FOUR

“Hey, Lucy, do you like this one?” Stella Rose points to a red-and-white lace hair bow with rhinestones around the satin center on the display table.

“It’s whatever,” Lucy says, shrugging.

We’d decided to sneak beyond Dad’s four-block radius mandate for a quick dash over to Santa Monica’s outdoor mall. We needed to ease the pain of Piper Parker marking her territory all over my street. Who doesn’t need a little retail therapy to soothe the soul?

“We need to stop in H&M to check out their accessories, too,” I say, touching all the colorful hair stuff next to the earrings. “Then we should head back to my house. I have a lot of calls left to make.”

“Okay, you heard the queen. Let’s make it count, people,” Lyric announces as she eyes the layout of the store. She taps her bedazzled watch with pink and gold rhinestones around the face, and we immediately get to shopping.

It’s funny because we always say we’re going to be in and out when we head into all the adorbs stores lining the Promenade, but the shopping bug can be brutal, especially when you have a designer in tow. And that would be Lucy. She’s a designer extraordinaire. She even runs her own online boutique.

“It looks eerily similar to the one you posted on your shop last month,” I offer, inspecting the row of almost identical bows in the store.

“Do you really think Anthropologie’s big corporate buyers are watching Lucy’s itty-bitty store?” Stella Rose asks, turning to Lyric. “I mean, it’s an Etsy shop.”

“I get what you’re saying, but if it quacks like a duck…” Lyric flips her pony around to showcase the Lucy’s Looks original holding her curls together. “And this, my dear, is what they’re quacking about!”

“Cluck, cluck, cluck!” Lucy says.

“I think that’s a chicken,” I offer.

“Whatevs,” Lucy snorts, turning her nose up at the rows of underwhelming bows.

Lyric shrugs. “Look, I’m just saying. Lucy just had the biggest sales jump of her designer career.”

“The holidays did right by me,” Lucy cosigns, holding the store’s bow up to Lyric’s pony. She twists it around in the air and then, after a few beats, places it back on the table. “It’s missing the love.”

“Agreed,” we all say in unison.

“And even with the spike in sales,” Stella Rose begins, “your parentals still haven’t found out about Lucy’s Looks?”

Lucy’s Looks is her baby. She’s been working on her shop for a whole year now. When she started, she only sold one or two items a month, but now she’s selling out of her inventory almost every week.

Lucy glances down the crowded aisle and steps closer to us. “Shhh! For the sake of being out in public, let’s just say I don’t know what shop you’re talking about.”

She’s keeping that big secret from her mom and dad, but honestly, I don’t know how much longer she’ll be able to hide her growing empire. Her bows are her specialty and they’re everything! Big bows. Tiny bows. Double-stitched and bedazzled bows. The HoneyBees even contracted with her to be their exclusive accessories vendor. Lucy’s Looks is hot right now, and it’s not like it’ll be slowing down anytime soon. But there was just one thing.

“How do you plan on keeping this epicness from your parents?” Stella Rose presses her.

“Yeah, you’re running a whole entire store from your bedroom, the one in their house,” Lyric says, checking the size of a denim mini with pearls stitched into the hemline. “Love.” She holds it up to her waist.

“Enough about my biz; it’s all about Lyric’s hotness right now,” Lucy says, shifting the attention away from her. “You’ll sizzle in that, b-t-dubs.”

I agree and toss Lyric a thumbs-up as she heads for the cash register. The truth is she’d look good in anything, and if I’m being honest, the stores should pay her to wear their gear. It just makes sense.

“I think I’ll wear this to the big musical audition next month,” Lyric says over her shoulder.

“O.M.Greatness! You’re trying out for The Wiz?” I spout.

“Of course she is,” Stella Rose says, snapping her fingers. “And you’ll make the purrr-fect Dorothy!”

“Thanks, guys.” Lyric blushes. “But now I just need to pick a song for the audition.”

“Anything by Queen Bey and you’re a shoo-in for sure,” I say, looping my arm through hers.

I bonded with Lyric before anyone else in our group. We were walking into our first troop meeting and she came right over to me, stuck out her hand, and announced that she was going to be bigger than Beyoncé. At the rate she’s going, it’s entirely possible. She can usually be found on somebody’s stage with a ring light glowing around her naturally tanned face, a fan blowing her thick hair, and a microphone in her hand.

Lyric hands the cashier a wad of singles. “I have a few bops in mind, but none of them make my voice pop.”

“Why don’t you ask your mom to help you?” Lucy asks, strumming through a few graphic tees.

“I know I’d ask my mom if she was a famous singer,” Stella Rose says.

I couldn’t agree more. “Yeah, Lyric, she’s like your very own secret weapon.”

“It’s even aligned with today’s affirmation,” Stella Rose professes, raising her hands to the heavens. “Everything I need to succeed is within my reach.”

Lucy inhales a bunch of air and fans herself like she’s about to faint. “I still can’t believe your mom’s on tour right now opening for Tre Boom.”

“And they’re super-duper famous,” I geek.

It’s true. Lyric’s mom is a famous singer, and her dad is a drummer in her band. Betty Jean explained that Lyric is some kind of musical prodigy. I googled that word and, yep, I agree. Lyric’s mom had a hit song a few years ago, and now she’s always on the road touring. That usually means she’s not around much when Lyric needs her. Lyric always says that her mom is somewhere in the world chasing fame. I’m not totally sure what that means, but I sure hope she catches it.

“I appreciate the positive vibes.” Lyric looks around at us. “But I don’t need my mom,” she says, ending the conversation.

Later that evening, instead of Pinkberry, the girls have a giant surprise in store for me.

“I still can’t believe you guys are giving up your evening to make calls with me,” I say.

“Tonight is going to be amazy!” Lucy says from the middle of my bedroom. She pulls my pink-and-gold braids over my Valentine Middle tee and smiles at me. She snaps her fingers and adds, “Why wouldn’t we step up to help you get through that binder and make those phone calls? I’ve already given this huge event a name: Brooklyn’s Big Friends and Family Phone-a-thon.”

“With us all pulling together to talk to your mom’s contacts, we’ll make a serious dent in your cookie sales.” Lyric looks into my grateful eyes, adding, “With your dad and Betty Jean making calls, too, we’ll def cover way more ground.”

“Yeah,” Lucy says, eyeing the binder. “And Piper Parker can’t get her sneaky hands on that.”

I reach for the binder and hold it up to the ceiling light like it’s a precious stone I found on a top-secret archaeological dig.

“Whoa! That thing’s pretty big,” Stella Rose says as we each take turns gawking at it in the fluorescent light.

“I know, right?” I pull it to my chest. “When I told Betty Jean that you all were going to help, she took the liberty of making copies of the pages. They’re in alphabetical order, so that makes it much easier to split up.”

“Who am I calling?” Lyric asks, picking up my hairbrush and holding it to her ear like a make-believe phone. She pretends to be serious, talking in an announcer’s voice. “Hello there, my name is Lyric Darby, and I attend Valentine Middle with Brooklyn Ace. Unfortunately, this call is not about me. Today I’m calling you on behalf of my girl, Brooklyn. I think you might know her.” Stella Rose fake-punches Lyric in the arm, and Lyric breaks into laughter.

“That wasn’t bad, actually,” I admit, handing off a small stack of papers. “You can take A through D. Most of them will be the Aces, from Dad’s side of the family.” Then I turn to Stella Rose and give her the next listings. “And you can be in charge of calling E through H. Most of your list will be the Harts, from my mom’s side. They’re really sweet, especially my older cousins, who are now, OMG,” I flip out, doing the math in my head, “in high school!”

“Time really flies, kiddo,” Dad says, easing into my messy room. He steps over piles of clothes and random stuff like there could be a bomb planted somewhere under it all. “They’re going to love hearing from you all. I know I would.” He finally takes a seat in the cramped space at the edge of the bed beside Stella Rose.

“I sure hope so, Mr. Ace, because I’ve never met any of them before, and talking to strangers isn’t exactly my strong suit.”

“Do you want me to take your list?” Lucy says to Stella Rose.

Stella Rose looks back at Lucy, her eyes screaming YES! But when she notices us all watching her, waiting for an answer, she shakes her head in a soft no.

“Cool.” I toss her a thumbs-up before turning to Lucy, counting the next four letters in the alphabet. “You can focus on the I through L section of the binder. Most of them will be Mom’s old friends from years past.” I glance down at a few names. “I see Mom’s old coworkers in here from the flower shop she owned and a few neighbors who’ve moved away.” My finger stops on a name written in orange ink. “Her old college roommate, Penelope, is even in here, too.”

I close the binder and sigh.

“Don’t worry, Brookie,” Betty Jean says, floating into the room with a tray of fresh cupcakes. She hands them off to Lucy, who grabs a red velvet one, her eyes saucering. “This is going to be a team effort. We’ll rock that binder one name at a time. And your dad and I will split up the rest of them with you.” She sits down and crosses arms for emphasis.

“Perf! That means you’ll be calling the Ravens.” I turn to the girls and explain, “They’re my godfamily. My mom met them back when she was in high school. Now they have a whole family that claims me as their own—godsisters, godbrothers, godnieces… you get the point. It’s a whole thing.” I grin at the cuddly thought of them. “They bring me thousand-piece puzzles whenever they come to town, and we have cross-country races with everyone to see who can finish first.” I laugh at the not-so-distant memory. “Mom always used to win.”

I know they all must miss her. That’s when it dawns on me that this phone-a-thon is going to be hard on all our family and friends, not just me. I’ve been so consumed with missing her that I hadn’t stopped to think about how everyone else must be feeling.

When I glance at Dad, he’s staring into his right palm, picking at his calluses. This has to be hard on him, too, I think as I pad over and rest my hand on his shoulder. He pulls me in for a snuggle and kisses my forehead.

“Mom would be so proud of you,” he says. “And I don’t know if I’ve told you, but I am, too.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“And I couldn’t think of better people to help you get down to business,” Betty Jean says as I pull her from the bed. “Friends and family are the perfect people to practice your big pitch, Brookie. You have to let them know who you are, what you need, and how it’ll benefit them.”

“Gotcha,” I say, more concerned with delegating office space. I point to the living room. “That’s your office, Betty Jean. You can set up shop on the sofa to make your calls.”

I double back to grab Dad and guide him toward the dining room. I point to the big, rectangular wooden table. “Dad, you’re going to be calling from here.” I hand him his list and turn back to the bedroom, where I see Lyric pretzeling her legs underneath her butt on the hanging chair and Stella Rose shoving all the clutter from my desk.

Lucy points to the kitchen. “This way I’ll be closer to the snacks.”

“Okay,” I say, standing in the hallway, cupping my hands over my mouth. “Let’s get ready to rock and roll! We’ve got two hours before Stella Rose has to be home to babysit Ollie.”

“And I still need to show my math homework to my dad so he can check it,” Lucy adds, walking out of my room, then whispering to me, “And I haven’t even started it yet.”

“Good grief, girl!” I balk. “You’re going to get me put on punishment with you.”

“No worries, I got this,” she says, and heads for the kitchen, her freshly colored blue ponytail slapping against her shoulders.

Seconds later, I race through the house, checking to see that everyone is at their calling post. Once I’m satisfied, I yell out, “All right, everyone! It’s time for Brooklyn’s Big Friends and Family Phone-a-thon. On your mark, get set, aaannnnnd go!”

Before I can catch my breath, muddled voices fill the air as calls are made to people all around the country who loved my mom.

I pad into the dining room, where Dad is on the line with my godfather, Harry. He lets out a small chuckle, but it’s a sad one, kind of like he did at the end of sappy movies Mom used to make him watch.

“Yeah, H, we’re getting along over here, slowly finding our way. Betty Jean is a big help—she holds down the fort—but my little kiddo keeps surprising me with her determination to keep this cookie thing going.”

I pass him, smiling inside, and poke my head into the kitchen, where Lucy is gossiping with Mom’s college roommate. “You got that right, Ms. Penelope. She’s the most deserving scout at Valentine Middle. But let me tell you about Piper Parker. You’re not going to believe this!”

I cover my mouth and snortle, moving to my bedroom to check in with Stella Rose.

“I, uh, don’t know you, Mr. Hart,” she sputters into the phone at my grandfather. “I, uh, just, uh, am calling to see if you want to place your order for the, uh, the, uh—”

I can’t watch her in this kind of pain for one more second. I take the phone and pep, “Hi, Grandpa!”

“There’s my little sweet potato.” I hear his raspy voice on the other end of the line, hunkered down somewhere in South Florida.

“Grandpa!” I giggle. “I’m not so little anymore.”

“You’ll always be my little sweet potato. But who was that other one on the call just now?”

“That was Stella Rose. She’s my troop mate. We’re Sunflowers together.”

“I see,” he says. “Well, do me a favor and tell her that I’d like to place my order with her.”

I put my hand over the phone and turn to Stella Rose. “He said you did a great job with your intro to him, and he’d love to place an order with you.”

Stella Rose blushes, a shocked smile spreading across her face. “Really?”

I nod. “Yep.”

She takes the phone back from me and gushes, “Thank you, Mr. Hart. I’d love to take that order from you. Give me one sec while I pull up the Virtual Cookie app.”

The next two hours fly by, and in the end, I’m saying thank-you to my uncle Tommy on my dad’s side, who places the final order.

I plop onto my bed, exhausted from talking to almost everyone in Mom’s cookie binder, but with over five hundred boxes of cookies sold, it’s the good kind of exhausted, like after a really hard cheer practice where all my muscles feel like Laffy Taffy.

I know I’m lucky to have so many people who believe in me and are rooting for me to continue Mom’s legacy. And after tonight, it looks like I’m definitely on my way to boarding that plane to help kids around the world who deserve all the love and support that I already have.

I slip into my jammies and walk over to the picture of Mom and me on my dresser that was taken the last time the two of us hung out at the pumpkin patch by the Pier. It’s the only thing in the room without dust on it. I stare at it and whisper-admit, “I didn’t know I could love you even more.” And it’s true. It’s like magic, because with each passing day, my heart grows bigger—and I absolutely do.