Bundle of Joy

“Promise?” Daniel shoots back at me, and I should have known that he’d be all ears – in addition to being all eyes.

“You’re just lucky I can walk away from all of this, even for a minute,” I tell him, before doing just that.

He’s nodding his head in agreement, and chuckling, and I’m glad he knows I was just joking. I don’t want him to think I’m some anti-kid meanie. It’s just that I can only imagine the feeling of having to watch one kid all the time, let alone all these kids during said kid’s birthday party. I don’t envy him – that’s for sure.

When I get to the back room where the big freezer is, I see that my co-worker Michelle has already pulled out the cake and set it on the counter. It’s probably as wide as my waist is and half as tall.

And that’s saying a lot because I’m no dainty girl. In fact, I’ve been complimented on my curvy physique by quite a few men, although, again, I’m not trying to brag, but rather to focus on the positives of being a big girl, since there are quite a few negatives, including being stigmatized and hassled by those who don’t like a woman so large – so this cake is big.

It’s blue and red and shaped like a truck.

“Holy fuck,” I exclaim. “I’ve never seen a cake so big.”

I’d heard from the staff that this cake order had been the most elaborate the resort had ever received, but I wasn’t sure what exactly to expect.

“Just wait,” she says. “It’s got to be set up.”

“What do you mean, set up?” I ask her.

She shrugs and says, “Jason and Matt are going to take care of it” – referring to two of our other co-workers, “because I’m making them. It’s so fucking heavy I almost couldn’t lift it out of the ridge. What kind of pompous, pretentious six-year-old gets a whole wing of a ski resort rented out for him on his birthday, plus a huge cake like this, anyway?”

“Hey, my friend made that cake and she gives really good deals,” I start to protest, because I had hooked my friend Sally up with this lucrative gig.

She’s a baker who has her own business. I met her through my friend Maya, whose cousin Mikewas dating Sally at the time, although now they’re way more than just dating. Sally’s cakes are always delicious and gorgeous, and I was glad I could help spread the word about them.

She’s such a pro that I had no idea she had made such an extravagant cake. Perhaps she has made a lot of them and I just never knew. What I’d been trying to tell Michelle, though, was that her prices are modest compared to a lot of the custom bakeries in New York City – even when she has to deliver the cake up here to the ski mountain.

But Michelle is obviously not listening to what I’m saying, as she opens the fridge and points to a tray of boxed apple juice.

“You have the honor of taking these out there,” she says. “I’m getting the napkins and plates and other crap.”

“Okay,” I say, lifting up the tray and trying to focus on not toppling it over.

Let’s just say I make a much better ski instructor than waitress.

“Did Sally leave?” I ask, absent-mindedly, as I look around for her so I can tell her how good her cake looks.

If anyone could call this monstrous contraption only a cake.

“Who?” Michelle asks, scrunching her nose up at me.

“My friend Sally. The person who baked this cake. Is she still here?”

“Hmm, no,” Michelle says. “I think I saw her cute little bakery van earlier, but she got in and out pretty quickly after putting the cake in the freezer.”

“Wow, she was fast,” I reDaniel. “Good for her.”

Sally had recently upgraded her bakery and bought the van for deliveries. It didn’t hurt that Mikewas a billionaire and could invest in her business. But it was also doing well in its own right.

“Yeah. I think it must be resort policy to have the vendors take up the least amount of time and space as possible, or something, because that’s what they always seem to do,” Michelle says. “They probably don’t want them getting stuck up here on the mountain in case there’s a snowstorm, so for sake of avoiding liability, they send them away quickly. Or maybe they don’t want the riff raff service providers fraternizing with the uppity resort guests. I don’t know. No one tells me anything, since I’m too low on the totem pole.”

“Well, I’d better this stuff out there,” I tell her, making my way back to the party.

“I think there’s some serious over-compensating going on here.”

Michelle picks back up on her little tirade from before as she grabs some serving items and follows me down the hallway, back to where the kids are.