“Nice outfits,” she says to my mother and me, casting an eye over our matching skirts and sweaters. “Very pretty.”
Her compliment makes me feel a teeny bit better. Even if Becca thinks I look stupid—which I have absolutely no doubt she will—what does her opinion matter compared to former supermodel Clementine’s?
“Cassidy’s in her room with Megan,” Mrs. Sloane tells us. “Why don’t you girls go on up and wait there, while we finish getting everything ready on the set. Phoebe, Shannon, come with me. I’m going to put you to work icing the cupcakes with Lily. The Chadwicks should be here any time and then we’ll be good to go.”
As our mothers disappear down the hall toward the kitchen, Jess and I head upstairs. I peek into the dining room as we go past. There are spotlights facing the table, which is set for our tea party. The windows are draped with panels of gold and silver fabric, and there are gold and silver candlesticks everywhere. It looks like a palace. We’re not supposed to be having a Christmas party, exactly—Mrs. Sloane and the producers wanted it to be a bit more general than that, something viewers could picture doing for Thanksgiving or Christmas or New Year’s or even Hanukkah. It’s a bit weird, though, since it’s not even Halloween yet. Cassidy says the filming schedule takes some getting used to. She’s never sure from week to week what time of year it will be inside her house.
“Hi, guys!” I say, flinging myself onto Cassidy’s bed and startling Murphy, the Sloanes’ dog, who was sound asleep on the pillow. He gives me a reproachful glance.
“Sorry, pal.” I scratch him behind his ears, and, somewhat mollified, he rolls over on his back so I can scratch his tummy, too.
Cassidy’s older sister Courtney pokes her head in the door. “Mom says I’m supposed to inspect you all.” She looks us over and spots Cassidy’s high tops. “Come on, Cassidy! What’s the matter with you? Take those sneakers off and put on your nice shoes like Mom asked. You don’t want to embarrass her. And could you maybe brush your hair?”
Muttering to herself, Cassidy unlaces her sneakers. Courtney turns to Megan and Jess and me. “You three look great,” she says. “Fun sweater, Emma. That color is perfect on you.”
I’m beginning to suspect that my mother called the Sloanes ahead of time and asked them to work on boosting my confidence. But Courtney sounds completely sincere. I wish I had an older sister. I love Darcy and everything; he’s great most of the time as far as big brothers go, but compliments are not his strong point.
“Thanks, Courtney, you look nice too,” I tell her. Courtney always looks pretty. She’s like a little photocopy of Mrs. Sloane. She’s not dressed up today, because she’s not part of our book club, so she’s just wearing jeans and a turquoise hoodie. Somehow she still manages to look grown-up and sophisticated, though, and she makes me feel about ten years old in my red sweater with the little snowmen on it.
“How’s Lois Lane?” Cassidy asks after Courtney heads back downstairs.
I make a face. “Not so great.” I explain what happened at the newspaper meeting after school on Thursday.
“Man,” Cassidy says when I’m done. “The queen bee sure has her stinger out for you.”
“You can’t let her get to you, Emma,” Jess adds.
Megan doesn’t say anything. She’s sitting on the other side of Murphy and seems very interested in the bedspread. Her dark, shoulder-length hair has swung forward, obscuring her face.
“Becca tried that ‘Goat Girl’ stuff on me the first day of school and I let her have it,” Jess continues. “I called her a ‘cretinous troglodyte’ right in front of Zach Norton. That shut her up fast.”
“A what-inous troglo-who?” sputters Cassidy.
Jess grins. “Cretinous troglodyte. I’ve been saving it up all summer. My dad helped me pick it out as ammunition, just in case. It means stupid cave-dweller, but it sounds much worse, doesn’t it?”
We all laugh, and Cassidy gets Jess to write the insult down for her so she can memorize it. “This’ll come in handy at the rink,” she tells us, sticking the note in her desk drawer. “Some of those hockey players can be real trash-talkers.”
“You know, Emma,” Megan says softly, “Becca doesn’t really mean it. She only says those things because she knows they bug you. It’s just a bad habit.”
We all stare at her. Since when did Megan start sticking up for Becca Chadwick again?
“That’s easy for you to say,” I tell her indignantly. “You’ve never been Becca’s punching bag the way I have.”
Jess quickly changes the subject. But I can’t stop thinking about Megan and Becca. Katie Malone’s not the only one Becca’s been sucking up to lately. Now that she’s in our book club, and now that she knows Megan’s fashion designs are going to be featured in Flashlite magazine, Becca’s been acting really friendly again toward Megan. And Megan hasn’t exactly been fending her off.
“So, how are your designs coming?” Cassidy asks.
Megan flops backward onto the bed and heaves a dramatic sigh. “Don’t ask.”
“Anything we can do to help?” says Jess.
Megan shakes her head. “The launch issue is scheduled for next summer. It seems like a long ways off, but they said they’d need my designs by the middle of March. I’m already getting nervous about it. Plus, everything I’ve drawn so far just looks stupid.”
“Let’s take a look,” says Cassidy, rooting in Megan’s shoulder bag for her ever-present sketchbook.
Megan sits up and lets out a screech of protest. “No!” she cries, grabbing it away from her.
Cassidy snatches it back, laughing. “C’mon, Megs, we’re your friends.” She flips it open. We crowd around to inspect the pages. The outfits look fine to me, but when I look more closely at the models, I realize they’re all Becca.
“Girls! The Chadwicks are here! We’re ready to get started!” Mrs. Sloane calls up the stairs.
None of us says a word as Megan stuffs the sketchbook back in her bag. We file downstairs to the dining room in silence and wait outside the door while Mr. Goldberg, who is overseeing the crew, makes sure the candles are all lit and the cameras are in position. Becca and her mother are waiting outside the door too.
“Nice snowmen, Emma,” whispers Becca, quietly enough that nobody else can hear. “I had a sweater like that once, too—back in preschool.”
Despite the promise I made to my mother earlier, and all the nice things Mrs. Sloane and Courtney said, I feel my eyes fill up with tears of rage and humiliation. How can Megan possibly like someone as mean as Becca?
“You’re awfully quiet,” Mrs. Wong says to us as we take our seats around the table.
I don’t answer. I’m afraid if I say anything the tears might spill over.
“We’re just excited, that’s all,” Jess tells her.
Willing the tears away, I concentrate on how beautiful everything looks instead. There are gold and silver ribbons twined around the chandelier, and the candles in the candlesticks are glowing all down the center of the table, their reflections shining in the centerpiece—a big glass bowl filled with gold and silver ornaments. I don’t remember seeing these plates and teacups before—they’re gold-rimmed and very fancy—and I wonder if they belong to Cassidy’s mom or if they’re just part of the stage set.
Two crew members come in carrying three-tiered trays laden with fancy finger food—tiny sandwiches and mini cupcakes and things like that. They set them on the table, alongside a silver teapot. Cassidy reaches out for a truffle and her mother swats her hand away.
“We’re going to film the tea party first, and then later we’ll all go into the kitchen and do some baking for what will eventually be the first part of the episode,” Mrs. Sloane explains. “And we’ll take the decorations down and put them up again as well.”
Filming a TV show is complicated, I decide. But Mrs. Sloane’s cheeks are pink and her eyes are sparkling, and it’s obvious she’s really enjoying herself. I muster a smile and decide I’m going to try and e
njoy myself too. Like my mother, I want to do Cassidy’s mom proud.
I glance over at Becca. She’s smiling too. Not at me, though. She’s smiling straight at the camera. With her lips together, of course.
“It’s not on yet,” says Cassidy in a stage whisper.
Jess snickers; Becca blushes; and Mrs. Sloane shoots Cassidy a warning glance.
“What I thought we’d do for this first segment is combine the tea party with our usual book club meeting,” she says. “That way, we can help give other book clubs ideas for fun things they can do too.”
“Quiet on the set,” says Mr. Goldberg as Mrs. Sloane takes her seat. My mother, who is sitting next to me, squeezes my hand. I take a deep breath. I’m not really nervous, just a little jittery. Cassidy told us there’s nothing to be scared of, since it’s not like live TV. They’ll tape a whole bunch, she says, then afterward the editors will look everything over, and keep the good stuff and toss the rest.
Maybe they’ll toss Becca, I think, and my smile broadens at this prospect. I can feel myself relax a little.
“Action!” calls Mr. Goldberg.
“Welcome to today’s episode of Cooking with Clementine,” says Mrs. Sloane, flashing the smile that made her famous. “We have a special treat for all of you today, a festive mother-daughter book club holiday tea party!”
She goes around the table introducing each of us, and then starts pouring tea as our meeting gets underway. Mrs. Delaney, who is sitting on the other side of me, passes one of the towers of treats, and I take a cucumber sandwich, a chicken salad sandwich, a truffle, and three mini cupcakes. Then I glance over at Becca and remember her “Porky the Poet” comment, and I put one of the cupcakes back, hoping they don’t catch this on film.
“Here’s your first official handout of the year, girls,” says my mother cheerfully, passing out sheets of paper. “L. M. Montgomery—Lucy Maud, or just Maud to her friends—was a fascinating woman. I think you’re going to enjoy getting to know her just as much as you enjoyed getting to know Louisa May Alcott last year when we read Little Women.”
“Hey!” says Cassidy. “They had the same first two initials.”
“Well, what do you know about that,” my mother replies. “I hadn’t noticed. A good omen for a smooth transition, I’d say.”
We all laugh politely and sip our tea and nibble at our food. Across the table, Cassidy is chomping on an egg salad sandwich, and I remind myself to chew with my mouth closed as I see her mother elbow her discreetly.
“Let me explain a little about how our book club works,” says Mrs. Sloane brightly, launching into a conversation with the camera. While she’s describing our reading schedule and how we try and learn a little about the author at each of our meetings, and sometimes bake food or do crafts from the books, I scan my handout.
FUN FACTS ABOUT MAUD
1. Lucy Maud Montgomery was born on November 30, 1874, on Prince Edward Island in Canada.
2. Her mother died when she was two, and her father moved to Western Canada seeking a better life, leaving Maud in the care of Lucy and Alexander Macneil, her mother’s parents. Maud would later base the characters of Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert partly on these grandparents.
3. Maud always knew she wanted to be a writer. She started keeping a journal at age nine, received her first rejection letter at twelve, and published her first poem in a Charlottetown newspaper a few days before she turned sixteen. She later wrote, “It was the first sweet bubble on the cup of success.”
4. Her literary career would go on to span some fifty years, until her death on April 24, 1942. Overall, Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote twenty-four books, 530 short stories, and more than five hundred poems.
I glance down at my teacup and wonder if I’ll ever be lucky enough to taste that sweet bubble of success. I haven’t had the courage to try and publish any of my poems or stories yet. They’re too private. Especially the poems. Well, except for the one about Zach Norton that Becca read aloud to everybody last year, that is, I think bitterly. That one certainly wasn’t private anymore.
“So,” says my mother briskly, as Mrs. Sloane winds up her explanations and gives her a nod. “Let’s get this discussion started. You’ve all read up through chapter fifteen, right? Are you enjoying the book so far?”
Everyone raises her hand except Becca.
“Rebecca Louise,” barks Mrs. Chadwick.
Becca halfheartedly raises her hand.
“Cut!” says Mr. Goldberg. He sighs. “It’s Mrs. Chadwick, isn’t it?”
She fixes him with a cold stare. “That’s right, young man.”
Mr. Goldberg looks a little flustered at this. He’s got grayish hair and is at least as old as Mrs. Chadwick. “Uh, you do recall that you’re on camera here, don’t you? You might want to watch the tone of your voice.”
“Don’t tell me how to raise my children, and I won’t tell you how to film a TV show,” snaps Mrs. Chadwick.
Mr. Goldberg shoots Cassidy’s mother a look.
“What Fred means, Calliope,” Mrs. Sloane says smoothly, “is that we wouldn’t want to give viewers the wrong impression. You’re such a devoted mother to Becca, and that’s what we want to convey here on film.”
Mrs. Chadwick preens at this. “Well,” she says, a tad less waspishly, “I’ll try and keep that in mind. But watch your manners, Becca.”
For a moment I almost feel sorry for Becca. It can’t be easy, having a snapping turtle like Mrs. Chadwick for your mother. But then I remember “Porky the Poet” and I don’t feel so sorry for her anymore.
“Roll ’em!” says Mr. Goldberg.
“Let’s talk about the characters,” my mother suggests, and we go around the table telling who our favorite and least favorite characters are.
Almost all of us like Anne Shirley best, except my mother, who is particularly fond of Marilla.
“She’s so steely and stern on the outside, but she’s really a cream puff underneath,” she says, plucking a tiny cream puff from the top tier of the nearest tea tray and holding it up for emphasis.
The other mothers all laugh. Becca looks over at me, shaking her head in pity. I stretch out my leg under the table, wondering if it’s long enough to give her a good swift kick. It’s not, unfortunately.
When it’s my turn, I look Becca right in the eye. I don’t care if the cameras are rolling or not. “My least favorite character is Josie Pye,” I say.
Becca doesn’t even blink. I’ll bet she hasn’t even read the book.
“Mine is Mrs. Rachel Lynde,” says Mrs. Wong. “At least in the beginning. She turns out okay in the end. But what a busybody! I can’t imagine anybody in real life being that nosy and outspoken, can you?”
There’s an awkward pause. Actually, that description fits someone in this room to a T. I try not to look at Mrs. Chadwick, who’s furtively removing the last two truffles from the tea tray and isn’t paying the rest of us the least bit of attention.
“How about you, Shannon?” my mother says hastily to Mrs. Delaney. “Do you have a favorite or least favorite?”
“You know, this may sound odd, but my favorite character is Green Gables itself,” Jess’s mother replies. “Lucy Maud Montgomery describes that old farmhouse so vividly it almost seems alive.”
“I know what you mean,” agrees Mrs. Wong.
Mrs. Chadwick gives an ungracious snort. I hope the film editor will be able to cut it out or erase it or something, because like Mrs. Wong, I know exactly what Mrs. Delaney means.
“When I first read this book as a girl, I desperately wanted to move to Green Gables,” Jess’s mother continues. “It seemed so beautiful to me, like heaven on earth!”
“And then you grew up and married Dad and moved to Half Moon Farm instead,” says Jess happily. “Which is even more beautiful than Green Gables.”
Her mother puts her arm around her shoulders and draws her close. “That’s right, honey.” There’s a hint of sadness in her voice, and I see my mother and Mrs. Slo
ane exchange a glance across the table. I sure wish I knew what was going on with the Delaneys. I just hope it isn’t anything bad. Last year was really hard on Jess.
“How about you, Becca, do you have a favorite character?” my mother coaxes.
Becca gives me a sly glance. “Gilbert Blythe.”
I turn bright red. I know as well as she does that she’s not talking about Gilbert Blythe. She’s talking about Zach Norton. The girls at Walden Middle School are just as crazy about Zach as the girls in Avonlea were about Gilbert Blythe. Becca knows I have a crush on Zach because of the poem I wrote last year. She has a crush on him too, just like Josie Pye did on Gilbert. She must have read the book after all.
“I don’t get what the big deal between Gilbert and Anne was in that last chapter we read,” says Cassidy. “All he did was call her ‘Carrots’ and she turned around and whapped him over the head with her slate.”
“She was sensitive about her red hair,” I explain, spearing another glance at Becca. “It’s like somebody teasing you about the one thing you don’t want to be teased about.”
Becca mouths the word Porky silently at me. Then she says aloud, “Maybe we should start calling you ‘Carrots,’ Cassidy.”
“Maybe you should think twice before you do, Metalmouth,” Cassidy shoots back.
“Cassidy Ann!” says her mother, shocked.
“Cut!” shouts Mr. Goldberg. “Ladies, please! This is supposed to be a friendly tea party!”
“Becca started it,” says Cassidy.
“Nonsense!” barks Mrs. Chadwick.
“I’ll handle this, Calliope,” Mrs. Sloane tells her stiffly.
My mother holds up her hand. “How about we all just take a deep breath and forge ahead here? I’m sure Mr. Goldberg and the crew want to wrap things up this afternoon as speedily as possible.”