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Authors: Tara Dairman

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BOOK: Stars So Sweet
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They had just finished wrapping all the goods in plastic when Gladys's dad honked his horn outside. Parm immediately moved off into the living room to distract her mother so she wouldn't head outside to talk to Mr. Gatsby, and Gladys quickly reloaded her blue backpack with the cooking tools she'd brought over. She still missed her lobster, but she had to admit that the new bag had a lot more capacity.

Gladys collapsed into the station wagon's backseat a few minutes later. It had felt like fun in the moment, but now the exhaustion of directing three separate baking projects for several hours seemed to hit her all at once. How did professional pastry chefs do it, day after day? Gladys thought of Classy Cakes, the “dessert bistro” in Manhattan that had been the subject of her very first review for the
Standard.
Her review had been positive, but even so, she wondered if she'd given the bakers enough credit.

Gladys's eyelids had just started drooping when her father slammed on the car brakes. “What the . . . ?”

They were in the parking lot of Pathetti's Pies—or, what had been Pathetti's Pies. Gladys shook the sleep from her eyes as her dad jumped out of the car. The sign overhead, with pizza pies inside each giant
P
, had been taken down, and the building looked abandoned.

Gladys followed her dad to the building's front door. Where the restaurant's hours had been posted, now there was only a sign that said
P
ROPERTY FOR
L
EASE BY
O
WNER,
C
ALL
B
OB.
A phone number was listed underneath.

“I can't believe this,” Gladys's dad said, shaking his head. “I mean, I knew that business was getting slower for them, but now they're just . . . gone? Our favorite pizza place!”

“Sorry, Dad.” Pathetti's certainly wasn't
Gladys's
favorite pizza place—she could do a much better job with her own homemade dough and fresh toppings. But she knew that her parents loved it, so she felt at least a little bad for their loss. “But hey, maybe something better will come in!”

“Better than Pathetti's??” Her dad's head shook as he spoke. “Impossible.”

He was still muttering about it fifteen minutes later when they arrived home with sacks from Sticky Burger. “I thought we were having pizza,” Gladys's mom said, and her dad filled her in on the bad news.

“For lease by owner? That means he doesn't have a real estate agent,” Gladys's mom murmured. “
I
could be his real estate agent and handle the leasing process for him! Did you write the number down, George?”

“Write it down? Of course not,” Gladys's dad said. “I was too busy thinking about how I'd never have another triple-cheese-and-bacon pizza again!”

Gladys's mom made an exasperated noise, and a few moments later she was heading out to the car. “I'll be back!” she called, and drove off in the direction of the former Pathetti's Pies.

It was at that moment that Gladys realized she hadn't seen her aunt since they'd come into the house—but she heard the TV playing in the den. She made her way back to that room, where she found Aunt Lydia in her old position on the couch in her sweats and stained T-shirt, staring listlessly at the screen.

“Aunt Lydia!” Gladys cried. “What's wrong?”

Her aunt turned to her with tears in her eyes. “Oh, my Gladiola,” she said. “Your auntie has lost her job again.”

Chapter 13

TASTE TEST


LOST YOUR JOB?” GLADYS CRIED.
“But . . . how? When? You didn't even work today!”

“Mr. Eng called,” Aunt Lydia said glumly. “He didn't fire me outright, but he said that when I come in tomorrow, we need to have a ‘serious discussion about my future at the store.' That's almost exactly what the new owners of the café in Paris said before . . .” Her voice trailed off.

Gladys had to agree that this didn't sound too good. Maybe Mr. Eng had noticed how much expensive cheese was missing from his display case . . . but even if he hadn't, he knew by now that her aunt wasn't the most focused worker.

Then again, Mr. Eng was a reasonable man. Maybe, if Aunt Lydia really made
a commitment to doing better, he would give her another chance.

Aunt Lydia sighed. “It's probably for the best,” she said. “Now we can just call Fiona and tell her that we'll—I mean,
Gladys
will—take that full-time restaurant-reviewing job.”

“But . . .” Gladys's voice cracked. With so much else going on this week, she had pushed the job situation to the back of her mind. She certainly didn't feel ready to make any permanent decisions about it. There had to be another solution to this situation—at least a temporary one.

“But the
Standard
job wouldn't start until January,” she said, “and it's only September! I thought you wanted to save up some money. And won't you get bored if you're stuck in this house until then with nothing to do?”

Aunt Lydia glanced over at the TV, then down at the open bag of chips on the table. “I suppose so.”

“Come on, then,” Gladys said in her most rousing voice. “You have to fight for your job! Just try a little harder to follow Mr. Eng's directions at work, and everything will be fine.”

A small smile crossed her aunt's face. “All right,” she said. “I can try.”

Gladys forced herself to smile back. “Great. So, uh, what time does Mr. Eng want you to come in tomorrow?”

“Eight o'clock,” Aunt Lydia said.

Then I'll be there at seven twenty,
Gladys thought. It wasn't that she didn't trust her aunt to save her own job—but she figured a little extra help couldn't hurt.

• • •

The next morning, Gladys rode her bike so that she would have time to make a detour to the Gourmet Grocery before school. She caught Mr. Eng just as he was unlocking the security gate.

“Good morning, Gladys!” he said. The gate made a
rap-bap-bap-bap
noise as it rose to reveal the glass door behind it. “You're here very early.”

“Middle school starts earlier than elementary,” Gladys told him, parking her bike.

“And it's in the opposite direction,” Mr. Eng said with a wink. “So this must be a special trip for you. Come on in.”

Inside, the store was dark and silent, and Gladys imagined the groceries sleeping quietly in their bins and on their shelves. Then Mr. Eng flipped a switch; the fluorescent lights overhead came on with a buzz, and all around her the muted tones of fruits and vegetables and spices burst into vibrant life.

“Mr. Eng,” Gladys said, suddenly energized. “You can't fire my aunt today.”

“Ah, I thought that's what this might be about.” Mr. Eng dropped his keys on the counter and leaned forward on it. “I'm sorry, Gladys, but she's just not a
good worker. I've given her two full trial days, which I really think is more than fair.”

Gladys's stomach bottomed out. She had half hoped that Mr. Eng would tell her she was crazy and that he had no intention of firing Aunt Lydia. But for once, the awful thing that Gladys had suspected was exactly the thing that was in danger of happening.

“I don't mean to hurt you or your family,” Mr. Eng continued, and indeed, his voice sounded the opposite of callous. “This is a business decision, not a personal one. Having your aunt here has made me realize that I really do need an assistant at the shop; it just needs to be someone who can follow orders.”

“I know that she's made some mistakes,” Gladys said hurriedly, “but she's still adjusting to life in America. If you could just give her a little more time—”

But Mr. Eng was shaking his head. “I need someone here whom I can trust to run the store entirely in my absence,” he said. “I've registered for several trade shows over the next couple of months. They're like big conventions with lots of different types of food products on display and available for sampling so attendees can find new products to sell in their stores,” he explained. “But they're all on Saturdays, and weekends are now the busiest time here. I just don't feel I can trust your aunt to hold down the fort on a Saturday.”

Gladys sighed. If she was honest with herself, she couldn't really picture her aunt managing the shop
alone, either. But what she could easily picture was her aunt hurrying around from one booth to another at a convention, snatching up samples and making decisions about which variety of artisan cracker or balsamic vinegar tasted the best.

“What if you sent Aunt Lydia to the trade shows?” Gladys said.

Mr. Eng, who was now breaking a fresh roll of quarters into the cash register drawer, looked up. “What?”

“She loves samples,” Gladys said. Mr. Eng grimaced, and Gladys realized that maybe that hadn't been the best example to bring up. “I mean, she has a great palate. And like you just said, she's always flitting from one thing to the next. Who better to send off to taste-test food at a big convention on your behalf?”

“She did impress me with her knowledge of cheeses and spices when I first met her . . .” Mr. Eng said slowly. “Plus, those conventions
do
require a lot of walking. And on these old knees . . .”

Gladys could tell that she was making progress. It was time to drive her point home. “And you know that I'm good at doing research and taking notes,” she added, “so I could work with her at home and make sure she has a good system for keeping track of the stuff she tries! Maybe I could even go with her to the first one to help out.”

Now a hint of a smile played across Mr. Eng's face. “This is not a terrible idea, Gladys,” he said. “All right—I'm willing to send her to the first convention and see how she does. If I'm happy with her work, she can represent the store at the others. But once they wrap up in October, that will be the end of your aunt's employment here. Business is doing better now, for sure, but I still can't afford to throw money away.”

“I understand,” Gladys said quietly. She hadn't fixed things forever, but at least she had saved her aunt's job for a little while longer.
And maybe,
she thought,
if Aunt Lydia does really well, she'll persuade Mr. Eng to reconsider.

• • •

Gladys's classes seemed to drag by that day as she waited for the final bell and Parm's bake sale.

She ran into Parm in the hallway after third period, and her friend assured her that the baked goods were safe in the teachers' break room, where she had gotten special permission to store them. “And me and three of the other girls have a pass to get out of class fifteen minutes early to set up,” Parm told her, “so things should be all ready by the time the last bell rings.”

“Super,” Gladys said. “I'll come down as soon as French lets out.”

But at the end of French class, Madame Goldstein called Gladys up to her desk.

“Giselle, a word,
s'il vous plaît,
” she said.

Gladys and Charissa exchanged a glance; what could this be about? “I'd wait for you outside, but I've gotta get to gymnastics,” Charissa whispered as Gladys stood up.

“No worries,” Gladys replied. “But hey, make sure you stop in the lobby on your way—there are gonna be some awesome desserts for sale today.”

“Ooh, thanks!” Charissa slung her purple backpack over one shoulder and sauntered out of the classroom after the other kids.

Gladys approached her teacher's desk. “Yes, Madame?” she said.

Madame smiled. “Giselle, I believe that we have a good friend in common.”

“We—we do?” Gladys was completely baffled now. What was her teacher talking about?

“Oui,”
Madame replied. “This person is actually my neighbor. It is someone who is extremely fond of you.”

Gladys's own heart took a tiny leap. Could it be Hamilton? His family had only moved to the area at the beginning of the summer; she didn't know which part of town they lived in, but they must be neighbors with her French teacher. She almost let out a giddy laugh. What were the odds?

“This person,” Madame continued, “just learned that you are in my class, and asked if I would pass a letter along to you.” She held out a sealed white envelope; her thumb was covering up part of the writing,
but Gladys spotted her own last name on it in neat block letters. “
Excusez-moi
for being so mysterious, but the writer asked that I not reveal any more—and also told me to make it clear that I was ignorant of the letter's contents, as they might be considered somewhat personal.”

Considered somewhat personal
—that sounded like Hamilton, all right.

Gladys accepted the letter with a trembling hand. So
that
was why he hadn't called her back; he'd wanted to write to her instead. It was such a grand, old-fashioned gesture that she was almost willing to forgive all of his past transgressions right then and there.

Almost.

Gladys was dying to rip right into the envelope, but if there was “personal” content . . . well, it would be better if she could take it somewhere private. She had been looking forward to the bake sale all day, but now she couldn't wait to get home.


Merci,
Madame,” Gladys said.

“De rien,”
Madame replied.

And with that, Gladys burst out of the classroom with more energy than she had ever been able to summon at the end of a day of middle school.

BOOK: Stars So Sweet
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