chocolate with scoops of vanilla ice cream and sang that Dylan song as Bug and I drank out of the pink-and-white diner mugs and took turns twirling around the floor, collapsing when we got too dizzy.
… without your love, I’d be nowhere at all. I’d be lost if not for you …
The plows came that night, digging us out so we could finally drive home. I remember watching them mow into our snowman, his raw potato eyes browning in the open air. I wished we could stay snowed in for one more night, but school was set to reopen the following morning and so would Hurley’s, and besides, my father was probably worried.
It was the last blizzard he ever saw.
I look up and catch my mother watching me over the counter, animal crackers separated on a plate before her, and my heart cracks right down the middle. The left half knows that look on her face from the months following their divorce—her anxiety and worry. All that desperation. The quiet regret, wishing she could have done better for us, wishing the one who really owed us the big fat apology was still around to say it.
But the right side of my heart looks at the lines in her face and sees the map of my future. Today I take the waitress gig. Next I’ll be managing the schedule. Then in a few years or a decade or maybe even two, I’ll inherit the restaurant. Cement my crowning achievement as Beth Avery’s daughter, the proud-but-struggling new owner and sometimes-cupcake-baker of a forgettable old diner off the I-190, a pair of scuffed-up ice skates dangling from a hook in the staff closet, a bittersweet memento of another life.
I used to believe that figure skating was my way out, my first-class, one-way ticket to all the good things in the world. “Mom and I didn’t have the talent and opportunities you have, kiddo,” Dad told me more than once. “If you stay focused, you can skate your way to the top. You can be the queen of everything. You just have to want it bad enough.”
For a long time after he left, I didn’t want it. And now that I’m finally ready to want something again, it’s too late. I’m afraid to skate in front of people. I’m giving up the last of my free time to work at my mother’s diner. Queen of everything?Please. Every one of my chances is gone, and here I remain, stuck outside of Buffalo, the chicken wing capital of the world, queen of nothing but a few zany cupcakes.
“Okay, Ma.” I swipe a lion cracker through the sunshine-colored icing and bite off his head. “I’ll do it. But Sunday to Wednesday nights blow. After tomorrow, I want better shifts.”
She smiles, and the deep lines in her face vanish, temporarily changing the map of my future to a broad, blank canvas. “You got it, baby.”
Chapter Five
Opportunity Knocks You on Your Butt Cakes
Vanilla cupcakes baked over a blend of chopped pineapples, butter, and brown sugar inverted on a warm plate and served with vanilla bean ice cream
“Oh, Hudson!” Mom fusses with my collar, making a show of it in front of Dani and the whole entire diner. “Don’t you look adorable !”
I tug at the bottom of the lavender zip-up dress. If I tried to wear this thing to school, Principal Ramirez would personally escort me home just so she could slap my mother for letting me out in public so scantily clad. But tonight? I’m a Hurley Girl—says so in fancy pink letters over my left boob.
“Big step, baby. I’m so proud of you.” She wraps me in a hug, her hair tickling my cheek. I blame myself, really. If only I’d been better about attending those spring flings and winter formals, she wouldn’t feel compelled to gush over my first day on the job.
“No pictures,” I say before she gets any ideas.
“I think you’re beautiful,” an old man at the counter—one of our Sunday night fixtures—says. He smiles gently and sets down his empty mug, tapping the counter three times. Mom grabs the coffeepot for a refill.
“You passed the Earl test,” she says as she
… without your love, I’d be nowhere at all. I’d be lost if not for you …
The plows came that night, digging us out so we could finally drive home. I remember watching them mow into our snowman, his raw potato eyes browning in the open air. I wished we could stay snowed in for one more night, but school was set to reopen the following morning and so would Hurley’s, and besides, my father was probably worried.
It was the last blizzard he ever saw.
I look up and catch my mother watching me over the counter, animal crackers separated on a plate before her, and my heart cracks right down the middle. The left half knows that look on her face from the months following their divorce—her anxiety and worry. All that desperation. The quiet regret, wishing she could have done better for us, wishing the one who really owed us the big fat apology was still around to say it.
But the right side of my heart looks at the lines in her face and sees the map of my future. Today I take the waitress gig. Next I’ll be managing the schedule. Then in a few years or a decade or maybe even two, I’ll inherit the restaurant. Cement my crowning achievement as Beth Avery’s daughter, the proud-but-struggling new owner and sometimes-cupcake-baker of a forgettable old diner off the I-190, a pair of scuffed-up ice skates dangling from a hook in the staff closet, a bittersweet memento of another life.
I used to believe that figure skating was my way out, my first-class, one-way ticket to all the good things in the world. “Mom and I didn’t have the talent and opportunities you have, kiddo,” Dad told me more than once. “If you stay focused, you can skate your way to the top. You can be the queen of everything. You just have to want it bad enough.”
For a long time after he left, I didn’t want it. And now that I’m finally ready to want something again, it’s too late. I’m afraid to skate in front of people. I’m giving up the last of my free time to work at my mother’s diner. Queen of everything?Please. Every one of my chances is gone, and here I remain, stuck outside of Buffalo, the chicken wing capital of the world, queen of nothing but a few zany cupcakes.
“Okay, Ma.” I swipe a lion cracker through the sunshine-colored icing and bite off his head. “I’ll do it. But Sunday to Wednesday nights blow. After tomorrow, I want better shifts.”
She smiles, and the deep lines in her face vanish, temporarily changing the map of my future to a broad, blank canvas. “You got it, baby.”
Chapter Five
Opportunity Knocks You on Your Butt Cakes
Vanilla cupcakes baked over a blend of chopped pineapples, butter, and brown sugar inverted on a warm plate and served with vanilla bean ice cream
“Oh, Hudson!” Mom fusses with my collar, making a show of it in front of Dani and the whole entire diner. “Don’t you look adorable !”
I tug at the bottom of the lavender zip-up dress. If I tried to wear this thing to school, Principal Ramirez would personally escort me home just so she could slap my mother for letting me out in public so scantily clad. But tonight? I’m a Hurley Girl—says so in fancy pink letters over my left boob.
“Big step, baby. I’m so proud of you.” She wraps me in a hug, her hair tickling my cheek. I blame myself, really. If only I’d been better about attending those spring flings and winter formals, she wouldn’t feel compelled to gush over my first day on the job.
“No pictures,” I say before she gets any ideas.
“I think you’re beautiful,” an old man at the counter—one of our Sunday night fixtures—says. He smiles gently and sets down his empty mug, tapping the counter three times. Mom grabs the coffeepot for a refill.
“You passed the Earl test,” she says as she
Similar Books
