“When I couldn’t get in touch with you, I got worried, so I called V and explained what had happened. And you know what she said, Molly? She said I shouldn’t feel bad about anything because you’re fucking your shrink—that she saw you guys making out at the fund-raiser. So I guess you won’t be calling me back.”
Then I actually do need the bathroom, to throw up.
DAY 73
Roasted Apple-Butter Spice Cake
My old-fashioned alarm clock gongs, and I text JoJo to ask if she can cover for me at FishTopia. When she writes back that she can use the money, I tell her she can have all my remaining shifts. Then I go back to bed.
On her way to the salon, Mom knocks on my door and asks if I’m okay.
“I’m fine. I just . . . have really bad cramps.”
When she knocks eight hours later, I pretend to be asleep. She leaves a bottle of Midol on my dresser, along with a piece of cake.
At some point in between Mom’s two knocks, Dr. B. leaves a voice message on my phone. “Molly, I just woke up. I don’t remember everything that happened last night, but I remember enough to know I was an ass. I’m so sorry. Please call me. And if you’re looking for your backpack, you left it here.”
Deleting the message, I flip over onto my stomach and go back to sleep.
DAY 74
Cherry Oatmeal Upside-Down Cake
Text from Dr. B.: Molly, please. Can you just let me know that you’re okay? As your therapist, if I don’t hear from you, I should probably call your mom.
I write back: I’m fine; DON’T even think about calling my mother.
Several times I start to text Alex a message, but I have no idea what to say.
When Mom knocks on the door, I tell her I still feel crappy, and she asks if I want her to make an appointment with her gynecologist. “You’re almost eighteen,” she says. “It’s probably time you started seeing someone anyway.”
What a weird idea. In a few weeks I’ll magically be an adult. I wonder if Mom thinks I’m having sex with anyone, wonder if she knows about V and Chris. (Are they having sex? How can I not know that?) Wonder when Mom had sex for the first time and if it was with Dad—maybe the night they met when Kurt Cobain died.
If it were weeks from now, and I were eighteen, would that have changed what happened between me and Dr. B.? Would I have known what I was doing by going over to his house? Would it have changed what happened between me and Alex? Would I finally have had the instruction manuals for these games I didn’t realize I was playing?
“Maybe,” I tell Mom.
At some point I start reading The Catcher in the Rye. It’s pretty good. The whole thing—according to SparkNotes—is a discussion with a therapist. I wonder if Holden Caulfield ever made out with his shrink or kneed him in the balls?
DAY 75
Triple Berry Summer Butter Bundt Cake
This is the last day of FishTopia. The last day to watch Golden Girls reruns with Alex on the antiquated TV. The last day for environmentally unsound clamshells of house special lo mein. The last day of all the brilliant fish swishing around in their tanks unaware of how small their lives are.
I spend it lying around in the sleigh bed and then lying around in the bonus room so Mom can’t accuse me of not leaving my room.
My phone dings with two text messages. I assume—okay, hope—that they’ll be from Alex, saying something about the end of our FishTopia era. They aren’t. One is from Elle asking where I’ve been; the other is Dr. B. suggesting he put me in touch with another therapist.
At some point I hear Mom and V talking about me through the model-home walls.
Mom: “I don’t know. Do you think I should call Glen Brooks?”
Veronica: “NO! I mean, I think she’d see that as a total invasion of her privacy.”
And even though I’m still mad at her for suggesting I kill myself and for telling Alex about Dr. Brooks and me, I do appreciate that she’s not blabbing to Mom about what she saw at FishTopia.
I miss my sister.
I miss everyone.
DAY 76
Red, White, and Blueberry Cake
I’m still in bed when Elle comes charging through my door with two fully loaded chili dogs from Haute Dogs. It used to be our favorite place before she became an animal advocate and decided we couldn’t eat there ever again.
“I got a call from your mom asking me to check on you while she was at work. I figured the situation called for drastic measures,” Elle offers as an explanation, and I feel bad for making my mom worry . . . again. The big blue bummer bringing her joy to the masses. “Just maybe don’t mention the hot dogs to Mark; he’s a pretty strict vegan.”
I almost ask who Mark is, but then I remember—Alex’s keyboardist from the no-name band. Flood of guilt that I’ve been too busy wallowing in my own stuff to realize that something important is going on with my friend. I never even asked her how their coffee date went after the fund-raiser, which now seems like a million years ago.
“So are you guys, like, an official thing?” I ask.
“I mean, it’s been less than a week, but we’ve been out almost every night, and he usually texts me a couple of times during the day.”
Even though I really want to scrunch down under the covers and go back to sleep, I take a bite of chili dog; it is frighteningly good. “So tell me everything!”
And she does.
How Mark is totally progressive politically but still kind of old-school when it comes to romance. “He always holds open doors, and he insisted on paying for dinner at that really pricey raw-food place in Maxwell!”
How when she couldn’t get a babysitter for Jimmy one night, Mark took them both out for non-dairy ice cream at the hippie cart.
How when they kissed—second date, with tongue—it was amazing. “I know it’s too early for this Nicholas Sparks destiny crap, but I think I could really fall for him,” she gushes.
“That is so amazing.” I am really happy for her, but I can’t help but think of how tingly and important it felt to kiss Dr. B. at the fund-raiser, and how awful it was when he tried to kiss me the next day.
“You have to get to know him too!” Elle is saying. “Tonight we’re seeing a lecture by this guy who wrote a book on sustainability in the entertainment industry; you should come with.”
Depression or no depression, that lecture sounds physically painful. “I don’t think I’m quite ready for the outside world yet.”
“Oh God, Mol. I’m such a idiot.” Elle changes tone. “What’s going on? Your mom was pretty worried.”
Where to even begin? With my botched seduction of my shrink? Alex telling me he was through with me and storming out? I go with the classic rom-com misdirection between Alex, Veronica, and me.
“So it turns out Alex and V weren’t dating, like, at all.”
“I know! Mark told me. Did you get my message about it?”
“Yeah, about two hours too late.”
“Oh no! Did you sort things out? Are you together yet?”
“Um, nope, not so much.” I tell her all about Alex saying he was in love with me (“I knew it!”) and then storming out when I told him I couldn’t go out with him. (“No!”)
“But I don’t understand.” Elle looks legitimately confused. “I mean, it sounds like he was a total dick about it—no woman has to go out with anyone just because he wants her to—and I’m BFF law on your side no matter what, but didn’t you want to go out with him? Like, isn’t that the reason we were so mad at V when we thought she was dating him?”
“I guess. I just didn’t want to ruin everything once he realized I wasn’t this amazing girl he thought I was.”
“Why would he think that, Mol?”
“That’s exactly what happened with T.J. He thought I was the coolest thing since FSU mystery punch, and then he decided I wasn’t really all that.”
“T. J. Cranston is a jerk-off who asked you out because he liked the way your ass looked in your team suit.�
� Elle is all huffy puffy now. “Alex is someone you’ve talked to almost every day for two years. I’m sure he’s already figured out that you don’t shit rainbows.”
I shrug again. When she says it like that, it does make me feel like a bottom-feeder.
“Mol, I know you hate it when I say this, but shouldn’t your therapist be helping you with stuff like this?”
“Well, I might have been too busy trying to get into Dr. B.’s pants for that.”
“What?” Elle’s eyes narrow, and even though I’m still reeling and disgusted by what happened with Dr. B., I’m hesitant to say anything about it to her, or to anyone, really. ’Cause saying it aloud means it actually happened, that I probably can’t just go back to our next session and pretend it’s all good with us. And I kind of want to.
“Molly? What happened?”
Even though I know it will change stuff, I tell her everything, like everything-everything, from how I started lying to Dr. B. so he’d like me, right on up to him drunk and grabby. For once Elle doesn’t interrupt, just listens, eyes growing wider with each new detail.
“You should call the police,” she says when I finish. “He committed, like, fifteen crimes.”
“But I was the one who kissed him the night before, and I was the one who insisted on going over there even after he told me he was hammered.”
“It doesn’t matter. What the dude did was wrong.”
“But I’m pretty sure I went over there because I did want to sleep with him, just not like that.”
“Whatever, Mollybean. You’re allowed to change your mind—kisses aren’t freaking sex contracts. You’re always allowed to say no at any point. And he’s the adult—he’s your shrink, for God’s sake.”
“I know.” As I say it, I realize it’s true. But here’s the thing: everyone we know besides me is counting the days until they can run away to college or to some real-world job on their own, all of them demanding to be treated like grown-ups. So how can we hide under the label of “still a child” when it’s convenient?
“At the very least, this guy shouldn’t be practicing. You need to report him to the medical board or somewhere.” She takes out her cell phone and starts looking up how to get your shrink arrested or something. “Let’s see where we go.”
“Don’t.” I take the phone from her and set it on the bed.
I understand why she’s saying what she’s saying and how I must sound, but as scary as he was that night, I still miss Dr. Brooks. That circular panic starts in my head every time I think about not going back for our appointments. And so much of our time was great. Does one stupid night when he was sauced negate all of that?
“Molly.”
“No, E. Please don’t make me the poster child for shrink sexual harassment or whatever your latest cause is, okay?”
“You can’t just let him get away with this.”
“I’m not some endangered rhino or whatever. You don’t need to save me.”
“But—”
“Seriously, just promise me you won’t tell anyone until I figure it out.”
“Molly—”
“I call BFF law.”
Shaking her head, she mumbles, “Fine, I won’t say anything yet.”
“Thank you.” I nod. “So tell me more about Mark.”
DAY 77
Flowerpot Cake with Fondant Flowers
When I get on my bike, I don’t have a destination in mind. Maybe it’s a muscle-memory thing that brings me to FishTopia.
Only, it’s not FishTopia anymore. There’s brown paper taped up on the windows, so you can’t see inside, and a plastic tarp over the block letters of the old sign reads, COMING SOON: MRS. K’S COUNTRY DINER!
The exclamation point seems like overkill.
My keys still work, so I let myself in.
The walls are still the blue-green color that Alex said looked like my eyes, but all the tanks and fish are gone, returned to some fish factory far, far away. (Or maybe really close. I don’t have any idea.) Mrs. K! and her country crew haven’t really done much else, and the place is essentially empty. Maybe it’s that I’m not used to seeing it like this, but the space looks much smaller, somehow less important. And the laminate surface of the counter where Alex and I used to sit is way more chipped than I ever noticed.
“Hello. May I help you?” asks a man, maybe sixty-five, with a trim white beard and kind eyes.
“Oh, I, uh, used to work here, and I was . . .” What? Coming by to look for ghosts; coming by to re-create something long gone. “Um, just coming by to drop off my keys.”
“Oh, yes. You must be Molly!” The man is all lit up with excitement. “Charlie Harrison spoke very highly of you! Said that you were quite the go-getter and we should snap you up before you got another job.”
“That was really nice of him.”
“You haven’t gotten one, then?” he asks. “Another job?” Seriously, Charlie, what did you say to this dude—that I was a pro when it comes to watching TV and not cleaning? That I spearheaded an illegal rooftop fund-raiser and managed to raise enough money to cover the cost of one season of the Golden Girls on Blu-ray? “Let me go grab my wife—Mrs. K. She’s handling the hiring.”
“Oh, that’s okay. I’m not really looking for anything right now. But I know the other girl who worked here—JoJo Banks—was really hoping you might be hiring waiters. She’s really great too.”
“Oh yes, we talked with her, but she turned us down.”
“Really?” Really? “I guess she must have found something else.”
“What about the other high school student Charlie mentioned? Alex, I think it was. Do you think he might be interested?”
“I’m sorry. We really haven’t been in touch.”
“Well, if you do see him, just let him know we’d love to talk to him.”
I’m through wasting my time with this.
“Yeah, sure,” I say. “And good luck with the new place.”
“Thanks.” He smiles. “You’ll definitely have to come for the grand opening!”
Promising to try, I set my keys on the counter. It’s sad and it’s not. Alex and our time together is what I miss, not the building that housed us. How I didn’t realize that before is one of life’s great mysteries.
Unlocking my bike, I give the building one more once-over, amazed that I never noticed the cracks in the front window or how uneven the concrete of the sidewalk is.
Maybe Alex was right. My need for everything to stay exactly the same was what screwed things up. If things never change, they eventually decay.
I’d love to call him. I could even use the job offer as an excuse—tell him that I know he’s avoiding me but people are looking for him.
But I don’t.
DAY 79
Caramel Walnut Upside-Down Banana Cake
Based on where the light coming through the upgraded windows is hitting the upgraded hardwood floors, it’s got to be after noon when I wake up. I actually feel pretty good. One perk about depression, you get your rest.
On the floor outside my bedroom door, Mom has laid out slices of the cakes from the last few days, like a dessert sampler from a high-end restaurant. The whole thing is so cute and bizarre; I start laughing, which feels really good. Mom is such an adorable kook sometimes.
Hot water from the upgraded rain showerhead is amazing, and by the time I’m clean and dressed, I’m famished. I gobble up the old cake to tide me over on my way downstairs.
It’s Mom’s day off from the salon, and she’s in the kitchen sifting flour into a large mixing bowl. She really has gotten pretty good. There’s hardly any mess, and she has this authority over the appliances—she’s totally made them her bitches. Leave it to Mom to achieve anything she sets her mind to, even something totally random like baking a hundred different cakes.
Seeing me, this giant grin splits her whole face, and she looks positively radiant. I kind of expect she might break into “Be Our Guest” or something. Then she freezes
and doesn’t say anything, as if I’m some small woodland creature she’s stumbled upon in the forest and doesn’t want to scare away before she can snap an Instagram pic.
“Can I help?” I ask.
“You want to?” Mom asks, with the type of enthusiasm that would suggest I’ve been elected president of the United State or am going on a date with Prince Harry.
“Yeah. Gotta learn to cook for myself at some point, right?”
“Of course.” She hands me a bowl and a wooden spoon and says I can combine the dry ingredients. “You know, one of the reasons I started this was that I thought it was something that you and me and V could do together.”
“Really?” Yeah, nope, had no idea about that.
“When you were little, you girls would always get out Gram’s bowls and pans and help her bake. But then you’d come home, and we didn’t have half the equipment, and I was always working so much that we never really did any of that stuff. I figured maybe it wasn’t too late to try it.”
It sort of makes sense that she wanted us to spend time together, but maybe she could have just asked us to go on a walk or something.
“So what’s on the menu today?” I ask, and she goes through all the ingredients and explains that she’s trying to make sure that everything is organic for Elle.
I tell her that Elle is dating the environmental keyboard player.
“These two might be legit made for each other,” I say. “It’s crazy.”
“Oh, good for her.” Mom gets a little misty. “See, there really is someone out there for everyone if you just open your eyes.”
I’m about to ask if that means she and Toupee Thom are back on after the fund-raiser, but V comes in from the garage.
“Mom, have you seen my—” She stops when she gets to the kitchen and sees me. Unabashed hatred floods her face. “What are YOU doing here?”
100 Days of Cake Page 19
