With Era and Seth both slammed at work, a lot of the wedding tasks that could be delegated got assigned to their friends and family. The one task Era wasn’t going to miss out on? Picking out the cake. Seth didn’t have much of a sweet tooth, so he didn’t much care what the cake tasted like, just that it looked cool.
So Camila and Ivy were more than happy to fill in for the groom when it involved trying lots of baked goods.
Ivy was the newest addition to their friend group. They’d met a couple of years ago, in the aftermath of Camila’s borderline personality disorder diagnosis, when she needed a physical outlet for her overwhelming emotions. She’d started going to Ivy’s gym, where they became fast friends, and then Ivy hit it off with Era, too. Even though she’d known Era most of her life and Ivy just for a fraction of it, it felt like it had always been this trio.
Camila was enamored with all the intricate details, the elaborate fondant masterpieces that dominated Pinterest and every wedding blog Era forwarded to her. Ivy had insisted on this particular bakery. She swore their cakes were the best in town, Prantl’s burnt almond torte be damned.
For a martial artist with a strict high protein diet, Ivy sure had strong opinions about dessert. She had a spreadsheet of cake and filling combinations she wanted to try.
A spreadsheet. She and Era were a bad influence.
Era had made Ivy narrow it down. “Having too many choices is inefficient,” she’d said.
“But I made a spreadsheet, Era,” Ivy had said. “It is so organized. Look at this. Look at all the columns and the color coding. I thought you’d both be so proud. I watched a YouTube tutorial and everything!”
Now they approached the young man behind the counter, who pointed them toward a booth when they said they were there for an appointment.
“Their lemon custard is insane,” Ivy said, her voice reverent. “Era, you should really have a dessert table. Honestly, it’s a waste not to. Put that tech money to use.”
Camila would have laughed, but she was distracted by thoughts of the flaky spanakopita she’d noticed when they arrived.
A few minutes later, a woman in chef whites approached the booth, rolling a cart of tiny plates and saucers. She was petite and tan, with cherubic cheeks and full lips exaggerated by her angular nose and jaw. Wisps of brown hair escaped her messy chignon. The dark circles under her eyes didn’t take away from her youthful appearance, and Camila chastised herself for wondering how she could possibly be the owner of a whole bakery when she looked no older than a college sophomore.
“Hi!” she said brightly. “I’m Analeigh Fonseca.”
“It’s a pleasure. Thank you for taking the time. I’m Era, this is Camila, and this is —”
“Oh, I’ve met this one,” Analeigh said, beaming at the third member of their trio. “Ivy! I’m always down for more business, but you’re just trying to get free buttercream, aren’t you?” She put her hands on her full hips.
“You do have the tastiest buttercream,” Ivy said suggestively. Analeigh snorted.
Era gave Camila a look that said, Best cakes in town, huh? Camila responded via best friend mind meld, More like best ass in town, and just as quickly they retrained their faces to neutral.
“OK, OK, let’s keep it profesh,” the pastry chef said as she arranged the first row of trays on the table before sliding into the booth next to Ivy. “So, just to start out, these are vanilla, almond, lemon and banana cakes. These are my favorite base flavors, but I can make anything you want. These are my guava, mango and dulce de leche fillings. And here’s cream cheese frosting, Italian meringue and marshmallow fondant. So you can mix and match, and I’ll talk you through the pairings I like the most. But again, totally customizable, and if it exists in the world, I can bake it. So get inspired, but don’t feel like you’re limited to this.”
“Dessert table,” Ivy muttered. Era pointed her fork at her in a warning.
They worked their way through the samples on the first tier of the dessert cart. As Ivy and Analeigh chatted about the flavors — well, as Ivy moaned and called Analeigh a culinary angel while her mouth was full of banana cake — Era took notes on her smartphone and Camila snapped pictures of images in the baker’s portfolio. Analeigh answered their questions about cake design, giving thoughtful suggestions.
Camila tried a bite of yellow cake with guava filling and cream cheese icing. The combination triggered memories of the guava and cream cheese turnovers mami would make.
“Necesitas un cafecito cubano with that mix, don’t you think?” Analeigh said, offering Camila a Cuban coffee.
“Ya tú sabes,” Camila said. “Could I order a cup?”
Analeigh signaled the kid behind the counter and held up four fingers. “Cafecitos, please. On the house.”
“OK, I’ve gotta get in on this guava action,” Ivy said.
A super strong cup of coffee and several combinations later, they’d narrowed it down to the yellow cake with either the lemon custard or the guava filling. The Italian meringue just edged out the cream cheese, but Analeigh snuck in a sample for Camila along with the bag Era was bringing home.
“You can email with any questions or stop by,” she said brightly. She shook Camila and Era’s hands and gave Ivy a hug, keeping her hand on her back for a moment after they parted. “And you can send me a link to a Pinterest board with any designs you like, at your convenience, of course.”
Era typed something on her phone. “Sent, and deposit paid. Thanks again for your time!”
“Wow, thanks,” Analeigh said, shaking Era’s hand. “That was ... efficient.”
“I was the one who made the spreadsheet,” Ivy bitched.
Once they were outside, Camila said, “Well, she’s cute.”
“Is she?” Ivy asked. “You know, I never really paid attention.”
Era gave her some intense side-eye. “You’re lucky the cakes really were that good. I didn’t prepare to be your wingwoman. So what’s the story? Did you two have a thing?”
Ivy shook her head.
“You gonna ask her out?” Camila asked.
“I don’t know, she probably has a curfew,” Ivy said.
“Oh, stop,” Era said. “She can’t be that young.”
“Yeah, you’re, what, a decade apart at most?”
“A decade might as well be two. Different life stages, babes,” Ivy said. “She’s hot, but I want to find my Mrs., so sometimes, you just have to lick the spoon and pretend it’s the whole cake.”
* * *
The rest of Camila’s weekend had been spent in typical fashion. She’d worked out at Ivy’s gym, binged podcasts while cleaning every last speck of dirt out of her apartment, and forced Era to sit down with her for a home-cooked meal.
She did some mild cyberstalking of Zach, who had a frustratingly slim social media presence. He had a website that was little more than a landing page. His photo account had breathtaking images from his travels, landscapes and faces framed through an artist’s eye, but there weren’t many pictures of him. She thought about what he said about lacking a social life and didn’t know how to parse it. How game he had been to be silly with a bunch of strangers, to humor her and her friends by getting on stage. It was unexpected and charming. But maybe to him, that didn’t count. Maybe he felt like he was in the background of his life.
As much fun as The Long Pig had been, big social interactions drained her, and she always needed to slow things down to recharge. She cherished her quiet routines these days, often thinking they were the only thing keeping her this side of sanity. It was always a push and pull with her — missing chaos, and being so grateful for her stability.
By Monday, she was thrilled to be out of the house and back to work. Especially because of who was on the schedule today.
She was of two minds about playing favorites with clients, and her attitude on this had definitely evolved in the six years since she got licensed. She wanted everyone she worked with to have an excellent standard of care, and she didn’t let her opinion on whether she’d want to interact with each person outside of the office cloud her professional judgment.
On the other hand, she was only human, and she adored Lexie.
Lexie was a 20-year-old college student and avowed hot mess whose romantic entanglements were the stuff of CW dramas. She was studying to become an English teacher.
Every Monday before her afternoon literary theory class, Lexie would see Camila for help with anxiety.
Camila scanned her office. She had a pitcher of iced lemon water and a single-serving coffee maker for clients, a bin of squishy balls and stress toys that were beloved more by her adult clients than the younger ones, and the cuddliest throw pillows imaginable. She fluffed the pillows and stepped into the waiting room.
“Hi Lexie!” she said brightly, before taking in the young woman’s bloodshot eyes and red pinpricked cheeks.
Lexie swallowed a sob, crumpling a used tissue in her fist.
“Hi,” she choked out, her chest heaving.
Oh fuck. “Why don’t you come on back?” Camila said.
As soon as she was seated, Lexie exploded in sobs.
Camila moved a box of tissues closer to her and waited.
“It’s OK,” she said, soft and reassuring. “It’s OK. When you’re ready to tell me what’s going on, I’m here.”
The ragged sobs picked up intensity then plateaued.
“So I had that presentation party I told you about,” Lexie said after blowing her nose. Camila scanned through her mental notes to the session when Lexie had excitedly talked about possible topics for the any-topic-goes PowerPoint party. Lexie settled on a comparative analysis of sci-fi/fantasy DILFs, ranking them based on their parenting choices, presence in their child/ward/prophesied savior’s lives, and general hotness. It was a welcome distraction from the pressure she put on herself about her courseload.
Lexie won Best of the Night. That achievement earned her the coveted Golden Eggplant Trophy.
She was riding high on the win and the praise, knocking back her third glass of moscato, when the night took a turn.
“Matt was there,” she said. Of course he was. The grim coda to that wasn’t a surprise either. “With his new girlfriend.”
An ex showing up at a party with a new girlfriend was bad enough on its own, but Camila knew all about Lexie and Matt’s complicated history. Well, complicated to Lexie. As much as Camila believed in her soul that people were capable of growth, Matt was on chance 15, by her count, and the only growth he’d shown was becoming an even bigger piece of shit.
Matt once told Lexie that he wasn’t a “girlfriend kinda guy,” but that if he had a girlfriend, it would definitely be Lexie.
He’d kept her strung along on that thread for at least six months, and now, it turned out he actually was a girlfriend guy — Lexie just wasn’t the girlfriend.
But that didn’t stop him from flirting with her when his statuesque new girl, a pre-med Mia Khalifa lookalike, went to the bathroom.
How did mediocre men like Matt pull women so above their station?
Camila listened intently, not interjecting with advice. She knew from both professional and personal experience the best thing for today was to let Lexie just vent and help her leave with resources to tolerate the distress. It would be a while before she was ready to look at this differently, not get lost in the plot of who had said what when or how they’d said it and where it happened. Eventually, she’d help Lexie get to the themes of this story that kept repeating, figure out what it meant and how she could change things.
After Lexie, Camila’s next client was an 11-year-old girl dealing with her parents’ divorce and who was having a hard time making friends after moving to Pittsburgh from New York. Once a month, Camila sat down with both Maggie and her mom.
But today it was just Maggie. It took a handful of sessions before Maggie said much. Then Camila had brought out some board games and suggested they play one together instead of Maggie trying to come up with something to talk about. Maggie had chosen the box of Jenga, and as their tower grew in height, she told Camila about how she used to build LEGO sets with her dad and how much she missed him, and how she resented her mom for moving them away. Over time, Camila got the sense that Maggie was sabotaging her attempts at making new friends at school. She didn’t want to put down roots here. If she was miserable enough, and if the misery never abated, then maybe her mom would take her back to New York.
So they played Jenga, and with Maggie occupied and able to avoid eye contact, she could open up. Like about how her mother had forced her this week to take a classmate up on an invitation to the Dormont pool, and how Maggie had been so nervous about going that she puked the night before. The pool date had turned out to be fun and uneventful, and Maggie wondered aloud if she should invite her tentative friend over to her apartment soon.
Maggie handily defeated Camila at Jenga — Camila blamed too much coffee making her elderly mid-thirties hands shake — and they scheduled their next session.
She had 30 minutes for lunch before her next appointment. She absentmindedly ate her leftover arroz con pollo while scrolling through the Vulture section of New York Magazine. Her last tab had been Zach’s sparse website. She flinched as she banished the tab, ready to pretend she wasn’t at all interested. The guy had given her one great kiss and a too-short grope, and he had good taste in podcasts. Nothing to get swoony about.
She filmed a quick TikTok and saved it to her drafts.
She changed the scent on her diffuser to ylang ylang, the favorite of the couple she was seeing next.
Todd and Paul had been married for three years. Todd was a professional cuddler. He would meet with clients in his office and spend sessions hugging, spooning, holding hands, and listening with a compassionate ear. There was nothing sexual about it — just platonic, consensual physical affection.
Paul was an accountant. You would think with those mismatched careers they were total opposites, but they had this easy, playful dynamic that was obvious even in the briefest of interactions with them. The problem they were dealing with was related to Todd’s job, but not because Paul had any issues with Todd’s unconventional career. The problem was that after cuddling people all day, Todd was touched out. He yearned to reclaim his personal space at the end of the workday, and Paul, who was deeply affectionate, felt deprived of his partner’s touch. So Paul was struggling with wanting to respect his husband’s boundaries and support him, but also feeling like his needs were being totally neglected.
They had a frustrating session. Camila felt like she wasn’t making any progress with them and it was causing her a lot of anxiety. She perhaps wasn’t validating Paul’s feelings enough because she personally sympathized more with Todd. They scheduled individual sessions. Hopefully she could get her shit together by then and actually be helpful.
Viviane was the last person on her schedule, and she had just canceled. So she’d finish typing notes about her sessions then call it a day. She fantasized about dinner. Maybe Mediterranean? She could go for some dolmas and falafel.
She saw the notification and credited the little flip her stomach did to hunger, not to the message.
Zach had sent her a video. It looked like he was in his living room, his socked feet propped up on an ottoman, a scene from El Chavo del Ocho playing with subtitles on the giant flat-screen. Camila had the strange sense she’d fallen through a time warp, the wholesome images from her childhood swirling uneasily with images of the cute boy she kept thinking about.
She zoomed in on his socks, feeling voyeuristic even though he’d sent her the clip. The socks had tiny pink elephants on them. This made her grin in a fashion most unbecoming to a cool girl as herself.
Camila
Zach
Camila
Zach
You could do me, she thought of responding. Sweet fuck. She had to be stopped.
Camila
Zach
Camila decided on the truth.
Camila