Confectionately Yours #1: Save the Cupcake!

by Lisa Papademetriou

  Slowly beat in the confectioners’ sugar, in 1/2-cup intervals, adding a little bit of milk whenever the frosting becomes too thick. Continue mixing on high speed for about 3–7 minutes, until the frosting is light and fluffy.

  “Are you making apple cupcakes?” Mom asks as she walks into Gran’s tiny kitchen. Because this is just a small batch, I’m baking them upstairs in the apartment instead of down with the huge industrial mixer. Mom spots the two half-peck baskets on the counter, one of which is half-empty. Her face falters for a minute, and then she recovers. “Oh. Did you go apple picking with Dad?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Kind of?”

  “Chloe and I did most of the picking.”

  Notice that I do not mention Annie. That’s because she is irrelevant to the conversation I’m having with my mother, in case you’re wondering.

  Stooping over, I pull open the oven and reach for a mitt. The cupcakes are perfect domes rising over the rims of the red foil wrappers, and the air is thick with the scent of cinnamon.

  “They look gorgeous,” Mom says.

  “It’s your recipe.”

  “Which I got off a bag of flour about twenty years ago.”

  “Really?” That makes me giggle — and also makes sense. Mom doesn’t bake much — she’s always left that to Gran.

  “Are Marco and Artie coming over?” Mom asks.

  “It’s Game Night.”

  “I guess it is.”

  Marco, Artie, and I have been getting together every other Saturday for two years. It started out because our parents liked to get together for dinner parties pretty often, and we kids would get bored. So we’d all go down to the basement to play games. Artie likes these annoying games like Scrabble or Boggle or Bananagrams — anything with words. Marco and I prefer games where armies invade countries — Axis & Allies, Risk, that kind of thing. Tonight is a Bananagrams night, but that’s okay because sometimes Marco tries to cheat by making up words, which always makes me laugh.

  Mom gets the confectioners’ sugar from the top shelf — she knows I’ll need it for the frosting. “I’m glad you guys are still having Game Night.”

  “Why wouldn’t we?”

  “No reason, I guess.”

  I lift each cupcake carefully onto a cooling rack. Of course, I know what she means. Game Night has always been held in our basement, which is huge and has an awesome, thick carpet that’s great for lying on, especially if you’re half-propped on an enormous pillow.

  But we don’t live in that house anymore. Mom doesn’t have dinner parties with Marco’s and Artie’s parents anymore, either. That stopped a few months ago, once the divorce was announced.

  But yesterday I asked Marco and Artie if they were coming over for Game Night, and both said yes, so here we are. I dump the margarine and shortening into the bowl, and turn on the electric mixer.

  “Ooh, can I have one?” Chloe asks as she rushes in. She reaches for a cupcake, and I give her hand a playful swat.

  “They aren’t even frosted yet.”

  “Did you have fun apple picking, sweetie?” Mom asks.

  “Yes! But I don’t think Annie did.”

  I turn on the mixer, but it doesn’t stop Mom from asking, “Who’s Annie?”

  “Dad’s friend,” Chloe says nonchalantly. Then she asks, “Can I lick the beater when you’re done?”

  “No,” I snap.

  “Why not?”

  Because you’ve broken Mom’s heart! I sneak a glance at Mom, who looks shell-shocked. But she notices me watching, and forces a smile. She doesn’t say You didn’t mention Annie. Now I wish I had. Not mentioning Annie has made her seem important, when she’s really just irrelevant.

  Irrelevant!

  “Please can I lick one?” Chloe begs, and I snap off the beaters without a word and hand one over.

  Mom and I look at each other for a moment. “I see,” she says finally, then touches my shoulder very, very gently, almost like she’s whispering a secret, before she walks out of the room.

  Let me tell you a little about my dad.

  Two years ago, he decided that he didn’t want to be an assistant district attorney anymore. So he got a job at a fancy law firm, which is where he works now.

  It’s in Springfield, which is about a thirty-minute commute. Not long. But a lot longer than the old, five-minute one.

  Anyway, so Dad started working at this nice law firm. I remember the first time I went there — the elevators are chrome and shiny and so fast you feel like you’re zooming to the top floor. Everyone was beautifully dressed: The men’s shoes were shined and the women had manicures. Let me just explain something about Northampton, where I live. It’s pretty casual. Casual, as in, if your orange Crocs match your orange fleece, you’re stylish. So this place seemed really fancy and elegant, and they had this pale-gray carpet that I figured they probably had to vacuum every five seconds.

  Well, what happened when Dad started working there was that his clothes got nice real fast. He bought these shirts that had to go out to the dry cleaner’s, instead of just getting washed at home, and he started a cuff-link collection. Then he got new shoes. Then he got a fancy new phone that he was always typing on and staring at, even at dinner or when the rest of us were watching TV.

  The car was the next to go. Out went the ten-year-old Toyota. In came the sporty silver Lexus.

  “I need it,” Dad would say. “The firm expects you to project a certain image. I can’t go visit clients in an old Toyota; they’ll think I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  Next up, new vacation. For years, we had always rented the same little lake cottage up in Goshen. Right by the “Goshen Ocean,” which is a peaceful lake just twenty minutes from our house. But last summer, we went to Spain.

  Dad kept talking about how great it was, but what I remember is that it was hot.

  Anyway, when we came back in the fall, Dad decided that we should remodel our kitchen. “These floors are from 1953,” he said. And it was true, although I’d never heard him complain about the floors before. So he hired a contractor, and for three weeks, we couldn’t even eat in our kitchen because we had no cabinets, no stove, no fridge. Not even plates or cups — everything had been boxed up.

  Mom was worried about the cost, but Dad didn’t listen to her.

  “I’m making all this money,” Dad kept saying. “Let’s enjoy it!”

  The only problem was that he never really seemed to be enjoying it. About a week after the kitchen was finished, Mom made chicken parm, Chloe’s favorite. Chloe was helping Mom with the salad, and we were about to have dinner — our first in the new kitchen. Dad and I were setting the table, and when he pulled open the silverware drawer, it came clean out — the forks and knives and spoons clattered all over the new Mexican-tile floor. Dad cursed and kicked the drawer and yanked out his cell phone so he could shout at the contractor. Chloe started crying and Mom put her arms around her, and I just stood there, looking at our gleaming kitchen — the new stainless steel fridge, the new stove, the new wooden cabinets — the kitchen that we were supposed to enjoy.

  Two weeks later, Dad and Mom were going out on a date. When Mom came out, dressed in dark jeans and a white shirt, I heard Dad ask, “Is that what you’re wearing?” She said yes and that was the end of it, but I remember wondering if Mom was going to be the next thing to get “improved.”

  But it didn’t quite work out that way. Instead, Dad moved out in the spring. And now he’s seeing Annie. I wonder if she’s supposed to be the new, improved version of Mom.

  I wonder if that’s what Mom is thinking, too.

  “And so then a giant spider landed on my head and tried to eat my brain.”

  “What?” I snap to attention and cock my head at Marco, who is helping me frost apple cupcakes. “Spider — what?”

  He gives me a sly smile. “Oh, so you are listening.”

  I feel myself blush, the red flame creeping across my cheeks. “Sorry.”

  “I�
��ve been talking for the past ten minutes, and you haven’t said anything except ‘mmm,’ ‘hmm,’ or ‘mmm-hmm.’”

  “I heard what you were saying,” I protest, but the moment the words are out of my mouth, I realize that I have zero idea what Marco has been talking about. Soccer? English class? My blush flares brighter when I realize it could be anything. “Okay, tell me again.”

  Marco looks skeptical. “Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

  I sigh, dip the spreading knife into the vanilla frosting, then look around — kind of furtively, I guess, because Marco says, “Is it some dramatic secret?”

  There’s no sound coming from my mom’s room upstairs, Gran is watching TV in her room, and Chloe is over at her friend’s house. We’ve learned his name, by the way. It’s Rupert, and he lives three doors down from us. Anyway, I keep my voice low and say, “Kind of.”

  Marco’s eyebrows fly up, and he looks like he isn’t sure he really wants to hear what I have to say. I blurt out, “My dad introduced me to … I think … his girlfriend.”

  Marco winces. “Oh, weird.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you sure she’s not a friend?”

  “She put her hand on his knee.”

  Marco looks horrified, and then pretends to barf into the frosting bowl.

  “That’s how I felt,” I tell him.

  “I’m sorry, but even watching my parents hug kind of gives me the creeps,” he admits. “I really can’t imagine them putting their hands on random people’s knees.”

  I giggle, partly because I’m relieved that someone understands, and also partly because I start imagining Marco’s parents putting their hands on random people’s knees — like in a bus or at the library.

  “What’s she like?”

  “Pretty,” I say. “Kind of young.”

  “Even grosser,” Marco says.

  “I know.”

  “Is she nice?”

  I’m about to say no, but I stop to think it over for a moment. She did try to talk to us. And she smiled a lot. And Chloe likes her. “Maybe,” I admit. “Does that mean I have to like her?”

  “No.” Marco places his neatly frosted cupcake on the counter and picks up another. “I was just curious.” He looks at the wall clock.

  “She’s late.”

  “More than usual,” Marco says.

  “Well, she isn’t just walking through the backyard.”

  As if she senses us talking about her, the phone rings. “It’s Artie,” I tell him. “Artie, we were just talking about you.”

  “I’m so sorry!” Artie blurts. “I can’t make it.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “What’s up?” Marco asks. He reads the disappointment on my face, and his dark eyebrows draw together in a frown.

  I shake my head at him as Artie babbles, “I asked Roan on Wednesday if he could give me a ride to your house, and he said yes, but now Dad says that he’s gone out and isn’t coming back until ten.”

  “Roan flaked,” I say to Marco, who rolls his eyes. Roan is Artie’s seventeen-year-old brother, and kind of a space case. If he weren’t a straight-A mega-nerd, I might suspect him of being on drugs.

  “Why didn’t she just ask my parents for a ride?” Marco sounds annoyed, and Artie hears his voice.

  “Tell Marco that if I had known Roan was going to flake, I would have asked him for a ride!”

  “It’s okay,” I say, even though it isn’t.

  “Look, Hayley, I’m so sorry, and I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”

  “I hope she’s apologizing,” Marco says.

  I nod at him and tell Artie, “Don’t worry about it.” I’m about to add, “There’s always next time,” but something holds me back. Instead, I say, “See you Monday.”

  “Have fun without me!” Artie chirps, and I hang up.

  Marco and I look at each other for a long moment that slowly, slowly rotates into awkwardness. “So — I guess we don’t have to play Bananagrams,” he says.

  I let out a tense laugh. Stop that, I command myself, and clamp my lips shut. “So.” I take out two plates and place a cupcake on each one. “Should we play Risk?”

  “No fun with two people.”

  “Battleship?”

  Marco laughs, and says, “Yeah,” but he sounds sarcastic, and neither one of us makes a move toward the living room.

  “Maybe we should just watch a movie or something,” I suggest.

  “Sure.”

  So we take our cupcakes and head into the living room. Marco looks around. “This is nice,” he says, and I remember with a sudden flash that he’s never been here before.

  Of course. He’s been to the café downstairs — but never upstairs, to my grandmother’s apartment. Her living room is nice — full of elegant furniture that she inherited from her own mother, and beautifully kept. Gran is one of those old-school housekeepers who, like, mop every day.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty.” I look on the shelf. Our DVDs are only partially unpacked, so I have a pretty lame selection to offer. We finally decide on an old musical, and I put it in, then sit down on the couch beside Marco.

  The music begins, and I take a bite out of my cupcake, trying not to think about how weird this is. Over the past two years, Game Night has been canceled before … but it has never, ever been just me and Marco.

  Still, we’re good friends.

  So why should this be weird?

  Yet it is weird. Here we are — in a house that’s not my house, watching a movie on Game Night, without Artie. It’s all wrong, like a puzzle put together by a toddler, upside down and backward.

  The movie blares on, but I can hardly watch it. I wish I could just go to bed.

  I eat my cupcake. What else is there for me to do?

  “Is anyone else having trouble with the Wi-Fi?” Mom looks up from her computer and peers around the café.

  A woman with braided hair sips her coffee and gives Mom a wry smile. “The Wi-Fi never works here.”

  “What?” Mom looks over at Gran, who gives her a sheepish smile. “Mother, you can’t post a sign that says you have Wi-Fi and then not have wireless. People need to use their computers.”

  “What for?” Gran demands. “So they can poke each other?”

  “Gran!” I clap a hand over my mouth, but my laugh escapes anyway.

  “That’s right, I know about poking,” Gran says to me. “I know all about Friendbook!”

  “Facebook,” I say.

  “I know all about it.” Gran purses her lips primly. “And it is — simply put — a waste of time.”

  “Okay, Mother, that’s great. You’re from a different millennium, we get it. But there are some people who come here to work.”

  The woman with braids lifts her cup. “Hear, hear!”

  “So just fix the router.” Mom steps behind the counter.

  “I can’t figure the darn thing out,” Gran admits. She turns to me. “Excuse me.”

  Yes, that’s right — my grandmother says “Excuse me” whenever she says “darn.” I smile to show that I’m not horribly offended.

  Mom opens the cupboard where the wireless is hidden. “Well, it might help to plug it in.” Mom’s voice is dry. “And it also might help to blow some of the dust off this thing.” A red light flashes, then two green lights. Mom shuts the cupboard doors and goes back to her computer. She taps at the keyboard. “Working,” she announces.

  A guy in a faded concert T-shirt and jeans walks in and flashes a smile at Gran. He’s got that raggedy student look that’s so popular around here. There are five colleges within twenty minutes of Northampton: Smith is right here in town; Amherst, Hampshire, and the main campus of the University of Massachusetts are in Amherst; Mount Holyoke is in South Hadley. Sometimes it seems like everybody’s a student, a teacher, or a graduate.

  “Do you have Wi-Fi?” the guy asks.

  “Yes!” Gran says brightly, and Mom gives her a look.

  “Awesome.” He
sniffs, his eyebrows going up. “Smells like bacon.”

  “That’s me,” I admit. “I just made these cupcakes ….”

  “Bacon cupcakes? Are they gross?”

  “I hope not. They’re actually Country Morning cupcakes, with bacon and egg.”

  “A bacon cupcake for breakfast — that’s either going to be disgusting or delicious. Gimme one of those. And a cup of coffee,” he adds. He slings his backpack off his shoulder and puts it down on a table, then pulls out some money to pay.

  I add a tiny piece of bacon to the top of the cupcake and set it on a plate. It’s still warm from the oven. I can’t help biting my lip as he tastes it. I mean, I think they’re good — but the bacon was my idea, and I might be insane.

  “Whoa.” The guy gives me a huge grin. “These are crazy! Can you put four more in a box for me?”

  “Lunch?” I ask.

  “Housemates,” he says, and I have to admit that I’m relieved.

  He sits down to work for a while, staring at his screen and munching his cupcake nonstop. The coffeepot is almost empty, so I rinse it out and brew a fresh one. Then I decorate the chalkboard out front: CUPCAKE OF THE DAY: COUNTRY BREAKFAST! A DELICIOUS BLEND OF BACON, EGG, AND PANCAKE WITH MAPLE-SYRUP FROSTING. COFFEE OF THE DAY: PERUVIAN BLEND. COME CHECK OUT OUR WI-FI! Then I draw autumn leaves around the edges. The sky is a deep blue, and the day is warm. It’s one of those perfect October days that feels like one of September’s leftovers. When the weather gets cold, maybe I’ll make pumpkin cupcakes. I seriously love pumpkin.

  I let the sun soak into my skin, warming me. It’s almost ten in the morning, and the town is already humming. People are walking about, peering in windows, strolling and smiling. A middle-aged couple holding hands stops to read my sign. I hold the door for them as they detour into our café.

  When I step back inside, Mom is behind the counter helping herself to another cup of coffee. “We’re going to need to get a real coffeemaker — an industrial one,” Mom says. “Something easier to manage.” I can see the wheels turning behind her eyes, and she moves toward her computer — to do research on coffeemakers, no doubt, while Gran helps the customers, charming them with her British accent.