I circle around to the back, and my stomach seems to trip all over itself when I see the swirling letters spelling out
Betty’s Bakery
. Ann shrieks and points to the sign and bounces around in her seat.
I still haven’t told her that she’s going to be part of the unwish. How would I start? “Oh, by the way, have fun today because it might be your last”? That’ll go over well.
She doesn’t understand that real life means school and jobs and paying bills, and there’s no way she can function like that. So she has to go back . . . to wherever she came from.
I park the car as butterflies swarm my stomach. This is my one shot at fixing everything. I
have
to make this work. Because if it doesn’t?
Well, there is no
if
. There’s just a
when
it works, life will be back to normal. I can apologize to Nicole and forever stay away from Ben.
Ann and I cross the blacktopped lot, my sneakers feeling sticky, like I’m melting into the pavement, even though it’s probably forty-eight degrees out and still pouring rain. The rain starts soaking through my jeans, and my skin begins to tingle.
I realize with a jolt that I
must
get out of the rain, and I pick up a dead sprint and dash through the sparkling glass door. I take a deep calming breath as I step inside the well-lit place.
The glass display case parallels the long wall to my right, and it’s filled with a colorful array of cupcakes, cookies, and cakes. There are big portraits on the wall, giant posters of frosted, mountainous treats: wedding cake towers, cartoon-themed birthday cakes, giant cookies placed in a pyramid of mouthwatering sugary sweets.
I follow the pastel-colored tiles to the counter, where a petite gray-haired woman is leaned over, a phone propped up between her shoulder and her ear, scribbling down an order.
“Uh-huh. Lemon filling. Strawberry filling? I suppose we could do half and half. Right. Well, no, you probably wouldn’t want them mixed together. One side lemon, one side strawberry. Right. Okay. The twenty-fifth? Yeah, it’ll be tight, but we can do that. Okay. I’ll call you when it’s ready. Thank you.”
She sets the phone in the cradle on the wall and turns back to her order form, scribbling down more directions for the filling-challenged customer. I wait quietly for her to notice me, but when she doesn’t, I clear my throat.
She jumps back from the counter and looks up at me, her brown eyes widening to the size of the cupcakes.
“Sorry,” I say, grimacing. Whoops, didn’t mean to scare her.
“We need a cake,” Ann says, peering into the display case. “That one.”
“No, not
that one
.” I look over at Ann, wondering why she’s trying to take charge of this expedition. “I think you made a cake for my sweet sixteen last week. Pink, lots of flowers, four tiers. I’d like to get another one. Identical.”
The woman leans back against the counter behind her, crossing her arms over her flour-dusted black apron. She has a smudge of frosting on her chin, and I swear, she has sprinkles in her curly gray hair. “I require two weeks notice for custom cakes.”
My heart seems to stop beating altogether. “This is an emergency. I really,
really
need that cake,
today
.”
She puts her wrinkled hands into the pockets of her apron. “You do realize that cake cost three hundred dollars?”
I practically choke on my spit. I can’t afford that, not by a long shot. Thanks to all my Ann-related expenses, I have maybe forty bucks to my name. “Can you make a mini-version?” I say, feebly. I’m not even sure a mini-cake would do the job, since my homemade one didn’t. Then again maybe it’s the ingredients, not the size.
“I still need a couple weeks notice. I’m backed up as it is, working late every night, seven days a week. No time for an extra order.”
I look down at my feet, fighting the urge to scream. This is not good. Not good at all. “Please, I need that cake,” I say, shoving my hands deep into my pockets. I’m wearing a pair of jeans my mom bought me. It’s a little weird to feel so . . . normal. They fit well, with no rips or tears or ink to be seen.
“Look, the only thing I sell out of the case is cookies,” she says, pointing to the display case, “or you can place an order and come back for it in two weeks.”
I grind my teeth and stare at the case. “I can’t even take a cupcake?”
At least those are made of cake batter, and maybe if I got one white and one pink . . .
“Those are sold by the dozen. Sixty dollars.”
Holy crud, this lady really overcharges. I dig through my purse. All I have on me is thirty dollars and a metric ton of pennies and nickels.
“Okay. Um, one cookie,” I say, my stomach sinking. This probably won’t work. I’m doomed to live my life with Ann and Ken and the rest of my twisted troupe.
The woman stuffs a cookie into a paper sack and then hands it to me. “On the house. You look like you could use it.”
Okay, so suddenly she’s feeling all generous?
“Um, thanks.”
I head to the door, dragging my feet, while Ann bounces around behind me. The door is half open when I hear the old lady speak again.
“It’ll be over by Monday.”
I freeze. My hand on the door tightens until my knuckles turn white. I turn around and face her.
“What does that mean? Everything goes away after the last wish?”
The woman looks up from the cake she is frosting. “Pardon me?”
“You just said it’ll be over by Monday. Does that mean as soon as I receive the fourteenth wish? They’ll all just
poof
into oblivion?” I ask, stepping toward her.
Her eyes dart back and forth and she steps back. It’s like she’s looking for a freaking silent alarm, like I’ve gone mad. “I said no such thing.”
“You did! You know what’s going on!” My voice gets higher, frantic. The woman backs up until she’s pressed against the countertop behind her. “Tell me how to fix this!”
She puts her hands out, as if she’s been cornered by a pack of wild dogs. Like I’m crazed or something. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
I take in a ragged breath, trying to calm myself. I can’t freak her out. “No, please, it’s okay. I just need help. One of these wishes can’t come true or my life will be over.”
“Miss, I have no idea what you’re talking about. You need to go or I’ll have you removed.”
So this is how she’s going to play it. Feign innocence. Make me deal with it on my own. Stupid lady and her magical cakes. I think the sprinkles have gone to her head.
I stomp to the door and shove it open, Ann trailing after me. By the time we get to the car, I’m positively fuming.
Maybe I should be happy. Now I know that Ann and Ken and the pony won’t be lurking in my life forever. But all I can think about is kissing Ben and betraying my best friend.
That lady is responsible. I don’t know what she puts in those cakes. . . .
I can’t believe this! What a disaster! If she’s right, there’s no way to undo it. Not until I get the last wish.
Not until I kiss Ben.
I hate my life.
Ann gets into the car and buckles her seat belt. I just stand there next to the driver’s-side door, the rain soaking through my T-shirt. My legs begin to tingle, but I still don’t move.
I’m screwed. Totally, completely screwed. I have six more wishes to survive, and I don’t know what any of them are.
No, I know what the last one was. So what are the others?
Could I have wished for anything worse than what’s already happened?
27
BY THE TIME
I get home from the bakery, I’m so frustrated by everything that I want to scream and rip out my hair.
I tell Ann to check on the pony and then go inside. She pouts, but I’m so furious I don’t even care.
I take the stairs two by two, tripping over the last one and landing hard on my knees. I scramble to my feet and then make it down the hall and fling my door open. I head straight into my closet. I want to find everything from my childhood. Every stupid, cursed thing and destroy it, before it comes to life too. I stand on my tippy toes to find the boxes that have been occupying one corner of my closet for years.
I yank so hard on the first one that it topples over and the lid flies off and everything inside the box scatters across the floor.
A couple dozen My Little Ponies land in a heap, their pink, blue, purple, and white manes tangling together. I kick the one nearest me and then reach up for the next box and take a big swipe at it and it falls off the shelf.
Children’s books.
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. The Little Ballerina. Cinderella.
All those stupid books meant to teach kids they can be anything and everything. That life is one big happy cookie.
They don’t make books called
Soon, Your Best Friend Will Abandon You.
They don’t make one called
Too Bad You’ll Grow Up and Become Such a Loser!
And they definitely don’t make one called
It Doesn’t Matter if You Speak Italian Because Your Dad Doesn’t Care.
I rip another box down and a few dozen Barbie dolls fly out, littering the closet floor with their perfect waists and long legs and luxurious blonde hair, hair that looks nothing like mine.
I don’t feel any better. In fact, I feel more balled up inside, just as angry as ever. I turn around and yank a bunch of pink flirty shirts and dresses off the hangers. This section of the closet is reserved for the clothes my mom buys me, the stuff I’ll never wear, not in a million years. The hangers swing around as the clothes rip and tear off, landing on the floor in a big heap.
By the time the whirlwind is complete, my closet is trashed, a huge mountain of junk overflowing and spilling into my room.
I slide to the floor and stare at the pile of junk as my heartbeat slows, as the rage starts to disappear, replaced by sad, bitter dejection.
It’s going to happen. I’m going to kiss Ben, and I’ll never be friends with Nicole again.
I pick up an errant Barbie and toss it onto the stack of junk next to me. I let my eyes wander over the stuff I haven’t looked at in years. It seems like it was never even mine, like it belongs to someone else entirely.
But it
is
mine. Maybe I’m someone else now, but once, all this stuff was me. I just decided not to be that person anymore.
And maybe that’s why I’m not handling this well.
Because for the first time, I’ve finally realized something: I chose this.
I chose to have a single friend and to block out everyone else.
I chose to dress like a freak and make fun of everyone else, ensuring my total social-leper status.
I chose to quit ballet.
I chose to be more angry with my mom than with my dad, when at least she’s trying.
I chose to put all this stuff in boxes and pretend I was never anything but what I am right now.
I chose this.
I look down at my Converse for a minute and then back into the closet.
It’s like a big time-warp piled up next to me. A visual representation of who I once was.
I blink a few times and look closer at the stack.
Suddenly I have an idea. I jump up and go to my desk, where my 35mm camera is sitting, and pop the lens off.
I take a series of pictures: a few of the outfits my mom has bought me but I’ve never worn, a couple of my old ballet slippers, a few of my report cards, a couple of the school pennant, and a series of pictures of the birthday gifts that other people bought me.
I don’t know if anything comes out, if it’s just going to look like one big uninspired mess, but I take enough pictures that I’m hopeful. Maybe tomorrow I can develop something. The project is due soon, so this is my only chance.
28
WEDNESDAY
turns out to be an unmitigated disaster. Nicole doesn’t even look my way, let alone talk to me. And I don’t even know if I
want
to talk to her. Do I owe her an apology for our fight? Or does she owe me one?
My light, goofy friendship with Ben has transformed into an odd, uncomfortable acquaintance. I don’t blame him for not knowing how to act. I’m the one who keeps acting like he’s some highly contagious leper. Every day, if I haven’t received my wish yet, I go out of my way to avoid him. Sometimes he’ll be heading my way down the hall, and I’ll abruptly veer out a side door.
Maybe it’s stupid and I won’t be able to avoid kissing him, but I keep doing it anyway.
He’d have to be a complete idiot not to notice. On top of all that, I keep yammering on and on about Ken, hoping somehow that’s going to be enough to keep him at arm’s length. I’m still thinking it’s possible Ben will use his own common sense and choose not to kiss me. So if he remembers I have a boyfriend, well, that’s a good thing.
My mom is still out of town, and she’ll be away until Friday. We haven’t talked since our blowout.
My back hurts all of the time because of my huge chest, the gumballs are everywhere, the pony is getting crankier every day, and I’m still talking in Italian.
I’m absolutely
dying
for a long, hot shower to relax, but for the last couple days I’ve had to settle for a sponge bath and washing my hair in the sink, because there’s no way I want to find out what happens if I submerge my legs for more than two-point-five seconds.
By the time I’m walking up the stairs to my room, I’m muttering Italian curses under my breath.
When I walk into my room, Ann looks suspiciously happy, the polar opposite of my mood. She’s spinning around and around in my rolly computer chair, the very chair I once foisted between us to keep her away from me on the day she appeared.
Too bad I didn’t succeed.
I glare at her and throw myself onto my bed, resting my cheek against the cool lime-and-orange-plaid quilt.
If I can’t be happy, she shouldn’t be either.