Like Carrot Juice on a Cupcake (12 page)

with ink.

I tried to brush off the crumbs,

but the chocolate left streaks.

And my eyes filled with tears.

I should’ve taken care of that sweatshirt!

I should’ve brought it home

and kept it safe in a dresser drawer

and
worn
it today

and said to everyone,

“Ainsley’s mom made this sweatshirt!

Isn’t it
great
?”

Instead of saying she had a crush on Adam!

She’d given me a present, just to be nice.

And I’d ruined that present

and
her life!

I stopped brushing crumbs off the sweatshirt

and licked my finger

and tried to get out the chocolate.

And the ink.

That’s how my mom found me:

scrubbing at my pale pink sweatshirt

with a finger covered in spit.

“There you are,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

I shook the sweatshirt at her.

“You have to get the stains out!” I said.

“You
have
to!”

She looked at me funny.

“I mean it!” I cried.

She put her arm around me

and said, “Let’s get you home.

You can explain on the way.”

So I explained, slowly, on the way.

A lot of it was hard to say.

I didn’t know how she’d react

when I got to the part

about announcing Ainsley’s secret.

I thought she’d get mad at me

or say, “
Eleanor
,”

in a very disappointed tone.

But she didn’t say anything at all.

She just looked very sad

and very serious.

When I’d finished my whole story, she said,

“There’s a lot to fix, isn’t there?”

I nodded. There
was
a lot to fix.

“We might as well start with the sweatshirt,”

my mom said.

“But your dad is the stain magician, not me.”

“Right,” I said.

I’d forgotten—that was true.

And then my mom said,

“We’ll see what he can do.”

Being home

wasn’t great.

My mom had to get right on a work call.

“I’m sorry about this,” she said.

“But it’s important.

And it’s been planned forever.”

I wished, wished, wished

I could play with Antoine

while Mom was shut inside her office.

Or curl up on the couch

with Antoine beside me.

But he was gone.

I curled up on the couch anyway,

without him,

for a little while.

But just lying on the couch,

thinking,

I kept seeing Pearl’s face in my head—

that moment when she realized

she should never have trusted me.

And I kept remembering Ainsley wailing,

“I want to move back to Orlando!”

I had to jump off the couch

and stop thinking.

But then I didn’t know
what
to do.

I could watch TV
, I thought.

That’s what I usually did,

as a special treat,

when I was sick.

But I knew I couldn’t
actually
watch TV.

Because I wasn’t actually sick.

And I definitely didn’t deserve

a special treat.

I stood for a second near the couch,

just looking at the turned-off TV.

It’s impossible at school
, I thought,

and it’s impossible
here.

I’ll never be happy again
.

That’s when I heard our front door open.

My dad called out,

“I’m home!”

Even though it was very early

for him to leave work.

I ran to him,

and he gave me a hug.

“Your mom called me

right when you got home,” he said,

while I was still wrapped in the hug.

“I gather things aren’t going well.”

I nodded,

my face pressed against his shirt.

“Right,” he said,

letting me go.

“Let’s talk.

But first I must gather

my stain-fighting supplies.”

I ran and got Ainsley’s sweatshirt.

I’d folded it neatly

and put it on top of my dresser.

Then I met my dad in the kitchen.

He was setting sponges

and cornstarch

and seltzer

and spot-removing sticks

on the counter.

“Different stains require different techniques,” he said.

Then he reached for the sweatshirt.

“Hmm,” he said,

examining the different stains.

I held my breath,

thinking he might say it was ruined forever.

Instead he said,

“I’m up to the challenge.”

Then he went to work on one of the stains

with cornstarch and a sponge.

“Did I ever tell you,” he said,

as he scrubbed at the stain,

“about the worst thing I ever did to your mom?”

“No,” I said,

very shocked.

“
You
did something bad to
Mom
?”

He nodded

and added cornstarch to the sweatshirt.

“It was before we were married,” he said.

“She called me one night

when we were seniors in college.

Her alarm clock had broken.

She had a job interview the next morning.

She asked me to set
my
alarm

and call her in the morning, to wake her up.

So she wouldn’t miss her interview.”

He glanced at me,

then said,

“She really wanted that job.”

He started rubbing very hard on a stain

with the spot-removing stick.

“What happened?” I asked.

Now he gave me a very guilty look.

“I forgot,” he said.

“I didn’t set my alarm.

She slept through the interview

and didn’t get the job.”

He looked so sad,

I thought he might actually cry.

And this had happened
forever
ago!

“She trusted me,” he said.

“She needed me.

And I blew it.”

I felt very bad for him then.

Even though I knew

she’d married him in the end.

“What’d you
do
?” I asked.

He poured a little seltzer on the sweatshirt.

“She was
mad
,” he said.

“Understandably!

I apologized
many
times.

I bought her flowers.

I offered to call the interview people

and explain.

Nothing worked.

Until”—

he looked at me and grinned—

“I stood outside her dorm window one night,

with a boom box raised above my head.”

“What’s a boom box?” I said.

“A portable stereo,” he said.

“It was old-fashioned even then.

But it was like a scene

from a movie we loved.

I played one of her favorite songs

on that boom box,

very loudly.

And I sang along.”

“With your voice?” I said.

Because even though I hated when Pearl said it,

he
did
sound like a garbage truck when he sang.

“With my voice,” he said.

“I attracted quite a crowd.

She had to forgive me

and let me in.

Just to shut me up.

And the rest,

as they say,

is history.”

He shook out Ainsley’s sweatshirt then.

“We all make mistakes,” he said.

“The important thing

is to keep trying to make up for them,

for as long as it takes.”

He held the sweatshirt up for me to see.

It looked pasty

and splotchy.

“My stain-fighting magic needs time to set,” he said.

“And then we need to wash the whole sweatshirt

in hot water.

Do you want to wear it tomorrow?”

I nodded.

“And every single day for the rest of the year,” I said.

“If I have to.”

He nodded

and said, “I like the way you’re thinking.”