Cupcake (7 page)

"Max!" Danny exclaimed.

Bad cop threw in, "Turn the fuckin' music down."

"Max?" I asked.

Danny said, "You know, Ceece, your favorite rear window binoculars victim during your leg cast imprisonment? The tyrant with the

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garden apartment in the building opposite ours, the most hated neighbor within our courtyard radius? Noise complaints are his specialty."

Mystery man! Who spends all his courtyard garden time making noise on a laptop, yet who complains about neighbors' noise!

Bad cop added, "It's Halloween, and we've got better things to do than respond to ridiculous noise complaints. Keep the noise level down or we cite you for improper congregation without a permit."

Danny made the throat slash sign toward the DJ, who turned the volume down and changed the groove, totally going Enya on us. Mean!

I handed good and bad cop a cupcake each for their service. They accepted the peace offering and left. From the rear view of their asses, I'd say if the cops lessened their doughnut consumption by about ten percent, they could have a definite future in stripping.

I was finally ready for some socializing. I grabbed a tray of party cupcakes and followed the cops marching down the stairs.

"Where are you going?" Danny called after me. "This is your party!"

"I have a date with destiny," I shouted up through the stairs. This Max guy called the cops on a party in the
Village.
On freakin'
Halloween.
That is SO punk.

I gotta meet this mystery man finally.

Shrimp is not coming to rescue me. Not now. Not ever.

New existence, let's get this party started.

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***

ELEVEN

Buzz.

Nothin'.

Buzz.

Nothin'.

Buzz.

"Who the hell is buzzing?"

Contact!

"Avon calling," I said into mystery man's apartment building intercom speaker. I felt confident the Nixon administration-era intercom would work similarly to the one in Danny's and my apartment building, and that what mystery man would hear would not be "Avon calling!" but "Azhghrt kwz ing!"

The lobby door buzzed open. Gibberish, successful. Access, granted.

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Hey now, I'm a sorceress in VonHuffingUptight threads.

Mystery man opened his apartment door only a crack, but I could see across the chain lock that he wore his trusty lavender silk smoking robe. He had one of those old-fashioned gentleman's pipes dangling in his mouth, yet he managed to bark out, "What the hell do you want?" without the pipe falling out. Impressive.

I lifted the tray of cupcakes for his view. "Noisy neighbor with cupcake peace offering? Sorry about the music!" I chirped.
Cuz I'm a gonna ferret you out and learn the secrets to yo' universe, sucka.

Now, in no city, but especially not in New York City, would a person seriously consider opening the door to a cupcake-bearing stranger. But then, not every cupcake-bearing stranger arrived in a Mrs. VonHuffingUptight costume, looking like her mother, tall and ironed-straight hair and Chanel-elegant--like, totally-reliable-not-gonna-go-psycho-on-your-ass.

Mystery man opened the door a tiny crack more. "Chocolate?" he asked.

"Red velvet with cream cheese frosting, powdered cocoa and maraschino cherry on top. House specialty." Door opened all the way. Somethin'.

After the many weeks' binoculars observation of mystery man, it was strange indeed to see him in live 3-D form in front of me, wearing that lavender silk smoking robe over black silk pajamas

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with smart black loafer slippers. He was a short, stumpy guy with brown middle-aged-man comb-over hair and serious coffee breath, which would have been rank except for the
sympatico
potential it exhaled.

"That your party on the rooftop across the courtyard?" he bellowed. "Who raised you people to think it's acceptable to play music that loud, for the whole neighborhood to hear? And it's almost midnight. If I can hear your music inside the cavern of my soundproofed bedroom walls, you're violating city-mandated noise levels." Still, he peered down at the cupcake tray and took one into his hands. Taking the pipe from his mouth, he licked the frosting from the side. Then he said, "Delicious. I appreciate the peace offering. I never would have suspected anyone under the age of forty, and particularly anyone in this city's vicious yuppie climate, to have the decency to apologize to their neighbors for their bad manners. Thank you, young lady."

See? So not a tyrant. His behavior was directly at odds with the binoculars impression one might have of him, said binoculars having observed courtyard neighbors going back and forth between each other's fenced gardens, gossiping and sharing gardening tools and the occasional joint, but going nowhere near his. In fact, you'd think he had prison barbed wire lining his garden for all that the neighbors interact with him--or, rather, don't.

The sugar distraction going on inside his mouth allowed me a

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moment to inspect the interior of his apartment. On the basis of the silver framed black-and-white photographs sitting on top of his piano, showing a younger, lighter version of himself, sitting at that same piano alongside an attractive Bobby Darin--type lounge singer holding a microphone, I doubted mystery man had a murdered secret wife buried underneath the potted plants in his garden. And on the basis of mystery man's crankiness and the memorial candle that flickered next to a head-shot photo of the lounge singer lover-man, framed along with a death notice, a pride flag, and an AIDS awareness label, I further suspected that no true love had ever come to replace the one who'd been lost.

If I were a girl spy commentating about Max's apartment on one of those interior decorating home improvement TV shows, I would not start by describing his living room as waiting for a shabby chic makeover. Because it was a junk palace whose only hope of renovation was a plough ramming through and clearing all the waist-high stacks of newspapers, magazines, sheet music, and correspondence. Also, if I were design-commentating on TV, I would be sure to find some clever but polite way to point out that the most noticeable aspect of the apartment's interior was invisible--the aroma. The junk palace smelled like decades of accumulated pipe and cigarette smoke, cat, moldy newspapers, coffee grounds, candy wrappers, and ... sniff... ramen noodles? My investigation of the artwork lining what appeared to be every available inch of wall space--photographs of

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musicians from long-ago eras, when the men wore tuxes and the lady-singers had beautiful hairstyles and secret heroin addictions; the movie musical posters; and dozens of old
Life
and
Photoplay
magazine covers picturing old movie stars like Judy Garland, Lana Turner, and Joan Crawford--made for an easy deduction as to the key to unlock mystery man's heart.

Anyone who'd dare label me as a culinary school dropout with no Real Plan currently in operation could now reconsider me as Cyd Charisse, girl slacker sleuth. Big career potential. Step aside, Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden.

"I heard your name is Max," I said. "Wanna know my name?"

"Not particularly," he said, grabbing for a second cupcake. "But I have a feeling you're going to tell me anyway. Could you make it quick, because I'm ready to go to sleep."

"Mister," I said, "with the amount of sugar you're just now consuming and the amount of coffee I suspect you've already consumed tonight, you ain't gettin' to sleep anytime soon. And why would you want to, anyway, when your new friend named Cyd Charisse is calling on you?"

Until this point in my life, sharing a famous person's name has felt like a burden, keeping me from--or throwing me into, depending on your perspective--my own identity. Suddenly the name was my trump card.

"That's not your real name," he huffed.

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''It so is too.''

I took my Cali driver's license out of Mrs. VonHuffingUptight's chain strap Chanel shoulder bag, another item from my mother's closet. When I was younger, her fashion taste seemed horrendous. Now it still seems horrendous, but also kitschy and cool-- and ringer lickin' swipeworthy.

Max inspected my ID, then, satisfied with my name claim, said, "Go figure. A real live Cyd Charisse in my own apartment. I never thought I'd see the day. Do you have a dance to share along with the cupcakes?" He placed his pipe back in his mouth and lit up.

I said, "I'm not the dancer type of Cyd Charisse. But would you mind not smoking, because what if I did want to break out into a dance number but all that secondhand smoke of yours impaired my ability to perform?"

Max continued to puff away. "My apartment," he said. "My rules." I hope Danny never adopts this man's methodology. "I'm not entirely sure this isn't a dream, you know. Girl named Cyd Charisse appears at my apartment door, loaded with cupcakes? Why don't you have a seat and prove yourself. At least tell me about why you can't keep the noise down up there tonight."

I cleared about a year's worth of
New York Times
Sunday Arts & Leisure sections from his sofa and took a seat, crossing my legs like a proper VonHuffingUptight.

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"First I gotta question for you," I said. "Are you 'Max' like Maxwell the singer or 'Maxim' like de Winter as in--"

"As in
Rebecca
!" Max said, sounding impressed--and pleased. Maybe all my
Rear Window
movie-watching time was not a complete waste of time. "Who's Maxwell the singer?"

"You know, neo-soul guy, really hot body in the practically naked videos on the Smooth R & B music choice channel?" To Max's confused look, I added, "Catchy groove tunes that sound great at first then just become kinda grating, at least when you're stuck in your bedroom flicking channels while waiting for a broken leg to heal?" Max's face downgraded from confused to bordering on bored. I can intuit people with short attention spans like me, so I figured I'd better change the subject. "Maxwell was so last millennium, never mind. So speaking of music ... I realize you
think
our party was making too much noise, but are you aware that it's a Saturday night? And that tonight is Halloween?"

"Ah," Max said. He sat down on his piano bench. "That explains a lot about the noise coming from everywhere. The Village at Halloween. Nightmare."

"You must not get out much," I said.

"I try not to," he said, proud.

"Are you the neighborhood pariah?" I asked him, hopeful. He chuckled. "That's got to be the first time anybody has ever said that to my face. Why yes, I believe I am. At least when it comes

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to noise complaints." Hard, loud footsteps thumped from the ceiling. Max reached for a long broom standing against the wall. He stood up on the piano bench and banged the top of the broomstick several times against the ceiling. Then he shouted up at his upstairs neighbors, "KEEP THAT RACKET DOWN!"

Keep that racket down?
I had figured Max for being about fiftysomething years old, but sleuth girl with the old movie database in her head now had to judge that based on the ceiling-swatting broom and the dime-store dialogue of a grouchy-old-man-ruining-everyone's-good-time-in-a-Mickey-Rooney-movie, Max could possibly be closer to a thousand years old.

In response to the racket the upstairs neighbor thumped several times more on the floor. Then, from the neighbor's courtyard window, we heard "FUCK YOU, MAX!"

Max smiled, refuting my binoculars impression of him as the mystery man with the permanent frown. While live and in person Max's smile appeared much in need of teeth whitener, or possibly dentures would be the better way to go, it nonetheless reflected him as an old soul who clearly would be this lost soul Cyd Charisse's first new companion in her new life. "New York," Max said. "I love it!"

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***

TWELVE

The name flashing on my cell phone reminded me that I haven't

picked up a book in a very long time. Luis.

The name, not a book. Luis whose aunt knows my bio-dad, Luis who drove me around the first summer I spent in New York when I was sixteen. And, sorry to be a shallow girl here, but Luis of the gorgeous athlete body, the wavy-slick black hair, the honey eyes and cinnamon skin, and 'scuse me, lisBETH, the total heterosexual swagger. Luis who, while no Shrimp, was also no George. Luis was familiar. Familiarly enticing. (See: Earlier desire for uncomplicated hook-up.)

"Are you going to answer that or not?" Max said, his hostile expression indicating disapproval of ring tones belching out the

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South Park
song "Uncle Fucka" (Best song ever not involving KC and the Sunshine Band).

I sat outside in Max's garden (access! mission accomplished!), reclining on the hammock situated directly underneath a clothesline that had country flags hanging from clothespins, instead of wet socks and reminder notes to water the plants. As I swayed on the hammock, Bolivia flew proudly over my face, with Namibia blowing a gentle breeze on my ankles. So much better than a Halloween coming-out party with Danny-boy strangers.

Even the phone's vibration felt good in my hand.

Loo-eese.
Luis who's only a few years older than me but for whom I was still jailbait the summer I was sixteen, despite our one hot and heavy make-out session that was, 'scuse me again, cut short by the swagger of lisBETH's unexpected arrival into our scene that night.

"I gotta take this one," I told Max.
You have no idea.

Luis is like a chapter from a book I put on hold and now I'm ready to take out.

"Rude ring tone," Max muttered, glaring at my cell. "Cole Porter it's not."

Max got up from his hot-pink-painted chair under the hammer-and-sickle flag lamp shade, where he'd been hanging with me for the last hour, eating cupcakes and smoking his pipe. The detective in