How Do You Say Goodbye

Chapter One

I guess I'm what you'd call ordinary. Even my name, Athena Venus Anderson, or simply "AVA" is ordinary. Some people say that I'm very pretty because I've got this long blond hair that falls straight and shiny down to my shoulders, but frankly, I think my looks are just OK. I'm certainly not a knockout like my best friend, Claire.

But I believe if you look hard enough you'll find something special about even the most ordinary person. So I hope you won't think it really weird that in my case the special about me is that I bake. I mean, I don't think it's weird, even though I am the only sixteen-year-old girl I know who comes home from school in the afternoons and heads straight for the kitchen---not to raid the refrigerator but to bake. And I don't mean those yucky package mixes, either. I mean right-from-scratch, big, shiny chocolate cakes and crunchy pecan pies and three-layer birthday cakes with inscriptions and fancy roses on them.

I probably fell in love with baking even before I knew how to light an oven---maybe when I saw my own first big, white, beautiful birthday cake when I was one year old. Now, I consider myself kind of a professional because I sell my cakes. Lately, my reputation has been growing in the neighborhood, and the orders are pouring in.

When I answer the phone at home, I always say, "Hello, AVA's Creations. May I help you?"
Often it's someone ordering my Devilish Chocolate Cake or a special Birthday Beauty two weeks in advance. Of course, sometimes it's Claire calling. She thinks my professional tone is a riot and never misses a chance to tease me.

"AVA's Creations? Good," she'll say in a phony voice. "Because I'd like to order five thousand cupcakes---iced, of course---for tomorrow morning, promptly at eight. That won't be a problem, will it?"

But first, back to my baking. As I was saying, the orders are pouring in, and sometimes it gets pretty hectic trying to find time for cake orders, school work, and my social life. Last fall I had this nightmare that I delivered a cake to school and my English report to some seven-year-old kid's birthday party. I don't know whether or not you believe that dreams can foretell the future, but that dream was a clear warning that I was going to be getting myself into real trouble.

It all began on a Saturday afternoon in September, I was racing to put the finishing touches on a birthday cake that I'd promised to deliver at seven o'clock sharp to a new family in the neighborhood, the Stanford . I was in real panic because I was running late. It was nearly seven, the cake wasn't ready, and I had a date at eight-thirty.

Dale, my boyfriend, and I were double-dating with Claire and her boyfriend, Steve, that night. Then my mother, who's a part-time real estate broker, came home from work with two bags of groceries and had a fit when she had to put the bags down on the floor because every other surface was piled with pans and mixing bowls and pink frosting roses lined up on a wax paper.

"Really, Athena, this is too much!" my mother fumed. "I promised you I'd make an early dinner tonight so you'd be ready for your date on time. But how can I make dinner with this mess?"

"I know, I know." I groaned. "I guess I did it again."

"That's right," she agreed. "You did it again."

What I'd done again was to say yes instead of no. I was always saying yes: "Yes, sure, I'll fill that order." "Yes, I'll volunteer to read my social studies report first." "Sure, Claire, you can call me tonight to talk about your argument with Steve. It's okay. Really. I'll just wake up early tomorrow morning to study for my math test."

My mother called it a problem with a capital P. My sister, Abby, called it a neurotic syndrome. (She's in her first year of college and wants to be a psychologist.) My father just called it "just being nice," but I knew it was more than that. I knew it was my biggest fault, but I just couldn't seem to help it. If there was one thing that could make my heart pound in fear, it was that look on someone's face or that sound of anger on someone's voice when I had to say no. If there was one thing I hated, it was knowing someone was mad at me. So I said yes, yes, yes to almost anything they wanted.