Kacy looked at April, at her chunky legs and acne-pitted cheeks and the little half-moon of scalp that interrupted her hairline, and she saw the only thing she could save. “Change of plans,” she said. She took the key to the car off her ring and handed it to Skillet. “You drive him, William,” she said. “April, you’re coming with me in the minivan.”
Skillet stood still, the car key resting in his open palm. The key was the same silver color as the piece of metal he’d seen fit to stick through his face. He looked stupefied. Kacy wondered if he was on something.
“We should be with Dad,” April said in the van. “This is fucked. This is so fucked.”
“There’s something I want you to see,” Kacy said, “some people I want you to meet.” She imagined the Dinaburg girl, a pale East Coast beauty, slim and beautiful in a Vera Wang dress, with a torrent of tight, dark, beautiful curls. “And let’s clean up the language.”
The tires squealed as Kacy turned onto South Congress, narrowly beating a red light. April, with the filthy bucket hat clenched in one hand, started running her other hand through her hair, front to back, front to back, front to back, in a perfect, metronomic rhythm. Her eyes were far away. “Don’t worry, honey,” Kacy said as they drove across the bridge. “Everything’s going to be all right. You’ll see.”
They arrived at the Four Seasons at 5:21. Kacy left the van with a valet and hurried into the earth-toned lobby, pulling April along with her. Between two lemon trees in terra-cotta pots, a sign with Dinaburg-Fleischner Wedding in white plastic letters pointed guests to the east wing. They went downstairs, where Kacy knew they’d find the dressing rooms for the wedding parties. She heard Dinaburg’s voice raised high with good cheer and, with a tug on April’s arm, followed it to a half-open door. Dinaburg, wearing a white yarmulke, stood with his back to them, a glass of red wine in his hand. He looked good in his tuxedo, she thought; his shoulders sloped more than she liked, but his butt had a cute little curve to it — not like Roger’s sheer-drop wall of an ass. She caught a glimpse of a long white dress in the far corner of the room. The bride was surrounded by people — one of whom, Kacy guessed, was Dinaburg’s snarly bitch of a wife — but she could tell that the girl was a tiny thing, with porcelain skin and a button nose and thin wrists and the dark curls that Kacy had imagined.
She pulled her daughter close, about to whisper, See the bride? Doesn’t she look beautiful? But when she turned to look at April’s full-moon face up close, she stopped herself. She saw patches of hair missing from both of April’s eyebrows. Some of her eyelashes were gone, too; what had once been soft fans now looked like insect wings torn apart by cruel little boys. Pinpoints of blood red dotted the rims of her eyes, which still held a vacant, checked-out look. She instantly regretted bringing April with her. Forcing her to admire Dinaburg’s daughter would be awful, unforgivable. “Let’s go,” she said, leading April away from the door. “Let’s go see the cake.”
“Who were those people?” April asked.
“They’re from New York,” she said.
The kitchen staff said nothing when they walked through the swinging doors. They all recognized her from previous weddings; they’d jumped at the orders she’d barked, kept a safe distance while she’d added the final decorations and circled the cake, searching for imperfections. “Where’s the cake?” Kacy demanded. “I’m a special consultant to Mr. Dinaburg.” One of the dishwashers pointed to the leftmost walk-in and turned back to his work. Kacy pulled the handle and opened the heavy silver door. They went in.
The cake sat tall on a serving cart. Mist swirled in on currents of humid kitchen air. She felt a strange mix of disappointment and glee. The cake was big, garish, loud, a monstrosity. Nine tiers of chocolate excess and opulence and self-indulgence. Strawberries crowded out by outrageous gnarls of gold-leaf spirals and clots of gum-paste tulip blossoms.
The cold snapped April out of her stupor. “OK, so it’s really big,” she said. “Can we go see Dad now?”
“Shush.” Kacy studied the structure and detected a slight tilt in the third tier and a bulge crowning the sixth. April was right — there was no reason to stay. Dinaburg, she decided, was just a little man with too much money and no taste, and Rona Silverman — with her maroon hair and her tiny, tiny flowers and her magic New York water — was nothing special at all. But she had to be sure. She peeked back into the kitchen to see if anyone was watching. She had an easy path to a knife on a cutting board across the room, and calmly and confidently, she walked out to get it, plucking a clean white hand towel from a laundry box on the floor on her way back.
When April saw her approaching with the knife, she crossed her arms over her chest and said, “Don’t. Jesus, Mom, that’s somebody’s cake.”
Kacy laid a hand on April’s folded arms. “Come on,” she said. “It’ll be our secret.” Under the gentle but insistent weight of Kacy’s hand, April’s arms returned to her sides, and as Kacy hunched over the lowest tier of the cake and pierced the dark chocolate surface, she heard her daughter’s breath quicken and thought, She likes this. She’s having fun, too.
She carefully ran the knife through the cake and excised a piece — a thin piece, but thick enough so she’d be able to get all the flavor — and she folded the towel around it loosely. She looked at the wounded cake. Silverman’s assistant, if he was good enough, would be able to cover it up. She silently dared him to try.
“Let’s go,” she said. “Walk like you belong.”
And April did. She walked quickly and confidently toward the service exit. Kacy watched her, struck by her daughter’s poise and confidence. It dawned on her that April might have barricaded her bedroom door that night because she’d had Skillet in there with her. She was thrilled. Not that April was sleeping with him — if that loser got her pregnant, she’d kill him — but that April was capable of connecting with somebody, that Kacy hadn’t ruined her, that April might not blame her for everything that was wrong in her young life.
They emerged from the building in a small parking lot, where a dozen young people in kitchen garb leaned against cars and smoked. They walked right past a tall, well-muscled young man in a chef’s coat with SILVERMAN CATERING stitched over the breast. He was flirting with a waitress, steadying his tall chef’s hat on her blonde head, and he didn’t even glance at them. They jogged around the hotel on a flagstone walkway, running in rhythm with each other, Kacy in her tennis shoes and April in her clompy black boots. As they waited for the valet to appear with the minivan, Kacy unfolded the towel. Daubs of chocolate icing stuck to the terry cloth. She held the cake out to April. An offering.
They ate with their fingers.
“What’s the verdict?” Kacy asked her daughter, her depressed and mangy daughter whom she loved more than anything.
“It’s good,” April said, a chocolate-buttermilk crumb clinging wetly to her upper lip, “but not as good as yours,” and that was all Kacy needed to hear.
La Fiesta de San Humberto el Menor
It will be a hot day, perhaps the hottest in years. It is only nine o’clock, yet sweat soaks my clothes as I sit alone in the shade of my fruit stand. It has not rained in weeks. The air is as still as San Humberto’s bones.