Cupcake

by Mariah Jones

  I had nothing intelligent to say in response although I desperately wanted to. “Wedding cakes are easier,” I said, hoping the joke would make my lack of intellect on the previous subject less apparent.

  “Are you sure?” he teased. “The food coloring part looked like it can be kind of hazardous.”

  “Its human error that causes the mishaps, specifically this human,” I agreed.

  I followed him back to the front of the store. The sun was shining through the window and lighting the side of his face. I could see tiny lines around his eyes. They were only visible when he smiled. I realized I was staring again and forced myself to look away.

  “I’m going to be thirty-three,” he said, mistaking the way I was looking at him for something other than what it had been.

  “I’m twenty-nine,” I told him. “And I wasn’t guessing your age.”

  “I’m sorry. For a long time there everywhere I went I got carded. Nobody could believe I was as old as my driver’s license declared. That hasn’t happened for a while. I guess I’m getting paranoid. It was just the curious way you were studying my face,” he said.

  “I was just trying to figure out how someone so talented is in Portland instead of New York or L.A. or something,” I lied convincingly.

  “I’ve never liked city life all that much honestly. I did live in Los Angeles for a while before I came here. I don’t see how you expect to get a break in a place where everyone is so busy all the time. I thought Portland was more my style. Still a city, but the people here are friendlier and the food is outstanding,” he said, biting into a cupcake. “Oh wow, these are incredible.”

  I tried not to focus on his mouth as he was eating. It was hard not to. “Thank you,” I said, looking at the floor beneath my feet.

  Thorne looked at me for a while before speaking again. I was wondering if it was my cue to excuse myself. I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. “Is there no Mr. Cupcake?” he asked.

  It took me a few seconds to realize what he was asking me. I laughed. “No, my last name is Miller, and there is no Mr. Anyone.”

  Again, there was a long moment of silence as he seemed to consider his next words carefully before speaking them aloud. “I was wondering if I could take you out. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since the first time we met.”

  I must have looked like I was struck by a bolt of lightning. My chest felt tight and my heart was beating fast. For once my internal monologue had shut up, leaving me completely alone. “I’m sorry; did you just ask me to go out with you?” I stammered uncertainly.

  “I thought we had chemistry. Was I misreading something? Oh, you must think I’m awful. I never meant to offend you.”

  “Offend me?” I asked in true disbelief. “You didn’t offend me; I guess it was more that you kind of caught me off guard. I would love to go out with you.”

  He looked relieved. I thought about pinching myself to make sure I was awake. I felt my foot beginning to cramp and realized I was standing on it with my other foot. Good then, I was awake. “When do you want to go? Where do you want to go?” I asked, perhaps a bit too eagerly.

  He considered my question briefly. “How would you feel about a walk on the beach and a quiet dinner? We can spread out a blanket and pack a picnic. I find the first date restaurant scene to be a bit overrated.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” I agreed.

  “Does tomorrow night work for you?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow night is perfect.”

  ****

  I walked back to Cupcake in a glorious daze. I looked up at my sister who was helping a customer choose pastries and went straight to my office. When the door closed and the customer was gone, Katie came in to see me. “Your face is completely white. What happened?” she asked, obviously concerned something had gone terribly wrong.

  “He asked me out,” I said simply.

  Katie screamed and threw her arms around me.

  “Quiet!” I scolded, “These walls aren’t that thick.”

  “Sorry!” she apologized. “I told you he was flirting with you the other night.”

  “You were right,” I admitted through clenched teeth.

  “What was that?” she asked. “Come on. Say it a little louder.”

  “Don’t push your luck,” I replied.

  Chapter Ten

  The fat girl’s guide to dating

  The day Thorne asked me to go out with him remained busy until closing. The shop was doing great and there were only six cakes left to complete for the week. I found myself humming and singing with a spring in my step for the rest of the day. It wasn’t until I got home that night that the paranoia set in. What if he had only asked me out because he felt sorry for me?

  My mind has a tendency to put undue stress on the rest of me. Things can be going great and one thought can put a damper on everything. That night was an excellent example of how twisted my brain can be. I started out my evening excited about the upcoming date and the possibilities of the unknown. I ended up lying in bed until three a.m. worrying about all the reasons he might have felt pressured to ask me out and all the many things that could go wrong.

  Somewhere around midnight I felt my stomach starting to growl and got up for a snack. As I stood in the light of the open refrigerator, another memory came back to me. Something else I would rather have forgotten from my teenaged years. It was a recollection from my junior year in high school when I got asked out by a member of the football team. His name was Brad and he was the kind of guy who dated the head cheerleader, not a girl like me. It was the first time I had ever been asked to any school event and although it took some convincing, I finally believed he really wanted to go with me.

  My mom took me shopping for a winter formal dress and although it wasn’t easy, we finally found one in my size that didn’t make me look so much like a colored marshmallow. I waited impatiently for my date to arrive and when brad showed up, he looked more handsome than ever. His blonde hair was slicked back and he wore an attractive black tuxedo. My mom forced us to take pictures together before she allowed me to leave. The night started out perfect.

  We talked quietly on the way to the dance and I was really enjoying his company. He even commented on how pretty I looked and that he liked my dress.

  It wasn’t until we got to the dance that everything fell apart. The minute we hit the parking lot the rest of the football team started taunting Brad about choosing to bring me. “I hope you fed her first or there won’t be anything left for the rest of us!” One of the guys called out. “How many army tents did it take to make your dress honey?” cackled another. I wanted to hide, although Brad just grabbed my hand and led me inside.

  The teasing and taunting continued throughout the night until I ran out of the room crying and called my mom from a payphone down the street to come get me. Brad quit the football team shortly after and never spoke to me again. After all those years, thinking about the way I was treated that night still caused a burning ache in my gut. I guess it could have been worse; at least there was no pig’s blood.

  I scanned the contents of the refrigerator. I really had nothing in there that would qualify as a healthy choice. Naturally the inevitable brain took over and started blabbering incessantly. If you’re going to clean up your act you have to get rid of all this unhealthy food. You might as well eat it so you can get it over with and replace it with better stuff. I thought about the big date and began to feel slightly sick to my stomach. I grabbed a carton of triple fudge brownie ice cream out of the freezer.

  Flopping down on the couch with a spoon in one hand and the ice cream in the other, I turned on the TV. Big mistake, after eleven o’clock cable TV becomes nothing but infomercials. Out of every three channels I surfed, two of them were for fitness machines or dance workouts. Not what I wanted to see during my late night snack attack, a bunch of skinny people teaching me how to sweat.

  I took a bite of the ice cream. It was cold and satisfying and provided the ins
tant gratification I had been crying out for while lying sleepless in my bed. I finally found an old movie on that at any other time, wouldn’t have held my interest for a moment. It’s amazing how desperate for entertainment you become late at night. I sat up until the movie was over and the ice cream was gone.

  I decided to go back to bed and try to fall asleep again. I knew I had to work the next day and be ready for the date soon after. I didn’t want to show up yawning with puffy blood-shot eyes. I used the bathroom and was washing my hands when I caught sight of the scale out of the corner of my eye. There it was. Sitting there on the floor all high and mighty as if it owned the place, the damn thing was taunting me. “You don’t scare me,” I told the scale. If you looked at the thing just right it almost looked as if it was smiling. “figures,” I said. I knew I was supposed to weigh in at the same time every morning and had read over and over that bodies have natural weight fluctuations throughout the day and night. Still, it was the way the scale was just daring me to step on it. I had to do it. I closed my eyes as I waited for the beep. 329. Back to where I started from. “Oh come on!” I yelled at the scale. “It was just one time! There was only a cup of ice cream left in the damn carton!” The display on the scale shut off, leaving me standing there staring at it stupidly.

  As is always the case on restless nights, morning came way too soon. I listened to the sound of my alarm clock for a full minute before making an effort to slap at it and turn it off. My head felt heavy as I attempted to sit up in bed and I wanted more than anything to roll over and go back to sleep. 6:30, my sister was going to be over at seven to pick me up so I could retrieve my car from the auto shop it was imprisoned in. I was really looking forward to getting it back. At least then if I ran over anyone else it wouldn’t do as much damage as the Jeep.

  I took a cursory glance at my wardrobe that morning before heading to the shower, trying to formulate a plan for what I would wear on my date that night. I couldn’t dress up too much as we were planning a beach date. I didn’t want to be too underdressed either. I would ask Katie’s opinion, I decided.

  By the time I was dressed and had eaten a quick breakfast my sister and nephew were waiting for me out in the driveway. “Good morning little man,” I said to Daniel when I got in the car. He threw his hands up over his face and spread his fingers out to peek at me between them. I returned the gesture and he began to laugh. He was almost five and still the cutest thing I had ever seen.

  Katie pushed her hair out of her face and looked at me seriously. “You look like Hell.”

  “Thank you for your honesty,” I said, perturbed.

  “I’m sorry but you do. You look like you haven’t slept for a week. It’s the date isn’t it?” she asked.

  I pulled down the vanity mirror on the sun visor and looked at my puffy eyes. She was right, I looked awful. “Yep, I couldn’t stop thinking about Brad Hunter last night.”

  Katie sighed loudly. “Darcy, that was years and years go. We have all done a lot of growing up since then. You can’t tell me you are convinced you will have another experience like that again after all this time. Besides, you have been out on plenty of dates since then; why all the sudden paranoia?

  I considered her question for a minute. “When I went out with Brad I got teased because he was my complete opposite. I was fat and unpopular and he was athletic and well liked. Same situation here, the dates I’ve had in the past were with guys who may not have been my size equal, but they weren’t drop dead gorgeous either. I’m afraid people will see us together and realize what a mismatch we are. The last thing I want is for Thorne to come away from the evening feeling ashamed and regretful.”

  “What about Andrew? He wasn’t a bad looking guy either. You never had any of those problems being out with him did you?” Katie pointed out.

  “Andrew wasn’t the kind of guy that women stop and crane their necks to look at. He was more the studious type of handsome, not the looks like an underwear model kind of handsome. I saw the way Nancy looked when she was talking about Thorne. I expect it will be women who make it hard on me.”

  “Nancy looks at everything with a penis that way. The UPS guy, the newspaper delivery guy, the pizza man, everyone; the silicone in her boobs has trickled out and affected her brain. It really is sad,” Katie said, leaning toward me so Daniel wouldn’t overhear. “The point is, her opinion shouldn’t count and neither should anyone else’s. Thorne thinks you’re beautiful. That should be what’s taking up all of your thoughts right now, nothing else.”

  “You should have become a psychologist,” I commented honestly. Katie had such a way of making me feel like my problems were small.

  “I thought about it, but then I wouldn’t get to sample frosting all day long. I might go on a sugar bender and kill some innocent bystander,” she joked.

  “I ate the rest of a carton of ice cream and gained back the weight I lost,” I admitted shamefully.

  Katie shrugged. “You’ll lose it again. You said you were going to get serious about this whole thing right?”

  “Right,” I agreed. After all the ice cream and chips and sodas and candy are gone from the house I’m going to make a solid commitment.

  “I think the first thing you should do is go through the house and do a junk-food dump. Get rid of all the chips and ice cream and candy and sodas and stuff. That way it won’t tempt you,” Katie said.

  It’s uncanny how she does that, I thought. “Yeah you’re probably right.”

  “Have you decided what you are going to wear tonight?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I was going to ask you for your opinion. We are having our date at the beach so I can’t wear heels and all that,” I said.

  “They have that little boutique down the street. The name escapes me. Summer Chic. That’s what it’s called. We should run over there at lunch and see if we can find you something cute for tonight,” Katie recommended.

  “Cute and plus sized are not words that fit into the same sentence,” I pointed out.

  “A lot of the smaller stores have started carrying lines of plus sized clothing. I think you’ll be surprised. When was the last time you shopped anywhere but a superstore anyway?” she asked.

  “I have had bad experiences at specialty stores too numerous to count. Last Christmas when I was trying to pick out something for you I actually had a sales lady intentionally redirect me to the plus sized section, telling me ‘my size’ was over there,” I told Katie.

  “Oh that’s awful. Some people have such nerve,” she agreed.

  “Yeah, unfortunately that meant one less cashmere sweater for you under the tree,” I laughed.

  “I would have told her to shove it up her ass,” Katie joined in my laughter.

  “I might have. The trauma made my mind such a blur,” I said.

  “What are you going to wear under the cute outfit we get you today?” Katie asked coyly.

  “I hadn’t thought about it. Does it matter?” I asked curiously.

  Katie harrumphed loudly at me. “Of course it matters. When you unwrap a birthday present doesn’t it matter what’s inside? The wrapping is nice but it isn’t what matters.”

  “I didn’t suppose it would get far enough that it would matter what I was wearing under my clothes. You’re not suggesting we might…”

  “You never know. Better to be prepared than sorry when he’s staring down at your worst pair of old lady panties and a double support reinforced bra that looks like something you would wear to attach a parachute to your back right?” she said.

  I laughed at her description but also thought about her words. “Great. Now I feel even worse than I did before.”

  “So much for my psychology degree huh?” she teased.

  “You are supposed to discourage your patients from jumping off a bridge. Unless of course they are thrill seekers with parachute bras, in that case it might actually be therapeutic.” I told her.

  “Yeah!” Daniel agreed from the back seat.


  “Hey now, you’re supposed to be on mommy’s side!” Katie told him with a smile.

  ***

  I resisted the urge to stare into Thorne’s shop as I unlocked the door to the bakery. I knew already he couldn’t be half the hot mess I was that morning. I doubted if men like him ever got nervous in any situation. I envied that.

  Jenny met me at the door and saved me from having to find my key. “You’re here early,” I commented.

  “No, you’re here late,” she replied, gesturing to the clock on the wall behind her. It was a quarter after eight. I wondered how I had managed to lose track of that much time. My brain was already struggling and it was only the first hour of the work day.