Death by Pink

June, 1965

Jenny wanted pink-flavored cupcakes - pink being her favorite color - for her sixth birthday. I thought about explaining to her that pink wasn’t a flavor, but I was too exhausted for that conversation, filled with the never ending, “But why, mommy?” question. I figured vanilla cupcakes with strawberry buttercream would taste like pink to a six-year-old, so that’s what I made.

That year, Roger decided he wanted to pull out all of the stops for his little princess. As he explained it, “you only turn six once”, so expenses be damned. I wanted to argue that you only ever turn any age one time and what made six so different from five or seven, but I had been up until 5:00 a.m. the night before, waiting for him to walk through the door, which he did at approximately 4:45 a.m., and we whisper-argued until he stormed out again with a change of clothes over his arm, saying that he was going to the office early. Roger was a partner at the well-known law firm, Brenner, Walsh & Atkinson, ours being the last name of the threesome. He had a large corner office with a private bathroom; a perfect spot to get ready for the day after spending a night out at God knows where.

But I had an idea of where he was. No, not an idea. Confirmation. Validation. Proof.

Which was why I was poisoning one cupcake in particular. 

For her.

-------

I never expected to find myself there, standing over a kitchen counter, dutifully grinding the pink flowers and green stems of an oleander with my mortar and pestle.

I was a good girl. Born as Carole Ann Blake, my father was a prominent and highly-sought-after physician (Edwin Blake), my mother a stage actress turned nurse (Marian Blake, née Rollins). We lived what was then a middle to upper class existence in Pasadena, California, never wanting for anything. I was an only child and was doted on by mother, father, nanny, maid. My life was fine. As fine as any childhood could be.

My parents introduced me to Roger, the son of a wealthy banker, when I was 20 and fertile. We married barely a year later and I had Jenny, Jack, and Julia in quick succession. Roger loved the children and worked hard to give them the best of the best. Private school fees, exhilarating vacations to beaches and mountains, the latest and greatest toys and clothes, my kids had it all. And I was happy as a clam, soaking up the adoration and envy of my neighbors and the gals I played bridge with on Thursday afternoons.

It wasn’t until Julia came along, collicky for the most of her first year, that things started to shift. Before Julia, Roger often worked late, but he always came home. Some nights he would crawl into bed at 11:00 p.m. for a cuddle and a good night’s rest. Other nights, I would wake to his musky scent, his warm hands gliding across my belly, mouth at my throat, begging for a release. And I would give it to him. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to. We were sexual beings then, lusting and groping for one another in the darkness of our bedroom. 

When Julia came along, she didn’t sleep much and I spent most nights rocking her to sleep in the nursery. Roger would often find me on the floor in the early mornings, curled up on the high-pile rug with a pillow. He would give me a sad smile, as though he were proud of my mothering, but also disheartened by the fact that he came home to an empty bed nearly every night.

It wasn’t long before Roger stopped coming home, at least not until the haze of an early dawn when he would sneak in and climb into our marriage bed smelling of whiskey and sex.

Did he think I wouldn’t notice? Or that I wouldn’t care?

When I first confronted him about it, he coddled me with lies and half-truths: he fell asleep at the office, the boys - Brenner and Walsh - wanted to have a few drinks and lost track of time, he was working on a very important brief for a very important client. When I started to see through those lies, he settled for honesty. Brutal honesty.

“What do you expect, Carole? Look at you,” he said one morning while pointing to the identical, round milk stains on my chest.

I yelled back, “I won’t stand for this, Roger!”

And then he hit me with the question that had already been niggling at me for the past few months of his sneaking around.

“Oh, and what do you plan to do about it?” He laughed mockingly. “Put that old, dated Mills College degree to work? What was it you studied there, sweetheart? English?”

“Poetry,” I said while hanging my head in shame, knowing I never did a thing with the degree and hadn’t written so much as a haiku since Jenny was born.

“Right, poetry.” He lifted his briefcase and headed for the door.

“Who is she?” I asked before he left.

He smirked, as though he were getting off on the pleading subtext of my words. “She’s...she’s great in the sack.”

Two weeks later, with the children stuffed in the backseat of our Buick, I followed him to her house.

Jenny piped up from the back. “Why are we at Rosie’s house?”

Rosie - Rose Patterson - was Jenny’s closest friend in school. In the darkness of the evening hour, I had failed to realize that it was her home. Roger was already inside the house, his car dark, and I raced off before the kids could recognize it.

Her name was Diana Patterson. And I wanted her to die.

-------

No one would really miss Diana. I thought about all of the reasons why no one would miss her as I made the frosting for her special cupcake.

1. She was divorced. I’d heard from my dear friend and confidant, Irene, when we were walking the kids to school that her husband left her for his secretary who was barely out of high school. At the time, I felt sorry for her. But that sorry soured like milk left out in the sun when I realized that she was doing to me exactly what had been done to her.
2. She was new in town. She and Rose had moved down from Bakersfield. Irene told me that Diana’s parents were deceased and she had virtually no family to speak of. Her husband never spoke with her. In fact, when he wanted Rose for a weekend here or there, he would send a driver to pick her up.
3. She was a whore. While Irene didn’t know about Roger - and I wasn’t planning on sharing that humiliating part of my life with her, no matter how dear she was to me - she happily spilled the beans about the other married fathers in the school district that Diana had seduced. She was beguiling with her fiery red locks and bright red lipstick to match.

I did wonder from time to time if the lack of sleep from dealing with the baby was getting to me. The oleander in that one special cupcake set aside from all the others - was it the workings of a madwoman? And would they find out it was me? I nearly tossed the thing in the wastebin, but stopped myself when Roger walked in, examining the baked goods for the party the next day. I had been in the kitchen all day, making sure that everything was perfect on my end. He popped a strawberry into his mouth.

“I’ll be back tomorrow morning,” he said as he licked the juice from his fingers. “Before all the partygoers arrive. The pony rental is arriving at 11, correct?”

My hand hovering over the wastebin with the elusive cupcake, I pulled back and smiled. “Correct. I’ll have the kids dressed and ready to go by 10.”

He came around to the sink to wash his strawberry-stained hands. “Good, good.” He eyed the cupcake in my hands. “Is that one no good?”

“Oh,” I exclaimed, placing it on the counter. “No. It’s absolutely perfect.”

-------

We held Jenny’s party at our house in Pasadena. There was plenty of room in both the front and back yards to host dozens of guests. Complete with a couple of ponies for her and her friends to ride, her girlish party was exactly what she wanted - pink, lacey, and bright from the streamers to the tablecloths to the wrapping on the presents. And of course, the pink-flavored cupcakes. I made sure to keep Diana’s separate from the others. I tucked it away at the back of the refrigerator, hidden behind a large head of cabbage, knowing that would steer any child away.

Diana was something to see that day. Her perfect porcelain-pale skin looked particularly beautiful under a bright blue, A-line dress. Very mod. Her red hair was pulled back into a high ponytail and her lips were painted a vivid orange-red. For different reasons, everyone was staring; the men smitten, the women envious.

As the guests mingled and Jenny rode one of the ponies, Roger walking alongside her, I stole a few moments to myself in the bathroom. Julia, though she was a darling now, had sucked the life out of me in the previous year. My breasts were deflated, my once tiny waist had widened, the rich, chocolate tint in my hair had dulled, and the bags under my eyes seemed to persist despite my best efforts to get more sleep. Of course I loved Julia - all of my children were my pride and joy - but I hated what I had become in the tireless years of motherhood. I patted some more foundation, blush, and powder onto my face and forced a smile.

When I came back outside, Rose was giggling and shrieking atop one of the ponies. Like her mother, she was a little beauty to behold. Two of the men from the rental company were walking around with the girls as they rode on the ponies. Roger and Diana were seated at a table, drinking my homemade punch, and she was laughing out loud at something funny Roger must have said. I stepped back inside and clambered to the kitchen - unsteady in the heels I wasn’t wearing as often those days - feeling something akin to drunk on the endorphins that raced through my bloodstream. I grabbed that cupcake from the refrigerator and let it sit out on the countertop for a moment, allowing it to come to room temperature.

I thought about Rose, who would soon be motherless. I wondered how Jack, Jenny, and Julia would get by without me in their life and felt a deep shame permeate my core at the thought of doing that to poor, sweet Rose.

But she would move back to Bakersfield to live with her father, right? Who, by all accounts, was clearly better-suited for the job of parent, what with her mother bringing hosts of strange men to her bed. Rose was likely going to end up just like her mother if someone didn’t put a stop to it. A child needs a better mother than Diana Patterson.

I would be doing little Rosie a favor.

I carried a plate full of cupcakes out to the front lawn and set them up at the table with the other treats. I had made a larger cake just for Jenny, so she could blow out her candles, which she had done an hour ago. But my buttercream was made famous throughout the neighborhood and people saved their appetite for a bite of one of my cupcakes. I’d placed a whole strawberry atop the special cupcake to identify it - the others had slices that poked up from the frosting. As I set the platter of cupcakes down and children raced over, I quickly put both the poisoned and a regular cupcake on two plates.

I carried them over to my husband and his whore. I could see him practically salivating at the sight of them. He howled and clapped his hands.

I handed him his cupcake with a smile. “Wait ‘til you try these, Di. Carole can be a downright bore these days, but boy can she bake.”

Diana and I exchanged embarrassed smiles and for a moment, I thought about shoving the poisoned cake down Roger’s throat. However, with him being a lawyer at a prestigious law firm, that fantasy wouldn’t bode well for me.

“Oh, I’m sure they’re delightful, but I’m quite full,” said the tart. I doubted her statement, having watched her from the kitchen window earlier as she ate a few pieces of fruit and a single cheese cube.

“Please, I’d love to hear what you think of them,” I replied with my best fake smile. I don’t think she had a clue that I knew she was fucking my husband.

“I’ll tell you what,” she took the proffered plate. “I’ll try it in a bit once my stomach has settled.”

That was fine with me. Even those attempting to watch their waistline couldn’t simply have one bite of my cupcakes. They often ate the whole thing and then some.

I heard Julia’s cry in the distance and saw my mother trying to calm her down, unsuccessfully, with her favorite stuffed animal. I looked at my watch. It was noon and she was probably hungry. I figured I could step away for a few moments to feed her before Diana ate the cupcake and keeled over.

I took Julia inside to nurse. I was preparing to wean her off over the next couple of weeks and couldn’t wait to have my breasts back. I never wanted to have another child. I wanted my body back, my life back.

As she sucked away at my sore nipples, I fantasized about Diana flailing on the ground, her red hair splayed out around her face, a sharp contrast to the perfect green of our lawn. It was a beautiful image.

Without warning, an ear-splitting shriek sounded from the front lawn. It was happening. 

I calmly left my bedroom and made my way outside, patting Julia’s back to help her release any excess gas.

“Jenny?” came Roger’s voice. “Jenny, sweetie, stay with me. Someone call 911!”

Wait. Jenny?

As I rounded the corner at the front door and walked down the steps, I saw Jenny on the ground, her blond curls splayed out on the grass like Diana’s should have been. Instinct kicked in and I handed the baby to the nearest adult and sprinted over to my daughter. Someone - Irene, maybe - said they had just called 911 and help was on the way.

As I sunk to the ground by my daughter - who was unconscious and pale - I saw a plate on the ground beside her, broken into several pieces. On one of the pieces had a pink smear on it, the remnants of frosting. Beside it, in the grass, sat a whole, uneaten strawberry.

Diana was on her knees on the other side of Jenny, crying hysterically.

“Did you give her the cupcake I gave you?” I asked her in between sobs.

She nodded, confusion etched onto her face. And then something clicked. Her tears stopped and she stood, backing away from the scene. As she did, the distinct blare of a siren sounded in the distance. Roger was looking between us, equally perplexed.

“What the hell is going on, Carole?”

“Roger, when the ambulance arrives, I need you to tell them that it was oleander poisoning.” I could barely say the words, I was so filled with shame. I had failed my daughter. “The cupcake. You were right. It was no good.”

-------

June, 1966

It’s been a year since I’ve seen the kids, but Roger told me he would bring them today to see me. He wrote to me a few months ago saying that Jenny had been crying for me lately and was inconsolable. He figured a visit was in order.

They allowed me to wear one of my favorite skirts and blouses today, just for the occasion. And they only made me take 50 mg of Largactil today instead of my usual 100 mg, which felt like a treat.

As I wait in the visitors room, I’m reminded of those fateful hours after Jenny was taken away. I can still hear Jack’s muffled cries as he held onto my skirt in the waiting room of the hospital. Jenny pulled through over the next few days and once she was conscious and talking, I was quickly carted off to the local loony bin.

I watch the seconds and minutes tick by on the wall clock, hidden behind some kind of frightening metal gate, a reminder that time itself is a threat to those of us who are locked away from everything and everyone we love. They were supposed to arrive at 10 a.m., but the hours creep by. Eleven. Twelve. One.

“Looks like no one’s coming,” says one of the nurses. “Let’s get you back to your room.”

I acquiesce, knowing that nothing good can come of fighting her.

Inside my room, I pick up Roger’s letter and read the last few lines again.

We’ll visit on June 10, but only for a bit. Diana is hoping to take the kids to the zoo that day. Jenny doesn’t want a big party this year. She says she only wants to see the flamingos.

See you soon,

Roger

I guess the flamingos couldn’t wait. After all, they are pink.