The Awkward Path to Getting Lucky

by Summer Heacock

  The cupcake is topped with what appears to be hand-spun sugar formed into the shape of tiny basketball hoops.

  Are they kidding?

  The whole table is leaning forward for a better look. All sense of competition has been lost, and everyone is mesmerized. Apparently no one realizes this just makes The Cakery look all the more impressive.

  I grab Shannon’s hand and squeeze back. Mr. Peterson emits an echoing “Ooh!” as his plate is placed in front of him.

  “Oh, come on! There is no way you could make hand-spun sugar hoops for a thousand cakes per game!” The words are out of my mouth before I even know I’m speaking. Shannon clenches her hand on my leg tighter, and the blood supply to my foot cuts off.

  “Is there something wrong, Miss Carmichael?” Mr. Peterson asks. Even Sprinkles Lady perks up. I get the impression she has a taste for drama, no matter where it’s coming from.

  “I am so sorry,” I say, truly abashed, putting my hand over my mouth. “I didn’t mean to say that. Really, I apologize.”

  The scoffing man from The Cakery looks down at me with the snootiest expression I’ve ever been on the receiving end of and says, “Just because your shop couldn’t handle that kind of intricate workload doesn’t mean other shops can’t, honey. We get by just fine.”

  My eyebrows shoot up, and a pair of sassypants magically appears on my body. “Excuse me?”

  Cakery Man continues, “Look, sweetie, your cakes are cute and everything, but don’t hate because you aren’t up at our level, okay?” Sprinkles Lady is leaning forward on the edge of her seat. “I think we should all just be grateful the Coopertown mascot isn’t an elephant, am I right?” He gives a little snort at his own joke, and I swear I can feel Shannon’s blood pressure rising beside me.

  I calmly stand up and smooth down my apron. “Listen, sweetie. First, our products are magnificent, so you can swallow that little scoff of yours down with a big bite of shut-the-fuck-up cake. Second, this contract is for cakes to be sold during basketball season, as in during winter. When strawberries are not in season. Who is going to take the hit on the cost of bringing in all those fresh strawberries you intend to top all those lovely cuppies there with? You? Or are you going to upcharge Coopertown later on, citing market costs?

  “And let’s just be real here. There’s no way you’re going to be able to brûlée strawberries and make spun sugar hoops for thousands of cakes for every single game. So either you’re trying to impress them now to land the contract and hope you can wriggle out of these specific items later on, or you’re going to go with it and likely serve subpar product when the time actually comes. Either way, you need to calm your tits and settle your brassy ass down.”

  Without breaking eye contact, I return to my seat, lean back in my chair and motion for him to continue. “Again. My apologies. I didn’t mean to crush your moment. Do carry on.”

  40

  I held my composure through the remainder of the presentations. I managed to smile politely and shake Sprinkle Lady’s hand as we all said our goodbyes. I even kept calm and professional as we made our way out of the Freudian tunnels of the stadium and back into the daylight-filled parking lot. And while my goal was not to flip my shit until we were safely buckled in and back on the freeway, I am nevertheless rage-slamming our gear into the back of the shop’s van.

  I’d feel worse about my lack of self-control, but Shannon is matching my aggression and upping me with barked profanity.

  “I mean, who the fuck do they think they’re kidding?” she growls as she shoves the boxes of leftover cuppies into the cargo bay with significantly less care than she loaded them with earlier this morning. “Sugar hoops. Peterson has to know that isn’t a remotely feasible decoration to serve on a consistent basis, right?”

  I make an unintelligible grumbling sound as I try to untie my apron. “I don’t know. They’ll be the ones getting screwed if they fall for it. The Cakery can’t possibly keep their costs low enough to make a viable profit with those cakes. They’d either be losing money on the deal or jacking up expenses for Coopertown, and somehow The Cakery doesn’t seem like the giving type to me.”

  “Ugh!” Shannon yells, throwing the binder with all her meticulously calculated reports for the presentation as hard as she can into the van with the rest of our stuff. “And that horrible woman! That’s why she asked if we knew who she was! She was trying to blackmail us into refunding her order!”

  “I wouldn’t have done it even if I had known,” I grumble, but I’m pretty sure Shannon would have given her the refund and her firstborn to land this contract. My frustration has caused the bow on my apron strings to form a knot, and I seem to be trapped. This does nothing for my sanity. “This is not how this week was supposed to go!” I shout. “This was supposed to be us kicking ass here and wowing on the morning show, and not me learning Ryan is part of a couple that isn’t with me and getting Ben super pissed at me. Forty-eight hours ago, we had all this hope. And now it’s penis elephants and douchey sugar hoops, and lives ruined by vaginas, and what the hell, Shannon?”

  She whirls around and snaps, “Look, the penis thing wasn’t your fault, and I’m not mad, but I’m standing here looking at a van my stupid-ass husband bought and wondering how the hell we are going to keep it after losing this contract and everything else. So, Kat, I love you, but right now, I’m not real concerned with your quest to get laid.”

  My hands freeze in my now completely knotted apron tie, and I flutter my eyelids at her. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sorry your deadline stuff didn’t work out the way you wanted it to and all,” she says, not sounding sorry in the slightest, “and that the last month has been all about you and your vagina, but right now I’m more worried about us not losing our business, so maybe we could big-picture for a minute.”

  “Jesus,” I say, throwing my hands up. “You’re being a little overly dramatic about this. We haven’t even lost the contract yet. Just because you were able to fix your own damn vagina like it was no big deal doesn’t mean you get to be all high-and-mighty about mine, lady. And okay, yes, I quite literally cocked up the morning show yesterday, but we don’t know how much business we’re going to lose yet.”

  “No, you know what? Of course this all blew up in your face! In what world would Ryan sleeping with other people be a good plan? Oh, and therapy sex? God, yeah, there’s something that couldn’t possibly go wrong in every conceivable way. And it’s not that my vagina wasn’t a big deal. It’s that no one’s vagina could ever possibly be as big a deal as yours! We get it! Your junk is broken! And yet the world continues to spin on, Kat!”

  “What the fuck, Shannon?” I yell. My shock is compounded by the burning coals of embarrassment stoking the flames of my rage.

  “You know, you’re not the first person to go through this. And just because the rest of us went to therapy instead of control-freaking our way through it on our own doesn’t make us weak, and it doesn’t make you stronger than us!”

  “I never said either of those things!” I start struggling with my friggin’ apron knot again. “Don’t put your insecurity shit on me, man. I know you’re worried about the shop, but you don’t get to dive into overdramatics and start taking shots at me! Yeah, we’ve had a rough week, but I think it’s a bit premature to hang up the going-out-of-business signs already!”

  “What if we can’t pay for this van?” she shrieks, waving her hands through the air with a manic look in her eyes.

  “Who told your husband to buy the goddamn van in the first place?” I shriek right back.

  “Well, now,” a scoffing voice interrupts. “This isn’t behavior becoming of a reputable bakery.” The ass-knuckle from The Cakery strolls past with his associates, smirking at us.

  “There is no freaking way you can make those strawberries and sugar hoops for a thousand cupcakes every game,”
Shannon says, turning her anger on Scoffy. “We could have brought in a bunch of fancy bullshit to rope them in, too, but you know it’s not possible to financially sustain those cakes. We chose to present honest products to them.”

  The Cakery crew Scoffer stops and turns back around to face us. His minions follow suit. At least one of the women beside him has the decency to look mildly uncomfortable. I resolve to hate her the least. “Like I said before, you can’t hang with the big kids, ladies.”

  I take in a deep breath and try to regain some balance to my heart rate. “Just admit you’re hosing them, for god’s sake. You’re playing a game. Don’t act like you’ve got bionic staff, because that just makes you sound like a twat.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Sometimes ingredients change, and the final product changes. So?” Snorting, he says this as though it’s not a completely dishonest and manipulative thing to do.

  “So you’d rather get the contract by lying to them instead of just presenting a good product. You have that much faith in your own work, huh?” Shannon shakes her head.

  Scoffy shrugs. “Does it really matter? The point is, we’ll be the ones with the contract. But I’m sure you’ll feel much better about yourselves on that moral high ground or whatever. We’ll just have to soothe our blackened souls with those big checks we’re gonna get.”

  Shannon shakes her head and starts walking forward, and I recognize the gait as her “Hold my earrings” walk. “No, no, no!” I yelp, grabbing onto her arm.

  “I’m going to knock the smug out of you, you little shit,” Shannon says in a voice that is oddly calm. I’ve only seen her in an actual fight once in our many years together. It was in college, many Miller Lites were involved, and a guy who had taken the virginity of her friend Patrice from world lit and then never called the poor girl again showed up at a party. Shannon had this exact tone to her voice right before she kicked his ass across the front lawn of that fraternity house.

  We were never allowed to return to Theta Omega Chi. I think they still have her picture on the wall.

  “You can’t seriously beat him up for being a prick,” I squeal, pushing her back toward the van. I will throw her ass in there and lock her in if I have to. “I’m pretty sure there are laws against it, hon.”

  Scoffy bursts out laughing, and his minions awkwardly join in. “At least have the sense to lose with a little dignity,” he says. Shaking his head, he turns and starts walking back to his fancy van. All sleek and black and decaled, with no looming threat of losing that van due to frosted penis elephants.

  I can’t articulate the thought process that leads me to let go of Shannon, reach behind her into the van, tear open one of the boxes of leftover cupcakes and grab one. All I can see in my head are flashes of bright soundstage lights, Alice’s stupid red hair, Ben’s hurt face, spun sugar hoops, Mr. Peterson’s Colonel Sanders–looking mug, Sprinkle Lady’s sneer, Ryan’s clueless expression illuminated by his horrible choice in light bulbs, blonde Odessa spies and a sudden burst of rage.

  Without thinking, I wheel around and lob a liquid dark chocolate cuppie right at Scoffy as hard as I physically can.

  It lands with a squishy thud between his shoulder blades, and he emits a frightened squeal, dropping the trays he’s carrying. His minions gasp, looking in horror as the gooey chocolate drips down his shirt and onto his apron strings.

  For the briefest of moments, it occurs to me to be mortified by what I’ve done, but my guilty reverie is halted by a feral noise ripping through Shannon as cupcakes go flying from her own hand-cannons.

  Terrified screams from the minion I hate the least resonate through the parking lot as she dives for their van. Scoffy and his other minion scramble for the trays he let fall to the pavement, and a clump of brûléed strawberries goes whizzing by my face.

  Shannon takes a blast of berries to the head, and the red streaking through her blond curls gives her the look of someone in the midst of a blood-soaked massacre. I hurl a red velvet, and the gold frosting explodes satisfyingly all over the minion’s red apron.

  Somewhat maniacal noises are emanating from my friend, and she’s firing off cakes with both hands, landing them on Scoffy, the minion, the van. She’s a woman on a mission, or possibly possessed by a confectionary demon.

  Scoffy, now with crimson and gold buttercream in his hair, has one of my painstakingly conceived royal icing CRs dangling from his left cheek. His eyes are wide, debatably crazy, but the squeaky yelling sounds he’s making are equal parts anger and fear and blatant astonishment.

  He gets a good shot off, and a sugar hoop-topped cupcake hits me in the neck. “Ow! Those are pointy, you dick!” Shannon and I both aim for him at the same time, and three cupcakes land in rapid succession, all hitting him around the head. The only visible part of his face is panicked eyes, surrounded by a mosaic of gold, fudge, red and edible glitter.

  Least-Hated Minion starts their van up and begs the others to get in, and they gratefully obey. We keep heaving cakes. Shannon nails Scoffy on the ass as he climbs into the passenger seat, and I find this particularly satisfying.

  Their windshield wipers fly, smearing frosting all over the glass as they pull out of their spot, and I catch the buttercream-covered face of Scoffy glaring hard at us as they drive away. Shannon lobs one final cuppie, and it lands right on the a of The Cakery decal.

  We watch the van pull out of the parking lot, tires softly squealing as they pull out onto the main street.

  Panting, I look over at Shannon. Her hair is a wild mess of frosting and fruit and broken spun sugar. She looks animalistic and a bit worse for wear.

  Our van is in similar shape. I silently hope those godforsaken hoops didn’t scratch the paint.

  I reach over and pull a particularly large chunk of strawberry off her hairline. “I think we handled that really well.”

  She nods. “Yeah, we did good.” She calmly scrapes a wad of frosting off my shoulder. “Hey, I’m sorry I said I didn’t care about you getting laid. That wasn’t fair. And I didn’t actually mean what I said about you and Ryan and Ben. I was being a bitch, and I really do want you to get some and be happy.”

  Pulling a sugar-hoop fragment from the collar of her shirt, I say, “And I’m sorry I keep making everything about my vagina. Me and my junk have been monopolizing the conversation a lot lately. I’m so grateful you’ve been here to support me, especially with you having gone through this yourself. I shouldn’t have been so stupidly stubborn. I should have leaned on your experience more. My not going to therapy is based entirely on my being a straight-up coward. And I hope I never made you feel like you aren’t the strongest motherfucker I know, because you are.”

  Shrugging, she uses her pinky finger to scrape frosting out of her ear. “You didn’t. I should have been less know-it-all about how I thought you should be doing things. And my vagina and I are both here for you, always. This month has made me very aware of my personal and professional limits, and I was projecting your shit onto myself.”

  Carefully trying to pull edible glitter off my eyelashes, I say, “I love your stupid face.”

  “Love your idiot guts.” She wipes a smear of frosting off her eyelid. “Think we should get back to the shop now? Liz and Butter probably want to know how things went.”

  I shrug, digging a chunk of chocolate cake out of my bra. “Probably. And also, we should maybe get out of here before we get arrested.”

  I start reloading the back of the van as well as I can, and she carefully unknots the strings of my apron for me. Peeling it off, I set it on the now-empty cupcake boxes and close up the doors. We climb into our seats, thanking the gods Joe insisted on the leather seats, because I don’t think crimson frosting would ever come out of cloth upholstery.

  41

  While Shannon and I were off at Coopertown, having a bitch-cuppie turf war in the parking lot, Bu
tter and Liz have been continuing to deal with Penisgate fallout.

  The video now has over seven hundred thousand hits, and I officially hate YouTube.

  My own damn mother shared it on Facebook. Thanksgiving is going to be awkward as fuck.

  I was wrong; this is my new personal low.

  I’m curled up in the rolling desk chair, huddled under a blanket of shame, willing the world to forget I ever existed within it.

  The phone rings in the front room—again. I drop my head back and let out a whining sound, but cut it short when my hair brushes against the flowers Ben sent. My heart sinks, and my focus shifts to a particularly painful dagger in my stomach.

  “Why the hell did he send us flowers when he’s pissed at me, Butter? What does that even mean? He hasn’t contacted me at all, won’t reply to any of my messages, but he sends flowers?”

  She shrugs, buckling down to pour batter into a new tray. “That’s a good thing, though, right?”

  Shannon pokes her head back in. “Um, Kat?”

  “What?”

  “I’ve got a customer on the phone, and they have a specific request.”

  “Tell them I won’t turn their child’s birthday into a Penispalooza, I promise.”

  Shannon makes a face. “Well, actually, they were wondering if you’d make some cakes for a bachelorette party. With...intentional penises.”

  I blink at her a few times. “That’s what they took away from that newscast?”

  “Evidently.”

  I shake my head. “Sure. Why not. With all the business I probably just cost us, we can’t be picky. Ask her if she has any specific penis preferences, because this isn’t like the boob-cake where I can just look down, you know. Does she want them uncircumcised, any length or girth preferences, that sort of thing?”

  Shannon gives me an odd look, puts the phone back to her ear and disappears again.