I Once Baked a Cake for the Woman Who Was Boning my Husband.
I did other things for her too. I introduced her to my friends, I planned her birthday party. This is of course before I knew about the boning, but all whilst the boning was commencing.
It was a bad year for me, to put it mildly.
I made the cake in an effort to cheer her up after she had gotten fired.
Anyone who knows me knows I don’t cook much so it ended up being a somewhat hot mess of a cake. See, the center hadn’t cooked all the way through and I had to scoop out some raw batter from the middle. And after experimenting with various solutions of how to conceal the sizable hole, I just plugged it with an empty beer can and wrote “sorry you got canned” in black icing. Insert awkward teeth-baring emoji here.
The finished product ended up being way more hilarious than the basic cake I had intended. Luckily she loved it and I loved that I got to make her feel good. I’m sure not as good as my partner was making her feel, but still.
If you assumed that the women for whom I had baked this cake and I were good friends, then you’d be correct.
We texted on and off throughout the day and spent many weekends together. We went camping. She attended my birthday brunch with my group of girlfriends and I spent New Years at her apt in midtown. I was with her a lot. Oh and so was my partner. Did I forget to mention him? Yeah, he was there too. The whole time. He and me and her. She seemed like a really good friend.
Such a good friend even that when my doctors recommended chemo for me that summer after a cancer diagnosis she remarked casually, “I’d hate to have to shave my head again.” Implying that she had done it for another good friend of hers sometime in the past and was contemplating doing it for me. Quite a statement, right? For the record, I will not be shaving my head in solidarity for anyone, no matter how good of friends we are. And I would never ask anyone to do that for me. But she just sort of offered. She was declaring herself as 100% pure Colombian quality friend.
And I was about it.
I did wonder how her long hair had grown back so fast, so fast that her Facebook pictures didn’t hint at an awkward grow-out period.
But never mind about that. Good friends are special and I could tell she was committed to this friendship. I mean, ok I was kinda distracted by my health issues, but otherwise completely on the lookout for a disingenuous pal trying to lure away my partner during this time in my life, obvi.
I feel I have to tell you though how super supportive she was through these months. She came around often and brought food and movies for me and my husband, and her, to enjoy. I integrated her into my community ’cause she didn’t seem to have much of her own. My new friend had loads of free time evidenced by how much time she spent at our place. What luck. She was very comforting. And oddly available.
As the year wore on, my treatment wrapped up and she found a new job. My husband finally summoned the courage to leave me for her. I mean, they did go through so much together. It’s really romantic if you think about it.
I made her an amazing cake, but also I am kinda that cake.
No way was this the outcome I had planned for myself. But damn if the worst things can turn out to be what makes us, turn out to be special, genuine, and real, then fuck it, right? Real-life sneaks in through the floorboards. Life is exactly like a jacked-up, undercooked cake.
So what I’m saying is, I’d rather have the cake.
