The Big Fudge Cake #3
“Bangs are rarely a good idea. Especially done at work, with office scissors. But! But, but but! You did it and I’m so proud of you! Just like Emma-Lou taking up barefoot water skiing when she was thirty, you were so brave!” Japheth said, hands fluttering in applause for his bestie.
“She… she never did that! She just considered it,” Rebekkah said, scandalized.
“Exactly. She just thought about it. And was too scared…” Japheth started.
“Too smart,” Emma-Lou corrected.
“Smart and scared. Too smared,” Japheth nodded. “She was way too smared, but not you! You just closed your eyes, pointed to a picture… not sure why you chose Jim Carrey…”
“We’re both Canadian!” Rebekkah barked.
“Mmm hmmm. And well, yes. And now you both have the same hair-do too,” Japheth said kindly.
“May I see a mirror please?” Rebekkah asked, deciding it really couldn’t be nearly as bad as it seemed.
“No!” Everyone chorused.
“It’s BAD! It’s really bad! And I’m thirty. FUCK!” Rebekkah shouted.
Everyone looked at each other and then at the floor. Rebekkah’s hands flew to her mouth as she gasped, “Oh! I’m so, so, so sorry!”
“Rebekkah, that’s actually one of the words we don’t say at WWJD,” Suwarna reminded her with a warm but cautionary HR tone.
“Yeah, no shit,” Rebekkah muttered.
“That one too,” Suwarna said crisply and tsked her tongue.
“Rebekkah,” Ronald said, stepping closer, voice low and certain, “I think you look fly. And if you wanna sit in your feelings about being thirty for a while, that’s totally valid. You can do that.”
“Thank you, Ronald,” Rebekkah said, blinking tears back carefully so as not to run her mascara. Her hair may be a mess, but she’d applied a full beat today and was determined to keep her mug unsmudged.
“You know how I’ve been playing catch up right? Doing my homework by reading the Bible a little bit every day?” Ronald asked.
“Yes?” Rebekkah said, wary but willing to take a dive into Ronald’s inner world.
“Well, there’s plenty of old folks in there. Like Enoch? He lived to be three hundred and sixty-five years old! And Lamech? Seven hundred and seventy-seven!” Ronald said, counting on his fingers demonstratively but ineffectively.
“Don’t forget Mahalalel, he was eight hundred and ninety-five!” Emma-Lou offered, chiming in cheerfully as if it were trivia night.
“Enos was nine hundred and five, Kenan was nine hundred and ten, and Seth was nine hundred and twelve!” Japheth added, delighted to pluck these otherwise useless facts from the far recesses of his brain. “So, thirty is like… definitely not a Winter Wren.”
“That was not a comment on her age or nearness to death,” Suwarna protested. “I was thinking of birds that Rebekkah looks like. The Winter Wren is a plump, round ball with a stubby tail. It’s kind of a mousy brown? Can I say a bird has a mousy look?”
“Not helping!” Japheth hissed.
“But the way it sings!” Suwarna insisted, and her face brightened just thinking of it. “You wouldn’t believe the rich cascade of notes that burst out of that mousy little plump round ball–just like Rebekkah!”
“Slightly… better,” Japheth conceded.
“A stubby tail?” Rebekkah said, wounded.
“There is nothing wrong with your tail,” Ronald said gallantly.
“Thank you, Ronald,” Rebekkah sighed, sitting back in the chair.
“Ronald, after we share cake, let’s go to my office together and talk about work-place compliments and what’s appropriate,” Suwarna said, the pencil behind her ear nodding in judgment.
“You just called her…” Ronald began.
“Birdlike. Jovial. Diminutive. Talented,” Suwarna said, counting virtues with fingers raised in the air for all to see. “All compliments.”
“Rebekkah, there are other long-toothed people in the Bible too,” Ronald plowed on. “Jared, Noah, Adam! All over nine hundred years old.”
“What happened to Eve?” Rebekkah asked, sitting up sharply in the chair, hopeful it would also be in the high hundreds.
“Ummm… the Bible doesn’t say. She kind of disappears,” Ronald admitted.
“Typical!” Emma-Lou, Suwarna, Rebekkah and Carrington sang together.
“They must have run out of ink. Again,” Rebekkah shook her head in dismay.
“Speaking of the patriarchy, Methusaleh lived to nine hundred and sixty-nine years! Which is so cool. But like, not as cool as if they’d also let us know how old Eve was,” Ronald shied. “That would be cooler.”
“Rebekkah, there are…” Carrington ventured.
“I’m not sure I’m ready to talk to you, Carrington,” Rebekkah said, palm hovering defensively over the lone ear flap of hair.
“Let me try,” Ronald said. “Rebekkah, I think the Bible lists all those old people’s ages because life is worth celebrating! A party for every year we get, you know? So, let’s celebrate those centurions and multi-centurions and near millennials.”
“I don’t like that word. Millennial,” Carrington shivered, crinoline rustling like a warning. “Puts a shiver down my spine.”
“Because of Y-2K and how we may all go back to being cave people when our computers, bank machines, clocks, watches, Game Boys, cars and blenders stop working or turn into human hunters?” Emma-Lou asked, eyes wide and growing wider.
“No… that’s not it. But I just had these like premonitory tingles all over my body. Millennial. Ehhhh eeeek! It just happened again. Nope. I don’t like it,” Carrington said, rubbing their forearms as if the word were an icy draft.
“Back to me? If that’s okay, Carrington?” Rebekkah asked, still dazed, but unabashedly regal even with her hack-job haircut.
“Of course!” Carrington said quickly. “You know, from this angle, with the fluorescent light behind you casting a bit of a halo–you kind of look like Shiri Appleby.”
“From Roswell?!” Japheth and Ronald yelped in stereo.
“Yes,” Carrington said.
“You do!” Japheth gasped.
“She does!” Ronald agreed.
“I do?!” Rebekkah blinked, briefly looking from friendly face to friendly face to confirm she wasn’t being punked. “She’s gorgeous!”
“Don’t move,” Carrington warned. “When you move out of the light it stops the illusion.”
“Yeah. Gone now,” Ronald said, shaking his head. “But that was really cool. I love Roswell.”
“Ronald, you were trying to cheer me up by saying something about celebrating life?” Rebekkah prompted, gently tugging the narrative back from outer space.
“Right! Shoot. I forget,” Ronald laughed. “Every time I look at you, I lose my train of thought. It’s like I don’t even know you. Or I expect you to turn to us and say, ‘Hey, you wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world? EEEEEEEEEEEE!’”
“Ow! My ears! Why would you do that?!” Rebekkah cried.
“Because you look like…” Ronald gestured at her hair.
“Jim Carrey. In Dumb and Dumber,” everyone supplied in unison.
“But with the one ear flap of hair,” Carrington added clinically. “Should I… fix that?”
“No! Yes! I don’t know!” Rebekkah groaned. “How can I be the face of this radio station if I look like this?!”
“Let’s all look on the bright side,” Emma-Lou said, clasping her hands into a prayer pose as if to bless a tuna casserole before dinner.
“The Trinity Radio Hour is a big success. We’re tracking listeners in the double and occasionally triple digits regularly now.
This could really turn into something big! ”
“And we’re getting advertisers!” Carrington said, tapping their fingers together. When Carrington smelled money, their pupils dilated slightly; they were fully owlish now.
“People love what you all have to say and sing about!” Suwarna added, pleased that the projections for the show were on a slow but steady incline.
“You’re our star, Rebekkah,” Emma-Lou said simply, placing a hand on her shoulder and dusting off a few stray dismembered locks.
“No one’s ever said that to me before,” Rebekkah whispered. “I’ve waited thirty years for someone to call me a star.”
“This might be surprising, but our listeners don’t care how you look and neither do we,” Japheth said, fiercely protective of his bandmate.
“Us Weekly did a two-page spread on hats in the October issue and there are several, at least a month’s worth I think you’ll look incredible in,” Carrington said, already imaginatively stacking and rotating beret, bucket, bowler, beanie and cloche on Rebekkah’s crown.
“You know, until it grows out. I really think I didn’t do a horrible job; it just needs to find its shape. ”
The fax machine buzzed and beeped, jealously signalling everyone to pay it some attention, as all eyes had been glued to Rebekkah as one does when passing a collision.
A few prayers and signs of the cross may have been sent up as well, but it was impossible to confirm as they had all willingly shielded their gaze during the make-shift salon accident.
Now, they all turned expectantly toward the fax, which purred contentedly as it sputtered out its news.
“Another advertiser? See! There’s so much to celebrate!” Emma-Lou said, elbow to elbow with Carrington as they crossed the lobby and leaned over the paper tray.
“Umm… no, this doesn’t look like an advertiser.
I can’t quite see who it’s from yet… We’ll just have to wait for it to finish printing,” Carrington said, leaning over the beige beast as perforated paper inched out like a child sticking out its tongue in provocation.
Finally, the machine finished its emissary mission and settled back into a nap.
“Dear WWJD, please CEASE and DESIST from plagiarizing, stealing, sampling, feeling inspired by…” Carrington read aloud, eyes widening. “It’s from Ricky Martin’s manager. Turns out Ricky thinks the original lyrics to Livin’ La Vida Loca don’t need revisions from Trinity.”
The fax machine cleared its throat again–Buzz, Beep, Sputter–helpfully heralding another envoy of legal notice. Emma-Lou leaned over Carrington’s shoulder, dread chilling her voice, “Is that another one?”
“Sugar Ray!” Carrington yelped.
Buzz. Beep. RIP.
“Smash Mouth… Sixpence None the Richer. 98 Degrees. Sarah McLachlan! Et tu, brute?!” Carrington cried, clutching their chest as if the queen of Lilith Fair had slapped them across the face with a cold fish from the Halifax harbour.