Happy Happy Birthday

Legs splayed over the arm of the biggest chair, Shane chews the neckline of his Old Navy T-shirt, holding a deluxe Time-Life book to use as camouflage. He’s brooding over his next Top-Secret project, and has decided to hide it among the pages of this book, titled Abandoned Places. News junkie Dad has sections of the Sunday New York Times fanned out over the circular coffee table. He’s nursing a shotglass of Jameson’s whiskey. Mom reclines on the large Mouflon sheepskin rug and three cushions in front of the unused limestone fireplace. She’s drafting the PTA newsletter and eating CBD gummy bears from her belt pouch on the sly. Shane’s older sister Dorothy perches on an ergonomic chair at the glass-topped dining table, a thick binder before her, rereading the LSAT test questions and wondering if suicide wouldn’t be less painful.

Tucked between the pages on the Chernobyl disaster in the Abandoned Places book Shane is studying a back issue of Better Recipes magazine, featuring a recipe titled “Black Forest to Die For.” Photos show a cake, striped white and dark-dark brown with rich chocolate sauce dripping down the sides. A pile of cherries glistens atop three layers of creamy decadence. Creating the divine concoction would be daunting for an average 14-year-old. But when Shane gets an idea, it burns a fierce path in his brain until he does something about it.

Two months ago, Dorothy had persuaded Mom and Dad to shell out for a top-of-the-line skateboard, a Maxfind Cyber Max electric skateboard, for Shane’s birthday. This is his chance to surprise and delight her with something beyond the default Betty Crocker cake-mix chocolate cake. Not that she totally deserves it—she keeps hogging his favorite iced-tea mug, the one he prefers to keep chilled in the freezer. But she also lets him use her Bluetooth speaker in the shower. Shane’s sense of the importance of allies is strengthening, thanks to the educational effect of a gazillion hours of video games.

Speaking of which, he looks at the grandfather clock. Just an hour until two large all-dressed pizzas will arrive.

The glassed-in grandfather clock mirrors the small gathering in the living room. The square-jawed son and father holding their reading materials. The woman sprawled on the rug, and the daughter formally seated at a table, cheeks resting on her knuckles. Everyone equidistant and relaxed except for Dorothy, who is wound tight as a twist tie.

“Could you stop it with the sighing?” Shane says. “You sound like a wet cheese grater.”

“I’m trying to focus on logic,” Dorothy says. “I will breathe any damn way I can.”

“Language, tut,” Mom says mildly, causing Dorothy’s scowl to deepen.

“Russia presses ahead with massed forces, drones and saboteurs,” Dad reads the headline aloud.

Dorothy reads a practice question aloud: “Six animals—a flamingo, a koala, a seal, a cat, a dog, and a lizard—are being displayed in a row at the county fair. Each animal is either blue or pink. The following rules apply. 1. There must be at least two blue animals. 2. No two blue animals can be adjacent—”

“Stop,” Shane and Mom shout.

“I need to figure out the complete and accurate list of animals in the display,” Dorothy hisses, “given a list of seven rules.”

“Oh, that seems straightforward,” Mom says, lured back into speaking although the rule is no speaking during Quiet Reading Time. She’s jotting two notes to herself in the margin of her steno pad: “When is next bake sale?” and “Rodrigo??”

Shane places a finger on the paragraph about the history of Black Forest Cake, or Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, he is reading and says, “Sounds like you’re in over your head, Dodo.”

“At least I’m challenging my brain,” Dorothy snarks. “Not looking at disaster porn like you, Shady-shane.”

Disaster porn, hah. Shane smirks, silently congratulating himself on the successful concealment of his recipe magazine. He’s been learning how this cake is a symbol of the Black Forest region—and the women’s Bollenhut hats. “The red pom-poms and white brim of the bollenhut are said to have inspired the top layer of the cake we feature in this issue of Better Recipes.” He’s salivating already.

Dorothy sharpens her pencil. “I’ll ace this stupid exam. I’ll use my law degree to get a cushy corporate law position making tens of thousands of dollars, so I don’t have to live with annoying people like you guys.”

“I love you, too,” Mom says. She holds her steno pad angled away from everyone so she can continue lining up the CBD gummy bears before she pops them into her mouth. Sundays are manageable with gummy bears. She scribbles in the steno pad: “Hey bakers, start your ovens! All baked goods must be peanut-free.”

Shane’s eyes linger over the photo of canned cherries. These will be diced and tucked between the three layers of cake, the cherries’ magenta juices seeping into the vanilla whipped cream, staining it a gorgeous pink. He glances at Dorothy. Although she dislikes pink, she’ll scarcely notice it as she wolfs down this birthday cake to end all cakes.

Dad reads aloud a new headline: “Europe scrambles for details as Trump and Putin prepare to meet.” He rolls the glass of Jameson’s against his bottom lip before taking another wee sip.

The secret to a dazzling cake is adding espresso to the cocoa, Shane reads. He’s not at all convinced. Espresso is bitter. Mountain Dew would improve the recipe, that’s what. The accompanying photo shows thick, melted chocolate being poured. Gamache, the recipe calls it. Shane thinks of it as “gam-ache” with ache like the pain in one’s body.

Mom surreptitiously chews the last of the gummy bears and washes it down with a deep swallow of mint tea. “Only September,” she announces, causing all heads to turn, “and already the PTA is lining up volunteers for Christmas.” She giggles.

The other three exchange puzzled glances. Mom’s usually a stickler about the no-talking rule.

Dad says, “I believe you mean the Solstice Celebration, sweetheart.”

Mom groans. “Oh, go stick it, Brent.” She flips to the last page of her steno pad. It contains a rough draft of her Tinder profile. She adds a note: “Non-PC” then retorts, “December 25 is ‘Christmas’ to everyone.”

“Not to the Shapiros,” Dad mildly corrects. “Or the Takamuras.”

Dorothy clutches her head and wails. “How am I supposed to think with all this chitchat?” Silence descends as her pencil rasps on paper, diagramming a logic tree. Boxes, arrows, uppercase letters. Even her breathing sounds tortured. Clutching her clipboard like a life preserver, Dorothy marches out of the room.

Dad summons her back. “You know the rules.”

“I’m just getting pencil crayons.” She flounces back with a weathered shoe box and dumps the rattling contents on a corner of Mom’s Mouflon rug. A splintered rainbow.

Mom pulls her legs away as the wooden crayons click and fall and roll. “Don’t tell me you’ll bring these all in when you sit the LSAT exam.”

Dorothy rolls her eyes. “You may think I’m an idiot, Mother, but I believe I will have grasped the logic by then. If I haven’t killed myself first over desperation at this stupid family.”

Dad smacks the newspaper once, twice against his knee. “I would go to a lawyer who explained the legal contract using different colors of pencil crayons. Definitely.” He sounds almost convincing until he snorts at the end.

Shane watches him take another sip of Jameson’s and smack his lips. What an old fogey. Lawyers using pencil crayons would be refreshing. Would provide clarity. Would keep a client like Shane, when he becomes a superstar celebrity chef, awake and entertained.

Shane tries to catch Dorothy’s eye, but instead he catches sight of Mom’s new page in her steno pad. Across the top it says, “Afternoon Delight.” Hey, sounds like a new recipe. He keeps reading over her shoulder. “Local MWF. Seeks hot-blooded Latin lover.” Mom quickly flips another page over it, almost as if she senses Shane’s eyes boring into the page. She jots more headlines:

- Hooray, PA Day This Friday!

- Track and Field Tryouts. It’s never too early to train!

Dorothy busily fills a sheet with words and shapes. Throws it away and restarts.

“Why do you need six colors?” Shane asks.

Dorothy replies without looking up. “I’m diagramming six stakeholders.”

Shane imagines six wire draining boards with a slab of beef on each. Or maybe a steak holder is a special type of plate, like the elongated dishes designed to hold corn cobs. He asks, “Are these to keep steaks in place over the grill so they can cook more evenly?”

He feels himself blushing as he asks, but aspiring chefs need to know.

Dorothy looks puzzled. “Cook more evenly? Steaks? What are you talking about?”

Her sharp tone breaks Dad’s concentration. But before he can read aloud another dismal headline, Dorothy’s laughter bursts out, a manic trill of amusement.

“A ‘steakholder.’ A stakeholder. Ha ha ha ha ha.” She wipes her eyes. “No, stakeholders are just persons who have certain interests in a lawsuit. Or in this sample question, stakeholders are animals who obey certain rules. But, ha ha, I like your definition better. Something to keep the steak on a grill.”

They all laugh except Shane.

He flips the magazine pages roughly. Why does everyone know stuff except for him? When is the word ‘stakeholder’ ever taught in school? “You need a bigger piece of paper,” he says harshly. “Look at your crummy drawing. It is disgusting.” The blade of his hostility cuts through, and Dorothy looks wounded. But only for a moment.

“Everyone’s a critic,” she quips, tossing her hair.

“Will everyone just shut up?” Mom says. “It is quiet reading time, not noisy reading time.”

The doorbell rings and Dad sashays to the door, fishing his wallet from his back pocket.

“Arrrgh.” Dorothy scrunches up her diagram and tosses it in the wastebasket. “I need a law degree to get out of jail once I murder my family.” She grabs a yogurt from the fridge and stomps off to her room.

“Let’s eat, guys,” Mom says, cracking open the pizza boxes. “I’m famished.”

Shane settles down to eat with his parents. “Yay, now that Dodo’s hopping mad at us and shut up in her room for the night, I can start making a birthday cake.” He elbows Mom. “Will you share some gummy bears for cake decoration?” He musters a look of pure innocence. Knowing the answer will be flat-out “no.”

“Another time,” Mom says, blushing. She picks the crumpled papers from the wastebasket and smooths them out. Decorated with six colors of pencil crayons. She says, “I’ll have unique wrapping paper. To wrap her gifts.”

Dad refills his Jameson’s. “To birthdays,” he says, lifting his glass in a toast.

THE END