100 Days of Cake (16 page)

“I couldn't even keep a fucking hermit crab alive.” I keep
right on talking to that unknown person. “V is right; all I do is make the people around me miserable.”

“When did V say that?” Mom's jaw shifts, which is just great, because now she's going to yell at V and make things even worse.

“It doesn't matter.”

“No, she should know better.” She shakes her head. “That girl.”

“Please don't say anything to V. I'm fine, I promise. You're right; he was just a crab.”

“Honey.”

“Really, I'm fine.” I do my best to try to look fine. “Okay?”

“Okay.” Mom dons this smile that is so big and forced, I wonder if her face will literally crack. Pushing herself up from her knees, she goes to the window and throws open the shade. The sun stings my vampire eyes.

“There, isn't that better?” she asks.

“It's great.”

“Look how sunny it is out.” She says this as if it's a good thing, as if it hasn't been suffocatingly hot for weeks and the light blazing through the window isn't already oppressive. “Why don't you get cleaned up and then come downstairs? Maybe tonight you can help me make peanut butter chocolate swirl cake? That's probably just what you need today!”

I can't look at her, and the sun hurts my eyes. I turn
back to Pickles still in my hand. This is hopelessness. Again I find myself wondering about my dad with his big hands. Maybe he would have understood how a hermit crab and a dumb fish store could mean a lot to me. Maybe his hands would have been big enough to hold me and keep me safe.

S
ince I was awake almost all night, I feel completely justified staying in bed until I have to go to meet Mrs. Peck in the afternoon. But Mom has other plans. Around noon she knocks on my door.

“Sweetie, can you come to work with me today?” she says. “The receptionist called in sick, and we could use a little help.”

“Do I have to?” I'm ninety-nine percent certain this is just Mom trying to keep an eye on me. “I'm pretty tired from last night.”

“Just for a little while. I can give you a henna rinse or maybe braid your hair again—that looked so pretty the other night.”

The thought of having to fake smile at Dye Another Day is absolutely nauseating, but maybe if I suffer through a few hours, she'll get off my back.

“Fine. For a little bit.”

As I get up to get dressed, I see Pickles's crabitat and feel another gut punch. I couldn't bring myself to throw him away last night, so I ended up setting him back on the dollhouse couch and covering him with a blanket from the dollhouse bed. Pretty soon I'm going to have to throw him away before he starts to stink.

Dye Another Day is in the vaguely historic downtown part of Coral Cove. It's one of several brick shops and restaurants in this little roundabout by the movie theater. A few years ago Mom bought the vacant shoe store next door and expanded into the space—adding the spa area and creating a larger shampoo station.

V and I came for the grand reopening, and I'm sure I've come by a few times since, but it has been a while since I've actually looked around, and it's kind of shocking how nice the place is.

An inviting light blue awning hangs out front, and inside, the walls are a soft taupe. There are these big bold paintings of everyday objects—a blow-dryer, a stack of magazines, bottles of nail polish—I did a few years ago. I completely forgot that I told Mom she could use them. Maybe it's just the high-gloss frames, but they look better than I remember.

Also noteworthy, the place is packed.

There are five chairs, and all of them are constantly
filled with people getting color or cuts by Mom and her two other stylists—a twentysomething woman with a really intricate tattoo sleeve on her right arm, and then this incredibly dapper dude with highlights. Both of them look as though they belong in a much more exciting place than Coral Cove. Even with all the chopping going on, it's really clean; someone with a broom sweeps up the hair almost as soon as it hits the ground.

Everyone—the staff, the women Gram's age getting their rollers set, a young mom and her middle-school-age daughter, a business-suited guy on his lunch hour, some college girls home on break—is boisterous and optimistic and appears to be having a grand old time. And Mom is totally in her element. She knows everyone, and everyone knows her. They all share stories about their sig oths, their kids, their troubles with management at J&J. No one can get enough of Mom; she doesn't suggest that anyone replace their pet hermit crab with a gerbil. Even though I'm bummed and don't want to be here, I'm definitely impressed.

The receptionist actually is out, so I field a few calls, mostly just turning them over to whichever of the stylists is free to add the caller to the schedule. By the register, they're selling some flip-flops for people who come in for pedicures and don't bring their own sandals. Some pairs have little shells glued onto the strap for decoration. One is the exact green of Pickles's shell.

T
he idea comes to me at four in the morning two days after Pickles dies.

I literally bolt upright in the sleigh bed.

I'm not supposed to go into FishTopia until the afternoon, but I have the keys, so it's not like I have to wait for anyone. I shower, get dressed, and then bike to the store as the sun is splintering the sky. Bonus: it's not even scorching this early in the morning, so I'm only moderately puddle-y.

By the time Alex comes in at ten, I've already done all the stuff we actually have to do—clean and check the tanks, open the register—but I've also swept and mopped the floors and washed what must have been a solid inch of dust off the front windows. (Alex was right the other day, you really could barely see inside.) Plus, in the back room supply closet, I found extra plastic letter and number stickers to
fix the address on the door. And there are a couple cans of paint, so we can do something about the dingy walls. But now that I'm thinking about it, we should nix that and get something brighter, maybe a blue that will show off the fish tanks.

“Hey, Mol, I thought I was opening today,” Alex says, reaching for the schedule behind the counter.

“You were; you are. I just wanted to get a head start.”

Looking from me to the much cleaner store, to the cans of paint, Alex appears utterly baffled. “A head start on what exactly?”

“We're going to save FishTopia!” I announce.

“Save it from what? Chuck's selling the place,” Alex says, and it's a little frustrating that he doesn't seem
at all
excited about my plans.

“Well, it's like you said the other day, Charlie is probably unloading the building because he's losing money here. So all we have to do is show him how much FishTopia can bring in, and then he'll see that he'd be crazy to let us—I mean it—go!”

“How do you plan on doing that? Creepy Dude and your mom's boyfriend can only buy so many fish.”

Pinch of guilt again about ruining Mom's relationship with Toupee Thom, but I don't have time to dwell on that. I'll fix all that other stuff once I fix FishTopia.

I explain my idea to make a deal with Charlie. If we
can generate enough money in the next six weeks to cover mortgage payments and operating costs for the store, then he has to hold off on the sale. We can make flyers to try to get people in the doors, and we can start offering informational sessions where we teach people all about the joys of owning saltwater fish. Plus, the tanks and the fish really
are
beautiful, so if we rearrange the space, we could rent it for parties or events in the evening as another way to make money I tack on for good measure. Maybe there's no Mrs. Charlie . . .
yet
. “We could even have ‘Under the Sea' themed dance nights!”

Alex looks really skeptical, and keeps repeating the phrase “I don't know, Mol” every time I slow down long enough for him to get a word in edgewise.

“We have to make it a place where people want to be—like my mom did with her salon.”

“People need to get their hair cut. No one except Creepy Dude really needs fish.”

“Don't you see? Yes, everyone needs a haircut, but no one
needs
to spend sixty bucks on it. No one
needs
a pedicure or massage or Mom's special shampoo, but my mom convinced people that they do. That's what we have to do.”

“I don't know, Mol,” he says again.

“That couple from Kansas isn't even coming back for another six weeks,” I insist. “We can at least try.”

“I guess.”

“Great! I asked Charlie to come in, and he said he could stop by for a few minutes on the way to his kickboxing class.”

“Charlie does kickboxing?” Alex smiles. This is what he took away from my whole spiel?

“Alex, focus. We have to get this place in order before one, so he can see the potential.”

He picks up a roll of paper towels and the bottle of Formula 409. “Whatever's clever.”

“Thanks.” I'm touched. “It'll be great. You'll see.”

“What happened to my store?” Charlie asks when he comes through the door two hours later, in boxing trunks and a stained wife-beater shirt.

“What do you mean?” I ask innocently. “We just cleaned it up a bit.”

Cautiously he looks around like he's legitimately expecting a camera crew to jump out and announce he's been punked or something. “In the two years you guys have worked here, you've never done that.”

“I know, I know, but that was before. Everything is going to be different now.” Realizing I sound kind of manic, I slow down and tell him how we can turn it all around for FishTopia. I get to the part about having themed party nights to try to lure people in, when he cuts me off.

“Forget it, girl. I'm selling this joint.”

Sensing that I'm losing him, I go in another direction.
“Charlie, you're a businessman, a great one—a visionary, almost.” The flattery sounds ridiculously kooky, but Charlie stands a little straighter and he nods. Clearly I'm on to something. “You've always had a knack for finding diamonds in the rough and turning them around. You're like the next Jimmy Buffett.”