The following weekend, while Cassandra was off at the Harvard Club being tied to a four-poster (one of the old-fashioned rooms had become available to her and Edward at the last moment after all), Sylvie continued to rake in money at the lemonade stand. It was a beautiful, warm Saturday and Fort Greene was full of young couples and parents with children and even Manhattanites, who kept reading in the Styles section that Brooklyn was now paradise on earth and were curious to go and check it out. Sylvie’s lemonade stand was just the kind of charming, scrappy little touch they were hoping to see and they were delighted to give her their business. A couple of them even asked Sylvie if they could buy the gray velveteen tablecloth, but Sylvie, realizing that it had value, was determined to hold on to it.
Gala hadn’t been able to make it to the lemonade stand either, being too hungover. So Sylvie got Hannah, the nanny of that little boy Julius, to help out. Hannah was plain and therefore unlikely to attract foot traffic like Gala or even Cassandra. But she had something that neither of them did: a work ethic. Sylvie made a note to keep using Hannah as long as she could; even better, she had done it for free and Sylvie saw no reason to bring up the subject of paying her before Hannah did.
On Saturday night, with Edward dozing beside her in the four-poster, Cassandra texted Sylvie:
OMG. PROFESSOR SOBEL JUST INVITED ME TO HAVE DINNER AT LE BERNARDIN. ACCEPT?
Sylvie to Cassandra:
WHAT THE HELL IS LE BERNARDIN? IS IT EXPENSIVE?
Cassandra to Sylvie:
FAMOUS AND FRENCH. DEFINITELY EXPENSIVE.
Sylvie to Cassandra:
I GUESS YOU CAN LET HIM FUCK YOU IF IT’S REALLY THAT EXPENSIVE.
Sylvie googled Le Bernardin from her BlackBerry and was pleased to discover that it was a famous fish restaurant. Sylvie loved fish and almost never got the chance to eat it because it was so expensive. She’d have to ask Cassandra to remember to bring her a doggie bag.
On Monday night, Cassandra was wheeling her orange suitcase back into the apartment, only to realize that Sylvie was already in there smoking a joint. Oh dear, thought Cassandra, and it occurred to her with a pang of guilt that she wished Sylvie weren’t home tonight. She just wanted to take a shower and unpack and relax. But here was Sylvie, and with a certain zesty sharpness in her eyes that was getting all too familiar. Not even marijuana could soften the edges of her, these days.
“Cassandra! Guess what? I got my first investor! Toby is giving me five thousand dollars!”
“Toby?”
“This kid I know from Cooper Union. He’s a green architect. Maybe you haven’t met him yet. Anyway. I know him only because he used to sleep with Gala, but he has a crush on me now and he’s one of the only people I know who has a real, adult job and any money at all to speak of. I talked to him today and got him all excited about Clementine’s Picnic.”
“What?”
“Clementine’s Picnic. We discussed that being the name of the lemonade stand. That’s what I’m calling it now! My business. After all! Clementine is my good luck charm.”
“Yeah, I just didn’t realize it was so official all of a sudden. Wait. Did you say he was giving you five thousand dollars?”
“Yeah! He’s super into the environment, so I think the whole local foods angle got him. And it helped when I said I’d pose for the calendar, I think.” Sylvie laughed.
“What calendar?” asked Cassandra, thinking to herself: Local foods? Sylvie bought the ingredients for her cupcakes at the Target at Atlantic Center.
“We got this idea to do a calendar of hot girls in Brooklyn, nude, eating cupcakes from Clementine’s Picnic. Cassandra! Just look me in the eyes and tell me that’s not brilliant.”
“Hmm,” Cassandra said, thinking.
“Oh! I have to text Gala to let her know about the calendar. I have to get her to pose, of course.”
It was in this fashion that Cassandra first learned that Sylvie had no intention of asking her to pose for the calendar— not that she would have wanted to exactly, because she thought it was lame. But still. It just proved what she had always suspected, ever since they were teenagers, which was that Sylvie didn’t think that Cassandra was as hot as she was.
“Oh also, here’s another idea I had. Once it takes off, I want to get Clementine’s Picnic to start operating at night. You know how you always get late-night cravings for sweets? Like how we always used to go get Nutella? I was thinking, people would totally buy my cupcakes at night. And I feel like there’s a real market here, you know? It’s about time that somebody provided an alternative to those child molester ice cream trucks!”
“Child molester ice cream trucks?”
“You know! Those greasy white trucks that look like they’re from the seventies that go rattling down the streets at night, with some low-life guy sitting there peddling unwholesome frozen treats to the neighborhood children. Jesus! Those things give me the creeps.”
“Oh,” said Cassandra, relieved, “Mister Softee.”
“Oh, is that what they’re called? Anyway. I think I’m really onto something here. I think there’s a market.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Another thing. Did I tell you that the Italian ice guy bought a cupcake from us last week? Hannah told me all about it. He was really checking out our operation, Hannah said.”
“Oh, good.”
“Good! Cassandra, is that all you have to say? Cassandra, it’s an incredible compliment, is what it is! He was an immigrant. Those people don’t spend their money on stupid shit the way Americans do. They send it back to their families in Nicaragua or wherever. Cassandra! I feel like you’re not even listening to me. You seem really out of it tonight.”
“If I could just take a shower—”
“Yeah, why don’t you? You smell like sex. Dirty sex.”
“Well, what of it? This apartment smells like lemons. Dirty lemons.”
It came to her in a sickening wave that that’s what this scent was, this scent that seemed to have penetrated the whole of the apartment and even her skin: that of rotting, once beautiful, once innocent plump young yellow lemons. Their numbers were mounting and their corpses still decaying in Sylvie’s hallway. Oh no, I hope I’m not coming down with a migraine, she thought.
“Before you get in the shower, I just wanted to ask you something, really quickly. No big deal. But I was hoping you could give me a thousand dollars, to start.”
“For what?”
“For Clementine’s Picnic. Obviously I want you to be one of the first investors,” said Sylvie, in a royal tone of voice that suggested that she was doing Cassandra an honor.
“Oh yeah, well, we can talk about that a little later. After I get out of—”
“Oh, but it’s kind of time sensitive.”
“Time sensitive?”
“It just is. I have so much momentum right now. I don’t want to lose it!”
“Well, you won’t lose it by letting me get in the shower, I don’t think.”
“I’ve made up my mind, Cassandra. I have to be serious about this thing and to do that I need to start getting more investors. The more investors I have, the more it will start to look like I have a legitimate business.”
“Oh, okay. Well, that’s great, Sylvie. But, since you brought it up, I don’t really think I can afford to be an investor right now. Maybe—”
Sylvie panicked. The day had been going so well and she hadn’t counted on Cassandra being so difficult. Cassandra was usually so easy where money was concerned. Not for nothing, thought Sylvie, was the phrase taking candy from a baby a cliché.
“But Cassandra, you have t—”
“But Sylvie. You’re doing quite well, it seems to me. You’ve been doing fine ever since you started babysitting. Good for you! That’s fantastic about Toby giving you the five thousand dollars.”
“Yeah, but it’s not enough, obviously. I’ll need to get other investors. And I was counting on getting at least a thousand from you right now.” In fact, she had been counting on getting much more from Cassandra, over time. “I need to buy an industrial-size refrigerator, see—”
“Sylvie, I really want to get in the shower. I’m desperate to get in the shower.”
“Cassandra!” Sylvie was shrieking as Cassandra slammed the bathroom door.
And then Cassandra, trying as best she could to rinse shampoo out of her hair under the anemic water pressure, recalled that Pansy Chapin had asked her to be her roommate. It struck her that she was having the exact same thought Sylvie had had all those years ago when she first moved to New York—a beautiful, dewy, untested young thing just twenty-two years old, and living in Greenwich Village with Rosa Lalage.
Jesus Christ! I’ve got to get out of this place.