“How did it go with you and Nick?”
Seeley and I are sitting at the way-back breakroom table, trying to inhale our lunches before break is over. I shrug. “He wants to have a bake sale.”
“A bake sale? A bake sale to raise two million dollars?”
“Hey, don’t make fun of him.” I feel a little protective now, like I saw a side of him most people don’t, a peek behind the curtain or whatever. It’s kind of making me feel a little weird about this whole scheme now, to be honest.
Seeley frowns and takes another bite of her fries. I got the salad today, I don’t know why, I really wanted pizza. I stab a bit of lettuce with my fork and swirl it around in the dressing until it’s smothered.
“Noted.” She sighs. “I won’t tease your little lover boy anymore.”
“He’s not.” I blush hard when the word “lover” sends my thoughts spinning in fuzzy directions.
“Not yet anyway,” she says, like it’s a forgone conclusion. I appreciate the vote of confidence.
“He said you guys talk about me.” I take another bite, studying her face.
“I have to sell it,” she says. “You want it to seem legit, right? Believable?”
“What do you say?”
“I dunno.” She scratches the back of her neck and looks back at me. “Just stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“I don’t know.” She widens her eyes, craning her neck the way she does whenever someone really gets on her nerves. “We just talk about school and stuff, and sometimes you come up.”
“He thinks you really love me.”
Seeley laughs. “You’re basically my sister, Lou—of course I love you.”
“Right, obviously,” I say, and I don’t know why I feel a little disappointed, but I do. It’s not that I want her to love-me-love-me or anything, that would be weird, but it’s more like the idea of someone as incredible as Seeley being in love with me is kind of nice or whatever. I don’t know.
“If you’re upset that I talk to Nick about you, I’ll stop. We never really talked about boundaries or anything, so I’ve been winging it.”
“No, it’s okay,” I say, leaning into her so our shoulders bump. “How was your ride with his other half?”
“It was—”
Angie chooses that exact second to come walking up, standing in front of our table with her hand on her hip. “Is it true?”
Seeley looks at me like she wants to disappear, and I raise my shoulders a little and shake my head. “Hi, Angie. What’s up?” I say, right as Seeley kicks me under the table.
“What’s up?” She seethes. “What’s up? How about what’s up with you setting me up on a date with the girl you’re seeing?”
Oh shit. “I didn’t, we weren’t—”
“This is really new,” Seeley says, jumping in. “I was going to tell you, I swear. I was trying to figure out the best way.”
“The best way? The best way would have been to be honest.” Angie turns to look at her, her face furious. “You used your sick grandmother as an excuse all week, when really you were blowing me off because you already had a girlfriend. That’s disgusting.” She narrows her eyes. “And I had to hear it from Jessa of all people. Do you know how stupid I felt? I’m sitting there gushing about you, and she’s confused because apparently you’re now dating the very same person that you swore to me was just a friend.”
“Angie,” Seeley says. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. You’re—”
“Don’t,” she says, whipping around to stomp out the door. “Lose my number, both of you.”
Everything goes quiet then, and the whole breakroom is kind of staring at us waiting to see what we’ll do next. Seeley drops her head to the table, leaving me to fend off the stares. I sit up a little straighter and stab another piece of lettuce.
“This is a disaster,” Seeley grumbles. At least I think that’s what she grumbles. It’s hard to hear when she’s got a face full of folding table.
I notice Jessa near the door, arms crossed with a little smirk on her face. Okay, what’s that about? Only I don’t have time to worry about that now, because Seeley is on the verge of melting down beside me. “It’s not a total disaster,” I say, squeezing her arm, but she just grunts.
She pulls her food back in front of her, sitting up in her seat. “Yeah, Lou, it actually is.”
“It’s more like a tiny disaster, really, in the grand scheme of disasters. You weren’t going out with her again anyway, right?”
“I’m a horrible person,” Seeley groans.
“You are not.” I stab my cherry tomato with a fork and drop it onto her plate. She loves those things, and it’s the closest thing to a French fry apology I’ve got. “Come on, try not to dwell on it. It wasn’t going to work out anyway, right? And we have a bake sale to run.”
Seeley pops the cherry tomato into her mouth and nods. She looks like she’s just humoring me, but I’ll take it.
“Okay, planning session, my place, seven o’clock.” I smirk. “Mr. P won’t know what hit him.”
“I was thinking about the bake sale.” It’s 7:01 p.m. and Seeley is already flopped across my bed, her notebook and scented purple marker spread out in front of her. “There’re a few problems we need to figure out. One, where do we have it? Two, where do we get stuff for it? And three, how do we to explain to Mr. P why we’re trying to raise money that we aren’t even sure he wants? On the flip side, a bake sale is super easy, people do like to eat, and I can make a mean cupcake. We can use it to spread the word about the GoFundMe account—which I looked at, by the way. Ten dollars, Lou? How very generous of you. But I was thinking we could also combine it with your idea for starting a petition to keep the place open. As much as I think this is a ridiculous idea, I’m sure you’re not the only one who feels like this. Probably not, anyway.”
“Okay.” I nod, trying to get my brain to catch up because she’s barely been here two minutes and she’s already getting down to business. “Nick and I didn’t get into the details much, but it’s his idea, so I know he’ll be down to help. We can definitely bake everything ourselves here. And maybe we could have the bake sale at Magic Castle, or in front of it, or like in the parking lot or something? Someplace where there will be lots of people.”
“Oooh, the parking lot is a great idea. People are always leaving to go eat lunch out of the backs of their cars and stuff. I bet we’d make a killing. I’d definitely pitch in for a few boxes of cake mix or brownies or whatever you want. I’m sure other people would too.”
“Okay, so parking lot.”
I watch her write it down next to the word Where? I notice she’s drawn a little doodle of our carousel in the corner of the page. “Do you think he’ll let us?” she asks, not even looking up from the page.
“He doesn’t have to know.”
“How are we going to have a ‘Save the Park’ bake sale in his parking lot without him finding out?”
“I didn’t get that far yet,” I say. “Maybe we can just say it’s for a local family in need and leave it at that?”
“That’s lying, Lou. You gotta quit that. Plus, people will get really pissed when they find out, which they will almost immediately, because you want to hand out flyers about the fund-raiser.”
“It’s not a total lie.” I pout. “I mean he is a local family, sort of? He lives in town. But I see your point, I guess. What if we just labeled it ‘for a good cause’ and left it at that?”
“Would you donate money to a ‘good cause’ with no information on what that good cause actually was?” Seeley laughs, pushing herself upright and setting the notebook on her crisscrossed legs.
“If it came with a cupcake, I probably would.” I twirl around in my chair. “Do you really think most people will even notice?”
Seeley raises her eyebrows. “I don’t think you’re going to make two million dollars in one summer without anyone noticing.”
“Okay, point taken. Do you think I should talk to Mr. P again, then? Try to get him on board?”
“I have no idea, Lou. This whole thing seems super out-there to me, but—” She shrugs.
I tap my pencil against my thigh. “But what?”
“But I know how much this place means to you. If I have to raise two million dollars fifty cents at a time by secretly selling cupcakes from the back of my car for a mysterious good cause, then I’m in. Even if it absolutely annoys the shit out of me.”
I drop my pencil, sort of floored by how cool of her that is.
She scoots forward, dangling off the foot of the bed to grab it for me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, no, that’s just ridiculously nice,” I say, and it hits me right then, for the first time, exactly how awesome she’s been about everything.
“That’s me, you know, ridiculously nice.” She fakes a scowl and growls.
“You are,” I say, before I can stop myself.
“Well, don’t go saying that in public.” She looks back down at her notebook, and everything goes quiet for a moment. I shift my gaze down, studying my toes until the moment passes. It seems safer that way.
Seeley clears her throat, drawing my eyes back up to hers. “I need to talk to you about something actually important.”
“Saving the park is important,” I remind her.
“Right, of course.” She smiles. “But something equally important we need to talk about is you blowing your date with Nick.”
“A) I didn’t blow it, and b) it wasn’t a real date anyway.”
“I left you guys alone at the diner,” she groans. “I literally whisked his girlfriend away so you guys could hang out, and you seriously, honestly spent the whole time planning a bake sale?”
“Yeah. He’s been so lovey-dovey with Jessa anyway. Plus, he got super insecure about the bake sale idea. I almost feel icky messing with him now.”
“What does that mean? The diving pirate of your dreams, the last few months the universe is going to force you together, and you’re gonna walk away now and let him live happily ever after with his fake fairy princess? After everything?”
“I think she’s Cinderella, actually,” I say. “She has a blue dress and a prince and stuff.”
“What does she need a diving pirate for, then? Cinderella didn’t end up with a diving pirate.”
“Neither does the hot dog.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do,” I say, thinking about how he looks at her like she hangs the moon. “Besides, you’ve been totally against breaking them up this whole time—how come suddenly you’re all ‘Down with Cinderella, I only ship hot dogs and pirates’?”
“Probably because helping you win him over has screwed up my life, so I at least need it to be worth something.”
“It did not.”
“Lou, everybody thinks we’re together. Angie is pissed at me. I don’t even know what Sara thinks. And now you’re telling me that maybe it was all for nothing. And I . . .” She rolls onto her back and stares at the ceiling, letting her words trail off.
“You what?” I ask.
Seeley drops her hands over her eyes. “Just, seriously, make up your mind already.”
I fiddle with some pens on my desk. “I’m just saying, the more I get to know him, the less I want to ruin his life.”
“Dating you wouldn’t ruin his life!” she says, her voice kicking back up a notch.
“Come on, Jessa’s perfect; she’s beautiful, she’s nice, she’s loaded. Why would anyone want to give that up?”
“She’s only loaded because of her stepfather. Underneath it all she’s a townie just like us. She’s not any more perfect than you or anyone else.” Seeley bolts upright and glares. “You’re so frustrating!”
“I’m not trying to be. I’m just saying I recognize my limits. This is me accepting that.”
“That’s such bullshit.” Seeley shakes her head. “You’re pretending to be all noble about not wanting to break them up, but what you’re really saying is ‘I could never have him anyway.’”
“Why are you getting so upset?”
“Because you never give yourself any credit! You’re the most passionate person I have ever met. Not everybody’s like that!”
I roll my eyes. “Like what? Weird? Obsessive?”
“No, not weird. Amazing. Lou, listen to me.” She leans forward, her eyes searching mine. “You go out there and you make stuff happen, for better or for worse. And that’s just . . .” She looks down, shaking her head. “It just really pisses me off when you talk shit about yourself. You say you want to be noticed, and you say Nick does that, but so do a lot of other people. The only one who doesn’t seem to notice how awesome you are is you.”
“Seeley—” I start, my brain flooding with a thousand emotions.
“Besides, Jessa’s not all that perfect anyway.” She sighs and cracks her neck. “I’m pretty sure she’s been screwing Ari on the side since last summer.”
And that, right there, stops my brain right in its tracks, because what?
“No way,” I say. “I don’t buy that for a second.”
Seeley rolls her eyes. “Why not?”
“Because Jessa is ridiculously nice. And, I don’t know, if even people like Nick can get cheated on, what hope does that leave for people like me?”
“Jesus, Elouise,” Seeley groans. “You’re ridiculous.” Her phone buzzes with a new text, and she grimaces as she reads it. “It’s Nick.”
“What’s he want?”
A tiny divot appears between her eyebrows, the way it does whenever she’s concentrating too hard. “He wants us to come over.”
“When? Right now? Why?”
“He wants us to come over and bake cupcakes.” She sighs. “Which, I’ll admit, is a little bit cute.”
“More than a little,” I say, a smile spreading across my face.
“He’s really into bake sales, huh?”
“I think he’s just really into somebody being into his idea.” I bite my lip. “You can go alone if you want.”
“I’m not going if you’re not,” she says.
“He texted you. He didn’t text me.”
“It says both of us.” She shoves her phone in my face so I can read it. “Besides, it’s the perfect way for you to get more time with him.” Her phone buzzes again in her hand and she snatches it back, flicking open the message and laughing. “Oh my god, Lou, look!”
She holds it up, and I can’t help but smile at the picture he just sent. It’s him giving a thumbs up with a giant bowl of cupcake batter in his hand. He’s even in a “Kiss the Cook” apron and everything. A pathetic little “aww” rips out of me before I can catch it.
Her fingers fly over the screen again, and a tight smirk tugs up one side of her mouth as she presses send and shoves her phone into the pocket of her ridiculously tight jeans. I wonder how she can even fit her phone in that pocket. Honestly, I can’t believe the pockets are even real.
I sigh. “What did you do?”
“Told him you couldn’t wait.” She laughs, dangling her mom’s keys in front of me with a grin.