by Paul Rudnick
“Whenever my appetite would, like, finally come back,” Sophie said, “I’d try to decide which is my favorite part of a Sweetcake. Is it, like, the rich devil’s food cake part—LOVING IT—or the cream filling part—WANTING IT SO BAD I’M GONNA PUNCH SOMEONE—or the smooth chocolate frosting on top—ULTIMATE EXTREME TRIPLE YUM. I made this chart and I rated every part of a Sweetcake on the basis of texture, taste and visual appeal, right, and then I had this little Olympic ceremony in my room and the gold medal winner, like, on the podium, was …”
Sophie stood up and did an incredibly accurate impression of the triumphant theme from the last summer Olympics. Then she said:
“The little white squiggle along the top of the cupcake! SWEETCAKES DEATH MATCH CAGE FIGHTING ULTRA-BOOM!!!”
She then did an incredibly accurate impression of a stadium filled with people cheering, as she waved her arms and sobbed and put her hand over her heart.
This squiggle was the Sweetcakes trademark, setting it apart from other cupcakes. Calico had told me that while other brands would imitate this squiggle, the wannabe squiggles were always blurry or haphazard. She said that when she got married she wanted her wedding ring to look exactly like the Sweeetcakes squiggle.
“I’m, like, propped up in bed,” said Sophie, “Skyping my algebra class, only what I’m really doing is drawing that squiggle in my notebook over and over again like it was this Buddhist or Celtic or ancient Egyptian symbol for perfect happiness. Which it so completely IS. I tried to calculate how many individual squiggles you’d need to, like, go around the equator or from the earth’s surface to the moon—I can show you. And don’t judge me, ’cause it’s my most favorite anything ever—I started to totally fixate on the machine that makes the squiggle. I found a picture of it online—it’s this huge steel pastry-tube thing and it shoots the squiggles onto the assembly line of cupcakes. It’s the coolest thing ever. ’Cause I kept thinking that, like, while some people were inventing nuclear warheads or barbed wire or chemical weapons, someone else was inventing this amazeballs machine that could make hundreds of thousands of perfect squiggles every day forever.”
Sophie was looking at us like she’d just witnessed a miracle, with tears in her eyes, and very quietly she said:
“Boom.”
“Do you want us to take you to the Sweetcakes factory for a tour or something?” asked Heller.
“No,” said Sophie. “First of all it’s Sunday so the factory is closed. Second of all I don’t want a tour. Okay okay okay …”
She put her hands over her mouth and then lowered them.
“I want to put my mouth directly under the squiggle machine. I want to lie on my back on the conveyor belt and taste the squiggle. I told my parents and my mom actually emailed the Sweetcakes consumer outreach people and asked if the whole tasting-the-squiggle deal would be possible, but they said that the factory floor was, like, off-limits to visitors and that the equipment had to be kept spotless and sterilized, and that the idea was out of the question, and they sent me a coupon for ten percent off on my next Sweetcakes purchase, which was nice and all but come ON. Here’s what I need: We gotta break into the Sweetcakes factory, turn on the machinery, shove me underneath the squiggle maker and then get the hell out of there before anyone catches us. Right?”
Sophie looked ecstatic and crazy and yearning. She looked like someone who was hopelessly in love, with a squiggle.
“Sophie, if you’ll excuse us for just a second,” said Heller, grabbing my arm and dragging me into the bedroom.
“We have to do this,” Heller told me, once we were out of Sophie’s earshot.
“Are you out of your mind? We can’t! We have that whole schedule of interviews and that fashion shoot and the public service spot! I’m supposed to be keeping you on track! Especially after yesterday! Breaking into a factory is a felony and shoving Sophie under that squiggle thing sounds incredibly dangerous; she wants us to lie to her parents, and I’m sorry but I don’t think that committing a criminal act and ingesting a squiggle that is most likely made out of toxic additives and artificial colorings is exactly what the Make-A-Wish Foundation had in mind!”
“Wyatt can push those interviews until tomorrow and I can tape that announcement whenever I want to. Thanks to you and your Glinda-the-pit-bull routine, I’ve been behaving myself this whole weekend, and it’s killing me. I’m getting that horrible feeling again, that I’m being a good little soldier and a team player and a total Hollywood pimped-out phony. Sophie needs us, so she can do something that will make her happy, and it’s something no one else in the world would ever help her to do. After what she’s been going through, she deserves a completely wacked-out Sweetcakes sugar high. This is completely her Make-A-Wish wish. We have to do it.”
“Heller, this is everything my parents and your mom warned me about. I’d be breaking my word and we could all end up in jail and I need to think about college and you need to stay sober and speak with a clergyman and tell everyone about the Angel Wars movie …”
“Stop it. Right now. Stop being you.”
“What?”
“You think I’m selfish and thoughtless and spoiled. I’m trying to help Sophie. I’m trying to change. Isn’t that what you want? You’re prissy and snobby and scared of—pretty much everything. So stop it. You change too. Be someone else. Someone better.”
“I … I … can’t. I don’t need to be someone else. I won’t!”
“Just for the next few hours. Forget about how much you hate me. Forget about the last four years. This is about Sophie.”
“You’re confusing me! This is what you always used to do! You’re trying to bully me! Don’t you remember what happened?”
“I don’t care about what happened! I care about Sophie! Catey, ask yourself …”
Heller grinned. I wanted to shut my eyes or hold up a crucifix to protect myself, to not fall under her spell and let even more impossibly horrendous things happen.
“Catey—what would Jesus do? If Jesus had a car?”
Before I could process what Heller had just said, let alone formulate a calm and logical and pious response, Sophie’s head appeared at the bedroom door. “You guys? Just, like, a reminder?” she said. “I’m waiting. Oh, and I have cancer.”
Then she grinned, and I knew exactly why she was Heller’s number one fan.
We met Wyatt in the parking garage of the hotel ten minutes later. As he handed Heller the keys to April’s van, he said, “I don’t know why I’m letting you do this; I must be completely demented. Catey, you have to swear that you will stay in touch and that you won’t let Heller get any more out of control than she already is. I’ve pushed everything on the schedule until tomorrow, but you still have to get back here by dinnertime or Sophie’s parents will kill me. Sophie, I think you’re insane but I won’t tell your mom and dad where you’re going so they can still think that you’re spending a nice showbizzy afternoon with Heller. One more thing.”
“Yes, Mr. Markowitz?” asked Sophie, who’d just switched to being sweet and innocent and well-mannered, just the way she’d fooled everyone at the morning ceremony.
“I want one of those cupcakes,” said Wyatt, and then he muttered, “Kina hora,” and pretended to spit on the floor.
“Why did you just do that?” I asked him.
“It’s to keep the evil eye away,” said Wyatt. “My grandmother always did that. If she was here and she knew that I was helping you, she’d slap me.”
Sophie programmed the van’s GPS and with Heller driving we took the Jersey Turnpike to Ho-Ho-Kus. We followed a few back roads and I saw it: the Sweetcakes factory. There was a high chain-link fence surrounding a large, industrial-looking building, which was mostly dark with a towering SWEETCAKES … SO SWEET! sign on the roof. Heller stopped the van half a block away.
“There’s a watchman in that little gatehouse,” said Sophie, leaning over from the backseat.
“How are we going to get inside?” I wondered. “Shou
ld we just ask him politely?”
“Oh, Catey,” said Heller and Sophie at the same time. I was shocked at how quickly they’d decided to gang up on me.
“You should just floor it and, like, blast right through the front gates,” Sophie suggested. “So beyond cool.”
“No,” said Heller. “Watch and learn.”
Heller drove the van up to the gatehouse and leaned out the window. “Sir?” she said, using her most respectful voice. “Oh, Mister Watchman Officer Security Person, sir?”
“What is it?” asked the uniformed watchman, peering at us.
“Sir, I’m so sorry to ask this,” said Heller. “I was just here yesterday as a guest, and I left my purse inside. I was meeting with the president of the company.”
“Harold J. Armbruster,” Sophie prompted.
“With Harold,” said Heller. “Who I totally adore. We’re working on a promotional collaboration for my upcoming film.”
“A what for your what?” said the watchman, not falling for it.
“It’s for Angel Wars,” said Heller. “I’m Heller Harrigan.”
“Lynnea,” added Sophie. “Like, LYNNEA.”
The watchman’s eyes opened very wide. “Oh my God,” he said, and even though he was close to my dad’s age, he instantly turned into a hyperventilating Angel Warrior. He held up a well-worn paperback copy of the third book in the trilogy and gushed, “I’m almost finished with the last one! Don’t tell me what happens! I’m on Team Myke! I can’t wait to see the movie, I’m going with my wife and my daughter to the first midnight show on Wednesday! We already bought our tickets online! When they hear that I met you they are gonna go nuts! Could I … oh no, I shouldn’t even ask!”
“I tell you what,” said Heller. “If you’ll just open the gates, on our way out, I’ll sign your book and we can take a selfie. We can call your wife and your daughter, if you’d like. What are their names?”
“Janice and Anabelle! They will go through the roof! Thank you so much! And you’re doing something with Sweetcakes? That’s so great!”
“They’re making this special collector’s edition premium batch, for the next month only,” said Sophie, improvising. “They’re called Angel Cakes!”
“I love that!” said the watchman as he pressed a button and the gates swung open. “I’ll open the front doors electronically, but do you need me to come with you to find Mr. Armbruster’s office?”
“Oh no, thank you, I remember exactly where it is,” said Heller. “You need to stay out here to make sure that, you know, criminals don’t get inside. You’re doing an amazing job. We’ll be out in just a few minutes. Stay golden!”
“Stay golden!” said the guard, who was already on the phone to his wife, saying, “Jan, I hope you’re sitting down! Because Lynnea herself just told me to stay golden!”
“I can’t believe that you lied to that nice man,” I told Heller as she pulled the van right up to the factory’s main entrance.
“Please,” said Heller, “we’re here for a good cause and we’re going to take a selfie. When we get back to the hotel we’ll send his family a truckload of T-shirts and power bars and those really expensive LED halos, not the cheap ones that set some guy’s hair on fire.”
“This … is … so … AWESOME!” said Sophie as we left the van.
The watchman had opened the front doors from the gatehouse and Sophie guided us into a darkened hallway.
“We’ll never find the right room,” I said. “We should go back.”
“Stop being such a Singlepain,” Heller told me. “We’re having an adventure.”
“We’re committing a crime!”
“That’s what I said!”
“I’m leaving!”
“It’s down here,” said Sophie. “We can follow the smell.”
Sophie was standing in the gloom, sniffing the air. Heller and I sniffed too.
“There it is!” said Sophie. “It’s like perfume! If perfume had cream filling! Come on!”
Sophie charged ahead, with Heller and me struggling to keep up.
“This is so great,” said Heller. “Maybe we’ll find all sorts of secret formulas, or a dead body.”
“I don’t want to find a dead body!” I said. “Especially near food!”
I screamed because something had slammed into my head.
“AHHH!!!!”
“Jesus, what is it? Why are you screaming like you just saw a naked picture of—anything?”
“Something attacked me! Stop laughing!”
“I’m sorry! But, Catey—it’s a fire extinguisher hanging on the wall.”
Heller was right and while I tried to stay upset, I started laughing too.
“It’s not funny!” I insisted.
“We’ll have the fire extinguisher arrested,” said Heller as she disappeared around a corner.
“Heller? Heller, it’s dark! Wait up! Where are you?”
“Cateeee … ,” said a strange ghostly voice. “Caitlin Singleberreeee …”
“Stop it!”
“I am the ghost of the Sweetcakes factoreeee …”
“You are not!”
“I’m going to make you eat refined sugar!”
Something grabbed me from behind and I screamed!
“HELLER!!!”
“CATEY!!!” said Heller, imitating me, which made us both start laughing again.
“Come ON!” said Sophie from a few yards away. “Stop fooling around! I think I found the right door!”
There was a hissing noise and then a dim light appeared as Sophie opened a large steel door. Sophie was silhouetted in the light.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! This is it! We’re here! If I didn’t, like, have cancer, I would have a heart attack!”
A blaze of light flooded the hallway.
“I found the light switch! Get in here!”
“I can’t! It’s wrong! We’re trespassing!”
“Catey,” said Heller. “You can do this. I know you can.”
Heller was grinning. She grabbed my arm and dragged me into the room. I made outraged noises but only because I was good at it.
Sophie was inside.
“Look at it!” said Sophie. “I can’t believe it! It’s like, like, just what I always dreamed of! Only so much way better! It’s like, oh my God, maybe I just died and I’m in heaven!”
“But we’re here too,” I said.
“Maybe we all died in a car accident! Wouldn’t that be AWESOME?”
“SOPHIE!”
I stayed near the door as Sophie and Heller explored the room. Everything was very clean and impressive, with iron girders and catwalks and ovens the size of two-car garages, and there was a conveyor belt that was miles long winding all over the room, entering and exiting the different hulks of machinery.
“Over here are the baking pans!” said Sophie, as if she’d discovered gold. “You can tell by the different shapes—this one’s for the Yumlogs, this one’s for the LuckyPucks, and right over there, that’s the bin where they toss the defective cupcakes!”
“What’s a defective cupcake?” I wondered.
“Ava Lily Larrimore,” said Heller.
“Over here,” said Sophie, “oh my God oh my God oh my God—it’s the Sweetcakes production circuit! With the rotating mixer!”
Sophie looked back at us, with her hands covering her mouth and her eyes bursting out of her head. Her topknot was quivering.
“Look at her,” Heller said to me. “She’s so happy.”
“I guess in a way,” I said, “this place is the opposite of a hospital.”
“Hospitals suck,” said Heller.
“I know,” I said.
Heller looked at me, because we were both remembering the same thing: the weeks I’d spent in a hospital. Heller started to say something and I started to say something but we both stopped. The subject was still off-limits.
“You guys!” Sophie gasped. “There it is! Exactly where I thought it was going to be! Thi
s is, like, Mount Everest or the Statue of Liberty or I don’t know, the moon! No, it’s way better than the moon, ’cause I don’t wanna put the moon in my mouth! It’s … it’s …”
Sophie’s voice dropped two octaves.
“It’s … the SQUIGGLE CONE.”
Heller and I joined Sophie as she stood beside a ten-foot-high mirror-bright silver metal cone-shaped device that tapered to a tiny hole at the bottom, where it hovered a few inches over the conveyor belt. Sophie was slowly examining the cone.
“See, I think the cupcakes go on this belt,” she said. “Then, like, one cupcake at a time gets moved under the nozzle, which squirts the squiggle.”
Sophie turned to us, speechless, waggling her head at the unspeakable wonder of the process.
“This whole cone thing is on springs,” said Heller. “So it can move back and forth. Otherwise the squiggle would be just a straight line, like on a highway.”
“That’s right!” said Sophie. “That’s incredible! That’s, like … GENIUS!”
“Well, I don’t know if it’s genius,” I said. “It’s just a machine …”
“SHUT UP!!!” said Sophie and Heller.
“Okay,” I admitted. “It is pretty amazing.”
“And here you are,” Heller told me. “Having an adventure. You’re pretty amazing.”
“So you guys aren’t just cousins,” said Sophie. “You’re, like, friends, right? Did you grow up together?”
“We did,” said Heller.
“Right here in New Jersey,” I added.
“Did you have fun?”
Heller and I looked at each other.
“It’s complicated … ,” I began.
“We haven’t seen each other for years … ,” said Heller.
“My parents …”
“My mom …”
Sophie narrowed her eyes. “What am I missing?” she asked.
Heller and I looked at each other. We still couldn’t talk about it.
“Okay!” said Sophie. “Have your little secret! We, like, don’t have time for this! I think I know how the squiggle machine works, but we’ll find out, I mean, unless something catches on fire or explodes.”