Cake Eaters

     She leapt up at the sound of the timer, the insistent buzz of the damn timer that came with the stove, with the apartment, with the cheap rent for a cramped efficiency in a "good" neighborhood. Well, her dad was happy about that--a safe place for his little girl, he'd bragged, probably was still bragging about how he had found the perfect flat for his baby girl, et., etc. Well, at least she couldn't see or hear him.

    Not yet, at least.

    He was the reason for the timer, the cake in the oven, the probably bad-idea cake in the oven. What was she thinking? She could have bought a cake, an already baked and frosted cake, or a pie--he loved pie--but there were no pies or pie mixes at the corner store, just Betty Crocker's Triple Chocolate Fudge cake mix. And, of course, who remembered frosting? She had nothing to decorate it with . . . and no candles either.

    Well, she'd say, "It's the latest thing----better for you, purer, stripped to the essential . . ." and here she'd practice the dramatic pause . . ."chocolate cake baked just for you!"

    He valued (1) efficiency and (2) bare essentials. "Strip to the bare essentials," was his favorite phrase, repeated ad nauseam, so that was the welcome she was preparing, a bare essentials cake that merged perfectly with her favorite phrase, Let them eat cake.

    She was her father's daughter, after all.