“HEY, ANNA.”
I turn my head. Ethan Zane is looking at me and it takes a second to realize that he is the one who is talking. To me.
I glance around the English room to see if this is a joke, but no one is laughing. No one is even looking at us except for Dani.
“Hey,” I say.
He squints, reminding me of his superlative in our seventh-grade yearbook: “Class Eyes.” Ethan Zane has chameleon eyes. When he wears green, they are green. When he wears blue, they are blue. They even change in the light. A girl could get hypnotized looking at those eyes.
“Nice job in the talent show,” he says, cocking his head at me like I am some exotic bird he has noticed for the first time, even though we have known each other since kindergarten. Which, come to think of it, is probably the last time he talked to me. Pathetic.
I lift my chin, say, “Thanks.”
“You surprised us up there,” Dani chimes in. “You haven’t been onstage since what—fifth grade?”
“Something like that.” I squint down at the short story Mr. Pfaff photocopied for everyone and asked us to discuss while he talks to someone in the hall. “This is like eight-point font. How are we supposed to read this?”
“I’m trying to give you a compliment, Anna.”
I look up. “Is that what you’re doing?”
“Yes.” Dani is frowning, which I know means she’s annoyed that I’m not giving her 100 percent of my attention. “You were good.”
“Thank you.”
“It made me hate you a little.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“Ethan thought you sang like Katy Perry.”
“Ha!” I snort.
“You did,” Ethan says, shrugging. “Looked like her, too.”
I try not to snort again, but it just slips out.
“Just take the compliment,” Dani mutters. “God.”
I look at her, wondering if she’s jealous, because that is how she sounds. Which makes me want to laugh. Am I cool enough to be friends with you now? I think about asking Dani this question—how much it would annoy her—but then I decide it’s not worth it.
“You seem different, you know?” she says quietly.
“How’s that?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
“I’m not the one who changed,” I remind her. “I didn’t become a cheerleader. You’re a queen bee now. I’m still just a drone.”
“Oh, Anna.” She sighs. “This isn’t Animal Planet.” Now she just sounds patronizing. “Cheerleading isn’t all glitz and glamour, you know. It’s hard work.”
I open my mouth, full of sarcastic comebacks, but before I can pick one she says, “You seem … happy. I mean, not that you were miserable before, but you seem to be having more fun … with your new friends.”
“So you’re saying you did me a favor,” I say, trying not to smile, “by dumping me?”
“No.” Dani sounds slightly miffed and also slightly embarrassed. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Okay.”
“I miss you sometimes,” she says quietly. “That’s all.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.”
Anyone can surprise you, I guess, if you wait long enough. You can even surprise yourself. “I miss you sometimes, too.”
Ethan groans. “You girls give me the shits. Drama, drama, drama.”
I’m pretty sure he means this as an insult, but I don’t take it that way. I laugh. He looks at me, surprised. When he smiles, I swear his eyes change color.
Maybe Ethan Zane is a witch … or whatever the male equivalent is … a warlock? The thought makes me laugh again, under my breath. I can’t wait to tell Nicole and Chloe.
* * *
“Try this one,” Marnie says. I am sitting at the kitchen counter after school, surrounded by muffins. “It’s pumpkin spice.”
“Mmm,” I say with my mouth full.
“I know, right?” Marnie says. Then, to Jane, who is sitting in her high chair, playing with a spoon, “Pumpkin is full of antioxidants, Janie. Can you say an-ti-ox-i-dants?”
Jane blows a raspberry like she thinks Marnie is full of crap.
“That’s right, antioxidants.”
Marnie still bugs me with her baby talk, but it’s hard to be annoyed with her for long. She is so fired up about this Marnie’s Muffins thing. It’s sort of contagious. The other night, when I came in after my big talk with my dad, and I told her congratulations—not for being pregnant, but for starting a baking business—she said, “I have you to thank, Anna.”
“You have Cupcake Wars to thank,” I said.
“No.” She shook her head. “You made the kale cupcakes comment. That’s what got me thinking.”
“I was mocking you a little. Sorry.”
“I know you were mocking me. And I forgive you. Because you’re also the one who suggested I go back to work, which is what made me decide to do this.”
“I am?”
“On the plane, remember? On our way home from Atlanta.”
“Well,” I said, “glad to be of service.”
One of these days, I may have to tell her that “Marnie’s Muffins” is a stupid name for a business, and I think she can come up with something better. But I won’t say it now. She is too jazzed about these pumpkin spice minimuffins.
I pick up another. “I think,” I say, “that you should call this one the Clemson Tiger. Because it’s such a lovely shade of orange.”
“Oh, Anna.”
“Am I right?”
“You are so right.”