Dark chocolate espresso cupcakes topped with cinnamon café au lait icing, white chocolate chips, and chocolate-covered espresso beans
I bribe Marcus, the Baylor’s manager, with two cupcakes in exchange for locating a folding table and setting us up near the rink exit. With only minutes left in the game, Dani and I spread the cupcakes out on plates in a colorful display, chocolate and sugar and mint mascarpone mingling in a wave of sweet air.
“I hope you’re right about this.” Dani licks a smudge of vanilla frosting from her finger. “And I hope they dig your skatetrix getup.”
I drop some plastic forks into a cup at the end of the table and shake my rainbow-sequined ass. “I rock this thing and you know it.”
“Oh no, you did not just say that.” Dani laughs, but we’re both startled by the loud, game-ending buzzer. For a split second time stops, and then the cheers grow louder, a roar pushing out from the rink as the arena doors fly open. The crowd is insane, swarming the ice en masse. Above the center line, the school jazz ensemble flashes its brass horns, ready for a victory song.
Trust me—until you’ve heard Watonka’s future jazz stars blow Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf,” you haven’t lived.
“They won!” Dani stands on her toes, trying to catch a glimpse inside.
Seconds later the first wave crashes through the doorway, breaking on our table like an avalanche.
“Get your free Wolves victory cakes here!” I cup my hands in front of my mouth and shout over the roar of the crowd as they surround us, mouths open, hands outstretched. “Free cupcakes, courtesy of Hurley’s Homestyle Diner! Stop by tonight for half-price appetizers with every meal.”
“Free cupcakes!” Dani echoes. “Free Hurley’s gourmet cupcakes! Celebrate a sweet season with a sweet treat!”
“Stop by Hurley’s on Route Five for more great food and great company!” I say it as often as I can, whenever another hand reaches out from the mob to snag a cupcake. Their rabid, mannerless devouring is the highest compliment, and with every cupcake-muddled thank-you, I make a wish that this crazy plan is enough. Enough to save Hurley’s. Enough to mop up the spills. Enough to bring us all back from the abyss.
For the next half an hour we’re engulfed in a sea of blue and silver, but the boys aren’t in it. No way they would’ve spotted us from the ice, and by now they’re in the locker room recapping their epic win and planning a well-earned night out. Papallo’s, maybe, or one of Luke’s or Amir’s infamous parties.
I hand a Razzle Berry Blast Cupcake to another waiting fan, ignoring the burn in my chest. I miss celebrating with them. I’m sure Dani’ll score an invite from Frankie later, but these days, Princess Pink isn’t high on anyone’s A list.
By the time the crowd blows over, we’re completely cleaned out, nothing but cake crumbs and chocolate smudges from table to floor. After we clean up and stash the table with Marcus, I slip into the arena, hoping against logic for a glimpse at Josh. But save for the cleaning crew sweeping up rejected popcorn kernels and other left-behinds, the place is vacant. On the rink the Zamboni machine does its usual circuit, erasing slashes and gouges, the on-ice evidence of tonight’s record-breaking victory march wiped clean.
Back on Route Five, in an unprecedented comeback of its own, Hurley’s diner is slammed.
Dani and I push our way through a small mob in the front doorway, wading through wall-to-wall bodies to get to Marianne.
“Hudson, you genius little devil!” Marianne calls across the crowd, beaming. “We’re on a forty-five minute wait for a table. Get in here!”
Dani throws her coat under the hostess stand and jumps back onto the floor while I zoom to the back, digging my reserve cupcakes out of the cooler. Dani delivers them as fast as I can thaw and frost, no time for a nonsmoke break, no time to explain this half-baked plan to Mom. Out in the dining room Earl’s got the Sassy Seniors Knitting Club taking orders and refilling coffees. Even Bug has a job, writing down names for the wait list in his notebook, Mr. Napkins tucked secretly and securely in the backpack on his shoulders.
From my usual spot at the prep counter, surrounded as always by cupcakes and mixing bowls and white rubber spatulas, I look out through the window over the grill, right into the dining room. The joint’s so rowdy, I can’t pick out a single conversation. Underneath all that laughter and togetherness, bright circles of red and orange and yellow and white dot every table, some half-eaten, some still untouched. Only a true cupcake connoisseur knows the rules—you wait for when the conversation pauses, the moment you can devote your entire mouth to the all-important task of snarfing down the goods.
Mom catches my eye from across the dining room, and my stomach bubbles. I steady myself and wait for the glare, the portent of oh-honey-red-alert troubles to come. But she just tilts her head and smiles, looking at me over the entire city of Watonka. Most of it, anyway.
Body aching and sequined dress splattered with icing, I smile back at my mother, and her eyes sparkle like they haven’t in years.
Me and my bright ideas.
As Trick’s radio hums those sad, familiar notes, I lean against the bricks outside, enjoying a long white puff on my noncigarette. I must’ve been on my feet for two hours straight, running between bowls of cupcake batter, the ovens, and the dining room before we finally got off that wait.
My friend the seagull is still hanging around the Dumpster, scratching at the ground for crumbs. He pretends not to notice me and I close my eyes, loosening the tangle of thoughts and images I haven’t had time to sort out this winter. Walking away from the Capriani Cup. My father and his blog. My brief stint with the Wolves. My briefer stint with number seventy-seven. Everything that almost happened with Josh, but didn’t. Finally apologizing to Kara. All the arguments with Dani, still unresolved. My mother. The diner. My future, even less certain now. That old Erie Atlantic whistling on the track, still calling me to run as Trick’s radio sings into the night.
I been downhearted baby, ever since the day we met …
Guitar.
Horns.
Bass.
Cue those smoldering—
“You really are brilliant, you know.” Dani bangs her way out the door, startling the seagull into a shadowed corner. “What you did tonight? That was pretty rock star, Hudson. We’re still taking tables. And a bunch of people asked about catering and stuff. Your mom is, like, perma-smile. I don’t think she even remembers about the food review guy.”
Guilt pinches my stomach again, prickling up my spine. If I’d stayed here tonight, maybe we could’ve been more attentive to him. Maybe I would’ve recommended a different dish, something he’d like better. Maybe …
“Maybe no one else will remember him, either,” I say.
“Eh, no one around here reads anything but the sports page, anyway.” Dani smiles and looks at me for a long time, silent. Waiting. It’s my turn to talk. My turn to undo the knot of our troubles, to save us like the angel of icing stunt saved the night. One chilly winter doesn’t seem long enough to kill a friendship, but I guess all it takes is one bad day, leading into another and another and another, excuses endlessly regurgitated. Do it often enough and intention stops mattering, too.
I think again of Kara, all the times I could’ve said something to explain, to apologize, to try, but didn’t. I let our entire friendship die because I was too embarrassed about what I’d done, too eager to go into hiding. I still don’t know if Kara and I are on true speaking terms, let alone friend terms. And I have to accept that. It was my choice, after all—three years ago and every day after.
But now, faced with the same opportunity to let it all go? To let another friendship fade into memory while I hide out behind an apron and a mixing bowl?
“Dani, we really need to talk. Not over lunch, not next weekend, but right now.”
She lets out her breath, a big white sigh. “I’m so glad you said that. I have so much to tell you.”