ...
hmmm. Hmmity-hmmity-hum.
Take several loudly issued hints about my cupcake fantasy, add in Dinah and Cinnamon’s “forgetfulness,” and ...
squeee!
How sweet and adorable would it be to have my high school boyfriend bring me a cupcake in front of the whole eighth grade?!
I could see it now: I would gasp in delight, then hop up and give Lars a hug. I’d look deep into those gorgeous hazel eyes of his, and he’d tilt my chin and kiss me, right there in the cafeteria. Just a light peck.
It would be the best birthday surprise ever.
“So should we sit at our normal table?” I asked as I headed out of the food line with Cinnamon and Dinah.
Cinnamon gave me the old fish eye, with one eyebrow cocked. “Unless you’d prefer to sit at our abnormal table?”
I giggled. My gaze flitted about the cafeteria.
“You’re the birthday girl,” Dinah said. “We can sit wherever you want.”
“Right. Normal table it is.” I walked with breezy confidence to our table by the wall. Except, is it breezy confidence if you’re faking both the breeze and the confidence?
Once seated, I smiled (brightly!) and said (brightly!), “So!”
Cinnamon chomped off a bite of her corn dog. She had an excellent poker face.
I turned to Dinah, who did not, in general, have an excellent poker face.
“Oh, Dinah,” I said fondly. “You’re such a cupcake, did you know that? You’re my dearest-ever cupcake of a friend. You really are.”
I watched for revealing tics or twitches. She gave away nothing, but said only, “I am?”
“You silly! Of course!”
“Well ... thanks, my little, um, cherry Twizzler.”
“Hey, what am I?” Cinnamon demanded. “If she’s your little cupcake, and you’re her cherry Twizzler, what am I?”
I gave a slight nod of appreciation. Was she good at diversion or what?
“Hmm. You can be ... my Dorito!”
“What if I don’t want to be a Dorito?”
“Then you can be another cupcake, okay?” My eyeballs darted here, there, and everywhere. Ty had a party trick where he could make his eyeballs vibrate, and that’s what it felt like mine were doing.
Lars!
O,
Lars! Wherefore art thou, Lars?
At some point during the eyeball-vibrating, a weird-ish silence alerted me to the fact that Cinnamon and Dinah were regarding me quizzically.
“Winnie?” Cinnamon said. “Do we have cupcakes on our brain?”
“I don’t know.
Do we
?” I volleyed back. Then, because that was too obvious, I lifted my hair away from my head and said, “No, I do not have cupcakes on my brain. See?”
Dinah wrinkled her brow. “You are odd, Winnie.”
“Ha ha. I know. But, okay, that new cupcake store ... it’s so cute, don’t you think? Sugar Sweet Sunshine?”
“I’ve only seen it from the outside,” Dinah said. “But it looks cute. And I love cupcakes.”
“Me too!” I exclaimed. Now we were getting somewhere!
“I like cupcakes
if
they’re good,” Cinnamon said. “Sometimes they’re all about the frosting, you know? In a bad way, like,
Ooo, let’s put a big dollop of frosting on this baby just to make it pretty!
But if the frosting is nasty potato, then what’s the point?”
Yes,
I thought, giving her a moment of my attention.
What is the point? Or rather, what is your point?
I returned to my scan-o-rama. And then I asked the one question I should have known better than to ask. I
did
know better, but I was thinking the words so hard, my lips couldn’t hold them back.
“Have y’all seen Lars?” I said.
And then ...
beat ... beat ...
the
uh-oh
feeling returned. Dinah and Cinnamon were sharing a look, and it was the same exact look they’d exchanged earlier when I asked if they truly hadn’t baked me a cake.
“Never mind,” I said.
“Oh man,” Cinnamon said.
“Really. Never mind.”
“You thought he was going to bring you a cupcake,” she said flatly. She wasn’t trying to be cruel; she was just being Cinnamon. Plus she was in an anti-boy phase.
No, no, no, I said to the tears pressing against my eyes.
Absolutely
not.
“Winnie ...” Dinah said, and if Cinnamon was too harsh, Dinah was too kind.
“Don’t,” I whispered.
There was silence for several seconds. Cinnamon stole a fry.
“I’m sure he’s got something really nice planned,” Dinah said.
“I’m sure he does, too.” I smiled. It felt hard on my face.
“Totally,” Cinnamon said. There was a chewed-up French fry in her mouth, and then she swallowed, and it was gone. She swiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Unless he doesn’t.”
He didn’t.
He gave me—wait for it—a Starbucks card.
“Do you like it?” he said.
“I love it,” I lied. It was after our last class. He’d found me in the junior high parking lot, where I was waiting for Sandra to pick me up. It was the same parking lot where many moons ago, he’d first held my hand. Seriously, like
twelve whole moons,
practically to the day.
And for my birthday, he gave me a Starbucks card?! A Starbucks card was not many-moons-worthy. A Starbucks card was for a two-moons girlfriend at best. Any moons after that was stretching it.
“It has a beach scene on it,” he said, leaning close and putting his hand over mine to tilt the card. “See?”
“It’s pretty,” I said.
For a Starbucks card.
“Because I know you love the beach, and those Frappuccino drinks.”
I exhaled. I
did
love the beach and those Frappuccino drinks.
He slipped his arm around my waist and drew me close, not caring that the whole junior high was milling about, chatting and texting and waiting for their rides.
“Wouldn’t it be awesome to go to the beach together one day?” he said into my ear. “We could sit on the sand ... watch the sunset ...”
“Enjoy a delicious iced beverage from Starbucks ...”
“Exactly.”
I wiggled free, saying, “There’s Sandra. Gotta go.”
His arms, now empty, fell to his sides. He drew his eyebrows together, and his expression confused me. Was he ...
sad?
“Lars?”
He shook it off with a grin. “So, hey. I want you to have fun with Dinah and Cinnamon tonight, all right?”
He was all charm and confidence, only, I didn’t
want
charm and confidence. I wanted to boot-kick his charm and confidence to China. I kinda wanted to boot-kick him to China, too. Where did he get off, instructing me to “have fun”?
“We will have fun,” I informed him, drawing myself tall. “I’m sure we’ll have a blast,
all right?”
Again his brow furrowed, and I wanted him to
say
it, to ask what was wrong. Then I could hint that while a Starbucks card was a ducky gift for, say, his aging aunt Frances, if a guy’s been going out with a girl for a whole year, he was supposed to get her something nicer.
But he lifted his hand that way guys do, an awkward good-bye that was annoyingly adorkable.
The edges of my Starbucks card dug into my palm. I ducked my head and left.
At home, Mom said, “Hi, birthday girl. You have a good day?” She was on the sun porch, sprawled on the love seat. Baby Maggie was asleep in her arms. Baby Maggie was perfect and unspoiled, a drowsing daffodil, and I thought,
Oh, to be young and
innocent.
“Listen, sweetie,” Mom went on. Apparently she hadn’t really wanted an answer about my day. “I hope you’ll forgive me ... but I never found time to bake a cake.”
My mouth fell open. My own
mother
failed to make me a cake? For real?
“Mom,” I said. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”
Mom gestured at baby Maggie. “I forgot to order the model with the ‘sleep’ button, it seems.”
“She’s sleeping now.”
“Because she’s in my arms. The minute I try to put her down, she turns into a red-faced crying machine.”
Well, I could be a red-faced crying machine
, I thought.
If that’s what it takes
.
If I weren’t fourteen and
too old to
throw fits.
“Want me to call your dad and have him pick up a cake from Whole Foods?” Mom asked.
No,
I wanted Mom to go back in time and bake me one. I wanted Dinah and Cinnamon to go back in time and bake me one. I wanted Lars to go back in time and haul his lame self to Sugar Sweet Sunshine and pick me out a perfect chocolate cupcake and jab a single pink candle in it. Was that really so much to ask?
But if I wanted a cake at all, it looked like a cake from stupid Whole Foods was the only option left.
“Fine,” I muttered.
She glanced about. She patted the cushions with her free hand. “I don’t have my phone. I must have left it in the kitchen. Will you call him, baby?”