by Becky Monson
Anna is what my mom calls an “accidental blessing.” My parents thought they were done after my younger brother Lennon and I were born. They had a neat little matching set—a perfect family of four. And then when I was ten and Lennon was eight, they sat us down and told us we were getting another sibling. We were not thrilled. I did not want another sibling, especially a sister. I liked having all the attention I needed from my parents. I didn’t want to have to share my toys and my clothes and my room. I think I actually cried when my dad called from the hospital to tell us it was a girl. Lennon cried, too, but not for the same reasons. He’d have loved to have had a brother.
Anna lived up to all of my expectations. She was the most spoiled-rotten, little thing wrapped in a cute, bratty package. Everyone would say how adorable she was, or how cute her little pigtails were, or how witty she was. It was annoying. At that point, I was no longer in the cute stage. I was in the awkward-bad-hair-with-braces stage. It was not pretty. Everything she did was so adorable to everyone. Everything I did was just… awkward.
We never quite got along, me and Anna. We have completely different tastes in everything. I like to bake, she likes to go shopping. I like to read, she likes to go shopping. I like to watch my shows, she likes to go shopping.
Since high school graduation, Anna has been in and out of school trying desperately to figure out what she wants to do with her life. I’m sure right now she’s telling my mom about her newest idea and how this is “for sure” what she wants to do.
So far, Anna has wanted to be a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist, a hair-stylist, an esthetician, a court reporter, and I think the last time she dropped by, she was extremely excited about becoming an elementary school teacher. Her excuses vary for why she changes her mind, but they all have one thing in common—it takes actual work to get a license or degree in any of her ideas. And Anna does not like to work. She likes things handed to her, a trait my parents are fully to blame for. I’ve reminded them of this on many occasions, and they do not deny it.
Not wanting to go inside just yet, I sit on the porch and listen to the wind blowing through the trees. This has been the best spring in Denver in a long time.
Through the screen door, I can hear Anna whining to my mother about something. I lean in a little farther to hear their conversation.
“It’s just not fair!” Anna says in her it’s-all-about-me voice, the one she uses ninety percent of the time.
Wow, I wonder how long it took the whining to begin? Ten minutes after she got home? Fifteen minutes? My poor mother.
“I know dear, but Julia is just going through something right now.”
Wait, they are talking about me? I move in closer so I can hear their conversation better. My ear is right up against the screen. They’re in the kitchen, which is around the corner so they can’t see me.
“She’s been living there for ten years, Mom. Ten years! I think it’s time that one of us got a chance to use the basement apartment. I’d like to at least have the option.”
“Anna, dear, I’m just not sure Julia would want to move out. She has a hard time with change. It’s something she’s always had a hard time dealing with. I can’t ask her to move out.” Move out? Change? What the heck are they talking about? And why does my mom make me sound like some sort of mentally handicapped child? Is that how she thinks of me? Really?
“Come on, Mom. You know she needs to leave. She’s thirty-two years old! She needs a nudge. You just need to tell her to go. It’d be good for her.” Seriously? She’s making a play for the basement?
“Maybe I could talk to her,” I hear my mom say with doubt in her voice. She’s not good with this kind of conversation. If she were serious about it, she’d have my dad talk to me.
Well, I’ve had enough of this situation. I open the screen door, and it makes a creaking sound which immediately stops their talk. I should walk right in there and tell my mother that I’m not some sort of invalid and then tell Anna where she can go. But I don’t really feel like it, and I wouldn’t have anything polite to say.
“Hi, Mom. Hi, Anna,” I say with no smile on my face.
“Hi, sweetie!” my mom says, a little over-enthusiastically, guilt all over her face. She hates talking about people behind their backs. She’s never been any good at gossip. I apparently must’ve gotten that from my dad, although he’s not actually a gossip either. I guess I can’t blame that one on my parents.
Anna gives my mom a glance and nudges her to talk to me, even though my mom clearly does not want to have this conversation right now. She shoots a look at Anna willing her to shut up, and Anna rolls her eyes. She’s lost this battle.
The silence is awkward and we all just keep looking at each other.
“Well, I guess I’ll go downstairs, I have cupcakes to make.” I head toward the stairs. No reason to sit around there and feel uncomfortable.
“Save me one!” Anna calls out after me. At least there’s one thing Anna appreciates about me—my baking.
I’m kind of sick to my stomach right now, and actually the thought of making cupcakes is not cheering me up like it usually does. Anna wants to use the basement apartment, which she should have every right to. And my mom kind of agrees with her. I’m feeling a little embarrassed that I haven’t tried to venture out in ten years. Ten years! That’s a long time. Heaven knows I have enough money saved up from living here to put something down on my own place. Why can’t I just do that? Why is it so hard for me?
Feeling frustrated, I start grabbing the ingredients I need to bake the cupcakes. I know it’ll make me feel better to get started. Baking is freeing for me. I actually think it’s therapeutic. It probably has kept me sane all these years. Although from what my mom was saying to Anna, perhaps I’m not quite as sane as I thought.
I look around at this great setup I have. It really is the coolest basement apartment. My parents originally made it so that any of their parents could move in and they’d be able to help take care of them. My dad’s father died when I was pretty young and his mom remarried fast and has been traveling the world. She’s in terrific shape for being eighty-two. My mom’s parents refused to move in. Instead, they moved into a retirement village in Miami with a bunch of their friends.
So this fully furnished apartment, which my parents worked so hard on, was left for no one to use. It was just too perfect for me not to move in right out of college. I didn’t have a job quite yet, and I needed some place to go. It was a way to live at home, but not live at home. My parents never asked for rent money, and I never offered. In hindsight, that would’ve been nice of me to do. But instead, I saved all the money. Now, I have a nice little nest-egg to use on, well, I’m not sure what, but something . . . perhaps a refuge for cats, or a down payment on a trailer.
Right now, I don’t want to think about Anna and her wanting to live in the basement. It’s just too much for me to consider —finding a new place to live, finding furniture, moving in, signing paperwork, living by myself … it’s all just too much. I know I need to leave at some point. I know I need to get out on my own, but right now I just want to bake.
I get started on the cupcakes, and I take care to mix the batter just so, not over-mixing it, but not under-mixing it either. My pink KitchenAid mixer is one of the greatest purchases I’ve ever made. I’ve had it for a while now, and I still get a little giddy when I look at it.
I make the vanilla batch first, and then I do the chocolate. I use different colored paper cupcake holders, which I bought at the restaurant supply store last week, to bake the cupcakes in. One set is white with a black damask print and the other is a pink-gingham. So adorable.
Once the cupcakes are baked and cooled, I meticulously pipe the frosting on with a star tip. Then, for decoration, I use different colored sprinkles. I like a uniform sprinkle, none of that tossing it on for me. I use pink sugar crystals for the damask print holder and chocolate jimmies for the pink gingham ones. When I’m done, I stand back and look at my work, all works
of art, really.
After I’m done baking, the conversation I heard earlier between my mother and Anna doesn’t seem as daunting as it did before. Maybe Anna will just forget about wanting to live here, and I can stay and keep my life the way it is. I’m used to my life. I know I probably need to make a change, but I want to do it on my terms and not because I’m forced to.
As I get into bed—after I’ve put all the cupcakes in boxes to transport them to work tomorrow—I think over my day. Besides the silver lining of baking cupcakes, this truly has been a crappy day. And I thought yesterday was awful. I mean, realizing you’re a spinster is one thing, but getting caught hiding under a conference room table by a guy who stole your job—strike that—a hot guy that stole your job … well, that’s just a whole other bad day in itself. I honestly can’t compare the two; both days sucked. I wonder if this is how the rest of my week is going to go.
CHAPTER 3
Cupcakes are in the main break room. Enjoy! – Julia
I’m not going to lie. It took me over an hour to come up with this email. Other drafts consisted of “Cupcakes up in the break room, y’all! Go and get ya some!” and “Yo, cupcakes in the break room. Peace.”
I’m feeling pretty solid with the one I went with.
It’s ridiculous that I’m all in a tizzy (yes, that’s right, I said tizzy) about these cupcakes. I’m feeling . . . I don’t know how to describe it … vulnerable? I think I might know why.
So here is the deal with me. I live inside my head a lot. This has always been a part of who I am. Perhaps it’s not that abnormal. Of course I have to, because as I’ve already established, apart from work and baking, I have no life. So, I tend to exaggerate things in my head a bit. I say this because it’s highly possible that in the late hours I was up making cupcakes, I may or may not have had a few, ahem, fantasies about the new guy, Jared. And no, they were not those kinds of fantasies.
They mostly consisted of … no, really, they’re just too stupid to admit. Okay, fine. They mostly consisted of him taking one bite of cupcake and falling madly in love with me, and then we ran away into the sunset. It varied a little, but that’s the gist of it. In my fantasies he was no longer the job-stealing-smirking-jerk that he actually is, but this incredible guy who says and does everything right. You know, the type of guy who doesn’t actually exist.
It’s ridiculous, right? I mean I don’t know the guy at all, and what I do know of him is that he’s a big ol’ jerk—he stole my job for one. Then he was practically laughing at me about my red stapler incident and, while I’m sure it’ll be one of those funny things I look back on, I’m not finding it so funny right now, just very, very, very embarrassing.
If I honestly think about it though, it’s not that ridiculous. Not the part about me fantasizing about a guy I don’t even know—no, that’s totally ridiculous. But I work at an office full of complete and total nerds (and by the way, I looked up “nerd” in the dictionary and it said: “an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person,” which is so incredibly fitting, it’s scary) and along comes someone who is so not a nerd. Well, I couldn’t help myself, jerk or not.
I usually like to hang out in the break room after I drop off the cupcakes to see everyone enjoying them, but today I just couldn’t. I dropped them off, grabbed a soda, and went back to my office as fast as I could. I then proceeded to spend the next half hour (or more) writing up an email to send out to the office that Jared would inevitably read. So it’s pretty understandable why it took me so long.
My phone rings and it’s Brown wanting to go on a break—perfect timing because I’m pretty much drained from having to write the cupcake email, so I figure I deserve a little break. Once I come back and play a game of Spider Solitaire to clear my head from our break conversation, I’ll finally get some actual work done, but by then it could be lunch time. Oh well, I’ll just take the day as it goes.
“Great cupcakes, Julia!” a software engineer named Brian says to me as I walk out of my office.
“Thanks!” I say to him and smile. I make sure it’s a you-and-I-work-together-and-that-is-all smile because—well, once at an office Christmas party, I used exceptionally poor judgment, and Brian and I made out in the upstairs conference room. Yes, the place where I used to take my naps. It was not one of my better moments.
In my defense, Brian is a sweet guy, and when you’re stuck in an office full of not-so-good-looking people, one of them is bound to become good-looking. You just keep lowering your standards until someone meets them. It’s true. Plus, it had been a really long time for me, and I mean a really long time.
I made the mistake of telling Brown, and she’s never let me live it down. Apparently, although I don’t see it, Brian may or may not resemble a troll, at least, that’s what Brown says. I don’t see it because I’m not as shallow as Brown, or perhaps I don’t want to admit it because that would make me even more pathetic, but I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m not shallow.
The spring breeze feels pleasant on my face as I open the door and step outside to meet up with Brown. Brown is, of course, looking adorable. She’s wearing a black pencil skirt and a soft white blouse with some kind of ruffle-y thing on it and black patent leather shoes, probably made by someone named Christian Blah-blah-tin (I can never remember). Whatever his name is, he’s her favorite. Brown’s hair is perfectly done, soft blonde curls about half-way down her back. Her hair is definitely something people covet. It’s long and always perfect. I feel like sometimes she’s going to swoop her head toward me, and in a deep, sultry voice say, “And I’m worth it,” like those Clairol commercials.
Her eyes scrunch up and she smiles slightly as she sees me. “What’s up, Jules?”
“Not much,” I tell her as I lean up against the wall next to her.
“I saw the cupcakes in the break room. You outdid yourself.” She winks at me, cigarette lit and in hand.
“Did you actually eat one?” I look at her, knowing the answer already.
“Nope.” Brown never eats my baked goods because she claims she doesn’t like sugary stuff. I think that’s something she’s told people for so long, she actually believes it’s true herself. Because honestly, who actually dislikes sugar? I will hold her down and force her to eat a cupcake someday, I swear I will.
“Got any gossip?” she asks, and inhales her cigarette.
“Nope. I’ve just been doing dumb reports for Nguyen,” and taking a half hour to write a one-sentence email, but I’m not telling her that. “Did you ever find out any info about the new guy?” I’m seriously hoping she found out something about him, something that could stop me from feeling embarrassed and shamefully fantasizing about this man I hardly know.
“No, nothing yet. Very frustrating. Give me time and I’ll find something,” she says confidently. And she will; Brown is amazing at digging up info about people.
The door from the building opens quickly and out walks, guess who … Yep, the star of my absurd fantasies, Jared. He walks right by us, talking on his cell phone. He walks about ten feet away from us and stops. Brown and I look at each other, and then we both lean toward him to see if we can hear what he’s saying.
“I told you, I don’t have time to do that.” He does not sound happy. “What do you mean? I did what I was hired for!” His voice got a little louder with the last statement.
Brown mouths to me, “What’s going on?” and I shrug. How would I know?
It’s quiet as he listens to the person on the other line. He looks over his shoulder and glances in the direction of Brown and me. We quickly look away, Brown at the floor and me at the ceiling. I have this overwhelming urge to start whistling as I look up, but I stop myself.
I expect him to walk farther away, but instead he turns completely around and walks toward us.
“I’ll have to call you back later,” he says, and ends his call, slipping his phone back in his pocket.
“Betsy and Julia, right?” he asks as he walks up to us. He wa
nts to talk to us? Oh geez. Here comes deaf-mute girl again.
“Hey!” Brown says and waves at him. Why is everything she does so perfectly cute, even the way she says “hey”? It’s so annoying. I’m sure if it were me that said it, it would come out sounding like the bearded lady or something.
“Do you guys come out here often?” he asks. He’s got that same smirk on his face, and I’m feeling the need to slap it off.
“Just when the weather is decent,” Brown says, and then takes a drag from her cigarette. This is a total lie, of course. We come out here at all times of the year, except during a blizzard, which doesn’t happen that often.
There’s an awkward silence for a moment, and then Jared turns to me. Here it comes—more comments about me and my red stapler. Just fabulous.
“I had one of the cupcakes, Julia. Really good stuff,” he says, the smirk turning into more of a genuine smile, and of course my heart flutters a little, which is so annoying and unfounded. He has a seriously great smile, a great smile that I hate, of course. I must keep reminding myself that he stole my job, great smile or not.
“Thanks,” I squeak out and nod my head, nervously pursing my lips together, and that’s pretty much all I’ve got at this point. Brown looks at me strangely and then nudges me lightly in the ribs with her elbow.
“So let me guess,” he looks from Brown to me, “you two must be the gossip girls around here.”
Brown and I look at each other, and my eyes widen. How the heck would he know that? Did someone say something? Are we that transparent?
“What makes you think that?” Brown asks, sounding a little insulted.
“Just a hunch.” He shrugs. The fluttering suddenly goes away. Who is this guy?
“Well, you’re wrong,” Brown says, and looks at him like he’s got some nerve.
“Whoa, hey, I don’t mean to offend.” He smiles genuinely at us and just like that, the flutters are back. “I just wondered if you two are the people that have all the information. You know, the good, juicy company stuff. I like to know what’s going on around me.”