The Cupcake Queen by Heather Hepler

get excited. I mean, people who are splitting up don’t buy a new apartment together, do they? I’m thinking a great walk-up in SoHo or maybe one of those places in Tribeca that are funky-cool even if they need a lot of work.
    But as he keeps talking, I realize that’s not what he’s saying at all. He’s not talking about some new place we’re buying, but our old apartment in the Village and how we have a good offer and he thinks it’s a good time to sell. He keeps saying “we” and “us,” as if I have any say in all of this.
    He finally stops. I know he’s waiting for me to say something, but I’ve got nothing. He clears his throat and takes a breath loud enough for me to hear it through the phone. “Penny, I know you’ve been through a lot, but just remember your mother and I still love you very much.” And I wonder if he’s reading from The Big Book of Stupid Things Parents Say to Their Children.
    All of a sudden I feel dizzy and too hot and I’m afraid I’m going to throw up. But my dad just keeps talking and talking until I have to pull the phone away for a minute so I can breathe.
    I hear my name and put the receiver back to my ear.
    “What?” I ask.
    “Penny,” my dad says, “did you hear me?”
    “Yeah,” I say, but it comes out more as a whisper than anything.
    “Are you okay, Bean?” he asks. He hasn’t called me that in years. I can feel the tears coming again.
    “I just hate it here,” I say. “I want to come home. I miss you.”
    “I know, Bean. I miss you, too.” He’s quiet, and for a moment I wonder if the call dropped, but then he clears his throat. “Listen, I want you to know that you always have a place with me. Just say the word and you can come here,” he says.
    I want to say “the word,” but I don’t know what it is. Help? Then I realize I don’t even know where “here” is. I’ve never been to his new place. I only know it’s somewhere uptown. He starts talking about his apartment building and how it has a rooftop garden and how it’s right around the corner from the Museum of Natural History. He keeps adding details, but they’re just adding to the sinking feeling in my stomach.
    “I mean, just think . . .” he says, and I am, but not about his new apartment and his new kitchen and his new life, but about my old one and how it’s going away.
    “Listen, Dad,” I say. “I have to go, okay?”
    “Sure,” he says. “Think about it, Penny.” There’s silence for a moment. “Let’s talk—” But I don’t hear the rest because I push the End button on the phone and drop it onto the window seat.
    I try to calm myself by looking at the ocean again, but it’s dark out now, and all I can see is my own reflection looking back at me. The sick feeling won’t go away. I want to get out of my own skin, but I can’t. So I do the next best thing—get out of the house. I pull my windbreaker tight around me and walk down the trail until the water covers my feet. I can’t believe they’re selling the apartment. I know it’s just a place, but it’s our place. “If the apartment goes, what’s next?” I ask the seagull sitting on a rock near me. He doesn’t answer, just looks at me and flies away. The wind coming off the water makes my teeth chatter, but I just stand there, letting my toes sink into the soft sand. Somehow, with each announcement my parents make, my old life seems to drift farther and farther away. I let the cold water lap against my ankles. And along with the cold, something else begins to seep into me. Like the water pulling at my feet, it threatens to pull me under. It’s a feeling of hopelessness. And of being completely alone.
    Gram says if you stand on the beach long enough, eventually everything will come to you. I’m sure she was talking about ideas. But while I’m standing there, feeling cold and miserable and sorry for myself, something does come to me. When it does, it knocks me down.
    “Oh man, I am so sorry.”
    I have