Would I hear, “Hey, aren’t you the kid who…” everywhere I went forever?

What had I done? Why didn’t I just make crappy cupcakes? Why did I always have to make everything so hard?

I jumped onto an elevator just as the doors were closing.

Now what?

• • •

Bing… Bing… Bing.

The elevator doors opened, and I ran. Across the lobby. Through the revolving door. And out into the plaza.

Then I stopped. I had nowhere to go.

The Airstream was right out front with Josh, Jeanine, and Zoe waiting for me inside, but I couldn’t face them. Not yet.

I walked to the fountain, sat on the bench, and hunched over so I couldn’t see anything but my shoes.

So what happened? That’s the question I was going to get again and again, not just from Josh and Jeanine and Zoe but Zippo, all my aunts and uncles and cousins, my grandmothers, Winnie, Jim, and everyone in town.

I couldn’t imagine getting the words out even once. How would I be able to say them over and over? Maybe I could wear a sign, like one of those big poster boards they use to advertise stuff in Times Square. Or maybe I could email everyone, and beg them to never, ever ask me about it in person because I might drop dead from humiliation right in front of them.

“Hey.”

I didn’t look up but I could see Mom’s red sandals and Dad’s Nikes.

I waited for them to say something else, to ask me what I’d done, to tell me I had to go back and apologize to everyone, to tell me how disappointed they were.

I’m pretty sure time moves extra slow when you’re waiting for something painful like that—like when you’re waiting to get a shot at the doctor—but I really did feel like I was sitting there for hours waiting for them to say something.

After a while, they sat down on either side of me, and I finally looked up.

“Chef JJ is a nightmare. Always was, always will be,” Mom said. “I guess I just thought, I don’t know, time passes. You forget. People change. It feels like a million years ago.”

“Not to her, I think,” I said.

“No kidding,” Dad said.

Just then, over Dad’s shoulder, I spotted Keya and her father crossing the plaza, and in a flash, I was up and running.

“Keya!”

She turned, then saw me and kept going.

“I’m sorry,” I said to her back as she walked away. “Can I just tell you what happened?”

Her father stopped, so Keya did too.

“We have to go,” she said.

I could tell by the look on her father’s face that they didn’t, but I couldn’t blame her for wanting to get away from me as fast as possible. “I just wanted you to know how sorry I was. Really, really sorry.”

“Okay,” she said not looking at me. “But we really need to go. Bye.” Then she walked off, pulling her father along with her.