I should find it absurdly cheesy really, but because of the way the place so happily embraced its fanciful theme, I just found myself reaching for my inner child and going with the flow.
Turning my Leica camera on, which I had strapped around my neck for easy access, I started taking photos.
Snap. Snap. Snap.
The sound reverberated throughout the place since most people were doing the same. It seemed like everyone invited to the soft opening had come, and the place was so crowded I had to resort to soft-focus shots most of the time. Thankfully, every little detail of Jane’s place was well thought out. Every item making up the eclectic assortment of table centerpieces had a story to tell: the DIY miniature birdhouse which Jane’s parents had built, the mason jars of crayon bits Jane had ordered from a favorite local charity, and then there were those vases of lovely paper flowers, which were surplus favors from a friend’s wedding.
Bending down, I tried to take a close-up shot of the birdhouse but suddenly, I just couldn’t.
Oh no, not again.
But it was already happening.
I looked at the birdhouse again, and it was no longer just a birdhouse. It had turned into something more, a place that could be a cage or a home.
Because that’s how love is – throw two people together, and if they love each other then you could lock them up for eternity, and it wouldn’t matter. As long as they were together, then that place was home.
But if it wasn’t love for both of them, then how beautiful a place was wouldn’t matter. It would always, always be a cage---
OH MY GOD, HAD I JUST LEGIT THOUGHT THAT?
I spun away, the sight of the birdcage now making me want to gag. That was the thing about being secretly – and immorally – heartbroken. It could drive you crazy when you had no one to talk to…like now.
Hurrying towards the patisserie display, I tried looking for something else to focus on and take photos of. The first tier of cupcakes offered the usual classics: French vanilla, carrot and cream cheese, red velvet, and lemon raspberry. But what set them apart were their adorable edible cupcake toppers, all of them supposedly containing a magical spell.
Pink unicorns to grant sweet dreams, lavender clouds to whisk away your sadness, and black-and-white hearts to ensure you looked good on your next date.
Great marketing strategy, I thought. Strategy was everything, really, and I could easily foresee the cupcake café’s success as long as it didn’t stop with the innovations. Bending down, I started taking photos of each cupcake.
Snap. Snap. Snap.
I zoomed in on the pink unicorn.
Snap.
A creature our minds knew was mythical but our hearts secretly insisted was real---
Just like when you love someone who already loved someone else.
Your mind would tell you it wasn’t possible. A person in love with someone else would stay in love with someone else. But the heart was a different matter. It would insist on the impossible. It would insist on dreaming when---
OH MY GOD, I’M AT IT AGAIN.
I was aghast and halfway to being hysterical. When the fuck would this end? When? Knowing that there was just no point taking more pictures when my stupid and immoral heartbreak had already ruined the sight of cupcakes for me, I straightened up and as I turned away---
“Aaah!”
Shit. Because I had been so distracted, I hadn’t seen the woman behind me and the next thing I knew, I had caused her to spill bubble-gum soda on her dress.
“I’m so sorry,” I immediately apologized.
The other woman looked up, and I recognized her right away. Shit. It was none other than Willa Ingress, a Snapchat user in her early twenties. She wasn’t beautiful in any sense of the word, but she did have the sexiest figure, and the younger woman hadn’t hesitated to use it to her advantage.
Her meteoric rise to popularity was rooted in two things: her penchant for wearing lingerie tops and a unique rating system for the places and products she was asked to review. A pout for the mediocre stuff, a wink for the stuff that she approved, an eye-roll for those that she hated, and a happy wiggle of her huge breasts for all the things that she absolutely loved.
Word on the street was that those breast jigs weren’t quite authentic, and Willa would be more than happy to shake them for the right price. It was grossly unethical, but since I had always been the live-and-let-live type, how she worked wasn’t my business. And it still wasn’t, even though by the way she was glaring at me, I could tell it wasn’t the same for her.
Shit, I thought again. Her last client, a popular sports footwear brand, had recently purchased a couple of sponsored posts on my site, and I had a feeling Willa saw it as a declaration of war – from me.