Recipe for Trouble Page 2

  When the vendor offered Lexi some sauerkraut, ketchup, mustard, or chopped onions, she covered her plate. “No thanks. I like mine plain.”

  Dee raised an eyebrow. “What’s your record, Lex? Could you break Babe Ruth’s dozen down the hatch?”

  Lexi shrugged. “I don’t think I could eat more than two. Maybe three if I was starving.” But she had to admit, NYC hot dogs from street carts did taste so much more delicious than the ones her dad made on the grill back home. There was something about New York that just made everything so much better.

  Lexi loved how the streets seemed to have their own pulse, “the heartbeat of the city” Dee called it. At first, she couldn’t feel it (and frankly thought her aunt was a little wacky). But after walking around, all over Midtown, downtown, and the Upper East Side, she understood what Dee was talking about. New York had a vibration. She could feel it running just beneath the concrete. It wasn’t the rumble of the subways. It wasn’t even the hundreds of pairs of feet pounding the pavement. It was an energy. Lexi felt it sweeping her along, as if she was caught in some current, racing upstream. It was exciting and a little scary all at once.

  “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore,” Dee declared, taking a bite of her hot dog with all the fixings and sitting down on the Met’s steps.

  “What does that mean?” Lexi asked, settling beside her.

  “It means NYC is far from New Fairfield,” she explained.

  “It was only a few stops on the train,” Lexi corrected her. “Maybe just fifty miles.”

  “I don’t mean that,” Dee insisted. “I mean you have to think and act like a New Yorker. Take some chances!”

  She squirted a glob of hot sauce out of a packet and onto Lexi’s hot dog. Lexi gulped; she was afraid it would be super spicy and set her mouth on fire. But she was so hungry, and it smelled so good.

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Dee said, licking her lips.

  Lexi closed her eyes and took a small nibble. It was hot all right—it made her tongue tingle. But it was delicious!

  “I like it!” Lexi announced. “I guess, like a cupcake, a hot dog needs a topping.”

  • • •

  That wasn’t the only culinary adventure Aunt Dee took her on. On a Wednesday, they ventured down to Hell’s Kitchen, and her aunt’s favorite little French bistro for a pre-theater meal. It had a garden out back and served all kinds of French delicacies—like smelly truffles, snails, and frog legs!

  “Oh, I couldn’t,” Lexi insisted when her aunt put a garlicky snail on a small fork and handed it to her.

  “Ya don’t know what you’re missing!” Dee said, popping it in her mouth. “Escargot is magnifique!”

  So Lexi closed her eyes and took a taste. The escargot was kind of slimy on her tongue, but it had a nice, buttery flavor.

  “Not bad, right?” Dee asked. “Maybe you could make an escargot cupcake one day!”

  Lexi grimaced at the thought. “Not even for April Fool’s Day. That would be just too gross!” she giggled.

  They went to see a Broadway musical with lots of chorus girls kicking up their heels and a leading man who danced around in tap shoes and a bow tie. He and the leading lady crooned silly love songs to each other, stuff like, “I’ve got a crush on you, sweetie pie!” and “Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you!” At the end of the show, there was a big, over-the-top white wedding, with swans, silver sequins, and giant wedding bells.

  “Mush,” Aunt Dee declared. “But good mush.” They left the theater, humming a Gershwin tune.

  “Are you going to get married soon, Aunt Dee?” Lexi asked suddenly.

  “Whoa! I don’t even have a boyfriend. Slow down!” her aunt chuckled.

  Lexi wondered what had happened to her last serious boyfriend, E.J. He was a film student at NYU, and Dee had brought him to Thanksgiving dinner in Connecticut. He had cool, spiky hair and wore sunglasses at night. Lexi liked him a lot, but her parents frowned when he put his feet up on their coffee table.

  “E.J. and I broke up. He wanted to go to Hollywood. I wanted to stay here. I love New York too much to leave it. So hasta la vista, baby!”

  Her aunt was trying to joke about it, but Lexi could sense she was sadder than she let on. Though she tried to come off like a tough cookie, Dee loved sappy, romantic musicals. She believed in true love.

  “How about you? You have a boyfriend?” Dee tried to change the subject.

  “Me? I’m only ten!” Lexi protested.

  “I had a boyfriend when I was ten. Just ask your mother. His name was Nathaniel Rothstein. He played the drums. He was dreamy.”

  Lexi giggled. “Nathaniel? What kind of a name is Nathaniel?”

  “I agree, the name was a little lame. But Nate was a really nice boy, the first boy to ever notice me. He shared his chocolate milk with me in the cafeteria. Two straws. We were inseparable all through fourth and fifth grade before he moved to Arizona.”

  Lexi tried to picture her aunt and Nathaniel at age ten, slurping chocolate milk and singing, “S’wonderful…s’marvelous…that you should care for me!” to each other, just like they’d seen in the show. She wondered if Dee wore floppy hats back then…

  “You’ll have a boyfriend soon, Lexi,” Aunt Dee assured her.

  Lexi shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’m just too shy. I’d panic if a boy talked to me.”

  “Well then, we have our work cut out for us these next few weeks,” Dee said, linking arms with her. “There’s some lucky guy out there just waiting to sweep you off your feet!” She twirled Lexi around, right in the middle of Broadway.

  • • •

  Lexi was too busy with her art classes at the Met to even think about falling in love. She was too in love with the museum! Every day, she walked through the Great Hall, gazing up at the soaring arches, and made her away through the exhibits, trying to take it all in. There were so many beautiful paintings and sculptures. She loved Cézanne’s still lifes the most, how he made even common objects like a ginger jar, a teacup, or a pile of apples take on a magical glow on the canvas. Like in a 3-D movie, the objects seem to leap out at her.

  “What are you painting, Lexi?” her instructor Mr. Ruffalo asked, peering over her shoulder. Lexi gulped. She hated to be put on the spot. Her heart raced and she could feel her cheeks burn as her fellow art students gathered around. Plus Mr. Ruffalo was a little scary. He wore these big, round black glasses that made him look like a wise old owl. She was sure he could see right through a painting—and right through a person. So she was very, very careful when she answered.

  “Um, just a still life of some cupcakes,” Lexi replied.

  Mr. Ruffalo pursed his lips. “Hmmm…very interesting. Your use of blue light in the background to illuminate the red frosting of the cupcakes. The bottle of vanilla next to them. It’s very Cézanne.”

  Oh my gosh! Did he just compare me to a famous French impressionist? Lexi couldn’t wait till her aunt met her at the front steps of the museum that afternoon to tell her.

  “Aunt Dee! Aunt Dee!” she squealed. “You have to come see this!” She dragged her into a small gallery on the second floor of the museum.

  “Look at this!” she said, flipping through her portfolio and pulling out her still life painting.

  “It’s very nice, Lex…”

  “And this,” she said, spinning Dee around to face a wall of the gallery. “Look at this!”

  Dee pondered the painting hanging in front of them. It was a pile of apples with a brown bottle next to them.

  “Uh-huh,” she said simply. “Nice apples?”

  “It’s Cézanne! Mr. Ruffalo said I did a great job capturing the technique of Cézanne!”

  Aunt Dee stared harder at the painting on the wall. “Okay, but it just doesn’t float my boat,” she replied.
“Not enough colors. It’s kind of boring.”

  There was an audible gasp behind them. Lexi noticed a few Japanese tourists staring. She prayed that Dee wouldn’t offer her opinion in their native language.

  “Well, it’s supposed to be like that. Cézanne took months to finish this piece.”

  “Well, that explains it. He spent too much time cooped up inside!”

  Lexi huffed and put her painting back in her portfolio. It was no use—Aunt Dee was simply not a fan of Impressionist art.

  Dee yawned. “Come on. Let’s get outta here and have some real fun!”

  They spent the rest of the afternoon in Central Park, riding the carousel, pitching pennies into the Bethesda Fountain, and taking a rowboat out on the lake.

  Lexi was a little nervous she’d tip over and fall in the water, especially when Dee rocked the boat as she rowed. “I’m not a really good swimmer,” she confided in her aunt, holding on to the boat’s sides with an iron grip.

  “Me neither,” said Dee. “But I’m a good floater!”

  Then they sat in the sheep meadow, licking Popsicles they bought from an ice cream cart. The red and yellow pop dripped all over Dee’s white tank top, but she didn’t seem to care. “Makes a cool tie-dye pattern, don’t ya think?” she said, rubbing it in with a napkin.

  Lexi laughed. Sometimes Aunt Dee seemed more like a kid than a grown-up, but Lexi loved that about her (even if it drove her father crazy!). She pulled a notebook and markers out of her backpack and started drawing.

  “What’s that?” Dee asked, watching her.

  “It’s an idea for a cupcake,” Lexi replied. “I call it Friday in the Park with Dee.” On the red and yellow tie-dye frosting, she drew a boat, a carousel horse, and a Popsicle. “I could sculpt these out of fondant.”

  “Edible art. I like it,” Dee said, rolling over in the grass to tan her back. “It’s a lot better than that Cézanne dude we saw in the museum!”

  • • •

  By the middle of August, Lexi had filled an entire notebook with cupcake ideas and drawings. No matter what painting or sculpture she studied at the Met, she could also envision it as a delicious cupcake.

  “I was thinking I could do tiny dots in different colors of frosting to look like a Seurat painting,” she explained.

  Aunt Dee looked puzzled. “A sir what?”

  “Sir-rah,” Lexi giggled. “Georges Seurat. He was a French postimpressionist. And when you look at his paintings up close, all you see is lots of little dots. But when you step back, you see the big picture.”

  “Hmm. Sounds complicated. But if anyone can do it, kiddo, you can!”

  With Aunt Dee’s vote of confidence, Lexi drew Back-to-School cupcakes topped with tiny fondant rulers and pencils, and cupcakes sprinkled with red sugar crystals to look like shiny apples. Then there was her favorite design: a fudge brownie cupcake for Valentine’s Day with a marshmallow heart on top. She called it Bake Me, I’m Yours. Aunt Dee had suggested the heart. She sprinkled mini marshmallows on practically everything—even brussels sprouts. “Marshmallows make the world a better place,” she declared.

  Thanks to her aunt, Lexi got to see parts of NYC she didn’t even know existed: the Lower East Side (Aunt Dee’s fave place to buy pickle chips), the South Street Seaport, Randall’s Island. They rode the rickety Cyclone roller coaster at Coney Island and sipped Earl Grey tea at Tea & Sympathy in the Village. Aunt Dee knew all the best places and filled every day with surprises.

  “What about clotted cream frosting?” her aunt asked, smearing cream and jelly on a warm-from-the-oven cinnamon scone. “You could make a recipe for it on a vanilla cupcake.”

  “That could be delicious,” Lexi said, noting it in her notebook. “And I could do an Earl Gray tea-infused frosting too. It would go great on a dark chocolate cupcake.”

  “Mmmm.” Dee nodded. “Don’t forget to add the marshmallows on top.”

  • • •

  Lexi couldn’t wait to share her cupcake ideas with her friends! In all the activity of the past four weeks, she’d almost forgotten how much she’d missed them. Now she’d miss Aunt Dee.

  “You’ll call me with weekly updates, right?” Dee asked, hugging her on the Metro North platform.

  “I will!” Lexi said. “Thank you for the most amazing summer I’ve ever had.”

  “And you won’t forget everything I taught you: hot sauce on hot dogs and escargot cupcakes.”

  Lexi laughed. “You taught me a lot more than that!”

  Her aunt handed her a little package, bundled in comic book pages. Even the wrapping made Lexi smile. “For you! A souvenir,” Dee said.

  Lexi tore it open. Inside was a T-shirt with I i NY on it.

  “I love it!” Lexi said. “I’ll wear it my first day of fifth grade.” She climbed on the train and waved good-bye as it pulled out of the station, chugging her back home to New Fairfield.

  • • •

  When she got to her stop, her parents and her big sister, Ava, were all waiting for her. Lexi breathed a sigh of relief. Though she loved the city, it was “s’wonderful” to be back where she belonged. Plus, it was her first time riding a train alone! Amazingly, she hadn’t been scared. She felt like a real New Yorker who could handle just about anything!

  “Thought we’d have a picnic tonight by Candlewood Lake,” her dad suggested.

  “I’d rather just hang out at home,” Lexi replied. What she really wanted to do was check her email and see if any of her PLC mates had come home yet.

  Her room seemed smaller somehow—maybe she’d grown? Or maybe everything in New Fairfield looked tiny when compared to the huge city?

  “I swear, I didn’t touch any of your stuff,” her sister, Ava, said, flopping down on her bed. “How was Aunt Dee? How was New York?”

  “Great!” Lexi replied. “I learned so much. How was camp?”

  Ava launched into a whole, long-winded account of how she’d starred in the camp musical (she’d played Glinda in Wicked) and scored the winning soccer goal for her bunk. Was there anything Ava couldn’t do expertly, Lexi wondered. It all came so easily to her.

  Plus, there was a boy! A seventh grader in the neighboring boys camp named Grayson. “He gave me his email and we’re going to FaceTime on our iPads,” Ava rambled on. “He told me I was pretty!”

  Ava was pretty. And smart. And confident. Ugh.

  “Well, I guess you wanna be alone to unpack,” Ava said. “Glad to have you home, sis!” She shut Lexi’s bedroom door and left her alone. Lexi’s dog, Poochie, hopped up on her bed and planted a wet, welcome-home kiss on her nose. She was scratching his tummy when she noticed something on her desk: letters! Her friends had finally answered! Lexi’s face lit up and she tore into them.

  “They made me point guard this week!” Sadie wrote. “I’m learning so much about basketball. This is the best place ever!”

  “My abuela is teaching me to knit,” wrote Jenna. “You should see the cool scarf I’m making!”

  Jenna and Sadie sounded so busy—and so happy to be away. Their letters were way too short. But it was Kylie’s postcard that was the most upsetting: “Camp rocks! I wish I never had to leave Camp Chicopee!”

  Lexi gulped. What if Kylie forgot all about their cupcake club? What if she didn’t want to do it again in fifth grade? What if all her friends abandoned her come September? What if PLC was history?

  The ding of her computer shook her out of this horrible thought and brought her back to reality. She checked the message and her spirits soared when she saw the address: CupcakeKylie@carson.net. She clicked to open it:

  Hey, PLC-ers! Guess who just got home from camp? R U ready to bake some cupcakes? XO, Kylie

  Lexi emailed back from artsygirl10@poole.net:

  Welcome home! I missed u! Can’t wait! XO
, Lexi

  She beamed when she hit the Send button. Everything was fine. Their Cupcake Club was fine. Nothing had changed over the summer. And in no time, Peace, Love, and Cupcakes would be sweetly in swing again!

  “Kylie!” Lexi exclaimed as her friend opened the front door to her house. She hugged her so tightly, Kylie could barely breathe.

  “Lexi! I’m so glad to see you too! But I’m not a pastry bag—don’t squeeze so hard,” she laughed.

  “I’m sorry,” Lexi apologized. “I’m just so happy to see you.”

  Kylie looked different: she was tan, and her hair, once a deep, dark brown, now shimmered with honey-colored highlights from being in the sun. Her nose and cheeks were speckled with freckles, and she wore tiny gold studs in her ears.

  “You got your ears pierced!” Lexi exclaimed. “Awesome!”

  “My mom promised I could for the beginning of fifth grade,” Kylie said. “I want cupcake earrings for Hanukkah this year. Maybe little dangly red velvets?”

  “You look so cool!” Lexi said. She threw her arms around her friend again. “I just missed you so much! It feels like summer vacation went on forever and ever.”

  “Really? I thought it flew by,” Kylie said. “One day I was checking into my bunk at Camp Chicopee, and the next day the bus was driving me back home. I passed my deepwater test, rode horses, and roasted marshmallows over a campfire! And I made so many new friends!”

  “You did?” Lexi asked. It felt strange to think of her BFF sharing secrets with anyone but her, Jenna, and Sadie.

  “Tons! And guess what? One of them, Delaney, is crazy about vampires, just like I am! We talked about Twilight and Dracula for hours and scared everyone around the campfire with bloody, creepy stories.”

  “Wow. That’s great,” Lexi said. She felt a pang of jealousy. She didn’t want Kylie to have tons of other friends. Where would that leave her?

  “And Delaney even lives in Danbury, which is really close by. I told her maybe she could stop in on the weekends and help us bake cupcakes.”

  Lexi’s eyes grew wide. “You told her she could join PLC?”