If I say yes, I’ll get caught up in A Levitt Family Production—distracted by long days on location, switching out camera lenses to capture the perfect headshot, proofreading interview questions—the familiar, comforting chaos of filmmaking. It’s a chaos I haven’t felt since my parents moved us to Charlotte for their raising teenagers sabbatical three years ago, devastated by Oscar loss number six. Being on location and behind a camera is the closest thing to home I’ve ever had—until Kels.
If I go, OTP will take a back seat to my parents’ demanding schedule and fitting school in.
I can’t afford to go on hiatus for a year.
My presence will evaporate. NYU will have nothing to look at. Kels will disappear.
“I’m staying. For Gramps.”
For me.
Mom nods. “I get that. It just might be harder than you think, okay?”
“Every day is already hard.”
Mom’s arms open and I fall into her embrace. She strokes my hair like I’m a little kid again. It used to be identical, our hair. Long and medium brown. Whatever Mom’s chosen hairstyle was for the day, she’d replicate it on me. If Mom braided her hair, she braided mine. Crown braid days were my favorite. Along with matching green eyes and the same small mole above our lip. Everyone on set used to call me Mini-Mad.
Now, I keep my hair shoulder-length and styled in layers.
Mom’s is still as long as ever because, quote, screw ageism.
I’m going to miss her so much.
Mom lets go first and glances at her smart watch. “We need to get going.”
Still chewing my cheek, I nod.
“Come on, the boys are all outside.”
I follow my mother’s footsteps out the back door. Mom referring to Dad, Gramps, and Ollie as “the boys” gives me flashbacks to sand between my toes and the smell of hydrangeas in bloom. Summers were always for Middleton. If we weren’t on location, we were here. But now it’s August, and there’s a whole year here in front of us.
Dad pulls me into a hug as soon as I reach him. We don’t say much, but we don’t need to. Dad isn’t a man of many words. Mostly, he speaks in cupcakes and cinematography. I can’t wait for the pictures I know he’s going to send me from Israel.
“Take care of Gramps,” he whispers in my ear.
“I’m not going to cry. I’m not going to cry,” Mom says, then smushes Ollie and me together into one giant group hug and promptly bursts into tears.
There it is. We’ve been waiting for it. Mom always cries in threes, and she cried twice during the road trip to Middleton. It’s like three-act structure is built in her DNA.
On that note, Gramps turns around, Scout in his arms, and retreats inside. It’s the first Gramps thing that has happened since we’ve arrived, him running away from Mom’s tears. He kind of always has.
Mom wipes her eyes. “Okay, well.” She looks back and forth between Ollie and me. “I love you. We love you.”
“We’ll love you more if you win an Oscar,” Ollie says.
“No pressure,” I say.
Mom rolls her eyes, but she’s laughing. Ollie always knows what to say like that.
“Okay, one more hug. Then we’ll go—I promise!”
After a final round of hugs, Mom and Dad get in the van and they’re off to JFK. Then onto a plane. Then halfway around the world.
I don’t realize I’m crying until they’re already gone.
One True Pastry—three years ago
Debuts You Should Be Reading / Cupcakes You Should Be Eating
FIREFLIES AND YOU by Alanna LaForest
Okay, here we are. #50. The post I’ve been teasing on Instagram all week.
I can’t believe I just typed #50. Fifty reviews. Fifty recipes. Do you have any idea how many cupcakes that is? I can’t even tell you, because my brother always starts eating them all before I have the chance to count. Thankfully. If you were worried about food waste, rest assured, these cupcakes never go to waste.
Today’s recipe is lemon cupcakes with lavender frosting, topped off with gold glitter. Inspired by my new favorite book you probably haven’t read. Which is absurd! So I thought, How can I get this book on YA Twitter’s radar? I can write a glowing review (see below!)—but I know way more people are engaged with my #CupcakeCoverReveals on Instagram.
So I turned thirty-six cupcakes into a book cover cake.
Fifty cupcakes recipes later, and I have finally taken #CupcakeCoverReveal literally. You’re welcome.
These cupcakes taste like spring and are the perfect pick-me-up to get through this endless winter. Which, evidently enough, is how I feel about FIREFLIES AND YOU. If you asked me how many times I’ve read this book, I’d say two.
I’d be lying. The answer is three. I’ve read this book three times and I am the definition of book hungover!
So, what’s the book about, Kels?
FIREFLIES AND YOU is the YA contemporary book of my dreams—one where the romance elements are squee-worthy as anything, but nothing compared to the core of the story—a friendship so complicated, so codependent, you never know whose side you’re supposed to be on.
Every year, Annalee waits for the fireflies. Summer is for swimming, working two part-time jobs to save up for college, kissing Jonah Beckett, and fireflies. It’s a phenomenon that marks her small town outside of Baton Rouge. No one can explain why the fireflies keep coming back. And when they do, so does Maisy Daniels, Annalee’s best friend, and everything is perfect.
Except this summer, Annalee and Maisy are broken and barely even speaking. Annalee’s POV is in chronological order and Maisy’s is reverse chronological, both intricately woven together leading up to the night they fell apart. It’s wild, but so worth the ride, figuring out what happened.
With that, I will say no more about plot because spoilers!
But in terms of feels, the thing I loved most about this book was the moments of levity. It sounds heavy, reading a book about a friendship breakup—hoping Annalee and Maisy will figure it out and find their way back to each other. Parts of it are. But it’s also a lot of laughter, a ton of atmosphere, and the best depiction of summers in the too-hot South I’ve ever read (speaking as someone who’s lived there!).
Anyways, how this book only has 24 ratings on Goodreads is a tragedy—I will be plugging and blasting and screaming about FIREFLIES AND YOU on social media until the end of time!
PLZ READ IT SO ALANNA CAN WRITE MORE AMAZING BOOKS.
With Love (& Cupcakes),
Kels
And, as always, tag me in your cupcake posts!! I LOVE seeing your beautiful bookish creations. [Showing Comments 1-20 of 1,782]
TWO
You’d think us Levitts would be minimalists.
I mean, we once moved six times in two years in the name of Gentrify, U.S.—a documentary that exposed the realities of gentrification in American cities. From nine to eleven, I lived in Brooklyn, Boston, Chicago, D.C., San Francisco, and Seattle.
By Chicago, I lived out of my suitcases. There was no point in pretending to settle.
With every move and every new doc, my parent promised it was the one. Gentrify, U.S. earned Mad and Ari Levitt their fifth Academy Award nomination.
It lost to a doc about chinchillas. Seriously.
I’m just saying. Considering how much of my childhood has been spent packing and unpacking and relocating, stuff should be a burden. I should live a cleansed, clutter-free life.
I don’t.
Exhibit A: the tornado of clothes still covering Aunt Liz’s floor. Or my floor now, I guess.
I stare at the mess I made. If I move the clothes from the floor to the bed, is that progress? Maybe instead I’ll purge everything that doesn’t spark joy. Honestly, I probably should’ve channeled Marie Kondo in Charlotte, before I challenged myself to fit my entire closet it one suitcase, just to see if I could.
I decide I can deal with the clothes later. First, my books need to breathe—in alphabetical order, by genre. I
empty my suitcase one book at a time, organize, and shelve. Repetitive motion centers me, but I finish too soon. All my books fit on the white lacquered bookshelf next to the bed. It’s small—only two shelves. It’s kind of a tragedy, all the books I have fitting on only two shelves.
I would’ve had at least five more if my parents hadn’t made me donate a bunch to the library before we left. Incomplete fantasy series and old white dude literature I read for school now have a new home in the donation bin at the Charlotte Public Library. It’s never easy, saying goodbye to books. Especially ones that I have discussed and debated for years with my friends. Like, will Nash still be my best friend if he knows I donated the first two books in The Queen of Stone series? I’m not about to tell him and find out.
Still, it didn’t hurt so bad at the time, when I thought I’d have Grams’s collection to fall back on. But I don’t. And I’m afraid to ask Gramps what he did with them, because if he trashed them I don’t know what I’ll do.
I take a step back and assess my work. My bookshelf is small, but it is mighty. It’s a collection that consists of my three favorite things: swoony romcoms, twisted thrillers, and anything edited by Miriam Levitt, AKA Grams.
Fireflies and You is face out, of course. Signed, courtesy of being the granddaughter of the editor. It’s hands down the most priceless part of my collection.
Everyone on Book Twitter claims it’s impossible to pick a favorite book, but Fireflies and You is mine—no question. Beyond the beautiful story, it’s the book that made OTP. It’s the book that told me publicity is my path and showed me that I am in fact good at shouting about books—and making people listen. The one that helped me see I need to work in publishing.
And now it’s the book I reread to feel close to Grams.
I squeeze my eyes shut, fighting the pressure that builds behind my eyes. Fireflies and You is going to be a movie, so it’s been everywhere lately. It comes out in January and it’s the first Grams book to ever be adapted and she doesn’t even get to see it. She’ll never know—
Breathe.
“Hal?”
I twist to face the door, for one brief minute expecting Grams. Then Gramps’s head pokes in. I turn back around to wipe my tears, quick. Gramps cannot see me like this. I need to be positive. Enthusiastic. I asked to be here.
Gramps’s expression is neutral behind his too-long beard. If he saw me upset, he doesn’t show it. “I’m sorry. The orange. I know you hate it. I meant to paint it. Before. I just—”
I shake my head. “It’s okay, Gramps. Orange is a crime to the color wheel, but I’ll live.”
He nudges the door open enough to step in. “It is pretty bad.”
I snort, grateful for this acknowledgement. It’s small, but it’s the first time since arriving that Gramps sounds like Gramps. “So bad.”
“You can repaint. Any color you want.”
“I’d like that. Thanks.”
Gramps’s shoulders relax as he approaches Scout, who’s standing at the end of the bed, tail wagging. She blends in so well with the clothes when she’s curled up in a ball and sleeping, I honestly forgot she was here. Gramps scratches her ears and my brain is in overdrive, trying to figure out what to say next, what words to form when Gramps seems sort of okay, to broach the topic that’s the hardest.
“Her books?” I blurt out.
Gramps flinches. “Boxed up in the garage.”
I nod. “Can I—?”
Gramps is gone before the question fully forms.
Of course, I said the wrong thing. I always say the wrong thing. It’s just—I needed to know. The absence of Grams’s bookshelves and the hundreds—no, thousands—of stories that lined them? It’s a tragedy.
I close my eyes and clutch Grams’s hamsa charm.
I open my eyes, exhale a shaky breath, and power on my laptop.
The screen comes to life, full brightness, and my pulse steadies as I type in my password. I can at least focus on the blog and checking to see if I got this cover reveal email, things that aren’t totally out of my hands. Except my inbox isn’t refreshing, and I notice my laptop is refusing to connect to Wi-Fi. Weird. It worked fine last summer, when we stayed in Middleton for three weeks. It should automatically connect, but of the six routers that appear, none are familiar.
I close my laptop and venture to ask Gramps. Also because I can only be surrounded by orange for so long. It’s too loud. Impossible to focus. Ollie’s already shut into Dad’s room, J. Cole blasting from his new speakers as I head down the stairs.
I park myself on the living room couch and open my laptop again. There’s so much to do, but connecting to Wi-Fi is priority number one. Tomorrow’s posts need to be edited; tweets need to be scheduled. Once all One True Pastry–related duties have been conquered, tonight is for organizing, sweatpants, Netflix with Ollie and hopefully Gramps, and catching up with my friends.
“Hey, Gramps?”
“Huh?” he yells from the adjacent kitchen.
“Did you get a new internet router?” I ask.
“Nope!”
I place my laptop down on the coffee table and peek my head into the kitchen. Gramps is sitting at the table, reading the newspaper and eating popcorn. Like a newspaper is popcorn-worthy entertainment.
“Then where’s the old one?” I try to keep the panic out of my voice.
Gramps shrugs. “My desktop is hardwired. So I didn’t need it anymore, you know?”
I soften. “Gramps.”
He doesn’t look up from the newspaper and my heart shatters. Even Wi-Fi is triggering and everything about being here is suddenly too much. Why did I think this was a good idea? How can I possibly live in the house that has been stripped of every memory, of everything I love? Except Gramps. But even Gramps isn’t Gramps.
“I know you kids need it for school,” Gramps says. “It’s getting reinstalled next week.”
“I have some things I have to take care of, like, right now,” I say.
Translation: I need to get out of here now. I can’t be offline for a week. And I can’t run One True Pastry from my phone.
“Then go to the library.” Gramps says, not even looking up.
And wow, his indifference? It hurts.
But I want to go. I need to go.
“Okay. Well, I’ll be back before dinner.…” I run upstairs for my backpack. Then remember that I left my laptop in the living room, so I double back and shove it inside the sleeve, then tuck the sleeve inside the backpack. Zip backpack. Retie shoelaces. Yell up to Ollie that I’ll be with the books, which he’ll get if he even hears me. Get out of here.
I dash out the door, craving my Kels life like a drug.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, there’s still no Ariel Goldberg email, but I’m reconnected and feeling about a million percent better. I’m supposed to be writing a guest post for Teen Vogue. Instead, I’m assuring my friends that I am, in fact, not dead.
Amy Chen
i mean in all fairness what were we supposed to think?
3:34 PM
you went off the grid for SIX HOURS.
3:34 PM
Elle Carter
IN THE SUMMER. DURING NORMAL BUSINESS HOURS.
3:35 PM
Samira Lee
Really, Kels. You’d be just as worried if any of us vanished mid-convo with no explanation!!
3:36 PM
OMG
3:36 PM
the only thing that died was my phone
3:37 PM
Elle Carter
The first rule of internet friendship? Inform your comrades when your phone is on the brink of death
3:38 PM
Amy Chen
lol also we know you’ve been messaging Nash
3:39 PM
Amy Chen
he confirmed your semi-on the grid status two hours ago!
3:40 PM
Samira Lee
We see where your loyalty is!!
3:41 PM
Amy Chen
lol you don’t even deny it anymore
3:43 PM
i’m sorry it’s been a day okay!!
3:44 PM
Amy Chen
whatever. i get it. you have to admit it to yourself before you can admit it to your besties. i’ll be here to say I TOLD U SO when you do.
3:45 PM
… what am I admitting?
3:45 PM
Elle Carter
Girl, you know.
3:45 PM
…
3:46 PM
My friends, along with the rest of the internet, love to act like something is going on between Nash and me. For the record, it’s not. Nash is the first person who left a comment on my blog, which led to me discovering REX, which resulted in our first DMs. He’s the first real friend I ever had. My best friend.
Amy, Elle, and Samira’s jokes cut closer to home though because they’re friends with Nash too. Book Twitter is already a bubble. Teen Book Twitter? It’s such a niche subsection of the Twitterverse—pretty much everyone knows everyone. Or at least, knows of everyone.
Samira Lee
*an extremely natural segue*
Brooklyn wants to know how moving went, Kels?
3:50 PM
Samira sends us a string of portrait-mode photos of Brooklyn, her perfect queen of a cat. I save them to my camera roll, because Brooklyn photos make the best memes. On Twitter, she’s a star.
ok. i’m used to it, you know?
3:45 PM
it’s not really a big deal anymore
3:46 PM
My friends think I’m an army brat. It explains why I move around so much. If I told them the real reason, it would get complicated. And the best thing about being Kels is how uncomplicated she is. She bakes cupcakes inspired by book covers, reviews YA books, and always knows exactly what to say. She never thought-spirals or blurts out the wrong thing at the wrong time. She makes a religion out of the backspace key. She doesn’t have Halle’s Academy Award–nominated parents or a publishing royalty grandmother to live up to.
And she has actual friends. Even though we’ve never met, they aren’t just pixels to me. Amy, Elle, and Samira are the people I talk to every day—whether about the latest drama on Book Twitter, the disappointment in an ARC I was so excited for, or asking their opinions on which photo to use for the next cupcake Instagram post. Even though they don’t know my real name, they know me better than anyone. Well, except Nash.
What I Like About You Page 2
