This Time Tomorrow

This Time Tomorrow: Chapter Two

I followed Lyss into the house, to where Mom was busy in the kitchen with a recipe book propped open on the granite kitchen counter.  She had a splotch of flour on her nose, and her brow was drawn down in fierce concentration.

I wasn’t the only one perplexed as to what it was she was doing.

“Mom, what are you doing?”  Lyss asked, moving to the fridge and pulling it open to investigate its contents.  She came back out with a diet Pop.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Mom replied, not taking her eyes from the recipe she was reading.

“Uh, trying to reinvent grits?” I suggested, taking a look at the five mixing bowls she had stacked by the sink.  The first one looked like overcooked porridge, the second like unset dip, the third like breadcrumbs.

That got her attention.  She snapped her head up, curly brown hair bouncing around her cheeks.  “No, Alex,” she said, clearly exasperated.  “I’m making cupcakes for Alyssa’s fundraiser tomorrow.”

“What?” Lyss yelped before I could roll my eyes.

Of course, how could I have been so stupid.  Not only did Alyssa live for cheerleading, but Mom lived to make sure Alyssa have everything she needed while shaking those pompoms.  Tomorrow East End was having a bake sale to boost funds for new uniforms.  Apparently the brand spanking new cherry red ones just weren’t going to cut it, according to the captain of the squad, Lena Marshal.  Yes, because at the end of the day, it was the uniform that won you trophies.

I was tempted to retreat to my room and leave them to it; Lyss was already close to tears as she whined at our mother about how perfect tomorrow had to be, and that she couldn’t afford to be embarrassed in front of the squad.

“Honey, it’ll be fine,” Mom said, running her flour caked hands up and down Lyss’s arms.

Lyss squealed in protest and squirmed away from Mom’s touch.  “No, it won’t be.  Why are you making them yourself?  Why didn’t you just place an order at Macy’s like you usually do?”

Mom looked a little taken aback, smearing flour through her honey brown hair when she ran a hand through it.  “I thought it would be nice to have some home made ones for a change.”

“Well, you thought wrong,” Lyss said, her voice rising with each word.  Making the most dramatic sigh of frustration I’d ever heard, she stomped from the kitchen and down the hall.  A second later we heard a door slam.

Mom turned on me, wide eyed.  Then she laughed and shook her head.  “Sometimes I think Alyssa would be more at home in a palace with servants at her beck and call.”

Wasn’t that the truth.  Looking around at the destruction of her kitchen - I noticed I was even standing in a fine layer of flour coating the white tiles - Mom sighed.  “Maybe I should have just stuck to the normal routine.”

“I don’t know,” I said, picking up a bowl she had yet to use.  “Home made sounds good to me.  Which ones were you going to make?”

She pointed at the open page of the recipe book.  “Chocolate, orange, vanilla and strawberry.  I was thinking three dozen of each would suffice.”

That was a lot of cupcakes.  And going by the way Mom was looking at me, a pleading smile on her face, I was about to find out just how many.

It was a little after 7PM when I pulled out the final tray of plump strawberry cupcakes.  Lyss hadn’t made another appearance in the kitchen and when I’d initially set out to drag her in here to help, Mom had stopped me and said she needed her space.