The Big Fudge Cake
If birthdays were cakes, Rebekkah imagined hers collapsing in the middle, with too many candles weighing it down.
Today would prove that cake solves nothing and everything, sometimes in the same mouthful.
The WWJD radio station lobby had the hushed, over-waxed gleam of a church basement before bingo.
The white tile floor, shot through with pink confetti flecks, as if a Teletubby had exploded, clicked under heels and squeaked under sneakers.
Its beige walls dressed in framed verses with curly-cue fonts in gold foil: Blessed are the callers, for the request line is open.
A cork board sagged under the weight of bake-sale and youth group carwash flyers and a notice for ‘Lost: one pink mitten (left)’.
The air had the morning fragrance of recently mopped lemon cleaner and freshly brewed hazelnut coffee.
Carrington’s desk looked like command central; neatly aligned paperclips spelling out their name, stacks of bills wrapped in elastic bands lined up like soldiers, and a glossy cake box determined to distract anyone from paying them.
With a ding the elevator doors sighed open and produced Emma-Lou and Suwarna like a magic trick.
Emma-Lou wore a storm-blue skirt suit, pearl studs, and the famous new bangs Carrington had given her a few months earlier, a glossy golden fringe she fretted over whenever her thoughts outran her composure.
Beside her, Suwarna strode in a structured blouse the colour of cranberry juice, dark slacks, and sensible heels; a key card for the elevator hung from a lanyard around her neck and a pencil lived permanently behind her ear like a spare wand.
Where Emma-Lou’s nerves poked out in fussed hems and straightened folders, Suwarna’s announced themselves in checkboxes checked, protocols prioritized, and binders impeccably labeled.
She was a woman who could restructure your career path and your chakras before lunch.
“We’re all here?” Emma-Lou asked, voice light with the excitement of breaking the structure of a typical Tuesday morning as her shoes clicked across the tile toward the reception desk. “Suwarna and I have the confetti. Carrington, do you have candles for the cake?”
“Of course,” Carrington answered, chin high, voice a practiced velvet.
“All of them.” They looked like a downtown window display that had been asked to answer phones–a starched white shirt tucked into a full, black crinoline hoop skirt that made its own weather patterns, a narrow satin tie with tiny gold crosses, and lipstick the shade of scandal.
“Is it fudge cake? That’s Rebekkah’s favourite,” Japheth asked, already vibrating at frosting frequency in anticipation. His hands fluttered when he was excited; right now, they were practically hummingbirds.
“Yes, Japheth,” Carrington said, not looking up from aligning a book of matches with military precision. “I received all six of your reminders. You left Post-it notes strewn across my desk.”
“Shh!! I see her coming up the walkway,” Ronald whispered, peering through the glass, his shoulders a tidy and appealing geometry in a fitted varsity jacket with a large letter R over his heart.
He was compact and athletic, with a dimple that showed up like a plot twist, and the easy balance of someone who could do a layup while reciting the Nicene Creed (now that he knew it by heart).
He ran back to Carrington’s desk whisper-shouting amidst a scurry of feet and a ruffle of fabrics, “Everyone hide!”
“Ronald! Scooch! You’re stepping on my crinoline,” Carrington hissed through a smile.
“Sorry!” Ronald shuffled, all contrition and dimples in high-tops.
“Would you two shush?” Japheth stage whispered. “You’ll ruin the surprise!”
The doors opened and Rebekkah stepped into the lobby–cheeks pink from the morning walk, a butter-yellow blouse tucked into a tulip-hem sage skirt, kitten heels that made tiny church-mouse sounds on the Teletubby tiles.
Her ponytail, glossy and high, showed off a volume and wavy length that pop divas would pay a pretty penny for in extensions.
She paused, like a small, expectant animal in a new clearing and glanced around nervously. When Rebekkah was nervous, she folded her hands at her sternum as if steadying a hymnbook; she did that now.
“Hello? Carrington? Suwarna? Anyone?” Rebekkah called, her voice casting out and then reeling back to her as an eerie echo in the empty space. She took a few more tentative steps and then paused, “Hello? Hello! HELL-O-O-O!”
Suddenly she fell to her knees, her eyes widening, “Oh my… oh no! This can’t be happening. I’ve been LEFT BEHIND! Jesus! JESUS!! You forgot me! I’m still here!!”
“SURPRISE!” Everyone shouted, popping up from behind a plastic hydrangea, the photo copier, and behind Carrington’s desk.
“It’s okay!” Japheth cried, popping up like a prairie dog in a topaz lamé blazer. He scurried from behind the desk, already halfway to her, hands out like a flight attendant demonstrating oxygen masks. “Rebekkah, you’re okay!”
“SURPRISE! SURPRISE! SURPRISE!” Ronald overcommitted, as was his brand.
“Surprise…” Carrington took one look at Rebekkah and winced. She was now crumpled like a broken doll doing an unlimber yoga child’s pose on the lobby floor. “Is she… is she okay?”
Emma-Lou pulled a paper bag from her purse and ran it over to Rebekkah whose breath was coming quick and shallow. She handed it to the birthday girl with encouragement, “Breathe into this. Nice and slow. Deep breaths. Stay with us.”
Suwarna clocked Emma-Lou who gave a little shrug, “I’ve built myself a worst-case-scenario kit. Several, actually. I keep one in the car, one in my office, one in my purse, one…”
“Rebekkah, it’s alright,” Japheth interrupted as he soothed his friend, rubbing a hand gently on her back. “That’s right, just breathe. No one raptured without you. We’re all right here. Surprise!”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Rebekkah gasped, pressing a hand to her chest. “I thought… I thought that maybe I didn’t get beamed up because I stole smelly erasers from Malorie Wilson in second grade art class?
You know the ones that smell like strawberries?
And… and… I’ve never told anyone that. It’s really been weighing on my soul! I am so sorry Malorie Wilson!”
“We’re all right here, and I’m sure Malorie Wilson has forgotten and certainly forgiven her missing erasers. Very few people use pencils anymore. I think you can let that one go,” Japheth consoled her.
“And happy thirtieth birth…” Ronald began, dimple doing its damnedest.
“Ronald! Twentieth!” Rebekkah snapped, mortified.
“Umm… right?” Ronald blinked.
“Right!” Rebekkah insisted.
“So right. Yup, that’s gotta be right,” Ronald said, recalibrating with a shrug that tried to appear casual but nonetheless looked stressed.
“I don’t think that’s right…” Carrington calculated, eyebrows doing the math.
“Definitely seems wrong,” Suwarna said, clinical as a census in her assessment.
“It looks wrong,” Carrington added, head tilted, stylist’s gaze comparing and considering the ages of the stars in the pages of the tabloids they devoured against the specimen splayed on the tile before them.
“Maybe not wrong, but certainly inconclusive?” Suwarna mused. “I’m just thinking back to your Not Short on Talent talent show entry form. Carrington, do you still have the entry forms? I seem to remember her birth year as…”
“Let’s all just take a breath,” Japheth cut in, palms windmilling around Rebekkah protectively. “A big breath and then Rebekkah can blow out her candles!”
“All thirty of them,” Carrington said, perfectly pleasant and without a hint of malice. They were after all, just relaying the facts.
“I am not thirty!!” Rebekkah barked.
“Did I miss one? Should it be thirty-one?” Carrington asked, always ready to help.
“No!” Rebekkah yelped.
“Rebekkah dear,” Emma-Lou said, stepping forward and bending down to speak with her face to face. “I think I know what’s happening. I’ve been right where you are and I know how scary it can feel to face down the second half of your life.”
“Second half. What?!” Rebekkah blinked furiously, “I’ve never thought about it like that…”
“Statistically Emma-Lou is right,” Suwarna said, hands folded like a dean about to announce finals. “Though a little bit wrong. The average age of death in Canada is eighty-one point seven years and for women it’s eighty-three point nine so you’re still technically a Spring chicken!”
“Ummm…?” Carrington hedged, lips pursed.
“A Summer Tanager?” Suwarna tried. “That’s a scarlet-coloured North American songbird.”
“I know what a Summer Tanager is, Suwarna. But that’s not it…” Carrington said, bending down beside Emma-Lou for a more thorough classification.
“A Winter Wren?” Suwarna proffered.
“Bingo!” Carrington declared, standing up and dusting off their hands with finality.
“You skipped right past Autumn!” Rebekkah protested, indignant but still adorable in her butter-yellow blouse and sage tulip-hem skirt; legs akimbo and ego smashed.
“I call it like I see it,” Suwarna said, unbothered. “Have you had a hard life?”
“As I was saying…” Emma-Lou resumed, anxious to ensure the star and possibly saviour of the radio station didn’t endure further beratement from the other employees.
Her eyes danced brightly with the opportunity to share the wisdom she’d gleaned from the self-help section in the local library, “Birthdays can be scary. You can start going down a rabbit hole of never-will-I-evers as the years dash by. Will I ever win the show jumping grand prix at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair? Can I use my reading glasses to successfully take up archery? Is it too late to get a septum piercing and still be taken seriously? I’m gonna be real straight with you.
Birthdays can be a bitch. They can strike fear into the heart, like a dagger.
Twisting and poking and provoking dark feelings of despair! ”