Alexis's Cupcake Cupid (4 page)

I didn't want this to turn into a business meeting, so I pressed on. “But I do feel left out. I want someone to like me.”

“I like you! Daddy and Dylan like you!” my mom protested, grinning. She knew that wasn't what I meant.

“Mom. That's not what I meant. And anyway, Dylan does not like me.”

“Okay, you're right,” she agreed, joking. She continued, “Listen, all kidding aside, I think you are too young to be worried about this, number one. There are more important things to life at your age—namely, yourself! And here's a little secret: Most adults don't even make that big a deal of
Valentine's Day. It's kind of an silly holiday. Number two, since you don't have a significant other in your life, you actually don't
need
to worry about it. If you did have a boyfriend or something, you could worry about what to do for Valentine's Day, but you don't, so don't worry about it!”

At this, I burst into tears.

“Sweetheart!” my mom cried, standing and coming to put an arm around my shoulders. “I am so sorry!”

“I wish I
did
have a boyfriend!” I wailed.

She hugged me and patted my back and whispered comforting words, and although it was nice, it didn't actually help. The only thing that would have helped was Matt texting/calling/typing to say he loved the cupcake. That's all! Not even “I loved the cupcake and want to go on a date with you.” Not even that!

But there was nothing.

“Listen, Alexis. I'm going to make your favorite chicken fajitas for dinner tonight. I'm going to the store in half an hour. Just understand, you are at a point in your life where family and friends come first. Boys will come along in due time, and you will be beating them off with a stick, trust me. But for now, pull yourself together. Get yourself downstairs
and call Emma or Mia or Katie, and make a plan to do something fun this afternoon. Ideally, something with fresh air and exercise. You're done with all of your homework, right?”

As if she really needed to ask that. I nodded.

“Okay, then. If you need a ride anywhere, I can take you on my way to the grocery store. Chop, chop!” She kissed the top of my head again and left the room.

I grabbed a tissue and blew my nose and dried my eyes. Then I took a deep breath. I sent a group text out to see what the Cupcakers were doing after lunch and if anyone wanted to go skating or anything.

It only took two seconds for Katie and Mia to reply that they wished they could but they were doing their homework.

Shortly after, Emma replied that she was babysitting Jake, so she couldn't go skating, but did I want to come over?

Sighing deeply, I replied, “N. Thx.” And pressed send.

She replied that she strongly encouraged me to use the time for a skating lesson. I sulked for a minute, then impulsively, I picked up the phone and called the skating rink where the Family Skating
Party was always held. The lady who answered was nice and said I could have a one-hour lesson with a junior pro at three o'clock for forty dollars. I had the money myself saved up from Cupcake Club stuff so I didn't have to ask for it, which was nice. I booked it and then went to coordinate a ride there and back with my mom.

My mom dropped me at the rink while she went to the grocery store, and she said if she finished early, she'd come watch me. I privately hoped the checkout lines were long because I did
not
need an audience! I closed the car door and headed in through the gate.

The skating rink was actually a tennis club in the summer, but every winter they built a really big rink with boards and chillers to keep the ice cold, and they had nighttime lighting (little twinkly lights in addition to the big floodlights) and music on the PA system, and it opened each year from early December to March. Inside the little clubhouse was a roaring fire surrounded by huge sofas, and a skate rental counter, and a snack bar that sold homemade soup and hot chocolate and plastic bags of popcorn, among other rinkside staples. (Hey, another possible Cupcake Club client!) The whole place felt cozy, like a ski lodge, and if I had been an
even remotely decent skater, I would have spent a great deal of time here every winter. But, ahem, I wasn't.

At the counter, a cheerful-looking woman stood sharpening ice skates.

“Hi, um, I'm Alexis Becker? I called earlier about the lesson?” I felt my palms growing sweaty just thinking about it.

“Oh, right! Hi, honey.” She smiled, and I tried to relax. She turned off the skate-sharpening machine and went over to the register. “That will be forty dollars, please. You're with Sasha today. She's very good. I'm sure you'll have fun.”

I gulped in nervousness. “Okay,” I said. “I'm sure.” She might as well have been telling me I was going to have fun at the dentist.

“And you'd like to rent skates, too, right? It's free with the lesson.”

“Yes, please.” I handed her the forty dollars, kind of wincing. I hate spending money in general, but spending it on things I don't really want is about the worst.

“Shoe size?”

“Nine and a half,” I whispered. My big feet always embarrass me.

She nodded and then went to get the skates.

As I waited, I glanced around the dining area and then did a double-take.

My heart dropped.

Seated at a table in the snack bar were Olivia Allen and the other members of the BFC, or the Best Friends Club. My
least
favorite people at school. They were the kind of girls who would snub you in public, scheme to get a boy's attention, speak to you only if other people from school were nowhere in sight (like if you ran into one of them at an airport with your family and your moms knew each other), laugh if you did something embarrassing at school, and so on. You get the idea. The last thing on earth I needed right now was for them to watch me take a beginner's skating lesson.

I considered fleeing right then and there.

But the lady reappeared with the navy blue skates in my size and handed them to me with such a cheerful “Have fun, honey!” that there was nothing for me to do but take them and skulk in a daze over to a bench in the dressing area to put them on. My lesson with Sasha would start in ten minutes. She was probably just like the BFC—stylish and beautiful and too cool for me—and the whole hour would be torture. Oh, why did I do
this so impulsively? I would have given anything for another Cupcaker to be there right then.

The skates fit, but they felt heavy and awkward. I didn't dare look back around the rental counter to see where the BFC girls were. I stayed frozen in my spot in the hopes they would stay at their table and I could slink out onto the ice without them seeing me. I had ten minutes to kill.

I pulled my hat low over my forehead, tucked my chin into my zipped-up ski jacket, pulled on my mittens, and slouched against the wall until it was time.

Unfortunately, everyone was getting ready to hit the ice for a four o'clock session, and it wasn't even a minute when the BFC swarmed the benches around me to get ready for what turned out to be their synchronized skating team practice. How it was possible for Olivia to ID me solely by seeing the one exposed inch of my face, I will never know, but she said, “Alexis! What are
you
doing here?” in a loud, phony voice when she arrived. “Girls, look who's here!”

They all looked at me, and a couple of them kind of nodded, but that was it. I wouldn't have expected more. Most of us weren't exactly on a first name basis.

“Are you trying out for our team?” Olivia asked, then she shot the other girls a look and they all giggled.

“Nope. Just getting some exercise,” I said.

“Nothing like exercising in the great outdoors!” chirped Olivia.

“Uh-huh,” I agreed.

She looked down at my skates. “Are those…rentals?” she asked, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

“Yup,” I said, looking away.

“Gross. How can you put your feet in those things after they've been all sweated up by strangers?” She shuddered. “I could
never
!”

I shrugged. I hadn't really thought about that aspect. The skates were dry when I put them on. “I forgot mine,” I lied. I tried not to think about strangers' sweat.

“Well, then, have your mom come bring them!” she insisted.

“She's . . . out.”

“I would have canceled, then,” said Olivia with one last look of disgust.

I should have,
I thought.

She and the others began peeling off their warm-up suits, until they were each in an adorable, flirty, little colored dress and tan stockings that went
clear down over their white figure skates and made their legs look long and their feet look tiny. They all looked like Olympians, of course. I guessed that was the point.

“Oooh, Bella!” Olivia squealed. “Let's see you in the new teal!”

Bella stood and modeled a tiny dress, and everyone looked to Olivia for her verdict before they said anything.

Olivia stood and cased Bella, stalking her in a circle like she was admiring a statue at a museum.

Finally, Olivia said, “It looks gorgeous on you! I love it!” The other girls all nodded. Their leader had spoken.

Bella heaved a sigh of relief and a huge grin spread across her face as Olivia turned her attention back to me.

“So who's your lesson with?” she asked, bending to tighten her skates.

“Sasha?” I said unenthusiastically. I didn't want her to think I thought Sasha was some awesome person since I'd never even met her.

But Olivia stood bolt upright. “Really?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“Um . . . yeah?”
Is this good news or bad?
I wondered.

“Wow,” Olivia said breathlessly. And then “Girls,” she called to her team. “Alexis is having a lesson with
Sasha
.” There was heavy meaning implied in the way she said Sasha's name, like they all would understand how significant a fact this was. However, I was totally in the dark.

They all said “Wow,” or some version of it, that implied awe, but again, I couldn't tell if it was good or bad.

I didn't want to let on that I was clueless, so I just sat there and waited for Olivia to say more, to give me an indication of how I should react. She was looking at me in kind of a funny way, eyeing my blue skates, my outfit, and then kind of shaking her head like she was confused.

“So, how did
you
end up with Sasha?” she asked casually.

“I called and that's who they gave me.” I shrugged, like I couldn't help it.

“Huh,” said Olivia. “Oh! Here she comes!”

She was looking over my shoulder. Olivia scrambled to stand up straight, so I did too. And then I turned around to search for someone—I don't know who I was expecting—but when I looked, I had to look down. Way down. Sasha was tiny, but so beautiful, like a porcelain doll. She had
jet-black hair, white skin, full red lips, and long, long black eyelashes framing sky blue eyes. She was wearing a red warm-up suit that was form-fitting, and I could see how athletic and lithe she was. Her white skates were pristine, and everything about her was perfect, from her tight ponytail to the tiny gold studs in each ear.

I smiled nervously and glanced at Olivia for some kind of guidance, but Olivia was staring openmouthed at Sasha.

Um, okay.

Sasha spoke first, and she had a beautiful accent that sounded like she might be Russian. “Hello! You are Alexis? I am Sasha.” She put out her tiny hand to shake mine, and I felt like a polar bear extending a huge paw. I had to take off my mitten, and still my hand looked huge in comparison.

“Hello,” I said meekly, and I smiled again. She didn't smile back, but she wasn't unfriendly. Just very, very serious.

“Shall we go?” Sasha said, gesturing to the rink.

I gulped and nodded, terrified. She began to walk, and I followed her.

“Hi, Sasha!” Olivia called desperately after us.

Sasha half turned and nodded in Olivia's direction.

“Hey, Sasha!” all the other synchronized skaters called eagerly.

But Sasha didn't turn around again. With perfect posture and elegance, she walked to the door in her skates, pushed it open, and held it for me. I went through and she followed.

Outside, as we walked down the rubber-padded ramp to the rink entrance she shivered and said, “Those girls are always so mean. I hope they are not your friends.”

And right then and there, I relaxed. I knew things were going to be okay!

“No. They are not my friends. Not at all,” I said triumphantly.

Then we edged our way onto the ice, and I promptly stumbled and fell down.

It was going to be a long hour.

S
asha was a tiny seventeen-year-old Ukrainian on the pro track, and because she was organized and driven, like me, we hit it off immediately, despite the fact most people who are great skaters (and drop-dead gorgeous) make me insanely jealous. Her family had emigrated from Ukraine the year before, and Sasha was being homeschooled, so she could train with a famous figure skating coach an hour away. She had been on the Ukrainian Junior National Team for figure skating and would be trying out for the US skating team when her green card came through, hopefully soon. Meanwhile, besides her training and schooling, she gave lessons around the area to earn extra cash to pay her trainer. I got all this in the first couple of minutes of our
lesson. She was very chatty and friendly.