“Cheers,” Travis said proudly, lifting up a cup of the cider he had carefully poured.
Ransom handed a glass to Mae and one to Hailey and then took one for himself.
“Cheers,” he said, lifting his glass too.
They all clinked their glasses, the kids clinking a little more enthusiastically than they probably should have, and then drank their fill.
“Thank you,” Hailey said.
“How did you feel in that big moment?” Ransom asked.
It was a funny thing to celebrate something that had happened so long ago. But honestly she hadn’t had any close friends in the city at that time and she’d spent the evening after finding out she’d gotten the role alone in her apartment, doubting herself.
“It didn’t feel real,” she remembered. “I wondered if I even deserved it. Plenty of women have been out there auditioning a lot longer than me.”
“They wouldn’t have cast you if you didn’t bring something really special to the role,” Ransom told her. “I think people are really going to love Beebee Evans.”
“Plus your outfits are very pretty,” Mae said, patting the bedazzled belt that she had even worn to bed last night.
“And you get to be Jessica Sugar Bomb,” Travis added. “And you get to be in that commercial for bubble gum.”
“That’s right,” Hailey remembered. The gum was supposed to freshen your breath, making it yourultimate best friend, just like BeeBee Evans played theultimate best friendon the show.
“Okay, I feel another big event coming up,” Ransom said.
The kids gathered the glasses and put them back on the tray and Ransom disappeared again.
“This is amazing,” Hailey said.
“We planned it all out,” Mae told her.
“Baby Travis is born,” Ransom announced from the kitchen.
When he came out a moment later, he was carrying a plate full of cupcakes with blue frosting, each one had a candle on top.
The kids started singingHappy Birthdayto Travis, and Ransom brought the plate over so Travis could blow out the candles.
“I’ll bet he was the cutest baby ever,” Hailey decided.
“UntilIwas born,” Mae said, nodding.
“Travis was born in the middle of the night,” Ransom said, as the birthday boy shoved half a cupcake in his mouth. “And we like to say he’s a party guy because he didn’t like to sleep.”
“I cried a lot,” Travis said through his big bite of cupcake.
“But he was so perfect just the way he was, that he had to have a sibling,” Ransom said, disappearing into the kitchen again.
Hailey took a bite of her cupcake. It was delicious.
Ransom came out again, singing the birthday song once more, this time with a plate of pink cupcakes.
“More cupcakes,” Mae crowed, letting her head fall to the table.
Hailey strongly suspected she was already a little bit sugar-drunk from cider and frosting, but the little girl was so happy, and she knew Ransom didn’t let them eat like this every day.
“Mae was a sweet, quiet little baby,” Ransom said, holding out the cupcakes so she could blow out the candles. “She was saving up all her noise for when she could talk.”
He winked at Mae and she let out a big laugh before grabbing another cupcake.
