Cakewreckers

Do you remember that time you found me sitting, all alone, on a bench outside of the Nursing Building? I knew you had been watching me. You probably thought I was wrapped up in that book I was reading and hadn't noticed your passing by three times in the last half-hour. Well, that was the idea. "Is there room on this bench?" That's what you said to me. I don't take up much space, you know. I think you meant, "Do you mind?" It hardly matters now. "I hope you won't mind my saying this," you said, "but, you look really sad. Is something the matter?" Now I think I didn't really look sad at all, I just was wearing a navy dress and sunglasses instead of blue jeans. I was reading The Idiot. Maybe you thought I looked lost. "Um, no. I suppose I don't mind, really. Nothing's wrong." Don't you think you should have left then? I went back to my book. It would have been rude to leave, I thought. It would have made it seem like I felt threatened. You were hardly threatening. You were wearing blue jeans-- the kind they sell at Kohl's. You were scrawny, and you had dirty, expensive running shoes. You probably wore that same pair for everything. Maybe you ran high school track. They made your legs look even skinnier. Do you remember those shoes? I hope you're not still wearing them.

We sat on opposite sides of that bench in silence for five minutes before you spoke again. "I just happened to notice that you've been out here by yourself all afternoon. You seemed lonely." Now I think I didn't really seem lonely at all, just different, and you were actually the lonely one. I don't know why else you would've sat yourself down on the bench and started up talking like you did. I think you must've needed somebody to talk to. I think I was polite. "Well, I mean, I don't self-identify as 'lonely' per se, but I don't actually know anyone here. I mean, well, what I mean is that you're the first person to talk to me." Do you remember how after I said that you leaned in all of the sudden? How your whole posture changed? Your elbow moved to the back of the bench, and you rested your head on it, so that you were angled towards me. "No! You? Really? How's that?" I think you were trying to flatter me with your incredulity. "I don't know. It's easy to not know anybody here. Nobody is really trying to know anybody here." I don't remember what you said then. I just started to think that you might have been trying.

You found me for a week. I never looked for you, though. I sat in different places, but there weren't too many places to be. If there were, I didn't know about them yet. I would find them later. I had to rotate, so that I wouldn't sit in one spot too long, because if I did it would look like I didn't have anywhere to be. I suppose I sat on that bench too long one day. It was so nice outside. I remember that. I think you found me the next day at a computer, and I had to try and explain to you what The Sartorialist was. I think I had to explain what sartorialism in general was, actually. You told me that it seemed like of waste a time, do you remember that? Do you remember what I was wearing? I do. There was enough nip outside that day for tweed, so I wore my overcheck herringbone blazer, the green one. I asked you what you did with your time, besides school. You told me that you liked football. "Oh, so do you mean that you like to watch it or play it?" You told me that was a stupid question. You were wearing a Baltimore Ravens jersey. I remember that.

It was your birthday on Thursday. You wouldn't have told me if hadn't asked where you were going after class. "Oh, I think some friends are gonna meet me for dinner or whatever. It's my birthday today, so I guess we're going out for that." You guessed at a lot of things, come to think of it. Like how you were going to get rich five years from now. "I guess I'll just go over and do some contracting work in Iraq. There's money in that, you know." "Oh. How exactly does that work? I mean, are you studying something in particular to get that job?" You told me that you didn't need to study anything. You just went. Do you remember saying that? For just guessing, you were awfully self-assured. I felt sorry for you just then, even though I was the one with the exotic neurological disorder and severely diseased social life. I changed the subject. "Well, where are you going with your friends for your birthday?" "I dunno. Maybe just Pizza Hut. I don't even know if they know it's my birthday." I think that's when I offered to bake you something.

You wanted chocolate cupcakes. I offered to bake a lot of other things, I know, but you just wanted chocolate cupcakes. I'm starting to think that's what people ask for when they don't don't know what ganache or tortes are. I explained almond-flour to you, in the hopes of trying some recipe I'd been saving for something suitably celebratory. "You like weird food". I told you I'd just make chocolate cupcakes. Then I told you, even though you didn't ask, about a cake I once baked when I was eleven without any sugar in it, and how my grandmother pretended to like it, and how I cried because I was so ashamed of my less-than-perfect cheesecake, all decorated with violets, and how my sister made fun of me for it, and still does. Do you remember that story? I still tell it to people, probably too much. "Well, uh, don't forget to put sugar in the cupcakes." I told you I wouldn't.

I went home that night and made you miniature chocolate pound cakes. I laid them out, twenty-four of them, in a grid on the countertop and glazed alternating cupcakes with checks and dots. I was going to make them prettier, and use mint leaves or something, but you didn't seem like you wanted pretty cupcakes. I'd never made a handsome pastry before. I thought maybe you could appreciate geometry. It would be a shame when I had to move them from their neat rows into a box to take to school with me the next morning. I remember thinking they were kind of pretty, despite myself. You called me at seven-thirty, as I was admiring my labor,and I wondered why you weren't out with your friends. "Have you made those cupcakes yet? Why don't I just stop by and eat some?"

You must not have been very hungry. "These are delicious!" You told me that. You told me that after you ate one-half of a miniature chocolate pound cake. They're very rich. I don't blame you for not being able to finish it. I managed at least two, but then, I don't remember if I'd eaten. "How was your birthday dinner? Did you have a nice time? Did your friends remember it was your birthday? Did you remind them?" You reassured me: "It was fine". I remember sensing that it wasn't, and I told you about the time I went to Belmont and Clark with my friends for my sixteenth birthday, but really it wasn't for my sixteenth birthday, and nobody said anything about it the whole time, or offered to pay for my coffee or falafel sandwich, and I had just the biggest crush on my friend that had gone, and all I had wanted was for him to pay attention to me, or buy my five-dollar Metra ticket for me as a present or something. "Why are you sitting so far away?" I didn't understand what you meant. "Far away? You're in the chair right next to me."

Do you remember the dress I was wearing that night? I know you didn't really pay attention to what I wore, but I kept pulling it down over my knees, and I remember thinking how conspicuous it must have looked, so I thought you might. Then again, it was sort of dark in the living room, so maybe you didn't get a good look at it. You got up and sat down on the couch with me. "There. Now we aren't so far away." It's also possible you don't remember the dress because of the pillow I was so tightly hugging. I think it covered a lot of detailing on the garment, like its empire waist. "Why don't we go sit in the study?" I turned on all the lights, and waited for you to sit down. I settled in the armchair across the room. You laughed when I did that. You must've thought it was funny. You must've thought that because you got up and sat on the floor in front of me, and rested your head next to my legs. "Now we aren't so far away." I stood up. "Do you want to take any cupcakes home?"

My parents were glad when you left the pound cakes on the countertop. The grid was gone the next morning. There was instead a cupcake scatterplot. I was glad when you stopped finding me. I only saw you once more, do you remember that? I was walking from the library to McCuan Hall, and you were headed straight towards me, looking me right in the face. At first I waved, but I said hello when you were closer. I said hello and I said your name. I smiled, too. You looked back. I think what you did counts as sneering, and I know what you did counts as head-shaking. I remember thinking that I was going to forget everything about you, and how repulsive you suddenly were, and there would only ever be but two things to make me think of you.

You should know that I've baked chocolate cupcakes for people since you. Until now, you didn't even cross my mind. I baked regular old chocolate cupcakes, intentionally plain chocolate cupcakes, and I didn't even remember that you existed. I made them messy, and frosted them in the shape of a sheep, because my friend Audrey and I used to look at Cakewrecks our freshman year and laugh more than we should. I met somebody that has your name, too. I even kissed them once. I didn't think about you, and how you told me that girls "like me" shouldn't wear high heels because they looked like they were trying too hard. No, it turns out that the only thing that's made me think of you is my acceptance to Howard Community College for the Fall 2010 Semester, and wondering if it'll be any different this time, and trying to remember where I ought to sit, so that it wouldn't look like I didn't have anywhere to be.