Cupcake (22 page)

I handed the cake-slicing knife over to Lisbeth, and raced down the block, back to my apartment. I knew it! On my bed, next to Gingerbread, next to my cell phone, lay a CD--
San Francisco Days

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by Chris Isaak, with a Post-it note placed on top, in Shrimps handwriting.

Gone surfing--left koast. I
'll be waiting for u. I luv u.

Budding Buddhist be damned. Shrimp's gonna make me rescue him after all. Decided.

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***

FORTY-ONE

Trust my dad to have answers to the important questions.

According to Sid-dad, the big bang theory is the dominant scientific theory regarding the origin of the universe. This theory holds that the universe was created billions of years ago from some cosmic explosion that randomly hurled matter in all directions. Sid-dad says the big bang theory not only clarifies the original source of existence, it also explains the dynamic I bring to my San Francisco family's home.

I am not only Sid-dad's Cupcake. I am also his Chaos.

Chaos and her father enjoyed watching Ash and Josh jump on my parents' bed at two a.m. on a school night as the hyper-munchkin-sibs performed an outstanding sing-dance-shout number called "CYD CHARISSE'S PIECES IS HOME! CYD CHARISSE'S PIECES IS HOME!" My mother, however, holding a crying baby Frances

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Alberta, failed to find the artistic merit. Nancy sat in her rocking chair with the baby on her shoulder, her classic lemon-sucking face fixated on me--her real problem child. Nancy's tired expression and her tired Ritz-Carlton stolen hotel robe failed to subdue her blonde-model classic good looks, or her figure, which no thirty-eight-year-old mother of four should manage to maintain. As I stood over her shoulder cooing at Frances, I struggled to distinguish whether Nancy's face managed to display not just annoyance over my surprise visit, but maybe some semblance of pleasure at seeing me live and in the flesh too. Even if I hadn't called ahead to announce my homecoming.

I stole a move from the Shrimp playbook. I just showed up. Logic: If I didn't give Nancy a heads-up that I was coming home in pursuit of Shrimp, she couldn't try to talk me out of it. See how nicely we've evolved into getting along?

Sid-dad didn't mind the sneak attack. When I barged into his study early this evening, he looked up from reading his newspaper and said, "Ah, the Cupcake finally bakes a visit home." He put down his newspaper like he'd been waiting for me all along, then got up to grab me into a suffocating bear hug. My mother, on the other hand, followed the trail of Ash's and Josh's squeals at my unexpected arrival into Dad's study, looked taken aback when she first saw me, but did not run over to touch me. Instead her eyes appraised me up and down, then her mouth announced, "You've

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gained weight. And
what
have you done to your hair? If you're going to get blue streaks and a hairstyle of lopsided angles, at least touch up the roots and keep the ends trimmed."

I was too intoxicated from the San Francisco air, foggy and moody and brisk, to be anything less than mellow in response. "Nice to see you, too, Mom." I had asked the airport taxi driver to take me home the long way, up Great Highway. And the long way's views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the mighty Pacific, with the shivering city of skyscrapers and Victorian houses perched over it, had me delirious with excitement to be home and to see my family--although not so much looking forward to dealing with my mother on the Shrimp issue.

My mother had been too preoccupied with the baby and putting Ash and Josh to bed (the first time), and with hunting me down in my bedroom, demanding to know whether I knew anything about the mysterious disappearances of her Italian thigh-high boots and her pink Chanel suit with the matching Chanel handbag, for us to have alone time to discuss the reason for my visit. And when I'd finally appeared to my parents' summons for a talk in their bedroom after all the chaos I'd brought to the house allegedly died down, chaos returned in the form of Ash and Josh busting out of their own bedrooms and bursting into performance on our parents' bed, and waking Frances out of her sleep.

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As Chaos, as in my careers as a barista-waitress and as a cupcake-baker, my work ethic never fails to amaze. Thank you, thank you very much.

A pillow hurdled into the air and nearly collided with an antique lamp, causing my mother to finally snap. "STOP IT, ASHLEY AND JOSHUA! WE GET IT, YOUR SISTER IS HOME!" Sid-dad took the baby from her and into his arms for soothing, not as oblivious as Nancy that her shouting only agitated Frances more. For a woman who gave birth four times, I swear my mother knows nothing about children. If she did, she'd know Ash and Josh were wide awake in the middle of the night from the sugar infusion Double Rainbow (SF's real treat) ice cream sundaes I took them out for after dinner, not from the frozen yogurts we told Nancy we got, or from the simple excitement over my return home.

The kids dropped down onto the bed after our mother's screech, but their silence only lasted seconds, broken with cries of "PHONE!" and "AWWWW, CYD CHARISSE'S PIECES CELL RINGS FUCKING CURSE WORDS, MOM!" My mother looked at me and pointed in the direction of the door leading to the hallway. "OUT!" she yelled. To me, not the kids.

Ash attached her hand to mine as I stepped outside my parents' bedroom to take the call flashing the name "Maxim."

"You have boobies," she whispered to me.

"Aren't they cool?" I whispered back. I sat down against the

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hallway wall. Ash plopped herself into my lap, but a third grader in the ninetieth percentile weight range was too much for my tired legs so I shoved her off. She snuggled into my side instead. She smelled like the Pixy Stix she hides under her bed.

I answered my phone. "I know, I'm sorry, Max. I should have come to say good-bye before I left Manhattan this morning, but it was all pretty last-minute."

"Yvette is not pleased with you," Max sniffed. "She was looking forward to having you over to watch a movie with us tonight."

"Max, it's five in the morning New York time. What's really on your mind?"

"Nothing ... just ... good luck. With Shrimp. I'll light a candle for you."

"Thanks, Max."
Shrimp and I are not dead yet.

Clearly any serious thought I harbored about transplanting myself in San Francisco with Shrimp needed to take Max into serious account. Max may have survived the last twenty years without much human companionship in his NY apartment, but he's like used to me now. Max will not last without me there. I may be Chaos, but I am also indispensable.

Josh ventured into the hallway and plopped himself down at my other side. He smelled like a boy who said he'd taken a shower before bed but lied. "I told Mom I'd only go back to sleep if you'll

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read to me from Harry Potter first." The sixth grader never outgrows wanting to read any grades of Harry.

"And what did Mom say?" I asked.

"That she doesn't negotiate with terrorists."

Shrimp is my true love, but Josh was my first little man. I only dissolve at the sight of his princely face. "Get back into bed, pick a spooky Azkaban chapter, and I'll be in your room in five minutes." I turned to Ash. "What's it gonna take to get
you
into bed, terrorist?"

"Promise to play Hack the Barbies with me tomorrow."

Grim-faced, I said, "Terms accepted." Fun!

I listened to a voice mail from Danny before hyperkid bed-turndown time.
"Hey, Dollface, Aaron and I want to thank you and Lisbeth for the Valentine's Day present. I'm sure we'll put that gift certificate for Hot Nude Yoga to good use. I'll even wager you that Aaron and I will be able to make it through the whole class without getting asked to leave, unlike some conspiring sisters we know. And just so
you
know, I'm giving you a week's unpaid vacation from cupcake bondage. You are not relieved of your job and you are commanded to return home. Which would be here in Manhattan. Love from the commandant." Beep.

But, Commandant,
I thought,
my home is as much my old San Francisco family and friends as it is my new New York family and friends. Somehow the twain must meet, and if it's Shrimp who splits that difference--then shouldn't I choose that home where he wants

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to be, earn my place beside him like you earned yours back with Aaron?

When I returned to my parents' bedroom from Ash and Josh servitude, Nancy sat in her rocking chair nursing Frances. I sat down on the bed next to Sid-dad, who had finally found a moment to finish reading his newspaper. I plucked it from his hand.

"Do you love having me home or what?" I asked them.

Sid-dad said, "Somehow I have a feeling your visit isn't about an altruistic, long overdue visit with your family."

Nancy muttered, "Somehow I have a feeling
That Boy
is involved here?"

Uh-oh, back to
"That Boy."
Situation in need of damage control. Idea delivered to me in the form of Frances Alberta, who looked like a total Buddha baby, happy and calm and chubby. "Shrimp's becoming a Buddhist," I told Sid and Nancy. What parent wouldn't approve of a Buddhist?

"Super," Nancy said. My looks may come from Frank's side, but I definitely get the sarcasm from her genes.

"Is he back in San Francisco seeking enlightenment?" Sid-dad asked, but without my mother's cynical tone.

"If he was, and I decided to stay here with him to do that-- what would you say?"

Nancy sighed instead of said. Sid-dad answered for them. "We'd say we think you're too young to make that choice. You know we'd love you living back home, but not at the cost of leading your

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own life. Where's that independent spirit we know and love?"

"It's true love," I said.

Nancy barged in with, "It's truly a mistake to follow a boy who is struggling to find his way and will only leave again." I wondered if her assessment wasn't just about her long-running mission to sabotage my life, but was based on the chaos Frank delivered to her own life when she'd been close to my age.

Ash's loud cry from her bedroom brought Sid-dad to his feet. "Ashley's not adapting so well to not being the baby in the family anymore. We get the crying bed routine every night since Frances was born." He stared down at me, all short and adorable and bald, like Frances. "I'll assume this potential move of yours is an ongoing dialogue, not a done deal, and open for more discussion later?" He kissed the top of my head and left the room to tend to Ash.

I asked my mother, "If Shrimp's struggling, shouldn't I be there to struggle alongside with him? Grow with him?"

"Are you actually asking for my approval to follow Shrimp wherever he may go?"

I wasn't sure what I'd meant, but I said, "Guess so." Did I really just ask for my mother's approval?

"Then the honest answer is, No, I don't approve. But I know you will do what you want to do regardless of what I say, and regardless of whether it's the right thing to do. I also know that

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somehow you'll still be fine." Two years ago her comment would have immediately sparked a yelling fight between us; now I could understand it as less of an ornery statement and maybe more an acknowledgment of trust or something. Of course, Nancy followed it up by sighing the Nancy Classic, yet she almost seemed content, too, rocking in her chair while she stroked Frances's head. "I'm too tired to debate the Shrimp issue right now. Talk to me about something else while Frances feeds--this can take awhile. Tell me about your life in Manhattan, something about those periods of time when you're not hanging up on your mother's phone calls. What have you learned?"

Well, Mom, it's like this. The morning-after pill has to be taken within seventy-two hours of unprotected intercourse in order to be effective. Art installations can be found on Walls of Sadness as well as at the Met. If you're headed uptown from the Village, the C train is less crowded than the 1 train, but you have to wait for fucking ever for it to come.

I said, "For one thing, that I'm more like Frank than I think I'd like to be. Why couldn't I have turned out like Dad?" I held up a framed photograph of Sid-dad holding my hand in front of this beautiful Pacific Heights house, taken when I was five, the day Nancy and I arrived here to become his family. Frank would never choose a home on the basis of true love. Maybe he'd never have that

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opportunity either. Whereas Sid-dad made that opportunity for himself, made a home for Nancy to choose.

It only took her ten hours since my arrival home, but at last Nancy threw a genuine smile my way. "You are like Dad."

"How do you figure?"

"You have his heart."

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***

FORTY-TWO

Sleep? Who needed sleep with friends to see, boys to retrieve, and
dumplings to eat?

I felt like I'd barely fallen asleep when the ring of my cell phone woke me up at seven in the morning. "Hello" hadn't been uttered by my lips before Helen's voice barked, "Princess, if you want to see me and Autumn, your ass better be at our old dim sum place on Clement Street in an hour. I have Lamaze class and Autumn has Econ at City College at ten."

During the tail end of our senior slump last year, we three used to spend hours hanging out at the dim sum place, eating dumplings and drinking bubble teas, laughing and talking. Now we were all about time management. At least we could still keep up the tradition of enjoying the real San Francisco treat together--

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major consumption of pork products first thing in the morning.

Forget about of loverboy Phil. I could move back to San Francisco solely on the basis of the food on Clement Street, my favorite SF street of Asian restaurants and Irish pubs, and more important, a street on which you can find almost any Hello Kitty product imaginable (except for the pornographic ones--you have to go to Castro Street for those). Breathing in the cold SF air while fog literally sliced through my body as I stumbled the City's streets awoke me even better than the fresh Peet's coffee in my hand. There is no fog-eucalyptus-ocean-coffee-dumpling air as luscious as San Francisco's, anywhere. Period. The heavy fog helped evaporate my fear that this City, as it likes to capitalize itself, feels too small to contain me now.