Joan Slatoff
Cupcakes
“Kate. Get in here.” Prunella’s voice trickles from the kitchen. “You have to see this.”
After class and a grueling rehearsal, vaguely aware my housemate is back from work, I sink further into the lumpy living room sofa. Knowing Prune, it’s probably an animal video on her phone; puppies tumbling over each other perhaps.
“Get in heeere!” Prunella’s voice rises into an annoying shriek. Uh, no, not a puppy video.
Using as little energy as possible, I flop off the couch, left arm, shoulder, and knee catching the floor first, then roll onto my back, ignoring the gritty crumbs of forgotten meals, a rubber band, some gum wrappers, and a few long strands of Prunella’s blonde hair.
“All right, all right.” I curl to the side, plant my feet, and rise up vertebra by vertebra, my head gracefully coming up last. I’m a dancer, it’s how I get to standing. Brushing off the lint, I step into the kitchen.
At first, I don’t see anything alarming. No dead body, no snake, or anything like that. Then I realize. The counter is spic and span. No dirty dishes in the sink. Sponge and dish soap neatly placed. Cupboard doors closed. One beautifully decorated cupcake in the center of the rickety kitchen table.
“Ana’s been here.” I say, unable to tell if the tickle in my stomach is happiness or fear.
“Yeah.” Prunella pulls on her hair so ponytails stick out on each side of her head, reminding me of a blonde Pippi Longstocking. Her eyes look like a scared rabbit’s. “She must have come in while we were both gone. I told you we shoulda changed the locks. God.”
“Maybe this is a peace offering. Or...or a plea to come back. Or just…” I pick up the cupcake. An elegant squiggle decorates the top; the kind you see on high end chocolates.
“Don’t eat it. Could be poison.” Prunella reaches for the cupcake, but I keep it safe in my hand.
I picture Ana at the stove, hand on one hip, stirring a chocolate ganache. Humming some tune so quietly it seems like a hummingbird vibration coming out of her rather than a song.
“Don’t worry so much, Prune. It’ll be okay.” I say. Though I’m not sure of anything except that I intend to eat that cupcake. I take a bite. Fresh orange flavor and rich dark chocolate, my favorite.
“Ooooh,” I gobble the rest, and gnaw every last bit off the paper wrapper.
Prunella gives me one of her looks. The one that says ‘Okay for you Kate. Whatever’.
~ ~ ~
Ana was our housemate until three months ago. Skin smooth as honey and the color of it too, the darker buckwheat variety. She is beautiful. More than normally so, with violet blue eyes, perfectly proportioned body, expressive fingers, and fluffy hair. Her perfume smells clean and expensive.
September, when she first moved in, we couldn’t believe someone so smart and gorgeous would want to live with us. We knew she was from California, but not much else. She never talked about her family. Obviously, money was not a problem. Cashmere sweaters, and not the kind from the thrift shop. Handbags made of leather, soft and smooth as butter. Real pearls. Not only that, but she baked incredible desserts. She was, maybe still is, a PhD student in philosophy at Columbia.
Prunella and me? We’re everyday kind of girls. We grew up neighbors in a New Jersey suburb; small lawns with decks out back, malls, and chain restaurants. When we both ended up in the city, me to explore the contemporary/modern dance world, Prune to escape her parents, it was natural that we ended up sharing the rent. Of course, it was Prunella who found our apartment and figured out all the details. She’s great at that kind of thing. Me, not so much.
Manhattan is expensive. When Ana showed up to our ad for a third housemate, we mouthed ‘wow’ to each other, and that was that.
Mostly, the three of us got along great. Ana was busy with school, while Prunella waitressed and spent her money on clothes and the bar scene. Dance takes up all my energy, so when I’m home, I need down time to rest my aching body. None of us tended to have visitors at the apartment. Home was a relaxing nest, I think for all of us.
We had a little ritual on Tuesday and Friday nights where we drank cheap wine and watched Jeopardy. Ana never called out the answers but we suspected she knew a good proportion of them. When Prune or I yelled out the (rarely) correct answer, she would give us a deferential nod.
We always sat in a row on that old lumpy couch, me in the middle. Ana would sip from one of the delicate wine glasses she had bought to enhance our mismatched kitchenware. Prunella and I took turns with the wine bottle. I wanted Prune to like Ana. It’s not that she didn’t, but I think she resented Ana’s obviously wealthy, cultured background. So she always made a point out of drinking from that wine bottle. I felt caught in the middle. Part of me wanted to reassure Prunella, so I shared the bottle. But the other part of me figured I should be honoring Ana’s contribution to our household by using one of those dainty glasses.
One Tuesday Ana said, “I made a peach melba cake. Would you guys mind tasting it?” She’d bobbed down and up in a tiny curtsy.
Would we mind! Ana always acted like we were doing her a favor eating her unfailingly tasty concoctions.
“Ana,” I gestured towards my perfect slice. “That looks gorgeous. Like a raspberry peach sunset.”
“Thanks.” Ana smiled. Her eyes crinkled in a happy way, like when someone gives you a present. Though she was the one doing the giving.
“Well, I guess, I’ll try it,” Prunella had said with a sniff.
Ana raised one of her shoulders almost imperceptibly. As dancers we’re trained to be super aware of our shoulders. Our backs must be strong; our shoulders lowered, and relaxed at all times, so Ana's tension was obvious to me.
“Broke hundred fifty in tips. Fifth straight night!” Prunella stamped through the door one night and slapped her apron down on the kitchen table so we could hear the heaviness of her take.
“Nice.” Ana bowed her head in appreciation, hands together as in a prayer.
“You don’t learn to dodge drunks and keep track of thirty-five orders at once in college. Like tonight? One lady changed her mind five times and ended up demanding eggplant parm without the parm, sauce on the side. And salad with extra cheese! If she likes cheese so much, why can’t she just get it on her eggplant?”
“Jeez,” I said.
“You said it,” said Prunella, and she dashed off to shower.
“Why does Prunella do that job, if it’s so annoying?” Ana’s face looked genuinely perplexed.
“Lack of options,” I replied.
“I know what that’s like.” Ana stood up and quietly disappeared into her bedroom.
Once, Ana and I went to a Hitchcock movie; Rebecca. She’d grabbed my hand during the suspenseful parts and I sensed her body shaking. It had felt good to be there for her. I’m not normally the solid sort, like Prunella is for me.
Ana adopted a Tabby cat a month after she moved in. She named him Cat.
Prunella wanted to know why. “How about Mulberry, or Tawny Boy, or even George?”
Cat strolled to the center of the room and crouched in a relaxed but attentive position as if to say I know I’m the center of this discussion. And I don’t care. But I will observe.
Ana said, “I’m trying to pare things down to their essence. Cat. Just look at him. That’s what he is.”
Prunella shrugged and meandered off.
I thought the name was so cool. Carefully, I crept up to Cat and sat cross legged about a foot in front of him so I could feel his being-ness.
“Cat,” I said.
His eyes met mine. I don’t know what he got out of it, but I felt some kind of human-cat communion going on. Then Cat did a graceful turnabout and leapt onto Ana’s lap. I admired his swift smoothness of movement.
Ana ran her hand through his fur and stared into the distance. The two of them stayed like that for quite a while. Like statues, except for her hand passing over and over him like a mechanical doll. I reverted to my usual supine position, watching, but not watching, the girl and the cat.
Towards the end of a muggy midsummer day, it was just me and Ana at home. I comatosed on the couch in my usual position. Smells of the city floated into the apartment; garbage aromas mixed with unidentifiable factory burnings and grilled hot dogs from the corner vendor.
“I call this a heavy gravity day,” I said.
Ana flipped through a cookbook nearby. Or maybe it was a philosophy text. “Heavy gravity day?”
“A day where you can’t move; can’t get it together to even get dressed.” Though of course, I had been dressed and gone to dance. But still, the kind of day where you feel drained.
“You wouldn’t even know.” Ana continued turning the pages.
“What do you mean?”
“I was sent away, you know. Twice.
“I don’t know.” I sat up and looked at her, but she seemed far away, gazing straight ahead, maybe into her past. Maybe somewhere else. She was talking, but not to me.
“Didn’t help. Wasn’t needed. What do they know.”
I figured she was talking about something like a nervous breakdown but didn’t think I could ask more. Maybe I should have taken the opportunity. Her skin had looked translucent; I could almost see the nerves inside. For some reason, I handed her a pillow. She smiled, put it down gently, and went to the kitchen with Cat following.
“What’re you making today?” I called.
“It’s about the cooking,” she’d said.
Her response confused me. I slumped back down on the couch, unsettled.
Then, “Tablecloth,” she’d said one Tuesday evening. And she’d put a white lacy one on the kitchen table. Laid three places with a neatly folded napkin under each fork. It was our usual ritual day, but this was not our usual ritual.
“Genoise.” She set out a four-layer cake with white icing and fresh raspberries. We oohed and aahed and dug into our slices.
“Did you make this up, or was it a recipe?” I’d asked with a mouthful.
“Egg.” she said.
“Egg?” Prunella pushed on her temples with the back of both wrists, hands flipping out like funny ears, eyebrows raised.
Ana produced a brittle smile and stood up to collect our dishes. “Sponge,” she said. I didn’t know if she meant sponge as in clean up, or sponge as in making a cake.
Maybe our lax ways got to her. I could see the point of the tablecloth. Me, standing in front of the open fridge, plucking leftover noodles with my fingers and calling it dinner. Prune and me, eating in front of the tube more usually. Doesn’t everyone? But from that night on, Ana stopped using sentences.
Anyone can lose it for a moment. At first, we figured she needed some time. A week of single words and we started to freak out a little. Prunella reacted by rolling her eyes whenever Ana was around.
For myself, I’d made a list of her words. I wanted to understand. I wondered if there was a pattern or a hidden meaning. Or possibly, and this was the most hopeful scenario, it was an experiment for her thesis. Maybe she was checking out our reactions. I didn’t really believe this though.
River. Dumpling. Pie. Beard. Under. Queen. Pillow. Bed. Frangipane. Marigold. Feather. Joker. Wild. Infinity. Grape. Black. Snow. Elephant. Shoes. Yeah, I could read anything into a word. But without a clue, it would be an exercise in hopeless speculation. The words rarely seemed to have anything to do with the situation at hand.
Once I tried to act out the word in dance to see if I could get a response. I was coming out of the bathroom and Ana was on her way in.
“Feather,” she said.
I held an invisible feather in my fingers, as I pretended to brush her with it, while dancing around her in a pas de bourrée. She stood still, eyes downcast, arms limp at her sides.
“Feather?” I asked.
She glanced at me and continued into the bathroom.
On a Tuesday morning, Prunella and I sipped our coffee as Ana left for campus. I could feel Prunella vibrating as if containing a small bomb. The surface of her drink shimmied as she held her cup in front of her nose.
“Okay, Prune. What happened?” I poured myself a second cup, though scrambled eggs would have been a better way to get through morning dance class.
“She’s got to go.”
“Prune?” I covered my suddenly quivering lips with my hand.
“Last night? On my way to work? She followed me step for step. I could feel it. Didn’t come up beside me. Nothing. Every now and then I’d stop and look behind me and she’d stop too. Just looked straight ahead. Step for step, Kate. The whole four blocks.”
My first thought was that it could have been interesting choreography, but Prunella was really upset. And yeah, maybe I would have been too.
“Did you say anything?”
“I told her to cut it out. No reaction. When I kept going, she continued the same way as before. Felt prickles all up my back.”
“Then what?”
“Nothing. I went in to work, and didn’t see her again until this morning.” Prunella slapped down her coffee cup, spilling a drop. “You hear her before she left? ‘Raincoat’ she said. And look out there. It’s sunny.”
“Raincoat? So what. And I don’t know, Prune. She needs help. We can’t ask her to leave. Just like that.”
“Well then we’ll call her parents. We can get the number from her phone.” I could see that Prunella was determined to ‘do something’ about Ana. Me, I didn’t know. I wanted to do something too, but I didn’t want to go behind Ana’s back. And I didn’t want to lose her as a housemate and friend. Maybe I didn’t want to give up the baked goods either. We needed the rent money too, but that didn’t really figure into my thinking.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Anyway, how would we get her phone?”
“I dunno. Okay. I know. It’s always in her bag, right?” Prunella smirked in the way that she has when she’s about to pull one over on someone. I think she actually enjoys that sort of thing. Not me. “So, when she comes back from class tonight. Or wherever she goes.”
“She’s going to class Prunella M. Davis.”
“I don’t see how you know that Ms. Kate J. Gullible. Anyway. When she comes in, you call her into the kitchen with a baking question. You’ll have to start cooking something a little complicated and then come up with needing at least five minutes of cooking help. Maybe a soufflé. Then I’ll pull her phone out of her bag and check her contacts real quick.”
I folded my arms and spread my legs into second position. Sometimes I need a strong pose when dealing with Prunella. It’s not that I didn’t agree with her about needing to get help for Ana. But I wasn’t comfortable with her methods. Or maybe her motivations.
“Really Kate. Sometimes a parent has to step in.”
“I don’t think her parents would be all that helpful. And who are her parents? She always talks about some ‘they’. Like when she told me they sent me away”. Again, I covered my mouth with my hand. I hadn’t told Prunella about that conversation.
“What?” Prunella pushed her head forward like a snapping turtle. “When did she say that? You mean like a loony bin?”
Cat stalked into the room and rubbed his whiskers against my leg. I had the feeling he was telling me to protect Ana. “She didn’t say exactly, but whatever it was, she said it wasn’t needed.”
“And you believed her?” Prunella’s eyebrows went up.
“Yeah, no. Yeah.” I picked up Cat and buried my face in his soft warm fur.
Prunella looked at me with a calm eye. Like she knew me better than I knew myself. That night, it was our usual, the three of us on the couch, drinking our wine and chipping away at a pan of Ana’s salted caramel brownies, Cat on Ana’s lap. She’s fine, I thought. You can’t cook like that and not be fine.
“White,” Ana said. “White, white, white!” She wasn’t pointing or giving any kind of clue to what she was saying. Her body bounced off the seat with each word, and she said the words sharp and loud, as if calling out a danger like fire.
Prunella had scooched away from her. “Hey hey hey.”
Ana turned her head towards Prunella, then robot-like, swiveled to me, the violet in her unmoving eyes dulled to a dusty mauve. I got chills.
“Pat kitty. Pat Cat,” I said to her.
For a millisecond I’d actually thought we were making progress, because she lowered her head to look at Cat. Animals can be therapeutic I’ve heard. Bring someone down to earth from where-ever they’ve flown. But she didn’t connect with Cat. Not at all. She stood up like Cat wasn’t even there. Cat, being a cat, landed gracefully on his feet.
She walked stiffly to her room. We heard soft sobs, then pitiful whimpers, behind the closed door.
“Should we go in? Knock?” I whispered.
Prunella shrugged. “Crying is good. It’s something. It’s normal.” And she stalked into her bedroom, then came out again. “But I’ve had it. We’re telling her tonight Kate.”
Pacing the hall outside our bedrooms, I wanted to do something. But I didn’t want to intrude. I stood right outside Ana’s door. and tried to google a crisis line number, but my shaking fingers tapped the wrong letters on my phone like in one of those frustrating dreams where nothing works.
Then I made out the buzzing of her phone, some bumps and miscellaneous noises. I wasn’t sure if I hoped she would come out, or if I hoped she wouldn’t.
There was a honk from the street and Ana emerged from her room pulling two suitcases. “Taxi,” she said.
“Ana.” I stood still.
“Yes.” Ana let go of her suitcase handles and turned directly to face me. For a moment I saw the regular old Ana in her eyes. She looked down and to her left, her bottom lip puffing out.
“Where are you going? Are you okay? Did we do anything?” I reached a uselessly fluttering hand in her direction.
“Lemon.” she said.
My hand dropped to my side.
“Shit,” she said, and walked out the door, Cat right behind her.
I followed her out. “Don’t go!” I cried as she stepped into the taxi. The driver put her bags in the trunk, Ana grabbed Cat around the belly, and they took off.
Prunella, of course, couldn’t have been happier. How did I feel about her leaving? I wasn’t the one who wanted her to go.
I threw myself into rehearsals. We were dancing a Merce Cunningham piece. It had to be perfectly executed without music. The music would come at the time of performance. We never knew what the music would be, but we had to dance to it anyway.
~ ~ ~
It’s the day after that cupcake materialized in the cleaned kitchen. I arrive at the dance studio to find a bronze-colored bakery box in my mail cubicle. I don’t get much mail at work, just the occasional memo from the Brothers Modern Dance directors. The box has my name on it and a sticker saying ‘City Couriers Ltd.’
Rehearsal starts in five minutes and Lorenzo is a bear about lateness, so I tear open the box on my way to the dressing room and find a cupcake gorgeously decorated with teensy silver balls. I carefully close up the box and lay it on the top shelf of my locker. All I think about during warm-ups and morning announcements is that cupcake. Naturally at the 10:30 break, I eat it. Oh, it is smooth as sugary silk with little explosions of something sweet from those silver decorations. There’s no return address, no note; only a typed card saying ‘Vanilla Bean with Starry Buttercream Frosting’.
When I return to the apartment, Prue hands me a new key. She’d changed the lock. I understand why, but I feel sick. I don’t tell her about the cupcake at dance.
The next day there is another box; same color, same delivery service. Ana is okay, or at least alive, but I am a bit annoyed at the typical Ana mysteriousness of it. This one’s note says ‘Mocha times Three’. It tastes sweet and bitter at the same time.
The next morning as I open the studio door, my eyes dart anxiously to the mail cubicles. Again, there is a box. At break time I tap my nail on the brittle delicately browned cake top. Creme brulee cupcake. Hard, soft, sugary, burnt caramel.
By now, the dancers all know about the cupcakes. “A secret admirer?” they ask.
“Nothing like that,” I tell them.
The daily cupcakes continue. They’re always in the same kind of box, sent by the same courier. Wherever she is, Ana still has money. There was one labeled Lavender Rain with tufted light purple frosting and tiny black specks. Another was fruity with a hint of rum called Treasure Island. I wonder if Ana makes the cupcakes by the dozen and then picks one out for me. Or does she make them one at a time? Does she eat them too? Does she share them with anyone else?
A week after the first cupcake, and as I now expect, my treat is there. Rosewater Sponge with Red Flower. I lift the cupcake from its box and skim the frosted rose with the tip of my pinky so gently that no icing appears on my finger, though I lick it anyway. My tongue touches the one grain of sugar that sticks to my finger, and I think Ana’s like that; a sweet that dissolves before you know it and leaves you wanting more. Prunella is more like a solid oak chair, maybe with a blue corduroy cushion to pad the seat. I feel a little guilty about it, but I still haven’t told Prune about the cupcakes.
At five o’clock I leave the studio. Ana is standing there on the sidewalk, looking as fabulous and fragile as ever.
“Treat you to a coffee?” she asks like any old day.
Without more discussion, we enter a nearby cafe and sit at a small table across from each other. I play it cool; no big hug, no big reaction, though I am stunned to see her. Stunned like I don’t know what to feel, or how to.
“Thank you for the cupcakes,” I say. “Mmmmmm.” I don’t want to say too much, or ask questions, or scare her away. I’m most afraid she’ll do the single word thing again.
“I can’t do anything except cook, Kate.” She stares straight into my eyes with what looks like clarity mixed with terror.
“Okay.”
“Can’t even hang up my clothes. Dropped out of school.”
“Your family? Where are you living?”
“Pffft.” She brushes a hand dismissively past her face.
“You okay? Can I... What can I do? Er....” I want to ask her to move back in with us, but I know Prunella would not be welcoming. And I’m not sure about that idea, myself.
She tilts her head in a thoughtful way; then points one index finger upwards. Sparkles appear in her violet eyes.
She gestures, palms flat up, and says, “You can keep eating my cupcakes!”
I extend my own uplifted palms towards her. Her palms up is an ‘of course’ kind of gesture; mine is more of a ‘kudos to you for a brilliant idea and for being an amazing baker’ kind of thing. Funny how slight differences in the angle of the fingers can be so meaningful.
Sometimes during a dance, I feel a moment of harmony; harmony within myself and with the other dancers. The moment is always fleeting, but it’s there. That’s what I feel at this moment.
“I can do that,” I say.
We exit the cafe as a quiet duet, then Ana trips off in one direction and I in the other. I walk into the too bright late afternoon sun. Should I tell Prune? Maybe not. I’m in one world with Prunella, and another world with Brothers’ Dance, and now I’m in one with Ana. At Brothers’ I’m a background dancer. I love it, but I’m replaceable. Part of the ensemble but generic. It’s different with Ana. I feel like I’m an essential part of something even if I don’t understand it. It’s true Ana is calling the shots with her cupcakes and all. Like in dance, I move to the music, but I don’t create the music or the choreography. But what’s different is that look in her eyes. The one that needs me. Or maybe it’s just the cupcakes.
Joan Slatoff's work has appeared or is forthcoming in 101 words, Consequence, Exposition Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, Isele, Literary Yard, The Bookends Review, and elsewhere.
