The Icing on the Cake by Deborah A. Levine Read Free Book Online Page B

grandmother puts her arm around my shoulders. “But my friends are all in Manhattan, sweetheart, and it’s harder for people my age to get around the city. You understand that, right?”
    This from the woman with a car and driver waiting at the curb. I could remind her, but there’s no point. Instead, I wander around the room while she stands there beaming. I must be looking pouty, because finally she throws up her hands.
    â€œI can see this isn’t your favorite,” Nana says. “That’s okay, that’s why I brought you along. It’s your party, after all.”
    Is it? You could have fooled me.
    â€œSo you’re not going to rent out this place?” I ask, hopefully.
    â€œI still have to do some price comparisons and look into a few other details. But your lack of enthusiasm about this venue is duly noted.”
    Nana’s nonanswer isn’t totally reassuring, and her chilly tone is intended to make me feel bad, but I’m a little bit relieved anyway. At least this is the last “venue” of the day. I snap a photo of the Buckingham ballroom while Nana isn’t looking and send it to Frankie and Lillian. Gotta go, I type. My carriage awaits.
    Outside by the car Nana says she’s staying in Manhattan and will get a cab home. She tells the driver to take me back to Brooklyn. “And don’t try anything funny,” she warns him, giving him a distinctive NanaSilver glare. “That’s my granddaughter and I know what you look like and where you work.” She makes a show of studying his ID posted on the dashboard and takes a picture with her phone.
    I slink down into my seat. Nana’s protectiveness is sweet, I guess, but I feel terrible for the driver, who has been extremely professional and perfectly nice to us all day.
    â€œSorry,” I say as we pull into traffic.
    The driver (whose name is Vikas, according to the card I’ve read at least a hundred times) laughs. “No worries,” he says. “You are lucky to have a grandmother who cares only for your happiness.”
    Now it’s my turn to laugh. Ha! I think. My happiness? If you only knew.

CHAPTER 9
Liza

    â€œThis Spanish assignment is giving me a stomachache,” Lillian says. We’re over at Frankie’s doing our homework in the kitchen, which is the only room that is temporarily free of her brothers and assorted random boys throughout the house. Her dad is not on duty today, so he’s apparently doing little repairs all over the place—tightening hinges on doors, patching small holes in plaster, changing a shower head. The Caputos’ house takes a beating, I guess, becauseFrankie’s dad is always doing this kind of thing—when he’s not in the kitchen cooking, I mean.
    â€œYou’re probably just hungry,” I tell Lillian. “Check out the cabinet next to the microwave—it’s where the Caputos keep their snacks.”
    â€œIs that okay, Frankie?” Lillian asks. Sometimes I forget that she hasn’t grown up in our houses the way Frankie and I have in each other’s.
    â€œHuh?” Frankie looks up at the sound of her name. For some reason she’s been pouring over the “Spring Clubs and Teams” flyer Ms. Hirshman handed out in advisory today. “Oh, sure. Yeah, take whatever you want.”
    Lillian opens the snack cabinet and practically has a stroke. “Oh my God, Liza—look at all this food!”
    I’ve seen the contents of the snack cabinet a thousand times, but it’s not something you ever get used to. There’s a shelf full of chips of every kind—potato, tortilla, barbecue, salt and vinegar, veggie sticks, you name it, if it’s salty and crunches,it’s there—and another that’s crammed with cookies. The rest of the shelves are stocked with cereal, crackers, granola bars, “healthy” Pop-Tarts, and pretty much anything else that exists to