They made a second pass around the wooded museum property and then headed back down toward Steamboat Road. She knew the chance of his taking a mind-altering drug was slim. These days, Jake not only didn’t drink, he worshipped sobriety the way others genuflected before God. Phoebe tried to trace his path from the usual teenage beer and pot binges, to social cocktails, to becoming the King of Temperance, but like so much in marriage, Jake’s drinking changes were incremental. She imagined that his odd Calvinism extended to prescription drugs.
“I have two choices, Pheebs. Live with it or drive it out with exercise. We’ll install a gym, okay? Hell, we can both use it.” He reached over and pinched her midsection. “Is that a chocolate cupcake I feel?”
“Screw you.” Now Phoebe lusted for Breyers cherry vanilla. Not scooping out a big bowl for him and one anemic spoonful for her, but eating the entire gallon.
“Sorry,” he said. “You’re still the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”
“Is that why you feel such a need to shoot me down?”
He put an arm around her waist. “I don’t know why I do half the things I do.”
? ? ?
Phoebe, Eva, Linh, and Zoya sat in silence, stunned by the reality of being in the actual store of the Cupcake Project, waiting to open the doors for the first time. This, their opening party, was timed for an after-school launch. Based on Jake’s advice, invitations containing a golden ticket for a dozen free cupcakes a month had been sent all over the community: the wealthy wanted something for nothing as much as the needy. Maybe more, as so many of them got rich by being cheap bastards.
Noah and Katie, already excited at being allowed to miss a day of school, investigated every inch of the place, narrating as they explored.
“I adore this!” Katie held up a pearly-white notebook with a stylized triptych of blue-glittered cupcakes on a lemony background—their logo. “Can I have one? Please, please, please!”
Phoebe offered her a ten-dollar bill. “Here. You’ll be our lucky first sale.”
“I’ll write notes during the opening.” Katie skipped to the register for Linh to ring her up. “We’ll have a permanent memory of the first of the countrywide chain of Cupcake Projects.”
“Since you’ll be our historian, we should throw in a pen.” Linh plucked a sparkly blue marker from a pottery jug on the counter.
Impulse buys were scattered around the shop. Business had initially brought friendship to the four of them; then they had fallen into the frenzied first stages of friend love. Phoebe took care not to show how much she preferred their company to anyone else’s, including that of her husband. In her proudest moment of wrangling Jake, she had convinced him to support a fund-raiser for Mira House—with the proceeds earmarked for giving women internships at the Cupcake Factory—flattering him until he threw his full business weight behind the event. They had raised over $500,000. Better yet, he had invested the money for Mira House, along with its capital fund. Now Mira House was a member of the Club.
Zoya polished the bakery’s antique golden oak floors until sunlight glinted off the wood. After trying out wrought iron stools, they decided comfort should reign. They wanted a place that parents and children would seek out. White paper on rollers covered square tables with mason jars of crayons plunked in the middle. The padded chairs, with oilcloth seats the color of lemon ices, had rungs where short legs could rest.
Their coffee machine was so massive it required two men for delivery and set up. Airy low-fat angel food cupcakes, along with “Skinny Kisses”—chocolate chip meringues with a whisper of sugar overdosed on vanilla—would draw in the thin sweet-desperate women of Greenwich.
Blue ribbon with yellow polka dots waited to be curled around gift boxes. Smaller orders would go into Provence blue bags with yellow circles.
An old-fashioned jukebox anticipated sugary fingers holding quarters. Songs from Frank Sinatra, Blondie, Pat Benatar, Michael Jackson, and Devo were chosen to satisfy all tastes and ages.
Jake had promised to leave work early to be there for the opening. Deb would bring their parents from Brooklyn.
“Mom?” Noah stood in front of her, solemnity shading his eyes.
“What, baby?”
“You really love this store, right?”
She didn’t think Noah would ask if she loved the store more than him; her sensitive boy skewed in other directions. At ten, he fretted over small beach creatures. Last weekend, he spent the afternoon guiding crabs back to the surf until Jake went to see why Noah had been crouching on the sand for hours.
“What the hell are you doing scavenging there all day?” Jake had yelled down from the deck, causing Noah to lie and say he was searching for coins.
Jake worried that Noah’s soft side would lead to poetry or painting. “Who cares?” she’d finally asked when his sputtering about their son’s time helping her bake became unbearable. “He can spend his life throwing pots on a wheel if that’s his passion.”
Jake had puffed up like a bullfrog until she’d thought he might actually physically explode at the idea of his son becoming a ceramicist.
“He’s coming into the business,” Jake had declared.
“You need to get over yourself, my darling.” Phoebe turned to leave, but his determination to have the last word was stronger and faster than her stride.
“He needs to learn to be a man.”
“He’s ten.”
“He’s my son.”
“And mine.” She’d lowered her voice. “Let him be himself. Come on, honey. Let’s see you relax for a few minutes. Why don’t we join him and see what’s so interesting.”
She’d managed to jolly Jake into an old Brooklyn College sweatshirt and onto the beach, where Noah went from stiffening up to showing off, once he saw that Jake was interested in his rescue operation.
“You see,” Jake had said, as though coming down to the sand had been his idea. “This is what it’s all about. Being able to walk down the stairs and be right here on the beach as a family.”
Phoebe leaned against him, his wide shoulders protecting her from the wind behind them. “When we were kids, Noah, a trip to the beach was a huge deal,” she explained. “Packing sandwiches. Packing up the car. Walking for miles over hot sand to get a space to put our blanket. See what Daddy has given us?”
Katie snuck up behind them. “Am I invited?” She and Noah skipped down to the shoreline. Soon the two of them were working together to build a rescue-the-crabs roadway.
Brilliant sun warmed them enough to combat the March wind. Phoebe left the comfort of Jake’s protective arms long enough to run upstairs and make egg salad sandwiches—harkening back to the ones her mother used to bring to Coney Island. When she returned, Jake lay back on two elbows, looking more relaxed than she’d seen him in too many years.
Remembering that day, Phoebe planted another seed for her Noah. “Yes. I do love the Cupcake Project. Remember, as an adult, you’ll spend almost as much time working as with your family. Maybe more. Make sure you choose work that makes you happy, my darling boy.”
? ? ?
By six o’clock, women, children, and a sprinkling of men packed the bakery. Phoebe’s parents kept squeezing her hand and grinning. “See, this is what I always wanted,” her mother said. “For you to use your head. Where’s Jake?”