A Crooked Kind of Perfect (7 page)

And then Colton says, "Yeah."

And then the bell rings.

And then Colton picks up my empty shoe box and throws it in the recycling bin for me. "See you in science," he says.

Me and Wheeler walk in the house just as Hugh is finishing his coffee. "Think about it," Hugh tells my dad.

"Yes. Well," says Dad. "Yes. I'll think about it."

"Bye, Wheeler," says Hugh. "Bye, Zoe."

"Think about what?" Wheeler asks.

I open the fridge. Miss Person is due any minute. It is our last lesson before the Perform-O-Rama this weekend and I want everything to go perfectly.

The fridge is crammed with eggs and whipping cream and all the other stuff my dad needs for his Patty Cake, Patty Cake: Make Some Cash course.

"The case of Vernors is in the basement. I had to make room up here," says Dad. "Bottom of the toilet paper shelf."

I go get Miss Person's ginger ale while Wheeler and Dad talk about whatever it is that Dad has promised to think about.

"You should totally do it," says Wheeler when I come back upstairs.

The Vernors is warm. Miss Person will need extra
ice. Dad's started storing flour in the freezer, "like the pros do," so I have to move four bags of cake flour to find ice.

Dad changes the subject. "Anything interesting going on in school these days?"

"Your daughter has a boyfriend," says Wheeler.

I drop the ice. "What?"

"Colton Shell is smitten," says Wheeler.

"Smitten?" asks Dad.

"Smitten," says Wheeler.

"Well," says Dad. "Well."

"He's not smitten," I say. I don't exactly know what
smitten
means, but it sounds okay, like I wouldn't mind if Colton Shell was smitten. Like it might actually be kind of good to have somebody smittening me.

"He is," says Wheeler. "Wore a new shirt for her. Threw her garbage away at lunch."

"Garbage pickup is a clear indicator of smitten-hood," says Dad.

Smitten. Colton Shell. I have goose bumps.

"Close the freezer door, Miss Smitten," says Dad.

So maybe I was cold.

I try it again. I say the words in my head:
Colton Shell is smitten with me.
More goose bumps. And my
stomach is twisty. In a good way. And I hear this sweet ringing sound, like church bells or...

"Doorbell," says Wheeler.

Doorbell?

"Go open it, Goober," he says.

Oh yeah. Open it. Miss Person. What is she doing here?

Oh yeah. My lesson.

Perfect.

Right hand. Perfect.

Left hand. Perfect.

Pedals. Perfect.

Rock Beat #3. Perfect.

Perfect.

Perfect.

Perfect.

"Handel's cousin Hannah," says Mabelline Person.

On her way out the door, she hands me a Perform-O-Rama info sheet with the competition rules and stuff about registration and parking and directions and
See you there
scribbled across the bottom in purple ink.

"You did great, kiddo," says Miss Person. "Whatever happened to you today, make sure it happens again this weekend."

Colton Shell, I think.

Goose bumps again.

Emma Dent says that Lily Parker says that Sally Marvin heard somebody tell Danny Polzdorfer that Colton Shell likes me.

And she says that if I want, she'll tell Colton Shell that tomorrow is my birthday, which she remembers from when I used to be her best friend. And she says how come I'm not having a birthday party and if I am having a birthday party how come she isn't invited. And if I want to I can sit at her table at lunch.

And I ask her where Joella Tinstella is.

Joella Tinstella is out sick today, she says.

I tell her, "Thanks, but I've got a place to sit."
At Wheeler's table,
I think.

And she says, "At Colton's table."

And I say, "Yeah."

All afternoon Wheeler Diggs is calling Colton Shell my boyfriend. Only he says it like this: boyfriend.

At the drinking fountain he says, "Your boyfriend wore another new shirt today."

After science he says, "For such a shrimp, your
boy
friend eats a lot of Tater Tots."

"Too bad your
boy
friend didn't study for his science test," he says on the bus.

"He's not my boyfriend," I say.

But I blush and Wheeler calls him my
boy
friend again, and then we sit there for a long time until the bus gets to my stop and I get off and Wheeler gets off and Wheeler says tell your dad I'll see him tomorrow and I just stand there watching Wheeler walking, past my house, past Warbler Drive, all the way down to Loon Lane. The corner house has a plastic stork stuck in the grass with an "It's a Boy!" balloon attached to its beak, and when Wheeler walks by, he punches the stork in the stomach.

Wheeler isn't on the bus this morning.

And he isn't in class.

Wheeler skipped school. On my birthday.

Maybe he's sick like Joella Tinstella.

Sick. On my birthday.

Right before lunch, Mrs. Trimble makes us partner up for this afternoon's Spelling Showdown and Emma asks if I will be her partner. The only other person without a partner is Colton Shell, which makes me all nervous and jumpy, and so I tell Emma okay but only if we can practice our spelling words at lunch and she says okay, which means that I have an excuse for not sitting at Colton's table. Which is good.

Me and Emma sit in the corner of the lunchroom to practice for the Spelling Showdown.

"Dialogue," I say.

"Dialogue?" asks Emma. "Can you use it in a sentence?"

"Our dialogue was interrupted by a handsome stranger before you had a chance to wish me a happy birthday," I say.

"Dialogue," says Emma. "Die-a-log."

"Dialogue," I repeat.

"D ... I ... A..."

"Hey." It is Colton Shell.

"Hey," says Emma. She's got her head cocked to one side so she can look up at Colton through her eyelashes. This is her "I'm so pretty" look. I remember her practicing it in the mirror back when we were best friends.

I wonder if I'm supposed to look at him through my eyelashes, too, but now it would probably look stupid, me and Emma tilting our heads exactly the same way. Like I'm copying her. Like I'm taking girl lessons or something. Which I could probably use.

"You doing spelling?" asks Colton.

"Yeah. We 're doing spelling," says Emma.

Maybe I should try tilting my head in the other direction. I could still peek at him through my eyelashes, but I wouldn't look exactly like Emma. Not exactly.

"I hate spelling," says Colton.

"Yeah. I hate it, too," says Emma. "It's dumb."

"Yeah," says Colton. "It's dumb."

Maybe I should just tilt a little bit. Not as far over as Emma. Not like a puppy dog or anything. Just a little.

"Your neck okay?" Colton asks me.

I nod.

"Well, happy birthday," says Colton, and he hands me a yellow envelope. "It's a card."

"Thank you," I say.

"Okay," says Colton. And then he walks back to his table.

Emma Dent gasps, and grabs my hands. "He totally likes you so much. Did you see the way he blushed? And how he said happy birthday? He's sooooooooo cute. You are soooooooo lucky. You know, Lily Parker likes Colton, too, but she just decided that she liked him yesterday and he already liked you except that she wasn't really sure that he did and she thought that maybe it was just a rumor because she was so sure that
Colton would like her over you any day, but he doesn't. He likes you. Aren't you going to open your card? I can't wait to see what it says!"

I can. I can wait a long time. At least until after lunch. At least until Emma Dent is not leaning over my shoulder memorizing every word so she can tell Lily Parker and everyone else. I tuck the card into my spelling book.

"We've got to practice," I remind her. "Dialogue."

"Yeah. Whatever," says Emma. "Dialogue."

I play "Forever in Blue Jeans" and I play "Forever in Blue Jeans" and I play "Forever in Blue Jeans."

And I keep playing because there is nothing else to do. Dad and Wheeler are in the kitchen and they say I can't go in there, not even for a Vernors, not even to pass through to get to the bathroom, not even to ask Wheeler why he wasn't in school today.

I can't go in the kitchen because Dad and Wheeler are finishing my birthday cake, which I know is really more of a wedding cake because Dad has to make one for Patty Cake, Patty Cake: Make Some Cash, so instead of a pudding-in-the-middle cake from a box like we usually have, I'm getting a three-tiered birthday cake with a gazebo on top.

Which is way better than a pudding cake from a box.

Or a grocery-store cake in the shape of a shoe.

The Perfectone
Hits of the Seventies
songbook has notes and instructions like
crescendo
(get louder) and
pianissimo
(play very softly), but it doesn't have the lyrics to the hits. It is pretty easy to figure out where Neil Diamond would sing the "forever in blue jeans" part, just by how the melody goes, but I don't know the rest of the words.

So when I play I sing,

"LA dee da
da-DA-dee-DA-dee DA-da
LA dee da
LA da-DA-da-DA-da-da
LA dee da
da LA da dee da
Forever in blue jeans."

Like that.

"Your cake is almost ready," Dad calls from the kitchen. "Just a few more minutes."

I flip the Rock Beat #3 switch.

I count.

oneandtwoandthreeandfourand

Bum

Bum

Bum

Bum
go the pedals.

It's kind of sad that there are no words.

oneandtwoandthreeandfourand

Bum

Bum

Bum

Bum

"Birthday cake
A cake-y cake that Dad and
Wheeler make

The finest birthday cake in
His-to-ry
For this prodigy
Forever in blue jeans."

Bum

Bum

Bum

Bum

"Mom will cry.
She'll hear me play and she will
Nearly die.

They all will beg and they will
Plead with me
To play Carnegie
Forever in blue jeans"

The phone rings just as I'm getting to the part that
Hits of the Seventies
calls
the bridge.
This is where Miss Person has me flip on the oboe and bassoon switches to make this part of the song sound serious.

I sing the bridge while Dad answers the phone.

"I'm gonna win
I'm gonna win a big fat shiny trophy or two.
My mom and dad will be glad.
They'll say 'Horowitz who?'"

Bum

Bum

Bum

Bum

"Honey?" calls Dad. "You can come in now."

My cake is beautiful.

The bottom tier is covered with pink and orange and yellow roses. There are leaves around the sides, too, silvery green, and vines winding up the fat columns that hold up the other tiers.

"We didn't have real columns," says Wheeler. "So your dad frosted some toilet paper tubes."

The second tier has a pond. It is silvery and there's a little wooden bridge over it and trees and flowers and a bench where a tiny cake person might sit to fish or read a frosting newspaper.

But best of all is the third tier. Instead of a gazebo and a plastic bride and groom on top, there's a grand piano.

"I made it out of Mars pan," says Wheeler. "Marzipan," says Dad.

"The keyboard is kind of lumpy, and one of the legs is too short," says Wheeler. "You can eat it if you want."

But when I tell him I don't want to, that I want to keep it, he smiles. Now I know why Wheeler didn't come to school. He was here all day. Making me a piano for my birthday.

"It's perfect," I tell him.

"It's crooked."

"It's a crooked kind of perfect," I say.

"So," says Dad. "Who wants the first piece of cake?"

"Shouldn't we wait for Mom before we cut it?" I ask.

"Well," says Dad. "Well. No. That was your mom on the phone. There's a work crisis. A ledger emergency. She's going to have to stay late and..."

"And?" I ask, but I know. Mom is going to have to work all weekend, too. Which means...

"Well," says Dad.

"She can't go to the Perform-O-Rama," I say.

"Well," says Dad. "Well. No."

Who needs a Perform-O-Rama anyway?

Who needs it?

Really?

The competition?

The pressure?

Who needs judges telling you you're talented?

You know you're talented.

I know you're talented.

Wheeler knows you're talented.

I know what we'll do. We'll have our own Perform-O-Rama here! Right here. We'll dress up fancy and have candles and we'll put Vernors in champagne glasses. We could have hors d'oeuvres and I could print up programs. I learned how to print programs in Party Smarty.

You'd like that, wouldn't you?

Programs?

And Vernors?

Just the three of us?

Who needs anything more?

I do.

I slam my chair into the table so hard that the tiers of my birthday cake wobble, which is what is going to happen if you don't have real columns and you balance the whole thing on stupid frosted toilet paper tubes because you're too much of a freak to get in the stupid car and drive to a baking supply place and get real columns like a regular person.

Which you wouldn't have to do anyway if you could just go to a real baking class at a real baking school, which is what normal people do because they aren't all weirded out by the idea that there might be real live human beings sitting next to them and a real teacher and maybe even a graduation ceremony where a real person might hand you a real rolled-up diploma instead of having you tear your suitable-for-framing diploma out of the back of a book.