“Maybe Dad knows. He’s, like, Mr. History.”
“He’s Mr. History, all right.” I sink back into the couch cushions. Bug was so small when my parents split—so young and bendable. He didn’t understand why our father left, or that we should have any reason to resent him. All Bug knew was that our dad was gone. And now the hole in his tiny, eight-year-old heart reminds him not that our father is thousands of miles away entertaining some ever-changing flavor of the month, but only that he misses someone he loves.
I look at my baby brother with his giant, hopeful eyes and wish that things were that simple for me, too. That the feeling of missing Dad wasn’t all tangled up with the feeling of hating him for not sticking around. That together, Bug and I could whisper about how much we love him, how we wish he was still here, telling us everything he knows about the Civil War. That we could let Mom carry all the timeworn resentment on her own.
“Can we call him?” Bug pushes out from the table and makes for the phone.
“It’s two hours earlier in Nevada. Probably dinnertime over there.” Briefly, I wonder if Shelvis can cook.
“Oh yeah.” He screws up his face and pushes his glasses up his little Bug-nose, and oh my God it just about kills me. Really. I might have a heart attack right here on the coffee table, all over the carefully arranged armies of the North and South.
“But we can try,” I say, massaging my chest. “We can always leave a voice mail, right?”
He shrugs, gathering up his books and papers and toys. “I’ll check online. It’s faster.”
He zooms to the computer in the kitchen on superfast, round-and-round cartoon feet, stopping only once to rescue a lone little green man who fell to the linoleum in the rush.
Civil War researched and Dad temporarily forgotten, I shoo Bug into bed and start on those cupcakes for Monday’s French presentation. An hour later there’s the click-clack-jingle-jangle of keys in the front lock as Mom struggles through the doorway with her giant purse and a few bags of leftovers.
“Put this away for me, baby?” Mom hands over the goods and shakes out her snow-dusted coat in the hall.
I transfer two stacks of aluminum take-out containers into the fridge, shove the plastic bags under the sink, and get back to work. “How’d the rest of the night go?”
“Carly quit.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep. Said waitressing wasn’t what she expected. It’s food service, for the love of pie. What’s to expect?” She kicks off her boots and flops onto a chair at the kitchen table. “What are you making over there?”
“Carousel Cupcakes. They’re for this careers and hobbies thing for French.” I hold up my baking notebook to show her the rough sketch—white cake with sunshine-orange icing, a chocolate straw and animal cracker stuck into the top. I really wanted to do these two-tiered lavender honey cakes I saw on a wedding show at Dani’s, but I figured words like “bear” and “tiger” were easier to explain en français. Besides, no way the masses of Watonka High would appreciate a work of art like two-tiered lavender honey cakes.
Mom’s beaming like a normal parent would if her kid just got accepted to Harvard. “You’re so clever with those things.”
I stir a bit more yellow into the frosting, a drop at a time until I get the color just right. Mom’s always been my number one cupcake fan. The other day a lady asked to see our sample book, and Mom gushed over those photos like they were her grandbabies or something. “Look at this one,” she cooed, pointing to a shot of my lamb cupcakes—shaved coconut wool, a mini-cupcake head, and chocolate chips for eyes. “My daughter makes them all by hand. Aren’t they cute?” I smile when I think about it now, even though it is kind of silly. Lamb cupcakes? Honestly. But Mom goes crazy for stuff like that.
“So,” she continues, “speaking of Carly—”
“Yeah, I know we have that nondiscrimination policy, but is it illegal to discriminate against psychos? Because she’s the third psycho to quit this year, and—”
“Hudson, there’s something we need to talk about, honey.”
I toss my wooden spoon into the bowl. “Honey” is total red alert stuff in our house. Was she hovering when I talked to Josh at the diner? Did Bug slip up and tell her about the skates?
“Everything okay?” I ask.
Mom taps her fingers on the table. Shuffles through the papers Bug left. Stares out the window as the plastic wall clock ticks off the seconds. Minutes.
“Hurley’s …,” she finally says, “we’re not doing so hot.”
“We were slammed today.”
Mom shakes her head. “It’s not enough. We got a nice boost after your cupcake article, but … I don’t know. This was the worst month on the books in years.”
“That bad?”
“I’m working on a plan to turn it around.” Her so-called reassuring grin looks like it hurts, and it reminds me of that day in her bedroom before the Empire Games. Big night tonight, baby. Let’s get moving!
“You gonna let me in on this plan?” I fill a pastry bag with the sunshine-colored icing. I know from years of overheard arguments that selling the place is not an option. It was the only thing besides me and Bug that she wanted out of the split, and she got it, free and clear. Lump sum settlement, the lawyers called it. The house got sold, the mortgage on Hurley’s got paid off, and Dad got to check out, no strings attached.
“We have to cut back hours,” she says. “We’ll stay open late after the Sabres and Bills games, but otherwise we’ll close a little earlier. And what about your cupcakes? Can we put some more variety out there, something special for the holidays? Might give us another jump.”
“Easy enough. I’ll have Dani take some new pictures for the sample book, too.” Okay, so I misjudged the urgency. Shorter hours, a few extra cupcakes to get us back in the black, no biggie. “Don’t worry, Ma. We’ll be fine.”
“Thanks, baby.” She sighs again and looks at the clock, the second hand making everything seem like a final countdown.
“Mom?”
“We’re not replacing Carly,” she announces, fast and blurry like she just talked herself into it. “Things are too tight right now. These new girls want the same benefits the big chains offer, and I can’t do that. I’m sorry, Hudson.” She looks at me and waits for it to sink in, and when it does, the pastry bag slips from my hands and hits the counter, squirting out a blob of orange-yellow goo.
“I know you don’t have direct waitressing experience,” she continues, “but you’re a fast learner, and you’ll have lots of help. Dani and Marianne are strong. Nat’s good, too, and she’ll be back full time after her nursing exams. I can’t give you much more than minimum for an hourly, but you’ll make good tips….” She finally meets my eyes, her reassuring grin utterly failing to convince me. “You might actually like it.”
Waitressing? I shake my head. I can’t do what Dani does—talk to all those people, be friendly and perky as they order her around and drop food on the floor and demand refills and discounts and more, more, more. I can’t deal with lousy tippers and picky eaters and adults who try to order off the kiddie menu. I know she loves waitressing, but she’s always been a front-of-the-house kind of girl, all smiles and big eyes, bad stuff rolling off her shoulders like kids sledding down a steep hill.
Mom frowns, still watching me closely, and my throat tightens up. No matter how much time I put in at the ovens of Hurley’s, no matter how many cupcakes I ice, I’ve always held on to one simple fact: Baking is the one thing Mom never did. She was the waitress who got promoted to manager, the manager who became the owner, the owner who gives a little more of her life to that place every day. She’s always joked about leaving me the family business, but I never took it seriously. How could I? All this time, as long as I was just baking, my destiny could be separate from hers. Parallel, never overlapping. Close, but not the same.
“I don’t want to waitress.” My voice cracks. “I like my cupcakes.”