Winston's Chocolate Cake

Vivaldi’s Spring blared loudly from Winston's phone. Oh man, he thought. Another day. He quickly fumbled to find his phone, which was lost somewhere in his bed. He felt the phone under his pillow, but it clattered on the floor as he grabbed it.

The phone’s exposure made the alarm sound even louder. He sighed as he reached carefully towards the phone and silenced the alarm.

Winston sighed and rolled over in his bed, drifting back to sleep again. After about five minutes, a loud banging came through the door.

“Get up you lump. I don't need you losing your job because you're late every day!” screeched his mother. Her laboring footsteps trailed away from the door. He sighed again and sat up. Bleary-eyed, he walked into his bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth.

Oh, I'm not such a lump, Winston thought after twisting his clean face from side to side in the mirror. I look a bit like Ed Sheeran at the right angle. He reached for a comb and wrangled his matted reddish-orange hair. It still had remnants of the bowl cut from a month earlier, but he clearly needed a fresh cut.

After grooming himself, Winston tiredly hobbled back into his room. He reached into his closet and expertly retrieved a shirt and pants from the pile at the bottom of the closet. He smelled them—clean enough. He tossed on the shirt and pants.

After grabbing his keys, wallet, and phone, Winston teetered out of his room and straight to the kitchen. He basically had one minute to eat in order to leave for work on time. He scanned the kitchen. Nothing was made, of course, because his mother’s breakfast was a Jack Daniels, which left her incapable of cooking. Winston sighed again and looked in the fridge. As usual, he saw leftovers that looked like alien food, packages of bacon and other meats that required some intensive cooking, and a swallow of milk left in the jug on the top shelf.

Then he noticed a foreign plastic container at the bottom of the fridge. He braced himself and teetered over to take a closer look. It was a 4-inch round German chocolate cake.

Using his free hand, Winston gently slid the cake out from its safe haven at the bottom of the fridge and balanced it in his large hand. Clearly, this was a cake for him, as his mother hated the coconut glaze of German chocolate cake. Not wanting to take his chances to receive a lecture on eating cake for breakfast, Winston called out a hurried “Bye mom!” as he closed the fridge. She bellowed some unrecognizable language from her room as Winston scooted out the door with seconds to spare.

Winston shuffled to his car, a 20-year-old grey Honda Civic in surprisingly good body condition. As he never left the small town, the car had barely over 100 thousand miles. His mother gave him the car after his dad passed away from a sudden heart attack when he was 17. The car was still in her name, but he was truly the owner since his mother never drove anywhere. Either Winston or one of her friends was her chauffeur.

Even though he had a scholarship at State College, clearly his mother needed his help to survive after his father’s death. Luckily, Mr. Pearman gave him a job right out of high school to work in his office. Winston was grateful for the job, but he had no hope for promotion. The job also didn’t pay enough for him to rent his own place. But it was the best he could do with his limited education in this small town.

Winston turned on the Civic and glanced at the cake in the passenger seat. His stomach grumbled like a roaring lion, but, aware of the time, he quickly opened the container and pawed a chunk of the cake. After stuffing it in his mouth, Winston furiously swiped his hands to clear them for driving, dispersing brown crumbs all over his clothes. With no time to clean further, he backed out the driveway and directed his car down Meadow Lane towards HIghway 21, his route to work.

Winston quickly glanced into the intersection to ensure that he was clear to go, but as he merged into traffic, he barely saw the red car zooming past him. He honked his horn loudly and panicked. The red car lost control and screeched into a ditch across from Pete’s Petrol. As Winston calmly merged over to turn left into Pete’s, he glanced at the car and saw that it was a red BMW belonging to James Finderoff, the class jock and local bully.

Couldn’t have happened to a better person, Winston growled as he pulled into Pete’s. A couple cars stopped to check on Finderoff, but he appeared unscathed as he stumbled out of his smashed car.

Winston dreaded the thought of having to let Pearman know that he will be late again. He grabbed his cell phone and texted Pearman that he was having car trouble. Mr. Pearman texted back almost immediately that there was an emergency at work and he was sending everyone home anyway. Winston breathed a sigh of relief but was curious about the emergency. He decided he would ask Pearman later.

As he opened the door and lumbered out of the car, he quickly swiped his hands and brushed off the spattering of crumbs from his clothes onto the ground. He was so shaken by the near-miss that he decided he would go into Pete’s to talk to the cashier, his good friend Bella.

Bella was his high school classmate who was also trapped in town to care for an ill parent. Her mother had MS, which degraded her body so much that Bella worked to afford around-the-clock care. She had long, mousy brown hair and tiny freckles that dotted her face. She wore the same bulky brown frames she had in high school, only replacing the lens every couple of years as her prescription changed. Winston thought she was beautiful since high school but never said anything as he didn’t think that she liked him. In any case, their situations made it impossible for them to be anything more than caretakers.

“What happened over there?” Bella called out to Winston.

“It’s just Finderoff being a Class A jerk like usual,” Winston quipped. “Don’t worry, he’s fine.”

“But what about you, are you okay?” Bella said with a sudden look of concern.

“Yeah--yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for asking,” he said shyly.

“Well good, I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Winston and Bella caught up, as there were no customers in the store because they were curious about Finderoff’s accident, which now was blocked off by police and EMTs. It was nice to talk to a peer again. Winston’s coworkers shunned him and he had gotten used to being isolated anyway because of his mother. It seemed that Bella felt the same way.

“Hey, I get off at 2. If you aren’t doing anything…” Bella started.

“Maybe we can grab lunch, see a movie or something?” Winston finished.

Bella smiled. “There is a new Marvel movie out that I’ve been wanting to see.”

“Well, it’s a date--I mean, not a date, but uh--”

“I know what you mean,” Bella said, smiling.

Winston smiled as he headed towards the door. “I’ll pick you up at three.”

“See you then!” Bella gave a timid wave as Winston exited the store.

Winston got into his car and glanced down at the cake container. It was smashed horrendously, most likely due to the maneuvering he had to do to avoid the accident. He sighed and decided to go back home to see where he could get more cake.

Winston braved the rubbernecking traffic to go back home. Once he was back in the house, he saw his mother sitting sullenly at the kitchen table. He thought perhaps she had too much to drink again, but he was determined to find out about the cake, despite her mood.

“Hey Ma, where did you get that cake from?”

His mother looked puzzled as she focused on him from her intense stare. “What cake, dear?” she quietly asked.

Winston shrugged. She was probably too drunk to recall. He will figure it out later. But now he needed to get ready for his “date” with Bella. When he reached the room, a wave of exhaustion hit him. It was unusual for him to be tired so early, but maybe the excitement of the morning overwhelmed him. He set the alarm on his phone for 1 PM and laid on top of his covers. Just a quick nap, he thought.

He didn’t remember drifting away, but he woke up even more tired, blinded by the lights in his room. Oh no, I hope I didn’t oversleep, he thought. He didn’t want to mess up his first date since high school. But as he focused more, he saw his mother standing over him. What was she doing in his room?

“You’re awake! Thank God!” she cried. “Are you okay, dear?”

“Sure I’m okay, why is everyone asking that?” Winston mused aloud before realizing the slowness in his speech. The room grew more into focus, and he could hear the soft beeps of the machine next to him. He realized he was in a hospital room.

Seeing the confusion on his face, his mother explained, “You were in a bad accident, dear. That Finderoff boy ran you off the road and into a ditch. We thought you weren’t going to make it because you hit that ditch hard.” She started sobbing.

Winston’s face turned from confusion into anger. So Finderoff did hit him. And all the rest---it was all a dream. He started sobbing softly as well.

“Don’t worry, dear,” Winston’s mother cooed, stroking his red hair that was even longer now than he remembered. “Finderoff was charged with reckless endangerment and is in jail now. But we are so glad you are alive!”

We? Winston wondered.

“People have been coming every day, making sure you and I are okay. Some of them even left cards and flowers.”

Winston glanced to the right and there was a table full of flowers. He smiled weakly. He thought he was invisible to the world, but it seemed that those closest to him, even in a superficial way, really cared.

Winston’s mother stood up slowly, “I have to let the nurses know you are awake and then I will get some lunch from the cafeteria. But before I go, I wanted to give you this--” She pulled out a small plastic container from her purse. “This was supposed to be a surprise for you, but I guess you were taking it to work with you. It was destroyed in the car crash but I picked up another one from the new bakery in town. It’s your favorite.” She handed him a 4-inch round German chocolate cake, the same one from the fridge. Winston smiled back.

His mother leaned into the hospital bed and whispered, “I realize that both you and I have to move on with our lives. Your father died over 20 years ago. It took this accident for me to realize that we have to keep on living while we are still here. You are still young and have a life ahead of you yet.”

Winston’s mother patted his head and then slowly walked out of the room. He glanced down at the cake container and set it on the hospital tray next to his phone, which was cracked but still functional. He unlocked the phone and called Bella, who was anxious to hear from him. For once in his life, he was hopeful about the future.