Cupcake Read Online Free PDF Page A

Outrageous!"
    So many views had been offered up to me on this afternoon, I figured now was the time to offer one back up to the universe. I performed the arms-behind-my-head, I-love-Central-Park-in-fall, boobs-out, happy-stretch-yawn for the fellas. Premium view. Then I said, "Go get me one? I'll be here when you get back." I pulled the bag of mini-Nestlé Crunch bars from my purse. "With treats."
    I didn't know boys that skinny could sprint so fast.
    Autumn advised, "I see you talk the talk." She held up my crutches. "But next time, when a real live manbait approaches, I expect you to walk the walk."
    I pointed at the pitcher girl. "Ditto," I told Autumn.
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    ***
    FIVE
    For a corporate executive chick with an undoubtedly bad throwing
    arm, my sister lisBETH had some curve balls to pitch me on my first public outing free of the leg cast. As we sat side by side in the nail shop getting pedicures together, lisBETH laid out her customized Plan for my new life. She could barely acknowledge me when I first arrived in town two summers ago, yet now it would seem lisBETH had upgraded me from Farm Team Illegitimate Begrudging Biological Connection to Major League Sister Project.
    Uh-oh. Beware the thirtysomething Wall Street managing director with too much time on her hands during a bear market.
    First, lisBETH announced she had bought me a gym membership to help ease me off Danny's cupcakes and the extra poundage caused by the leg cast inertia. Second, no sister of hers should lounge around the apartment all day without a Meaningful Future.
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    Hence (she actually used this word), lisBETH had taken the liberty of enrolling me in the Introduction to Baking Techniques and Ingredients class at the culinary school in Chelsea. Talk about a mixed message.
    I'd like to know what is the big deal expectation that when a person finishes high school, they should automatically further their education in some purpose-driven academic type of way? I know I said I was moving to New York to possibly explore the idea of one day going to culinary school here, but what's the rush? Note the word "possibly." There's a massive city out there waiting to be explored. Why would I want to be confined inside the sterile walls of a classroom when I'd only just broken free of twelve years of such torture?
    LisBETH thumbed through the school catalog while her feet were pumiced. She said, "The introductory course doesn't just cover baking basics. You'll also learn cost analysis, weights and measures, culinary math, food safety, sanitation, and equipment identification."
    "I'm bored already." Somehow the fact that I got kicked out of boarding school and only made it out of the follow-up alternate school by way of a stellar record of mediocre grades does not seem to impede the adults in my life from holding out hope that I will survive yet another exercise in learning boredom. But it must have been the toxic nail shop fumes breaking my spirit, because I told
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    lisBETH, "Okay, I'll give the class a try." I did not add, Thank you, sir, may I have another! She can forget about the gym part.
    LisBETH had further educatin' to do me. "My dear, a word of unsolicited advice. You want to be in school if you hope to find an acceptable mate. You realize there are very few single straight men left in this city, don't you? You've got to find yours before they're all taken, and school is just the right environment for that. Trust me on this one."
    Thanks, lisBETH, thanks a lot. And that was more than a word of unsolicited advice--it was a disaster stream. I mean, I was finally able to go out and about, start my new life, and this was the sisterly wisdom she chose to spring on me?
    I looked up from the alternate toe blue-green-blue-green polish coats being applied to my toenails, searching for the closest EXIT sign. If lisBETH followed up our talk by directing me to the nearest sex toy pleasure shop for sad-sack single females, sister bonding time would be so over, even if that