Today, I wanted to bake a cake, a big gateau; four layers, pink cream frosting—the kind people draw cartoons of. But I ran out of eggs, I had to go buy them. I could’ve stopped right there and made something else, something egg-less, but I’d dreamt of that cake, you see. In the dream, I was frosting the cake in a kitchen that was not my kitchen (the one that I have here in my 675-square-foot reality), but was my kitchen in that unquestionable sense that it belonged to me. It was big and spacious and full of light, the kind you see in house and home magazines, all stainless steel appliances and granite countertops. Though there was no one in the kitchen with me, I knew that there was someone in the next room, and maybe even in the room beyond that one. And it was nice—nice to know I was frosting a cake for someone in the next room. When I finished, I licked the spatula and ran my fingers along the inside of the bowl, and when there was no frosting left—only residue, I lifted the bowl to my face and licked it clean.
When I woke up, I was face down on my pillow, my cheek wet and sticky. Though my mouth tasted of my own sour saliva, I could not shake the memory of warm sugar. So I had to bake it, see? Which is why I’m here, in the dairy aisle, buying eggs for a cake I can’t eat. And there you are with your stupid smile, bad taste in clothing, and just-fuck-me-now looks that have only gotten better since the day I was told that I couldn’t have you anymore. There you are, pushing your cart toward me, and suddenly I’m back where we started, in the back of your car with the skirt of my suit hiked up around my waist and my legs wrapped around your stupid smile.
I wish I had on one of those skirts right now, so that you might see my legs, which unlike the rest of me have not aged, and maybe you’d be reminded of how much you once loved them, desired them. But I’m not coming from work; I’m coming from home, where I’m baking a cake. And I’m not wearing a skirt; I’m wearing sweatpants tucked into my snow boots, so no one can tell that they’re the elastic kind. And I’m wearing a zip-up sweatshirt with the name of my alma mater on it. I love it because it reminds me of being young. But at this moment, I wish I were wearing something else, something fitting, something not one-hundred percent cotton. I wish I’d washed my face and run a comb through my hair instead of tying it into a knot on top of my head. If I were in my twenties or even my thirties, or if I were a movie-star or a pop-singer, this look might be considered cute. But I’m not, and I look just like what I am, an egg-less forty-something-year-old woman (more late than early), who didn’t bother to put on pants to go out in public.
You, on the other hand, are definitely wearing pants. They’re dress slacks, slate gray, like your hair (which is coming along very nicely in a George Clooney sort of way), and even though your slacks don’t match your shirt or your shoes, and your nipples (which have always been on the large side) are hard from the supermarket chill and pushing through your shirt, I can’t deny that age fits you better than it does me. I hate you for that.
Do you remember the day you knocked on my cubicle (the first and last time you ever knocked)? You were holding a paper cup full of flan. You came to tell me that you’d never had homemade flan before, how, until me, you’d never had homemade anything. Your wife didn’t know how to cook, let alone bake. You didn’t know it then, but you were looking for someone to help you get to the first day of the rest of your life. I was wearing a charcoal-gray skirt that clung to my body and flared just lightly underneath the curve of my butt. I stood up as you knocked and it made you stop, I know it made you stop, and think that I might be that person.
After that, you started coming by every day, offering me bites of my own sweets, until I told you I couldn’t eat them. Then you’d bought me all those cookbooks, Living With Diabetes and such—as though this was something I needed to be taught how to do. But the truth is, I never did learn how to bake a cake without sugar, and when I tried, it just didn’t feel right, so I kept on baking because it’s the only thing I’m good at. I’ve also learned that sugar keeps people sweet.
In return for the pies that I make for them, my neighbors keep my newspapers out of the rain and always make sure to pull my trash bin back from the curb. My co-workers (your old co-workers) greet me with “What’s cooking?” instead of the usual “Hi, how are you?” I like it. The truth is, as long as the break room is stocked with sweets, I can always count on my notes being read and my messages being returned promptly. But mostly, I like it when people stop by for a chat, the way you used to, carrying a napkin piled high with cookies or cake. In hindsight, though, I don’t know why I thought the flan was a good idea—for the break room, that is. You were the only one who ate it. It was a mistake on my part. There’s really no way to eat a flan in a break room.
Do you remember the first time we talked, really talked, and then that talk turned into lunch, and lunch turned into dinner? It was Red Velvet Cupcake Day. Just so you know, the first Tuesday of every month is still Red Velvet Cupcake Day. You said then that it was your favorite day. Is it ever Red Velvet Cupcake Day where you are now?
Do you remember the first trip we took together? How our boss had asked who wanted to go to Omaha, Nebraska? You had to go of course, but I didn’t, yet you looked at me as if you wanted me to volunteer, so I did. We had a glorious three days, didn’t we? It was the first time we made love on a bed, on a real and actual bed—mattress, blankets, even a headboard. It was the first time I’d seen you naked. Until then, it never occurred to me that you’d always kept your shirt on, and your pants never made it past your ankles. That was when I realized you had huge nipples—big, brown, the size of sand dollars. They’re quite grotesque, actually, but I learned to love them and then just as quickly, I learned to hate them. You don’t know this (how could you?) but now, whenever I think of you, I make myself think of those pepperoni nipples and I feel a little bit better.
Do you remember that talk we had before that other talk (that last one) about spending more time out of the back seat of cars, as you and me in public, and in bed, like we did in Nebraska? Divorce had never sounded so sweet. But it was just a word, a sound, because then we’d had that other conversation, that last one—when you told me that your wife was pregnant.
Before I met you, I’d never thought of wanting children, and there had once been a day when I was overjoyed by the idea of carelessness without consequence. But when you told me that your wife was pregnant, I thought first of all the children you would have that would look just like her and nothing like me. Then I thought of those pickled thousand-year-old eggs I used to see in China Town when I was a little girl, the kind that only old Chinese people eat (the ones actually from China), the kind that have been preserved in ash and salt and lime until they don’t resemble eggs at all. And for the first time, I wished I’d had the option, a reason to steal you away from her, back to me. Would that have made a difference?
So here we are now, in the supermarket, and I wonder what I will say to you to make you believe that I never think about you and me. I will of course ask you about your wife and kids (I’ve heard you’ve had more than one), and that job you took to get away from me.
“I’m sorry, where do you work again?” I’m repeating this in my head, trying the emphasis on different parts of the sentence to find the perfect inflection of nonchalance, and you and your cart are getting closer and closer, and I’m about to look surprised and say, “Oh, hey!” but just like that you push right by me, your cart full of things I can’t eat, and you don’t stop because you don’t need any eggs apparently.
Though I don’t mean to make a scene, you know I’m not the type of person to ever do that, I can hear myself saying it. “Fuck you and your pepperoni nipples.” “Fuck you and your pepperoni nipples,” I say, quietly at first and then louder and louder until I’m practically screaming it, until you have no choice but to stop and look at me.
