Hoping For Snow (Jake Madden)

11: The Cupcake Chronicles

I'm running late. I woke up too late this morning, and today's the holiday bake sale at the hospital. Now, I won't have enough time to bake cupcakes for the bake sale, which makes my heart drop into my chest. I pull my Christmas sweater on and jump into my jeans that I thankfully picked out last night and sprint into the kitchen where I expect Grandma and Hartley to be. However, I don't see them anywhere. All I see, sitting on the kitchen table, are three tubs full of cupcakes. I approach the kitchen table and frown at all the cupcakes I see, and my eyes narrow when I see a little note stuck to one of the tubs.

The little note on the one tub of cupcakes reads: "Here's as many cupcakes as I could bake. Unfortunately for you but fortunately for me, they match up with the song. Eleven pipers piping these eleven batches of five cupcakes, yay! I guess. I hope these are good enough for the bake sale. - Jake."

I sigh to myself. Of course, he's still giving me gifts even after I told him not to. I'm not sure whether to be angry or happy about all of this. Amy would tell me to be happy and grateful that I'm getting gifts like this, but she hasn't spoken to me ever since I ran away two days ago from the ballet. She won't even look at me if I am in her presence. To be honest, Jake is the same way. He barely looks at me, besides when he gifted me the astronauts for my Neptune Christmas village. What he doesn't know is that he gave me something for his gift. Unless I keep it. I'm not so sure just yet.

Well, I'm not going to let these cupcakes go to waste. I don't have to spend all morning baking something that my heart really isn't into right now. These cupcakes will do for the hospital bake sale, even if they look a little messy with all the green and red sprinkles everywhere and the blue icing is caked on there in some areas and barely icing on others. Still, people will buy them, I know it.

I just don't know how to get these three tubs of cupcakes to the hospital. I know I can't carry them all there without dropping everything. I sit down at the kitchen table and bury my head in my hands as I try to think about how I'm getting this all there. Everything feels a little overwhelming right now, but I know I have to get these cupcakes to the hospital. It's for the kids, and I know it always made me feel better to see people coming to the hospital to buy some sweets and spend some time with me.

I'm determined that I'm going to get these cupcakes to the hospital even if it kills me. The cupcake chronicles will continue; they will not stop here at my house with me crying on the day of Christmas Eve into my hands. 

I stand up from the table, and as soon as I push my chair in, the idea strikes me. I know what'll get all those cupcakes to the hospital. I run outside and open the barn, revealing my greatest idea: the wagon that Hartley and I piled all the leaves in before bringing them to our burn pile the other day. There're not many leaves in the wagon anymore, which is good because I need it to transport all the cupcakes to the hospital. 

I pull the wagon to my back door and quickly pile each tub of cupcakes into it quickly. They fit perfectly in the wagon, and I can't help but smile to myself. Maybe today is going to actually be a good day for me. I hope it will be.

It takes me a lot longer than I'd care to admit getting this wagon full of cupcakes to the hospital. By the time I make it inside, I'm huffing up a storm, and I have to pause right inside the doors to catch my breath. I hadn't expected that dog to chase me nearly the whole way here, and even that mailman followed me for a few blocks for a cupcake. I couldn't believe that that actually happened to me on my way here, but I'm here now and all my cupcakes are safe.

I head to the children's area of the hospital and see a few tables set up already with a wide range of baked goods. Melissa stands in front of a random table, holding a clipboard in her hands. I hover behind her, and as she finishes up talking to the person behind the table, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I glance at it and see that Hartley's texting me, wishing me good luck for this bake sale. I don't answer her because Melissa turns around and sees me.

"Haven!" she says happily. "I'm so glad you could make it!"

"Yeah, me too."

She glances at the wagon behind me, her eyes bugging out of her head. "That's a lot of cupcakes," she says, pointing to them. 

"I know."

Melissa looks at me for a few more moments before leading me to my table. There's already a young girl sitting behind the table with a bright smile on her skinny face. She has a red and green hat on top of her head, presumably to keep her bald scalp warm. It's Amelia, one of the kids that recently got diagnosed with cancer, and she looks excited to see me.

"Amelia volunteered to help you today," Melissa says with a warm smile on her face. 

"Are you sure you're up for it?" I ask her. "It's going to be a long day."

"As long as I get first dibs on one of those cupcakes, then I'll be great," Amelia says, pointing to one of the cupcake bins in my wagon. 

I laugh and promise her that she can definitely eat as many as she wants. As she's snacking on her first cupcake, I set up my table full of cupcakes, and by the time I'm done, people have started arriving for the bake sale. 

"These are so good," Amelia mutters to herself as she grabs a second one. "Did you make them by hand?"

I hand the cupcakes out to the few people that school in front of us, taking their money and putting it in a small tin basket. I'm afraid to answer Amelia's question because I actually did not make these cupcakes. The little note Jake wrote me is scrunched up in my jacket pocket, weighing me down. "A friend made them for me," I say carefully. I glance over at her to see her staring at me, a spot of blue icing on her top lip. "He helped me bake them because I've been busy."

"Ooh, it's a boy," she says, wiggling her eyebrows. She looks to be high in spirits today, which is good, but not for me. "Is he cute?"

"Um, sure."

"You like him! What's his name?"

"Jake."

"Ooh, that's a good name."

"Sure."

I busy myself by giving cupcakes out to some other people and doing the math for their change. I do not like this conversation at all because it's reminding me that Jake did this whole thing even when he knew that I didn't like surprises. I get all flustered again when I remember our kiss the other night. If I wasn't angry at him, he would probably be here, helping me. But I am angry with him, so he's never going to help me again.

"Can I have a cupcake, please?"

I glance up and see Colby standing in front of my little table. Amelia, who's sitting next to me in a comfy chair, reaches out for a cupcake for him, but I just shake my head at her, saying, "I'll take care of him. You just have to sit there and look pretty, which you're doing a great job already."

Amelia smiles at me and continues telling people to come to our table to try our delicious cupcakes. While she's doing that, I get a cupcake ready for Colby, who's waiting patiently for me to talk. But I'm not going to talk to him. He knew about the whole thing and didn't tell me when I asked him to. He was an accomplice of Jake's, so I wasn't going to be associated with anyone like that.

"Thank you," Colby says, handing me a twenty-dollar bill. I take it from him and start gathering his change when he says, "Keep it. The kids deserve it."

"Are you sure?" I ask him.

"Yeah. It's for a good cause."

I'm so glad that he doesn't say anything else to me. He just takes the cupcake and smiles at me, one that lets me know that he's (hopefully) on my side. As he walks away from me, I scan the rest of the hallway to make sure that Hartley, Amy, or Jake aren't here. No, it seems like Colby came here on his own. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I'm glad that he's participating in this bake sale to help the kids during this difficult time. It makes me feel a little better about the whole situation I'm in right now.