Cake

It’s cool­ing on a rack on the kitchen counter. David sits on the couch, clean­ing under his fin­ger­nails with a cor­ner of his Safeway card, and I fuss with the flow­ers in the kitchen. We’re both get­ting ready, in our own ways. I’ll say this now: we love Milt and Janey. They are our best friends and they are get­ting mar­ried. David is par­tic­u­larly affected by the news, because of his his­tory with Janey. They aren’t in love any more, but I know he has a sweet spot for her. He still wears that old sweater of hers, the JCrew with the holes at the wrists. It’s so old it’s just falling apart. Last week he worked on it after din­ner, bent over the sleeves, sewing the frayed edges together. 

Milt has a black eye. Some skinny guy wear­ing a leather jacket with inap­pro­pri­ate zip­pers punched him in the face out­side the Tudor House in Esquimalt two nights ago, because Milt came in wear­ing a brand-new mous­tache and a bright red jacket. A table thought he was try­ing to be funny and the guy punched him so Milt would know they didn’t like the joke. 

The truth is, Milt was try­ing to be funny. The mous­tache was a dare, the jacket was a dare, the whole night out was a dare. He teaches English at Raymond Secondary and his Shakespeare class dared him. Milt got a kick out of it. The kids loved him. Growing the mous­tache for weeks, groom­ing it. He bought a kit with a tiny comb and a lit­tle pot of wax. There was that kid in the park last year, wear­ing the red jacket, he was nearly killed. The court case all over the news. But Milt didn’t know that. Milt plays the man­dolin at the Teahouse Café on Friday nights. What does he know about gang vio­lence in the town across the bridge? 

We haven’t seen Milt yet, but Janey says his eye looks ugly. The other teach­ers have started ask­ing ques­tions. The prin­ci­pal is going to find out about the dare, she just knows it. He’s such an idiot, she said. I love him so much. On the phone her voice sounded squeaky. What do you do for a bruise like that? 

I don’t know, I said. Ice it.

I thought maybe lemon juice, she said. I use it for my dark circles.

David had a night­mare after I left the house this morn­ing. You dove into the water, he tells me from the couch, and the cur­rent took you. I could see it. You dis­ap­peared. He says, I woke up and you were gone. 

I can hear his voice around the cor­ner but I can’t see him. I’m wash­ing straw­ber­ries in the kitchen. They tum­ble over each other like drum­beats in the sil­ver colan­der. When I turn the taps off, I can see that each berry is really a small heart.

Do we have to go there tonight? he asks. Did you already tell them we were on our way?

I reach for the par­ing knife, slice each straw­berry neatly at the top. I lick the pud­dles of red juice off my fin­gers and wipe my hands on my jeans and then he’s stand­ing up, behind me.

Let’s stay home, he says.

I want to see his eye, I say. Don’t you want to know how he’s doing?

David lifts the hair off my neck and kisses the skin behind my ears. I can smell cig­a­rette smoke, san­dal­wood soap. Milt is an idiot, he says into my hair.

Milt and Janey are get­ting mar­ried in four months. I have made an angel food cake. I’ve cov­ered it with swirls of whipped cream. I’ve sprin­kled flower petals on top, sliced straw­ber­ries. Did you pick up cham­pagne? I ask.

On our way to the party I notice that the cro­cuses have started to come up in fist­fuls. It’s January, can you believe it, I say to David. We had walked through the neigh­bour­hood to Dallas Road and reached that point where the hill lev­els out and you can see the ocean and the moun­tains all at once, with jog­gers cross­ing the fore­ground. It’s the view that makes peo­ple who move here happy they moved here. In a moment I decide that I will never leave this place. Then David says, What’s to believe about it?

He’s wear­ing a blue snow­boarder hat with orange stripes and trim. The tag sewn into the seam sticks out over his eye­brow. Fix your hat, I tell him.

The Olympic range in front of us, jagged, snow­capped. Mountains so clear they look like a backdrop.

There’s noth­ing wrong with my hat.

The woman walk­ing behind us has a Jack Russell ter­rier on a black leash with sil­ver studs. The dog strains and strains, pulling with his neck. She drags him away from us, try­ing to get him across the street. He sees the cake. Up on his hind legs, like a cir­cus trick. He is remark­ably bal­anced on two legs. I raise the cake slightly, in case he jumps for it.

He’s not going to get it, David tells me. Relax.

I am relaxed, I say.

Hi, lit­tle guy. David squats down on the side­walk and holds out his hand. The dog licks it.

Oh, you gotta watch him, he’ll eat any­thing, the woman says. She’s stand­ing on the curb in hik­ing boots and leg­gings, with the black leash wrapped around one fist. Even sea­weed, she adds. I’ve seen him try to eat sand.

David: Maybe there was some­thing in the sand he wanted.

Me: Maybe it’s the texture.

Woman: The tex­ture of sand?

David: No, like a bug, or a crab.

Me: You know, the feel­ing of it in his teeth. I mean, just to bite it.

David: Dogs are all about the smell. He’d have to smell some­thing in the sand first.

Me: Couldn’t he just bite for the plea­sure of biting?

David: Would you eat sand for the texture?

Me: Did he eat it, or just bite it?

Woman: Who knows?

He’s cute, I say, still hold­ing the cake up in the sky.

The woman and the dog cross the street and head down to the beach, where I imag­ine the dog will bite at the waves and chase his own shadow.

We watch for a pause in the traf­fic. I am car­ry­ing my cake with two hands.

What are you wait­ing for? David asks me.

To cross the road, I say.

Let’s go, then. And he starts walk­ing. A yel­low Miata has to slow down for him. The dri­ver wears mir­rored sun­glasses and black leather dri­ving gloves. She honks twice. Two short blasts, and then she’s gone.

But David turns around, pissed off, and flicks his fin­ger. He may have been aim­ing at the dri­ver, who is already around the sec­ond bend in the road by now. I think: that may have been aimed at the driver.

Cars are parked all along the ocean side of Dallas Road. People sit in the front seats with their radios on, lis­ten­ing to the cbc and watch­ing the freighters sail to Seattle. Most of the guests will have arrived at Milt and Janey’s house by now. I imag­ine the scene: Milt wear­ing an eye patch, tug­ging at Janey, try­ing to get her to dance. Janey with her lips pressed into a pink rosette: Stop it, Mil, stop it. David’s wait­ing for me to cross the street now and this cake feels heavy in my hands. The light­est one I could make. It’s mostly air, this cake. And I’m tired of it already.