Page 8 of July (New Orleans #7)

“W hy didn’t you tell me about this before we went to the store last night?” Jill asked as she stared into the pantry, expecting the ingredients to appear like magic.

“I forgot about it until we were at the school after, and Miss Stevens was talking about it,” Juni replied. “Mom usually knows.”

“ How does Mom know? Is there a schedule or something?”

“I told you, it’s on her phone.”

“Like, on an app or a saved email?”

“I don’t know,” Juni replied.

“Okay. I’ll have to go to the store and just buy some, then,” she said, closing the door.

“Store-bought? Mom always makes stuff herself.”

“Well, I’m not Mom, Juni,” Jill replied, turning around to face her.

“But I’ll…” Juni faded as she looked down at her half-eaten bowl of cereal.

“You’ll what?” she asked, sitting down next to her.

“Get made fun of,” Juni replied.

“For bringing store-bought cupcakes to a bake sale?”

“One of the boys in my class… His mom always bakes the coolest stuff. He’s in my class in the regular school.”

“And you think he’ll pick on you if I bring store-bought cupcakes?”

Juni didn’t say anything, but she also didn’t look up.

“Even if those cupcakes would taste much better than whatever I tried to make myself?”

Juni still didn’t look up, and Jill remembered what her teacher had said the previous night.

Juni and this kid were the only two from this school.

The others had all bonded elsewhere. Jill didn’t want her sister to get picked on because she brought a few boxes of cupcakes from the grocery store that would clearly be store-bought.

“Okay. It’s in the afternoon, right?”

“It starts at two, and you’re supposed to take us home from there,” Juni replied.

Jill nodded and said, “Get your stuff. It’s time to go.”

Juni took a final bite of her cereal and stood.

◆◆◆

After dropping Juni off, Jill went to work.

She had three tours that day, but they were all in the morning and only an hour long.

She was supposed to work in the office after that, but when she got to NOLA Guides, she asked Melinda if she could have the afternoon off.

Enid was there, working some hours on the books, and she offered to watch the counter so that Jill could go to her mother’s house and bake three dozen cupcakes.

Her sister had explained that the school was having a bake sale that day in an attempt to raise money for something, but she didn’t know what, so now, Jill was standing in the grocery store, trying to figure out what cake mix to buy and if she should get three different flavors or go with just one to make it easier on herself.

“Hey. What are you doing right now?” she asked into the phone, her purchases made and in the back seat of the car as she drove them home.

“Um… Logan and I are at my place,” Rory replied.

“Did I interrupt something?” Jill asked, teasing a little.

“What? No.” Rory laughed. “She just got done replacing my garbage disposal because it was a piece of crap, and the maintenance guy keeps putting me off. It pays to have a handy girlfriend.”

“I bet,” Jill replied. “Want to come over and help me bake some cupcakes?”

“What? Why?”

Jill filled her in on most of the details, leaving out the part about her mom forgetting to pick up her own daughter and the part about Juni worrying she’d get made fun of.

“Logan, want to go to Jill’s and bake cupcakes?” Rory asked on her side of the phone.

“Huh?” Jill heard Logan ask.

Thirty minutes later, she was opening the door to her friends, whom she was incredibly grateful for.

“I don’t bake. I assume you have some experience because you watch kids all the time,” she said to Rory.

Rory laughed and replied, “It’s not that hard, Jill. I do hope you bought a mix or something, though, so that we’re not making anything from scratch.”

“Yeah. I got six boxes because I wanted to be safe.”

They all walked into the kitchen, where Jill had placed the boxes and cans of icing on the table.

“You have ten things of icing here,” Rory noted.

“How much do I need? More?”

Rory laughed and said, “No, I think you’re good.”

“They had these pastry bag things on sale hanging on a hook. I got those, too.”

“Oh, we can have some fun, then,” Rory replied.

“Got anything I can do to help? I’m guessing three in this kitchen is a crowd,” Logan suggested.

“You’re handy, right?”

“I like to think so,” Logan said.

“Want to take a look at my mom’s shower? It’s leaking a little, and the water pressure is terrible.”

Logan’s eyes lit up, and she replied, “I’m on it. I’ve got some tools in the car.”

“She just has tools in her car?” Jill asked Rory when Logan had walked out of the kitchen.

“She always has tools on her now that she’s getting back into the plumbing thing.” Rory picked up a box. “Funfetti? Those will be a big hit.”

“Okay. How do we do this?”

Rory looked around the kitchen for the rest of the things they’d need.

Jill’s mom had a cupcake pan, but only one, so they would have to bake three separate batches.

They talked as they got the ingredients mixed together, and then Rory had her drop the batter into the paper cupcake holders, which Jill had managed to remember to get.

It helped that all the baking stuff was in the same aisle, or she would’ve forgotten most of it.

“So, how are things here?” Rory asked.

“It’s been two days, and I feel like I’m just failing all the time. Is that what parenting is like? Because I might not want to do it.”

Rory laughed and replied, “I think that’s part of it, yeah, but you weren’t exactly prepared for this, and it sounds like your mom didn’t help all that much, either.”

“No, she didn’t,” Jill agreed. “Okay. These are ready for the oven. How much time do we have?”

“We’ll be cutting it close, for sure,” Rory replied. “Cupcakes bake pretty quickly, but they’ll need to cool before we can ice them. I wouldn’t normally, but we should put them in the refrigerator to speed that up, or you’ll be late.”

Jill nodded as she put the cupcakes into the preheated oven, silently praying she wouldn’t get her sister mocked because she couldn’t make simple cupcakes.

“Jill?”

“Yeah?”

“How are you going to get all of these there? I don’t see any trays or anything.”

“Well, fuck,” she said.

◆◆◆

Jill parked in the school’s parking lot, got out of the car, and went to grab the three dozen cupcakes that she’d placed on paper plates and a baking sheet, of which her mother only seemed to have one.

She’d considered using the cupcake pan itself, too, but it was still cooling when she needed to leave, so it would’ve melted the icing she and Rory had so painstakingly applied with the pastry bag and its many attachments.

Were they called attachments? Jill didn’t know.

She did know that she would have to make at least three trips to get all of these wherever they were supposed to go, so she needed to get a move on, or she’d be late.

“Hey.”

Jill looked up and saw Juni’s teacher, Willa, standing a few feet away. Yes, her sister called her Miss Mailor, but the woman hadn’t introduced herself to Jill as such, and Jill liked the idea of calling her Willa instead. It was a pretty name, and it matched the pretty woman.

“Oh, hi,” she said, feeling a little embarrassed that Willa was about to see her try to carry dozens of cupcakes into the school on paper plates.

“Bake sale?” Willa asked.

“Yeah,” she replied with a laugh. “I found out about it this morning right before work.”

Willa laughed and asked, “Need some help?”

“Yes, please,” she replied and held out the baking sheet with cupcakes sliding all over it. “I should’ve covered them, but the icing would’ve been messed up, and I didn’t want to embarrass Juni with messed up cupcakes.”

Willa took it and said, “Then, let’s get this inside before the bugs get to it.”

“Right behind you,” Jill replied.

With two paper plates of cupcakes, she followed Willa into the school, which, thankfully, had an open door that she didn’t have to attempt to navigate, and once they were inside, she caught up to Willa and followed her lead because she had no idea where they were going.

“So, Juni told me my mom has some sort of schedule for this stuff, but she didn’t leave it for me. Is there an app or something that I need to download?”

Willa laughed and replied, “No, we don’t have an app. We do have the school events schedule posted on our website, though. My guess is that’s what your mom is using.”

“I should’ve thought of that,” Jill said, hating herself a little bit. “I still have more of these to grab.”

“How many did you bake?” Willa asked.

“Three dozen. She said that was what she needed.”

Willa laughed again and said, “ One dozen. Each student was supposed to bring in one dozen.”

“What?” Jill asked. “I made these. It took me all afternoon. I had friends come over to help because I don’t bake things. Look at this icing; there’s a swirl there.”

“Yes, you did a vanilla chocolate thing. Very nice.” Willa laughed. “These will go quickly.”

“The funfetti ones are in the car,” Jill said. “Should I even bring them in?”

“I think we’ll be okay with these two, but I also don’t think those should sit in your car for much longer. The heat will melt them all over your back seat.”

“Shit,” she said. “I need to grab them, then. Where did she get three dozen?”

They arrived in the cafeteria, which had about ten people walking around, setting things up on tables.

“She probably wanted you to bake the most. The kids were joking about it last night at the conference, from what I heard.”

“Oh, I’ll kill her. I took the afternoon off to do this. I’m paid hourly.”

Jill set the paper plates down next to the tray that Willa set down, too.

“You took the afternoon off to do this for your sister? Why didn’t you just buy some? All the other parents do.”

Jill’s jaw dropped, and she said, “They do ? My sister is a pathological liar. Is she a sociopath? She told me they all make stuff. Well, she said one parent did, at least.”