But I don’t know how to speak the language of impossible dreams en français, so I swallow it back, blinking rapidly as if it’s just the Lake Erie wind in my eyes.
Tap tap tap. Out beyond the window, past the branches to the barren soccer field, snow dances across the expanse and I want to bolt, straight back to the lake with my skates. But like the old saying goes: It takes forty-two muscles to frown, and only twelve to jam a cupcake in your mouth and get over it. So I smile and begin again, distributing my sugar-sweet merry-go-round confections to the class.
“Je m’appelle Hudson Avery. Je travaille chez Hurley’s Homestyle Diner. Oui, je suis la boulangêre des petits gâteaux.”
My name is Hudson Avery. I work at Hurley’s. Yes, I am the baker of the cupcakes.
But not for long.
“Those cupcakes rock,” Trina Dawes tells me after today’s presentations are done. “Are you doing anything January tenth? I’m having a birthday bash. A hundred people at least.”
“Can’t make it.” Wrong date? Wrong address? No way I’m falling for that joke.
“Make it? Oh, no! That’s not what I meant.” She giggles, her cheeks turning red. “I was asking about ordering cupcakes … I mean … you could totally come if you want to, though. Do you?” She looks up at me and tilts her head, freshly glossed mouth turning into an awkward frown.
“Wait, you thought … that I thought … you were inviting me to your party?” I pack up the few remaining Carousels, hoping my face isn’t the same color as the frosting.
She swipes another cupcake from the box. “I mean, you could—”
“I have a thing that night. An art show. With my brother. He’s, um, exhibiting his … Civil War sculpture. Thing. So I’m busy.”
“Can you still make the cupcakes?”
“Not a problem.” Where are those horribly intrusive fire drills when you need them?
Trina smiles again, her face rearranging itself to happy and casual. “Should I, like, give you my order now? Or do I have to call Harley’s?”
“It’s Hurley’s,” I say with a sigh. “But you can give it to me now.”
“You kicked some serious derrière in there, ami,” Dani says after class. “Don’t sweat Trina’s party, okay? Those girls are like a living issue of Cosmo.”
“Easy for you to say. The whole junior class doesn’t look down on you.”
“Please.” She empties her backpack into her locker, packing away the Nikon equipment she used in her presentation. “People just don’t know you, okay? It’s not the same thing.”
“They know me all right. Cupcake Queen of Watonka, remember? A real celeb.”
Dani drops her books into her backpack and tugs hard on the zipper. “There are what—three thousand people up in this joint?”
“So?”
“So why do you assume everyone around here is so tight? You act like Watonka High is this big bowl of awesome and you’re the only one who didn’t get a spoon. Guess what, girl? It’s high school. Everyone hates it.”
“Not you. You’re always talking to people, smiling, whatever. You have friends here.”
“So do you—you just keep forgetting it.”
“Dani, I didn’t mean—”
“Gotta go. I’ll catch you at work tonight.” She slams her locker, but not that hard, and I let her leave. We never stay mad at each other for more than a few minutes, anyway. I just wish I could be more like her, letting all the bad stuff roll off. Not caring so much what everyone thinks. Full of those confident, front-of-the-house smiles, all the way.
Maybe Dani’s right—maybe they don’t look down on me. Not exactly. For the most part, they don’t even notice me. I spent those all-important clique-forming years on the ice with Kara. While the normal Watonka kids were having playdates and movie nights and sleepovers, we were practicing our lutzes and spins, learning to balance competitive drive with sportsmanship and ladylike grace. By the time I got to high school, I’d lost my skating friends, Kara got swept up in the current of Will’s popularity, and fate had sorted everyone else into groups like change in the till. Other than Dani, I was alone; the rest of the nickels and dimes and quarters had moved on—not against me, just without.
Now when they see me in the halls, they remember only one thing: Cupcake Queen of Watonka. That stupid newspaper picture, me cradling a mixing bowl in my arms like a baby. Well extra, extra! Read all about it, Watonka! I used to be good at something else, too. Something that had nothing to do with taking orders from Trina Dawes or following in my mother’s dream-sucking, Hurley Girl footsteps. Something with a real future. Something I finally have another shot at.
All I have to do is reach out and take it. It’s that simple.
I stash the extra French cupcakes in my locker, flip open my notebook, and turn on my phone. Orange-stained fingertips quick over the buttons, I punch in Will’s number, take a deep breath, and send my answer up to outer space.
Chapter Seven
How to Appear Outwardly Cool While Totally Freaking Out on the Inside Cupcakes
Chilled vanilla cupcakes cored and filled with whipped vanilla buttercream and dark chocolate shavings, topped with vanilla icing and a sugared cucumber slice
Blue-and-silver jersey number seventy-seven, harper, skates back and forth in front of his eighteen teammates. From my spot in the player’s box, I check the roster and count the boys three times to be sure, looking them each in the eye as I do. It’s a thing I learned from that show where the guy gets dropped in the jungle with nothing but a pillowcase, a pack of gum, and a tampon applicator: Make eye contact with wild animals to claim your territory and avoid a beatdown.
Today’s primary goaclass="underline" avoid beatdown. Check.
“It’s no secret the Wolves are struggling,” Will says.
“Struggle. To flounder or stumble.” Thirty-two, FELZNER, defense, taps away on his cell.
“We’re definitely stumbling, yo.” NELSON, sixty, also defense. He grabs his crotch and spits, then winks at me in the box. Aside from the spitting and groping, which under normal circumstances I don’t find all that attractive, Brad Nelson’s kind of a dead ringer for that model Tyson Beckford.
I slip off my gloves and lower the zipper on my fleece.
“We’ve lost focus,” Will continues. “We’re not playing like a team. Our morale is low. I get it.”
“Eh, we bite.” DEVRIES, oh-seven, left wing. The smallest of the line, Rowan DeVries sports the unfortunate combination of braces, freckles, and tangerine-red curls. He seems better suited to racing hockey players in a video game.
I flip past the roster and scan the rest of Will’s notes. According to the files, the Watonka Wolves haven’t been to a national competition in over twenty years. The last time our varsity hockey team even won a division championship, these particular boys were still in diapers.