Cupcake

by Rachel Cohn

  Oh, and one more thing, Luis? Let's definitely continue with the body-melding friendship, but in the future: no glove, no love. New-Old double-packed protection action. I'd like more "quite nice," just without the panic hangover, please.

  Helen said, "You oughta prostrate yourself with thankful kisses on that nasty New York ground right now, sister. With this baby starting to kick inside my tummy, I can't imagine how different my life would be today if I'd known last summer that there even was a morning-after pill. But by the time the denial went away and I went to the doctor, it was too late. Already pregnant. Damn Guinness and damn irresistible Eamon." She sighed the true love classic. Damn jealousy.

  "But you're happy with your decision," I said. Because even if she hadn't known about the EC at the time of the damn Guinness hangover, Helen still could have made the Old choice I'd once made, back in my boarding school days. How relieved was I to not have to make that choice again? Thank you, pharmaceutical conglomerates.

  "I am," she said, content. Helen would march on Sacramento and Washington a million times over to support a woman's right to choose--but it wasn't a choice she could make for herself. Which I totally respect. "Were there any crazy protesters outside the clinic office?"

  "Not as many as the last time, back when I was at boarding school, but yeah, there were a couple."

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  "Didja give 'em the finger like I asked you to, from me?"

  "Check out the picture I flashed ya."

  "Good job." Pause. Then: "OHMYGOD, CC, what did you do to your hair?"

  This was the same question Chucky had for me when she arrived at our park bench meeting spot. I didn't bother explaining about the New-Old rite of passage de-stress/de-tress hair change. I just tugged a strand of my new New Wave, Astor Place hair--totally a geometry-equation-equaling-chaos cut, with uneven bangs and the left side of my head clipped in an asymmetrical design so that strands fell in long-short random patterns, and the right side chopped to shoulder length and streaked indigo, like as in mood-- and said, "I wanted to not worry about bad hair days for a long while. Now every day will be a bad hair day."

  "Excellent logic," Chucky said. "Sorta like being a couch potato, avoiding the Advil, and eating plenty of junk food when you're PMS'ing, to ensure you feel max crazy."

  "Exactly," I stated. I looked up into the twilight clouds, awaiting the dark starry night sky, whose astral projections would surely confirm that Chucky and I were going to be cosmic-kismet friends.

  Our park bench conversation definitely promised such a possibility. Chucky didn't mind sticking around in the park rather than grabbing a bite, so we sat cross-legged opposite each other on the bench, watching the crowds and talking, munching street vendor

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  honey-roasted cashews (Chucky), and very bravely turning down the weed offered us at a steep discount by a very cute traveling white-boy-Rasta-salesman (me). We talked about our dreams, which turned out to be pretty similar. Chucky wants to marry her true love Marine-boy, Tyrell, and eventually get a small business loan so she can buy out Mrs. Kim's nail shop when Mrs. Kim retires. I want to find another true love, and eventually start my own business too, maybe a café like Danny and Aaron used to have. Like me, Chucky has no interest whatsoever in the college experience.

  "So, are we like entrepreneurial wannabe soul sisters?" I asked Chucky after about the second hour of hanging and chatting, save for one coffee and bathroom run. I loved that as the night sky settled over the city, I could look up over the marble arch at the entrance of Washington Square Park to see the Empire State Building lit up in blue (in honor of my new hair, I'm sure), but despite the contemplative nature of the dark sky and the peaceful lit-up building beacon, the whole while we'd been talking, the park never ceased humming with action. It had its own pulse, like the city. A beautiful model-type lady walked by us, wearing a live snake wrapped around her waist like a belt, her bored model gaze indifferent to the fact that she had a live boa encircling her body instead of, you know, a non-organic feather boa left over from some pride parade. Kids played on the swings, and parents shared

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  private-school-acceptance-rate tragedies. Park performers--jugglers, mimes, the guy painted silver who stood perfectly still, the blind banjo player and one-legged fiddler who played kick-ass hillbilly music with a hip-hop beat, the obligatory crazy people shouting for Jesus-- all livened the hang-out groove, as did the chilly late fall air settling over our shivering shoulders.

  Even if Danny and I are wading into a new avoidance stage of our roommate connection, I still can't believe how much I love this city and how glad I am to live here. I may eventually have to give up living with Danny if doing so means rules that I thought I outgrew when I moved out of my parents' house, but I couldn't give up on Manhattan. Not now when it's just getting good--and cold, like San Francisco.

  I told Chucky about my new job, about the Kona and La Marzocco and Johnny Mold. She said, "How you gonna pay your rent at a job with no customers? My tips barely cover food, my MetroCard, and laundry money."

  Without thinking I said, "My parents pay my rent and help out with expenses. I just have to earn my own spending money." So maybe the caffeine wasn't as potently dangerous as Jell-O, but too much coffee = too much information. I hadn't needed to announce my privileged status, especially to a new friend who'd just spent an hour telling me about her mother's boyfriend who kicked Chucky out of their apartment when she turned eighteen and left her to

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  sleep on the couch at her cousin's place till she could afford her own place.

  "Oh," Chucky said. "So that's how it is." I sensed it wasn't just the autumn night air suddenly changing our vibe to chill. "How lucky for you."

  I decided to change the subject back to a safe one: cute boys. "The thing with the ambulance driver George guy never took off," I told Chucky.

  "¿Por que?" she said, smiling and hopefully warming back up to me.

  "Bad first date. Also, he pronounced 'library' as 'libe-ary' I have a thing about that. Also with people who say 'nuke-ular' instead of 'nuke-lee-ar.' Turns me off."

  "With standards like that, mamacita, don't be surprised if you're single just a little while longer," Chucky said, laughing. Phew.

  I showed her a picture of Luis on my camera phone. "Not totally," I said. "I've got a Mister Right Now." I didn't want Chucky to think I would camera-phone-photo a guy whom I'd just picked up any of where, take cheesecake shots of his laughing eyes, bare chest, and a hand holding a Dixie cup, so I added, "Luis used to work for my bio-dad."

  Chucky's face looked less than enthused as she looked upon the gorgeous cinnamon vision that is Loo-eese. She said, "Oh" again,

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  followed by some muttering in Spanish that went way beyond my twenty-word español vocab, but from the expression on her face, I suspect it translated to something like: "At least I thought I liked you, before I knew you were chasing after a hired help boy in my shade...."

  I knew I wasn't paranoid when, just like that, Chucky stood up and said, "It's late and I should be going. I'll call you later."

  By the look on her face, I'd say the friendship that rocketed off to such a great start was not going to progress any further.

  She won't be calling.

  In the responsibility column of my New life, I'd gotten a job and back on contraception. But in the "Oops" column of my Old habit of pushing too hard too fast, I suspected I could add Chucky to the Danny pile of not -sympaticos.

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  ***

  EIGHTEEN

  I stood before La Marzocco for the come-to-Jesus talk that's nec essary to bless a barista's new relationship with an espresso machine.

  "Look," I told La Marzocco. "My track record for making new friends in this city is iffy right now, so I have to call it straight with you: You and I are gonna be friends--no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I realize you have been neglected and unappreciated in the past, but all that's about to change. So, I v
ow to you: I will keep you cleaned and maintained. I will let you take as long as you need to get primed before you're ready to serve up. All I ask from you in return is absolute loyalty and unconditional love. Do we understand one another, Holiness?"

  La Marzocco churned out the perfect shot in agreement. Amen.

  My new boss Johnny Mold sanctified my new job with his own

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  form of baptism. He chugged down the perfect latte I'd made for him, then pulled out a gift from his jeans pocket.

  He said, "Here. This belonged to the person who had the job before you. I adjusted it for you." He handed me a nameplate. The piece had a new name scratched in blue ink onto a piece of paper that had been cut to fit and messily taped over the nameplate's old name. Good-bye, "Rita." Hello, "Myself."

  I started to say "thank you?" but Johnny Mold wasn't interested in my tender appreciation of his artistry. Instead, he sermonized a new employee initiation speech. His Game Boy in one hand, he pointed around the room with his other hand. "Be careful sitting down in the chairs at that table by the window. Kinda wobbly. That table over there, it's kinda a lot wobbly, so be careful when you set drinks down on it. As you can see here, we don't really have a proper kitchen, just a grill for short orders. Don't stand too close on account of the occasional electrical fire. Oh, and the cook doesn't always show up for work, so sometimes we don't serve hot food, we just serve whatever's available in the case or in the fridge, and the usual drinks and stuff."

  "Sounds like a great business plan, Mold."

  It's funny, but as Johnny explained the surroundings, I didn't see dilapidated fixtures. I saw potential. A fixer-upper. And that's funny and totally scary ... because that's how my mother would envision the place too.

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  Johnny said, "What's it matter? The business will die out once my old man passes on, so I'm just gonna keep it running as long as he holds out. If he doesn't mind a business that makes no money, why should I? But if you're looking for job stability or something, you're in the wrong place."

  "Job stability," I said. "Yawn."

  "I think you and me are going to get on just fine."

  Since there were no customers around to serve, I sat down at the counter next to Johnny. I like getting to know a new person by starting out with the big questions.

  "What are you gonna do with your life once you don't have this place to run?" I asked him.

  "I don't know. I guess if I ever truly thought about it, I'd say I kinda wanna be an architect."

  "Every boy at some point says he wants to be an architect. What's up with that?"

  It's true. It's like some biological boy imperative. No matter what level of talent or intelligence or whatever he might possess, at some stage of his life, a boy dreams of becoming an architect.

  Sigh. Missing the Ocean Beach castles-in-the-cold-sand that Shrimp used to build me on lame waves, wanna-be-architect days.

  Johnny said, "The first major accomplishment of my life was building the entire Death Star out of LEGOs. I was seven. That shit affects you, dude. Inspires you to want to keep building, I guess."

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  "Clarify. Makes you want to keep building fortresses of doom, or keep building ... buildings generally?"

  "Either/or. So long as the building doesn't get in the way of band practice."

  "Good luck with that."

  I might not need good luck wishes with this new job. It feels blessed already.

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  ***

  NINETEEN

  I finally had to come out of the closet to somebody in my family, so I chose my dad.

  "It's like this," I told Sid-dad over the phone. "I feel like culinary school was everybody else's dream for me, but I don't want that kind of structure in my life right now. I'm not saying later I might not want to go, but right now? No. I lasted one class."

  "Cupcake," he responded, "it's your life to live as you choose. You're right, I think culinary school would have provided a good structure for your transition to living on your own, but you're also right that if it's not what you want to do, you shouldn't be doing it. That does leave a remaining question, however: What are you doing?"

  What I am doing, Dad, is wondering what Shrimp is doing this very second. Is he staring at the moon in the New Zealand sky, wondering

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  if I am watching it too, even with the time difference and probably it's the wrong time of day here to find it in the same place in the sky, but whatever, you get the point. What I am doing is planning to distract myself with Luis for a while and hope that heals the hurt of letting Shrimp go. I know you and Mom thought I was too young to be in a committed relationship, and you know L am proud to be an independent female and all that, but I totally think I would be handling this giantropolis transition better if Shrimp and I were sharing this new New York life together.

  "I got a barista-waitress job at a place down the street from our apartment," I told Sid-dad. "I hope you're not disappointed."

  At the moment that the urgent need had come upon me to call my father and then tell his secretary to interrupt his business meeting because I couldn't wait another minute to talk with him, what I was doing was sitting on a bench in a small park in the West Village near the obnoxiously popular cupcake bakery. Spying. The bakery is unfathomably one of the most fashionable places to see and be seen in the city--at least based on the line of customers out the door and down the street. The line confounded me because (1) the cupcakes from that place are not that tasty, and I should know, because I've tried them all, and (2) the attitude from the wait staff is ridiculous--you'd think they were selling Tiffany tiaras and Rolls-Royce cars and not tiny round pieces of cake with frosting gobbed on top. If I hadn't made it my new mission to avoid Danny

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  and his rules, I would so take him up on the offer to go work with him part-time instead of taking on the LU_CH_ONE_TE gig. Danny and I could expand his cupcake business beyond selling to small retail outlets and into our own empire.

  "Why would I be disappointed?" Sid-dad asked.

  "Because I'm not some go-getter who's all perky and like 'I'm going to get a job in the mail room at some superfantastic corporation and work my way up to the top, no matter how long it takes, gosh darnit!'"

  He laughed. "I'm just happy you're working. And I think you might be more of a go-getter than you yourself realize. You just need to do it on your own timetable. Will this new job allow you the time off work to come home for Christmas? We've got the baby's room set up for its impending arrival in December, and Ash and Josh can't wait to see you ..."

  "I still haven't changed my mind that Ash can't have my bedroom." I have no intention of moving back home to San Francisco, but that doesn't mean I don't want the option to remain available to me. Just in case.

  "Noted," Sid-dad said. "Just don't come home and expect to find your childhood Barbie collection in the pristine condition in which you left it in the box at the top of your closet. There may have been a massacre when Ash was denied the room change. Let's

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  just say certain doll parts were roughed up, and clothes violated, and leave it at that."

  Good ol' Ash. Bless her heart and her macabre Barbie fixation. I miss home.

  When Autumn arrived for our regular park-sitting during her ditching of her Lit Hum class (and I still don't know what "Lit Hum" means, but I am imagining pornographic poses amongst philosophizing old white guys who like to hum together while they bang each other in that fine ancient Greek tradition), she asked, "Why are we here instead of Central Park?"

  I pointed to the cupcake eaters on the bench opposite us. "I hate those people. They need to be destroyed."

  "The cupcake eaters or the cupcake makers?"

  "Makers. And also, I've decided Central Park is too far to go. Aaron said I would turn into one of those New Yorkers who does not like to go beyond a ten-block radius of my apartment, and it turns out he's right. Besides, don't you agree the rainbow mecc
a of Greenwich Village is way cooler than Central Park?"

  "You're just being lazy and you know it. But I don't mind the travel because the farther away from that college campus I go, the happier I am. So listen. I have to come out to you about something."

  "You're straight? Is it because you never got over when you

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  were in fourth grade and wanted to marry Justin Timberlake?"

  Autumn shoved my side. "Get over yourself. I wanted to marry Kylie Minogue. No, what I have to come out about is that I made a big decision after midterms, but I've been holding off on telling you because I wanted the idea to settle and feel right. And now it does. I'm not coming back to New York after final exams."

  "No way."

  "Way. I talked it out with my dad, and he supports me. I'm going to go back home to San Francisco, work and take some courses at City College next semester, then hope to transfer to Berkeley in the fall. They accepted me last year, so hopefully they will again this year. Then I can stay living at home, but afford to go to college. And afford not to be so stressed all the time that I can't concentrate on school."

  I let out a major Nancy-level sigh. But I placed my arm around Autumn's shoulder and pulled her tight. She rested her head on my shoulder. "You're not mad at me?" she asked.

  "Of course I'm not mad at you. I'm bummed, but I'm not mad at you. I mean, look what happened to me just from your absence at Danny's Halloween party? Drunken escapade leading to pregnancy scare and a Frigidaire situation with my brother, soon followed by my first attempt at making a new girlfriend landing with a giant THUD. But I think you made the right decision for you, and I kinda admire you for having the guts to admit that the life

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  you thought you wanted is in fact not how you want to be living, for cutting your losses to pick up and start all over again. I think Berkeley will be great for you. But how will I survive with your permanent absence?"

  "Just fine," she said.

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  ***

  TWENTY

  Luis and I had different ideas about where to drop some beat on a Saturday night. He wanted to go to his favorite hip-hop meets salsa club up in Harlem, and I wanted to go to an emo punk meets disco funk club in the East Village. We settled on driving to a park in Weehawken, New Jersey, just on the other side of the Lincoln Tunnel, where we made out in the backseat of the fancy sedan he drives for a local car service. The car window views facing the panoramic vista over the Hudson River, with the Manhattan skyline twinkling bright and spectacular in the night sky, had been inspiring before the languor of our kissing inspired the windows to go all steamy.