If It Makes You Happy Page 3

  I frowned at Kara. “How long have you known about this and why didn’t you tell me?”

  Since when did she keep secrets from me? Especially ones that the entire town knew about? Oversharing was our brand. We knew each other and the minutiae of our lives inside and out, backward and forward.

  Got an A on a test? Texted Kara.

  Saw a rabbit while driving? Called Kara.

  Fell down the stairs and cracked two ribs? GOTTA TELL KARA. Who needs an ambulance anyway?

  “Because there’s an issue,” Kara said. “Granny’s not entering Goldeen’s.”

  A beat passed. I blinked at her. “Excuse me, what? I don’t think I heard you correctly. Did you just say my granny’s not entering a contest with a wicked grand prize that she’s a shoo-in to win? Literally no one could stand against us.”

  “I asked her about it, and she said the meetings and prep would be too much for her, so she couldn’t. And since she’s the business owner, Goldeen’s is out.” Kara shrugged. “I’m entering the sweet competition, but since I’m not eighteen yet, my dad had to do all of the entrant requirement stuff with me.”

  Those brownie waffles weren’t even close to their final form. Like clockwork, Kara would find something wrong with them and knock some sense into that recipe until it acted right—if that was even what she’d choose to enter. My girl came up with recipes in her sleep. Something bigger, better, bolder could come along at any moment. Her empire would be frosted in twenty-four-karat gold icing. Nothing would stop her from becoming the immensely successful love child of Betty Crocker and Rachael Ray.

  “My condolences to your competitors,” I said, only half joking. “May their pride rest in peace.”

  She laughed. “Julia dropped out when the judges agreed to let my dad be my proxy.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yep. At first they said I couldn’t enter but my dad talked them into it. You know how he is,” she said with an affectionate eye roll. “And then after the announcement, Sanjay told me Julia said something like, ‘I’m not going to let a kid beat me on national TV.’”

  “Wise woman. Her cupcakes are terrible and she knows it.”

  “Winnie!” She cackled behind her hand.

  “What?! She knows it. If you ask her, she’ll tell you. I don’t know why she sells them.”

  “Because tourists don’t know any better. It’s not like we’re going to warn them. Havens over everyone else.”

  I nodded in agreement before staring at the flyer again. “I can’t believe Granny didn’t enter. We’d dominate savory, because obviously we wouldn’t enter sweet. No offense, but we probably could have won overall, too.”

  “I have no shame in admitting I’d lose against Aaron, that experienced and talented jerk.” Kara tore off a piece of cooled waffle and ate it. “Damn, I’m good,” she said still chewing. “I’m pretty sure Colin threw a party when he heard Goldeen’s wasn’t in.”

  Colin owned Archie’s, the Goldeen’s equivalent in Merry. I’d never eaten there, but rumor had it that while his food was better than average, it couldn’t hold a candle to Goldeen’s.

  “And I guess it’s too late to enter.”

  “Why would you? You don’t cook.”

  “But Aaron does.”

  “And Aaron works at Goldeen’s.”

  “Yes,” I said, thinking it through. “Granny doesn’t want to enter. I could do it for her. Be her—young proxy.”

  “No.”

  Damn. She didn’t even give me a chance. “I could! And then use the prize money to buy Goldeen’s a new oven.”

  “There you go.”

  I almost laughed at her disapproving tone. “What?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “If your granny really, truly wanted a new oven, don’t you think she’d buy it herself?”

  “Maybe. But that thing keeps exploding! She’s not in the kitchen! She’s barely in the diner now that Nadiya has ascended into Granny’s good graces. She really trusts her,” I said, fire dwindling out of me. “If I won, I could use the money to buy it for her. It could be a functional present.”

  “She’s doesn’t need you to do that.”

  “It’s not about need. It’s about want. What I want. And I want to do this for her.”

  “Okay. Fair.” Kara sat back in her seat, raising her left leg and holding her knee to her chest. “But just because you want to do something doesn’t mean you should. Or can even do it. Did you miss the part where it said TV show? TV as in cameras and interviews.”

  My weird feelings weren’t the only reason why I’d never volunteer to be Haven Summer Royalty. I might have had just a tad bit of trouble coping with public speaking. And being the center of attention. And people looking at me.

  The thought of talking on camera, knowing anybody anywhere in the world would be able to watch it and I would be powerless to stop it, almost made me start dry heaving.

  “I-I-I can handle it.” God, how were my hands sweating already?

  Kara scoffed.

  “I can! It’s different when it’s not about me. This is for Granny,” I said and would keep saying until I could trick my brain into believing it. “I can do it if it’s for someone else. I think. I’m at least willing to try! And if I fail, then—I fail. I guess. I hate losing, so maybe that will overpower the fear?” Kara wasn’t convinced. Lucky for me I knew exactly what to say to get her on my side. “Besides, it could be something we do together.”

  Secret weapon deployed, I let the moment stand as Kara’s eyes slowly lit up, as a smile crept across her lips.

  Long-distance relationships of any kind sucked. They’re hard and stupid, and I hated everything about them. But choosing to be together had been the right choice for us. We stood by that and did the work. Commitment. Dedication. Communication. None of that came easy.

  So when something that was easy came along? We both jumped at the chance.

  “If we’re going to do this,” she said, “we have to do it right. There’s still a few weeks of casting calls. They hold them every Friday for an hour or two.”

  “Casting?”

  Kara nodded. “Pretty much everyone who signs up gets to compete in the preliminary round, but only a select handful of entrants from that pool will appear on the show. Including yours truly.”

  “Shut up. I mean, I’m not surprised, because look at you, but shut up.”

  “Oh, and that’s not the best part. I’m not only cast, but I’m being featured. Think like a TV producer: an underage prolific baker who dominates school bake sales already accepted to a university with a prestigious adjunct culinary school on a merit scholarship and the dad that fought for her to enter the contest. Of course they let me in, and they’ll do the same for you. A Black-owned family business beloved by all and the granddaughter determined to keep her family’s dream alive, so much so that she’s tied her entire collegiate future into it? That is ratings gold.”

  “Why you gotta play the race card like that?” I joked.

  “Because they’d use it against you if they could. Might as well play it up and shove it in their faces.”

  “You’re absolutely vicious with this kind of stuff,” I said. “I love it. You’re amazing.”

  “Naturally.”

  Unlike hers, my story for TV wasn’t entirely true. Goldeen’s was Granny’s dream. My dad and uncle weren’t exactly all that jazzed about the family business—they’d already tried, more than once, to get Granny to sell Goldeen’s and move in with us so they could take better care of her, but she refused. Her exact words were, “No. And stay out of my business!” Also? My collegiate future didn’t really have much to do with Goldeen’s. It actually had more to do with Kara than anyone else.

  But the casting producers, or whatever they’re called, didn’t need to know all that.

  “Think you can convince Granny to let you enter on her behalf?”

  I chewed on my lip, thinking. Granny could have the last unpolluted water tank in existence during
the end of days under her care and say no to someone dying of thirst on the street because of an inconsequential slight from forty years ago. She had a memory like an elephant and a will made of pure iron. If she didn’t want to do something, there wasn’t a force alive that could make her change her mind.

  “Maybe. We could really win, though,” I said. “Wouldn’t it be kind of weird if we both win? Ungirlfriends, going to the same college, all set to be roommates…” I trailed off.

  Ungirlfriend: a curious step after friendship. A knowing jump beyond best friends. A leap of faith into an abyss of commitment that didn’t have a name that we liked yet. And I quote, “I’ll be damned if I let anyone refer to me as zucchini.”

  So Kara had given it a new name and then gave it to me.

  “Coincidences make amazing reality TV.” She walked over to the fridge, returning with bright blue Tupperware. “Besides, we don’t have to tell them everything about us. Just the pertinent bits. Here, I made you cupcakes.”

  Chocolate and buttercream, Funfetti and pink cream cheese, red velvet, bare-faced vanilla—“But you didn’t know I was coming by?”

  “I always make you cupcakes.” She leaned against a chair, hand on her jutting hip. “The extra freezer is filled with them.”

  Four

  The next day, I decided to make my move. Time, essence, all that good stuff.

  Watching Goldeen’s come alive during the midday rush launched me into the oddest state of slo-mo euphoria. The sea green shone, the pearls caught the light just right to sparkle, and there was a good chance I’d entered hallucination territory at this point, but the mermaids seemed more playful and the sirens much more murderous. Every meal, every dish, as tempting as an apple—or a pomegranate, if you were into historical biblical accuracy—in Eden, snake and all.

  The enduring charm of Goldeen’s could never be embellished. One sniff, one bite, and you’d become a regular for life.

  Between Granny’s recipes and Aaron’s preternatural cooking skill, magic happened in that kitchen. The smoky bacon, seared hashed browns, and freshly baked biscuits slathered with homemade organic jam bought from a local farmer two towns over would have stomachs rumbling in one millisecond flat. Sweet, fluffy pancakes with crispy edges drenched in honey butter, because syrup was outlawed in the diner, made the patrons groan in anticipation. Tangy seasoning, fresh lettuce, delectable tomatoes and salsa, and warming corn tortillas made customers pout because that gastronomic goodness existed for me and me alone.

  A little thing I liked to call Proprietor’s Progeny Perks.

  Another of said perks? The music. I sat in my usual sunlit corner booth during my lunch break, tapping the tabletop with my fingers and bouncing in my seat as I waited for my tacos. I tried to keep it family friendly when I took a spin as Goldeen’s DJ. A solid mix of pop, R&B, and funk from across the decades—a little something for everyone. Every now and then, I’d slide in some ’90s New Jack Swing, in honor of my dad, or some K-pop for Layla.

  Which just got turned off.

  “Winnie.” Granny appeared beside my table just as the music started up again. Back to Motown Goldeen’s went. “What did I tell you about touching my music?”

  “You told me that I could—” It’s not like I didn’t include her music, too. I totally did. “—not.”

  “So why did you change it to that mess?”

  “It is not mess. It’s music, which the patrons were enjoying, thank you very much.”

  Granny had on her favorite tracksuit—the one she owned in nine different colors because when Granny liked a style, she stuck with it. Color of the day? Royal blue with her white tennis shoes, and her giant tan-and-gold purse hanging from the crook of her elbow. She had slicked back her pressed gray hair into a low bun and dappled on the tiniest bit of makeup. “Just enough to make ’em wonder,” she had said once.

  Truth be told, makeup or not, no one could ever guess Granny’s real age.

  “I don’t care. My diner, my rules. Don’t make me tell you again.”

  Don’t touch the music. The customer is always right. Goldeen’s never closes early. Ugh. All the other rules followed common sense laws, but I always seemed to struggle with those three for some reason.

  I puckered my lips and puffed out my cheeks. Tantrums, no matter how cute or mild they were, didn’t go far with Granny. But it was enough to make her lean over and kiss my forehead.

  “Your hair smells like smoke.”

  “Three fires in one morning will do that.” After the last blaze, we had to upgrade—up the stairs to use the oven in the apartment. Frank had finally shuffled into the diner twenty minutes later, declared all was not lost, and fixed it.

  Bless him and his bald head.

  “That damn oven. Not worth the money I paid for it, but I’m gonna squeeze every last dime out of it.”

  “Fire hazards be damned.”

  Granny snapped her fingers, lips shriveling until they barely moved as she said, “Cussing in my house, you must have lost your last mind.”

  “Sorry.” I held back my smile and my comeback that Granny had also just cussed. Double standards could be such a thing of humorous beauty.

  “I don’t know what your daddy is down there teaching you, but you better watch your mouth up here.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And your mama called. Your school sent an email about your vaccinations not being good enough.”

  “No they didn’t.”

  I pulled out my phone, opening the email I’d specifically created for applying to schools. Lo and behold, an email did exist, already opened. It seemed the offspring of anti-vaxxers had grown up safely to cause measles outbreaks on a few college campuses. All incoming students had to get a blood test to prove immunity or get a brand-spanking-new rubella inoculation.

  “Mom.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Granny pretended to rummage in her bag. “I see she hasn’t changed.”

  A side-eye would’ve earned me a quick smack upside the head, so I frowned instead.

  Rejection and I don’t get along. I applied to ten schools, gave my mom a list of my top five, and had her check for me when acceptance/rejection emails started rolling in. Lucky for me, my top choice said yes and accepted my college fund as a dowry.

  The other nine shall forever remain a mystery—my mom deleted them all before I could see them.

  “I gave her the password,” I said. “She was helping me field rejections.”

  “Any school that wouldn’t accept you clearly don’t know what they’re doing and they don’t deserve you anyway.” She smiled. “I made an appointment for you on Friday to get the test done.”

  “Oh joy.”

  “Stop it.”

  “I hate doctor’s offices. But thank you. I appreciate you.”

  She held me softly by the chin. “You want anything while I’m out? I’m going to the bank and out to Beliveau Farms to renew the contract. I’ll be back before they do that royalty thing in town.”

  Almost all of Goldeen’s food and supplies came from local vendors. Beliveau supplied the diner with dairy, beef, and pork, but another farm had contacted Granny boasting cheaper prices. It wasn’t the first time this had happened—Beliveau always matched the new offer or, if they couldn’t, included a boon for loyalty during contract renewal.

  I sopped up every bit of knowledge I could glean from Granny’s dealings. Being a diner owner wasn’t just working the floor or the kitchens or ensuring the books balanced every month. I would have to work with farmers, vendors, and grocery stores. Learn how to read and write contracts, maybe even vet a good lawyer to help. Study advertising and the market to make sure I didn’t get swindled.

  When it came to business, people saw old Black lady and dollar signs appeared in their eyes. When they saw me coming, those dollar signs would probably quadruple. But Granny had been born shrewd and no-nonsense.

  I had that same blood in me.

  “No, I’m good. But, um, I was wondering about
something else.” I placed the flyer on top of the table. “Kara told me about this contest.”

  “What about it?”

  “Well, I was thinking Goldeen’s should enter. Making it to the finals guarantees we’ll be on TV, which would be amazing, and the prize money could buy a new oven.”

  “I don’t have time for that, baby. I know all about it—meetings, interviews, preliminary rounds, and jumping through six hoops on Sundays no less. No.”

  “That’s the cool thing. Kara couldn’t enter without her dad’s help so we thought that maybe the judges would bend that same rule, only backward. You don’t have time, but I do. Pitch it as a family thing.”

  “You? On TV? In front of a camera?”

  “Why does everyone keep saying that? I’ll be fine.”

  Her skeptical look pinned me into almost telling the truth.

  “I can do it. No sweat.” Lots of sweat, actually.

  “Mm-hmm. I heard about your little laryngitis stunt.”

  I cringed so hard, I’m pretty sure I cracked a tooth.

  Once, I had to make an oral presentation in history class. Begging, pleading, crying—nothing would convince my teacher to give me an alternative assignment. Desperation took over, and two days before my turn to present, I pretended to have laryngitis to get out of it. For two solid weeks, I didn’t even speak at home. Winston knew the truth, willingly playing along while simultaneously tormenting me to force me to break. As expected.

  My parents had gotten so worried they nearly forced me to go to the doctor. Magically, my voice had returned at a strained whisper the day of my appointment—a true Christmas Miracle! Except that pretty much gave me away. They’d figured out I had faked the whole thing.

  It was a shitty thing to do, I knew that. But I’d gotten to write an essay instead. Yay for positive reinforcement for bad behavior!

  “That was different,” I said. “And before. I’m much better. I’ve been working on it. You know, a personal goal. Getting over my fear. And stuff.”