by Coco Simon
I was still kind of nervous about the idea. But I had been nervous about the internship, too, and the morning had been great. Not awkward at all. (Of course, I had barely seen MDB the whole morning, so maybe that was why.)
Still, it was worth a try.
“Sure,” I said.
He looked relieved. “Great!” he said. “I’ll e-mail your mother to set up a date.”
“Okay, thanks,” I said, and then I saw Mom’s car pull up. “See you soon.”
I ran out to the car.
“How did it go?” Mom asked when I got into the car.
I licked my lips. I could still taste the blackberry. The tarts were delicious. Melissa was supernice. And Marc Donald Brown was just . . . just fine.
“Pretty sweet, I guess,” I said, and I meant it.
CHAPTER 9
Some Interesting Proposals
The rest of the weekend was really busy! I’d texted the girls earlier about testing one of Melissa’s suggestions for cupcakes, and they agreed to give it a try. I had to do homework on Saturday afternoon, and then after dinner, Mom took me shopping for ingredients for our cupcake baking session the next day. I knew I needed sweet potatoes, brown sugar, zucchini, and . . .
“Avocados? Really?” Mom asked as I put them into the basket.
“Well, it was Melissa’s idea,” I said. “I looked it up. Even chef Alton Brown has a recipe for avocado buttercream. So it must be kind of good, right? Anyway, that’s why we’re testing the recipe. So we can decide.”
Mom shook her head. “Well, I’ll be curious to know how the vote turns out!”
I paid for the groceries with funds from the Cupcake Club and saved my receipt to give to Alexis. She kept track of all our expenses and profits. Most of the time we always had a profit, and when we did, we split it four ways.
“Oh, by the way, we’re going out for pizza with Jeff tonight,” Mom said. “He’s got Emily with him. Her mom’s on a business trip.”
“Oh, okay,” I said. Emily is pretty nice, just like her dad. She’s a couple of years younger than I am, and she thinks the Cupcake Club is cool.
We stopped off at home, put away the groceries, and then headed to Vinnie’s Pizza in town. We could smell the pizza a block away. They make the best pizza there!
We got there first, and Mom asked for a table for four. Sally, our server, gave us a big smile.
“The usual for you guys?” she asked.
Mom, Jeff, Emily, and I had a sort of tradition every time we went to Vinnie’s. We always ordered the same thing: two veggie pizzas, one order of garlic knots, and one order of chicken fingers.
“Sounds good,” Mom said, and we slid into a booth.
“I’m so hungry!” I said.
Jeff and Emily walked in. Emily has long brown hair and brown eyes—like me. I wondered: Did people think we were a family when we all sat together? That Emily and I were sisters? And then I wondered—did Emily know what her dad was planning?
I didn’t have to wait long to find out. Mom got up to hug Jeff and then went to the restroom. I shot Jeff a look.
“Yes, Emily knows,” he said. “In fact, I’m going to bring her to your Cupcake Club meeting tomorrow night if that’s okay. She wants to help choose the cupcake design.”
“A cupcake proposal is so cute!” said Emily. And then she added, shyly, “I was wondering, maybe I could help you bake them?”
“Sure, if you’re around on baking day,” I said. “But that depends on the proposal day. When’s the big night?”
Jeff shook his head subtly, and Mom walked back up at that moment and sat down.
“We went ahead and ordered our usual,” she said. “Hope that’s okay.”
“Of course,” said Jeff, and just then Sally came by with our drinks.
It was a pretty fun night. Emily and Jeff both had a lot of questions about what it was like to work in a restaurant kitchen. When we were done eating, Jeff and Emily walked Mom and me to our car.
This is going to be different really soon, I realized. Soon, we’d all be coming to the restaurant in our car—and then all going back to our house.
Then it hit me—where was Emily going to sleep when she spent weekends with us? We only have two bedrooms in the house. I was dying to ask Mom about it, but I didn’t want her to get suspicious. I’d have to worry about that later.
On Sunday, I went to Alexis’s house for a Cupcake Club meeting and baking session. Mia, Emma, Alexis, and I gathered in Alexis’s neat, sparkling kitchen. I started to unpack my bags of supplies.
“So, Melissa at the restaurant suggested sweet potato cupcakes with brown sugar icing or zucchini cupcakes with avocado buttercream,” I said. “I found recipes for both. And last night, I cooked the sweet potatoes and pureéd them to save time today.” I held up a container to show them.
“Sweet potato sounds okay,” said Emma. “At least it’s got the word ‘sweet’ in it. But avocado frosting?”
“Well, Alexis said we needed to be trendy,” I said. “And that stuff is pretty trendy.”
“It’s worth a try,” Alexis said. “Let’s get started on the first batter. Mia, you’re still working on the proposal cupcake proposal, right?”
“That’s a lot of ‘proposals.’ ” I giggled.
Mia grinned. “Yes, I am working on the proposal proposal. Mind if I print out some stuff, or do you need me to help bake?”
“No, that’s fine,” Alexis said. “Mr. Green will be here in about an hour.”
Alexis, Emma, and I tied on our aprons (we all have matching aprons, with our Cupcake Club logo on them) and got to work. Even when we bake different flavors, the process is the same. We cream the sugar, eggs, and butter together in one mixer. In another bowl we mix the dry ingredients. Then we mix additional wet ingredients into the sugar mixture (like sweet potato purée or flavorings, like vanilla) and then slowly mix in the dry ingredients. The sweet potato cupcakes had yummy stuff like cinnamon and nutmeg added too.
While the sweet potato cupcakes baked, we washed out the bowls. Emma made the brown sugar frosting, and I started grating zucchini for the zucchini cupcakes. The recipe called for cinnamon, as well as cocoa powder and even some chocolate chips.
“That doesn’t look half bad,” Emma said, peering into the mixing bowl. “It might even be tasty with chocolate frosting.”
I got the zucchini cupcakes into the oven, just as the sweet potato cupcakes came out. Then I started to make the avocado buttercream. It was pretty simple: avocado, powdered sugar, and lemon juice.
I dipped a spoon into the bowl to taste it.
“Creamy,” I reported. “And lemony. It doesn’t even taste like avocado. You should try it, Emma.”
“No, thanks!” Emma said.
Then it was time to frost the cooled-off sweet potato cupcakes. Alexis and I used small flat icing spatulas to get a nice, smooth look.
“So, how was working in your dad’s restaurant?” she asked me.
“It was fun,” I said. “Melissa the pastry chef is nice, and I didn’t even really see my dad.”
“That’s good,” Mia said, looking up from her laptop. “I’m glad it wasn’t weird.”
“Me too,” I agreed.
Alexis and I quickly finished frosting the sweet potato cupcakes, and then we cleaned up as much as we could and frosted the zucchini cupcakes when they were cooled off. Mia had finished printing out the proposal and had placed it neatly in a pink file folder with our logo on it. She looked at the zucchini cupcakes and frowned.
“Well, I don’t know how they taste, but they sure don’t look pretty,” she said.
“Can you jazz them up?” I asked.
“I’ve got to think about it,” Mia replied. “Bright green cupcakes are great for a kid’s party but not a sophisticated magazine launch.”
Just then the doorbell rang. Alexis answered it and walked back into the kitchen with Jeff and Emily.
“Hey, girls,” he said. “I think you all know Emily.”
“We sure do,” said Emma. “Hi, Emily!”
“Hi,” Emily said in that cute shy way of hers.
“We’re excited to see your proposal for my proposal,” he said, and Alexis and I both laughed. We had made the same joke! “I think it’s going to happen next Sunday. Does that work?”
“Should be fine,” said Alexis. “The Relish New Jersey party is the day before.”
“And my dad is bringing me back early for the magazine launch, so if we make your cupcakes on Saturday night, I’ll be able to work on them too,” Mia said.
“Great!” said Jeff. “What have you got?”
Mia opened her folder. “Well, there are two popular ways to do a proposal cupcake,” she said. “The first way is to do a single cupcake in a fancy gift box. Then when Mrs. Brown opens the box, she’ll find a cupcake with the engagement ring stuck in the frosting.”
She passed some printouts of gift-boxed cupcakes to Jeff and Emily.
“The second way is to do a whole platter with a message on it, like this one,” Mia said, passing him another printout. “See? There are sixteen cupcakes, and they spell out, ‘Will You Marry Me?’ ”
I looked at the image. It was pretty cute. The message was spelled out with one letter written in icing on each cupcake. The extra cupcakes had pretty flowers piped on them.
“I like this,” Jeff said.
“Me too,” Emily and I said at the same time.
“Great!” said Alexis. “Now you just need to pick out some flavors and colors.”
“Well, I was thinking green and brown,” Jeff said. “You know, because . . .”
I slapped my forehead. “Mr. Green and Mrs. Brown! I get it. That’s pretty cool.”
“Ooh, that’s nice,” said Emma. “I can picture those colors at a woodland-themed wedding. Moss green and soft brown.”
Mia took out her sketchbook and started sketching. “We could do brown flowers with green leaves, and maybe add some cute fondant toadstools—you know, red with white spots.”
“And green and brown letters?” I asked. “Then what color would the frosting be?”
“White, I think,” Mia said.
“We could do vanilla icing or cream cheese icing or marshmallow icing,” I said. “Mom likes all those.”
“What about chocolate cupcakes, so the cupcakes are brown? And the lettering could be green?” Emma suggested.
I frowned. “Chocolate is good, but it’s not special.”
“What about mocha?” Alexis asked.
“That would be nice,” Jeff said. “Sharon likes her coffee.”
“And maybe we could do an icing with real vanilla bean, to be extra special,” I suggested.
“Yes!” agreed Emma.
Mia kept sketching, and pretty soon, we had an awesome proposal proposal put together.
“I love it,” Jeff said. “Perfect. I knew this was a good idea.”
“So, what’s your proposal proposal?” I asked. “How are you going to do it?”
Jeff grinned. “I’d like to keep that a secret from you and Emily, if you don’t mind. I want there to be some element of surprise for you two. I’ll confirm the arrangement and payment with Alexis.”
“No problem!” Alexis said.
I looked at the clock. “You guys should be going,” I told Jeff and Emily. “Mom is coming to pick me up soon. She’s going to wonder what you’re doing here.”
“No problem,” Jeff said. “Thanks again for doing this. It’s going to be really special.”
Jeff and Emily said good-bye and left.
“It’s sweet that he brought Emily here,” Emma said. “This must be weird for her, too.”
I hadn’t thought about that before, but I knew Emma was right. Emily was used to having alone time with her dad, just like I had my mom all to myself.
“She seems pretty cool with it,” I said.
“She does,” said Mia. “But she might be holding some feelings inside.”
“I guess I could talk to her about it,” I said, and then I remembered something. “Hey, we should taste those cupcakes before it’s time to go.”
We cut one cupcake of each flavor into fourths and tasted each one.
“The sweet potato is delicious,” Alexis said. “But I’m not sure how sophisticated it is.”
“Well, I actually think the zucchini and avocado is pretty tasty,” Mia said. “I could work on a way to make them look nicer.”
“I have to admit, the avocado isn’t as bad as I thought,” Emma chimed in. “But I don’t think we should tell people it’s avocado. They might not eat it. It might not sound like a yummy ingredient.”
“Well, we don’t have much time to figure it out,” Alexis said. “We’ll need to bake Friday night for Saturday.”
“I think we can do it at my house,” I offered.
“Let me think on designs for the avocado cupcake,” Mia said. “I just need to sleep on it. We can talk at school tomorrow.”
“Sounds good,” Alexis said, and at that moment, my cell phone beeped. It was my mom.
“I’ve got to go,” I said.
Alexis put a paper plate with green cupcakes on it into my hands. “Take some with you, please.”
“I’ll take some too,” Mia said. “Eddie will eat just about anything we bake.”
I got my stuff together and went out to the car.
“Wow, are those the avocado cupcakes?” Mom asked when she noticed the plate of goodies as I got into the car. “They’re very green.”
“You’ve got to try one when we get home,” I said. “They’re not bad.”
Mom pulled away from Alexis’s house. “So, I got a phone call from your dad. His restaurant is closed on Mondays, and he thought you might want to meet your half sisters after school.”
“Tomorrow?” I asked, and my voice came out like a squeak. “Wow, that’s soon!”
“Do you want to wait?” Mom asked.
I thought about it. It did feel soon—but things were moving pretty fast these days. I figured I might as well get it over with it.
“You can tell him I’ll do it,” I said, and those familiar feelings of worry came sweeping in like a tidal wave.
What if my sisters didn’t like me? What if I didn’t like them?
Marc Donald Brown’s proposal that I meet my half sisters was one proposal I wasn’t sure I was ready for! I always thought I wanted to be part of a bigger family—but this was too much too fast!
CHAPTER 10
Daddy’s Girls
Marc Donald Brown had suggested to Mom that I meet his family in his restaurant. It would be quiet and private there. I was kind of glad he hadn’t wanted me to go to his house, so I was cool with that. Mom said she’d pick me up after school and bring me there.
I was thinking about my three half sisters as I rode the bus to school Monday morning with Mia. My thoughts were interrupted when my friend George Martinez peered over the back of the seat.
“Hey, Katie, want to go to the park after school?” he asked.
George and I are friends, but we’re friends who like like each other. We’re not dating, but we hang out a lot, and if there’s a school dance or something like that, George always asks me to go with him.
I’d been busy lately with Cupcake meetings and Marc Donald Brown and my cold, so I hadn’t hung out with him in a while.
“I wish I could,” I said. “I actually have to go see my dad tonight. And meet my half sisters.”
George was a good listener, so he knew my whole abandoned-by-dad situation. He got a surprised look on his face when I told him what had been going on with me lately.
“Wow, so that’s happening?” he asked after I’d finished updating him, and I nodded.
“Yup,” I said. “This morning I’m an only child. This afternoon I’ll be the big sister to three little girls.”
“I wonder if they’ll have silly arms like you?” George teased. “Silly Arms” is his nickname for me, because of the way I
play volleyball in gym. (And yes, the name pretty much describes what I look like on the court.)
I laughed. “Oh man, I hope not!”
George punched me in the shoulder. “You’ll make a great big sister. Don’t worry, Katie.” Then he ducked back into his seat.
It was nice for George to say that. He’s a big brother, so he knows what it means to be an older sibling. But to be honest, I was worried about being a big sister—to Emily as well as to my half sisters. I had been an only child all these years. This was a lot of change all at once.
Mia caught my worried expression. “Don’t worry, Katie,” she said. “They’ll love you. And if they don’t, then they don’t deserve you.”
“Thanks, Mia,” I said.
“So, I have some ideas for the zucchini-avocado cupcake,” she said. “I can’t wait to show you guys at lunchtime.”
“Cool! I can’t wait to see them,” I said. It was a relief to think about cupcakes instead of my crazy life for a change!
Later on, after we were all settled in the cafeteria, Alexis told us she had heard back from the people at Relish New Jersey magazine. They told her they loved the idea of zucchini cupcakes.
Then Mia showed us her design ideas. “I thought about going graphic, with black polka dots made out of fondant,” she said, showing us a sketch. “But we all know that fondant isn’t supertasty, so a lot of it might not work.”
I nodded.
“Then I thought about the name of the magazine,” Mia said. “Relish New Jersey. Relish is green, right? So maybe we could do the R from their logo in red? Because relish has pieces of red stuff in it?”
“Peppers,” I said.
“That’s brilliant,” said Alexis, “using their logo. And you’re right: The green works for this party. Hey, I think we’re good. What do you think, Emma?”
Emma frowned. “I think it’s risky. This is a big launch. People want delicious more than trendy.”
“They think that’s what they want,” said Alexis. “But what they really want is to follow the trends, trust me.”
Emma shrugged. “If you guys all want to do it, I’m in.”
