Birthday Cake

"You’re invited,” an E-vite proclaimed from my inbox.

“Will you make Steve a birthday cake again this year?” a separate e-mail from my closest friend, Sue demanded.

I checked off the little box that indicated I would be there and filled out the comments section with: “I’ll be there with my cake filled with secret herbs and spices.”

I knew that would get the co-workers and friends from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office shooting back and forth high speed instant messages.

“Sue is inviting that fag from her job again?” they likely said to one another. “What does he mean by secret herbs?” they probably asked via modem.

I go to Sue’s husband’s birthday party year after year and I don’t know why. There is no weed and they drink like fish.

Striking up conversations with people from her husband’s job is not easy. What could I possible have to say of interest to those model citizens as we share pieces of celery dipped in Sue’s special dipping sauce: Miracle Whip and relish?

So what, Sue and I don’t work at a job where we get to throw the guilty behind bars. We are Starbucks employees. She’s married to a District Attorney and my husband knows the system very well.

We take our breaks together and sit at the little table next to the window facing Eighth Avenue and brag about our men.

“Steve’s got a big dick. He’s been working out. He always wants to fuck me when he gets home from the gym. Do you think he’s gay?” she once asked me.

“I don’t think so, girl. How big is it?” I asked while pouring a blue pack of equal in my latte.

She isn’t even one bit jealous when I say those things.

“So are you finally going to leave Bradley or what? Seriously Charles, get your self a man with more money and we can go shopping on our breaks together,” she tempts.

“I don’t know girl, I can’t leave Bradley. He loved me when nobody else would. When I gained 40 pounds, he still made love to me like I was Paris Hilton!”

“So what, he’s broke and you said he got a little dick.”

“I only said that when I was mad at him. I lied Sue, really I did. He’s hung to the knees.”

“You are so full of shit,” she said as we rushed back to our position at the frothers.

“If I see that bitch looking at my husband’s ass again this year, I’ll scratch his eyes out,” Sue’s husband’s co-workers said to each other on cell phones while I spent my Saturday baking a birthday cake for the husband of a co-worker.

I pulled my aluminum cake pan from the cupboard, the one shaped like a football, and worked my magic.

Of course there were no secret herbs mixed into the Duncan Hines mix, 1/4 cup of oil, three eggs and a half-cup of water.

I only added a little party inspiration. Straight men love football, and my football cake turns more eyes than a big set of firm tits on a kept woman.

I makes the boys wonder and wander.

I simply grabbed a glob of Crisco and greased the inside of the pan and shook it around with a little flour to coat the mold.

It only takes two minutes to mix the cake ingredients at high speed.

I popped the dream cake into the oven.

“Bradley, you should really come to this party with me. My co-workers have never met you and I have met all of their husbands and wives.”

“Fuck that! I’m not going to a party with a bunch of lawyers from the D.A.’s office.”

“You should, the next time your ass gets locked up, you’ll have someone to call.”

“You don’t ever make me cakes. You always bake and decorate them for your friends,” he said while sitting on the sofa and stealing glances of my big round bootie as I bent over to insert the cake in the pre-heated oven, set at 375.

I really didn’t want him coming along anyway. I always manage to find a closet case or two running around the rooms of Sue and Steve’s large apartment and the party is not as boring as it may sound.

I made my icing from scratch. One box of confectioner’s sugar combined with a half cup each of butter and shortening makes the best frosting this side of Antarctica.

Some of the icing remained white, a glob was colored dark brown and a little was shaded light brown with my special food coloring, made specifically for cake icing.

I sat there all afternoon with a pastry bag, and slowly dotted the surface of the cake football with the different shades of icing.

Eventually, I was left with a cake that made MacArthur’s Park look like junk food and as if someone had left it out in the rain.

Those married men at the party love my cooking.

The girls stand there with their mouths hanging wide open as I remind them of how women once were.

Sue thinks it’s hysterical when all those girls from the D.A.’s office who try to get a little piece of her husband’s big cake are upstaged by an old jaded queen who has a husband too damn fine to waste time on a Saturday night mingling with fat attorneys who don’t have a bitch who can burn like me!

I left the party early this year as soon as the Grey Goose was gone.

My ride was bored and wanted to go so I sneaked away before saying good-bye to my co-worker and thanking her for the hospitality.

Bradley was out fucking around again. It was 2:30 a.m. and he wasn’t home.

He eventually stumbled in around 3:00, smelling like a sweaty jockstrap in Steve’s clothes hamper.

I didn’t say a thing and pretended to be sleeping when he crawled into the bed like a cake in a molded pan, being slid into a pre-heated oven.

As he slid his pastry bag into me, I imagined myself back at the party with the D.A.’s with long dockets.

“Who bitch are you?” Bradley asked.

“Yours and only yours,” I said over and over again as I let them eat cake.