Copyright © 2013 by Melanie Ting
All rights reserved
Editing by Amy Duli
Cover design by STW Design
Photograph by Jonathan Ruchti from Stock.Xchng
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Really.
Table of Contents
How the Cookie Crumbles
Part One: The Off Season
Part Two: Hockey Season
Epilogue
From the Author
Complete Listing of Contents
How The Cookie Crumbles
Melanie Ting
Part One:
The Off-Season
1. Dumping Doughnuts
I took a big bite of my doughnut. It was moist, super sweet, and yummy. I savoured the taste and tried to ignore my mental calorie calculator. This lovely day was my reward for all my hard work on exams. I was sitting on a park bench in Panorama Park with my boyfriend, Matt, eating Honey’s doughnuts and basking in the late April sunshine. The air was fresh, and the calm Pacific Ocean stretched out before us, framed by the mountains. Deep Cove was beautiful all year, but on warm spring days it was extra special. I had grown up here, and no matter what part of Vancouver I lived in now, this felt like home.
I sighed happily, “These doughnuts are soooo delicious. Did you know they cook them in boiling honey?”
“Nope.”
Matt seemed to be in a bad mood today, or maybe he was preoccupied.
He got up to throw out his empty coffee cup, and I got to check out his butt. Matt was totally gorgeous, with cropped blond hair, blue eyes, killer cheekbones and a ripped body. His nose was a little crooked from a rugby misadventure, but that just made him look cooler. We met last summer at Earl’s Restaurant, where I was a waitress and he was a pizza cook. When we chatted at work, we discovered we were both students at the University of British Columbia. We kind of bonded since most of the other people there were not going to school anymore. I was pretty excited when he finally asked me out, and we had been dating steadily for almost a year. We had an amazing relationship, and even though I thought I had been in love before, now I knew what the real deal was like. It was no exaggeration to say that Matt was my soul mate; we had so much in common, from our constant to-do lists to our fantasy of travelling Europe someday.
I contemplated my doughnut; it was completely misshapen, more like a lump then a doughnut. I had been craving one all during exams, and now that Matt and I were both finished, I had convinced him to drive us out to the Cove to eat doughnuts, go for a little walk and then have dinner with my family. I tore off another piece of warm, sticky doughnut and popped it into my mouth: so delicious, like molecules of sweetness exploding in my mouth! I let out a happy moan.
Matt shook his head. “You get off on the weirdest things.”
With a perfect arc, he tossed his doughnut, half-eaten, into a nearby trash can. What a waste, but at least the crows and seagulls would be happy. He leaned back, sighed, and looked out at the water. I peered closely at him, and realized he had been kind of nervous and edgy all day. That wasn’t really normal for him; Matt was all energy and positivity. He was a big believer in affirmations and goal setting, and encouraged me to do the same. I was already on the completely anal side of organized, but Matt figured that I needed to focus my energy on long-range goals. He wanted me to be preparing for a good-paying job when I graduated next year, instead of reading art books or planning dinner parties. He was graduating in May and he already had his accounting job lined up at KPMG, starting in September.
Then a happy idea hit me like a truck! Matt was always making plans for the future. Now that he had his career path set, he wanted to get his personal life in order. Could it be that he was going to propose? Oh my goodness!
Of all the guys I had ever dated, I thought Matt was the best. I had a little checklist for Mr. Right, and Matt hit every box on the list:
1. Handsome
This was not negotiable. Call me shallow, but I was a Contemporary Art History major and so I was into aesthetics. A guy had to be good-looking and have a hot body. I felt shallow about this requirement, but really how can you have sex with someone who you’re not attracted to? My mom had told me a million times that “it’s what’s inside that counts.” But I figured if you have a choice; why not go for the hot guy?
Matt was really cute, like girls-turning-in-the-street-to-have-a-second-look cute. And I was proud to be with a guy like that. He was friendly but not flirty, so I never worried about him fooling around. Except maybe when some skank was throwing herself at him at a party; but Matt himself never gave me cause to worry.
2. University Education + Career Plan
My mom was a college instructor and my dad was a lawyer, so a university education was the minimum at our house. I was planning on doing my Masters too; the only question was whether I would work for a year first. Anyway, maybe it was snobby but education was important to me, and I would never consider marrying a guy who hadn’t been to university. Plus I was ambitious and I wanted the guy I was with to be driven, just like Matt.
Matt had explained the whole process of becoming a partner in a chartered accounting firm to me, and why he wanted to go with a big firm. He basically had the next ten years of his life plotted out, and I really admired him for that. The work itself didn’t sound too appealing to me, but I’m sure Matt didn’t covet my dream of museum curation.
3. Competent
This was a weird one; I was attracted to guys who were good at whatever they did. Matt was a really good club rugby player and his marks at business school were top quartile, so besides being ambitious, he was athletic and smart. My high school boyfriend, Adam, had been a fantastic musician. I got a crush on him at the school talent show, during his five-minute guitar solo in a Neil Young song. Of course the fact that he was tall, blondish and pretty damn cute didn’t hurt either. Being competent and confident was hot.
But Adam was nothing next to Matt, Matt was the real deal. So if Matt was my dream man, and I was his dream girl… well then, maybe it was all coming together.
“Uh, Frankie, there’s something we need to talk about,” Matt began, and then cleared his throat.
“Yes, Matt?” I straightened up a little and smiled happily at him. I was extra glad that I wore a new dress today, this subtle blue and turquoise plaid number with a wide skirt and cap sleeves. I mean, this was a day I had dreamt of forever.
“Um, you know, the past year,” he looked at the ground. “Well, I’ve had a great time with you.” He paused for a long time, and couldn’t seem to get the words out.
I tried to encourage him, “Me too, sweetie. I love you!”
“You’re a great girl, Frankie. Any guy would be so lucky to be with you.” He looked up at me, finally meeting my eyes and looking as nervous as I had ever seen him. “It’s just… well, I think we need to take a break.”
I felt like Matt had punched me in the stomach. “A break?” I finally gasped.
“Yeah, it’s my last summer before real life starts. I already have my job lined up in September, and then I’ll be working really hard. I feel like I need to go a little crazy right now and, I don’t know, have some fun.”
“We don’t have any fun?” My voice sounded all choked and wimpy. All this was totally news to me; I thought everything was great.
“Of course we’ve had fun, Frankie. But… I don’t know, it’s getting kind of routine between us, like we’re old married people. This summer, I’m going to be doing a road trip with the guys, and I want to be free to, you know… do whatever I want.”
“I don’t understand, just the other night, yo
u were talking about the future and… you know,” I stammered. Matt was in love with me, he had said so numerous times, but I couldn’t bring myself to remind him of that. Because clearly he wasn’t in love with me anymore!
“Ah Frankie, I’m really sorry.” Matt paused, and to his credit he did look really upset. “I mean, there’s never a good time for something like this.” He reached over and held my hand. “Who knows, maybe we’ll end up getting back together someday.”
I wanted to cling to the promise in his words, but even in my shell-shocked state I could tell that Matt didn’t really mean that. He was already looking forward to the future, where he was free to have all that excitement and adventure. Free from boring me.
I was too stunned to say anything else. It was all I could do to hold myself together and not have some humiliating public breakdown. I kept blinking to stop the tears from coming out. I knew that once I started crying, I wouldn’t be able to stop. I vaguely heard Matt offering to drive me back to my apartment near U.B.C., but I said I’d just walk to my parents’ place. I slumped on the bench for a long time after he left, staring blankly at the water. I kept turning our relationship over in my mind and trying to figure out what went wrong. Had anyone in the world ever thought her boyfriend was going to propose and instead he broke up with her? How clueless I was. My whole world was coming apart, and I absolutely hated being out of control.
When I looked down in my hand, I saw that I still had half a doughnut there. It seemed extra cruel that Matt had broken up with me just as I was enjoying the treat I had been looking forward to, but really, that was one of his problems. He never truly enjoyed eating; food was only fuel to him. I threw my doughnut towards the same garbage can that Matt had used, but naturally I missed. As I sadly contemplated what a loser I was if I couldn’t even hit a stupid garbage can, a random dog ran over and gobbled it up. Hopefully he wouldn’t throw up later, and hopefully I wouldn’t either.
Luckily when I got home, there was a fair amount of chaos going on and nobody noticed that I was now alone. At 21, I was the oldest, and my younger brothers were 17 and 15. My parents and my grandmother completed our busy, noisy, household, which was full of talkers and not many listeners. I went to the bathroom to wash my hands and looked in the mirror. Despite how wretched I felt inside, I looked pretty much the same as I did an hour ago: dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and pale skin. My carefully mascaraed lashes, brown eye shadow, and glossy plum lip tint were still intact as well. These days, I guess you’d say I was pretty, but there was a time when I wasn’t that pretty. No let me correct that: there was a time when people described me as having “such a pretty face.” So obviously the rest of me wasn’t that pretty. Now I had a body that you would describe as curvy, a word I really preferred to fat.
I definitely looked sadder now, but maybe nobody would notice.
My mother was already in the kitchen cooking dinner. I could smell tomato sauce and hmmm, chicken with rosemary roasting. I reached into the cookbook cupboard and pulled out the recipe box.
“What are you doing, Frances?” my mom asked curiously.
“I thought I’d make something for dessert. Maybe some brownies?”
“I was going to serve ice cream, but that would be nice, dear.” She gave me a suspicious look. “Isn’t Matt staying for dinner?”
“Um, no, he had to go.” I grabbed an apron and started pulling out the flour, sugar and cocoa. “Oh Mom, not Frye’s cocoa, didn’t I tell you to get the Dutch processed cocoa? It’s way better.”
“Well, unfortunately they don’t have it at the Superstore, and I don’t have time to search for it everywhere.” Mom was a great cook, but she wasn’t into anything too gourmet or too trendy.
I started measuring and sifting and creaming. Whenever things bothered me, I liked to bake. There was something comforting about the way that measuring precisely and following directions in a recipe meant things always turned out perfectly. Baking was so unlike life.
I would admit that I wasn’t the most spontaneous person in the world, but Matt had basically told me that I was boring. And it’s not like we had stayed home every night, we went out to parties, clubs, and friend’s places. I loved to entertain, but Matt enjoyed that too. He used to tease me about being a domestic goddess, but he never complained about all the creature comforts that went with that. Plus, I had thought that our sex life was great. Just seeing him undressed was a total turn-on for me; he had this amazing muscle definition and an actual six-pack. And Matt was experienced, so sex was way better than with Adam back in high school. Adam was clueless when it came to female anatomy. He should have been paying attention in Health instead of writing song lyrics in his notebook. But whatever, my sex life was over now.
I sighed quietly to myself so my mom didn’t hear anything.
I finished mixing the brownies, poured them into the greased and floured pan and popped them into the hot oven. Then I started creaming more butter for the icing. My older brother, Glen, walked in and stared at me.
“Did you break up with Matt?”
“Glen!” My mom admonished him. “Don’t pry, I’m sure Frances will tell us when she’s ready.”
I burst into tears. “Why does everyone know what’s going on with me? Am I so boring and predictable?”
My mom came over and hugged me awkwardly, since I was still waving a buttery wooden spoon around. Glen came over and made it a group hug. “Sorry, Franny,” he said, “It’s just when you start randomly baking, you’re usually upset about something and Matt had left, so I figured.…”
I went back to the washroom and washed my face with cold water. Now I definitely looked worse. I tried to repair my mascara, and I borrowed some of my mom’s makeup to cover the splotches on my skin. This wasn’t working since she was about three shades darker than me, so I finally gave up. It was my family after all; they had seen me look way worse.
Dinner went okay. Apparently Mom had warned everyone to be tactful, so they shut up about dating, random baking, and chartered accountants. We chowed down on pasta with a spicy tomato sauce, rosemary chicken, garlic sautéed greens, and a green salad with figs.
Just before dessert, my grandmother couldn’t hold back any longer. “You’re well rid of him. That one never passed a mirror he didn’t like.”
A complete silence descended. Everyone was watching me to see if I was going to get hysterical again. But after a delicious family dinner, I felt calmer and I merely smiled.
“You may be right, Granny.” I told her, and then I went to the kitchen to cut the brownies. I had iced them with melted Belgian chocolate chips, and they looked scrumptious.
2. Anthropologist on Planet Hockey
Dinner was delicious, but I had kept my portions small—even my brownie was half the size of everyone else’s. I had to be strict with myself since I used to carry about 25 extras pounds on a 5’ 2” frame. That was enough to stop me from doing a lot of the things I wanted to do. Like wear skinny jeans or the stylish fashions I loved. And date someone I wanted to date, instead of… nobody.
So in the spring of Grade 10, I decided that it was time that I lost the weight. And I dealt with that problem like I approached everything else in my life: I got organized. I set some goals and made some rules for myself and then followed them. Hey, it worked for getting good marks at school, so why not? Basically I just ate less and exercised more. I wasn’t really one for doing a lot of exercise, but I had always played soccer, and I started walking and going to the gym. My dad was into hitting the gym, so he helped me create a weight lifting program. It was tough and it took a while, but I finally lost those 25 pounds and now I looked great. I realized that I would never be thin; I was curvy with boobs and hips. However now I wasn’t getting called Fat Franny by my skinny brothers or anyone else, and I could finally wear what I wanted. Unfortunately skinny jeans still didn’t look right on me, and anything in the leggings/jeggings family was out. But you can’t have everything, and now I got to indulge my passio
n for fashion, on my own terms. What that meant was dresses and heels. I loved dresses and I could sew, so I made pretty dresses with fitted waists and flippy skirts in a rainbow of colours. My wardrobe used to consist of too much slimming black, so I avoided it now. And I had always loved shoes and hated being short, so I already had a full selection of lovely high heels.
If only dating after losing weight could have been as easy as whipping up a new wardrobe. It took me a full year of social adjustment before I got into a relationship with Adam. Initially I had some trust issues. After I lost the weight, I was excited to go back to high school in the fall. I was Frankie Taylor: New and Improved, Now with 30% less fat. But all the guys seem to see was Frankie Taylor, now hot with big breasts. Ugh. If guys that used to be mean to me or ignored me asked me out, I found that kind of phony. Because, hello boys, elephants do have good memories. And besides, I did have my super-picky boyfriend checklist. I had lots of guy friends, and guy friends who wanted to be more than that, but I was looking for the complete package. That might be why although I had gone on zillions of first dates, I had had only two serious relationships my whole life. It made me sad to think how perfect Matt had been, but in the back of my mind I wondered if his good looks had led me to overlook some of his lesser qualities. Unfortunately in my current state of upset, all I could think of were his good qualities.
When I started at U.B.C., I had left home and moved into residence right away. The commute from North Van to U.B.C. was a brutal one even if you had a car, which I did not, and besides I wanted to be independent. I loved my family and I didn’t want to move far away, but a little distance was perfect. Now going into my fourth year, I shared an apartment with two friends, but I was still close enough to come home occasionally for dinner and a bit of spoiling. My mom, feeling extra sorry for me because of the breakup, had already handed me a twenty and told me to get myself a treat. I planned to go straight to Shoppers Drug Mart and blow it on a bag of chips, a fashion magazine, and some red lipstick. And now, having been fed and coddled, it was time to go back to my apartment.
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