Emma's Not-So-Sweet Dilemma Read online

  “I take exception to your opinion, Mr. Rosner, but if you insist, I will call on someone less professional and, in my opinion, less beautiful, to come in and finish the showing with you. . . .” Mona was saying as I left the room.

  “It’ll have to be Saturday. I have to get going. I haven’t got all day for these shenanigans . . . ,” Mr. Rosner said rudely.

  I stormed into the dressing room, and Patricia’s head jerked up, her eyes snapping open like window shades. “Back so soon?” she said in surprise.

  I struggled to take the dress off as quickly as possible without damaging it. I couldn’t even speak, I was so upset. Thank goodness I’d had the dignity to storm out when I did, even though when the adrenaline wore off, I would regret not having given Mr. Rosner a piece of my mind.

  “Another look? Already?” Patricia said in confusion.

  And then Mona was at the door. “My darling?” she whispered. “Are you all right? I am so sorry to have put you through that. It was a terrible error in judgment on my part, all around,” she said somberly.

  I took a deep breath and willed myself to be composed. (Gobble, gobble! Quack!). “It’s okay, Mona,” I whispered.

  “You will be handsomely compensated for today. And now I need to find someone else to finish this. Someone who could be here this Saturday, who’s so eager for the work they’d put up with anything. Anyone . . .”

  There was a brief silence. And then I said, “Call Olivia Allen.”

  And that was that.

  CHAPTER 6

  I’m Damaged Goods

  The only thing worse than fake-sympathetic Olivia Allen is fake-sympathetic gloating Olivia Allen.

  From the get-go, Wednesday was terrible. Olivia had already texted anyone she remotely knew at school to tell them that she’d been requested by the Harry Rosner to model, after he’d fired a “damaged” model (yours truly) who didn’t meet his standards. Imagine me trying to insert myself into this—should I tell people that Mona had called Olivia “less beautiful” and that she was clearly her second choice? Should I explain how awful Harry Rosner was and that I wouldn’t have wanted to work with him, anyway, not even for all the tea in China? There was no way to gracefully right the story without looking like a jerk on top of being a loser.

  I hadn’t had the heart to tell the Cupcakers the news the night before, so they were a little miffed to hear it through the grapevine. I cried in the bathroom twice before lunch, and once again after, when I’d actually seen Olivia face-to-face in the cafeteria. While she was in front of a not-insignificant number of people, Olivia put on a big fake-apology about “stealing” my job out from under me and how she was going to give me a good talking-to about protecting a model’s “prized asset” (my face). She closed with an offer to contact Dr. Kaminow herself and put in a good word, in case I was having a hard time getting in to see him. By then, it was all I could do to nod and turn around without crying, though they were tears of anger and frustration as much as mortification.

  When I got home from school, there was an envelope with twice my going rate for a full day’s work, from Mona, hand delivered. I shook my head in disbelief as I looked at the amount on the check, and read her note, which said, simply: You’re divine!—M.

  I’d never be able to cash it, and I called her to thank her and tell her.

  Mona got right on the line. “Darling, the man is a beast! I told him so in the end. I cannot understand how it is possible for him to create such beautiful work when he is filled with such ugliness. Your little friend will suffice for this weekend, but I will wait for you to heal before I schedule anything with him again. . . .”

  “Thanks, Mona, but I can’t work with that horrible man,” I said.

  “Of course, darling. Well, I’ll make it up to you, then. . . .”

  “Thanks. About the check, Mona . . .”

  “Darling, you earned it! Combat pay! I won’t take no for an answer!”

  “Thanks, but I can’t possibly accept this much money. I really didn’t earn it.”

  “You certainly did. Now cash it and move on. Think of it as Harry Rosner’s money. Business is business. Now go get better! Kiss, kiss!”

  “Bye,” I said. Mona sounded more like her usual happy self today. That Harry Rosner had brought out the worst in everyone yesterday.

  Maybe I should put the money in my plastic surgery fund.

  Meanwhile, it was time for some tea bags.

  Thursday, Katie brought in a treat. She’d been tinkering at home, she said, playing around with some flavors and things she had on hand, and she’d come up with a couple of cupcake recipes and ideas that she’d brought in for us to try.

  Now, nothing cheers me up like a good cupcake (that’s how this whole thing got started, anyway), and I was happy to be a guinea pig today, especially since there was no sign of Olivia around to comment on letting my figure go too.

  “Okay, this first one is called a Snowball Express,” said Katie, handing them around.

  It was a dense white cake with a Hershey’s kiss baked into the center of it and heaps of fluffy white marshmallow frosting on top. It was so good; it was insane, as my brother Matt would say.

  “Next up, Cinnamon Swirl: yellow cake studded with Red Hots baked throughout, and a pink cinnamon-spiced frosting.” Katie doled them out and smiled as we tried those, too.

  “Delicious!” I exclaimed. Mia and Alexis agreed.

  Finally, Katie had made a red velvet cake with green cream cheese frosting on top. “Okay, this is not a new recipe but a revamp, with a sweet, seasonal design,” said Katie. “Tell me which one you like best.”

  “It’s impossible to pick!” I complained loudly. The cupcakes had made me slightly wild what with all that sugar.

  Mia said, “I think the red and green ones are the prettiest.”

  Alexis asked sensibly, “Which one has the least expensive ingredients?”

  Katie smiled again. “I’m glad you like them. Just remember, looks aren’t everything. We can make any of them look pretty. Which do you think kids at the hospital will like the best?”

  “The Snowball Express!” we all said in unison, and then we laughed.

  “Okay, then Snowball Express it is! And they’re the most expensive, Alexis!” Katie said.

  “Ack!” said Alexis, grinning.

  “We’ll make these all for the kids instead of two types,” said Katie. “So tomorrow: It’s a date! My house, right after school.”

  I had a sudden idea. “I’ll buy the supplies tonight, if you tell me what we need. It’s on me.”

  “No, you don’t need to do that!” the others began to protest, but I shushed them.

  “I want to. Some unexpected money came my way, but I’m not happy about it.” I grinned. “Let me put it to good use.”

  Friday was dark and freezing cold again. My mom said that it would probably be snowing by the time I got out of school, so she insisted I wear my boots and warmest coat, and pack mittens and a hat. I felt like such a dork. But when I got to school, I was relieved to see that the other Cupcakers had dressed the same.

  Luckily, my mom had agreed to drop the cupcake supplies off immediately at Katie’s the night before, on our way home from the grocery store. I would not have been able to lug them to school and then on to Katie’s, that was for sure.

  At school, everyone was buzzing about the snow, which had not yet started.

  “I heard there’s going to be a blizzard,” said George.

  “Two feet, I heard,” said Kristen Durkin.

  Jeanie Parker reported in English that it had started falling, and we all ran to the window to look, even the teacher. It was coming down fast, and patches of the ground already looked whitish. At noon, the principal came on the PA system.

  “Attention! Attention, students and teachers! Due to the worsening and extreme weather conditions, by order of the superintendent, school will be dismissed immediately. Please proceed in an orderly fashion. . . .”

  B
ut he was drowned out by cheers and screams and kids throwing books in the air, even! The teachers looked relieved; some of them had to drive from pretty far away, and with it being a Friday, traffic would be bad, anyway. I ran to my locker, so excited, and got my things together. We’d have less homework, too, since I was missing four classes and those teachers were big assigners. Suddenly, life was looking really good.

  I was pretty sure we’d be heading straight to Katie’s, so I bundled up to go search for the other Cupcakers, but when I slammed my locker door, who was standing right behind it but Olivia Allen.

  Ugh!

  “Hey, Em,” she said, all saccharine sweet. “Just seeing what you’re up to this weekend.”

  I pulled my hat lower on my forehead and lifted my scarf higher up my face, so that only about an inch of me was showing (granted, it was the bad inch). Olivia winced dramatically as she looked at my face.

  “Oooh, Emma, it’s got to just hurt so much!” she said.

  “Not anymore. Don’t know what I’m up to,” I mumbled through my outerwear, and I started to pass by her.

  “Okay, because I’ll be at the salon tomorrow and just wondered if you need anything from there? Should I put in a good word for you? Like, for when you’re all better . . . after the operation?”

  I wheeled around. That was it!

  “Listen, Olivia! There will not be any operation. And furthermore, the only reason you got that job was because I told Mona to call you. I am still her number-one girl and she told me so, word for word, when I called her this week to thank her for paying me double for the work I did with Harry Rosner. Get it? So don’t even mention my name to Mona or I’ll . . . I’ll . . . send you to Dr. Kaminow!” I shouted. And then I stormed off, leaving Olivia staring after me with her jaw open in exaggerated shock, shaking her head and trying to catch the eye of any passersby who might sympathize with her. In my last glance back, there were no takers.

  My heart was racing, and my breath was coming so fast, I had to get out of there. I stomped down the stairs, bashed open the doors, and ran outside. A row of school buses was idling and all was pandemonium as some kids raced to make their buses while others scraped the rapidly accumulating snow into any kind of missile they could form and then launched them at one another. I wished I could throw one right in Olivia Allen’s face!

  I ducked under the overhang to get out of the snow, and then I pulled out my phone and sent a group text to the Cupcakers that I would meet them at Katie’s. Tucking my phone snugly back into my pocket, I began trudging to Katie’s on my own. I had to keep moving, because if I saw Olivia again, who knew what I might say.

  It wasn’t long before my adrenaline began to fade and I began to feel really cold, and then regret crept in. Had I really just threatened to basically break Olivia Allen’s face? Wow. I’d been living with boys for too long. They were the ones who settled things with fists, not girls! Still, I had to smile, thinking of how proud they would have been if they had seen me standing up for myself. I can only be patient for so long before I totally lose it. It’s not a great quality.

  Lost in thought, I kicked the snow along the sidewalk as I walked, and I didn’t hear the feet coming up behind me until the last minute.

  “Hey, snow girl!”

  The Cupcakers had sneaked up behind me and were now jumping on me and grabbing me and joking around.

  “Why’d you ditch us?” asked Alexis.

  I explained what had happened with Olivia and told them how ashamed I was of my behavior.

  “Ashamed? Are you kidding? She had that coming! I was wondering how much longer you were going to let it go on!” said Mia.

  “Yeah, I was thinking of stepping in myself!” said Katie, flexing her arm muscle inside her parka.

  “You don’t think I overdid it?” I asked nervously. I couldn’t stop feeling like such a jerk.

  “No way. Not at all,” said Alexis. “Olivia is one of those people who you have to literally bash over the head to make anything clear. She’s totally alone in her own world.”

  “But people listen to her. She tells everyone everything!” I protested.

  “Yeah, but no one really listens,” said Mia, shaking her head. “People think Olivia is a pest. They just put up with her.”

  “Really?” I pressed.

  “Really!” the others answered in unison.

  “Come on, take a deep breath. You’ll feel better,” said Alexis.

  “Yeah, you did the right thing,” agreed Mia.

  “Now, let’s go get some tea bags on what’s left of those bruises!” ordered Katie, giving me a sideways squeeze. “And a snack!”

  “Count me in!” I cried.

  CHAPTER 7

  Snowy Sleepover!

  There is nothing as cozy as a blizzard! Especially when it turns into a sleepover!

  When it became clear that the snow was just going to pile up, Katie got permission from her mom to have us sleep over, and we all called our homes to have our parents drop off supplies when they got back from work. One by one the bags arrived, and we settled in for the long haul.

  We spent the start of the afternoon by eating grilled cheese and tomato soup, and then we began baking. We owed Mona her regular order of white-on-white mini cupcakes for tomorrow, plus the two kinds for the holiday boutique and the prebaking of the Snowball Express cupcakes for Sunday. We worked like a well-oiled machine and somehow got into one of our silly cupcake games as we worked. In this one, which we call Make It Their Own, someone calls out a person’s name and we all have to come up with a cupcake that sounds like them.

  For example, Katie called “Mrs. Wexler!,” who is our school nurse. She is supercalm, supersoothing, but a little dull.

  I replied, “I’ll take this! Okay, definitely thinking vanilla. Definitely something with graham crackers. Kind of dry. Mild. How about white cupcakes with vanilla pudding in the center, and vanilla frosting, with graham cracker crumble on top?”

  Everyone laughed, but Katie said, “Guess what? It was a trick question! Mr. Green told me at dinner the other night that Mrs. Wexler plays in a rock band on the weekends! I keep forgetting to tell you guys!”

  “No way!” we yelled.

  We had a huge laugh imagining Mrs. Wexler rocking out, and I changed my vanilla pudding center to spicy cinnamon syrup (because she has a wild private life under that plain exterior), which made us all laugh even harder.

  I went next. “Okay, here’s mine. Olivia Allen!”

  “Ooooh!” said Mia. “How about something hideous like pineapple upside-down cake with chunky pumpkin frosting, and some kind of little seed sprinkled on it that gets stuck in your teeth and annoys you for the rest of the day?”

  “That’s awesome,” I said. “Totally annoying—like Olivia!”

  “What about Matt Taylor?” asked Alexis, with a smile.

  “Oh no! I can’t hear this one!” I said, covering my ears with my hands like earmuffs.

  “No, it will be good,” said Katie. “Don’t worry.”

  “Well, it should really be bacon cupcakes, since those are his favorites, like they’re Emma’s,” said Mia.

  “Maybe blueberries in a corn muffin cupcake, like his blue eyes and blond hair . . . ,” said Alexis dreamily.

  “Oh gag!” I said. I rolled my eyes.

  “How about lemon cupcakes with a mocha frosting?” offered Katie. “You know, blond but strong.” She shrugged.

  “Hmm. It’s okay, but not beautiful enough,” said Alexis.

  “How about a Snowball Express?” I shouted. “Because I think it’s a good time for a snowball fight!”

  We looked around the kitchen and saw that we were in very good shape. There were no cupcakes in the oven; everything we had already made was cooling on racks on every surface. The frosting was ready to go, and we had the whole late evening ahead of us to finish.

  “Let’s do it!” yelled Mia, who was already pulling on her boots.

  Soon we were all outside, screaming a
nd laughing, making snow forts to protect us and piling up arsenals of snowballs. Mia and I took on Katie and Alexis, and we were pretty evenly matched. We were outside for almost an hour, and we were sopping wet by the end of it: freezing and exhausted.

  Mrs. Brown pulled up with a carload of shopping bags and war stories from the crazed aisles of the grocery store where people were panicking to buy supplies.

  “I got the last box of popcorn on the shelves!” she said, pretending to stagger with exhaustion against the side of her car.

  “Yay, Mrs. Brown!” I yelled.

  We helped her bring the things inside, and then we all dispersed to take hot showers and change into dry pj’s. Mrs. Brown was going to make chili with corn bread, and then we’d be watching a movie after dinner.

  Back in the kitchen all toasty and cozy, we finished frosting and decorating the holiday boutique cupcakes and the minis for Mona and then boxed them all up in our cupcake carriers (one of the hardest things about our club is remembering which house we left the carriers at. Luckily, this time Alexis had them, and her mom was able to drop them off with Alexis’s bag). We helped Mrs. Brown with the chili prep, and Mia made the corn bread and popped it in the oven, then we sat around while the chili bubbled on the stove and the corn bread baked, and we talked with Mrs. Brown.

  “Emma, honey, your eyes are looking really good!” she said.

  “Thanks,” I agreed. “The stuff you sent helped so much.”

  “Thank you for your sweet note,” she said.

  “I couldn’t believe how well the arnica worked. By the next day the bruising was visibly better.”

  “All those remedies are pretty amazing. You have to figure there must be a natural cure on Earth for every natural cause, you know? I mean, I’m not sure about diseases that might be man-made or man-influenced, but certainly allergies and aches and pains and irritations. I think modern medicine hasn’t scratched the surface of what’s available on this planet.”