Cupcake

by Rachel Cohn

  His long, hard body rested on top of mine--still fully clothed--but Luis broke our lip-locking interlude to come up for air. He informed me, "I hang out here sometimes while waiting to

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  pick up fares from Newark Airport. Did you know this park was where Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr had their famous duel?" Ah, Luis was a great kisser, and a history buff, too. I love smart boys. Although, if Luis ever revealed himself to me as one of those Civil War reenactor history buffs, our lust situation would definitely dead-end.

  "Did you know you've New Jersey devirginized me?" I asked Luis, pulling him back down to me. This night was not my first time with Luis, but it was this Golden State girl's first time on Garden State soil. Visiting it, that is.

  I pressed my groin area against Luis, wanting to feel the weight and friction of him rubbed hard on my body. But he wouldn't have it. Instead he rolled off me again and sat up and away from me, resting his head against the window, smearing clear a fresh view of the Manhattan skyline. Hey now, lovely view indeed.

  "What's the problem?" I asked.

  Luis said, "If you really don't want this to go further now, then you've got to stop grinding against me like that. There. It gets me all bothered."

  "You were the one who said you'd bring the condom."

  "You were the one who said you were going back on the pill."

  "I did. But I should give it time to kick in, just to be on the safe side. Like we weren't on Halloween, you know? Because I am not taking that risk again. The fun is not worth the hangover."

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  I sat up and snuggled up against him. Snuggling could work.

  Luis pressed the button to open the window to allow some cold air inside the car. "Burr-ito," I said. Right phrase, wrong boy.

  "It'll have to do in place of a cold shower."

  I placed my hand on his inner thigh. "There are other ways ..."

  He placed my hand back on my own lap. "Nah, not like that, not here," Luis said. Then, "What are we, anyway? Are we gonna go out officially, or are we gonna be just friends?"

  If you have to qualify your status as "just" friends, you are not just friends. Scientifically impossible.

  "How about we're just friends with benefits who go out occasionally but not officially, as in bring each other home to meet the fam?"

  "Why, you embarrassed of me?"

  Was he kidding? Who would be embarrassed to be seen with him?

  "No," I said. "I'm embarrassed of them." Embarrassed that Danny felt the need to text message my make-out session: B home by midnite or b sure 2 call me.

  I might as well go back to San Francisco with Autumn for all that my new home life is starting to resemble my old Alcatraz one: hostile, and with curfew threats.

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  ***

  TWENTY-ONE

  Shake it off.

  This is what I try to do when Danny asks me, "Where are you going?" in the late mornings.

  "Job hunting," I tell him. And don't ask me one more time if I want to come to your rented kitchen space to bake stupid cupcakes with you. I don't. And I know you know I never followed through with culinary school, so why don't you yell at me about that, too, get it over with. Or maybe you'd like to impose some new rule, like Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Brother's Baking Ability If Thou Is Not Willing to Put in the Time to Learn It Thyself And by the way, Danny boy, I already have a job, but telling you about it would force me to engage you in conversation more than our fragile relationship can tolerate right now.

  "What time ya gonna be back?"

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  "I'll be sure to call you and let you know." Under my breath I mutter, "Commandant."

  The Danny not-love is in full swing. Shake shake shake, shake yo' hatin' booty.

  I don't care for this brother who abandons his perfectly wonderful true love then tries to tell his younger sister how to behave. I'm beginning to loathe this roommate who leaves his smelly socks on the bathroom floor, who watches old eighties soaps on the soap classics cable channel and cackles worse than that big-haired, big-shouldered lady from Dynasty at all the campy dialogue (which, admittedly, I enjoyed doing with him during the leg castage time, before the hating thing started), and who sings at the stove while he prepares his daily morning ritual soft-boiled egg--the mere smell of which can now turn me mental with irritation.

  And I have serious issues with this hypocrite who somehow thinks it's okay for him to occasionally have casual fling-boy Jerry Lewis spend the night, even if Jerry works on Wall Street and is gone from the apartment long before I wake up so it's not like I have to interact with him; yet somehow it's not okay for me to have casual fling-boy Luis stay over at our apartment, allegedly because Danny is uncomfortable with the fact that Luis used to work for bio-dad Frank, but really because Danny doesn't want to fill in the blanks of my lies of omission in the telephone calls with Sid and Nancy. Folks, CC's doing just great. Got it all under control here. The

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  Little Hellion's fooling around with the dude that Frank hired to drive her around two summers ago, but she's back on the pill, and I saw the box of condoms under her bed, so no worries! Nah, I don't think this is a serious relationship. It's just sex and good times, which seems to be fine with both Luis and CC. You know kids today, don't like to be tied down, unless we're talking about those play handcuffs I found under her bed. Hah, hah, KIDDING! Don't you worry, I've got the Little Hellion contained with rules. Boundaries, just as you advised. What was that? Why, yes, Nancy, I'd love a copy of your grandmother's Minnesouda county fair award-winning maple walnut fudge recipe. Toodles!

  Some mornings Danny offers me a hopeful smile and says, "I'll be at the kitchen space if you want to stop by and have lunch with me ..." and I almost forgive him, because I know he thinks he means well, and he has almost the same face as me, only sweeter and like a boy and with more normal hair. Instead I head out the door and tell him, "Sorry. I've got plans. Thanks anyway. See you later."

  I wait until I am outside the apartment to complete my super-secret identity transformation. Since I have posttraumatic leg-breaking issues with the stairwell between the second and third levels of our apartment building, I choose the basement laundry room to don my duds. I remove my long vintage trench coat and take off the faded jeans underneath my short Dickies Nurse Betty hot-pink dress. I chuck the Chucks off my feet and pull the replacement foot attire out of my backpack. Wearing combat boots with

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  the short shift dress would be too grunge-expectational, so instead I go for grunge-couture, sliding on and zippering up Nancy's seriously overpriced but seriously hot Italian thigh-high stiletto boots, in the shade of suede noir. Nancy's too pregnant to wear the boots anytime soon, anyway. She won't miss them. I complete the last stage of my transformation by attaching the waitress nametag Johnny Mold had made for me, which announces to any customers looking up past my new boobs (love 'em, I swear!) that they are being served by "Myself."

  Myself has transformed into a barista-waitress goddess, if she says so Herself.

  While I may not be school smart, that doesn't mean I'm not competent. Throw me into daily shifts at LU_CH_ONE_TE, and just watch me master the arts of keeping the counter area in tiptop shape, of remembering customers' orders and their names, and of filling in during the cook's smoke breaks and then making and delivering the grilled cheese and Coke that I was asked for (not Pepsi, not diet, and with a piece of lime and just a little bit of ice-- s'my pleasure, Pete). Just watch me build up a caffeination following that has lines for espresso drinks snaking out the door in the afternoons--the time of day when Danny is far away in happy-boring cupcake-baking land and will never know the difference.

  I mean, how many restaurant workers will happily take on every job there is--short-order cooking, waitressing, coffee-ing,

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  cleaning, charming ... ing? So long as customers don't order a soft-boiled egg, we're good. That's my one and only fiefdom rule. I don't like rules b
eing forced on me, so I try not to force them on my customers. I'm generous that way.

  Disguises work both ways--customers sometimes have them going on too. I didn't pay attention to the face underneath the sunglasses and baseball cap when the dude at table seven ordered an English muffin and a mocha. But when I returned to place the order on my favorite collapsible bridge table, which just last week I painted the number seven on top of, like as in Sesame Street, this table was brought to you today by the number seven and the letters CC, the customer had removed the hat and sunglasses to reveal himself as: Aaron.

  Aaron said, "It's interesting. My new boyfriend came here last week and reported on a new barista-waitress girl bringing customers back into this old dump. I didn't think anything of it until he mentioned the girl's long legs, sexy boots, and her weird sorta blue hair, which sounded suspiciously like my former love's kid sister. And I couldn't think of any other waitress who'd willingly stand on her feet all day in stiletto boot heels. So of course I had to scope the situation out myself."

  I've opted not to become acquainted with Aaron's new boyfriend (my choice--one issue on which I am strangely allied with lisBETH), but I didn't realize Blip, as lisBETH and I refer to him, as in the blip

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  on the radar screen of Aaron and Danny's true love, was also such a busybody. I might hate Blip now, even if I barely know him--and it might be worth a phone call and a manicure at a new not-Chucky place with lisBETH to discuss, even if that call could mean coming out to her about my current new direction in life.

  "Hmmph," I said. "You found me out. Employed."

  "How embarrassing for you," Aaron said. "But probably a better way to spend your time than ditching culinary classes?" To my frown, Aaron added, "I am & chef, remember? I did graduate from that same school. LisBETH didn't find the school out of nowhere. Don't think I don't still know people there."

  Fifty-buck bribes to staff members in culinary school administrative offices really don't go far in this city.

  I sat down on the chair opposite Aaron. "Are you going to tell Danny?"

  "No. But did no one ever tell you that having a job is nothing to be ashamed of? And that the best way for you and Danny to wade through your roommate and sibling relationship is to--call me crazy here--share your lives with each other? CC my darling, don't you think the silent treatment you've been giving Danny has lasted long enough?"

  "How do you know about that?" I took a sip of his mocha. Excellent, as usual--just the right amount of whipped cream and a dash of cocoa. The secret to the perfect mocha is to foam real

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  chocolate milk (Hershey's or Nesquick will do) rather than add chocolate to already-steamed regular milk. Some baristas will tell you this method clogs the machine and should be avoided, but some baristas are too cheap to buy a separate foaming device specifically for mocha production. It's all about quality control.

  "Danny and I are close friends, CC. The awkward period is long past. We see each other and talk regularly."

  "You shouldn't do that, you know. I don't believe it's actually possible to be friends with someone who broke up with you. I know from my experience with Shrimp. 'Just friends' does not last. You're fooling yourselves."

  "I appreciate your optimism. But for your information, Danny and I are managing it just fine. You don't spend a decade of your life with someone and then all of a sudden shut them out. It doesn't work like that."

  Um, yes it does--for most people. The shutting-out strategy has certainly been working for me and Shrimp--too well, in fact. But Aaron is not most people. He's an ex who brings over his custom creation chicken soup when his former love has barely a smidge of a cold. He's a guy who, along with his disarming lack of homosexual fashion sense, plays in a crap band of longtime buddies just for the chance to hang out with them whenever--and to play punk, metal, and grunge tunes, not campy karaoke ABBA anthems (which have their important place in the musical appreciation

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  arena, but blessedly not within the pantheon of Aaron's perfect-ness). Hmmm ... the empty area at the corner window of LU_CH_ONE_TE could be transformed into a performance space for a band just like Aaron's--which could potentially bring in lots more customers.

  "Don't worry about me and Danny," I told Aaron. "It's just an, um, blip on the radar screen." My fingers twitched with the need to call lisBETH with the Aaron report. I didn't even realize I was capable of craving her company before now. Hostile sister-bonding--yet another of Aaron's previously unknown superpowers.

  Aaron said, "While I don't condone the Cold War between you and Danny, I do want you to know you're welcome to crash at my place whenever you want if things are tense and you two need a break."

  "Thanks, but I stay with Max when I need a break."

  Aaron shook his head. "Only you would seek out and befriend the neighborhood crank."

  "Only you would seek out your insufferable ex's suffragette sister and offer her a place to crash."

  Maybe Aaron had found out about my LU_CH_ONE_TE job, but no way could he know I was, in fact, double-secret employed. Max hired me to clean up and organize all the years of newspapers and magazines in his apartment--and now that I've had a professional furniture cleaner come in and steam-clean Max's sofa, the

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  sofa has proven to be a great crash-landing site on the nights when Luis is in school or I can't stand the fucking sight of my beloved brother. Of course, I call the Commandant on those nights and let him know I'm crashing on the neighbors couch. Wouldn't want to disobey Commandant's rules.

  Thinking of Max reminded me of an important question for Aaron: "Do you happen to know anything about Hot Nude Yoga?"

  "Sure. I've been. It's a really strenuous yoga class for gay men. Way too strenuous for me. I just want to have a quick stretch and use that to convince myself I've earned a big slice of pie after."

  Of course Hot Nude Yoga would be for hot gay guys, and of course the hot gay guy who left the Kama Sutra book behind in his old apartment would have tried it out. I wonder if the Nancy and Trixie sleuth girls feel the same letdown when their mysteries are solved. I gulped down the remainder of Aaron's mocha. The boys shouldn't have exclusive domain over all the good stuff. "Figures."

  Aaron laughed. "You sound like lisBETH!"

  I might not know Myself anymore.

  Johnny Mold arrived at our table. He grunted at me, "The latte crowd has found its way inside, and they're awaiting your barista mastery."

  I told him, "Gimme a few minutes. I'm talking with my friend. Anyway, why don't you learn how to use that machine yourself already, hombre?"

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  Johnny stroked his goatee with his tattooed hand that just this morning I'd given a manicure. Black nail polish is so hot on guys-- especially Johnny. He sighed, "Too many knobs. Too much pressure." Then his casual voice turned over to the hostile one that typically scares customers away until I step up to the counter. He pointed his index finger at me--damn, I'd done a great job on his cuticles. "And why don't you take your own self-improvement advice and learn a new language instead of just dropping inane trying-too-hard-to-be hip foreign words?"

  I answered, "Pete told me to tell you malaka wanker gamisou. That's 'fuck off in Greek. And I'll be over in a sec to make the lattes, Mold. Try not to kill the customers with your charm in the meantime."

  "Will do. And will you be making us a grilled cheese lunch to share together again today, or is a run to Blimpie in order?"

  "Blimpie, Mold. I'll have my usual."

  "Beautiful, Myself. I'll make the run after you hit the espresso crowd." Johnny turned away to return to the counter area, but over his shoulder added, "Fok jou. That's 'fuck you' in Afrikaans."

  "You're welcome. In English. For bringing customers into this joint and making a regular clientele of them."

  "Whatever," Johnny said.

  This is how we get along. I believe it's the best relationship I've ever had with a boy.

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  "What the hell was that?" Aaron asked me after Johnny Mold stepped back over to the cash register and resumed his Game Boy-playing and customer-ignoring. "Don't tell me goth boy over there is the latest competition to Shrimp or Luis or whoever is your current love slave."

  "Nah," I said. "He's like my boss or something. Kinda my friend, too."

  Johnny and I get along too well to ruin our burgeoning work-friendship with crush trauma. I guess Johnny potentially could have been in competition to be my love slave, but he proclaimed himself to Myself as a straight-edge vegetarian celibate. He doesn't drink, smoke, do drugs, eat meat, or have sex. He does caffeinate, with dairy products, so I can still respect him in the morning. Of course I'm dying to know which gender Johnny would choose if he did decide to have sex, but when I asked him outright which way his straight-edginess swings, Johnny said, "Don't try to label me straight or gay. I'm celibate, simple as that. No interest in all the drama."

  For real, how did Aaron end up with a Blip? I asked Aaron, "Is it serious between you and this new guy?"

  Aaron said, "Don't know. How about whatever is going on between you and Luis that I'm still waiting to hear all about? And so is your brother."

  "Wait a little longer." I got up from the bridge table but

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  decided to lay my cards down before transforming Myself back into barista goddess. "Aaron, why the hell can't you and Danny work things out and get back together? What's holding you back?"

  Aaron's not without flaws. His honesty comes at the cost of his own heart and hurt. He answered, "I'm right here."

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  ***

  TWENTY-TWO