MAE JIMENEZ

Piece of Cake

Six Years Old

Somehow you remember the people. Their smiles hanging between both cheeks, voices so loud they clang in your ears. Your name, mostly. You decorate the beginning and end of sentences, turning your head in response. You remember the blinds closed and curtains drawn. Dark room at noon. The soft glow of a wax candle whose light reveals, from dark to light to dark again, the letters of your name. Happy Birthday, it also says.

You blow out the candle after you make wishes. They’re the only ones you’ll get this year unless you find a four leaf clover in the garden. Once you’re sure God understands that your true wish is that every other wish you just thought of is granted, the candle is ripped out. It leaves a dark hole in the white cake, residue of the promise you and your god made. The candle gets stored away in hope that it will be taken out when another birthday comes around. Momma or Papa’s forty-fourth. Charley’s first, Daisy’s sixteenth.

The cake is big enough to feed thirty-six to forty-eight people. That’s what the box says, but you know you could eat it all yourself if given the chance. Too late, a knife is already slicing the cake into pieces. Small ones so forty eight people can eat, though maybe only twenty people are in your house. Your godmother hands you the first slice. Its weight bends the paper plate in half. An edge piece—

No, worse—a corner piece. Worst. Maybe you should have used your wish on this: No rounded corners, only pieces that reveal the cake’s layers from all four sides.

There are other cakes you can choose from: a grand chocolate and vanilla cake with a Barbie figurine on top; a homemade mocha chiffon cake that you’re too young to be interested in (it’s more for the adults who can’t handle chocolate but feel more festive than vanilla); a second ice cream cake. But that one’s from Friendly’s and you only like Carvel. You wish Momma’s friend knew that. If you had two Carvel ice cream cakes you wouldn’t have to worry about keeping the forty-eight person one all to yourself.

You eat your slice before everyone is served. You get a second helping before everyone is served. You crave another piece but need enough left over to feed yourself for the next few days. So you lick your plate until you taste the paper.

Ten Years Old

You remember the picture from Daisy’s tenth birthday, before Charley was even born. You were all sitting around her, smiling for the camera: You, Momma, Papa, Daisy’s friends. Daisy’s holding a cake upon the piano bench, tilting it forward so the camera can read the icing words: Happy Birthday Daisy! in pink.

The picture was taken five years ago, and for the first time you want to know what it’s like to have friends over on your birthday. So when it’s Spring and your birthday inches closer, you make invitations and leave them in mailboxes. You’re ten; you’re old enough to. And you have some friends. Five to be exact, and you’ve known them since first grade.

Your birthday parties are different from the ones you’ve been to. Your parents and aunts host a long list of heart-racing games. There’s sack racing, balloon popping, egg toss, musical chairs, paper dancing, a piñata, a slip-n-slide, tug-of-war. Every winner is awarded with money. Everyone somehow ends up winning. Then there’s karaoke, Rock Band, and Just Dance. There’s not a person who isn’t laughing, not a person who isn’t participating in some way. Maybe the best part of the day is that you have an extravagant amount of cakes: bought, baked, and given. You love it, your friends love it, and so do your cousins, who, like you, always eat more than one slice.

You’ve been anticipating this part of the day for weeks.

They sing the song, your name makes you blush, then they’re counting upward and it’s over and your wish is that there will be more birthdays to come. And clothes. And a puppy. And everything you can think of in that moment, including the wish that all your wishes will come true. Everyone claps, the lights flick on, and your godmother is already slicing the first piece. Your piece. Another corner, but you finish it quickly and fit in one more slice before you’re pulled away for more fun. There’s someone in front of you, blocking your way.

“Oh my goodness, you’re so skinny,” one of your aunts says. “I wish I could be like you!”

You remember looking down at her lean body and wondering what a waste of a wish that was. But you blush and tell her thank you. When your friends tug on your hand again you think of how glad you are for your tiny bones and speedy metabolism. All the better to eat sweets with.

Thirteen Years Old

You remember when you woke up and that it was with a pounding heart because one, you hardly slept all night and two, you’re having a sleepover. The very first you ever had at your house.

Your party is the same as all your other birthday parties. Games, food, karaoke, games, food, cake.

Your aunt is standing in the kitchen with a filled plate when she throws her arms around you, kisses your cheek, says “It’s the skinny, pretty birthday girl!” She twirls you around and everyone’s laughing while your cheeks turn pink. You grin whenever you see her all throughout the night. When you’re playing musical chairs, when you’re eating barbeque, when she’s singing a song with Momma, when everyone’s singing around you and the cake. They sing and they count and you stop them, and they take their pictures while you pour out your wishes. You want a puppy, but if not a puppy then a bunny, and if not a bunny, a hamster. You want to be a writer when you grow up, and you want to be an artist and actress and superstar. You want to be happy and you want everyone you know to be happy forever.

You scarf down the first piece because the second one’s always the best. You lick your plate after every slice. Later your aunt tells you, “Wow. You can eat a lot of cake and still stay thin,” while squeezing your arm even thinner. She moves onto your little sister, Charley, pinches her cheek. At night you and your friends shower. Momma made all of you because you’ve been outside all day, playing with water balloons, tug-of-war, and hide-and-go-seek tag. The water runs brown and speckled. Your friends are waiting in the hallway, your family’s spare towels in hand.

When everyone’s done you watch movies, eat candy, and gossip about things going on at school. At midnight one of your friends suggests something insane: Sneak outside and jump on the trampoline while your parents are asleep.

Remembering it now, all of it was easy. No one else was awake and no one expected the birthday girl and her friends to bring snacks and the entire ice cream cake onto the trampoline and lay under the stars.

But you did. The sugar coolled on your face and when you crept back inside, lowered under the covers, you rubbed your sticky face against your pillow case.

Sixteen Years Old

You never once dreamed of having a sweet sixteen. You might have thought, once or twice, about what a headache it would be, how much money it would cost. But also what a pretty dress you’d wear, the food that’d be served, the design of the cake. You remember thinking that if you ever did have a sweet sixteen, you would have a three-tiered ice cream cake from Carvel. It’d be funny and delicious.

Instead, you go to the mall with your two best friends. From ten in the morning to eleven at night, just like you and your family do almost every weekend. Your friends call you crazy, but to you it’s just normal. Going to the mall for less than six hours is crazy. Your friends usually go for three. What in the world do they do? Park and then leave?

The three of you shop. And shop and shop and shop. You eat some snacks, go on that climbing adventure that dominates the middle of the mall, they buy you your favorite Cold Stone ice cream, The Pie Who Loved Me (Oreos, graham crackers, pie crust, fudge!), and shop some more. When it’s time for dinner you treat them to the Cheesecake Factory. You’ve been waiting for this moment, to sit down, eat some pasta, then eat some cake. Cheesecake. You had it for the first time a few months ago and part of the reason why you chose to go malling for your sixteenth birthday was solely for the chocolate tuxedo cream cheesecake that’s in front of you right now.

The first bite might have been a birthday gift from heaven. An answer to one of your wishes in the past. You regret ordering this piece to share.

When you’re done, you pay the bill. Look at the eight dollars worth of cheesecake and tell yourself it was worth it. Even though you have another cake waiting for you at home.

***

The next day is your birthday party. It’s not really a party; just a few relatives and family friends Momma invited to get together and catch up. Your aunt sees you before you see her. You hug her because it would be rude not to. She says happy birthday with her arms around your body. “You look bigger,” she says, “You’ve gained weight.”

It's shock that strikes you first. Then shock in response to that shock. You’d been expecting other words since the moment she ran her eyes over you. She is smiling so your feelings aren’t hurt. Or maybe she’s smiling because she’s pleased. Or maybe she’s smiling because she pities you.

You remember what you said. “That’s what happens when people grow up.”

Because it’s true. Because she’s a nurse and she knows that.

You eat your cake without apology. You eat a second piece and a third piece and even a fourth just to spite her. It’s good. She is old and you are young. She has wrinkles and you have smooth, clear skin. She has three or four decades to live while you’ve barely begun. She has no right to come into your house and say to you what she says to everyone else.

You’re big.

You’ve gained weight.

Big arms and round face.

She’s never had the right to say any of those things to anyone at all, but now she’s clustered you among them and it makes you angry.

She has no right.

But it’s your birthday. And you have a right to this cake.

Seventeen Years Old

This year is different. You have a part-time job. You’re working on your birthday. Everyone else is busy somehow the weekend before and after May 21st. You’ve never had to work on your birthday before. You thought spending the day at school was the worst–now you have to tutor kids until eight, then do homework, and study, and sleep. You think about it all day. You curse yourself for never making that wish: to never have to go to work on your birthday.

It’s dark when you get out. In the car, Papa kisses your forehead and tells you happy birthday. He says both of your sisters are making brownies for you.

This is growing up, you think quietly as the car rolls down the streets. Change. Change. You think I’ve never seen what the road looks like at eight o’clock on my birthday before. Never had any brownies made for you. Never had work.

There aren’t any brownies waiting for you when you step through the front door (apparently they were burnt), but there is an ice cream cake. Numbers 4 and 7 are a glowing fire on top, a running joke to put a random age in place of the correct one. Your backpack is still on your shoulder while your family sings to you. Silently you note that it’s one of the small, round ice cream cakes from Carvel. They count, you say Stop! You make a wish, you blow out the candles. You want to stay skinny forever. A normal wish for any teenager, you guess. A first for you, though.

***

Everyone is asleep when you creep to the kitchen again. Just you and no one else. You and the sleepy, hungry thoughts that brought you here. You’ve been waiting for this moment since you put your backpack down at dinner.

At first you just stand there. In the kitchen. By the fridge where the cake sleeps. If you wake it up, the two of you will have a very nice, very sweet conversation. Your stomach, the topic of conversation, will squeeze tightly in approval. Especially when you finish. It’ll be full. Of your words, of the cake’s words, of the cake.

You take the cake out of the freezer. Out of its box. Onto a plate. You walk it to the dining table and sit on a chair.

You had one piece today. Not two, not three.

One.

But there’s a little voice inside you which comes awake whenever your stomach grumbles. It was born on your birthday, but doesn’t celebrate the way you do.

Don’t, the voice says. Don’t do it.

Don’t eat.

The cake has thawed on your plate. Those crunchies remind you of childhood. The layer was thicker back then, and through the years you’ve come to resent how few crunchies can be found between the vanilla and chocolate. They’re what made you love Carvel the best.

I wish…

An image of your aunt flickers in your mind. Your tiny, skinny, brutally honest aunt. The smile on her. Like the prongs of a fork. I wish…

There is not even a candle here, you want to argue. But the voice already knows. She doesn’t need a god to listen. She only needs you. I wish…

The sigh that leaves you is sprinkled with hate. For what, you don’t know. But you can’t stand that voice, it offends you and disturbs you, and makes your head hurt. You’d rather sleep than listen to it. So you do. You grind back your chair and lift up the plate. You open the garbage and let the cake slide in. The dish is in the sink and the box is in the freezer. When you lay in bed that voice is silent.

But your stomach isn’t.

Twenty Years Old

You haven’t had a birthday celebration in years. But you remember all the ones you did have: the fun, the games, the laughter. So does Momma.

So she tells you to invite some friends. You’re turning twenty; that’s a big deal. And your whole family misses these get-togethers.

Your closest friends from college come, along with your two best friends. There’s sack racing, balloon popping, musical chairs, line dancing, and karaoke. You love it, your friends love it, so do your sisters, and you hope for more birthdays like this one.

You see your aunt on the other side of the yard. The one who tells everyone what she thinks of their size as if they can’t see for themselves. You heard her earlier, praising Charley for losing weight. And you want to wring your aunt’s neck because she doesn’t know.

That your little sister has an eating disorder and your aunt is a big part of it.

You’d rather avoid her though, instead of listening to a single word she has to say. You’d rather not ravage your mind with memories of Charley’s skin sinking between her ribs, gaunt, fragile face, belly turned inward. You’d rather make sure Charley stays where she is, in her room now, probably hungry and hiding and groping her skin.

When night falls, you and your friends sneak out for a drive. You go to one of their houses and pet the cat named Patches. You’re allergic, but Patches is the fluffiest, softest, fattest cat you’ve ever seen and you love her. Then you all drive to the 7-Eleven down the street, clad in your pastel dresses and fake flower crowns in the middle of the night, in the middle of May. Someone pays and you all walk out with Slurpees. You race back to the house, two cars, to see who gets there first.

Of course the car you’re in wins. The eight of you linger under the streetlamps and on your driveway while the adults take up all the space inside. You take pictures, slurp your Slurpees, and toss a ball as everyone leaves one by one.

At some point, you go inside and bring out the cake. Curse yourself for forgetting about it up until this moment. Only four of you are left, which should have thrilled you. More ice cream cake for you, and it’s one of the big, rectangular ones that are meant to feed a few dozen. You share the cake amongst yourselves. No one sings, no one counts, no wishes are made. You slice the pieces with a long, sharp knife, and deal a plate to whoever asks. You serve yourself last. Which is fine, because your first piece is a middle piece. For the first time ever.

Somehow your aunt finds your little group in the garage and she’s smiling as her eyes roam over all of you. They land on the cake. Back to you. “You’re eating?” she asks, as if you’re not sitting around a pink box of Carvel like a cult, the forks in your hands like ritualistic spears ready to consume some holy meat or blood.

“Yes,” you say through gritted teeth. “Do you want some?”

She answers no. She’s on a diet. “Happy birthday,” she says, and strolls toward you for a hug. You know what she’s thinking when her fingers close around your skin, around your arms, as your chin hovers between her shoulder and neck. Then she’s gone. And everyone else leaves shortly after.

You wait in Charley’s bed. Seeking sleep, you hug her from behind. There’s little of her to spare. Any tighter and you’d just be hugging yourself. Take some of me, you think. Imagine: half of both your arms sliding off, scraping away your belly fat, giving Charley transplants of your thighs. Wouldn’t you both be better then?

***

It’s past midnight when you crawl out of Charley’s bed. The cake is in the big freezer in the garage, so you get it. You put it on the table. Get out a plate. Cut a slice. Sit down.

You remember every time your aunt called you skinny and smiled. Then every time she looked at you as if you were unrecognizable whenever your body changed. Then her grins that betrayed her satisfaction over how her body remained the same while yours—and everyone else’s—was growing up.

The cake is thawed on your plate. The vanilla and chocolate look so nice, so creamy nestled together with those crunchies in between.

Don’t.

Don’t eat it.

You had one piece today. A middle piece–the best piece. You don’t need any more.

It’s unhealthy. It’s too late.

You don’t need it. Don’t eat it.

Stay skinny. Stay skinny. Stay skinny.

It’s only a battle when you’re with yourself. It’s a battle against yourself. An impossible one. Unfair. There’s no one else to defy. When one part of you wins, the other is dragged through your muddy thoughts. Like the tug-of-war games you used to play. Don’t eat it.

You think: It’s just a bite. Just a piece. A piece of cake. This should be a piece of cake.

You take a bite and guilt overflows in the form of bile. All you can think of is your sister throwing up in the bathroom. What could even come out? More bones? The phalanges she meticulously inches down her throat?

I told you so. I told you. Salt tampers out the creamy sugar.

You remember when you were little and you whispered a thousand wishes upon a candle. The candle was small but it must have been strong to withstand the weight of all you wanted. You were always heavy in that way: the things you hoped for, the things that make you smile. You had to whisper each one of them, deliver every wish in small doses so the force of your voice alone wouldn’t crack anything in two.

So—that voice. The one that tells you to Stop. The one that tells you No…

You scream at it to go away. You give this the weight of every other wish you’ve had. You don’t whisper. In your head, where the two of you stand, you bellow your wish for her to Get the hell out. There is nothing wrong with cake. Nothing wrong with the big breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes and eggs and bacon you had this morning. Nothing wrong with the cookies you baked with your sisters last weekend. So get the hell out. I didn’t mean to consume you.

I don’t want you.

I don’t need you.

I don’t like you.

Again and again and again.

I don’t want you.

I don’t need you.

I don’t like you.

By the time you’re done screaming, because somehow your throat feels raw even though you haven’t uttered a word, that other voice is gone and your entire body feels desolate. You don’t even care that your slice of cake is melted; you simply throw it out and cut another.

This will not be the last time you hear her voice. You are not the only one. You know it, and she knows it, and everyone knows it. But for now, you slap that cake onto the plate before you. You eat the vanilla first, then the chocolate, then the crunchies. It’s three in the morning and this isn’t great for your health, but you don’t care. You don’t have to care. It’s technically, kind of, sort of still your birthday, since no one was awake to witness the day change. You deserve this. You just won a battle. You’re hungry.

You eat another slice. Maybe two, maybe three. And by the end of it, you can’t help yourself. You lick the plate.