The Cupcake Queen

by Heather Hepler

  “Yum,” Blake says, starting for the first box.

  “Not until you’re done,” Tally says, her voice sounding just like Blake’s when we were picking tomatoes.

  With Gram helping me decorate, Tally turning out another batch of buttercream, and Marcus and Blake boxing, the remaining cupcakes go quickly. “Last one,” I say, poking the final silver ball onto the last cupcake.

  “Sweet,” Blake says, placing it into the box and taping the top shut. We don’t bother to clean up right away. Instead we fall onto the pizza, all of us eating like we haven’t had any food in a month. Blake manages to put away almost a whole pizza all by himself. “I have only two words for that,” he says, leaning back against the shelves behind him. “Goo-ood.” Tally just shakes her head, but she leans into him slightly, so that her shoulder is against his. After only a little bit of convincing, Tally gets Gram to agree to come to the ARK with me. Blake pushes the last bite of crust into his mouth. “Who’s up for dessert?” he asks. Even Gram groans at that one.

  It takes a while to clean up. Not only do we have to wash all of the equipment and make sure everything is properly boxed and labeled and put away, but we also have to mop the floor. Blake loses at RPS to Tally in a best of three out of five. He gets stuck with the floor, while Tally and I start washing out the pastry bags.

  “So, Marcus,” Blake says, his back to us, “how’s your knee coming along?” I look over at Marcus, who is struggling to wash out the big mixing bowl.

  “It’s better,” he says to Blake. “Why? You worried?”

  Tally sees the expression on my face. “Soccer,” she says, and rolls her eyes. I start washing the decorating tips, using a skewer to get the icing out of their tiny ends. I half listen as Marcus and Blake talk about the upcoming season. They both played forward on rival teams all summer. Marcus’s team won the final. Blake’s got second place.

  “Saw you on the field yesterday,” Blake says.

  Marcus turns to look at him. “When?” His voice sounds funny. Tense.

  Blake shrugs. “Four-ish. Didn’t know she played soccer.” His voice sounds weird, too, almost hostile.

  I feel my stomach twist, thinking about Charity alone with Marcus on the soccer field. I look over at where Blake is leaning on the mop. Tally looks up, too, but Blake won’t meet our eyes. Marcus keeps scrubbing the bowl, but the back of his neck is red.

  “So, what’s the deal?” Blake asks. Tally shakes her head at him, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

  “Nothing,” Marcus says. “There’s no deal.” He finishes with the bowl and turns to me. I can’t tell whether he’s angry or embarrassed or if his cheeks are just flushed from the steam coming off the water in the sink. “Want me to take the trash out to the Dumpster?” he asks, nodding toward the two bags waiting by the back door.

  “Sure.” He walks over and opens the door, picking up both bags in one hand.

  When he is out of earshot, Tally asks Blake, “What was that all about?”

  Blake goes back to mopping. “Just telling him what’s up.”

  “What are you talking about?” Tally asks.

  Blake looks over at me. “Just making sure he knows I’ve got my eye on him.” He points to his eye and then to the door. He goes back to mopping. I look over at Tally, but she just shrugs.

  Marcus comes back in before any of us can say anything else.

  No one says anything to him for a moment. “Thank you again for helping,” I say to him, breaking the silence.

  “It was fun,” he says, untying his apron.

  “Anyone need a ride?” Gram asks, coming back into the kitchen from the front.

  I’m about to say yes, but Tally elbows me and says, “I think we’re good.” Gram winks at me before heading out, with reminders to lock up when we leave. We finish up quickly and trade our aprons for our jackets.

  “Okay, then,” Tally says, stepping out onto the back porch. I flick the lights off and pull the door shut behind me, hearing the lock click into place. “Marcus, can you give Penny a ride home?”

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I can walk.”

  “Maybe he wants to,” Tally says in an exaggerated whisper.

  “Maybe I want to,” Marcus says, smiling.

  chapter nineteen

  Marcus takes a second helmet from the compartment under the seat of his four-wheeler. Either this was planned or he’s used to riding with someone else. But I’m not going to think about that and ruin a perfectly good night. Before I can thank them for everything, Tally and Blake are riding off side by side on their mountain bikes. I can hear Tally laughing even as they make their way around the corner onto Main Street.

  “You ready?” Marcus asks. I pull on a helmet and climb on behind him, aware of how close we are. “Hang on,” he says. I look for somewhere to put my hands. “To me,” he says softly. It’s good that it’s so dark. I’m pretty sure I’m hitting a personal best for blushing. The four-wheeler rumbles under us as Marcus starts it up. I slide my hands around his waist, feeling his warmth beneath his fleece coat. “Do you have to go straight home, or do you want to go see something first?” he asks.

  “I’ve got time,” I say. I’ll go see anything with you, I’m thinking. I don’t care what it is.

  We steer out onto Main Street and slide past the darkened shops, past the clock tower with its face lit up. We go farther, past the turnoff for the beach and out to where the edge of town gives way to apple orchards and the rolling fields of the pig farms. We slow down and Marcus turns us off the main road and onto a dirt road almost invisible in the trees.

  “Hang on,” he says again, taking his hand off the handlebars for a moment and touching my arms. “It gets a little bumpy up ahead.” I pull in a little closer, pressing my cheek into the middle of his back, and breathing in the smell that is all but gone from the sweatshirt that I still have at home. But now his smell is layered with the scents from the bakery. “It’s just up here,” he says. We both lean forward as he steers the four-wheeler uphill. The cold wind bites at us, making me shiver a little. “Can you see it now?” Marcus asks. I lean out to the side to look around him. I start to ask what I’m looking for, but then I see it. An enormous ball of some kind, just a dark shadow against the night sky.

  “It’s huge,” I say. “What is it?”

  “Just wait,” Marcus says. “You’ll see.” The road veers to the right, taking us past some trees that temporarily obscure the ball. The road curves again, this time to the left, and we go right up to the base of the object. It’s even bigger than I thought. As big as a truck or a minivan—maybe bigger. I can see from this side that it’s only half of a ball. The inside is a huge web of wire and beams. It’s supported on four metal poles, each maybe six feet tall.

  “It’s beautiful,” I say. The closer I look, the more I see. It’s actually pieced together out of several metals, each a slightly different color. Marcus turns off the motor and douses the headlight. We don’t need it—the clearing is bright enough in the light of the full moon. And the cool, almost blue light of the moon seems to make the colors of the sphere stand out even more than the yellow light of the headlight. We pull off our helmets. I climb off the four-wheeler and walk around toward the finished side of the ball. “Can I touch it?” I ask.

  “Of course,” Marcus says, walking toward me. I have to stand on my tiptoes to reach even the bottom of the ball. It’s cool to the touch as I run my fingers lightly over one of the seams between colors. I step back slightly and look at the face of it. A huge reddish patch stares out at me from close to the bottom of the sphere.

  “It looks like an . . . eye,” I say. Suddenly I realize what this is. “Jupiter,” I say. I look over at Marcus. He smiles at me and then looks back at the planet. “It’s amazing. Who—?”

  “My dad,” Marcus says. “Well, and me a little, but all I do is haul materials and hold things while he’s welding.”

  All I can think of is what Blake told me about Mr. Fish trying to conta
ct aliens. For a second I wonder if he was right.

  I step back and look again. “It’s really amazing,” I say. Marcus smiles. “Have you done any of the other planets?” I ask.

  Marcus nods and steps close to me. He points off into the distance, toward one of the hills. “If you look closely, you can see Venus from here.” I look where he is pointing, at first frustrated that I can’t see it, then it’s there. A yellow ball way in the distance. “The rest are scattered around us in the hills. They’re all hidden in the trees. You can see the edge of Neptune from here in the daytime, but it’s too dark now. The others are too far to see.”

  “The others?” I ask. “Does all this land belong to you?”

  Marcus laughs and shakes his head. “No, all of this is state forest,” he says. “My dad had to get all sorts of permits and inspections. They finally let him because he convinced them that it was ‘a value-adding project.’ ” He looks over at me and laughs at the look on my face. “Their words, not mine. Pretty much, Dad just got lucky. The state senator is a space nut.”

  “I guess I’m a nut, too,” I say. “Because this is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.” I look back at the face of Jupiter, tracing the bands of color with my eyes.

  “There are three kinds of copper,” Marcus says. “And steel and aluminum.” He points to each stripe as he speaks. “It was hard finding the red. My dad had to special order it from a foundry in upstate New York.”

  “And it’s just the two of you doing this?” I ask. Marcus looks away, but not before I see his eyes get shiny.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to—”

  Marcus turns back to me. “You didn’t,” he says. “It’s just still hard to talk about.” He walks around the side of Jupiter, toward a huge rock that is suspended above a drop-off. He sits, dangling his legs over the edge. I sit beside him, and we look out toward the hills and beyond, where the water is lit by the moon.

  “It was my mom,” he says, looking down at his feet swinging high over the trees below us. “She was the one who had the idea to build all this. She was really into it, mapping it all out, dragging me up here all the time to put in these stakes with purple ribbons tied to them.” He looks at me, his eyes still sad. “It’s all to scale,” he says. “One mile equals one astrological unit.” He smiles at the confusion on my face. “Earth is one astrological unit or ninety-three million miles from the sun. Pluto is forty astrological units from the sun.”

  “So, you can’t see her Pluto from here,” I say.

  Marcus smiles and shakes his head. “Not without a really good telescope.”

  “Your mom was an astronomer?” I ask.

  “Amateur. She was actually an English teacher, but she loved astronomy. Anything about stars or planets. She was crazy for it.”

  “I can see why,” I say, looking back at Jupiter.

  He slides closer to me and nudges my foot with his. He gazes back out over the hills. “When my mom died, my dad went kind of nuts. He’d walk the beach all day, come in to sleep for a few hours, then he’d be back out there again. It was like he couldn’t get enough of the beach. And then one day he was just done. He hasn’t been back since. He turned to this instead.”

  “How long has he been working on it?” I ask.

  “Over a year.” Marcus looks at my face and smiles slightly. “I know. He’s out here almost all the time. If he’s not at the dairy, he’s here. If he’s not here or at the dairy, he’s asleep.”

  “That must be hard,” I say, feeling guilty about how I’ve been thinking about my mom. At least she hasn’t completely lost it.

  Marcus shrugs. “This is better than the walking. At least he’s doing something.”

  And maybe he’s right. Maybe creating all of this has given him something to grab onto. “Building this must make him feel closer to her,” I say. Something about tonight is making me say things that I would normally just keep to myself.

  Marcus nods. “It does. It gives him something to do, not just feel.”

  “It’s a pretty awesome tribute.” I think about the kind of love that inspires people to do great things. Beautiful things. I can’t imagine either of my parents being so devoted.

  Marcus looks out over the trees and says almost to himself, “I hope she can see them.”

  “Well, they’re certainly big enough,” I say playfully. I worry a little bit that he’ll think I’m making fun of him, but then he chuckles softly. “How many more do you have to build?” I ask.

  “Just this one and Saturn.” He looks out toward a hill to our left. “He’s probably out at the Saturn site tonight. He’s been clearing brush there for the last couple of days.”

  “He’s almost done, then.”

  “Yeah,” Marcus says softly. “That’s what I’m worried about.”

  I look back at Jupiter again. The moonlight reflecting off the different metals makes them seem to glow. “I bet he’ll be fine. I bet this has made both of you stronger.”

  “Yeah, you should feel my muscles,” he says, his eyes crinkling.

  Now it’s my turn to chuckle. But this time I don’t say what I’m thinking: I would love to!

  Marcus reaches over and loops his pinkie finger over mine. We sit like that, just our pinkies linked, looking out over the trees to where the water meets the sky.

  “I should probably get home,” I say, finally. I don’t want to worry Gram, who I am sure is waiting up both to make sure I’m safe and to see if she can get any details about Marcus.

  “I should probably get back, too,” he says, pushing himself up to standing. He extends his hand and helps me up. “Thank you for tonight,” he says, still holding my hand as we walk over to where the four-wheeler is parked.

  “You’re welcome,” I say, but it seems weird, because I feel like I should be thanking him. I’m grateful he trusted me enough to bring me here. Trusted me enough to tell me about his mom. For the first time since I’ve been here, I feel connected, and not just to Marcus, but to everything. I can understand why people say this place is where life is like it should be. No bright lights and pretty wrappings, just life with its sadness and its happiness all mixed together.

  I pull my helmet on and climb on behind Marcus. He squeezes my hand again before turning on the engine. “Hang on,” he says, but this time he doesn’t need to, because I’m already hanging on—tight.

  chapter twenty

  Miss Beans says that to get better at something, you have to do it every day. She doesn’t care what you draw, just that you do. A sketch a day. So far this week I’ve drawn the view of the beach from Gram’s house; one of Poppy’s witch balls; Oscar asleep in the window seat in the kitchen; and my foot. In art on Fridays, once we turn in our sketchbooks for the week, we can work on our other projects. I’m fiddling with my float design, but I keep getting distracted by thoughts of Marcus. Luckily, by the time he dropped me off last night, my mother had already disappeared into her bedroom. I just wanted to float along for a bit without her sending me crashing back to Earth.

  I glance over at Tally, who is trying to finish three days’ worth of sketches in one class period. This is the first time I’ve been able to talk to her without Blake around. I think I already know the answer, but I have to ask. “What was Blake talking about with Marcus at the bakery?”

  Tally stops drawing and looks over at me. She pauses for a moment, like she’s considering what to say.

  “Just tell me,” I say.

  “Blake said he saw Charity with Marcus at the soccer field.”

  “Oh,” I say, pretending to study my drawing. “That’s what I thought.”

  “He said she was just standing around watching him.”

  “Still . . . ,” I say.

  Tally squints her eyes at me. “Forget about it. It’s obvious he’s totally into you.”

  I smile down at my paper. “Maybe,” I say. It helps to hear Tally confirm it. We couldn’t both be wrong, could we?

  “Besi
des,” Tally says, “Blake put him on notice.” She mimics Blake’s weird hand gestures, pointing first to her eye and then toward the door. She is so good at imitating his intense look that I start giggling. Miss Beans looks over at us, making me laugh even more.

  Tally tries to peek at my work. “Stop,” I mouth at her, hunching over my paper to block her view. She just smiles and winks at me. Today she’s wearing a navy blue sweater and a short skirt with ballet flats. Her plain brown hair is pulled back from her face with a blue-and-green-plaid headband. It’s weird how she’s completely bought into this whole pageant thing. I know she said it’s for the ARK, but she seems to be enjoying it, too. I squint over at her. “Are you wearing lipstick?” I ask. She makes her eyes go big and tries to peek at my paper again. “Stop,” I say. She smiles again but goes back to her own drawing. I have my basic float design sketched out. I just want to add a little color before I turn it in. I shade the tomatoes red, adding green leaves for contrast.

  “Come to the library with me after lunch,” Tally says. “I have to show you what I’ve added to the Web site.”

  “Can’t,” I say. “I have to go see Madame Framboise.”

  “Why?” Tally asks.

  “Apparently I’m not doing so well in French.”

  “Poisse,” Tally says.

  I nod. Bummer is right. The bell rings just as I am finishing the shading on the sprinkles.

  “Okay, let me see,” Tally says. She walks behind me and looks over my shoulder. “Whoa,” she says. “It’s really good. Random, but good.” I slide it into the manila envelope Miss Beans gave me.

  “Now I just wait.” I reach down and pick up the rest of my books. Tally follows me to the door, where I add my envelope to the growing stack in Miss Beans’s box. We walk to my locker first. I spin the lock and pull it open.

  “They’re just getting lame,” I say, reaching in. I take out the carton of sour milk and drop it in the trash. “It’s like they’re not even trying anymore.”

  “What was it last time?” Tally asks.