A Planning Princess
.
A
s a straight-A student I appear to be capable of many things. And I am—but not quickly or without the proper research. Example: when I was in the sixth grade my teacher said I took too long solving math word problems. This was inexplicable, she told my mother, because everyone knew I was smart. So I went into training: train A left the station at 1 P.M. traveling at 40 mph, train B left at 4 P.M. traveling at 60 mph … you get the idea. A month later the teacher was asking me to solve problems at the board, claiming she knew all along that I would “just get it.” It was more about not giving up than it was about a sudden magical insight.
It isn’t surprising, then, that when I left Will’s house I went directly to the library where I spent the next three hours poring over cookbooks. I needed to be sure that I could create one beautiful, delicious, scrumptious cake after another. Let’s face it, the cheesecake tasted good but it looked sad. The SRC
2
was an unlikely-to-be-repeated miracle save. And the Vampire Vanilla Cupcakes were delicious (though I never shared them with Will)—but you repeat vanilla/ vanilla too many times and your audience is going to get bored. I had to be sure that I was up to the task.
I started with Nigella’s
How to Be a Domestic Goddess.
It isn’t so much about being a domestic goddess, but
feeling
like a domestic
goddess. You don’t see too many domestic goddesses my age around, but not many girls know how useful it can be.
“Everyone seems to think it’s hard to make a cake (and no need to disillusion them),” Nigella writes, “but it doesn’t take more than twenty-five minutes to make and bake a tray of muffins or a sponge layer cake, and the returns are high: you feel disproportionately good about yourself afterwards. This is what baking, what all of this book, is about: feeling good, wafting along in the warm, sweet-smelling air, unwinding …”
Yes. I devoured her recipes. Her burnt–brown sugar cupcakes, her almond cake, and her dozen variations on chocolate layers captivated me. Her book alone was enough, but the Dewey decimal system is such a hook: 641 is now my favorite subdivision of the preferred 640 class, Home Economics and Family Living. I found
The Art & Soul of Baking
by Cindy Mushet,
Baking, From My Home to Yours
by Dorie Greenspan, Pierre Herme’s
Desserts by Pierre Herme,
oh, and cookbooks by Anna Olson, Alice Medrich, and Rose Levy Beranbaum. I studied their formulations. I realized that I’m no longer baking to eat cake—I’m in love with creating cake. And with the message I’m sending out. The sweet revenge is always there.
I should have slouched all the way home, with the three thickest books in my arms and the additional weight of a bag of baking supplies, but I walked with a new confidence.
When I open the front door, I’m startled the radio is playing until I remember that I left it on, a strategy my mother insisted would keep the burglars away. Michael Bublé serenades me, inspiring me with his “Lost” lyrics. “You are not alone,” I sing with him. “I’m always there with you.” The crescendo to the final chorus is coming and I grab the cordless to serve as my microphone.
I stop singing. As if someone has just walked into the room. And, really, she has.
The flashing light on the phone tells me someone’s left a message.
Crud. I was supposed to phone my mother three hours ago. I listen to her message. She’d already texted me her hotel phone number and room number and if I don’t want her to call me every hour for the next twenty-four hours I’d better text her back. I find my phone and text.
I am fine. Love you.
I try to recover that feeling of … freedom … again, but it’s covered, as if a blob of black ick has dripped on my sweet, buttery yellow day.
I need to forget that I only have unencumbered use of the kitchen until my mom comes home on Saturday; that’s three nights. I pile my groceries in a pyramid on one counter, the cookbooks in a stack on the table. You can handle Mom, I repeat three times. I have to banish worry and doubt so I can bake.
Suddenly, I realize that I’m hungry. Starving. Twelve splendid cupcakes sit on the counter next to my bricks of unsalted butter. I take one and cut it in half, one half for now and the other for five minutes from now. But after the first bite, I pause. Do I want a cupcake? My brain spins. I sort of feel like something healthy. An apple. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Maybe a glass of ice water. I’m so thirsty. After I feast on solid brain food, I stare at my cupcakes.
Is it fair if I no longer want to eat you? Can I love you enough by looking at you?
The radio plays a summer song, Sheryl Crow singing “All I Wanna Do.” I dance around the kitchen. Who knew that living in my house alone would be so much fun? And that I would be smarter than ever? And that I am such. A fantastic. Singer. And dancer. I dance and let my brain cells go to work for me. My invisible audience cheers.
The solution is easy. I’ll give the cupcakes away. But … the obvious recipients, Jillian and her brothers, won’t work. It’s not that I have to keep my cake baking a secret from Jillian. It’s that I want to. It’s sort of like those makeover shows on TV, where the girl goes shopping in New York with thousands of dollars and she gets her hair and her makeup done and then when she goes home, everyone throws a party for her and she walks in and it’s a big ta da? I want to be that
girl. I want my moment. When I surprise them with my baking expertise. I know Jillian will understand.
Before the cupcakes leave my home, I will treat them to a photo shoot. Then I’ll parade them over to Mrs. Ellis next door. After I explain the art and soul of my newly renamed Very Vanilla Cupcakes, I’ll ask her if I can keep her beautiful mixer for a few more days. Problem solved. Next !
The rest of the evening is faultless.
I cream six ounces of unsalted butter with three quarters of a cup of sugar, beating them until very light—almost white—in color. I add three healthy large eggs, warmed to room temperature, mixing completely between each one and, finally, I trickle in heavenly scented vanilla. Honestly, if I was only allowed to smell one thing for the rest of my life I might choose vanilla.
The dry ingredients of sifted cake flour, baking soda, and salt go into a bowl and I whisk them together before I add them, alternately, with the sour cream to the egg batter. I’m careful not to under-or overmix. I pour the batter into the prepared pan (that’s baking speak for buttered and floured) and let it bake in the 350-degree oven for thirty minutes. My joy is irrepressible as I retrieve the exquisitely domed, light, and evenly colored layer from the oven. Success! Again! If only everything were so predictable.
With some of Nigella’s ease, I create the same frosting I made the night before, only this time with a little cherry extract and several drops of red food coloring. It takes away the emptiness of a long night alone. Pink pizazz for a girl who is hopeful that life is on an upswing.
The Unexpected and Unexplained
.
I
lost the debate with my mother.
I have won every debate I’ve prepared for, except for the ones that matter the most.
It started when she announced that with Dad 3 leaving town she couldn’t afford to put Ollie in day care for the next two months. I’d known this was coming; I’d listened on the other side of her bedroom door as she talked to a girlfriend on the phone.
Ollie was down for a nap and the Hat Trick and Double Minor were playing video games. I knew I’d have about thirty minutes before a fight broke out. I found my mother sitting in one of our plastic lawn chairs in the backyard. She appeared to be half-ready for work wearing her nursing-home scrub top and her denim cutoff short shorts. She rested her feet in the plastic kiddie pool. She was smoking again? Her right hand held a cigarette to her lips and she inhaled, held the smoke in her lungs, rested her head against the back of the lawn chair and exhaled, a thin, toxic, sighing stream. A lighter and a pack of Marlboro Lights lay in the grass.
I wasn’t sure I could cover each of my debate points, wasn’t sure that she’d let me talk until I was done. I handed her my list of arguments, printed from the laptop Dad 2 gave me before he moved out.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to babysit Ollie while you’re at work this summer,” I began. “Developmentally he needs more stimulation than I can provide while I’m trying to take care of the other boys.”
My mother smiled as she looked over the paper. “Those boys have each other, that’s the good part of having them in sets.”
Her smile encouraged me. Maybe we could talk about this. “But they fight, too, and they get into trouble. They tore the fence down, twice, last summer. And I wasn’t watching Ollie then.”
“Take away their video games if they do anything bad. They love shooting bad guys on the screen. That’s what they’re doing now, isn’t it? And we’re sitting out here, relaxing in the sun.” She closed her eyes.
“This is about Ollie. He needs to be with someone who can help him grow intellectually.”
She laughed. “Jillian, you’ll be perfect for that.”
“But … a professional will have a plan for talking to him about cause and effect relationships, sharing picture books and crafts and …” That was point five; I’d just skipped three and four.
“Get Chantal over here. That girl loves a freaking plan.”
I swallowed. I’d practiced this in my head. I was just going to say it. Say it. “You need to get someone else.”
“You act, Jillian, like there is an option here. There’s not. And all this high and mighty stuff …” She read from the top of the paper. “‘Developmental Stages and Intellectual and Emotional Needs of a One-Year-Old.’ Shit, girl. You’re ready to go. If I could pay you, I’d give you a raise.”
My stomach twisted at how foolish my words sounded when she read them back. “I don’t want to do this.” My voice shrank to a small dismal sound. I knew my stand against babysitting Ollie didn’t have to do with not being confident or capable, at least not very much. I couldn’t take care of all the boys and be Parker’s girlfriend.
And more than anything else, I wanted to be able to have him look into my eyes and not see the panicked me—worrying about breaking up fights, or how I’d handle the next temper tantrum.
“Don’t be a victim, Jillian. It’s embarrassing.” She let the paper fall from her hands, into the kiddie pool. The black ink became more visible as the paper soaked up water. Words don’t mean anything to my mother.
She lit a second cigarette, her lips pinching together, the wrinkles defying her attempts to look young and hot with her carefree hair, her bralessness. She was only fooling herself. “You’re embarrassing.” I wished I hadn’t said it the second that it came out of my mouth.
Her reaction was shock, but that didn’t last long. Not long enough to give me real satisfaction. She laughed. Snorted. “I am doing you a favor and you’re not even grateful. Those boys are the only way you’re going to keep that boyfriend of yours. Men want to rescue girls. They want to be the prince on the white horse.” She pulled her feet out of the water and pushed herself up from her lawn chair, the skin ripping against the plastic. As she bent down to retrieve her cigarettes and lighter, the cellulite on the back of her red-streaked thighs jiggled.
“Just be careful,” she said as she turned toward me, waving her cigarette in the air. “Once you graduate you can get yourself pregnant and hold on to any man you want, but you’re going to graduate first. You need to have an education to fall back on.”
She took one last long drag, the cigarette paper curling into ash as she sucked on the filter, then she dropped it in the grass. I wanted to warn her about the fire danger. Instead I watched the smoke trail up.
Just as I’m almost ready to take the boys to the library for a couple of hours (it’s self-contained and they expect children), Chantal calls, excited about another summer project. We haven’t talked in nearly a week and she’s still on about the summer project?
I cut her off before she can get too far. “I’ve got all the boys this summer. Even if I wanted to, I can’t do a summer project.”
“But you have to.” Chantal has that only-child whine in her voice.
Being her best friend doesn’t mean agreeing to everything she wants. “I think we already went through this. My brothers come first right now.”
“But …”
“No.” Before I can press pause, I say everything. “You do not need me this summer. Because I can’t be needed by you. Do you understand?” I don’t even stop to hear her feeble protest. “You know what you need? You need to loosen up. You need to have more fun. You need to stop thinking everything through and deciding the most efficient, less painful, less potentially embarrassing path. You need to let yourself be unorganized. You need to let yourself be wrong.”
“Jillian, what’s going on?”
“You need to know.”
“Know what?”
“Know what you’re missing. Where you
ought
to draw the line, instead of where you’re drawing the line because you’re afraid.” I hold the phone away from my mouth so she can’t hear my rapid breathing. I don’t know how to stop.
“Ouch. I didn’t know you felt so strongly,” she says. “I’m working on it. I took care of your brothers, all by myself, even in a flood. And I’m … biking … I’ve been doing a lot of biking. And I love it. I mean, it’s so … creative …”
Creative biking? Tell me this isn’t the summer project she wants me to do. Now I’m beginning to feel sorry for her.
“And I feel like I’m growing into someone who is … better.” After a week? I wait for the crying to start. I wonder why she hasn’t insisted on coming over here to talk this out face-to-face. I wonder why she isn’t at least sighing heavily into the phone. I wonder if she’s still on the line.
“Chantal? Are you there?”
“I thought we’d do the summer project with Parker … and Will.”
Huh? “You don’t want to do a summer project with Parker, and definitely not with Will. Please.”
“Remember last summer? Remember you called me and you said that three times that morning you nearly got in the car to drive away? You said you just wanted a break from the drudgery.”
“I think I said prison duty.” But, I get it. She’s desperate. And if she’s willing to accept Parker, well, things could be very different. “What about my being too vulnerable to be around Parker? What about throwing my life away?”
“I went too far.” In the silence that follows, I hear a whirring noise in the background; it must be the dishwasher. “Can I have a second chance?”
We’re even. We both said things we shouldn’t have, and now we can break up. I can tell her that we’re not a good match and we’ve grown apart. I can say I’m sorry for what happened. I can tell her it’s not her fault. I can tell her we need time apart. I can cut this complication out of my life. Instead I say, “We need to have some rules.”
“I love rules.”
“We’re not creative biking.”
“What?”
“Everyone gets to decide and I’m saying right now I veto creative biking.”
“Strike creative biking from the list.”
“You can’t roll your eyes.”
“What?”
“You’re not allowed to roll your eyes when Parker or Will talks—it’s not polite.”
“Jillian. I don’t roll my eyes,” Chantal starts. “Okay, I just did. And I won’t.”
“And you can’t make that big sighing noise if they say something that you think is stupid.”
“I don’t—okay, I won’t. Any more conditions of engagement?”
“Yes. We need to say we’re sorry …” Though my words stop, the communication doesn’t end. Sometimes silence says more.
“You know I’m sorry.” Chantal has that choked-up sound in her voice. “You’re my best friend …”
“And I’m sorry for not listening to you before I started my verbal—”
“—Assault.”
“I was going to say punishment.”
I hear her stifle a sigh. “And I’m sorry for …” Chantal breathes into the phone. “For the night of the party. I’m going to respect your right to run your own life. I won’t say another disparaging thing about Parker. And I love your brothers, almost as much as you do.”
“Okay.” It comes out choked, as if gratitude were the wishbone of a chicken stuck in my throat. If only my mother could listen and understand me like Chantal does. I have given my mother a thousand chances. “Apology accepted. But we do have an issue. I have to take care of all the boys this summer.”
“Even Ollie? Why?”
It’s like I didn’t say this at the beginning of the call. “It doesn’t matter why. And don’t bother telling me it’s not fair.”
“I wasn’t going to say that …”
I don’t fill in her pause.
“Okay, I was. But, we can work it out. We
need
to have a summer project. It’s our last project before we graduate.”
“
You
need to have a summer project,” I correct her. “And I
would like
to have a summer project that’s fun, if everyone is included.”
“Don’t worry about the boys. We’ll all pitch in.”
“I don’t know. If Will gets ahold of them, they’ll be little slang masters. Yo, so snap, dude.” We laugh. “And what’s up with Will? You don’t even like him, do you?”
“Not like, like.” Chantal stutters. “Um … well, we’ve come to a truce. An understanding.”
“Okay … but are you sure you want to try to do a summer project with him?”
“Oh, it’ll be fine. I’m the master planner you know …”
“And that’s your favorite part, second only to the performance,” I add.
“Performance? Oh … maybe we don’t need a performance this year. Or … maybe there could be something. Maybe a little less nerdy than last year. But fun. Still fun.”
I stand in front of my mirror as I talk. I look pretty good today. Pretty good. My hair has just enough body. My T-shirt curves in all the right places. My legs are just enough tan. I think I can see why Parker is attracted to me. Maybe my mom is trying to keep me away from him. Maybe she’s jealous that she’s not young anymore or that she can’t have a summer. Sad.
“So you’ll meet me at the lake tomorrow morning?”
“Definitely,” I say. “We shouldn’t let anything stop us.”