“Thank you.” I was so relieved my time with Sal was coming to an end.
“Thank you? You still think this is funny?”
“No, sir. Sorry.”
“Okay then.”
“Bye,” I said and hung up.
“Look at the bright side,” Josh said when I told him what had happened. “You’re not actually Anton. That kid won’t know what hit him when Sal gets home.”
14
Once I’d gotten my lines down, our food supplier calls went much better. And by better, I mean by the end of the day we’d gotten prices from everyone on the list, though one guy did insist on talking to “my mommy” before we talked business.
Josh and I had set a timeline for ourselves. We had only two weeks to figure out where we were getting our ingredients, but Mom made us promise we wouldn’t make any decisions until we’d gone to Stinky Cheese Farm. She was sure it was the perfect place for us to buy the butter, milk, and cream we’d need, and Josh and I agreed that if we could get a good enough deal, it would be cool that the doughnuts were made with dairy from cows right here in Petersville. It might even be a good hook. Starting Your Own Business for Dummies says it’s good to have a hook for your product, something that makes it especially cool or different.
Mom knew we were in a hurry to figure out our suppliers so she arranged for us to visit Stinky Cheese Farm the Saturday after Josh and I had made the calls. The catch was, she wanted Jeanine to go too. To sweeten the deal, she promised to take Josh and me to the movies if we could get Jeanine to come. Basically, she just wanted Jeanine to leave the house, which she hadn’t done in days.
I hadn’t seen a movie in forever. Back in the city, there was a theater three blocks away, but the closest one now was almost an hour’s drive. I didn’t even care what we saw. I just missed the whole sitting-in-a-dark-place-on-someone-else’s-adventure feeling.
And the movie theater popcorn. I missed that too. What is it about movie theater popcorn?
When I came downstairs that morning, Jeanine was in her usual place on the couch studying for the Solve-a-Thon. Mom was there too, already working on her. “Not just cows, baby cows. Look how cute.” Mom was shoving her phone right up in Jeanine’s face.
“They’re called calves,” Jeanine said, underlining something in her study guide.
“You’re not even looking.”
“Because I don’t care.” Jeanine fled to the other side of the couch.
“C’mon,” I said, “Josh is gonna be here any minute. You’re not even dressed.”
“I’m not going.”
“We won’t even be gone that long. We’ll just bike there, see some cows, eat some butter, taste some cream. Then we’re outta there, and you can come right back here and study for the rest of your life.”
“I’m not interested, thanks.”
If I weren’t such a nuddy, I’d have gotten Mom to say she’d take us to the movies just for trying to get Jeanine to come with us.
Mom shuffled down the couch and shoved her phone in Jeanine’s face again. “You haven’t even looked. Tell me you don’t want to see this adorable calf, and I’ll leave you alone.”
“I don’t want to see this adorable calf.”
“Well, I don’t believe you.”
“What happened to, ‘I’ll leave you alone’?”
“Ask Zoe how cute they were. Zo Zo, tell Jeanine how cute the baby cows were,” Mom shouted.
“So cute!” Zoe called from the kitchen.
“See,” Mom said.
“Are you saying they won’t be cute after the Solve-a-Thon?” Jeanine said.
“Less cute.”
“They’re going to get less cute in two weeks? How much less cute exactly?”
“I wanna go see the cows again!”
“No! The cows need a Zoe break!” Mom yelled back.
“Why do the cows need a Zoe break?” I asked.
Mom didn’t answer. Instead, she put her hand under Jeanine’s chin and tipped back her head so she had to look up. “Please, honey, you need to get out of the house. It will actually make you study better. It’s true. There’s research.”
“Where? Show it to me.”
Mom didn’t have any research. She had photos of cows, and those weren’t getting the job done. There was no way we were getting Jeanine to Stinky Cheese Farm or anywhere else. Maybe we could get Josh’s mom to take us to a movie if we let her pick which one. Really, I would have agreed to see almost anything.
“Jeanine, this is ridiculous.” I could tell Mom was about to lose it because she was cracking her knuckles, something she tells us not to do. “Nobody needs to study this much. Plus, you’ll love the farm.”
“I can love it in two weeks,” Jeanine said.
“Tom!” Mom yelled.
Dad appeared at the door to the living room. “What do you think?” He held up a picture frame filled with wine bottle corks all glued together.
“What is it?” I said.
“I made a corkboard. Get it? Corkboard. For the restaurant, you know, for posting specials. What do you think?”
“Great idea, sweetie,” Mom said.
Dad turned the frame around and admired it. “Yeah, I thought so too. And since we talked—”
“Tom, honey, I need you to focus.”
“On what?”
“Jeanine doesn’t want to go to the farm.”
“What farm?” He was still smiling at his creation like he’d just invented tinfoil.
“Stinky Cheese Farm, remember? Tris and Josh are riding out there to talk to the owner, and it’s so close, I thought Jeanine should go too. You know, to get out a bit.” Mom had that just-say-what-I-say tone.
“Sounds good to me.” No way did he actually remember.
“After the Solve-a-Thon,” Jeanine said.
“After the Solve-a-Thon?” Dad said to Mom.
“That’s not for two weeks,” Mom said to Dad.
“That’s for two weeks,” Dad said to Jeanine.
“Tell her to go,” Mom said to Dad.
“Go,” Dad said to Jeanine.
“You can’t make me bike someplace. It’s physically impossible.”
“This is true,” Dad said. “But I could drive you and your bike over there, push both of you
