Confectionately Yours #4: Something New (11 page)

“H
ayley?”

The voice at my elbow is gentle, and it takes me a moment to recognize it. “Artie — hi.”

“Hi.” She glances quickly over her shoulder, then faces me and smiles. “Um, hey, I just wanted — I notice your posters aren’t up yet. For vice president.” She twirls her hair as she says this, as if she’s afraid to bring up the subject.

“Yeah, I know — sorry. I just haven’t had time. Things have been crazy ever since —”

“No big deal — it’s just time is running out.”

“I know, I know.”

“And Anthony’s had his posters up for a week —”

“Right, I know.”

Anthony Adams is running for vice president, too. Meghan doesn’t think he’s likely to win, since he’s always talking about how great he is and nobody can stand it, but still. I should at least let people know that they have another choice.

“I hope this isn’t awkward, but I kind of —” Artie shrugs and unrolls a large yellow poster with green lettering.

“Oh, thanks,” I say. She has outlined the letters in silver glitter and painted a glittery cupcake in the corner. It’s really pretty, and very me. And it even coordinates with Meghan’s posters. “That’s really … great.”

Artie studies my face. “Are you mad?”

“Totally not.”

“I should’ve let you do it.”

“No — seriously. Thank you! I love it.”

“I made three of them.”

“Wow.” I take the posters from her. She slings her backpack
forward and pulls out a roll of green painter’s tape. “You’re an excellent campaign manager.”

“Well, I … I guess I just think you’ll be a really great vice president. You’re, like — you’re like the string on Meghan’s balloon.”

I laugh a little at the image. “Tying her down?”

“More like keeping her from floating away. I mean —” She looks over her shoulder again, as if she hopes nobody can hear. The hallway is crowded, but kids are busy slamming lockers, looking for notebooks, and keeping their minds on their own lives. Nobody cares what we’re up to. “I didn’t like Meghan much — when I first met her. But once you get to know her …”

“She can be cool,” I finish for her.

Artie nods. “She can be cool. A little insane, maybe. But …”

We both laugh.

“Anyway, she needs people like us, to keep her on track,” Artie says.

“Yeah,” I agree. “I guess so.” I hold up the poster and look at it again. My name looks strange to myself, written so large and covered in glitter.

“You don’t want to do it, do you?”

I feel Artie’s hazel eyes on me, but I can’t bear to look at her. The world goes on around us as my heart stutters and struggles to keep pumping.

“That’s why you haven’t done the posters.” Artie’s voice is quiet.

I roll up the poster and turn to face my friend. “I didn’t know it…. I didn’t realize it until you just said it. It’s just —”

“Drop out,” Artie tells me.

“Like it’s that simple.”

“It could be.” Her eyes and voice are gentle, but I still feel them cut into me.

“I can’t — I can’t do that to Meg.”

“You have to do what’s right for yourself, too, Hayley. Don’t you?” Artie’s forehead wrinkles, like she’s confused, or maybe like she’s worried about me.

I know Artie’s trying to help, but somehow it just seems easier to suck it up and be the vice president than to have Meghan freak and deal with the fallout. I mean — it will be kind of fun. Parts of it.

The bell rings. “Are you going to put up the posters?” Artie asks. “Or should I take them home?”

I breathe once. Twice. “I’ll put them up,” I say at last.

Artie just nods. I wonder if she thinks I’m a wimp, or a dummy, or a martyr, or what. But “Okay” is all she says.

O
ne time, in fourth grade, Artie and I were walking downtown, headed to get some ice cream, and a homeless man asked me for money. He told me that he couldn’t pay for his medicine. He told me that all he needed was a few more dollars.

I had a few dollars in the pocket of my shorts — enough for my ice cream.

“I’m diabetic,” the man said. And I gave him the money.

He turned to Artie. “I just need a little more,” he told her.

And Artie, who had the same amount of money I did, said, “Sorry.”

We walked around the corner and into the ice cream store. Artie went up to the counter and ordered a medium cone of black raspberry chocolate-chip. I got a cup of water and sat at the table, wondering if the man was really going to use my money for medicine. There was no way to know — not for sure.

Artie offered me a lick of her ice cream, and I took it. But that was almost worse, because the ice cream was delicious.

That’s the thing: Artie never really has a problem doing what’s right for Artie.

Sometimes, that seems harsh.

But sometimes, she’s the one eating the ice cream.

And I never really knew what to make of that.

“G
ran?” Knocking softly, I poke my head beyond her bedroom door. “Did I leave my comb in here?”

“Sorry, darling?” Gran pulls off her reading glasses and looks up from the pile of brochures scattered across her bed. “Your comb?”

“I thought maybe I left it in your bathroom,” I tell her as I come to perch on the corner of her mattress.

“I haven’t seen it.” Gran huffs a sigh and scowls at the brochures. “Of course, things are so untidy that it may be beneath all of these.”

“How’s the wedding planning going?” I ask.

“Atrociously. Don’t let’s mention it.”

“That well?”

Gran places her reading glasses on the bedside table. “It was great fun the first time I did it. When I was marrying your grandfather, Gerard. But this time, it just seems like an unnecessary expense.”

I trace a finger over one of the pink embroidered roses on Gran’s bedspread. “You don’t want to get married?”

“What? Horrors! Of course I do! I just don’t want to pay for a
wedding
.”

“Well — it isn’t about the money, right?”

“That’s the sort of thing that people say when they have a great deal of money, and very little sense,” Gran says. “I happen to have a great deal of sense and little money. And I don’t see why I should spend heaps of money, time, and energy on something I don’t actually want.”

“When you put it that way …”

“If I’m going to spend a great deal of money on something, it will be your education, Hayley dear. Yours and Chloe’s. Or perhaps a house for your mother. But I’ve already had a beautiful wedding, and I don’t need another. This certainly isn’t my ‘princess dreams come true,’” she adds,
pointing to the headline on one of the brochures. She scoffs, obviously revolted by the very idea. “Of course, I don’t know how to tell your mother all of that.”

“Do you think she’ll mind?”

“Hayley — did you know that your father and mother eloped?”

“Sure.”

“They never had a proper wedding, and I think — well, it’s just superstition, of course. But the divorce is so fresh in her mind….” Gran leans forward to place her hand on mine. “I do think your mother wants the wedding done properly, if you see what I’m saying.”

“Oh.”

“And she’s gone to such effort.” Gran’s voice is full of regret.

“True.” I think this over for a moment. “Do you think it will be better to wait until she books the caterers, and
then
tell her that you don’t want the wedding? Or maybe after it’s all over?”

Gran closes her eyes and chuckles softly. When she opens them again, they’re as brilliant as diamonds. “I think, perhaps, sooner is better than later.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

Gran gives me a peck on the cheek. “I’ll tell her soon, darling. Thank you.”

“Sleep well,” I say, and I pad down the hallway to the bedroom I share with Chloe. My sister is on her bed, snuggling with Tessie.

“She can’t sleep in here,” I say to Chloe.

“Why not?”

“Because she wakes me up at five in the morning when she sleeps in here,” I say. “Besides, that’s why we have her dog bed in the living room, remember?”

Chloe pouts.

“Don’t give me the big dog eyes,” I implore. “You, either,” I say to the dog, but neither one of them stops.

“Mom says Tessie has to go back to the shelter this weekend.” Chloe is begging, her eyes filling with tears.

Rip my heart out. “Oh, Chlo.” I use my gentlest voice and sit down on the bed next to her. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” she mutters, and I’m silent for a moment. Well, I’m not
that
sorry. But I am a
little
sorry. I pet Tessie’s silky ears.

“We knew she would have to go back someday,” I say.

Chloe kisses Tessie’s face, and the dog licks her face.

“She can sleep in here,” I say, because I’m not really a horrible person.

I swear, that dog does not understand “sit” or “stay,” but she seems to understand the entire sentence I just uttered, because she goes and curls herself up into a doughnut at the end of Chloe’s bed. Chloe leans back against her pillow, and I head over to my own bed.

“Good night, Chloe,” I say as I click off the light.

My little sister just rolls over, so that her back is to me.

It isn’t easy when someone you love is angry with you.

But I can’t always make everything perfect for everyone.

Can I?

“S
top!” I say. “Too much! Too much!” I’m at the beach, where a dolphin is trying to touch noses. But I don’t want to get my face wet. Chloe begs the dolphin to come to her, but it only wants me, and I can’t get it to leave me alone….

I open my eyes to darkness. The sunny beach disappears, and I realize that I’m at home, in my room. It’s the middle of the night.

But my face is wet.

“Stop!” I say as Tessie licks my eyeball. “Ew!”

She whines and races to the door, then rushes back again.

“Chloe,” I groan. “Your dog wants to go out.”

Chloe doesn’t move or make a sound. I’m telling you, that girl sleeps like a brick. Even in my groggy state, I realize
that waking her up is going to be more trouble than just letting the dog out of the room, so I go to the door and open it.

Tessie races through it, skids to a stop at the end of the hallway, and then races back to me, expectantly. “Oh, ugh, do you want to go outside?” I ask her. “Now?”

She whines and jumps up on my leg, and I’m just about to turn around and go make Chloe take the dog out when the smell of smoke hits my nose.

“Is that — Ohmigosh!” Suddenly, I’m so awake that my body takes off before my brain even has time to catch up. “Chloe! Chloe! Wake up! There’s a fire!”

“Mraf?” Chloe mumbles.

I shake her. “Fire! Chloe! Get up!”

“What?” She sits straight up. “Are you —” Then she must smell it, too, because she tosses back her covers and jumps out of bed.

I’m already running down with the hall with Tessie prancing at my ankles as Mom comes out of her bedroom, pulling on a robe. “Hayley?”

“Mom, there’s a fire!” I dash into Gran’s room. “Gran! Smoke.”

Gran gets up, calm as can be. “Thank you, dear,” she says.

“Mother!” Mom races into Gran’s bedroom. “We’ve got to hurry!”

“Yes, dear, of course,” Gran says, putting on her slippers.

“Mother, there’s no time for that!” Mom insists, but Gran just says that she’s not about to risk getting a cold, and then she goes to her closet and pulls out a box. “Mother!” Mom cries. “What are you doing? What is that? Leave it!”

“Absolutely not,” Gran says. “It’s important documents and a photo album.”

“We’ve got to get out of here!” Chloe wails as Tessie runs around her in a circle, like a herding dog.

“All right, all right,” Gran says, and we all grab our coats and boots and hurry down the back stairs — Tessie leading the way.

The moment we open the door, we’re smacked with the sound of a blaring horn mingled with a wailing siren. Red lights flicker against the brick walls as we hurry around the block, to the front of the Tea Room.

“It’s the flower shop!” Chloe cries, and she’s right — some of the firefighters are pointing a hose at Malik’s Fine Flowers. But the real fire is next door, at the new Mexican restaurant.

“Oh, my —” My voice is strangled, and it’s hard to breathe. The air is thick with smoke; a black cloud pours into the gray sky. It’s amazing — it’s a cool spring night, but you wouldn’t know it. It’s like standing before a massive bonfire — my hair rises in the heat. We all watch, stunned, as a group of firefighters aim a hose at the flaming windows.

The image blurs as my eyes fill.
The flower shop! And what about our home? What about the café?

“Get back!” one of the firefighters shouts at us, and we retreat a few steps.

“Umer always said the venting wasn’t done properly,” Gran murmurs. “Oh, how horrible!” She puts a hand over her mouth.

Another fire truck pulls up. Then another. Now the whole street is flickering in the red lights. With their helmets and jackets and gear, all the firefighters look alike, and the street seems to be swarming with them. Northampton doesn’t have this many trucks — they must be coming from nearby towns. People have come out of their homes to watch.

Mom stops a firefighter who is hurrying past. “Excuse me,” she says quickly. “Will the surrounding buildings be all right?”

“It looks like the fire’s contained for now, ma’am,” he says, and I feel us all sink with relief. “But I wouldn’t head inside, if that’s what you were thinking.”

“That is
not
what she was thinking,” Gran assures him before he hurries off. “Absolutely not!”

“At least there aren’t any apartments above the stores,” Mom says, pulling Gran close. Our building has apartments, but there’s a tattoo parlor over the flower shop and a dance studio over the restaurant. Nobody is ever inside those buildings in the middle of the night. “I hope no one was hurt.”

“And
we’re
okay,” I add. I reach for Chloe’s hand, and we lace our fingers together. She snuggles against me, and then leans down to pat the dog.

“Tessie saved us!” Chloe crows.

We all stare at the dog, who is standing there, tail wagging.

Mom puts a hand to her forehead. “I think I need to sit down,” she says.

And at the word
sit
, Tessie does.

Can you believe that?

“Good dog,” Chloe says. She kneels down and hugs Tessie, who goes mad licking her face. “Good, good dog!
Best
dog!”

I really can’t disagree with her there.