“Omar — the class president has to do one thing at a time,” Meghan says. Her voice sounds strained, like it’s taking her a lot of effort not to start screeching. “You couldn’t lead a trip to the bathroom.”
“I guess we’ll let the class decide,” he says, and turns on his heel to walk away.
Artie shakes her head, frowning at the poster. “Unreal. He didn’t even hang it up straight.”
“Don’t you dare,” I say as Meghan reaches for the poster.
“What?” She looks guilty as she pulls the poster off the wall. “I’m just straightening it.” She hangs it up again, although I’m pretty sure she wanted to shove it in the trash. She stares at it a moment longer, then sighs. “Okay. I can’t let this get to me.”
“It isn’t personal,” Artie tells her.
“Well — it kind of is personal,” Meghan says. “But that doesn’t mean I have to care. I’ll be a better president than Omar, no matter what he thinks. And besides — I have other stuff to think about. Like the barbecue. Speaking of —”
“We were going to get some frozen yogurt and talk about decorations,” Artie announces. “Do you want to come?”
The mention of the barbecue has made me feel slightly queasy. “No, I — no, thanks. I have to meet Señor Derby.”
“Oh, I was thinking,” Artie went on, “since I’ll have to do decorations, and Hayley is making cupcakes, and Meghan is in charge of the whole thing, maybe we should meet up early and all go over to the barbecue together?”
Meghan lifts her eyebrows at me, but she doesn’t say anything.
I think about the moments that I’ve already let pass by — the moments in which I could have told Artie about Marco. But this isn’t like those moments. If I let this one pass, it’s as good as a lie. I have to say something. “Uh … I think I’m already going with Marco.”
“Well, whatever. He can join,” Artie says.
I look over at Meghan, my face pleading.
“I don’t think it’s that kind of situation.” Meghan’s voice is gentle.
Artie looks at Meghan for a long moment, as if it’s taking time for this sentence to compute. Finally, Artie looks at me. “Oh,” she says.
I want to say that I don’t know what kind of situation it is, but I know that will only make things messier. Instead, I inspect a crack in the floor that I’d never noticed before. It looks a little like the northern border of Texas. How fascinating.
“Okay, well … Okay.” Artie tosses her gorgeous long hair over her shoulder, and smiles as if this is all normal — fine — just what she expected, although I’m sure it isn’t. “Are you ready to get going, Meghan?”
“Sure,” Meghan says. “See you later, Hayley.” She gives me a little hug, and then heads down the hall.
Artie doesn’t say good-bye. She just follows Meghan out the door.
It’s not that I’m jealous, or possessive. I’m not like that.
It’s just weird to think that maybe Artie and Meghan are eating frozen yogurt and talking about me.
Maybe Artie is telling Meghan all about the time she confessed to me that she had a crush on Marco. Maybe she’s telling Meghan that she saw me kissing Marco just a few weeks later.
Maybe Meghan is thinking that it’s strange that I never told her about the kiss.
Maybe Meghan is thinking that we aren’t good friends after all.
Maybe Meghan is thinking that she likes Artie better than she likes me.
Maybe Artie is coming up with all kinds of great ideas for the barbecue.
Maybe she’s working on more fabulous posters for Meghan right now.
I imagine them wondering, “Why are we even friends with Hayley, anyway?”
And Artie says, “She can’t even get her posters done.”
And Meghan says, “Maybe you should run for vice president, Artie.”
I imagine them tasting each other’s frozen yogurt and laughing, and talking about making each other friendship bracelets and planning sleepovers and stuff.
But that probably isn’t happening, right?
It definitely isn’t.
Except that they were going to talk to me about my posters.
So who knows?
It’s not that I don’t want my friends to be friends with each other. Well, it’s not exactly like that. Maybe it’s a little like that.
I just want them both to like me best.
Is that wrong?
Pistachio Cupcakes
(makes approximately 12 cupcakes)
I love pistachios! These cupcakes aren’t green, but they’re packed with pistachio flavor.
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup ground toasted pistachios
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground flaxseeds
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup canola oil
INSTRUCTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.
In a large bowl, sift together the flour, ground pistachios, baking powder, baking soda, ground flaxseeds, and salt.
In a smaller bowl, stir together the sugar, milk, vanilla extract, and oil. Using a whisk or a handheld mixer, add the wet ingredients to the dry ones a little bit at a time, stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl a few times, and mix until no lumps remain.
Fill cupcake liners two-thirds of the way and bake for 20–22 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack, and allow to cool completely before frosting.
Pistachio Buttercream Frosting
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup butter, softened
3-1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1–2 tablespoons milk
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2–3 tablespoons ground toasted pistachios
INSTRUCTIONS:
In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, cream the butter until light in color, about 2–3 minutes.
Slowly beat in the confectioners’ sugar in 1/2-cup batches, adding a little bit of milk whenever the frosting becomes too thick.
When all the confectioners’ sugar has been combined, add the vanilla extract and ground pistachios, and continue mixing on high speed for about 3–7 minutes, until the frosting is light and fluffy.
“So? So?” Dad puts down the magazine he was idly flipping through and stands up. Annie looks up from the e-reader she brought with her. “How did it go?” Dad asks.
“Take it down a notch,” I murmur, then turn to wave at the Islip admissions officer who just interviewed me. I wave at Ms. Stoneham, and she waves back.
“Thanks so much for coming in, Hayley.” She smiles at my dad. “It was so nice meeting you, Mr. Hicks and Ms. Montri.” This woman is built like a stick bug — all bony arms and legs. She’s wearing a dowdy skirt and a pink sweater set, but somehow looks elegant, anyway.
“I know Hayley will be very happy here,” Dad says.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes and say, “Dad!” Instead, I just smile and smile until my face aches.
“Is it all right if we look around the campus?” Annie asks.
“Yes! In fact, I encourage it. There’s a small café in the library, if you’d like an espresso or latte, and it’s a very pleasant walk to the other end of campus. Do you have a map?” Ms. Stoneham pulls one from a display on the wooden coffee table at the center of the room.
I take it, even though I already have a map somewhere in my book bag. My dad makes small talk for another few minutes, and then we head out into the light drizzle.
“So, how did it go?” Dad asks once the door to the admissions building has closed behind us.
“I don’t really know. Well, I think.” I’m pretty sure Ms. Stoneham liked me. She smiled at my report card and laughed twice during the interview. But I’d never had an interview before,
so I wasn’t really sure what they were supposed to be like. Maybe laughing is bad.
The campus is made up of several classical brick buildings, and you would think that it might look dreary on a gray day. But the light rain is actually making the lawns look brilliant green. “It’s so beautiful here,” I say.
“Isn’t it?” Annie agrees. “Wow. Can you imagine going to school here? My school back in Thailand was a single building! And not even a very big one.”
“Hayley’s current school looks more like an old mental institution,” Dad says.
“Dad!”
“Sorry. But it’s that old giant prison style….”
I shake my head. What he’s saying is true. But still. I like my school, even if it’s kind of ugly. I mean, it can’t help being ugly.
A knot of girls in pastel denim skirts and pretty sweaters heads toward us. Two of them have brightly patterned umbrellas, and the third has a black one with a lining that looks like a blue sky dotted with white clouds. Those umbrellas reek of expense, and I can’t help glancing up at my somewhat lopsided red one, which is coming off the spoke in one place.
One of the girls — the one with long, glossy black hair — smiles at me as they all three keep walking down the path toward the arts building. Yes, they have a whole building for the arts. That’s just the visual arts, by the way: painting, sculpture, photography, and so on. Dance and theater have a separate building. So does music.
“That girl is carrying a Marc Jacobs bag.” Annie sounds shocked.
“Is that —” My dad shakes his head. “What is that? Is that good?”
“It’s expensive,” Annie says.
“Even I’ve heard of it,” I say, to give Dad some idea. He knows I have zero clue when it comes to clothing brands.
“My parents never would have let me have a bag like that when I was a teenager,” Annie says. “Not even if they were zillionaires. Which they were not,” she adds quickly.
“So … it’s bad?” Dad seriously doesn’t know what to make of it.
Annie and I exchange a glance. “It is what it is,” I say to Dad. But I know what Annie is getting at. These people are zillionaires. At least, they dress like it. And they — I don’t know — they walk like it. They have umbrellas like it.
The truth is, I’m feeling a little shabby.
I can’t really picture myself at Islip Academy. Mostly because I can’t picture someone in jeans with pistachio cupcake batter on her sweatshirt roaming across these perfect green lawns. And I can’t see myself wearing a skirt and a button-down shirt for a regular old school day, like the girls we just passed.
I’m too busy wondering how those girls manage to have gleamy hair and glowy skin to notice the puddle in front of me, so I step in it. “Ugh!”
“What’s wrong?” Dad asks.
“Oh — the water just sloshed through the hole in my shoe,” I admit. Now my shoes are squish, squish, squishing and my toes are cold.
“Why don’t we get you some new shoes?” Dad suggests.
“Well — I don’t wear fancy shoes much,” I admit.
Dad is looking at me with his head cocked to the side. It’s the same look Tessie gives when she’s trying to figure out what we mean when we say “sit.” It’s like, “Yo no comprendo.” “Does it make sense to have nice shoes with a hole in the bottom?” Dad asks.
“Uh, no.” I feel a blush creep to my cheeks.
“Let’s go downtown and get the shoes,” Annie says. “Then we can go out to dinner.”
I have to laugh a little. Annie’s always up for shopping.
“Well, there is a pair that I saw at Frantic,” I admit.
“So, let’s get them!” Dad crows. “Once we’re finished poking around the library.”
“Sounds good to me,” Annie says, and I hesitate a moment, then nod.
I may never be a rich girl, and I may never fit in at Islip, but I can have the right shoes. And I guess that’s better than nothing.
“Hayley? It’s Meg.”
“Oh. Hey! What’s up?”
“Meh. Campaign insanity and barbecue awkwardness.”
“Yeah …”
“That Artie moment was pretty painful.”
“Don’t talk about it.”
“Okay … What’s the story there? Does she like Marco or something?”
“Is this not talking about it?”
“Sorry. Sorry. But — can I ask one question?”
“If I say no, will you ask it anyway?”
“Why don’t you like Marco? He’s a nice guy. I mean, he has a temper, but he’s sweet. And cuh-yoot! Those eyes! I mean — you know, you’ve been friends for such a long time. Maybe it makes sense to try something else.”
“Meghan! It isn’t like that! I can’t like someone just because I, like, should.”
“Hmm.”
“It doesn’t make sense, I guess.”
“No. It does. I mean, I had that crush on Ben Habib, even though it was hopeless, right? Besides, maybe you like someone else better … If you know what I’m saying … Hello? Are you still there?”
“Yeah.”
“You like Kyle, right?”
“What? No.”
“Hmm.”
“Whatever. Maybe. I don’t know!”
“It’s okay.”
“Look — I don’t even know. Do you think that he thinks I do?”
“I have no idea.”
“He asked me to the barbecue.”
“Ooooh.”
“What do you mean, ‘Ooooh’?”
“I mean that I’m putting some stuff together in my mind. Like, Kyle asked you to the barbecue, but you’d already said yes to Marco, and so you had to say no. And weirdness ensued. No wonder you’ve been acting …”
“What? What? How have I been acting?”
“I don’t know. However you’ve been acting. Like, full of thought? Even Artie was like, ‘What’s up with Hayley, she hasn’t done her posters.’ Anyway, I get it now.”
“Okay.”
“Are you mad? Don’t be mad.”
“I’m just — okay. I’m not mad.”
“Good.”
“Meg —”
“Yeah?”
“Do you ever wish we were back in third grade? Like — do you ever wish we didn’t have to think about crushes and barbecues and all of that stuff?”
“No. I like planning barbecues. Obviously. Why — do you?”
“Sometimes. I guess I just wish things were simple.”
“Were things simple in the third grade? That’s not how I remember it. Are things simple for Chloe?”
“Not exactly. You’ve got a point, Meghan.”
“I usually do. Somewhere in there. Listen, I’ve got to go. My mom is screaming that I have to tell her what I want in my lunches for the rest of the week or I’m getting nothing but Tofurky sandwiches on gluten-free bread.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Whatever — it’s working. I’ll see you at school, okay?”
“Sure, Meg. Bye.”
“Bye, Hayley.”
“Fetch! Go get it, Tessie! Go on!” Chloe gestures down the hall, where she has just tossed Tessie’s favorite stuffed animal — which is actually a stuffed vegetable. It’s a fuzzy carrot. “Go get it!”
Tessie cocks her head, like a parrot getting ready to squawk.
“Go get it, girl!”
“She doesn’t understand why you just threw her toy away,” Rupert interprets.
“I didn’t throw it away — I want her to fetch it! Ugh!” Chloe stomps toward the carrot, but Tessie — sensing that Chloe is about to grab her beloved toy again — races in front of her and snatches up the carrot. “Drop it! Drop it, girl!”
“She isn’t dropping it,” Rupert says as Tessie races back into our tiny living room and scrambles to the other side of the coffee table.
“Get that stuffie!” Chloe commands.
My legs are tucked under the table, and I am happy to ta
ke a break from conjugating irregular verbs. “Here — let me have the carrot, Tessie.” I lean over to try to grab the toy, but Tessie hops away from me. It’s a pretty good trick, since the carrot is almost the same size as her entire body.
“Get the carrot, Rupert!” Chloe shouts.
Rupert looks at her with his eyebrows lifted over the top of his glasses.
“Sorry.” My sister blushes. “I just got carried away.” She dives for Tessie, and the dog streaks under the table. Rupert tries to stop her, but his knee knocks against the table, spilling my tall glass of iced tea all over my homework.
“Chloe!” I shout.
“Oh, sorry, sorry!” Chloe tries to herd Tessie out of the way, but the little dog is already trotting off — still holding the giant fuzzy carrot — to her bed in the corner.
Rupert dashes to the kitchen and comes back with a bunch of paper towels.
“What’s going on in here?” Mom asks as she walks through the door holding a paper bag full of groceries. Chloe takes the towels from Rupert and starts trying to dry my homework, but the ink has run all over the page. “Homework catastrophe,” I say. “I’m going to have to start all over.”
“Chloe?” Mom turns to my sister.
“I was just trying to teach Tessie to fetch,” Chloe wails.
“Next time, outside,” Mom says. “Are you okay, Hayley?”
I shoot a glare at Tessie, who is curled around her carrot and looking at me with guilty eyes. I’m super irritated with that dog. I’m about to say so when I look over at Chloe, whose eyes are filled with tears. Kyle’s words, “Yelled at two puppies, huh?” come back to me, and I sigh. “Yeah, it’s — it’s no big deal. I can still read most of what I wrote. I’ll just copy it over.”
Mom nods. “Chloe, at least get Hayley another glass of water.”
“Okay!” Chloe darts toward the kitchen, clearly glad to have something to do.
“It was iced tea!” I call after her.
“I’ll tell her,” Rupert says, and hurries after my sister.
“Thanks, Hayley,” Mom says, balancing the bag of groceries on the living room table.
“What for?”