100 Days of Cake by Shari Goldhagen Page A

nervous syrupy voice again. “I was thinking maybe you could help with today’s cake.”
    I tell her I’m pretty tired, which is somehow true, despite the fact that I’ve been sleeping for hours and hours.
    â€œOkay. I think that you’re really going to like it; it’s red velvet.”
    â€œMom, maybe we can skip it today—”
    â€œNonsense.” She makes it sound like I’m suggesting that she not show up for my wedding day.
    An hour or two passes, and then there’s another knock on my door, Mom announcing that she’s finished baking. I don’t say anything.
    â€œOkay, sweetie?” she asks. “You awake?”
    I say nothing and hope that’s enough of an answer. “Maybe I can just slide it under the door,” she says. Then she’s trying to shove a three-inch-high plate of cake through the inch and a half of space between the bottom of the door and the floor.
    â€œOh, shoot,” she says. On my side of the door there is now a plate with red crumbs and a smear of cream cheese frosting. I can only imagine what kind of mess happened on her end.
    It’s actually really funny, like something that Rose might try on the Golden Girls . I should get up, open the door, hug my mom, and tell her that I love her. I want to.
    But I don’t do that.
    And I hate myself for it.

DAY 18

Buttermilk Cake
    I t’s still a million degrees outside, but from the way Alex and Elle are yapping on and on about the ACT versus the SAT, you’d think that it was fall and we were all back in school already. (To be fair, it will probably still be a million degrees then; central Florida is really freaking hot.)
    We’re sitting on the steps of Elle’s front porch, while her eight-year-old brother repeatedly rams his bike into the mailbox post as if he’s stuck on a difficult level of a really lame video game. When the force is enough that Jimmy actually falls off the bike, Alex turns nervously to Elle.
    â€œUm, should we maybe do something?”
    â€œMy mom’s free-range when it comes to parenting,” Elle explains. “She believes that we should let him discover things on his own.”
    I’m pretty sure that Mrs. Lovell hasn’t put that muchthought into it and just doesn’t care, but I would never say that. Elle can get sensitive about stuff with her mom.
    â€œThat’s cool, I guess.” Alex doesn’t look convinced.
    The three of us have never hung out like this before, but when Alex and I were closing up FishTopia for the night, he asked where I was headed. When I told him Elle’s, he kind of invited himself along. Under normal circumstances I would have protested hanging out outside the aquarium of FishTopia, but it was literally 104 this afternoon, and his Ford Fiesta is air-conditioned. And I still feel bad about blowing him off the other day, no matter what Dr. B. says. Also, with Elle there I figured it wouldn’t be a date-date so things couldn’t get too weird.
    Of course Elle was all excited when Alex and I showed up together, and the minute Alex went to the bathroom, she asked if we were together. She looked genuinely bummed when I told her no.
    But now the two of them are talking and talking and talking about school and college applications. They’re so animated and alive, they don’t notice that I haven’t said anything in forever.
    Alex is going on about how he really wants to go to a music conservatory program, but his father is this macho guy who would never be okay with that. “I’m trying to see what places have okay music schools so I can double major,” he says. “I might be able to slip that one past my dad if I got an econdegree or something, but everything is just so expensive.”
    Elle is nodding. “I hear you. Like, Columbia has a great environmental studies program, but unless I win the lottery, there’s no way. So I’m probably going