Sprinkles Before Sweethearts

by Coco Simon

  He looked at me carefully, like he was going to say something, his eyes roving back and forth across my face.

  “What?” I asked.

  He shrugged and went back to drawing, which made me even madder. You can’t just ignore people’s questions!

  And then I remembered that Ewan had never even apologized for the sprinkles fight. Now would have been the perfect time for him to say he was sorry. Like my mom always said—better late than never. But Ewan just sat there, drawing away on his sketch pad. I couldn’t believe how rude this guy was.

  Mr. Rivera called out, “Tamiko! Keep that pencil moving, please!”

  Leave it to Mr. Rivera to make my sour mood even worse.

  I put my pencil to the paper once again and looked at Ewan’s downcast eyes. They were set widely apart and deep in his face, with a sharp up-and-down line on the inside, and they narrowed as they got out to the ends, far from his nose. His lashes were very long and dark. Like, I had never realized that boys could have such long eyelashes. I knew some high school girls who wore fake lashes that were long and curly. Ewan’s were already so long that he would never need to wear fake ones. I almost giggled, imagining Ewan with ridiculously long eyelashes like a camel.

  But how would I draw the lashes over his eyes? Maybe I should’ve paid more attention to the portrait examples that Mr. Rivera had showed us earlier. Oops. I lightly sketched in his eyes, planning to come back to them, and then I worked my way down his nose. The mouth was tricky because it’s a little awkward to stare someone right in the mouth for any period of time.

  As I peeked, I saw that Ewan had a very light shadow of a mustache above his upper lip. Should I draw that in? I wondered. Was that something that was kind of embarrassing for him, or did boys get psyched when they started to show signs of manhood? Who knew? But then I remembered: this was Ewan. Ee-wahn. Why did I suddenly care if I offended him? I sketched in his mustache, maybe even a little more than I should have. After all, it was there, wasn’t it?

  Gliding my pencil tip across the paper, I tried to feather in Ewan’s eyelashes. I didn’t feel Mr. Rivera come up behind me, so I was startled when he spoke just near my shoulder.

  “Lovely work on the eyelashes, Tamiko. You’ve captured the beauty of Ewan’s eyes perfectly.”

  The beauty of Ewan’s eyes?

  I wanted to scream! Ewan didn’t have beautiful eyes! Mr. Rivera was totally nuts. Even if Ewan had had beautiful eyes, I certainly would not have noticed that or tried to “capture” it!

  I thought of what Margie had said about Carlo’s looks. Everything about it sounded made-up, like it was some article in a celebrity magazine—beautiful eyes, dazzling smile.

  We were talking about seventh-grade boys here, people!

  I was done with my drawing.

  I slapped the pad onto the table and turned away from Ewan.

  “Wait!” he said. “Don’t move! I’m almost done!”

  “Too bad!” I said. “Time’s up.” I was surprised that he’d asked me to keep posing, though. I never would have done that if the shoe had been on the other foot. Like, “Hey, hold still while I keep staring at you.”

  Luckily, just then Mr. Rivera stood at the front of the room and called out, “Okay, students! That’s it for today!”

  There were groans across the class, but I think they were more like groans of displeasure at the work people had produced than groans of unhappiness that class was over.

  Mr. Rivera went on. “I want you to think about just looking versus really seeing. When you study someone, you see them in a different way and you can learn more about them than you can from just superficial looking. There’s always more than meets the eye at first glance.”

  Ewan’s eyelashes sprang to mind, but I quickly pushed that thought out of my head.

  “What you think you see and what’s really in front of you are sometimes different things,” continued Mr. Rivera.

  Not really! I saw a bratty, popular guy who thought he was hot stuff, who had come into Molly’s Ice Cream and thrown sprinkles all over and made a huge mess. And that was who Ewan was, sprinkles-cleaner or no sprinkles-cleaner. Fancy eyelashes or no fancy eyelashes.

  “For homework this week, sketch what you think you remember about your partner’s face. Next week we’ll take the portraits to the next stage—finished line art,” said Mr. Rivera.

  Wait, we’ll be doing this next week too?

  My hand shot into the air. “How long are we doing this project for?” I called out.

  “Please don’t call out, Tamiko. This portrait unit will carry over the next three classes,” said Mr. Rivera. “Your final product will be displayed in the middle school art show in one month’s time, so give it your all!”

  Three more classes staring at Ewan.

  I wanted to be sick right then and there. I gathered up my things and hustled out of the room without even a backward glance.

  CHAPTER THREE

  LOVEBIRDS

  The week passed slowly as I tried to come up with a cool idea for my science project and also tried to avoid looking at the Ewan drawing in my art sketch pad. Why did I have to spend my precious time drawing sketches of Ewan?

  Allie’s and Sierra’s reactions when I told them I was partnered with Ewan were just as I had suspected they’d be: horrified!

  “Oh, Miko, I can’t believe you have to even talk to him, never mind be his partner!” sympathized Allie over video chat.

  “At least he’s easy on the eyes!” joked Sierra.

  “I am not even responding to the stupidity of that comment!” I said, indignant.

  On Thursday after school I had a snack and then slunk up to my crafts closet to let loose for a little while. I was shortening an old kilt I’d found at a thrift shop, and then I was going to appliqué a puffy pale-pink rose onto it. When I was done, the skirt would look very punk rock and cool with footless black tights.

  I was also painting a cheap pair of white Keds that I’d gotten on sale. I was lightly drawing graffiti art all over them, and then I was going to airbrush in some color once I was happy with the design. My other big thing right then was custom picture frames . . . made with candy. I’d pick a colorful kind of candy—like gummi bears or candy corn—and then I’d glue the pieces to a white picture frame and shellac the whole thing. (I had to do that part outdoors, I learned the hard way, because fumes.)

  I sat down in the spinning chair that I’d thrifted from the upcycling area of the dump. It was ergonomic and super-comfy. Actually, I was going to customize it, too. It was just plain black, like an office chair. It could use some feathers and strings of beads hanging off it, I thought. My taste was to customize things in the opposite style of what they were. So a businesslike office chair would get the bohemian treatment, and a scary-looking leather jacket would get a painting of a fluffy teddy bear on the back. Get it?

  Turning from side to side, I thought about physics. Things moving, speeding, spinning, gravity acting on mass, all that stuff. I stopped turning and unspooled some of the beautiful cobalt-blue wire my mom had brought home. The other wires were just as brilliant: a rich red with tiny white stripes on it, bright orange with jade-green horizontal stripes across it, a solid plummy purple, and a bold pink. My fingers itched to do something cool with them all.

  I sat and played with the length of blue wire, hoping it would inspire me. Seeing all the different colors in the spools made me think of the string that Allie, Sierra, and I had used to make friendship bracelets back in elementary school. I had made a turquoise-and-white bracelet for Allie, and a blue-and-pink one for Sierra. Hmmm. Friendship bracelets were cool, but they didn’t demonstrate any physics.

  I crumpled the wire into a ball and pitched it in the general direction of my trash can. Then I ran downstairs to say hi to my parents, who had just arrived home from work.

  “Mommy! Daddy!” I called. Half the time I liked to call my parents “Mommy” and “Daddy” as a joke. This helped butter them up for the re
st of the time, when I called them by their first names, Ayumi and Toshi. I thought that using their names made me sound more grown-up, but my parents hated it.

  “Hello, Tamiko,” said my mom, setting a bag of groceries on the counter.

  I peeked inside. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Salad and fondue,” said my dad.

  “Yum! I love fondue night!”

  “Good. Then you can start cutting up the bread while I cut the veggies,” said my mom, thrusting two baguettes at me.

  “I mean, I hate fondue night! Yuck!”

  My dad chuckled and grabbed a seltzer from the fridge, then sat down at the table. “Ah. Busy day,” he said, relaxing.

  My mom went to stand behind him and rub his shoulders. He sighed in appreciation.

  “Gross! Too much PDA!” I said. My parents were always goofy and silly with each other, and it could be so embarrassing.

  “Oh, does this bother you?” teased my mom, leaning down and planting a smooch on my dad’s cheek.

  “Disgusting!” I gagged.

  My parents laughed. “Tamiko, seriously. You should be happy your dad and I love each other.”

  “Keep it to yourselves,” I said as I rolled my eyes. But she was right. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like if my parents were divorced, like Allie’s.

  My dad started singing this love song out loud in a really bad voice, all out of tune and sappy, and my mom was giggling away as I made gagging sounds over the cutting board.

  The back door slammed, and my older brother, Kai, walked in.

  “Thank goodness you’re here!” I called. “Save me!”

  Kai looked at my parents and laughed as he dropped his jacket and backpack onto the bench and took off his shoes by the door. “The lovebirds getting to you?” he said.

  That prompted my dad to start in on some hideous new song about lovebirds. I put my hands over my ears. “Make them stop!”

  My parents were laughing their heads off now.

  “Why does everybody have to be in love all the time?” I wailed, and stamped my foot.

  “I’m not in love,” said Kai, grabbing a chunk of baguette and popping it into his mouth. “That’s because there’s only one person I love—me!”

  “Oh boy. Nice to be modest!”

  He shrugged. “What can I say? Either you’ve got it or you don’t.”

  Dinner was delicious, except my dad insisted on creating a rule that if you accidentally dropped your bread into the fondue pot, you had to kiss the person sitting on your left.

  This time Kai was on my side. “No way!” he said, shaking his head.

  “Come on. It’s a real fondue tradition from Switzerland!” my dad said, but he might have just been making that up.

  “What’s the problem? We’re all family here. Right, Tamiko?” my mom said, and leaned her cheek toward me like she was waiting for a kiss.

  I pushed her away. “You’re not even sitting on my left!”

  Kai and I were extra careful and didn’t drop a single piece of bread during the meal. I briefly wondered if the rule had been a ploy to give us better table manners, but my dad dropped his bread and had to kiss my mom three times—so I think it was just them being silly lovebirds again.

  After dinner Grandpa Sato called us at the usual time. He was my grandpa who lived in Japan. Since we barely ever got to visit him, we made a point to video-chat him every night.

  He and I spent some time dissecting all the important moments from the previous night’s World Series game. Grandpa Sato was also a huge baseball fan. He even subscribed to a certain sports channel so he could watch American baseball on his TV.

  “Are you going to go see a game soon?” I asked. About once or twice a season, my grandpa and his friends went to a Japanese professional baseball game. I secretly wished I had friends who would go watch a game with me. Sierra and Allie would probably go if I invited them, but I didn’t want to drag them to something they thought was boring.

  “Perhaps,” replied Grandpa Sato. “I’m not as young as I used to be. The train ride to the baseball stadium is very long, and there are many steps to get to the bleachers.”

  I bit my lip. Grandpa Sato had arthritis, and I could tell his knees were bothering him more than they used to. Most of the time I tried not to think about how old he was getting.

  Then Grandpa Sato’s eyes twinkled. “Don’t worry about me! I’ll stay nice and healthy, so that I can attend your wedding one day. My sweet Tamiko as a beautiful bride!”

  He said this to me all the time, but that day it really bugged me. “What if I don’t want to be a bride?” I said fiercely. “There’s already too much romance around me. I can barely handle it.”

  Grandpa Sato laughed. “There can never be such a thing as too much love in the world.”

  I pouted. “Well, I don’t want to get married.”

  “That’s fine!” Grandpa said. “Because you’ll never love anyone more than me, right?” He chuckled. I sighed. Everyone thought love was soooo funny.

  My parents made me finish all my homework before I could go down and watch the next World Series game that night.

  I was debating about telling them how I was stumped with my science project, but then I worried that they’d just get all bossy with me and try to take over. They loved school projects.

  I kept my mouth shut, but my brain was whirring as I sat and watched. Maybe there’d be something in the game that would inspire me. Maybe I could do a project about baseballs and bats and the trajectory of the ball when it was hit a certain way.

  But instead of being excited and inspired by the game, the opposite happened. Sometime during the seventh inning just before a commercial break, the camera zoomed in on a young man down on one knee in the stands. He pulled out a ring and held it out to the woman sitting next to him. It was a marriage proposal!

  She said yes, and the whole place went crazy as the footage of them hugging flashed on the JumboTron with the word YES!!! blinking over it in bright red.

  “Ugh. Here we go again! More love!” I said. “Way to ruin a baseball game, dude!”

  Kai looked at me incredulously. “Jeez, they just got engaged. Let them celebrate!”

  “Love has no place in baseball.” I was indignant.

  “Love is everywhere!” said my dad, the romantic. “The fans love the players—or most of them anyway. The players love one another—or some of them do. Everyone loves the sport.”

  “Okay, romantic love has no place in baseball, then!” I cried.

  “Jeez!” said my dad this time. “What a grump you are.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” asked Kai.

  “Nothing. It’s all of you who have something wrong!” I crossed my arms over my chest and huffed until my mom came in with a big bowl of buttered popcorn, and then I, too, felt love. For the popcorn, that is.

  But later that night Kai’s words echoed in my head. Was there something wrong with me? Why couldn’t I stand all this love stuff ? Did everyone else on earth like it but me?

  My parents loved being in love. The couple at the baseball game had looked ecstatic. Grandpa Sato wanted me to marry. Emilia swooned over Carlo. Even Allie and Sierra thought it was fun to talk about love.

  What was the deal?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE SPRINKLE SUNDAYS TASTE TEST

  Sunday was my happy time. The three Sprinkle Sundays sisters were reunited and together again at Molly’s.

  It was such a beautiful store—with blue-and-cream-striped seats and awnings, a black-and-white tiled floor, cool ice cream cone light fixtures and design elements, and incredibly yummy ice cream flavors. The ones I’d tried so far, at least.

  I clocked into work ten minutes early. Allie was already there, and Sierra joined us right after—on time, which was rare. It felt good to all be there at the right time, since we’d had a bunch of small fights about being late in the past. Sometimes I was the one who was late (usually because I was trying to finish a pr
oject at home), and sometimes it was Sierra (usually because she was overcommitted), and Allie had to be the bad guy and yell at us.

  But not today! We happily got ready for our shift—cleaning up, making toppings, prepping some sundae supplies. And then we waited for the post-lunch rush.

  But it never came.

  After our first hour we’d had only one customer. Usually we’d get at least a dozen people in our first hour, but sometimes way more. We’d had entire soccer teams show up, creating lines out the door.

  At first we stood at attention, sure that the rush was about to begin. But as the hour dragged by, we each looked for projects to keep us busy.

  “I’m going to organize the supply closet,” I said. Shifting around tubs of sprinkles and boxes of cones and plastic bowls was better than standing around doing nothing.

  “I’m going to clean the bathroom,” said Sierra with a shrug.

  You know things are bad when someone volunteers to clean a bathroom.

  Neither of us wanted to say anything out loud, since the store was new and we didn’t want to hurt Allie’s feelings by implying that business wasn’t good. But after Sierra and I finished our projects (ten minutes killed!), we regrouped behind the counter and gingerly explored the topic of the store’s emptiness.

  Sierra looked out the window. “Kind of a chilly day. Maybe not great ice cream weather.”

  Allie frowned. “We’ve had chilly days before, though.”

  “Maybe it’s because it’s chilly and cloudy,” I said. “People aren’t feeling like being out and about. They’re hunkered down.”

  “Yes, but they could come get takeout,” said Allie. “Pints or gallons to have at home. It’s not so much about, ‘Oh, hey, let’s go get ice cream’ as an activity. It should be more like, ‘I am so obsessed with that Saint Louis Cake ice cream that I have to have it right now.’ You know?”

  Sierra and I both nodded, but I wasn’t sure if those cravings would actually convince people to get off their couches and leave the house.

  I sighed, and Sierra wiped the counter for the eighth time. Just then Mrs. Shear came in from her office in the back. “How’s it going, girls?”