I feel like I can design a cupcake cover cake worthy of Ariel Goldberg’s cover reveal.
Earlier today, Alyssa Peterson emailed me. Subject line: Confidential. When I saw it at lunch, I promptly excused myself to go to the restroom, doing everything in my power to not gasp and run. I opened the email in the bathroom stall and stared at the cover for five minutes, stunned that someone from the real New York publishing universe trusted me with this information that thousands of fans will want. Not because I’m Miriam’s granddaughter—because I’m Kels.
It’s a piece of notebook paper, the cover. The page is filled with words, but they’re all redacted—except for the title words, Read Between the Lies—each on a different line. It has a three-dimensional effect, so the paper looks like it was crumpled up. Splatters of red, like blood, make up the only color on the page.
As soon as I saw it, I knew how I am going to introduce it to the world.
It’s going to be my first ever cinematic cupcake cover reveal.
My friends are already obsessed with this idea.
Elle Carter
A VIDEO??? Kels, that’s going to be AMAZING
4:31 PM
i hope so!! i’m picturing it, like, time-lapsed
4:32 PM
so each cupcake will be laid out one at a time, row by row … and then boom! full cover
4:33 PM
maybe I’ll even do some ~ fancy ~ animation. Swap out the cupcake cover for the actual cover at the end? i don’t know, i’m still experimenting …
4:33 PM
Samira Lee
4:34 PM
Amy Chen
I’m just impressed you can animate anything, tbh
4:34 PM
well, hopefully my brother will help with that part
4:35 PM
Elle Carter
So. Are we now done pretending you don’t care about the bookcon panel?
4:35 PM
Samira Lee
Yeah. This is too next level to “not care.”
4:35 PM
it’s less about not caring, more like how can i even think i have a shot against every other amazing blogger?
4:36 PM
Elle Carter
Because you make cupcakes LOOK LIKE BOOK COVERS?!
4:36 PM
Samira Lee
And write KILLER reviews?
4:36 PM
Amy Chen
and you don’t let adults get away with any of their garbage YA takes!!
4:37 PM
Elle Carter
… have we inflamed your ego enough?
4:38 PM
too much!!
4:39 PM
Okay, yeah, if my post goes viral, I can admit to myself how cool being on a panel at BookCon would be—and also how amazing it would look to NYU. If it goes viral, BookCon will start to feel less like not in a million years and more probably not, but maybe.
The only problem with totally falling for the idea of BookCon? Nash.
If I get in, Kels won’t be anonymous anymore. I’d submit a photo for the announcement—and even if I managed to avoid that, I’d be all over Twitter during the actual convention.
I’d have to tell Nash.
Right now? That feels impossible.
But I can’t talk to my friends about this, obviously, given that they have no idea I’m actually a girl named Halle living in Connecticut sitting with Nash at lunch every day.
So I place my phone down on the countertop a safe distance away from the chaos of ingredients on the table, and focus on them instead. Batch one is in the fridge cooling and Gramps’s kitchen smells like red velvet batter. Batch two—dark chocolate for Ollie—is in the oven. For my cover reveals, the batter flavor doesn’t matter as much as the look, so for tonight’s dry run I can make everyone’s favorites.
I’m making cream cheese frosting from scratch with Grams’s standing mixer when my phone buzzes. I glance over my shoulder and see the Instagram notification. Right on time, it’s a new post from Mad Levitt’s account.
I have notifications turned on for all of Mad and Ari’s social media accounts. It keeps me in the loop and helps me feel like they’re not so far away. It’s jarring, not being on location with my parents, not sitting in on their top-secret meetings, not being in the same time zone as them.
Mom plans on sending a weekly email and we have an ongoing text chain in WhatsApp, but the electricity of being there doesn’t translate in emojis. Instagram is better. The candid shots of my parents scouting locations and exploring Israel are as close as I can get. Today’s post is an obnoxiously cute selfie of my parents, floating in the Dead Sea. While the legal team is crossing Ts and dotting Is, Mom and Dad have been playing tourists in their temporary home.
I double tap to like it.
The emails and texts remind me that I do, in fact, still have parents. But Instagram is where I miss them. With everything going on in the past week, I’ve barely had brain space to think about it, but now I wonder if maybe this was the wrong decision. If I was with them, Nash would’ve continued to exist only in my phone and I wouldn’t be in this mess.
It’s fine.
I’m fine.
I separate the frosting into three bowls and add the appropriate food coloring—black, white, and red. Mix it until it’s the perfect shade of blood red or pitch black. Even though they won’t look like traditional red velvet cupcakes, they’ll still taste like them. When my timer beeps, I pull out the cooled cupcakes in the fridge and swap in the fresh-out-of-the-oven chocolate ones.
Then I fill a piping bag and begin frosting.
Maybe if I make some of them not bloody cupcakes, Gramps can even bring them to Shabbat services.
I know he’s disappointed Ollie and I are not going. We can’t, though. We’re Jewish but we don’t know Hebrew or the melodies of the prayers or the order of the service. Mom and Dad never took us to temple. I’ve already had enough firsts for this week—I’m not ready for another situation where my anxiety will most definitely be on display.
I can’t Shabbat, but I can bake epic cupcakes. That’ll make Gramps happy. It always does.
I snap a picture of the first completed cupcake and send it to Ollie, even though he’s just upstairs—it’s easier than yelling over Kendrick Lamar.
Then, while I wait for him to rush down and give me an opinion, I remember I owe Nash flailing commentary on the new REX panels he emailed me this morning. It’s beautiful and devastating and starting to feel like Rex will never find Terry.
hey! sorry my notes are late, i’m just busy over here sobbing forever!!! seriously.
HOW DARE YOU?
4:31 PM
how does. REX. keep. getting. better???
4:31 PM
*flails*
4:31 PM
Please stop crying
4:32 PM
4:32 PM
Thank you—I think? I hope NYU thinks so
4:33 PM
THEY ABSOLUTELY WILL
4:34 PM
My parents will let me go if I get in? Right?
4:35 PM
i hope so.
4:36 PM
Every time I try to talk about it, I totally freeze.
4:37 PM
mood. they’re THAT against NYU? why? let me guess, your mom has a vendetta because they didn’t accept her a million years ago
4:38 PM
LOL no. It’s a lot of things. It’s expensive. It’s in the middle of a, quote, “big dangerous city.” It’s the fact that Wesleyan has an amazing art program, and it’s right here.