100 Days of Cake Page 16

  Before we went home to change a few hours ago, Elle, Alex, and I spent all day setting up the roof—stringing up these fish-shaped Christmas lights that Elle found at a secondhand store, and creating a makeshift stage for the bands. We constructed a “bar” with a soda station and little snack bowls filled with Pepperidge Farm Goldfish (get it?) and a bunch of cupcakes Mom and I made last night. Unfortunately (though, not at all surprisingly), we weren’t able to get a keg, but JoJo got us a couple of six-packs and some cheap wine.

  The roof is hardly packed, but it’s still early, and people are slowly trickling in. That redheaded mom that Alex helped shows up with her non-ginger husband; a few people Elle still hangs out with from the swim team; Gina and Tina from AP English, who immediately ask me how far I’ve gotten on the summer reading list; a few of the Hot Topic girls with black nail polish (oh, well; they’re V’s problem now).

  For once Elle’s mom shows up, with Jimmy—who’s wearing his stuffed-animal pelt from the playroom massacre—by her side. Giving me a kiss, she asks about my summer.

  My own mom arrives with Gram, and already the two of them are arguing about something (“I know, Ma!”), but they stop long enough to tell me how great the place looks.

  JoJo and her boyfriend with the stash of teeth are holding hands and look like they’re getting along. “I have to admit, you did a great job, CCH,” she says, and I’m kind of touched.

  Toupee Thom comes up from the steps and looks a little lost, still in his lawyer suit.

  “Molly.” He gives me a quick hug, and I remember how attentive he was to my mom. Fresh splash of guilt that I’m the reason they broke up. “I saw one of the flyers, so I figured I’d stop by.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “It’s really nice to see you.”

  “Well, clients always really love the tank in the lobby. The fish have a very calming effect.” My mom used to talk about how sometimes she could hear the dueling exes through the floors, so anything that helps is probably huge.

  After a few minutes more of small talk, I notice he’s looking around.

  “Mom and my grandma are over by the food,” I say. “I’m sure they’d love to say hi.”

  His face brightens, and he goes off to find them.

  On the makeshift stage, Alex and the guys from his band call me and Elle over.

  “I’m afraid it’s not going to be much of a battle.” Alex shakes his head. “I’m so sorry.”

  Apparently the bassist and drummer from Sinking Canoe haven’t recovered from mono, which we had sort of expected. That would still have left us with three bands . . . except Sinking Canoe’s drummer was hooking up with the singer from Terminal Bitch, and now all the TB members are sick too. And McLovin—the band that was totally blowing up when we planned this—literally blew up and parted ways over creative differences this morning. (They plan to re-form soon, but that’s no help for us tonight.) So we’ve got Alex’s nameless band, which, by definition, doesn’t have a huge following.

  “We’re happy to play extra sets or whatever you guys need,” Mark—the eco-friendly keyboardist—offers, looking directly at Elle. He is kind of cute, but his thumbs don’t do a thing for me. Batting her eyelashes with her own dash of Blanche Devereaux’s magic, Elle pronounces him a “lifesaver.”

  “Since we were advertising four bands and now it’s only one, maybe we should charge five bucks instead of ten?” Alex suggests, and everyone agrees that seems fair. Elle starts handing out five-dollar refunds to poeple already there.

  Still, when I do the math, I’m not sure it will be enough to save the store, especially since we already lowered the price when we couldn’t get the keg. The numbers start the spiral thinking in my head. But I push it back. This will work; it has to.

  Alex and his nameless quartet take the stage and announce that they’re ready to get the party started, and the thirty or so people cheer.

  They start with a song I heard Alex tinkering around with once, and I can’t believe how awesome they sound. No joke, they could be on the radio. They are kind of like those alternative bands that my mom and Dr. B. love so much, but more fun, with so much energy. Their drummer—this big teddy bear of a dude with great hair—flips a drumstick into the air and actually catches it, and when Alex plays a guitar solo, he closes his eyes and throws his whole body into it.

  The keyboardist announces that one song is about global warming, and Elle literally swoons. That song is awesome too, and so rollicking that you don’t even notice the preachy lyrics.

  Before the next number, Alex takes the microphone. “This song goes out to a little guy we recently lost,” he says. “Pickles, this one is for you, buddy.”

  It’s so silly and sweet that I get a little misty. From the corner of my eye, I catch V talking to Toupee Thom and wonder if she’s jealous that Alex mentioned Pickles. She looks unfazed, but she also thought Pickles was a lobster.

  The band breaks into the song that Alex and I danced to while painting the store—the one about the guy who does all that crazy crap to forget the girl he’s into. Bopping my head, I can’t help but sing along to the chorus.

  “I know that you don’t care, but I see you everywhere.

  In a boat or with a goat,

  Flying high while eating pie,

  On a train with my aunt Jane,

  Just no way to escape, the beauty of your face.”

  And for the whole four minutes, I’m not worried about whether or not we’ll save FishTopia or about Alex and V or about everyone racing off to start these bright shining lives. I’m not obsessing about whether Dr. B. will show up, or if he will still have a fiancée if does. I’m just having a good time.

  Two hours later the energy had changed. Alex and the band are still playing, but they ran out of their own material a while ago and have resorted to cover songs. Now they’re playing covers they don’t even seem to know very well. I think they’re in the middle of some Imagine Dragons hit, but it’s hard to tell for sure. The only people still dancing are JoJo and her boyfriend and my mom and Toupee Thom, which actually is really sweet.

  Maybe ten more people showed up. Most of them are friends of Alex’s band members; none of them are Dr. Brooks. No messages on my cell phone from him or anyone else.

  I barely scraped by in trig with a C minus, but even I can tell that we’ve made nowhere near enough money to cover FishTopia’s operating expenses. We probably didn’t even make enough to replace the money we took from petty cash for the paint supplies and fans.

  Looking around at the sparse crowd, there’s no mistaking that I’ve failed. Charlie didn’t even bother to show up. He was probably only humoring me the whole time anyway. It really didn’t cost him anything to let us try to ramp up our revenue, and he always knew the Kansas couple would end up slinging hash here by fall. I can’t even be mad at him; I wouldn’t trust me either.

  A hand on my back. I turn around, and there’s my grandma. “You did a real good job, sweetie,” she says, and I know I’m going to cry.

  How could I have been so stupid? How could I have ever thought this was going to work? It’s beyond embarrassing how I dragged my friends and family down with me—like running away from the starting block during divisionals all over again. And for what? None of it mattered.

  “Thank you.” I need to get away from here before I start crying in front of everyone—again. “I’ve got to check on something downstairs. Be right back.”

  Tears locked and loaded, I head through the door to the stairs.

  I manage to make it to the landing before losing it completely. Stumbling down the lower flight, I smack headfirst into Dr. Brooks’s chest. He catches me on the upper arms and holds on.

  “Hey,” he says. “Sorry I’m late. I got caught up in the off—”

  I try to duck my head, but he has already seen that I’m crying.

  “Molly, what’s wrong?” he asks.

  “The whole thing is a flop; we failed. I failed.” I’m full-on sobbing now. “I can’
t do anything right.”

  Pulling me closer, Dr. B. says soothing things into my hair. “Shhh, sweetheart, it’s okay.” I’m probably getting snot and mascara all over his shirt.

  “The world would be a better place if I just disappeared.”

  “Don’t say that.” His voice is so forceful that I can’t not look at him anymore, so forceful that I manage to stop crying. This close, I can smell the wine on his breath. “A lot of people would be devastated if you disappeared.”

  “Would you be?” I can’t believe I said it out loud.

  He nods slowly, and everything is suddenly important and underwater, like we’ve fallen through the floor into one of the tanks in the store.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, Molly.” His voice is deeper than normal, and kind of gravelly. “I would miss you very much.”

  The space between us seems to be eclipsing; his breath is my breath. He’s still holding me at the elbows, but somehow my arms are around him, too, his body sweat-dampened and solid. Not a boy but a man. As still as possible, I wait for him to kiss me.

  “Molly we can’t—” he starts.

  But I cut him off with a kiss.

  He doesn’t throw me down on the steps and ravish me, but he doesn’t not kiss back either. His lips are soft and firm and skilled. Lips that know what they’re doing.

  Nothing at all like making out with T.J.

  It is hands down the most erotic moment of my life. Almost without thinking about it, I start to press into him more.

  “You promised to co—” V, screaming into her cell phone, thrusts open the door to the stairwell.

  Immediately Dr. B. and I become marble.

  Stopping midsentence, Veronica looks from me to Dr. B. Her blue-green eyes (my eyes, Mom’s eyes) expand to Frisbees, and one delicate hand floats up to cover her mouth. On the phone in her other hand, some guy is still talking. “Ronnie? You there? I said I’m on my way.”

  Without saying a word, V hurries past us down the stairs.

  Clenching his eyes, Dr. B. massages his forehead and swears under his breath.

  “Should I go after her?” I ask, dizzy from the whiplash of being suddenly ripped from one intense situation to a completely different one.

  Dr. B. exhales a chuckle-sigh. “I honestly don’t know.” More of the pinched-with-pain expression, more face rubbing. “Maybe?”

  I jog down the steps after my sister. I make it out the door in time to see her climbing into the passenger seat of a green Honda with an FSU bumper sticker.

  I’m staring after the taillights when Dr. B. appears at my side, all restraightened and tucked and collected.

  “You missed her?” he asks. I nod, and he chuckle-sighs again. “I guess that’s the kind of night we’re having.”

  He asks if he can give me a ride anywhere, but I tell him I have to clean up our fund-raising failure.

  “Can I do anything to help?” he asks, which is totally sweet, but I think of my mom and Elle and everyone up there and realize what an epically bad idea it would be for him to make a special guest appearance right now. One more thing I’ve screwed up.

  “No, I can handle it,” I say. “So I guess I’ll see you Monday?”

  “I don’t know if that’s the best idea, Molly. We should probably talk about setting you up with another therapist—”

  “NO!”

  “Molly, this really complicates things.”

  “I know, but I’m already losing FishTopia and Elle and everyone. I can’t lose you, too. Please?”

  “Okay, okay. We’ll talk Monday.” He sighs. “And, Molly, please don’t disappear.”

  I want him to kiss me again, but all the underwater tension is gone.

  Pulling myself together, I go back upstairs and manage to say good-bye and thank everyone without coming off like a total freak, but they probably all know what an epic waste of space I am.

  Soon it’s only Elle, Mark, Alex, and me. Mark asks Elle if she wants to go grab soy lattes at a vegan coffeehouse he knows that’s still open. She looks at me.

  “Yeah, have eco-friendly fun,” I say. “Thank you so much for helping out with everything.”

  Hugging me, she says that she’s sorry we didn’t make enough money, but it really was great, regardless.

  Trying not to ruin her high, I just agree.

  Alex and me alone at FishTopia is fitting, I guess. Although, all the joy that this place brought me seems swept away with the crushed Goldfish crackers and plastic cups. Barely speaking, we wind the fish lights, break down the folding chairs and tables.

  I wonder if he knows V left and who she was with. Wonder if Alex is hurt that she didn’t stay till the end of the show. (Those self-absorbed Byrne girls, never supporting his band!) Wonder what, if anything, V will tell him about what she saw between Dr. B. and me. Hopefully nothing.

  We pick up crushed cans and sweep. But we got here at six this morning, and I’m pretty much a walking corpse at this point. Alex must feel the same.

  He plants the broom down, staking a claim on the moon. “Let’s get out of here. This mess will be here for us tomorrow.”

  Mom hates it when I ride Old Montee after dark, so I don’t even protest when he insists on loading my bike into his trunk and driving me home.

  We don’t say much on the ride. OneRepublic and Coldplay fill the vacuum of the car.

  Pulling into the upgraded driveway, Alex kills the engine like T.J. used to do after our dates, when he’d shove his tongue down my throat and feel me up while I floated above, completely disconnected from my body. You’re just kind of different from what I thought before I got to know you.

  “So this is my stop,” I say. “Thanks for the lift.”

  “Anytime.”

  Gathering my backpack to leave, I feel I should say more. Even if he is banging my sister, he still went above and beyond with my stupid plan. He’s still a really good friend.

  “Um, I wanted to thank you for dedicating that song to Pickles. That was really . . . It meant a lot to me.”

  “I’m glad you liked it. I know he was your spirit animal and all.”

  “And thank you for helping me try to save FishTopia.”

  “Molly,” he says, more serious than I’ve ever heard him in the two years we’ve been hanging out. “That place meant the world to me, too. You know that, don’t you?”

  He takes my hand; that lightning strike. On the pads of his fingers, those calluses are harder than I imagined they would be. Alex gives my fingers a gentle squeeze, and I want to squeeze back to see if maybe we would be good together. But, as absolutely ridiculous as it sounds, considering how I’ve been carrying on, I actually feel like I’m betraying V. After all, she did show up tonight, and tried to bring people. And maybe I’m betraying Dr. Brooks, too? It wasn’t like he didn’t kiss back tonight. Even if he did try to shrink break up with me after.

  Feeling tears of confusion and frustration and exhaustion, I pop the door and jump out.

  “See you tomorrow,” I call, and hurry toward the front door.

  “Molly, wait.” He’s out of the car now too. “Your bike.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  He gets it out of the trunk, and looks at me for direction.

  “You can just leave it there,” I call, and hurry inside before he can say anything else.

  DAY 71

  Blue Velvet Inside-Out Cake

  We’re at the Miami Seaquarium. Dad and V and I, just like I told Dr. B. But while V and I are the ages we are now, Dad hasn’t changed a day from the giant portrait above the dining room. With his big, big hands and his canyon of a voice, he’s pointing out facts about the various exhibits. All those beautiful jellyfish that look like ballerinas dancing through the water, and the penguins waddling up to the edge of the enclosure to entertain us.

  “Molly.” Dad gestures to the giant Pacific octopus, its thick red arms full of suction cups. “Did you know that he’s actually a mollusk, just like Pickles?”

 
; It warms my heart that Dad knows about Pickles and doesn’t just think he’s a little lobster. “And sea otters have the world’s densest fur!” Dad says. “Up to one million hairs per square inch.”

  Who knew Dad was a regular Jacques Cousteau? Just like Alex knew all that stuff with the redheaded family the other day.

  “Fish just run in our family,” Dad is singing now. “Salt water instead of blood.”

  The dream song still tickling my brain, there’s a moment before I remember. A few seconds when I’m content, even if I’m not sure what’s real and what’s not.

  Then it all comes crashing back.

  Spectacular failure.

  FishTopia is going out of business because, despite all the hours and hard work that Alex and Elle and I put into saving it, we raised around three hundred dollars. The weird kiss with Dr. B.; Veronica catching us and running away; Alex taking my hand when he dropped me off. Me running away and almost leaving my bike like Cinderella’s extra-heavy glass slipper.

  Crap.

  A thousand pounds of bricks on my chest, I wonder how I was ever able to fall sleep last night in the first place.

  More than anything else, I want to go back into the dream where Dad is alive and a part of our family. Where he would have ideas about how to save FishTopia, where he would make sure that Veronica and I never fought over guys or groundings or anything.

  But Alex and I left FishTopia such a mess that it’s not fair to him if I completely bail. So I pull myself out of the sleigh bed.

  Even though I’m dreading talking to her, I stop by V’s room. I have to tell her something about what she saw between Dr. B. and me last night. But the truth is, I have absolutely no idea what she saw, what we were doing, and if it’s even going to happen again. So yeah, not entirely clear how to explain that one.

  She’s not home anyway. The stone shower (an upgrade, of course) in our model-home bathroom is still beaded with water and smells of her lilac perfume.

  I say a silent prayer that she’ll “do the good sisterly thing” and not tell Mom about what she saw—exactly the way I didn’t do the good sisterly thing when she came home drunk a few weeks ago.