Crushing
.
I
click the phone off, clutch it against my chest, and collapse against the wall. That was close. Crud. I was ready to tell her everything about the revenge plan and my secret cake baking, but what she wanted was an apology.
Jillian’s always been the one who talked me down from the ledge of this-is-going-to-be-a-disaster. But, this summer, I’m going to prove that I can do things differently. Not only will I participate in the world’s most unlikely summer project, but I can handle Will and the problems that he’s dishing out—all on my own. Jillian will be shocked. First her best friend babysits her six brothers, deals with a flood and a blackout, and then she successfully avenges the guy who threatened her reputation. And they all lived happily ever after.
The cake is gorgeous. Cherry pink swirls flirt over the top and down the sides of my vanilla-scented Crush On You creation. Named and baked by me, it will be the star of a show-stopping performance. The note made with cut-out letters from my stack of old magazines spells out the instructions.
I set the cake in my bike basket, pull on my all-black shirt, shorts, and biking gloves, snap the strap on my helmet. I don’t want to get caught during my first delivery.
A Charming Morning
.
T
his morning, despite my saying three times, “This is really insane, Parker. Five little boys and a one-year-old at the lake will be our last date,” we load my brothers into the van with towels, sand toys, and a picnic lunch. I drive while he reads
Sesame Street
stories from the front seat. Ollie giggles at the Oscar the Grouch growls. As we pull into the parking lot Parker retrieves his phone from the van console and starts texting. Within minutes a crew of four girls arrives at the van; one is our physics teacher’s daughter, Chloe. She introduces her friends and makes a rush for Ollie.
“Oh, I’ll take him,” Chloe coos. (I’m not kidding, she coos.) She scoops him out of my arms. “I love babies.”
“Um …” I’m used to people wanting to hold Ollie, he is that cute, but Chloe is sort of
taking
him. Before I can object, Parker steps in.
“Okay, boys.” He gathers the Hat Trick and Double Minor into a sports huddle. “We’ve got a camp all planned out for you this summer.”
“We? Who are we?” My stomach cramps. He’s taking over? I don’t need this. Do I? He leans out of the huddle.
“Well, I guess it’s me. Me and the babysitters.” He outlines the schedule: the girls will supervise the six boys for two hours in the morning at the playground. Parker and I take over for swimming
time and lunch. After lunch it’s either naptime if you’re little or you’re hanging out with Chloe and her friends for two hours. We end the day with more swim time and we all go home together. He is enthusiastic and precise, a male version of Chantal minus the anxiety.
“Parker?” I wave him over. He grins and moves close to me. Very close. I smile through clenched teeth. “How are they getting paid?”
“The girls?”
I nod.
He avoids direct eye contact with me. “I’m paying them.”
“No.”
“It’s a gift. Chantal called last night. She explained that we’re going to do some sort of project—the four of us. I thought you’d want to have fun without the kids sometimes.” He doesn’t hide the mix of confusion and annoyance in his voice.
“The boys are my responsibility.” I’m not going to waver.
He takes a deep breath. Stands up straight. Stares out at the lake and back to the boys. Finally, he speaks. “You are a sister. Not a mother. We will be here if they need us.”
Even though I want to say something back right away, something like you hardly even know me, I’m smart enough to squash that impulse. Instead I consider what he’s said. I am a sister. Most sisters would take help.
Rocks ping off of trees. Boy-generated entertainment. I watch. Chloe dives in to rescue Ollie from the firing range. Now Travis is trying to convince Stevie to run through the woods so they have a target. “We’ll aim for your legs,” Travis says. One of the other girls grabs Stevie’s hand to stop him. If I’m in charge alone, we’ll probably come to the lake once a week if we’re lucky. That means we’re stuck with the backyard and the kiddie pool. “If I agree, I’ll give you an IOU. And I’ll pay you back.”
“If you want to.” Parker shrugs.
“Of course I want to. You act like money doesn’t matter. It’s going
to be expensive. Four girls every day for the summer. And … that’s a lot of money.” I bet he’s never had to cut the mold off the bread. They probably throw their old bread out at his house.
“Think of it like this. You’re my girlfriend. Instead of taking you to the movies and going out for dinner and I don’t know, bowling, our dates are at the lake.”
I’m his girlfriend. I weaken. “But what if someone gets hurt? Someone always gets hurt.”
“The girls have first aid training. I taught the class. I was a day-camp counselor four summers in a row. And Chloe is the perfect age, fourteen. In another year she’ll probably be into boys but we’ve got her for this summer anyway.” Implying there could be another one.
“And if it rains?”
“We all go home. Together.”
I can’t agree. I can’t say yes. I can’t commit to this just because I want some time off.
Parker’s hand is at my elbow and then the other one. And we’re in that let’s dance position. I look up at him. God, he’s so gorgeous. “We’re good then?”
“Parker.” I stare at him. I want him to see that taking charity isn’t easy. That I don’t expect it. That I am not my mother. He leans forward, kisses me and, finally, I feel like I don’t want him to stop. Maybe the curse against him is only at our house.
“Gross!” Trevor yells. “Can we go now? This is boring.”
Everyone deserves to have fun. Especially us.
Circle Perfection
.
I
understand the problem with perfection. I am, after all, the daughter of a mother who believes that if I eat healthy enough, sleep eight hours a night, exercise no less than thirty minutes each day, study a minimum of thirty minutes for each subject every school night, limit my exposure to TV and the Internet, stay away from drugs and alcohol, and floss my teeth after every meal, I will be the model of a perfect daughter. But would a perfect daughter be baking cakes when her mother told her not to? Would she wish her mother would stay away for a little longer?
My mother wasn’t here, but I was still arguing with her in my mind. So … I talked to Nigella. Virtually. (That sounds better than I was hearing her voice in my head. Right?)
You are two things, a baker and a daughter. Like a yolk from the white, you’ve got to separate the two. Both are useful. Both are good. Yes, that’s well put. Both are good.
I’m not saying virtual Nigella told me what to do, but she reassured me. And my mom? I don’t have to do anything about her for another two nights. Today, I’m at the lake amid the circles of umbrellas and the towel rectangles to plan a summer project and watch my cake’s debut.
I hike up the hill to our tree, hoping I’m not the first person to arrive. It’s okay if I’m only meeting Jillian, she doesn’t think prompt arrival is dork
2
, but Will probably does. He wouldn’t say it now, would he? Now that we’re sort of on a team. I wish I didn’t care what he thinks. I trip over a sippy cup that’s rolled away from a little kid. I grab it before it rolls too much farther and return it to the girl. The mom thanks me.
See? I’m a kind dork. A mess of panic under pale skin. I ignore the trembling in my legs. I see our tree, and people under it. This is a sign, clearly, that the day is going to go my way. The next sign is that Jillian and Parker are there, and Will isn’t.
So little space separates Parker and Jillian that I wonder how close they’ve gotten, off the hill. Still, I smile wide and drop my backpack across from them.
“Hey.”
Parker shifts away from Jillian, his hand trailing along her back and Jillian looks down, awkward that I see this closeness. Before it can get any weirder than that, we hear Will’s voice.
“Amigos!”
He fist punches Parker, says hi to Jillian, and then it’s my turn. His voice is softer than usual, and he looks me over before he meets my eyes. “How’s it goin’?” His head nods almost imperceptibly and he smiles with half his mouth. I wait to feel something other than anxiety fuelling my pounding heart and my sweaty palms, but it just gets worse. Crud. I want to hit him. I need to sit down. But he’s still staring, waiting for a response.
“Um … the weather station says the warm front is going to be with us for a few days. I sort of saw it coming, you know the stratiform clouds the day before yesterday, but we didn’t get any rain, usually you get rain before a warm front. But … no rain. Not a drop. Dry as a …” My voice trails off. Clearly my dad’s advice—you can always talk about the weather when you don’t know what to say—is making this whole thing worse.
“Do you watch the Weather Channel?” Will asks.
“Not much,” I say.
“Great memory,” Jillian says. “Nearly photographic. One of her many gifts.”
“Really?” Will unrolls his towel. “So you’ll never forget my face, even when you’re ancient.”
I shake my head. And now, because I’m still in panic mode, I speak without thinking through the consequences. “That would be a disadvantage of having a great memory.”
Parker laughs first and Jillian joins in. Even Will halfway laughs along. I laugh last, when I realize it might be safe.
“You’re funny,” Will says.
I pull my towel from my backpack, lay it out, and sit. I smile. And I feel good, more than good. Great. I’m funny. I am. Funny. I notice that our rectangle towels are laid in a circle. Through long breaths in and out, the panic begins to subside.
Stoked on the Bridge
.
I
t’s like we’re two punks and two folkies trying to write a song. Me, I’m stoked on the bridge, that long instrumental solo that’s like an explosion of complicated sound that kicks you right in the gut. I want the big show. Parker, he’s playing the transitions. Dude, I want to shout at him, just ’cause Jillian’s your girlfriend, doesn’t mean you need to freakin’ lose your mind and stop being you. First the rug rats, now he can’t make a decision? Jillian’s all about the chorus, let’s all get on the same page, let’s all sing together. And Chantal, oh my freakin’ boxer shorts, her mind noise volume is maxed out.
Jillian looks up from her spiral notebook. “Okay, so we know we want something that will benefit the community, something that’s fun, something that involves everyone’s skill set, a big show of some sort, a way to keep the boys interested, and we want to make some money for charity.”
“That’s closer,” Chantal says. I watch her spread sunscreen along her arms for the third time. I consider grabbing the tube and firing it into the lake.
“Can we move on? Forty-five minutes on goals and objectives?” I lie back on my towel. “The summer will be over before we finish planning.” Maybe working at a job I hate would be killer over this.
“Hey, stay with the brain trust, man.” Parker grabs a can from the cooler and tosses it to me.
“Now, we’re ready for popcorn.” Chantal slathers her lips with some SPF 75 lip balm.
“Popcorn? What the hell?”
“You throw out ideas, whatever pops in your brain.”
“What have we been doing for the last hour?”
“Well … this is like popcorn extreme. Badass, if you will. Kernels straight up, no chaser.” She laughs at her joke and everyone else laughs along with her. What the hell?
“Funny.” I say. “Funny.” Who is this girl? Until yesterday, I’d pretty much only witnessed her spewing factual information at any given point—even Cranium is about showing off what you know—and now she wants to be funny? What gives? Is she trying to impress me? I tune out of their conversation and I watch. Chantal.
In a plain T-shirt and long shorts, her dark hair pulled back by a stretchy hair band, she is the sort of girl a guy marries, not the kind he dates. The girl I’m going to marry has to be more hipster than mess of the moment. I don’t want a girl I have to rescue every other day or call every hour while I’m out with my friends. And I want a girl who can think on her own. And she should like my kind of music. And it would be cool if she played kick-ass Halo. Chantal laughs with her mouth wide open, like a chimp. I don’t know if I can get used to that. I wonder what she’d say to one of my favorite lines—if you could get a tattoo what would it be and where? She’d probably say the chemicals in the ink haven’t been approved for use in the body. Does she know the awesomeness of Dinosaur Jr.’s lyrics? Could she learn to love them?
Now, she’s furiously writing on her clipboard, focused and sort of, I almost hate to say it, looking fine. She’ll be someone’s girlfriend one day. Married. With a couple kids. A top corporate something.
A lawyer. An ambassador. Living anywhere but in this small town with its limited jobs and/or small-minded failure to appreciate most things hip and cool. Maybe we’re sort of the same in a weird way, at two ends of the same spectrum, running parallel. In some other dimension, we might be the perfect couple. I think Dinosaur Jr. has a song about people like us.
Just as I’m trying to remember the song that could be our song, I’m stunned.
It’s Annelise. The bikini that’s two strings away from illegal catches my attention first. And I’m not alone. Heads swivel and stay with her as she passes them; everything sways in the right proportion; her long hair is the harmony. As she gets closer I see her model-wide smile, notice how she doesn’t look around to see who is looking at her. No, she is marching almost directly at me. I sit up straight. Glance over at Chantal who is writing something on her clipboard, oblivious to what is about to happen. This is a different Annelise from the one who always makes it clear that we will only ever be friends. And I’m not sure. I swallow, like I’m eleven and on the playground and the girls have just told me they want me to play CCK—chase them, catch them, and kiss them. This new Annelise could be after me. And … she’s carrying a cake. The song in my head crashes to an end. The cake is all pink and swirly. A final bass beat sounds, out of time. What the hell?