Alexis Gets Frosted

by Coco Simon

  My granny scurried upstairs to get some paper, a pen, and a measuring tape and ruler. Meanwhile, my mom gave me a tour through the miniature house.

  “Oh! I’d forgotten all about this! Look! Look at the tiny little plate of brownies, here in the kitchen! Gosh, we spent hours on this, my mom and I. And look at this! It’s a real photo of me that my mom put in this itty-bitty frame. Wow. This really takes me back. I feel like I’m a kid again!”

  I looked at my mom, smiling, her hair slipping out if its ponytail. She had a little smudge of dust on her chin, and her eyes were shining. For a second, I could picture her as a kid. I smiled at her. We would have been really good friends if we were the same age. I just know it.

  “Hey, you need a plate of cupcakes for that kitchen!” I said, and we laughed.

  My granddad helped me with the measurements, and it took about an hour. He gave me all kinds of instructions, which I wrote down, for Matt on how to input things into the CAD program. (Actually, he offered to do it himself, because he has CAD too, but I wasn’t about to pass up an offer from Matt!)

  Along the way, my mom and my granny got bored and went upstairs for coffee. I asked them to pull together a few photos I could have for my time capsule, plus anything that showed how my mom used to dress, just out of curiosity.

  When we’d finished with the measurements, I threw my arms around my granddad and thanked him. He had really saved the day.

  “Oh, I remember all about school projects,” he said, laughing and shaking his head. He winked at me. “Seems like they were always more work for the parents than anyone. Am I right?”

  I laughed. “Usually, yes!”

  “Now, if your friends have any trouble along the way with this, you’ll call me up, okay? I can come and help you.”

  “Thanks. That’s really nice of you.”

  We went upstairs to find my mom and my granny.

  “Honey, anytime you want that dollhouse over at your place, I’d be happy to drive it in my pickup,” said my granddad.

  “Thanks! It’s true. It wouldn’t fit in our car,” said my mom thoughtfully.

  “Bring it home, Mom!” I cried. “I love it!”

  She laughed. “I guess I should have tried again after that first time, with you and dollhouses. Maybe you were just too young and I was too eager to wait until you were the right age for it.”

  I shrugged. “Anyway, it is really cool. And you should have it nearby. Maybe you’ll work on it again!”

  “I’ll talk to Dad about it. See if we can find a spot. Anyway, look at these horrible photos Granny found for you.”

  I sifted through the clutch of photos, laughing at the outfits my mom had on. The clothes were pretty ugly back in the eighties: plaid wool pants, stretchy leotardlike turtlenecks in rust colors. Ugh. Uncomfortable! Every time I giggled at one, I would hold it up for my mom to see, then she’d groan.

  Then I came to a photo of her in a ballerina outfit—pink tights, pink leotard, ballet slippers, and her hair up in a tight bun.

  “Hey! Was this for Halloween?” I asked.

  My mom looked at it. “No, that was my ballerina stage.”

  “Stage?” Granny hooted. “That was a long stage! What was it, six years? Seven?”

  “Wait, you were a dancer?” I asked my mom. I was shocked. “I mean, I knew you loved ballet, but I thought you loved watching it! I didn’t know you danced! How come you never mentioned it?”

  FYI, I am a great dancer. Not ballet, but I take modern dance after school a lot, and I am obsessed with ballroom dancing. My dad and I love to dance together. And I love the Nutcracker Suite, which my mom takes us to see in the city every year. You would think the fact she’d danced for so long would have come up. It seems like everything else has.

  My mom waved her hand. “Oh, you know. I’m sure I mentioned it somewhere along the way. I didn’t bring it up much, because I didn’t want you girls to feel pressured to follow in my footsteps. You both tried ballet and weren’t interested.”

  That was true. But still!

  “She was a wonderful dancer,” said my granny. “So graceful. So disciplined!”

  I laughed. “That’s not exactly a surprise!”

  Granny looked thoughtful. “I think she liked the structure, the rigidity. It gave her confidence. Right, honey?”

  “Something like that,” agreed my mom. “I really just liked to dance, though.”

  “Mom! You should do it again!” I cried. “Why did you stop?”

  “Well, with ballet, you get to a point where you really have to commit to doing it full-time, and I didn’t want to do that,” she said. “Plus, a lot of the other dancers were mean.” She winked at me. “It wasn’t that healthy of a lifestyle, and very competitive.”

  “But you’re competitive!” I said.

  My mom laughed. “Thanks . . . I think! I guess I just channeled my competitiveness into school and then work. . . . ”

  “And Scrabble!” I reminded her. She never lets us beat her at that game, even when we were young.

  “Right! And Scrabble!”

  “Wow.” I sat there, shaking my head in disbelief. I’d learned a lot about my mom today. “We’ve got to do this more often!” I declared.

  My mom and my granny laughed.

  “Anytime!” said my granny. “We love having you here!”

  “We love being here,” said my mom.

  “Granny, can I take a couple of these and scan them for a project I’m working on? I’ll return them to you,” I said.

  “Of course! What’s this project, now?”

  “A time capsule,” I said. “My friends and I are making one, all about ourselves and a little bit about our moms, too.” For some reason that second part was embarrassing. Like we were a fan club or something. I glanced sideways at my mom to see what she’d think.

  “That’s so sweet,” she said, and I felt my shoulders sag in relief.

  “You and your friends are just full of the best ideas!” said Granny.

  “I know,” I said with a grin. And I pocketed the photo of my mom as a ballerina, and the one of her all messy in the pear dress. They seemed to sum up everything anyone would need to know about her childhood.

  On the way home in the car, I was kind of tired, so I mostly thought. I was surprised by some of the stuff I’d learned about my mom today. Well, some of it was unsurprising, like the perfectionism and whatever, but it was weird to learn new things about my very own mom after all these years. It made me wonder what else there is that I didn’t know.

  “Mom? What else don’t I know about you?” I asked finally.

  She laughed. “Oh, honey, I have no secrets. It’s just . . . Things come up as they come up, you know? It’s not like it’s easy to work things from my childhood into everyday conversation. They just come up as needed.”

  “Like Susan?” I said.

  She laughed again. “Yes, like Susan.”

  “How did your dad die again?” I asked quietly. I can never remember this information. It’s like I block it out.

  “Meningitis. It was really sudden. They think he got it from a mosquito bite,” she said.

  “What’s meningitis?”

  “An infection that rapidly travels to your spine and then shuts down your body. Its main symptom is a really high, sudden fever.”

  Aha! No wonder my mom was always obsessing over whether we had fevers.

  “Was it really hard for you guys when your dad died?” I asked. I didn’t want to make her sad, but I felt so sorry for her after hearing what Granny said about her today.

  She was quiet for a second, then she said, “You know, it was really hard. My dad was a great guy. I felt vulnerable. All my friends had two parents, and I only had one. And I was scared that if something happened to Granny, then I would be without any parents at all. But it worked out okay. We were really lucky Granny and Jim found each other. He’s been great for all of us, and he’s a great granddad to you girls.”

  “He�
��s really nice,” I agreed. It was time to change the subject; enough of the sad stuff. “Mom. One more serious question.”

  “Mmm-hmm?”

  “Why the heck did you dress like that in the eighties?”

  CHAPTER 7

  Friends and Enemies

  When we got back late Saturday afternoon, I called Matt. I know, can you believe it? I just picked up the phone and then called him. Of course, my heart was fluttering the whole time, but I did need his help. Or I wanted his help, anyway!

  We caught up for a minute and then I told him about the dollhouse. He was really psyched for me, saying it was a lucky break we’d be working off a model that was to size.

  “Okay, so you’re e-mailing me a photo of the house, and all the room dimensions, right?” he summarized.

  “Yes. If you need any more info, I can either call my granddad or put you two in touch, or you can e-mail him directly.”

  “Cool,” said Matt. “He’s nice. I remember him from your holiday party.”

  “Yeah. I mean, yes!” I corrected myself, thinking of my mom.

  “All right, so, I’ll be in touch. Probably Monday, okay? I know you’re in a rush.”

  “Thanks. There’re lots of free cupcakes in this for you,” I said.

  “That’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I can use it in my portfolio.” Matt is always trying to grow his digital graphic design business, so he takes on assignments from the Cupcake Club for posters and flyers, or this sort of thing. Then he uses them in his portfolio to show potential new clients what he can do. It is just another level that we connect on—as businesspeople, I mean.

  “Great. Thanks!”

  “Bye.”

  Next, I called Katie and explained my encounter with the Victorian dollhouse. She was thrilled, which made me feel really good. I e-mailed her the dollhouse photo, and we made a plan to visit the baking supply shop the next day. We’d work off the photo to find appropriate decorating supplies.

  “This will be so much fun!” she squealed before we hung up.

  After my calls, I felt much more in control of the project (even though it was really in Matt’s hands now), as well as extremely lucky to have such generous and helpful friends. I spent the time until dinner researching Victorian-era houses online and working on my notecards for my presentation, and I got a really good chunk of work done. Not bad for a Saturday!

  On Sunday morning I got up really early and basically finished the oral presentation component. I’d left a few spots where I’d have to see the finished model in order to insert a couple of facts, but I was in good shape. Eat your heart out, Olivia Allen, I thought.

  I knocked off my other homework to clear the decks, and since I had a little time to spare, I started a spreadsheet to organize our time capsule. I had a sandwich, and then my mom took me to pick up Katie and then take us to the mall.

  While she drove, Katie told my mom about what she’d collected for the time capsule so far.

  “So, I have my tap dance shoes from when I was little, a recipe book with all my favorite recipes in it, and my stuffed bunny. The only bummer is that my favorite photo of me when I was little is with Callie,” she said, looking at me sadly.

  “Katie, that’s totally okay!” I said brightly, trying to smooth over her still-hurt feelings from her falling out with Callie. (Long story.) “I mean, you can’t just erase your past. It’s what made you who you are today. And she was a big part of your life.”

  She shrugged. “But don’t you think it’s like I’m sucking up to her if I put her in our time capsule? And it’s kind of disloyal to you guys.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said. And I was telling the truth. “She’s not that bad on her own. I think she still likes you. Maybe you’ll be friends again one day.” I wanted Katie to feel better.

  “Do you think so?” asked Katie hopefully.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I mean, yes. Your moms are still friends, anyway, right?”

  Katie nodded and looked out the window.

  I saw my mom glance at us in the rearview mirror, and I met her eyes. She made a worried face, like she felt bad for Katie but didn’t want to interfere.

  “You know, Katie, when my mom was little, there was a mean girl in her class named Susan . . .,” I began. And I met my mom’s eyes again, and she grinned.

  At the baking supply shop, Katie was excited and full of ideas. Since I am traditionally the business end and not the creative end of the Cupcake Club, my only goal was to stay within the budget my mom and I had set. But it was fun to watch Katie brainstorm. She can pick up a package of black candy wafers and say, “Roof tiles!” Or black licorice whips and say, “Wrought-iron railings!” It takes me a second, but then I get exactly what she’s talking about and how perfect it will be.

  We’d decided the base, or sidewalk, around the house would be red brick, so Katie suggested we paint matzo with a solution of red food coloring diluted in water to simulate brick. We could use frosting to glue them down. That was pure genius and not expensive, which made me very happy. I wrote “food coloring” and “matzo” on a list I’d started, because they’d be cheaper to get at the huge grocery store on Route 48. Into the basket went the candy wafers and the black licorice whips, though.

  Katie said we’d use royal icing to pipe all the pretty white details around the outside of the doors and windows. The Cupcake Club has its own pastry bag and fittings, so I wrote “confectioners’ sugar” on the grocery list—the main ingredient in making royal icing—and we kept looking. Katie picked out a package of something called “isomalt sticks,” which looked like wax glow sticks and were clear in color. We’d melt them and then pour them out to harden into flat sheets, she said, and then trim them to use as window glass. I thought it sounded hard, but Katie assured me it would be one of those final touches that would take the house from normal to amazing. She told me to add vanilla wafer cookies to the grocery list, so we could use them to make the front stairs. (Katie said we’re going to skip doing stairs inside because it’s too much work and not that important. I was relieved. If it’s too much for her, it would be insanely hard for me!)

  It didn’t take us long to find everything we needed. Mom would take us to the grocery store next.

  We were chatting happily as we spun out of the store and right into Callie and Olivia. Ugh. Why do we always seem to be at the mall at the same time as those girls? I’d been having so much fun, I hadn’t given Olivia any thought in almost an hour. My palms were instantly sweaty, like I was gearing up for a confrontation, though I knew I’d avoid talking with her at any expense.

  “Hey,” said Callie cautiously. We all think she still likes Katie but thinks she can’t be seen being friends with her because it will affect her status in life or something. Callie didn’t actually stop moving her feet, but she kind of slowed down and turned back to face us, like she might stop.

  “Oh, hey,” said Katie casually.

  I could see Katie struggling with whether to stop and chat or keep walking. I wanted to keep walking—and not because of Callie!

  Olivia gave me a dirty look and flounced her hair, but at least she didn’t make some snarky comment. She didn’t even break her stride.

  We kept walking, and the encounter was over.

  A little ways down the hall, we got on the escalator, and I finally breathed a sigh of relief. “Awk-ward!” I singsonged, but Katie was quiet.

  “Katie?” I asked.

  She turned reluctantly toward me, and her eyes had tears welling up in them. “Oh, Katie!” I cried, and then I tried to give her a hug. Hugging on escalators is not a good idea, by the way, and I recommend you never try it. But at least our nearly crashing to our deaths got Katie giggling, and her unshed tears only leaked a little.

  “Sorry.” She sniffled, but the crisis had passed. “I just couldn’t believe that we’d just been talking about her, and then there she was, with her new life!”

  “I know,” I agreed quietly.

  “And
then . . . I had nothing to say to her! Nothing! And she used to be my best friend!” Katie’s lip quivered.

  “Well, I bet she would never have asked you to do a whole class project of hers, now would she?” I joked. “And she never would have made you march in a parade in costume, so she could be with her crush, huh? Would she? Now what kind of a friend is that?” These were all things Katie did for me.

  Katie got giggling again.

  “Anyway, how about me? I feel like I’m going to throw up whenever I see Olivia. I’m surprised she didn’t figure out a way to insult me as she strolled on by! Like, maybe she could have said, ‘Hey, Alexis, looks like you’re having a hard time walking with that bag full of fattening supplies!’ ”

  Katie grew serious. “Is she still doing that?”

  “Totally,” I said. My stomach clenched, dreading seeing her in school.

  “It’s funny she didn’t do it just now, when there were other people around.”

  “I know. She’s a sneak attacker,” I said. Now I felt miserable. We had almost reached my mom’s car. “And the worst part is, my mom thinks I need to apologize to her!”

  “What?” Katie was shocked, but I couldn’t finish the story now.

  “I’ll tell you at the grocery store,” I whispered. “Hi, Mom!” I called in a fake-cheery voice, getting into the car. I gave Katie a serious look, and she nodded; we would not be discussing any of this with my mom.

  At the grocery store we filled the cart with the items from the list I’d made, plus the gingerbread ingredients we’d need. Katie also threw in some waxed paper and a couple of other supplies that would come in handy.

  As we walked, we discussed what I should do about Olivia. Katie understood my mom’s point about apologizing, but she knows Olivia as well as I do. She knows that apologizing might only set me up as a permanent victim in Olivia’s eyes.

  “That girl does not need a new punching bag,” Katie said seriously.

  She had a point.

  “But I need to apologize. It wasn’t nice of me to say that. But it also doesn’t justify the way she’s been treating me. So after I apologize, then I want to follow it up with something strong, you know?”