Cupcake (3 page)

No one ever calls to him from inside his apartment.

I feel a connection to mystery man, because I think his garden is to him what my old bedroom in San Francisco, with a Pacific Heights view overlooking the Bay and Alcatraz, was once to me,

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during those grounded sentences of my wild child past: prison. I know he's waiting to be rescued, like I used to wait for Shrimp to rescue me.

The not-mystery man who'd arrived at my bedroom door rescued the spy mission from where it would likely have led next--to the binoculars turning north, up to the porno couple in the penthouse apartment above mystery man's garden. "That's it, young lady," Aaron said. "I have found you in that position one too many times. I hereby revoke your binoculars privileges. C'mon, hand 'em over."

I turned to look at my brother's ex, who still had the keys to my apartment--what used to be his and Danny's apartment. While their ten-year relationship was not yet a year over, their "just friends" status now had not required the revocation of key privileges. Not like I was complaining. Aaron's key privilege has been working nicely in my favor, as I could see it was now, given the stack of movie rentals he held in one hand for me, and the box of Italian cookies from Mulberry Street in the other hand, also for me.

I smiled and dropped the binoculars, but tucked them under my pillow rather than delivering them to Aaron. He's one of those people you almost can't help but be happy to see, even when they threaten to cut off your peeping privileges. Aaron himself seems to genuinely have no idea how great he is, which maybe is the key to his greatness. Aaron's heart is as big as the vintage Heart band logo on his wrinkled T-shirt, worn completely sincerely and without

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sarcasm. When I've asked him why he hasn't started dating again (the sooner that happens, the sooner Danny can jump on the I'm an Idiot, How Did I Ever Let Aaron Go jealousy bandwagon), Aaron answers that he's a chunky awkward dork whose one relationship started in high school and lasted ten years--he doesn't know how to date. Aaron doesn't see the hotness in his husky tallness, in his shoulder-length thinning strawberry blond hair that he sheepishly tucks behind his ears, or in the grease spot on his Heart T-shirt. It's like he's so uncool as to positively burn up with cool. The kind kind of cool.

Autumn appraised the treats in Aaron's hands and wagged her index finger at me. "For a person who can't go anywhere, you really know how to work the system," she said.

Aaron said, "For your viewing pleasure today, m'lady CC:
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
and the Andy Hardy collection. If David Lynch coupled with Mickey Rooney's scariest film character doesn't break your spirit out of rear window spy mode, I don't know what hope there is for you."

Hope! That came from the doorbell, ringing in the arrival of the last treat.

My month-long stay trapped in my new apartment has not only been of educational value, it's also been a meet-and-greet period. Despite going outside only for doctor visits in the last month, I have personally cultivated relationships with some of the

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most important people in New York, namely the food delivery guys who make sure I never go hungry. There's Pedro from the (truly original) Ray's Pizza, who seemed somewhat pissed the first time he had to haul ass up five flights of stairs just to deliver me a small pizza, but who quickly forgot his pain when he saw my long black hair and how short I wear my skirts (and, sorry to brag, but may I say, even with a cast, my long legs still got it). Phuoc from the Vietnamese restaurant is only a year here but already more fluent in English than Pedro, who's lived here for a decade. Phuoc is a real sport about occasionally stopping at Duane Reade for Nestlé Crunch bars for me, since he's on his way over with my rice noodles anyway. Unfortunately, I had to let loose one of my best discoveries, Stavros from Athens, who's working at his cousin's burger joint for a year and would like a date with me as much as he'd like a green card wife prospect. When Stavros started delivering me cheeseburgers when I hadn't even placed an order, I knew I would no longer be turning to him for late night carnivorous solace.

Aaron ushered Phuoc into my room. "Hey, CC," Phuoc said, holding up a plastic bag filled with food containers. "How's the leg coming along? You want me to set up the noodles on the tray for you like last time?"

I had a better idea. I said, "There's four of us here now. How about we start a bridge game?"

"You play bridge?" Aaron asked.

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"No," I said. But learning the game could keep my treat-bearing friends here for days--maybe even until the cast came off. "We could try, though, don't you think? Then we all could become bridge buddies, where we meet every week to play cards and drink tea and eat cookies and like gossip about lots of different stuff."

Autumn said, "So basically you want us to expend our valued time by role-playing like we're sixty-year-old about-to-be retirees who just sent their kids off to college and have nothing else to do?"

I swear, Columbia University really did the right thing accepting that smart lass into its lair. "Exactly!" I said. "Don't you agree it'd be fun?"

Autumn, Aaron, and Phuoc answered as a collective: "NO!" And then they left me to my treats, all alone again. I don't even like tea.

All my cultivation appears to be harvesting a new me. From weeks lying around in stasis with a steady stream of food delivery treats, a new CC has sprouted. Good-bye mutant tall flat-chested scrawny girl with the bottomless metabolism, hello mutant tall woman with the new bottomful bottom, who needs jeans two sizes bigger than her old ones, which isn't so terrible when you consider the upper end of her filling out. For the first time in my life I appear to have boobs! Real ones! Like, truly cup-able. Maybe this convalescence wasn't such a tragedy after all.

Against Gingerbread's advice I placed Shrimp's postcard--

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addressed to Autumn, not to me--inside my desk drawer, out of our sight. No need to obsess over the meaning of poorly spelled haikus from Down Under, what with a bed heaped with mini-Nestlé Crunches, Italian cookies, some Vietnamese noodle containers, and a stack of movies waiting to be watched.

Anyway, I think I might be ready for a different kind of treat.

I want to do something with these new curves.

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***

FOUR

I had no idea
my cabin
fever burned
so high. One simple
excur
sion outside the apartment, and my loins were on fire. Even with all the damn ants trying to crawl up my cast. But so many cute boys on display to admire my form when I bent over in my foldout lawn chair to flick the ants from my foot! "I recall... ," Autumn sang out.

"Central Park in fall," I finished. I sighed. Central Park in full green, red, yellow, and gold autumn glory, with kids playing, sports games going, people hanging out, had to be the greatest leg cast almost-begone destination ever. I could probably be content to sit out a lifetime at this one perch, never mind going to culinary school and finding a job, hunting for a new true love, getting a life, whatever.

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Autumn passed my lemon ice back over. "I can't remember the next line. Do you?"

We both paused to watch the girl on the pitcher mound, whom Autumn thought was hot, do the windup pitch to the hitter guy standing at the diamond mound, whom I thought was hot. And it's saying something that a corporatemeister dude with preppy hair, wearing perfectly unscuffed white sneakers with white tube socks and a Merrill Lynch-logo'd baseball shirt that looked like it had been ironed, would appear attractive to me. In fact, after six weeks cooped up inside my apartment, with only a few days left to go before the cast officially came off, it was possible
every
guy in Central Park on this perfect, balmy-brisk autumn afternoon looked hot to me. Even the crazy guy with Charles Manson hair sitting on the ground by the ice cream vendor, trying to eat dirt.

I said to Autumn, "Something about 'I tore your dress, I confess'?" Wow, even pitcher girl with the muscle legs, bending over for one more pitch but stopping long enough to psych out the hitter with a booty-shakin' glare from under her baseball hat, looked appealing in her tight black biker shorts.

Autumn said, "Gross, sounds too potential for sexual misdemeanor. Next line, please."

Stee-rike three, hitter was out. I smiled at Merrill Lynch boy as his shoulders slumped and he returned to his team's bench. Autumn

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gave the thumbs-up to the pitcher girl, baseball shirt courtesy of Manny's Hardware.

Autumn sang out,
"Danke schön,
darlin'." I joined her on the second,
"Danke schön"
as a shirtless Frisbee guy with killer abs jumped for a catch in the near distance. If only I'd thought to bring my binoculars here. The view! The view! Full frontal
and
rear fine.

"Whoever invented Central Park ought to have won the Nobel Prize or something," I told Autumn at the end of our song.

"I love New York, but this city kinda overwhelms me," Autumn confessed. "Except for Central Park. Like it's not hard enough to adapt to dorm life, work-study job, a thousand pages a week of reading material, and being surrounded by strange, new people, this city lives up to its reputation as a place that never stops going, going, going. That's why I like to take sanctuary in Central Park. To stop. It's like Golden Gate Park, but without the fog, and a million times more interesting."

"Is that why you dragged me down five flights of stairs to come here today? To remind me that we're not in San Francisco anymore, Friend of Dorothy?"

"No, smart ass. And I think it's the bois who are Dorothy's friends, not the femmes, so get your stereotypes correct if you're going to drop them. Anyway, I wanted to come here today because it's the only place in this city that I can
afford
to be. Costs nothing to sit here and admire the view. Also, CC?"

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"Yeah?"

"Do you not remember calling me at three in the morning? Singing a song to me about 'Shrimp dumpling tra-la-la/Shrimp dumpling tra-la-la'?"

"No memory of it whatsoever."

Autumn reached into my handbag and took out the prescription bottle. "These are going down the toilet. No more pain medication for CC. I can't bust you out of that cast, but clearly it was time to bust you out of that apartment."

Two gawky high school age boys who'd been loitering by a nearby tree, earbuds dangling from their heads like jewels, approached us, probably drawn over by my new bust.

"Let's have fun with them," I whispered to Autumn. "Hold hands and make eyes at each other and totally play the girl action provocation card."

"Let's not and never say we did," Autumn whispered back. "Lame." Then, "Hi!" she said as they stood in front of us. "Did you know my friend here thinks there is no good cappuccino to be found in this whole city?"

"Dude," manchild number one said, "that's so wrong. You're working from bad information. There's gnarly caffeine to be found at this place not far from here, Seventy-third and Madison. If you don't mind the whole Madison Avenue whacked-out chi-chi vibe."

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"Dude," manchild number two said, "chi-chi Nazis charge like five bucks per drink. Outrageous!"

So many views had been offered up to me on this afternoon, I figured now was the time to offer one back up to the universe. I performed the arms-behind-my-head, I-love-Central-Park-in-fall, boobs-out, happy-stretch-yawn for the fellas. Premium view. Then I said, "Go get me one? I'll be here when you get back." I pulled the bag of mini-Nestlé Crunch bars from my purse. "With treats."

I didn't know boys that skinny could sprint so fast.

Autumn advised, "I see you talk the talk." She held up my crutches. "But next time, when a real live manbait approaches, I expect you to walk the walk."

I pointed at the pitcher girl. "Ditto," I told Autumn.

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***

FIVE

For a corporate executive chick with an undoubtedly bad throwing

arm, my sister lisBETH had some curve balls to pitch me on my first public outing free of the leg cast. As we sat side by side in the nail shop getting pedicures together, lisBETH laid out her customized Plan for my new life. She could barely acknowledge me when I first arrived in town two summers ago, yet now it would seem lisBETH had upgraded me from Farm Team Illegitimate Begrudging Biological Connection to Major League Sister Project.

Uh-oh. Beware the thirtysomething Wall Street managing director with too much time on her hands during a bear market.

First, lisBETH announced she had bought me a gym membership to help ease me off Danny's cupcakes and the extra poundage caused by the leg cast inertia. Second, no sister of hers should lounge around the apartment all day without a Meaningful Future.

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Hence (she actually used this word), lisBETH had taken the liberty of enrolling me in the Introduction to Baking Techniques and Ingredients class at the culinary school in Chelsea. Talk about a mixed message.

I'd like to know what is the big deal expectation that when a person finishes high school, they should automatically further their education in some purpose-driven academic type of way? I know I said I was moving to New York to
possibly
explore the idea of one day going to culinary school here, but what's the rush? Note the word "possibly." There's a massive city out there waiting to be explored. Why would I want to be confined inside the sterile walls of a classroom when I'd only just broken free of twelve years of such torture?

LisBETH thumbed through the school catalog while her feet were pumiced. She said, "The introductory course doesn't just cover baking basics. You'll also learn cost analysis, weights and measures, culinary math, food safety, sanitation, and equipment identification."