Cupcake (6 page)

Autumn said, "I don't quite understand how I was ranked fifth in my senior class, practically killed myself through four years of high school taking honors and AP everything, and now that I am Ivy League Girl--you know, the whole goal of all that ass-kicking study regimen--I am barely passing Lit Hum because I couldn't give less of a shit about so many dead white guy philosophers. And it's likely I will outright fail astronomy. Not to mention how broke I am. I ran through my summer savings in the first month here! I can't concentrate on schoolwork because I can't stop concentrating on all the debt I am accumulating to be here--and the fact that my meal plan only covers so much, and if I eat one more slice of Koronet Pizza to get me through the day, I might get turned off pizza entirely for the rest of my lifetime. Which would be very, very

59

wrong. And for the record, you were right. The tamales and burritos in this city suck."

"I love being right," I said, "although it pains me to be right on that count. And you can come to Danny's and my apartment anytime and we will feed you for free. I can't study for you, but we'd love to cook for you!" As proof, I opened the lunch box of cupcakes Danny had prepared for my first day of culinary school. Much as I loved the lunch box effort, his attempts at brotherly kindness are kindly starting to suffocate me. I can figure out lunch on my own!

"Says the girl who made it through one day of culinary school," Autumn said, biting into the peanut butter cupcake.

"Shh," I said. "That will just be our little secret."

If I wanted to spill the real secret, I would confess I never intended to follow through with the culinary school part of the Manhattan adult girl life. One day of class fully fulfilled my expectations of the suckiness I'd encounter should I return for a second day. The gadgets and equipment and ovens and mixers were intriguing, I guess, but it was just way too much ... stuff. The other students, who all appeared at least five or ten years older than me, looked all confident and happy to be there, sure the class was the first step on a path to a dream career. I couldn't take my eyes off the rear window view: escape. I ditched the class during the break, called Autumn, who couldn't wait to escape her afternoon classes, and hello, Central Park--love ya.

60

Here's what I'm going to do, until I figure out a better Plan. I'm going to let my family believe I am going to culinary school, but I am going to Do Something ... Else with that time instead. Possibly I will play Job for a Day, Manhattan-style. One day I will hand out the free daily newspaper outside the subway stops and I will be sure to offer that "Have a nice day!" California platitude ray of sunshine to all the scowly-faced straphangers who haven't had their coffee yet. The next day I will hang out at Strawberry Fields in Central Park and pretend to be a tour guide and I will give totally false information out to the tourists, like "John Lennon originally planned to pursue a career as a Scotland Yard bank robber investigator before his dreams were sidetracked by all that damn songwriting ability," or "If you come to this spot at two a.m. and point your binoculars toward The Dakota apartment building, you may glimpse Yoko Ono in a tawdry moonlit make-out scene with the graveyard shift doorman in that window there." The other days I will probably hang out on my bed, listen to music, and stare out that of rear window, pondering the injustice of the world that Dante, the legendary cappuccino man, apparently returned to Corsica during my leg cast convalescence and is personally responsible for my inability to find proper caffeination in this city. Jerk. When Danny comes home from work and asks, "How was your day, dear?" I will make up stuff about culinary school using an outstanding system of subterfuge wherein I tell him details about the fictional other students while

61

never being held accountable for information about what I may have learned in class: "Brenda from Flushing--you know the girl with the big hair and fake boobs that I told you about who doesn't know the difference between a Le Creuset loaf pan and a regular aluminum one--well I'm fairly sure she is doling out sexual favors to the instructor in the closet of the cookbook library during the breaks, and I will be so pissed if she gets a better grade than me," or "Should I be worried that I ate the Linzer tarts we made in class today even though Nikolai from Latvia sliced his thumb in the mixer while we were making the dough and had to go to the hospital for stitches?"

If I spent half as much time
going
to school as I did thinking about what I'll do while
dodging
school, I would probably be master chef by, like, tomorrow.

"Helen got it right," I announced to Autumn. Our other close girlfriend from San Francisco had been headed to UC Santa Cruz after high school graduation--until she wound up pregnant this past summer. And proving Helen was the only true punk of our group, she decided to keep the baby--and get married!

"How do you figure?" Autumn asked. "I mean, I'm glad Helen's happy with the choice she made, but how weird is it that she's giving up on her dreams of art school?"

"I don't think she's giving up dreams. Her dreams just changed. And now her choice means she'll have to adapt to the circumstances.

62

Rise to the challenge. No possibility of falling into slackerdom."

"Slackerdom really does not get its fair due in our wealth-driven society. You know?"

The sun had set over the horizon, chilling the air. "Do you miss San Francisco?" I asked Autumn.

"Yeah," Autumn sighed. "Do you miss Shrimp?"

"I can barely figure out how to get through the day without missing Shrimp."

"You going to do anything about that?"

"If you mean am I going to break the 'no contact' agreement with Shrimp, the answer is no. I haven't broken down that far yet. But I'm reserving the right."

I want Shrimp to break the agreement. And since he apparently is not psychic, or he has other ways to spend his time (don't think about that, CC, don't even consider the possibility that Shrimp has happily adapted to NZ), I want to figure out how to get this new body of mine some attention that does not involve "dating." I want that connection to be hassle-free, safe, and easy. I want an orgasm that's not a gift from my own hands.

It's like my leg is healed but my heart refuses, and until it does, I don't know how to get out of the rear window mentality.

63

***

TEN

Houston, I have a problem. I seem to have lost contact with the
heterosexual world.

Dallas, if you're listening, the scarier part is that lisBETH may have been right about the men in this city--at least from my current view of it.

And yo, Austin, if you're out there--could you lend our party one of those twangy alt-country singers who croak our brilliant tumbleweed lyrics?

Danny decided to throw me a "coming out" slash belated eighteenth birthday party to celebrate my reintroduction into society as a newly minted adult with a newly minted castless leg. But at this rooftop Halloween party in Greenwich Village, Danny's society was made up mostly of alterna-crap indie-band-type gay boys with super-cute faces and superbad haircuts. The few females in attendance were

64

of the Ani variety, whom I have mad respect for, but those chicks don't tend to gravitate toward ones like me. I am Chaka Khan meets The Clash in the land of full-on boy-girl lust-o-rama. I had no place at my own party.

Even my Halloween costume alter ego, Mrs. VonHuffingUptight--the Chanel suit--wearing society bitch who is so desperate for male attention she would shoot up Botox-crack cocktails if she thought it would make her look more attractive to men--was feeling the confusion. It's not that she/I wanted to experiment on the other side. It's more like we weren't so sure anymore that pure straight folk still roamed the earth.

I may have been dressed like the fabulous socialite Mrs. VonHuffingUptight, but she and I suffered a big case of wallfloweritis. I could not be bothered to work this rooftop, despite the chatter and good times being enjoyed all around, particularly on the dance floor. From my wallflower observation point the dancing area highlights included: some dude dressed and coiffed like Morrissey grooving with one of those French Louis kings, an Ani girl who was lip/hand/hip-locked with a black leather-clad dominatrix-headmistress, and, awwww, Holly Hobbie (him version) and a gender-ambiguous Cabbage Patch Kid definitely teaching each other the meaning of dirty dancing.

While partygoers laughed and danced, I took position next to the food table, mute, watching, and wondering if anybody was

65

keeping count of how many of Danny's cupcakes I'd eaten while standing there all by myself. As I munched cupcake number four (really number five, if you count the devil dog cupcake I spit into the trash because it gave me some kinda Cujo flashback moment), the thought occurred: Where did I belong in this blacktop swirl of strangers, most of them at least a decade older than me, college grads with cool jobs and interesting lives? As if to point out how much I didn't belong at my own party, Autumn and Chucky had declined the party invite, because they were reveling Halloween elsewhere, within their own age and geographic vicinities.

This guy who I think was supposed to be Jerry Lewis came up to me and said, "Great coming out party. You're Danny's sister CC, right?" He held out a coin donation can in my direction. "Got anything to spare for Jerry's kids?"

"Sorry, pal," I mumbled. "I got nothin'." Which was true. Danny went to all the trouble to throw me this party here in the heart of all that is Halloween glory, with a view from the rooftop down to the Village parade of Halloween costume fabulousness marching up Sixth Avenue, and all I could think was:
I'm kinda lost and out of my depth. Also, I want my fucking boyfriend back. What part of the "No" that I said to Shrimp's marriage proposal because we wanted different things from life, wanted to experience different places, did Shrimp misinterpret as sincerity? I want a Do Over in place of a

66

Do Something! And in the absence of that, I want a straight boy at this party!

New existence, I defy you. I shun you.

I squirmed in my Halloween costume. Mrs. VonHuffingUptight's couture suit--conveniently swiped from my mom's closet last spring--was loose on me when I visited New York last Easter, when I was only dabbling with the idea of living here but had yet to make the full commitment because I had a true love Shrimp waiting for me back home, and we were going to start our new lives together. Now look at us, on opposite ends of the earth, no longer in contact with each other. Now I have to take deep breaths because the zipper is about to bust open from my new ass trying to break free from the fabric.

By the way, I totally get the control top panty hose thing now.

Jerry gave up on mute me, lured to the dance floor by a Dino. I looked toward the stairwell door, but Danny intercepted my attempt at exit. "SULKING MUCH?" he yelled over the Pet Shop Boys song coming from the DJ booth.

It was hard to answer Danny seriously. He wore a very tight white polyester disco suit with a chest stick-on badge that said HELLO. MY NAME IS DENNY TERRIO. Danny/Denny's bush of black hair was whisked and feathered so high and with so much mousse that it was almost like a disco hair jello mold, not to mention a stunning display of hair product prowess.

67

"I'm not sulking," I answered. "This Chanel suit is so tight on me it renders facial expression impossible." I resisted his arm swinging around me, trying to trap me into a dance, into a good time.

"Aaron looks great, don't you think?" Danny dance-gestured in the direction of Aaron, but I knew Danny was really asking about the cute guy dancing with Aaron, not about Aaron, who did indeed appear to be having a great time. I'd been surprised that Aaron had accepted the invitation to this party (who'd want to go to a party thrown by your ex and watch that ex flirt with budding prospects?); surprised, that is, until Aaron showed up in the newfound glory-confidence that must have come along with working past his self-esteem dating trauma. Not only did Aaron arrive with a new guy to flaunt, but the new guy was *finger snap*
gor-geous
and also the head pastry chef at some hot new restaurant in Chelsea, a combination designed, of course, to make Danny rage with jealousy. Kudos, Aaron! Danny was the one, after all, who'd left him.

Yet Danny had the gall to not appear jealous of Aaron's presence here tonight, dangling some serious arm candy. Instead he smiled and waved at Aaron, who was also wearing a white disco suit with flipped-out hair. Danny said, "How weird that we both ended up in disco Halloween outfits without even consulting each other in advance first. Do you like Aaron's Andy Gibb Solid Gold-era thing, CC?"

Men. I give up on them.

68

If it were Shrimp over there dancing with a new love, I would absolutely have the decency to rage with jealousy for his benefit. So much for the stereotype that gay men are more highly evolved beings. I put Danny on too high a pedestal. I should have known he's a boy just like the rest of them. Clueless. I mean, how could you look at Denny Terrio staring at Andy Gibb on a moonlit Manhattan rooftop and
not
know they are like true loves predetermined by fate to walk through life together?

Luckily, two most excellent specimens of manhood emerged through the stairwell door and into our party, in the form of two NYPD cops. They approached me first. "This your party?"

I hoped this was some type of sick striptease belated eighteenth birthday present for me from Danny. I was all, "No way, officer," feeling the night's first promise of a smile on my face, but Danny's concerned expression let me know the cops were the real deal. Damn.

"I'm throwing the party," Danny said. "Is there a problem?"

At least if they weren't strippers the cops did have a quality good cop-bad cop routine. Good cop said, "Folks, we got a complaint about noise from one of your neighbors."