100 Days of Cake (8 page)

“The best part? JoJo actually said the same thing happened to her! Like how is this a thing that actually occurs in real life.”

Alex starts cracking up. “This is why I only cheat on my girlfriends with toothless women; significantly cuts down on the chance of getting caught.”

“All I know is, I've worked with JoJo three days, and I'm already having nightmares about
Maury
. You were even in one.”

“You're dreaming about me now?” Alex moves his eyebrows up and down suggestively. “Exactly what kind of dreams are we talking about?”

Feeling heat on my cheeks, I swat his shoulder. “It wasn't
that
kind of dream.”

“Are you telling him about your dream where I was eating
all your mom's cakes?” Elle asks, back from a successful Jimmy extraction.

“I was entertaining both of you ladies in Molly's dream?” Alex puts an arm around each of our shoulders. “Nice!”

“It WAS NOT that kind of dream!” I say, but I'm laughing now too. “Freaking Jimmy was in it!”

Alex pulls back his arms and crinkles his nose in faux disgust. “Now, that's just sick.”

The two of them tease me about my stupid dream for a solid five minutes.

“Can we please talk about anything else?” I ask. “Alex, how's the band?”

Clearly this was the right question. He bursts into the kind of radiant smile usually reserved for toothpaste commercials. “I've got a whole newsletter for you. First off, we've changed our name. We're now Headless Naked Ken.”

“I love it!” shrieks Elle. “It's a complete dig on our plastic culture and unrealistic standards of female beauty.”

“Eh, something like that.” Alex tilts his head; clearly none of that had anything to do with the name change. “The other day we were playing in our drummer's garage and found some of his sister's old dolls without their heads. We thought it sounded pretty badass.”

Elle looks tremendously disappointed.

“But even bigger, we have a gig on Thursday night!”

He explains how the manager at McCloud's Music and
Coffee called this morning to see if the Flaming Dantes (the manager wasn't aware of the name change) would be able to fill in, because both the drummer and the bassist for Sinking Canoe (some local band I've never heard of) have mono and had to pull out of the show. “I mean, I know it's not the Viper Room, but it's kind of a big deal for us.”

“What? That's awesome,” I say.

“We are so there!” Elle gushes.

“Seriously?” Alex says, but he's looking at me, not Elle.

The thought of McCloud's and people like Chris and the Hot Topic girls and maybe Meredith Hoffman makes me itchy. But Alex is looking at me with these big wounded-puppy eyes, and I don't want to hurt his feelings one more time. And who knows, maybe Thursday will be a good day? Maybe all the therapy will work, or maybe Mom's cake tonight will be the magic bullet and I'll wake up and be back to the old me?

“Sure,” I say. I remember Dr. Brooks telling me that I shouldn't waste my time feeling bad about Alex and his issues, but I still feel really crappy about it.

That nervous tic starts, where I twist my fingers all together.

Alex puts a hand on top my finger ball, and I feel this little pulse of electricity, like something from physics class. I look up at his face.

“Promise?” he asks.

“Yeah. I promise.”

I
do actually intend to go to Alex's gig.

I'm not on the schedule at FishTopia today, so I spend pretty much the entire day in the model-home family room bonelessly slumped on the couch, watching reruns.
Roseanne
episodes with both Beckys;
Three's Company
with all three of the hot blond roommates (they were never recasts like Becky, but different characters written in when one actor would leave because of a contract dispute); and finally the
Golden Girls
block starts. They air this one weirdly sad episode where Dorothy's brother—who happens to be a cross-dresser—dies, and Sophia has a hard time grieving for her son because he wasn't what she thought a son should be.

The antidepressant commercial with the attractive family and their dog comes on again.
Ask your doctor about . . .

Maybe I should.

Maybe I will . . . if I'm motivated enough to go to my next appointment.

An hour before Elle is supposed to pick me up for the show, I go upstairs and shower under the big brass rain showerhead (another upgrade). Everything is going okay-ish until I pull open the double doors of my bedroom closet (yep, an upgrade) and realize I have absolutely nothing to wear.

There are a few dressy-ish sleeveless tops and a couple of long flowy skirts, which I guess would be okay, because Elle is driving, so I don't have to worry about anything getting caught in Old Montee's spokes, but when I take them down, they look all wrong, too froufrou, like I'm trying too hard. Maybe my uniform of shorts and a tank top would be okay since it's just a coffee shop? But my favorite cutoffs have crossed that line from worn to just dirty. And what if those Hot Topic girls are there all cool and judgey. Or Meredith Hoffman?

Stupid tears sting my sinuses. A part of me knows I'm being ridiculous, but it's like this loop in my head that I can't stop. How can I not own anything appropriate?

The panic ratchets up to the point where it's hard to breathe.

Still wrapped in a towel, water droplets skiing down my hair onto my shoulders, I sink down to the floor of the closet. Hanging clothes tickle the bare skin of my back.

The ring of my cell phone in yesterday's shorts pocket startles me. Checking the screen, I see it's Elle.

Man, she is going to be pissed.

“I can't go,” I say when I finally answer.

“What do you mean?”

“I don't feel well.” This isn't really a lie. My head hurts, and my digestive system seems to be digesting itself. Plus, I still can't breathe that great.

“Are you kidding?”

“No.”

“Come on, Molly. Alex will be crushed,” she says, and I can hear just how disappointed she is too. “We promised—
you
promised—him we'd be there.”

“You can still go; you should go.”

“Alone?” she scoffs. “Besides, he's
your
friend. You're the one he's totally in love with.”

Tears of frustration. That grapefruit bunched in my throat. I channel Dr. B.

“That's his issue, not mine,” I croak. “Can we just drop it?”

After a second she sighs. “Fine.”

“Will you just tell Alex I'm sick or something?”

“Sure.” Her tone is softer.

An hour later, when I'm still in the towel in the closet, Elle comes in.

“You didn't go to the show?” I sit up and make sure I'm mostly covered, even though Elle has seen me naked a
million times in the locker room after swim practice.

“I guess it's not really our summer to party.” She shrugs. “Your mom said we should come down and try the cake.”

I put on the dirty cutoffs and tank top, splash cold water on my face so I look less puffy, and we do.

The cake part is very rich and weirdly sticky, but the fudge in the middle is pretty solid. Elle eats a good half of the cake herself, and Mom is practically glowing because I don't hate it—even if I can't seem to get it off my fingers.

“Crazy good!” Elle is saying, reaching for another piece from the kitchen island.

“I'm glad you like it.” Mom smiles. “Maybe it would be better in winter when you want something warm.”

“Yeah.” Elle shrugs. “Right now I kinda want to chop off all my hair.”

She points to this cool braid that my mom has snaking around her head. “I wish I could do something like that.”

“We can definitely do that.” Mom touches Elle's curls. “That would be really pretty, I think.”

With fingers as quick as sewing machine needles (I'm guessing), Mom twists up Elle's hair. She doesn't even need rubber bands or spray or anything to keep it in place; she's that good. She leaves a few spiral tendrils out around Elle's face, which looks sweet and feminine. Elle practically squeals when she sees it in the mirror.

“Can I do yours too?” Mom asks me.

She used to do this for V and me all the time—try out new conditioning rinses or give us fun cuts from pictures we picked out of the magazines in her reception area, but it's been forever. If it helps with the heat, I'm willing to try. So I shrug, and she goes to work on my head.

As Mom finishes, Elle sucks in her breath. “Wow, Molly, you look amazing.”

I blush, and when I go into the powder room to check it out in the mirror, I can see that it
is
nice. But it makes me look really different. Without the mouse-poop frizz all crazy, you can see a little more resemblance between me and Mom and V.

Gingerly dotting the braid with my fingertips, I wonder if this is who I am.

A
lex looks kind of like Joseph Gordon-Levitt. But he so doesn't have JGL's acting ability. It's sparklingly clear that he's really hurt that I didn't make it to his show, but instead of just saying something about it like a normal person, he's doing a comically bad job of trying to act as though nothing is wrong.

“Byrne in da house,” he calls out when I pull open the FishTopia door, even though no one has ever called me by my last name and he never uses hip-hop-y phrases. Then he immediately starts sweeping the floors, like it's some ultra-important time-sensitive task—like anyone ever comes in or Charlie cares. He barely even looks at me.

Car keys and purse in hand, JoJo appears at the front door. “Ohhhh, love your hair, CCH!” she says, and I briefly feel Alex's eyes flicker to the braid Mom did last night.

“Thanks.”

“Okay, kids. I'm off to meet my man,” she says on her way out, the little bell on the door dinging after her.

“Wonder if that's the guy with the tooth collection?” I joke, but Alex doesn't hear or, more likely, pretends not to hear.

The whole bike ride over, I thought about how to apologize, but really I've just got to grow some lady balls and do it. Rip off the Band-Aid.

Following him into the aisle of coral beauties and butterfly fish where he's cleaning, I start to explain, “I wanted to tell you how so—”

Before I can get any further, he's over by the side windows, running his finger along the dusty sill.

“Ew, these are gnarly.” Holding up his pointer, he shows me the dark film of greasy schmutz. “I should definitely tackle this today.”

He starts toward the back room, and I follow, hoping he'll slow down enough for me to get a word in edgewise. But then he's got his head buried in the storage cabinets, and he's humming to himself as he looks for cleaners that no one has used since the place opened.

I kind of want to leave him to it, but, you know, lady balls, ripped Band-Aids.

“Can you slow down for a sec?” I reach for his arm. There's that shock of my skin on his that I felt when he touched my hand on Elle's porch.

For the first time since I came in, he actually looks at me, and before I say anything, his face goes back to normal.

“About last night.” I'm still holding on to his arm, so I let go. “It's not that I didn't want to come; it's just . . .”

So many ways I could complete this sentence. I went through tons on the bike ride over: “. . . just that I'm pathetic and would have ruined the show for everyone else anyway.” Or “. . . just some days the thought of leaving the house feels pretty much on par with scaling Mount Everest in flippers.” “. . . just that hearing one more conversation about the future makes me want to rip off my arm and jump on it.”

“Just that you were having a kind of cruddy day?” Alex mercifully finishes for me. Shaking his head, he adds, “I'm sorry for making things weird lately.”