{Not So} Simply Cupcakes

{Not So} Simply Cupcakes: Chapter One

{ The girl in the picture is Naomi Scott, who plays the main character, Leah Garcia. :) }

{Chapter One}

I twisted the pastry bag and continued on with making little red roses to put on the cupcakes. The red velvet cupcakes with  white frosting and the red roses. Sounds simple, elegant, and pretty, right? One out of three isn't good. Here's how my afternoon went.

After searching endlessly for the flour, which my mother, and also the owner and manager, had stuck in a different spot than usual, I had make the cupcakes. All the ingredients had to be perfectly mixed together and the right amount. My mother, apparently, is some genius and nows if a cupcake has been made perfectly.

While the cupcakes were baking, I had made the buttercream frosting which now tastes sickly sweet to me after making and testing millions of it. Then I cooled my cupcakes and frosted them using Mom's technique which is "the best any baker could use." Then had come the tricky part: making the roses.

First you needed a little wooden rod and the red frosting. You had to use a special tip to squeeze it out in the right movement to create a rose. Then I left them to dry and half an hour later I had to place them. But apparently, Mom thinks I went sloppily, so I'm fixing some again.

"Why the long face?" Dad says, walking in the bakery's kitchen. He reaches in the giant metal fridge and pulls out a beer bottle. 

"Mom said to stop putting your beer in the bakery fridge." I reminded him, still frosting.

"Eh. Your mom can think whatever." he shrugs, popping the cap off. "So why you so sad?"

I stop for a moment and say, "Well gee, I don't know. Maybe the part about spending MY afternoon tied up here making cupcakes to be approved by the cupcake queen." I mock-think and then give him the stupid look. "Can't we just go back home already?" I whine.

He shakes his head. "Nope. Your mom thinks it will 'bring the family together again.'" he says, raising his voices octaves higher to attempt to sound like mom.

I sigh. "But I don't like it here. This is her home and not ours."

The reason this is her home and not ours is because a year ago, Mom and Dad got a divorce, which I was perfectly fine about. I mean, no kid really wants their parent to spilt up, but the way mine kept arguing and such made me want to rip out my own hair. So then they offered me a ultimatum: go with Mom to New Hampshire for her cupcake business, or go with Dad to California. Hmm...hard decision. So I packed up my bags and left New York, to all go our separate ways. Luckily, my older sister, Cecelia or Cece for short, went off to college so she didn't have to deal with this.

Anyways, then mom had missed me too much and decided occasional calls, emails, and texts weren't enough. So she says one year living in her drippy cold granite home and then I can make another choice. I tried arguing, but she bribed me with saying she would get me a semi-used car. Yay! So of course, I agreed to go once Mom forced Dad to come and promised the car. So Dad and I lived above the bakery in the studio apartment thing and Mom still lived with Grandma down the street. Such fun.

"I know, buttercup." Dad sighs,  offering a small tired smile. "But I don't want to get another lecture."

"Well you are about to get one if those cupcakes aren't finished!" Mom's voice chimes, as she pushes the white wooden door holding a colorful tray that had held cupcakes.

She sets it down and quickly washes her hands. "David Arnold Garcia, how many times have I told you not to drink in the kitchen!" she scolded, whipping him lightly with the dish towel she was drying off with.

"How many times have I told you I am not a horse so therefore, do not touch me with your sudsy towel." he snapped back.

Mom groaned and the peeked over my shoulder at my cupcakes. "That one is too far to the right and that one is crooked," she informed me, pointing at them. She softly but forcefully hip-checked me out of the way and expertly fixed the roses and finished the remaining three. "See?"

I stuck my tongue out childishly as she turned around, humming softly. "I have enrolled you in Nashua South High School," she told me, dancing to get a measuring cup.

I groaned. "Dad back me up." I pleaded.

He sighed. "Come on Deborah, we all know Leah is a anti-social nervous break-down child! She is not fit for high school and should drop out and just work 24-7 here!" he said mockingly.

"I am not anti-social, I just don't enjoy talking to people!" I protested. But honestly, it was true. I always begged not to stand at the cashier position because I hated talking to everyone. So that's why I liked it back in the kitchen, where it was  me and just cupcakes.

"Sure," he said sarcastically. For future reference, he is fluent in English, Spanish, and Sarcasm. "Like you don't hide up in your room when company comes." Mom stopped from measuring her ingredients and shook a finger.

"Quiet you too. Obviously, I wasn't going to let you stay home for a year, honey." she chuckled at that idea. "So on September 2nd," she said, her voice rising above the noise of the mixer, "You will go to school. Make friends. Do good and get good grades." 

"Ugh." I moaned, taking off my apron carefully.

"Haha," Dad muttered under his breath.

"Ah, but you," Mom laughed, "Are not off the hook. You have to get a job and pay rent. You don't want it to be like last time, right?"

Dad looked embarrassed for a moment. "What happened last time?" I asked confused. Sometimes they have conversations in front of me that I have no idea what they are talking about.

"Nothing." they said firmly in response.

"Now that you're done, I want you to swing by the high school and pick up all the papers and such you'll need." Mom instructed, cracking an egg in her mix. She neatly threw it from ten feet into the big brown plastic bin on the other side of the room. "And go change." she added when she caught sigh of my clothes.

"What's wrong with these?" I asked stubbornly. I was wearing a short fitted floral dress, mostly pinks, purples and red flowers, with a thin red ribbon around the bust line, a black cardigan and black leggings with a pair of flats on. I thought I looked very nice.

"It's...inappropriate. I mean, your dress it just too short and tight and the leggings look too thin." Mom says, eyeing me over.

I roll my eyes. "I'm going," I say, pulling my high pony tail elastic out, letting my wavy light brown curls wild. They rest down in every direction on shoulders, and I fished two Bobby pins from my pocket and stuck them a little bit higher than my ears to hold my untamable hair back. "Bye!"

"Bye sweetheart, don't hit the pedestrians!" Dad called out.

"Change!" my mom yelled in a last attempt. I ignored her and grabbed my keys from the counter. As I pushed through the thick glass door, I regretted it.

It was pouring rain out, and it sounded like a percussion solo on every car and the ground itself. In some attempt to stay dry, I shielded my eyes to look for my car. I squealed softly when I saw it. Even though I've had it for a week, it still was awesome to have my own car, especially a little polka dotted punch buggy! I unlocked the car and hopped in, quickly starting the ignition. High School, here I come.