by Coco Simon
At lunch, Katie looked at me with concern. “Are you feeling well, Alexis?”
I looked up from under the brim of my hat. “Hmm? Oh. Yeah. Fine. Just a little . . . um, tired.”
Katie and Mia exchanged glances.
“You look like you’re trying to be incognito,” said Mia.
“Oh really?” I said breezily. “That’s funny. Ha-ha. Like, why would I want to do that?”
What the heck, I decided. I took the hat off and shook out my hair. Just then an underclassman was passing by.
“Nice job yesterday, Alexis,” she said, wide-eyed at her own daring in speaking to someone in a grade above her.
All three Cupcakers’ heads swiveled toward me. I shrugged, putting my palms in the air. “No idea what that kid is talking about,” I said.
I busied myself with what scraps of food were left on my tray.
“Alexis!” Emma said in her warning voice.
I looked up, all innocence. “What?”
“What are you not telling us?”
“Me?”
Emma nodded and pointed her finger at me. “Yes, you, missy. Why was she complimenting you?”
“Oh, that.” I waved my hand breezily. “You know . . .”
Katie laughed. “No! We don’t know! That’s why we’re asking. What’s up?”
I looked at the three of them, my very best friends, all looking at me carefully. How could I lie to them? I took a deep breath.
“I tried out for cheerleading yesterday,” I said, then I shrugged again. “That’s all. No biggie.”
“Whaaat? You? Cheerleading?” Emma’s jaw was practically on the cafeteria floor.
I had to laugh a little, but I was also indignant. “Yeah, so? Why not? It’s my family legacy.” I stuck out my chin in defiance.
Emma sat back in her chair in shock. “I thought you always said cheering was ridiculous and a waste of time.”
“Well, maybe I used to, but now I’m more mature, and with that maturity comes a certain . . .”
Mia smacked her palm on the table. “Wait. I know! You’re trying to become more like Dylan. Isn’t she?” She turned to our friends, her eyebrows raised in a questioning fashion.
“Who, me? Like Dylan? Why?”
Mia shook her head. “I don’t know, but you were complaining about Dylan over the weekend, and now you’re trying out for her trademark activity? Something you always claimed to dislike—”
“To hate!” interrupted Emma, laughing. “Is Mia right? Are you trying to be more like Dylan?”
“Look, I’m just . . .”
“Hey, way to go yesterday, Alexis Becker,” said some random sixth-grade boy I’ve never seen before. He laughed as he rejoined his friends at their table.
“Okay. You have to tell us everything,” Mia said.
I sighed and told them. They were silent for a minute afterward.
“Well . . . ,” said Emma, folding and unfolding her fingers.
“I bet it wasn’t as bad as you think,” Katie said finally, patting my hand comfortingly.
“Actually, it might have been worse,” I said.
“Look, you just need to get back in the saddle. Try something else. Keep moving forward.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“You can come to fashion club with me,” offered Mia. “Or my sewing group?”
“Umm . . .” Dylan is really into fashion, so maybe that would be a good route for me to take. It’s not an interest of mine, but I could fake it. Fake it till you make it. That could be a new motto for me, right?
“Want to come work in my mom’s office with me after school one day?” suggested Katie. “You could do billing . . . ,” she said tantalizingly. I do love a good invoicing session, but that was the usual me. I was trying to break into new territory and try new things, things that would make me peppy and appealing and fun and overall more Dylan-ish.
“Why don’t you come running with me later?” offered Emma. She likes to stay in shape for sports and also for work, so she runs three miles a few times a week.
Hmm. I could be a runner. That was one thing I could do. Easily. Everyone can run. And runners were cool and mature; very sophisticated. They were always all “Not now, I have to go for my run!” And everyone would wait for them until they came back from carving out their Me Time. Dylan was a runner sometimes.
“Okay,” I agreed.
“Great. Meet me at my house at four o’clock.”
“Oh.” I didn’t want to have to see Matt. What if his friend Greg told him about the tryouts? There was no way I was going to the Taylors’ house. “Can’t you come to me, please?”
“It’s not really on my route,” she said. “I have the distance all paced out. My dad did it in his car for me.”
“Just this once?” I asked.
Emma sighed. “Okay. I guess. But it will be a little later. I’ll see you at four forty, okay?”
“Thanks,” I said.
Just then Ceci passed me on her way to dump her lunch tray. “Hey, Alexis! I’ve been looking for you. Thanks for coming to tryouts yesterday!”
Good thing I’d just told my friends or they would have needed CPR just then.
“Thanks for having me,” I said quietly. “Sorry I was such a . . .”
Ceci shook her head. “We ran out of time yesterday, so we have to have another session today. I’d love to have you come back if you want to try anything else? I know you got kind of cut short . . . ?”
That was such a kind way of putting it, but I had to shut this down.
“Thanks, Ceci. That is so nice of you. Really. I just think . . . I mean, there are girls there who really, really must be talented, so I think I’ll just bow out now.”
Ceci looked at me carefully. “Are you sure?”
I nodded. “Yup. I’m sure. It was kind of a lark anyway.”
Ceci sighed. “Okay, well, if you ever decide you want to join, you just come and find me, okay? People get injured; we always need subs if people have to go away, you know. . . . You’d be a great addition to the crew. We need nice girls who can dance, that’s all! You can easily learn the rest! Bye!”
“Thanks so much, Ceci! Bye!”
“That girl is so nice,” said Katie, shaking her head in admiration.
“Yeah, if she was in our grade, she’d be my best friend . . . ,” Emma said wistfully.
“Hey!” I said, whacking her on the arm.
“Oh, I mean if she was and you weren’t!” Emma laughed.
“That’s enough out of you, missy. See you after school.”
At four forty on the nose, Emma appeared in my driveway. I was sitting on my front stoop, all decked out in my athletic gear, shoes tied, the works. I jogged down the steps and across the grass to join her.
“All stretched out?” she asked between gasps.
“What? Oh. I’m good. I’m pretty limber. You know.”
She looked at me skeptically. “Okay . . .”
“Let’s go!” I said, all perky.
Emma jogged in a U-turn, and I followed, moving beside her and trying to match the rhythm of my steps to hers. It was kind of awkward. We’re both pretty tall, but I like to take big steps, and she was taking these little baby shuffle steps.
“Why are you running like this?” I asked. “It’s not really running.”
Emma shrugged. “It’s what I do,” she said breathlessly.
I ran next to her in silence. It was boring. After a block or so, I said, “Why don’t you listen to music when you do this?”
“Distracts me,” said Emma.
“From what?” I pressed.
“My thoughts.”
“Hmm.”
I was quiet for a moment, just shuffling along. But I was so bored! How could Dylan and Emma enjoy this hobby?
“If you could live anywhere on Earth, where would it be?” I asked.
Emma stopped running and stood with her hands on her hips, panting. “Lex, here’s how I run: I start running
in silence, I run the whole time in silence, and then I go home.”
“Okay!” I said. “Is that a hint?”
Emma laughed and shook her head. “It’s a request. A firm one. Let’s not talk, okay?”
“Okay, okay!”
We started running again—shuffling, I mean. I looked around, talked to myself in my head, tried to count to a thousand, quizzed myself on my Spanish, and became more bored. Maybe if I had music or if I were running fast, like actually running, this would be good. Maybe if my running companion was chatty, or whatever, it would be fun. But I could already say after five blocks that jogging with Emma was not for me.
“Em?”
“Mmm-hmm?”
“I’m going home.”
“Okay. Later.”
“Thanks for having me,” I said. And I did a U-turn and sprinted home at full speed, which left me breathless for like twenty minutes.
The next day Mia insisted I come to her fashion club meeting after school. Seeing as how Dylan is obsessed with fashion and has repeatedly helped me with choosing outfits, I thought this maybe wasn’t the worst idea. If I could become a tiny bit more fashionable, I’d be on my way to being more like Dylan.
The club met in the library, a place I am very comfortable in. The librarian greeted me warmly, and I felt like I was off to a great start.
Ms. Rumbough is the faculty adviser for the group. She was an art teacher who had lived and worked in the city before, and she always dressed like she was going to the opening of a fancy art show—thick, black-framed glasses, a tight ponytail, severe outfits that were all angles, mostly in black, and clompy black shoes or boots, depending on the season. I always found her intimidating, but I’d never had a class with her.
There were seven kids in the meeting today—three boys and four girls, including me. Ms. Rumbough passed around library books that had been flagged with Post-It notes, and talked to us about a designer named Christian Dior and the New Look he came up with in the 1940s and 1950s. It was pretty interesting, actually, and the clothes in the books were cool—fitted button-down shirts with flared pleated skirts. After her chat, which lasted about twenty minutes, Ms. Rumbough handed around drawing paper and colored pencils and instructed us to create some sketches for outfits in the New Look style.
Um.
Everyone else eagerly set to the task, as if Ms. Rumbough’s talk had been the boring part, and now they were finally being unleashed to do what they’d come here for. I, on the other hand, felt paralyzed and overwhelmed. I didn’t have the slightest idea of how to begin, and instead wished Ms. Rumbough would keep teaching us interesting historical stuff.
I stared at my paper and sighed.
“Having a tough time finding inspiration?” Ms. Rumbough asked gently.
I nodded. “I’m not the creative type,” I said.
Ms. Rumbough smiled. “Everyone has creativity. It’s just figuring out what things inspire you. A lot of designers start with the fabric. They choose new fabrics and let the textures and folds of the fabric dictate their designs.”
That made sense.
“Other designers are inspired by color. They pick a palette for the season and work within those parameters. Still, others just like to draw. Maybe they’re inspired by something they saw in art, or on the street—even in architecture or food. You never know what will inspire you. You might keep a file of things you think are cool and then pull it out for inspiration when you need it.”
“Okay,” I agreed. I wondered what inspired Dylan in the world of fashion.
“You can also just doodle. Sometimes that gets the juices flowing.”
“Thanks,” I said. She was really nice, and this was all interesting. I’d give it a try. I knew if Dylan were here, she’d be sketching away, her colored pencils scratching quickly over the paper, covering sheet after sheet with her brilliant clothing ideas.
I glanced over at Mia. She was totally into her sketching. I looked at her pad. She had already drawn three outfits! And of course they all were amazing.
I started doodling hearts, then flowers. I tried to do a drawing of my cat, Puff, but it looked like a mouse. I peeked at other people’s work, and from what I could see, they were incredible. Ms. Rumbough went from kid to kid, offering support or helping with problem-solving. Dylan would have adored this, but the truth was, I didn’t. I sat for two more minutes and then decided I needed to get out of there, like immediately. I had claustrophobia or something. I felt trapped.
I gathered my things and crumpled my drawings and tossed them into the trash. Then I stood and walked over to Ms. Rumbough. “Thank you so much for having me today, Ms. Rumbough. I loved your talk. I have to run now. Bye!” And I took off, mouthing at Mia that I’d call her later.
Outside school, I let out a deep breath. “Phew!” I felt like I’d escaped from prison. Fashion design was not for me.
The next day Katie texted me first thing in the morning. She wrote: Have to go to mall after school for baking stuff. Want to come and we can check out new makeup store?
Hmm. I am not a makeup person, but Dylan is. Maybe I’d find something in there that would get me started on the road to cosmetic expertise. Yes, I typed back. Then Thanks, I added.
Katie’s mom picked us up after school and took us to the mall. “I have a patient in twenty minutes, who will take an hour or so. I’ll pick you up in an hour and a half, okay, girls?”
“Perfect,” agreed Katie.
Once at the mall, Katie led me directly to Baker’s Hollow, the baking supply store where we spend lots of time (and money that we earn for the Cupcake Club). The manager actually knows Katie by name, so we had to chat with her for a while first. She showed us some beautiful new edible glitter toppings in jewel tones, and I spied jars of cakefetti for sale and pointed them out to Katie. We agreed it would be fun to figure out how to do exploding cupcakes, so we bought two small jars of the cakefetti to experiment with (two small jars had more ounces of cakefetti, at a lower price, than the large jar, I was proud to note). We got smoothies at the food court, and then we went to check out the new store, Lit Beauty.
Lit Beauty was massive, with all different zones for skin care, hair care, hair styling, body care, body art, nails, perfumes, sunscreens, and more. One cool thing they had were these little private stalls where you could duck inside, pull the curtain closed, and see your makeup in different kinds of lighting, just by pushing a button.
Katie and I put on dark purple lipstick and then went inside one of the stalls to see it in tropical dawn, high noon, evening mist, black light, candlelight, and more. It was so much fun.
There were tons of salespeople milling around, offering to do things to you, and Katie and I let them. We got silver feather tattoos on our arms, and tiny jewels glued to the tops of our cheekbones, and ringlets curled into our hair, and perfume samples up and down our arms. Someone offered to “shape” our eyebrows, but I remembered Dylan’s cautions of “redness and swelling,” and we declined. Katie got a mini makeover with a smoky eye and a pale lip. I got one with subtle eyes and a strong lip. By the time we had to meet Katie’s mom, we had been smoothed, glossed, brightened, curled, enhanced, and scented within an inch of our lives. I couldn’t wait to hear what Dylan thought when she saw me at home.
Katie’s mom raised her eyebrows and then sneezed when we got into the car. We all laughed.
“How do we look?” asked Katie, batting her eyelash extensions at her mom.
“Inappropriate! Oh, Alexis, your mom is going to kill me!” Katie’s mom laughed.
“It’s okay. My sister, Dylan, is really into makeup, so my mom is used to this.”
Um, that wasn’t totally true. My mom put up with Dylan’s experimenting while in the house, but Dylan was never allowed out with much makeup on. I imagined she wasn’t going to be too happy when she saw me.
My mom took one look at me when I got home—this is the woman who barely let me wear clear mascara to my own birthday party—and jerked her
thumb toward the bathroom. “Off!” she ordered.
“Why? Don’t I look beautiful?” I trilled.
“Yes, without all that junk on you.”
I passed Dylan in the upstairs hall, and she looked me over from head to toe.
“Cool tattoo,” she said.
That was all?
Ugh. My eyes would be red and stinging from the makeup remover all night now, and nobody even thought my makeover looked fabulous.
Time for a different hobby.
CHAPTER 6
Family Roles
I had made it through the week without having to see Matt. Normally, this would be a terrible thing, but after the awkward gift thing at my party and then the cheer tryouts, I was avoiding him like the plague.
Our meeting this week was on Friday, since we were all so busy. It was scheduled to be at Emma’s, but at lunch that day, I requested a change of location.
“Alexis, you’ve been acting strange all week. You usually love coming over to my house and trying to see if Matt will be home. Are you avoiding him? Do you not like him anymore?” Emma asked. “Did something happen at your party?”
I thought fast. “Of course I still like him, but you know the saying—‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ ”
Emma looked at me skeptically for a second, but then she shrugged. “Okay, whatever, I guess. Where should we meet?”
We agreed to meet at my house so I could break in my new measuring cups. Emma had the contact info now for the talent show manager, who said he was interested in a cupcake sale, so we would put together a good proposal for that, too. We had just one event this weekend to bake for, besides Mona’s minis—a baby shower in the neighborhood— and the cupcakes were superbasic. Today would be easy.
After school, we walked together to my house. When we got there, I saw that Dylan was already home. I prayed she wouldn’t come downstairs and take over my Cupcake Club meeting.
We laid out all the ingredients and supplies for Mona’s minis and began baking. I made a big deal out of pitching our old measuring cups into the recycling bin, and ceremoniously asking everyone to bless our new measuring cups, asking for strength, accuracy, and the ability to not go missing.
