It wouldn’t be a viable model … I think about Mom’s face as she discussed the books the other night and I laugh, way down deep inside, where nobody can see how desperately unfunny it really is.
Dani has warned me a thousand times that walking and reading is never a good combo, but do I listen? No. And now, with my nose buried in the last few Scarlet Letter chapters, I don’t see hockey captain number one, Will Harper, lurking near my French classroom until I’m practically on top of him. He flashes me his trademark smile—the award-winning, toothpaste commercial kind—and I start looking for the video cameras. The sooner I get confirmation that the events of my life have been staged for some elaborate, televised prank, the sooner I can collect my royalties and hire a good therapist.
“Hudson, what’s up?” He steps closer as I approach, that grin lighting up the dim, beige hallway. “Oh, you have something on your shirt.”
Perfect. Not only is this stain like a scarlet letter M for “Mortification” on my chest, but Will Harper is standing all up in my space, ogling me as random passersby look on. By Watonka standards, it’s practically a scene.
“I know. Thanks.” I try to make myself a little smaller against a row of lockers. Why is he here? Josh was supposed to talk to Will directly, get this rink thing figured out. The last thing I need is Kara Shipley catching me fraternizing with her ex. Talk about a hanging in the town square, Hester Prynne!
“Saw Blackthorn earlier,” Will says, running a hand through his wavy, dark blond hair. “I didn’t know you were training again. I thought you quit after—”
“I’m not training again.”
Will raises his eyebrows. “Does that mean my co-captain’s full of—”
“No. I mean, sometimes I hit the ice for fun. Exercise. It’s nothing.”
“Not according to Josh. He said you, uh … kick ass. More or less.” Will smiles again, leaning in a little closer. Mmmm. He smells … expensive. The delicious kind of expensive that erases your mind right while you’re standing there, which is why the cologne ads always show a pack of jar-eyed girls draped all over the chesty, good-smelling guy as if they forgot their own names the second he showed up.
“Well, Josh said … I …”
“He asked me about getting you ice time at Baylor’s,” Good Will Smelling says. “And I think I can swing it, but on one condition.” He grins at me like he did that night in the closet, right before he moved in for the kill.
I swallow hard. “Condition?”
“More like a proposition. For the Wolves.” Will lowers his voice. “Hear me out. I know my boys are strong. A little unmotivated at the moment, but talented. Thing is, we’re not good with technique, edgework, stuff like that. And our coach is useless—he doesn’t even call practices. Spends most of his time with the football team. Unlike us, those guys win championships.”
“What are you saying?” I ask.
“You need rink time. I need a special techniques coach. I get you the ice … and you teach the boys how to skate.”
My legs go all wobbly again. Convincing myself to skate with Josh was hard enough. Training an entire pack of notorious thugs who haven’t won a single game for as long as I’ve been at this school? A bunch of puck-slapping meatheads who’d probably rather skate naked at Fillmore during a lake-effect snowstorm than learn a single lesson from a girl?
Has this boy been sniffing too much of his own cologne?
I lean back against the lockers, arms strategically folded over my stained sweater. “I don’t know anything about hockey. And I’m already behind on school stuff, and I’m about to pick up a few more shifts at work, and—”
“Where do you—oh, right. The cupcakes. Man, my mom loves those things. I don’t know how you do it. I could never work for my parents—they’d take over my life.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not my dream or anything. I have my own life.” I don’t elaborate. I don’t care how amazing he smells. No way I’m getting all self-disclosey with a guy I’ve only spent about nine minutes of my life with, and that’s including the seven in the closet way back when.
“Good,” he says, his hand landing uninvited on my shoulder. “Because I’m serious about this. We need each other, Hud. Admit it.”
I meet his gaze, ready for a fight, but there’s an unexpected softness there—a bit of playful humor behind all the cocky attitude that takes me off guard. No wonder Kara fell so hard for him. I’m beginning to feel a bit drugged by the whole thing myself.
“Just think about it, okay?” he says quietly. “I called a practice after school this Friday. Text me if you want to check it out.” He grabs one of my notebooks and the pen from behind my ear—the nerve!—and scribbles down his info. I scan the hall for those video cameras again, but my eyes instead find Dani, already sitting at her desk in the classroom. She raises her eyebrows and points to her wrist.
“So you’ll text me?” Will hands over my stuff and leans in close, his breath tickling my neck. “Or do I have to work on you? I can be pretty convincing, you know.”
“I have to go, Will.” I duck into class just as the bell rings and slide into the spot next to Dani, my skin rippling with goose bumps.
“What. The hell. Was that?” she asks.
I shrug, shaking off the eau de Harper. “Josh asked him about the Baylor’s thing. Not gonna happen.”
“He said that? And what’s with all the touching and, like, smoldering looks?”
I laugh. “Smoldering? You still reading that pirate romance?”
“No. I mean yeah. But whatever—I’m serious! The boy kisses you once, and that gives him perpetual license to put his hands on you? After basically ignoring you for three years? I don’t think so.”
“It’s not like that,” I whisper as Madame Fromme shoots us le mauvais œil—the evil eye. “He wants me to—”
“Commencez, s’il vous plaît, Mademoiselle Avery.” Madame beckons me to the front of the class to set up for my presentation. Of course she wants me to go first—she’s probably been eye-fondling those cupcakes ever since I dropped off the box this morning.
“Commencez handing out the goodies, Cupcake Queen,” someone says as I finish arranging the Carousels on the presentation table. I turn around quickly, but I can’t tell who said it, and the room goes quiet again. Outside, a tree branch scrapes the window, craggy fingers tapping the glass as Madame Fromme clears her throat, urging me to begin. Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap.
“Bonjour. Um … je m’appelle Hudson Avery. I am—I mean, Je suis, um …” I lean on the table to steady myself, hands leaving damp prints that fade as I fidget. My fingernails are orange like my shirt. It looks like dried blood.
Frosting stains are usually just another part of the gig. An occupational hazard. A badge. Yeah, I’m the Cupcake Queen, I hand-tint my icing, and I’ve got the ruined clothing to prove it. But now, when I look at the color under my nails and the cupcakes lined up neatly on the table, I see my father’s suitcases, stacked by the door. The moving trucks that came later to collect the rest of his things, all of us redeposited into separate lives. My walk of shame from the ice rink and all those months I spent hiding out at Hurley’s behind an apron and a mixer. I see my mother, too, rushing from the grill to the dining room and back to the office, where each night she counts the till, twice to be sure.
If I don’t buck up and do something different, someday that will be me.
“Je ne suis pas mon travail.” I am not my job. I mumble it in perfect French, just loud enough for no one to hear. Madame Fromme removes her glasses and squints, and in my parallel life, I say it again. In my parallel life, I climb on the table and stomp on all those cupcakes, lions and tigers and bears crushed under my boot as I scream for the class, for the school, for the entire town of Watonka and anyone who’s ever wondered what lies beyond that old smokestack horizon. Je ne suis pas mon travail! Je ne suis pas mon travail! I am not Hurley’s Homestyle Diner! I’m not a waitress! I’m not the Cupcake Queen! I’m just me, alive and whole and happy when I’m skating. When my eyes are closed and my feet glide across the ice. Out there, I forget about my father road-tripping through the desert. I forget about the lines in my mother’s face and her chapped hands, red-raw with burns from the grill and too much time at the sink. I forget about the stains on my clothes and under my nails. When I’m skating, I’m somewhere else. Somewhere better.