Quite frankly, I believe my being here was Hal’s way of trying to get information that Taryn won’t disclose to him.
“Too personal”, she probably tells him. Or, “It’s not my story to tell.” That’s a very Taryn-like response.
Sure enough, once more guests start arriving, Hal comes to me with two drinks in each hand. An offering he’s surely hoping to exchange for a story Taryn has been depriving him of. A deeper dive into one of CNET’s biggest stories of the year.
“Hey-hey, buddy-in-law”, he sings handing me a drink. I make it a point to take the drink and set it down as far away from my as possible without responding to his greeting. “Right, right, we already said our ‘hi’s and all of that. So how are you liking the party?”
“No babies, no showers. Could be better, I guess”, I tell him.
Hal laughs annoyingly, patting me on the back. “You’re not wrong, I suppose. But it’s good that you’re here. I know Taryn appreciates you, and I’m happy to see you again. It’s been too long. A couple of months, even. Probably since--”
“How have you been”, I ask interrupting his train of thought. “You’re always asking about me, at least that’s what Taryn tells me. Why don’t you tell me more about what’s going on with you?”
“There’s not much to tell from my end”, he admits. “Been working extra hours to prepare for the baby. Taryn tells me that we’re fine with money, but it doesn’t hurt to have extra money. Besides, it’s not like we have you to fallback on anymore if we do end up needing money since--”
“Since that she-bitch scammed me? Is that where we’re heading, Hal? Huh? You wanna get the big scoop on a story that’s almost an entire fucking year old? You want know why I haven’t made an appearance in so long? It’s so I wouldn’t have to deal with that shit. I don’t want to hear it or talk about it.”
He seems taken aback. “Jeepers, Dec. I didn’t mean anything by it, I was just a bit curious.”
“You and every other half-wit here”, I sneer.
Finally, he takes off his happy face and emotes like a real human would in a confrontation. “Hey now, let’s keep it civil, huh? I was only asking a question. It’s been 10 months, you think anybody gives a shit anymore.”
“Clearly, you do. If you want any more info about it, Google it for Christ’s sake. I don’t want to say another goddamn word about the situation unless I’m being paid for it and by the minute.”
Thankfully, Hal listens and shuts his mouth. For a moment.
“So she scammed you, huh? That’s how you’d put it? ‘Scammed’?”
“Hal”, I whisper, “I am doing everything possible to keep myself from ramming that glass you’re holding so far down your throat that it’ll work as a buttplug, please don’t make it easy for me. My sister wouldn’t like that, but she might be the only one. It’d be quite a show for the guests and I would enjoy myself quite a bit. So. Drop. It.”
I turn to see that during the time I spent berating Hal for prying into my business and love life that the volume of my voice had inadvertently increased and I now had more eyes on me that before.
“Excuse me”, I announce.
Stepping away from the bulk of the party, I decided to cool down in the kitchen. Inside, I found myself alone with the exception of a woman I’d never met with an elaborate cake.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met. One of Taryn’s friends”, I ask, extending a hand out.
The woman sets down the cake and turns to shake my hand. “My name’s Callie. Not really a friend, but we know each other well enough that she asked me to bake some cakes for this party.”
“You made this?”
“These”, she corrects me.
Around the kitchen are boxes full of cupcakes, and other pastries. Atop the kitchen island is a large cake that Callie is preparing to decorate. The smell emanating from the cake is delectable but there isn’t much to say about its appearance. It’s completely black with some thin, rectangular chocolate pieces on the top made to look like the ribbon tying a present together.
“A black cake?”
“Only on the outside”, she fills me in. “This is the gender reveal cake.”
Gender reveals. Sex reveal would be a more apt name for it. What a useless way to spend your time and money. A baby is a baby. The primary sex organs it’s born with shouldn't matter to anybody but the baby’s doctor. There is no reason for people to be excited about the gender of someone else’s else’s baby. Baby clothes shouldn't be gendered. Baby toys shouldn't be gendered. It's completely unnecessary and only cements a societal gender norms that are outdated. People need to get with the times and stop wasting time on such trivial things. What difference is it going to make to any of these party goers what sex this baby is.
“You alright there, uh, sorry? I didn’t get your name.”
Cassie shakes me out of my hate fueled trance-like state with her question. “Declan Grew”, I tell her. “You don’t know who I am?”
She shakes her head as she delicately makes out lines of vanilla frosting into a design on the cake’s sides. Being the only person to not be aware and interested in my personal life in this party, I scoot a bit closer to her and decide to keep her in the dark of my past.
“Mother-to-be’s brother”, I answer, not being entirely untruthful.
“Ah”, she says. “Excited to have a nephew on the way?”
I shrug. “Yes and no. I like babies. I think it’s interesting to watch babies grow and learn about the world. Everything is a new experience for them and it’s fun to watch them learn. But once they start socializing with other kids, they learn how to be jerks. And considering this kid is going to be half Baker, there’s a very likely possibility that he’ll be as big of a jerk as his dad.”
“What do you have against bakers?”
My unrivaled disdain towards Hal and his family keeps me from realizing that mentioning his last name offhandedly to a stranger might seem a bit confusing, especially when this stranger has the profession that happens to be the same word used for Hal’s surname. While I try to gather my thoughts in order to explain the misunderstanding, Callie chuckles and continues working on the cake.
“I’m kidding”, she laughs. “I know who I’m working for. His last name is Baker, I’m a baker. Just making a joke, but I’m not a comedian so...”
I take a sigh of relief. “Right, yes. I know. I knew that.”
“Do baby showers normally have you this on edge, Declan? You look like you’re in line to be hung at the gallows. Take a breather. Have a cupcake”, she suggest presenting me with a box of her freshly made desserts.
I grab one cupcake from the box and take a small bite of it. Sweets aren’t my favorite, but her cupcakes were absolutely decadent. The frosting wasn’t the mush I was expecting to sink my teeth into, and the chocolate flavor was so rich, it felt like I was transported to a five star restaurant.
“Holy shit, Callie”, I say with a full mouth. “These are fucking delicious.”
“You don’t have to say that just because I’m here. I’m getting paid whether or not people like these”, she jokes.
I hastily swallow what’s in my mouth to take another bite and again speak with my mouth full. “I’m serious, this is maybe the best cupcake I’ve ever had.”
She asks me to partake in as many cupcakes as I want.
“Is that alright”, I ask. “They’re for the guests.”
“Don’t eat all of them and I think you’ll be fine”, she says with a smile. “Besides you are a guest, so there’s nothing wrong with you eating them. Just keep complimenting me as you eat them, that’ll help me work faster.”
“You sure it’s alright that I’m hanging out here? You don’t need your space?”
“Nah. My assistant should be arriving soon with a few more boxes, so as long as you don’t get in her way, you should be fine. Unless you’re needed elsewhere”, she says in a curious tone.
“I really would rather be here
than out there.”
As she works, I ask her about how she met Taryn. She tells me about how Taryn would often pass by her bakery and come in not for any of her pastries but for a coffee. Callie brags about how good everything she makes is, and quite frankly, I have no reason to call her out on her bragging. I’m on my third cupcake as she regales me with this story. In order to not seem like some gluttonous nutter, I use all of my self control to close the box of delicious pastries and set them to the side.
Callie then turns to conversation to me, something I was hoping to avoid. Not to say that I’m not enjoying conversing with Callie, but the topic of my life or anything surrounding it is a bit of a sore subject at the moment.
“So are you Taryn’s older brother, or are you the baby?”
“I’m the older brother”, I admit.
She nods silently and then turns to me inquisitively. “In that case, I have to ask… what’s it like seeing your baby sister be married and have a baby before you?”
“Rather presumptuous of you to think I’m not married or with kids”, I say.
“No wedding ring. You’re alone at a baby shower. You’re in shape. You haven’t brought up children at all. Don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to put two and two together.”
Smart. Observant. Impressive, I’d say.
“You got me. I’m not married. Don’t have kids. Good deductive skills, Callie the Baker of Baker Street. To answer your question, it’s bittersweet. Her wedding was beautiful and I’d never seen her happier. But she’s also married to someone I could only describe as flaccid.”
Callie puts down her pastry bag and bursts out in laughter at my rather accurate description of Hal. “Flaccid. Oh my God. I mean… I don’t know much about the guy but… just by looking at him, flaccid is what I’d call him”, she says between fits of laughter. Then she looks back up at me. “Does it make you feel a bit bad that you’re not married?”
“That’s a bit of a loaded question”, I confess, stuttering throughout the entire sentence.
“Alright, my bad, didn’t mean to pry”, she hurriedly replies picking her pastry bag back up and squeezing more thing white frosting onto her works of art.
We share some silence as I watch her work. She paints her pastries with such focus, you can feel the amount of care she puts into each of her creations, be they palm-sized or big enough to feed an entire party. Though she’s working hard to finish all of the edible decorating before they’re brought out for party games or whatever happens at a baby shower, I can sense that she wants me to answer the question that brought on this silence.
Finally, I decide to break the thick silence. “I’m proud of Taryn. I may not like Hal but he makes her happy for whatever reason. I’m not jealous that she’s married, but… I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t envious of the happiness being in a committed relationship brings her. I had that but… short of it is that it didn’t work out.”
“Was that recent? If you don’t mind me asking, we don’t have to get into it”, she asks.
“Not particularly recent but… the pain is still there”, I confess.
Callie nods her head pensively. I can’t help but feel that there may be more than curiosity bringing forth these questions. She’s not wearing a wedding band either. She hasn’t brought up her own kids. She’s in good shape, especially for someone working with food on a daily basis. Though, I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Not having kids and not being married isn’t a straight indicator that she’s single.
I could ask.
But I hesitate. She’s smart, funny, interesting. It’s everything I want in a woman. Which means she’s off-limits. Even if it has been nearly a year since Miranda fucked me over in more ways than one, I shouldn’t be focusing on starting a relationship.
A one night stand I could handle, but something tells me that this sweet lady is a bit too innocent for a purely sexual proposition as that.
I make an attempt to ask her about her relationship status, but the attempt is immediately interrupted by Hal.
“How’s the cake lookin’, Callie?”
“Nearly done, Mr. Baker”, she answers.
He gives her a thumbs up. “We’re going to do the gender reveal in ten minutes. Will it be ready by then?”
“It absolutely will”, she replies with a smile.
Hal thanks her and excitedly exits the kitchen, never even looking at my direction. Rude, but considering how I had spoken to him earlier, I don’t see it as unfair.
“I wonder how he’s going to react when they slice into the cake”, Callie mumbles.
“Is it a boy or a girl”, I ask mildly curious.
She chuckles. “You’ll find out when they do. But… Does it really matter? I think it’s kind of weird to force these weird rules on kids before they’ve even popped out of the oven. Wear pink if you’re a girl, wear blue if you’re a boy. Only trucks or only princesses. I don’t know. I never got it, but… a job is a job. And I do enjoy seeing the happiness on the parents’ faces when they find out. I don’t understand how they can get so much joy of seeing pink or blue, but it’s nice to see.”
A smile slowly comes to life on my face upon hearing this.
“I agree wholeheartedly.”
Callie smiles and turns beet red when she sees my smile. Suddenly, her assistant walks in carrying two stacks of boxes haphazardly. We both run to help them and keep the boxes from spilling onto the kitchen floor.
“Sorry, I’m so late. Traffic was hell”, Callie’s shaggy-looking helper breathlessly says. “These are all decorated, good to go. You don’t have to do a single thing to ‘em.”
After opening some boxes, Callie throws her eyebrows up and turns to her assistant. “You’re getting better, Sheila. I’m proud of you aaaand you saved my ass because the festivities are about to begin.”
The two of them share a hug and start to get their desserts together after Hal bursts in again asking them to get things ready for the gender reveal.
“Want to help”, Callie asks me.
I hop off the kitchen counter and proudly offer my services to Callie and Sheila. With my help, we’re able to plate and serve nearly twenty platters of sweets in Taryn’s spacious living room. We carefully place the large black cake in the center of the room.
Hal gathers Taryn and the party guests into the living space for the big event. The gender reveal. I felt like the black sheep of the party. Even though Callie and I shared the same view on gender reveals, she was as excited as everyone else.
Am I a bad person for not caring?
I know my little sister is excited about this, but this all seems so pointless.
After a short announcement, Hal and Taryn hold their own cake knives and they both simultaneously stab the cake to cut out one slice. The crowd holds their breath as they watch the excited couple pull the slice from the rest of the cake to reveal…
Pink.
The party explodes into applause and cheer. Taryn cries tears of joy as Hal gets down on his knees and repeatedly kisses her pregnant belly. They’re going to have a little baby girl. I’m going to be an uncle to their daughter. My niece.
Fuck.
Alright. I could see the appeal to baby showers and gender reveals now. The tears streaming down Taryn’s face. Hal’s over-the-top but warm reaction. I can even see Callie trying to hide some tears of joy.
The party goers soon swarm my sister and Hal to congratulate them and take some pictures for their social media and, probably, memories. Taryn spots me through the crowd and smiles happily. I wave at her and take this opportunity to make my departure. I don’t think Taryn was expecting me to participate in any of the baby shower games or activities she had planned. And even if she was, she’d have been sorely disappointed. I made an appearance. I left her a gift. My obligations have been met.
As I drive home from the party, I think of Callie. Missed opportunity or overly long interaction with a stranger? Hard to say. I’m glad I was able to keep myself from asking
her about her relationship status. Last thing I need now is to deal with rejection.
I should get her number, though. Those cupcakes were delicious.
Chapter 2 - Callie
“Thanks again, Callie. Everything was so good. You’re an angel.”
I thank Taryn for her sweet words and take one last walk through the kitchen to make sure I haven’t left anything behind. Sure enough, I do find something. The box that Declan had been eating cupcakes from. I look around Taryn’s home for a bit and pass by the few remaining guests to try and spot Declan.
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