by Janae Marks
I was about to head back to my room when Dad said, “Let’s see what Trevor got you.”
I didn’t care what Trevor got me. But Mom and Dad were staring at me, waiting for me to open the gift, so I sat down on the couch and unwrapped it.
It was a cookbook. But not any cookbook. The new one by Ruby Willow, the thirteen-year-old pastry chef I was obsessed with. She’d won a kid baking competition on the Food Network. My dream.
I grinned as I flipped through the pages, which had pictures to go along with the recipes. S’more brownies. Fried Oreos. Peanut butter and jelly macarons. Yum!
“Isn’t she that chef you like?” Mom asked.
“You told them to get this, right?” I asked her.
Mom shook her head. “Actually, your dad and I were going to get it for you, but then Trish called and asked if it’d be a good gift idea. She said Trevor suggested it.”
“Oh,” I said. It was probably before I stopped talking to him. Whatever. I wouldn’t let that stop me from enjoying the cookbook. “I’m going to my room now.”
I was done thinking about Trevor. Marcus’s letter was way more important.
Chapter Four
I sat on the porch steps with my earbuds in while Butternut napped in a patch of sun at my feet. It was the best kind of summer morning—not too hot, not too sunny, and not too many mosquitoes out to bite me. Our dead-end street was quiet. The only person I could see around was our older neighbor across the street, who was watering the hydrangea bushes lining his front yard with a hose.
I was listening to Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely,” which I’d downloaded the night before. I had heard it before, though I wasn’t sure when. Maybe Mom had played it at some point, or it was in the background of a movie. How weird that it reminded Marcus of me. We were complete strangers.
If Marcus was such a monster, why would he like listening to Stevie Wonder? Stevie’s music was so upbeat and happy. It didn’t add up. Maybe Marcus was lying to me. It was hard to tell.
I decided to write him back, just this once. Maybe I could get some answers—why he did what he did. Whether he cared at all that I was going to be born. Was he writing to me now because he felt guilty?
On my lap was a journal Jasmine got me for my birthday, which had a Z made of flowers on the cover, and a purple pen. Tucked into the back of the journal was Marcus’s letter, which I’d read a hundred more times. I decided to write a draft of a letter back to Marcus in the journal. Getting the words out could help me figure out how I felt and what I really wanted to know from him.
Before I could start, I heard the creak of a storm door opening and closing behind me. It woke Butternut up, and he ran to the top step to see who was coming outside. I didn’t have to turn around to know it wasn’t my door that had opened—it was Trevor’s. His was the only door that creaked like that. Trevor’s parents had left earlier, so either Trevor or his older brother, Simon, had come outside.
I glanced back. Just my luck: it was Trevor. If it was last summer, I would’ve been excited to hear him come out. It’d mean the start of one of our adventures.
But not anymore. I hoped he was on his way out so he wouldn’t hang around. He was probably going to spend all summer with the basketball guys.
Butternut ran over to Trevor, and his collar jingled as he jumped up Trevor’s leg, asking to be pet. Butternut didn’t care that Trevor and I were in a fight. I wished he would give Trevor the cold shoulder, too.
Instead of leaving, Trevor sat down on the other side of the steps and took a book out of his cargo shorts pocket—The Golden Compass. From his other pocket, he took out a red sports drink and a small bottle of sunblock, which his mom always insisted he wear during the summer.
Butternut flopped back into a sunny patch on the steps between the two of us.
I tried to ignore Trevor and go back to my journal. But I could see him out of the corner of my eye. He was acting like everything was normal, like this was a regular Sunday with us hanging out together on the porch, playing go fish or spit. Right then, he was squirting big globs of sunblock onto his hands and rubbing it into his brown skin until the white lotion disappeared. The scent—a mix of chemicals and coconut—filled the air.
“Do you have to be out here right now?” I took my earbuds out for a second and put my journal down on the step.
Trevor looked up from his book. “It’s my porch, too. I’m on my side.”
Trevor’s family lived in the left side of the house. He was currently sitting on the left side of the wooden porch steps. As if to make his point, he scooted even closer to the left railing until he touched it.
I didn’t have a good argument, so I scooted even farther to the right of the porch steps. I put my earbuds back in and raised the volume a little more, letting Stevie Wonder’s singing voice fill my ears.
I picked up my pen and started to write.
Dear
What should I call Marcus? I couldn’t call him Dad. Paul had been my dad ever since Mom married him when I was five. He might look nothing like me, with his olive skin and hazel eyes, but he was my dad in all the ways that mattered.
I sometimes called adults by their first names—like Trevor’s mom, Patricia. But that was because I’d known Patricia forever, and at one point she told me to call her that.
I crossed out “Dear” and started over.
Dear
Hi,
Even with that settled, I had no idea what to write next.
I got your letter, I began. I was really surprised since I never thought I’d hear from you. I—
There was a tap on my shoulder, so I looked up. Trevor. He had scooted down toward my end of the porch steps. Now he was clearly in my space, with Butternut happily wagging his tail next to him.
Trevor’s mouth was moving, and when he realized I couldn’t hear him, he pointed to my earbuds.
I yanked them out. “What do you want?”
“What’re you writing?” he asked.
“Are you kidding me?” I stood up.
“What?” Trevor rubbed one of his eyes.
“I’m not talking to you.”
“Why not?”
“Because!” I said.
“That’s not a reason,” Trevor said.
Butternut barked and jumped up my leg.
I sighed loudly. I couldn’t even write a letter on my own steps without Trevor messing it up. “Forget it. Take the whole porch if you want. I’m going inside.” I turned toward my door with my journal tucked under my arm.
“Hold up,” Trevor said.
I took a deep breath and got ready to yell at him to get a clue already, but when I faced him, he was holding Marcus’s letter. Which must’ve fallen out of my journal. It was unfolded, and he was reading it.
“What are you doing? Stop it!” I snatched the letter from him. “That’s mine. It’s private.”
Trevor put his hands up in the air, but looked me straight in the eyes. “Is that from your dad?”
I stopped short. “What are you talking about?” I tried to keep my face even and make my voice sound casual.
“Your dad that’s in jail.” Trevor paused, and then said, “He’s there because he killed somebody, right?”
My breath caught in my throat. “How do you know that?”
Even though Trevor and I used to be close, I never told him about what Marcus did. I didn’t want to talk about it with anyone. Trevor, Jasmine, and Maya knew my birth dad was in prison, but not why.
I hated that this person related to me was a monster. A murderer. It made me want to throw up. He could be locked up for the rest of his life, but there was a chance he could get out early after serving twenty-five years. It was called “parole.” I sort of hoped that wouldn’t happen.
Trevor shrugged. “Your mom told my mom once. They were in our kitchen, and I was coming down the hall. They didn’t know I could hear them.”
“When?” I asked.
Trevor thought about it. “Last y
ear or something.”
“You never told me.”
“I didn’t know if you knew. It seemed like a secret or something.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.
Trevor stepped closer to me. “Why aren’t you talking to me? And why didn’t you invite me to your birthday?”
There was a long pause before I said, “I know what you said about me.”
His eyebrows scrunched up. “Huh?”
I didn’t want to repeat the words. Plus, I was in the middle of something, and Trevor was getting in the way. Again. “I don’t have time for this right now,” I told him.
Before Trevor could say anything else, I turned around and began to storm inside. But then I remembered something important and turned back.
“One other thing. You better not tell anyone about the letter. Seriously, you cannot tell anyone. If you do, I . . .” I paused. “I’ll never, ever forgive you.”
“I won’t tell,” Trevor said, his face serious. “Even though you won’t say why you’re mad at me. You can’t ignore me forever.”
Watch me.
Before Trevor could say anything else, I went inside, Butternut trailing behind me.
A moment later, I heard Trevor’s storm door creak open and closed. With my journal and Marcus’s letter in hand, I ran down the hall to my room. Now I could focus on what really mattered.
Chapter Five
Almost an hour later, I finished the letter.
June 26
Hi,
I got your letter. I was really surprised since I never thought I’d hear from you.
I’m not sure what to call you. I can’t call you Dad because Mom’s husband, Paul, is my dad. Mom taught me to always call adults by Ms. or Mr. whatever their last name is, unless they say it’s okay to use their first name. Am I allowed to call you Marcus? This is all kind of weird.
I listened to the Stevie Wonder song “Isn’t She Lovely.” It’s nice. I started listening to some of his other songs too. I really like “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours).” We don’t have a record player, but I do know what one is. I downloaded some of his songs to my phone.
Part of me wants to know more about you, but I don’t know what to ask you, what to ask someone in prison. What I really want to know is why you did what you did.
I was happy with it so far—except for that last line. I wanted to know why Marcus committed his crime, but I was scared to ask. Scared of the answer. He didn’t seem like a bad person in his letter, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t one.
I decided to cross that line out. Maybe if I sent another letter, I’d ask him then, when I felt ready for whatever answer he had to give.
Part of me wants to know more about you, but I don’t know what to ask you, what to ask someone in prison. What I really want to know is why you did what you did.
Also, why did you call me Little Tomato?
Sincerely,
Zoe
In my desk drawer, there was a box of stationery that my grandmother had given me for my eleventh birthday. I didn’t usually send letters to people, so I’d never used it before. But now it was exactly what I needed. I took out a sheet of the stationery—it was fancy white paper with one dark purple line going around the perimeter. On the top in script were the words:
From the Desk of Zoe Washington
The pretty paper made me feel more grown-up, like I knew what I was doing.
With my journal open beside me, I rewrote my letter on the stationery in my neatest print. This was really happening.
When I was done, I wrote Marcus’s prison address on the envelope. I wondered how far away it was, so I did a quick search on my computer. Less than an hour drive, but I hadn’t been to that part of Massachusetts before. I sealed the letter and went to grab a stamp from the junk drawer in the kitchen.
The next morning, I waited for my parents to leave for work, then got ready to head to the blue mailbox at the corner of our street. I didn’t want to leave Marcus’s letter in the mailbox at our house and risk my parents seeing it. But before I could step onto the porch, I heard familiar voices: Trevor and his basketball friends, Lincoln and Sean. I went to the living room and glanced out the window. They were standing at the bottom of the porch steps, talking and laughing about something. Trevor dribbled a basketball while Lincoln and Sean held on to their bikes. They weren’t even wearing helmets!
My hands balled into fists.
Please leave. I waited for Trevor to get his bike and ride away with them. But they didn’t leave. Instead they all went to the driveway to play basketball.
What do I do? I could go outside through the back door, but I was pretty sure they’d still see me. After what happened, after what they’d said about me, I didn’t want to face those boys.
Would I be stuck inside my house all summer, forced to listen to their voices and laughter echoing throughout my own house?
I went back to my room to wait. I cleaned it up a little and unpacked my school backpack. I smiled when I pulled out the notebook I shared with Jasmine and Maya. It was one of those black-and-white marble composition notebooks, but we’d covered the front and back with pictures and quotes we’d found online. My favorites were the quote that said, “Dance like nobody’s watching,” and this adorable picture of otters holding hands. We used the notebook to write notes to each other. After each of us wrote a note, we’d pass it to the next person, who’d pass it to the third person, and we’d do that over and over all year long. Passing notes wasn’t allowed in class, but nobody realized we were writing notes when we wrote them in a regular notebook.
I flipped through and read a few pages, laughing at our inside jokes and missing those girls even more. Maybe I could start a new summer notebook, and we could mail it around to each other—like The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, but different. But Maya probably couldn’t mail something so big from camp. And Jasmine was gone for good now. Next year, I wouldn’t be able to write notes to her at all. Would Maya and I even make another notebook without her?
Forget it.
Instead, I sent a message to our group text, knowing Maya wouldn’t see it until she was done with camp, and Jasmine’s grandma made Jasmine keep her phone off most of the time.
Me: Just unpacked our notebook from this year. I miss you guys already!!!
My heart hurt. Who knew if we’d even text as a group anymore once school started up again.
I put the notebook in my desk drawer with the others, and then spun around in my chair a few times until I got dizzy. Then my eyes landed on the Ruby Willow cookbook sitting on my nightstand. I got up and lay across my bed, leaning on my pillow with the cookbook in front of me.
Ruby was on the cover wearing a white chef’s coat and hat, with her blond hair in her signature side braid. She had the biggest smile, and held up a plate with three fruit tarts on it. The strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries looked so fresh, the vibrant colors popped off the page. I wished I could reach into the picture to taste them.
I flipped to Ruby’s bio in the back of the book, even though I already knew everything about her baking career—how she used to bake all the time with her mom, and then became a contestant on the Food Network’s Kids Bake Challenge! She hadn’t been a front-runner the whole time. A boy named Frankie won a few of the earlier challenges, so everyone expected him to win the whole competition. Not me. I didn’t like him very much. Even during the challenge that the kids complained about the most—where they had to make a six-layer rainbow cake—he kept bragging about how he’d made rainbow cakes a million times at home, and it would be a “piece of cake.” He thought he was so funny.
Mom and I watched the show together, and we never stopped rooting for Ruby. She didn’t pretend to know everything, and she worked really hard at every challenge. She also liked helping other people. There was one time she finished a cookie challenge early, and another baker, Tessa, was running behind. Tessa had taken her sugar cookies out of the oven when t
here were only five minutes left and still had to decorate them. Ruby helped her out by piping on some of the icing. Tessa didn’t get sent home that episode, and it was all because Ruby helped her.
There was one challenge where Ruby had to make pie, and she ended up in the bottom two. She’d gotten flustered while baking, so her pie crust design looked messy. Plus, they also had to make ice cream and hers didn’t turn out so well. I was literally at the edge of my seat watching that episode. But then this other girl Lindsey went home instead, because her pie crust was still raw. Ruby looked so relieved and shocked. She ended up winning the next challenge and made it to the finale against Frankie. Everyone was surprised that she won, but I knew she had it in her all along.
Looking through the cookbook made me want to watch Ruby’s season again, so I grabbed my laptop. I opened up the Kids Bake Challenge! website and was about to click on the Full Episodes button when a banner on the side of the page caught my attention.
I was twelve now. I could audition for the show myself!
I clicked on the button, which brought me to the application. Mom or Dad would have to fill it out for me. Mom knew how good of a baker I was and even told me I could be the first Black girl to win the show one day. I’d told her I wanted to compete when we watched it together, and she said we could talk about it when I was old enough.
I spun around in my desk chair again, but this time it was a happy, excited spin.
I’d seen every single episode more than once, so I knew how the competition worked. I could spend the summer practicing baking to get ready, which would give me something to do without Trevor.
If I won, I’d be just like Ruby Willow! It would be a dream come true. I never saw many Black pastry chefs on the shows I watched, or in the cookbook section of the library, but I was still determined to be one when I grew up.
I read through the application and rules for applying as I imagined myself on the cover of my own cookbook. Then I turned on an episode of the show, peeking out of the window every once in a while to see if Trevor and his friends were still outside.
