Wedding Drama (7 page)

Just as she looks up, another note comes her way. It's from the queen once again:

 

Its going to be 10 points for each thing so the team who gets the most points wins.

 

***

The Purple Lilacs and the Red Roses convene at an empty lunch table as soon as the bell rings, sending everyone to the yard for recess. Rosario—who thinks of everything, it seems—has already gotten permission from the teacher on lunch duty to use one of the tables.

“Roses over here,” she says, indicating one end of the table. “And Lilacs over there.” She indicates the other end. The judges are already there, standing with their arms crossed for some reason, probably trying to look serious.

Nikki has brought her mysteriously lumpy backpack with her.

Rosario goes on. “We're going to do wedding dresses and bridesmaids' dresses first, then the decorations, and then the invitation, and then the menu.”

There are some blank looks; some shrugs. Without any more pomp and circumstance, Myrella picks up the Lilacs' poster board with a drawing of a bride in the middle. The bride looks as if she's wearing a fluffy white cloud on her head and a long, white gown. Deja can tell immediately that it was drawn by Rosario's older sister, the one in high school. She's seen Rosario's drawing and it's never been that good.

“Did you draw that?” Antonia asks.

“Yes,” Rosario says.

“By yourself?”

“Yes, by myself.”

“Let me see you draw it again,” Antonia says.

“I don't have to, and anyway, we don't have time.” Rosario turns to the judges. Angela has some index cards in her hand. “How many points do we get?” Rosario asks.

The judges put their heads together; then Angela writes a number on an index card and holds it up: 8.

Rosario grins. “Okay, hold up your drawing,” she says to ChiChi of the Red Roses. ChiChi's is on two pieces of folded copy paper, one for the bride's dress, and one for the bridesmaids'. It looks as if she drew them while watching television. They're not very good.

“How many points?” Rosario asks eagerly.

The judges put their heads together again; then Angela holds up an index card with a four on it.

“Not fair,” Ayanna protests.

“Is too,” Rosario says.

“No, because ChiChi did hers and you didn't,” Ayanna says.

“I did too do mine, and you can't prove I didn't.”

That's the proof,
Deja thinks. Rosario said,
You can't prove I didn't.
That's what guilty people always say.

“Let's do decorations next,” Rosario says.

Antonia produces a thin three-ring binder. Her pictures are in plastic sleeves. “This is a picture of my table decorations,” she says, holding up a drawing of four circular tables elaborately decorated with floral centerpieces and all the silver utensils and goblets and linen napkins depicted. There are little pouches of something above each plate. “These are my party favors. They contain gold foil chocolates in the shape of coins.” She turns the page. There is a picture of an altar covered with flowers and doves. She moves it slowly before the judges as if she is reading them a picture book.

There is a collective “Wow!” Everyone is at a loss for words.

“Score?” Rosario asks, her voice flat and unenthusiastic.

The judges put their heads together. Then Angela holds up a ten. The Red Roses burst into loud whoops and clapping.

Deja sighs. It's already obvious which team will be called the best wedding planners.

Keisha, too, has a piece of copy paper from someone's printer, and all she has is a table depicted with plates and forks and knives and a vase of flowers in the middle. In the background is the altar with a few flowers drawn on—all daisies.
Anyone can draw a daisy,
Deja thinks.

Rosario, enthusiastic as ever, says, “Okay, what's the score?”

Angela holds up a card with a five on it.

The Red Roses are winning.

But then Yolanda comes through with the invitation. She must have copied a real one. The invitation is on cream-colored card stock, and she used a gold pen to write the words.

Angela, without being asked, holds up a card with a ten on it. The Purple Lilacs cheer and slap palms. They've just moved ahead. Ayanna's invitation earns only a four. She's made hers like an invitation to a kiddie birthday party, with lines for what, when, and where. It looks nothing like a wedding invitation.

Menus are next. “You go first, Deja,” Nikki insists.

Deja knows it's because Nikki thinks hers is way better and she's going to win everyone over with her cake samples.

“What's tofu?” Ayanna asks as Deja's menu is passed around.

“It's stuff that's real healthy,” Angela answers.

Deja takes her menu back and reads off everything on it, from beverages to dessert, to a passive, perplexed audience. The judges already have their heads together, and when she finishes, they raise a card that has a seven on it. It's better than she expected. She shrugs and sits down.

Before Rosario can turn to Nikki, she has already unveiled her surprise samples and has begun passing out purple construction paper menus. There, in her mother's plastic Tupperware, are odd brown cubes that look like small wooden children's blocks. Some have clumps of chocolate frosting, some have vanilla, and some are smeared with red jam.

“First, I'll read my menu. Then each of you can have one of my petit fours, which is going to be my dessert.”

The menus are written in marker. Nikki seems to be really proud of her creation. She reads to the group, “Appetizers (because you have to start with appetizers): Chocolate Chip Cookies or Corn Chips and Red Dip. Drinks: Lemonade or Root Beer or Coffee (for people who like coffee). Main Dish: Spaghetti or Fried Chicken and Potato Salad. Dessert: Petit Fours.”

“Where's something green?” Deja asks. “You always have to have something green.”

“No, you don't,” Nikki says, looking annoyed.

“Your menu doesn't sound like something from a cookbook. It sounds like you just thought it up.”

“You can find all my dishes in any cookbook,” Nikki says to Deja. Then she turns to the group. “I've brought samples of my petit fours. You all get to have one.”

Nikki proudly holds out her plastic container to each girl so she can select one of her creations. A few look a little doubtful as they decide which to choose. Ayanna, perhaps in support of a team member, attempts to bite down on hers right away. ChiChi follows suit, but Antonia just looks at hers.

The Lilacs, with their petit fours in hand, wait and watch. As soon as they see Ayanna struggling to bite her little cake with her front teeth and switching to her side teeth, they try to bite down on theirs.

“This is like a brick!” Keisha says.

“I can't even eat mine!” Rosario seconds. “I can't even bite it. I could break my tooth!”

Deja doesn't say anything. She just tries real hard not to burst into laughter. She puts hers back in the container. As everyone protests that Nikki's dessert could break a tooth, the judges each grab a cake and attempt a bite, just so they can join in.

“This is worth a two!” Angela exclaims, not bothering to hold up a card and not taking into consideration that the dessert represents only a part of the menu.

No one but Deja seems to notice the look on Nikki's face. When she snaps the lid onto the container and marches off, they all look after her, surprised. She doesn't even stop when the freeze bell rings. Rosario watches Nikki for a second, then announces, “We win! The Purple Lilacs are wedding planning champs!”

 

Nikki knows she's lucky that she doesn't get into trouble. Mrs. Butler, the yard lady, is busy fussing at one of the big boys from fifth grade. She misses Nikki stomping across the yard to Room Ten's line. Nikki has nothing to say when Deja joins the line. Nothing to say when Deja tells her that her team, the Purple Lilacs, won the wedding planners contest. Nikki just gives one of those quick shoulder shrugs that a person can hardly see.

Nikki has nothing to say when Deja's auntie picks them up after school, either. Auntie Dee will get to pick them up all the time, now that she's not working. Both girls sit in the back seat, staring out of opposite windows.

 

 

“What's with you two?”Auntie Dee asks.

Nikki just shakes her head. She doesn't feel like talking. But then she thinks of what her mother would say about not answering an adult's question. “Nothing,” she says.

“What do you have there in that plastic container?” Auntie Dee persists. The container sits primly on Nikki's lap.

Nikki looks down at it now. “Just something I made,” she says in a very small voice.

Deja pipes up then. “Nikki made some little cakes to give out at our wedding planners contest.”

Nikki looks over at Deja sharply, trying to decide whether Deja is making fun. She remembers the look on Deja's face and how she was trying not to laugh when everyone was talking bad about her petit fours. She didn't even try to stick up for Nikki. Plus, she put her own cake back in the container without even
trying
to eat it.

“Oh,” Auntie Dee says cheerily, “I hope you saved one for me.”

“There's a lot left over,” Nikki says glumly.

“Yeah,” Deja agrees. “There's a lot left over.”

Nikki shoots Deja another look to check the expression on her face. But Deja looks perfectly innocent.

 

Nikki's mother is in the kitchen, frowning at the empty sugar canister in her hand. She looks up as Nikki puts her backpack on the table.

“Honey, your backpack doesn't belong on the table.”

Nikki moves it to the bottom step of the stairs.

“Not there, either. Someone could trip over it. Put it on the floor next to the front door.”

Nikki stomps back to the door and plops down the backpack heavily. When she returns to the kitchen, her mother is looking at her with a frown.

“Did someone have a bad day?”

Pouting, Nikki says, “No.”

Her mother seems to ignore this. Instead, she asks, “What happened to the sugar? I'm sure I had enough left to make blueberry muffins, but...”

Nikki remembers the sugar she spilled in the sink. “I don't know,” she says, feeling her eyes grow big.

Her mother stares at her for a moment, then squints.

Nikki can't stay silent. “I tried to make some petit fours for my wedding planners team,” she blurts out. Her eyes fill with tears.

“Your what?”

“We made up these wedding planners teams—just pretend—for Ms. Shelby's wedding. And I was the one who had to do the menu. What her guests would be eating and stuff. So I wanted to make a sample of my dessert. These petit fours I saw in your cookbook.” Nikki is determined to rush through the next part of her explanation before her mother can fully understand that Nikki did something wrong. “So I got permission from Daddy—you were at your book club,” she says to her mother's frowning face, “and Daddy said I could, but to be careful. And I was careful.”