Free The Icing on the Cake by Deborah A. Levine

sympathetic looks, but they’re as powerless as I am against the birthday brigade. . . .
    At last there’s a distraction as Angelica carries Cole over to one of the giant refrigerators to get him some juice. While she’s pouring, he runs to ourtable and begs Mom for some dough (when she does bake, she always gives him some pieces to play with). My brother’s like a frisky puppy, and everyone seems to want to give him little scraps. Some he balls up in his hand, but he eats quite a bit of it too. I don’t blame him—raw dough is delicious, even though you’re not supposed to eat uncooked eggs and all that. Angelica stops to admire Lillian’s handiwork and then catches on to what everyone is talking about.
    â€œA party? Que bueno! I just had the one son, but I always wanted to plan a quinceañera.  . . . In Cuba we celebrate the girl’s fifteenth birthday, not the sixteenth, you know. It’s a night to remember, and I wished always to give one.” She scoops up Cole and spins him around like he’s Prince Charming, which makes him bubble with laughter as always. Chef steps around them as he circles the tables and pretends to look hurt.
    â€œSorry, Mami, that I was not a little girl for you.Maybe we can dress up Javi for his quinceañera and pretend? Ha!”
    Okay, well at least now there’s officially someone in the room more horrified than I am. But why is Javier over there chuckling with Tristan instead of burying himself in his hoodie? Boy bonding? Where are my BFFs when I need them?
    I spin around to find Lillian alternately obsessing over her perfect lattice and sneaking looks at Javier. At the graham-cracker table, Frankie’s pouring key-lime filling into the crust while Tristan holds the pan. She’s trying to gaze into his eyes, but he is more interested in scanning the table for crumbs and tossing them into his mouth. Meanwhile, Frankie’s not even using a spoon to scrape up the leftover filling, which is totally unlike her. Something is definitely up with Frankie.
    Mom puts the last of our buttermilk pies into the big ovens, and when she turns around I see that she has a flour smudge on the tip of her nose. Before Ican tell her, Chef Antonio swoops over and dusts it off with his oven mitt. They both laugh, but I’m not amused. First, the party I’m not in the least bit excited about takes over our Saturday cooking club, and now my mom and Chef are acting weird. The only good thing about this stupid not-mitzvah is that my parents are starting to like each other again. Our handsome, charming TV star Chef had better not get in the way. . . .

CHAPTER 11
Frankie

    My dad sent me to the vegetable stand on Court Street to get a whole bunch of different-colored peppers and some onions. Of course, thanks to Chef Antonio and the cooking class, I now know that peppers are actually fruit, not veggies, but I’m not about to tell Mr. Pak that he should change the name of his stand. I love that Dad trusts me to pick out the best ones—he’s super choosy about his ingredients and usually spends way too much time studying, squeezing, andsniffing the merchandise at Mr. Pak’s. But today is Sunday and he’s trying to crank out a mess of dinners for the week, since he’ll be on duty at the firehouse until eight or nine almost every night. I like to go to the vegetable stand and do my best Joe Caputo impression, inspecting the vegetables for perfection. I like to think I can spot perfection pretty easily—it’s one of my talents.
    My dad dedicating an entire day to cooking for the week spares us the ordeal of Mom making dinner. True fact: She’s not as bad as she used to be. But when you’re talking about my mom, that doesn’t mean much. The cooking class has helped a bit, I have to admit. Most things she tries these days are pretty much cooked all the way through—a big