A/N: This is the last part of the story. It became a little longer than the others, but I became really interested in the doughnut making process. Enjoy!
Of Dancing and Doughnuts Part Three
A few weeks went by, and things slowly returned to normal. Jake Ryan still sucked in the attention of most of the female students, but Lilly and Miley avoided any mention of the television star they shared classes with. Lilly even avoided staring at his profile in class, even going as far as taking his poster down from her bathroom wall. She did not want to be reminded that a boy chose Miley over her. Miley tried her best to pretend the whole thing never happened. She did not want to be reminded of just how much she hurt her best friend.
She was combing through her hair after an afternoon shower when her phone rang. Spending the entire Sunday surfing with Oliver had led to a need for deep conditioning of her scalp and a long spray of hot water.
"Hello?"
"Lilly, guess what I just found out!" Miley's voice was excited at the other end of the line. Lilly could almost picture her jumping up and down.
"Umm…Orlando Bloom's going to your concert tonight?' Even though she knew it was unlikely, the idea served to excite Lilly almost as much as Miley.
"I wish. No, I just found out that my episode of 'Zombie High' is on tonight!"
"Cool!"
"I know!"
"But, you aren't going to be able to watch it," Lilly realized. "Your concert starts just before the show."
Miley sighed and said, "I know. Jackson's taping it, but who knows how that will go? I was hoping you could record it for me."
"Yeah, sure. I never miss an episode anyway." Lilly shrugged and continued to try and detangle her hair, ignoring the thought of seeing Jake and Miley onscreen together.
"Thanks! You're the best friend ever!" Miley's voice squeaked at the end of the sentence.
"Yeah, yeah. Go get ready. I don't want your dad to blame me when you miss your sound check."
Five minutes later, Lilly was crossing from her driveway to Oliver's, entering his house through the garage, not bothering to knock on the door.
"Come on in, Lilly," Nancy Oken said from the stove when Lilly walked into the kitchen.
"Oh, hi Mrs. O. I didn't know you were home. I thought you went to the zoo with everyone else. I was just coming to tell Oliver about the new 'Zombie High' episode that's on tonight." She took a step closer to the exit to the dining room, knowing Mrs. Oken did not really mind her just walking in. She had been doing it for years. Lilly paused when she heard the unmistakable sound of water rushing to the upstairs pipes.
"He just got in the shower. I made him help me bring the groceries in and take out all of the garbage before I let him bathe." Lilly smiled and sniffed the air. A familiar smell hung in the tiled room. It reminded her of breakfast.
"Are you making waffles?" she asked.
"No, no. I'm practicing making doughnuts." Mrs. Oken moved away from the stove, and Lilly was able to see a fryer set up on the stove top and a bowl of some sort of dough next to it. She had also set up bowls of powdered sugar, granulated sugar, and some sort of chocolate sauce. "You want to help me until Oliver comes back down?"
Lilly tried very hard not to laugh at the idea of her best friend's mother trying to master the art of doughnut making. She still found the entire thing amusing. "Sure," she finally said. "What do I have to do?"
"I already made the dough yesterday, so we just have to take a piece, roll it into a kind of tube, then you pinch the edges together to make the circle." She demonstrated as she explained. "Once we have a few, I'll stick them in the fryer. I already did one batch." She pointed out a plate with large chocolate covered circles on it. "Make sure you wash your hands before you help," Mrs. Oken added, gesturing to the sink with her chin.
Lilly removed the sweatshirt she had just put on and draped it over the back of a chair in the adjacent dining room. She pulled her hair back before she went over to wash her hands. Her mother rarely let her help in the kitchen, and her dad was a horrible cook, so she always liked to help Mrs. Oken when she asked.
Lilly carefully pulled a clump of dough from the bowl, then asked, "is this too much?"
"Hmm… I think it'll be fine." Oliver's mother nodded her head and pulled out a clump of dough for herself.
"So, why are you making doughnuts? I thought you finished that cooking class." Lilly carefully rolled the dough on the surface of the counter, forming a long tube.
"I did, but this was the only pastry I had trouble with, and I want to get it right." The corners of her mouth quirked up into a grin. It was one similar to Oliver's whenever he had a plan that was not going to work. "Besides, they're my favorite non-healthy breakfast."
"Mine too." Lilly smiled to herself and began to curl the dough in front of her into a big O. She placed it in the metal container that resembled a basket Mrs. Oken had set on the counter, and noticed the oil in the fryer had begun to bubble.
The two of them worked in companionable silence, and Lilly was grateful. At her house, it was never silent. Her mother was always asking questions about her day: her classes, her grades, boys, Miley, her plans with Oliver. It was never ending, and each piece of information just seemed to make her mom want to know more. Lilly would feed her one or two word answers until she was able to escape from the conversation by directing her mom's attention to her younger brother. Nancy Oken never pushed her for information. She would just make small talk with her, not usually hitting on anything really important. Lilly thought it might have been an interrogation tactic though. Lull the prisoner into a false sense of security, make them think you were their friend, then they would talk more easily.
When Nancy lowered the basket into the boiling liquid, Lilly paused in her thought process and asked another question. "What else did you learn to make?"
"A couple of different cakes, orange-cranberry muffins, cinnamon rolls, mainly breakfast pastries."
"Cinnamon rolls?" Lilly's eyes brightened. "I love cinnamon rolls." She told Mrs. Oken.
"Well, I could give you the recipe, if you want to try to make them with your mom." She cautiously brought the metal basket up out of the swirling oil to check on her project, then pushed it back down.
Lilly laughed as she imagined that conversation with her mother. "My mom doesn't like to let me use any of the kitchen appliances other than the dishwasher, and even then, I usually unload it, not run it."
Nancy laughed as she remembered Lilly and Oliver's kitchen mishaps from when they were much younger. "Heather really needs to get over that whole incident with the stove. You two were only eight."
"I know! We were just trying to bake my brother a birthday cake!" Lilly shook her head in disbelief. "Not my fault we didn't actually know how to use it," she muttered to herself.
"And at least you didn't turn her entire floor bright red," Mrs. Oken said, laughing to herself.
"I'm still sorry about that, you know," Lilly replied, feeling her cheeks turn a little pink.
"I know."
"It did look kind of cool though," Lilly said softly, not wanting to anger her best friend's mom. Mrs. Oken just laughed, and pulled the basket of doughnuts back up. This time she was able to dump the basket on to a towel on the counter, wanting to get some of the oil off of the cooling food. The sound of the water moving through the pipes had finally come to a stop, and Lilly figured that if Oliver could smell the doughnuts, he would be down to the kitchen in no time.
"Do you want to put those on to a platter for me once they cool off a little bit? I'm going to keep working on the circles over here."
Lilly nodded and wiped her hands on another towel. She turned her head as she listened to what sounded like a heard of elephants running down the stairs in the living room. Oliver was suddenly in the kitchen, still pulling a tee shirt over his head and his hair dripping wet.
"Jeez Oken, how can you possibly be hungry? You just had a cheeseburger and a half and a whole plate of curly fries from Rico's an hour ago." Lilly watched Oliver put on the brakes as he noticed she was in the kitchen.
"Didn't I just leave you at your house? I'm pretty sure I live here," he joked. "And I only had one cheeseburger." He started to reach for a doughnut in front of Lilly, but she smacked his hand away.
"You ate half of mine. And those are hot, they just came out of the fryer. You'll burn yourself."
"Surfing works up an appetite," he protested.
"Your mom already had those done." Lilly pointed to the plate holding the chocolate covered doughnuts, then watched as Oliver devoured one in two bites. She scrunched her nose up in disgust.
Lilly could hear Mrs. Oken laughing, even though she kept her back to the two teenagers, carefully adding a layer of doughnuts to the metal basket again. Oliver walked over to the fridge, grabbing a bottle of water.
"You want anything?" he asked Lilly, knowing his mother would want him to be polite. She did not realize that Lilly just helped herself when his parents were out of the kitchen.
"Nope, I'm good."
Oliver hopped up on the one bit of counter space that was not being used and asked, "so, what's up? I thought we were done surfing for the day."
"We are. It's gonna be dark soon, and I'm not allowed to surf at night," Lilly told him, rolling her eyes. "I just wanted to tell you that the episode with Hannah Montana is on for 'Zombie High' tonight." Lilly gave Oliver a look. " Miley can't watch it, so I told her I'd record it for her." Oliver gave Lilly a blank look for a second, but then the light dawned in his eyes.
"Oh, right. Miley's been talking about that one for the last month." Oliver nodded his head.
"And, I don't know how to use my mom's new system, so I was hoping I could record it over here." She might have forgot to mention that part to Oliver's mother when she came in earlier.
"Why can't Miley watch it?" Nancy Oken did not face Lilly when she asked and Oliver shot Lilly a wide eyed look of panic. He was never good at lying to his mom.
"Uh, I think she said she was doing something with her dad tonight. She asked Jackson to tape it for her, but he might tape wrestling or something just to mess with her." Lilly nodded to herself at her answer, then reached for the pair of tongs Mrs. Oken had put out for moving the doughnuts around. She carefully moved the doughnuts from the towel to a platter, then appeared to be thinking.
"What?" Oliver asked her.
"Powdered sugar or regular sugar?"
"Powdered," Oliver answered without hesitation. He watched Lilly pick up a spoonful and begin to sprinkle it over the six O's resting on the tray.
"When does that show come on? About an hour?" Mrs. Oken glanced over at the clock on the wall. "Why don't you help Lilly out with these doughnuts for a while? I'm going to see if you're father's on his way home from the zoo. And then you two can figure out how to record that show for Miley."
"I don't know how to make doughnuts," Oliver scoffed at his mother's idea.
"Neither did I until about fifteen minutes ago. Wash your hands." Lilly pointed the tongs at Oliver menacingly while she spoke and he grinned.
"You wouldn't hurt me with my mom in the room."
"Hurt you? Oliver I would never think of such a thing!" Her expression was the picture of innocence, but she was still pointing the utensil in his direction. He rolled his eyes and shook his head in her direction as he jumped down from the counter top. "Hey! Don't shake your hair water on the food!"
While Mrs. Oken was on the phone in the other room Lilly showed him how to shape the dough into a tube, but he kept elbowing her trying to mess up her perfect circles. She did not want to be the one to get a talking to from his mother, so she tried to resist the temptation to hit him back.
Lilly finally threw her hands into the air and said, "Fine! Do whatever you want!" Oliver spelled out his first name in dough and then put the letters into the basket. Lilly rolled her eyes at his antics. "Does that mean all of those are yours? Trying to make sure your little brother doesn't steal them from you?"
"If you stop being so annoying, I'll let you have the L," Oliver told her with his nose in the air.
"Hey! How am I the annoying one? I didn't even hit you!"
He kept making doughnuts in strange shapes and she manned the fryer until Mrs. Oken came back from the phone.
Forty five minutes later the two of them were arguing about just how to program the VCR in the living room and Nancy Oken was busy ignoring them and cleaning up the kitchen.
"Lilly, I'm telling you, you have to program the channel on the VCR and then set it to record. Just putting the TV on the channel and hitting record won't work!"
"Then we need to try it first. Make sure we do it right before the show comes on! We only have like, five minutes!" Lilly shoved the blank tape at him again, and waited for him to push all of the necessary buttons. They let the tape record for two minutes, then Oliver stopped and rewound it.
"See," he told her triumphantly as the commercial they had just witnessed popped back up on the screen.
Lilly groaned, knowing he would be reminding her that he was right for the rest of the night. She sank into the couch and pulled her feet up underneath her. "Just start recording! It'll be on soon."
Oliver climbed on to the couch next to her, and they prepared to watch the show. Lilly's phone rang just as the face of Jake Ryan filled the screen.
"Yes, it just came on. I'm recording. No, Hannah hasn't been on yet. I'll talk to you later." Lilly hung up the phone and put it back into her pocket.
"Miley?" Oliver asked.
"Of course." Lilly rolled her eyes again.
When Hannah Montana as the Zombie Princess appeared on screen, they began to pay closer attention. When she opened her mouth to speak though, Lilly and Oliver both cringed. Neither of them looked at one another.
The first commercial rolled, and Lilly looked at Oliver out of the corner of her eye. His head was cocked to the side and he appeared confused.
"He's known her for thirty seconds, and they're in love? I thought this was an action show."
"It's love at first sight, you doughnut!" Lilly whacked him with a pillow. "More importantly, what are we going to tell Miley when she asks us how she was?"
Their eyes met and Oliver shrugged. "We tell her she exceeded our expectations."
'What?"
"That's what my dad always tells me when I get above a C minus on a Spanish test," Oliver told her, shrugging his shoulders again.
"Oliver, you saw her. You heard her. She was awful."
"We did agree to always tell each other the truth."
"But she'll be humiliated!" Lilly looked torn.
"Not if all of Hannah's fans like the show." Oliver watched as the show came back on. Hannah was pulled into a bathroom by a pair of zombies.
"Not the third stall…" she called from the television screen before she was saved by Jake Ryan in an elaborate fight sequence.
"Why doesn't Hannah get to do any fighting?" Lilly asked, the feminist in her coming to the surface. "She's a zombie, shouldn't she be able to defend herself?"
"They probably couldn't afford a stunt double. I hear Hannah's a bit expensive." Oliver and Lilly both laughed.
When the show came to an end less than twenty minutes later, Lilly's pocket began to ring. She pulled her phone out and tried to give it to Oliver. "You talk to her."
"No way! You're her best friend, not me!" Oliver pushed the phone back to Lilly.
"I thought we were all best friends!" Lilly shot back.
"But, you're closer to her. You guys share clothes."
"I've worn your clothes before!"
"We were in fifth grade! And Miley hasn't!"
"Ugh. Fine!" Lilly pressed the button and brought the phone to her ear. "Hey, how's the show going? Oh, yeah, that's good. Yep, just watched it. Yeah, it was interesting. Oh, ok. Yeah, you should get back out there. I'll see you at school tomorrow!"
"Well?" Oliver waited.
"Someone threw flowers onstage," Lilly said brightly. It was Oliver's turn to roll his eyes at her. "You heard me, I said it was interesting, but then she had to get back out there."
"Tomorrow at school, we tell her it was great." Oliver looked at Lilly. "We have to."
"Even the kiss with Demon Dog?" Lilly shuddered at the memory of the scene and for a minute Oliver looked as though he would be ill.
"All of it."
"What if nobody else thought it was great?" Lilly asked him
"Doesn't matter. She's not going to be a big actress anyway. They just asked her to be on the show cause she's Hannah." Oliver shrugged his shoulders.
"Fine." Lilly crossed her arms and looked resigned to the situation.
Oliver got up, stopped the tape, and headed for the kitchen. "Want a doughnut?" he called over his shoulders.
"Is the sky blue?" Lilly muttered to herself and scrambled after him.