Cupcake (26 page)

I informed her, "We were 'just friends.'"

She patted my back. "You just let yourself go on believing that, honey."

I hadn't let myself believe that Chucky would show up after I sent the invitation to her at the nail shop, yet here she was, holding a glass of champagne in her foxy rhinestone-studded manicured hand. Though I hadn't expected her to come, I'd prepared for her just in case. I had
mucho
to hablar with her. "Chucky," I said,
"Encantada de verte. Me han dicho que no me esforcé lo suficiente para darle una buena oportunidad a nuestro primer intento de amistad. Así es que cogí un curso de español de inmersión intensivo durante un fin de semana en caso de que tuviera la oportunidad de hablar en español contigo hoy. ¡Así es! ¡Asistí a una escuela actual y me quedé el tiempo

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complete! Me ayudó que el profesor del curso era muy guapo, (y soltero, si tienes algunas amigas que están buscando salir con un recién graduado de NYU que estudió español como asignatura principal). Él escribió lo que estoy diciendo ahora para poder memorizármelo. Pues, ¿piensas que podemos tratar de nuevo a ser amigos?"
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Chucky laughed. "Si. Cuz your pronunciation sounds like shit. You're gonna need a lot of my help, I can already tell. And congratulations on your new business. I hope to be following in your footsteps a couple years down the road, and I might be needing your help."

"I'm there for you," I said.

"Classy party for a not-yet-opened business," Chucky said, pointing in the direction of the band.

Aaron and his bandmates had set up at the corner window, conferring over selection of their first song. Now that the band is back in business, they've changed names too, also after extensive name negotiation, the result of which is that My Dead Gay Son

***

'I'm glad to see you. I've been cold I didn't give our first try at friendship a good enough chance. So I cook an intensive Spanish immersion weekend course just in case I might have the chance to talk to you today, in Spanish. That's right, I went to an actual school and stayed the whole time! It helped that the instructor at the language class was very cute (and available if you have any friends looking for a date with a recently graduated Spanish major from NYU). He wrote down what I am saying now for me to memorize. So do you think we can try again at being friends?

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has morphed from No "Way Gay to Yes Way Gay, Okay? Per the family business agreement, Aaron's involvement with this business shall be restricted to band performances at our café. He and Danny have chosen to play it safe this time. Despite his outstanding chef skills, Aaron will not be joining us in a professional capacity. Living and working together was what did him and Danny in last time. They won't make that same mistake.

Neither will Danny and I. Aaron is moving back into their apartment, and I am moving out.

Accordingly, Sid-dad waved a set of legal agreements in my direction, beckoning me over to the counter area. Apparently what adulthood really means is endless papers to sign, to seal your fate-- for what, you have no idea. Sid-dad tried not to look at me all proud (or maybe his look was jet-lagged haze from all the SF-NY travel time he's logged between Max's funeral and tonight's christening), but with that bald head and pudge face, he wore satisfaction like a merit badge.
There's my daughter the Little Hellion--didn't think any of us would survive her teenage years, and now just look at her! Grown up, on her own, and with a proper haircut at last.
"I think that's the first time since you were in kindergarten that I've seen you wear a dress that wasn't black," Sid-dad said. "Green becomes you."

To go along with my new haircut--razor-sharp bob angled from my neck down to my chin, with blunt bangs and a single process old-school original black color--I wore a party dress

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similar to the green flapper one the real Cyd Charisse wore for her spectacular dance in
Singin' in the Rain.
But so we shall never forget which Cyd Charisse is which, I've called upon Lisbeth's corporate branding. Next to my old tattoo of a shrimp on the obscure flappy underside of my arm, I've got a new tattoo--a simple brown coffee bean. In honor of Myself.

Sid-dad pointed to the bottom line on the last piece of paper. I signed and sighed. Sid-dad said, "You sound like your mother. And that's that. Max's apartment lease is officially in your name." In Manhattan scoring a great apartment has nothing to do with combing real estate ads and inspecting different pads before deciding on your perfect home. Here it's all about being in the right place at the right time--and having the cash (and your dad) available to meet with the building super and make it all happen. Also, being willed a cat.

I'm like Max: New York--I love it!

I told my father, "Please tell Mom we're not going to protest her threatened inspection next month, but she can fuggedabout her redecoration intentions for my apartment. Yvette Mimieux won't have it." Yvette and I will allow a visit, we might even find it in our hearts to look forward to it, but we'd never allow my mother to ruin our apartment's CC-merged-with-Max decor with her impeccable taste.

Yvette and I have decided to work through our Max sadness by

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reconstructing the Wall of Sadness. We've left Max's pictures on the wall, but added new flags--red and yellow prayer flags, sent to us from Shrimp in Nepal. We've also installed new pictures, of our San Francisco and New York families, and a drawing Shrimp sent along with the prayer flags that pictures Max standing on his piano bench, broomstick in hand, banging on the ceiling to Heaven and yelling up at the neighbors, "Keep that racket down!"

The latest haiku from Shrimp (spell-checked by Dante), via text message from Kathmandu:

Charisse owns mimieux

Three more months till shrimp visits

Name café for me?

Our party at the café-not-to-be-named-"Shrimp" (I'd vote for it, but Danny would nix) was enlightened by the arrival of a lady I didn't know. Frank greeted her, then introduced her to Lisbeth and Danny before making his way over to me. "I've got someone I'd like you to meet," Frank said. "Mary, this is my other daughter I've been telling you about. CC, this is my friend Mary."

He didn't say "lady friend" or "girlfriend," and they didn't hold hands, which was nice, considering how ancient they are (i.e., not in an acceptably cool old people hand-holding way like Fernando and Sugar Pie), but Mary must have been Frank's "special" friend.

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Even more creepy than the shock that she appeared to be an age-appropriate companion and not some Barbie type twenty years his junior--minus the BOTOX I'd clock Mary as being in her late fifties--was that Mary's fashionable blond prettiness could have passed her for a near-senior-citizen-age version of... my mother.

My head didn't even know how to deal with that thought so I just said, "Nice to meet you, Mary." I turned to Frank. "How come you didn't tell us you were bringing a friend? We'd have sent her an invitation."

Frank said, "I believe in randomness over regularity." Saucy like Yvette! Who knew?!?

Danny tapped my shoulder. "Didja save the first dance for me?"

Of course I did. I am the cup to his cake.

The instruments tuned and fired up, Yes Way Gay, Okay? settled into their first song--a slow-tempo, tender version of "My Favorite Things." For a gay Jewish chef who can't dress for shit, Aaron could really sing him some soul.

Steven and Fallon Carrington shared the first cotillion dance, naturally.
"Salut,
Commandant," I said, my face pressed against his ear.
"Salut,
Dollface," he answered. "And don't think I didn't see you flirting with the UPS man earlier today." He mimicked, '"Gosh you're strong to carry an industrial machine like that! Want a cappuccino to ease that burden?'"

Damn all-seeing, all-knowing brother.

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I said, "I was just trying to reel in a brew customer. The first one's always free. Isn't that the saying?"

"I think the saying is, 'Home is where the heart is.'"

'"There's too many fish in the sea.'"

'"Absence makes the heart grow fonder.'"

"Or some such crap."

"Exactly."

Three months till Shrimp visits this summer! The UPS man with the muscles nicely contouring his uniform shall be purely aesthetic distraction to make it through until then--a hypothetical wanton desire. Easy come, easy go, is what I will tell Danny next time he teases me about the Man in Brown.

Shrimp need not worry. I'll be waiting for him.

I'm right here.

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We have no body to view, no processional trip to a cemetery. Laura always planned things through, and that didn't change with her death. She asked for cremation and no burial. She who had everything was at heart a minimalist.

Instead, we have cookies after the service. The dining room is set up with a large buffet of catered food--light salads, polite sandwiches with the bread crusts cut off and cucumbers inside, the
edamame
Laura loved to nibble, set out in the beautiful bowls she brought back from Japan. No one appears to be eating much besides the sweets. Perhaps when an elderly person dies the mourners can reflect on that person's life with a celebration of food and memories, but that is not the case here. I don't hear anyone talking

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about Laura, no exchange of smiles and laughter--
Remember that time when she ... ?
I hear chatter, but it's soft, humble. Or maybe I'm too high to properly distinguish the mourners' conversations over their tea and coffee cups. The spread of food is mostly a waste, but the caffeinated drinks appear to be a hit. I'm not the only person here who wants to jolt away the numb.

And who doesn't love cookies--tray after tray of delicate Italian butter cookies;
ghraybeh,
the Lebanese sugar cookies that were Laura's favorites; and an impressive assortment of homemade sweets contributed by the guests. I sample each variety. All these fancy cookies, but the universal truth remains the same: There is no substitute for the wholesome goodness that is chocolate chip cookies. I can picture the Georgetown society ladies arriving with their Saran-wrapped plates:
Jim. Darling. I'm so sorry about your beloved daughter killing herself. Here are some chocolate chip cookies our cook made. The secret ingredient is cardamom. Delicious, no?

We stand at opposite corners of the dining room, Jim and me, the two pillars of Laura's life. I feel like I should go over to him, touch him, talk to him, tell him I'm sorry, but I can't. I don't. The food rises high between us, buffering all these people, the fillers of Laura's life. The gathered surround Jim, offering solace, but I remain alone, observing. If Jim notices me at all, I'm sure it's to think,
That weirdo. Maybe now I can finally let her go. There's no more reason for her to stay.

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My feet are lodged to the floor in the remote corner of this expansive room. My head is dizzy and my body wants to sway. I yearn to take a very long nap. I place one hand against the wall to prop me up. I need something or someone to hold me steady. But all I have are cookies.

Professor Jesuit approaches me, looking old and kindly, which I hate. I look down, concentrate on the plate in my hand and the Oxy tingle-buzz coursing through my fingers. I have nothing to say to God's handyman. Although if I did, I might inform him that I've given the matter substantial thought, and I've resigned myself to the possibility that I am doomed to an afterlife of eternal hellfire, and I'm okay with it, really I am. It's not like I even believe in God, but still, I imagine Him and me in a powwow on Judgment Day. Saint Peter or whomever has the day off so God himself is going down the checklist for my entrance to Heaven. He goes:
Well, Miles, you smoked like a chimney and indulged in way too many trans-fatty foods, and for Christ's sake, you were high at your own cousin's funeral, hut otherwise, you did all right in life. Didn't hurt anybody but yourself. Paid your taxes. Recycled. Helped little old ladies cross the street. (Didn't you?) But I don't know ... those snarky comments, that vile cynicism during times of crisis. I'm not so sure I like it.
I will then have to set Him straight.
Hey, Big Guy, get some perspective. Who gave us a world of Holocaust, AIDS, global terrorism, famine, ecological disaster, bigotry, genocide, warfare--shall I keep going down the list? Maybe it's

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ME who should be judging YOU, and not the other way around. So step aside from those pearly gates to Heaven or Hell, whichever the case may be, bucko. Let me through to Laura. We're not scared of You.
Professor Jesuit passes me by. Minion.

The cookie plate in my hand mesmerizes me with swirls of color and texture, rainbow sprinkles and cinnamon rays and powdered sugar dust, and I must look up again because the cookies are dizzying me. I raise my eyes from their plate reverie, but my view of the mourners has clouded over, gone mute. My eyes lock with Jim's across the room, and in that flash instant, no one exists in this room besides the two of us. In that brief moment, our eyes remember a shared lifetime of Laura, and I see his chest suddenly heave, trying to contain a sob--he who has remained stoic and gracious throughout the afternoon, comforting all those who are trying to comfort him. It's like electricity passes between us, because I feel the heave in my chest as well, and tears well in my eyes. The plate trembles in my weak fingers and I must look back down again, return to my cookie-plate trance, steady my hand. To hold the moment any longer would mean neither of us could remain in this room, finish this gathering of mourning.