And Eat It Too

The sun glinting off the rose gold-plated clasp of a Gucci cakebox catches my eye. She looks like she can definitely afford the designer work of art dangling from her shoulder, no doubt housing maxed-out tiers of delicious plant-based vitamins, minerals, adaptogens, nootropics, pharmaceuticals and the best enhancers money can buy. She looks like a walking Annie Leibovitz portrait, floating through the café, being fawned over by everyone that brushes up against her chemically amplified aura. I try to avert my eyes, focus on my fellow have-nots, but it must be a privilege convention or something; I'm bombarded by Fendi, Versace, YSL, and Chanel. It’s not even the cakeboxes themselves that tear out my soul, so much as it's how vibrant those wearing them are with their perfect skin and features carved by an Exacto knife. Their unbelievable natural scents swirling together and filling the room with a gorgeous bouquet of wealth and chocolate.

I have to leave. But it's not cheap to rent a table at the most popular café at the most popular social noshing time, and my deposit is non-refundable. Samantha said she'd split it with me, but I always end up booking the table and she always forgets to pay. So now, of course, she's late and I'm trapped here being tortured by luxurious faux-leathers and furs, platinum buckles and hinges, and one of them even has the audacity to walk around with a diamond encrusted Hermès. I'm starving, but I don't even want to bring my own utilitarian fast-fashion hunk of disposable crap above table level in here; I'd rather eat cake off my lap like a monster.

If their 20/1 vision can even be bothered to see me, they must think I look like I'm dying. I only have two tiers in my plan, daily recommended nutrition and something for my ADHD, but that's it. Truly basic in the worst way. Unlike them, with all three tiers customized to their individual body chemistry and saturated with extravagant panaceas for every negative moment life could throw at them, I still need to sleep at least six hours a night and exercise. They have a massive advantage in life already, and that gap seems to widen with every passing moment. I'll age and die and they'll all be beautiful and fulfilled forever.

Thank god Samantha finally shows up before I do something stupid or violent.

"Hey girl, sorry I'm late," she waves with a smile, seemingly unaware that her Zara is showing, "There was a foodie on the train, stinking up a whole car, and the rest were packed."

"Don't say that out loud," I scold her, "You might offend someone."

"Here?" she looks around, "I don't think so."

"Well, they might know one," I persist, even though she's a hundred percent right. These people wouldn't step on a foodie if they sprawled across a puddle for them.

"Whatever, let's nosh."

I'm somehow slightly less self-conscious now that she's here, so I slowly raise my cakebox. I open it and pull out the cheap plastic milk flask, setting it down with an unsatisfyingly dull thud, which resonates in sharp contrast to the melodic ping of sterling silver hitting the wooden tabletops around us.

Nothing compares to that first bite of cake. Moist and spongy, thick and rich, a shot of chocolate heroin straight to the oxytocin receptors. Then the rush of pure health, scalp tingling, every cell breathing a sigh of relief as fresh nutrients flood through their membranes, the room clarifying as my brain finally relaxes and focuses on my friend.

“Did you hear Davey OD’d on dark choc?” Sam asks, still chewing with frosting coating the corners of her mouth.

“No, is he okay? What’s he doing messing with dark, his family’s loaded?” I gasp, even though I don’t know Davey that well. We hooked up once a couple years ago, but it wasn’t particularly memorable.

“He’s in the hospital. I think he’ll be okay, but his parents are sending him to rehab. He was on some next level illegal enhancer shit,” she stuffs another huge bite in her mouth and takes a swig of only lightly fortified milk.

“What an idiot,” I sigh, not really caring but still grateful for the gossip.

We finish our cake and exchange a few less scandalous bits of social buzz, then Sam has to go work on a class project. I swing my cakebox over my shoulder, trying to keep it hidden from the sea of dazzling eyes watching us leave. The anxiety builds and I want to run out the door, but I’m trudging through quicksand and every second expands into forever.

“Nice lunch pail,” some angel voiced bitch comments as I’m about to break free, and the chorus of belly laughter propels me out the door with tears exploding out of my eyes. I can still hear them inside, the whole café piling on, and I literally want to die. Sam pulls me up off the sidewalk and gives me a hug.

“Let’s nosh in the park tomorrow,” she suggests, and I couldn’t agree more.

No one wants to sit next to the girl on the train that can’t stop weeping. I literally cry myself to sleep and wake up god knows how long later, but I don’t recognize the stops. No one’s carrying cakeboxes and I immediately know I screwed up. I get out and it’s one of those stations where you have to go above ground and cross the street to catch the train in the other direction. I creep up the stairs terrified of what I’ll emerge into. A flicker of horrific thoughts runs through my head as my body rises above street level. The sun is setting and everything is in twilight shadow.

I’m hit immediately with the most horrible smell. I look up at an awning that reads “Fried Chicken.” I’m a long way from home.

I turn to run across the street toward the other subway entrance and trip, hitting the concrete hard. I’m stunned for a moment and feel like the ungodly odor in the air is seeping into my pores.

“Are you okay?” I hear a deep voice above me say. A hand extends toward me. I’m paralyzed with fear. My mom will never know that the reason she lost her only daughter was because she failed to acknowledge the importance of a couture cakebox. The countless arguments, begging, tears, and explanations of café hierarchy had no effect on her decision to suppress my social standing with this suicide-inducing accessory. I know we could never afford the third tier with all the enhancers, but she could’ve at least let me fake it until I made it and avoid the tyranny of the entitled class.

Attached to the hand of death is the calm, sweet face of a boy probably a few years older than me with wavy hair down past his ears. I can’t see the color of his eyes, but they’re bright and concerned. His strong arm helps me to my feet, and I think it’s not a bad last image on this earth.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, pointing to my cakebox. “I thought you cake eaters stayed uptown.”

“Please don’t hurt me,” I beg out of obligation, not because he actually seems threatening.

“Okay, I won’t,” he chuckles. “You seem to be doing a good enough job of that yourself.”

“I have to go,” I turn to speed walk across the street, but he grabs my arm hard and yanks me back toward him. I scream, immediately drowned out by a car horn as it zooms past.

“Try looking both ways this time,” he advises. I walk away again, this time checking for traffic. “Can I ask you something?”

“What?” I turn back, sort of wanting another glimpse of him anyway.

“I don’t know, actually,” he stammers, “I’ve just never met one of you before, so I’m curious. Would you want to, um, have you ever been to a diner?”

“What’s a diner?”

“A place to talk,” he says simply. It sounds awful, but something inside me wants to follow him. The unfamiliar natural adrenaline already making me high feels so good, I want more.

He tells me his name is Andres, has lived in this neighborhood his whole life and works at the hardware store his father owns. I tell him I attend a public college, but not which one, and haven’t decided on a major yet, all of which is basically an admission that I’m boring and have no direction.

I can’t identify a single odor in the diner, each is fouler than the last. The air feels heavy and dirty and it’s loud with clanking and metal scratching against some sort of flat pottery.

“Those are plates,” Andres explains, “and the metal things are silverware. They’re used to eat food.”

“That is so weird,” I wrinkle my nose, hoping it’s cute.

I flip through the giant plastic book on the table with pictures of weird things. I don’t recognize any of it until the end where there’s a single picture of chocolate cake, albeit an ugly one.

“Have you ever eaten anything other than cake?” he leans forward in the sticky vinyl booth.

“Why would I?”

“So you’ve never had pizza or a burger? You’ve never had a milkshake or a Coke?”

“I always shake my milk,” like I’m trying to sound worldly.

“From cows?”

“Cows?!” I burst out laughing.

“This is gonna blow your mind,” he smiles as a person approaches the table, but doesn’t seem dangerous. It’s a middle-aged woman with actual wrinkles in her face and I try not to stare. “Hey Whit. We’ll do two Cokes, two vanilla milkshakes, spaghetti, two pepperonis, cheeseburger, and a Caesar.”

She writes it down, but I can see her glance uncomfortably at my cakebox. When the order arrives, I have to pull my blouse up over my nose to stop my eyes from watering. Andres demonstrates how to use the silverware. He picks up the triangle with his hands and stuffs it into his mouth. I look away.

“Here,” he holds out a wet leaf, “start with salad.” It’s like what I imagine rotten lawn clippings would taste like. I spit it out. “Okay, okay,” he chuckles, “Let’s just go for it. Pizza. It’s physically impossible to hate pizza.” I pick up the other triangle and mimic exactly what he did. I’m slapped across the face with something so salty it stunts my breathing.

“What’s in this?” I struggle to swallow.

“Bread, cheese, pepperoni. The bread is wheat, just like cake. Maybe not your cake. Cheese comes from cows and pepperoni from pigs,” he explains. The initial shock that I just ate not one, but two animals in the same bite wears off once I realize I don’t totally hate it. I take another bite, and it goes down easier. I try the burger, sip the milkshake (my favorite), use a fork to twirl a red string that tastes a little like the triangle.

It’s getting late and my mom is going to be wondering where the hell I am. She’s spent my entire life ensuring I never encountered any of this and it would literally kill her to find out I’d spent an evening with an adorable foodie shoving pigs down my throat.

I’m so paranoid that I run upstairs and shower and brush my teeth three times. But my stomach is heavy in a way I’ve never felt before and it feels like there’s grease seeping out of my skin.

As I’m walking to bed I run back into the bathroom and vomit like a baby. It keeps happening, every couple minutes. The back of my eyes hurt, my throat burns, the taste I can’t even describe. And yet between every heave and fountain of diner slop, I can’t for the life of me wipe this literal shit-eating grin off my face.