I'd celebrated Jerome for months before I'd ever even met him. I'd see him in front of his house, rigid and mountainous beside his dog...a marshmellowy wiemerheimer like I'd always wanted. I'd nudge Peter in the car as we drove past and we'd wave to him in unison Leave It to Beaver style.
Of course, when Peter came home from the grocery one day with a bit of nieborhood gossip that sky rocketed my neiborhood friend into demigod superstar status, of course I was jumping up and down again.
'Apparently, your little friend is a porn star'.
moonpie eyes! I couldn't wait to tackle the guy face to face with questions.

There's a drum roll somewhere out in the virtual cosmosis, and one faithful reader with honey smile and impecable innocent makeup pulls up to the edge of her seat to read 'An interview with a Porn Star'

but alas...it's even better.

and I have to go to work now and bake cakes.

I'd signed the W2, reviewed the new employee manual, and solemnly agreed to a new hire probationary period with third world wages. The manager said that when it came to icing a cake, people either get it...or they don't.

I'd been turning glowing white aprons into chocolate mud pies for one week. Co-workers had been working round the clock re-doing my lopsided spotted case cakes, and managers fixing cumbersome mastercard transactions that rewarded customer statements 80 dollars for their birthday cake purchases. I'd smash up delicately icy smooth anniversary cakes while packaging them up before customer's very eyes, and then pretended like nothing had happened. Sometimes I lost their order completely. I showed up loyally at 8:30am every day to perform these random acts of sweet shoulder strugging and vacant staring towards the east. But, they seemed to enjoy my company and were nice enough to whisper corrections to my mistakes so that the others couldn't overhear.

Then came the meltdown.

The garbage bags too heavy to carry out with all the icing that had to be chucked. The bags bursting at the weight to ooze lemon curd and RAZ IC(as we call it in the biz) all over the tidy floors.
The un-iced cakes piled high into the garbage tank out back were enjoyed by families of picnic flies and their new pink maggot babies.
The banded cakes blown out in the sparkling customer cases and cooked again by the hot sun filtering through the front windows.
The milk, and eggs, and creamcheeses soured. The fruit went black and seeded white fuzz.

Customers raged with the news that little Caroline's ultimate fantasy barbie princess cake would now be nothing more than a sugar decal on a brick of Kroger's craptacular signature styraphome flavor.
...and the entire staff sweating out the door and scattering wedding cakes in various hiding places throughout the city to save them from what some newscasters later described on television with words like 'disaster' and 'devestating.'

My manager told the cameras that she 'felt like having a heart attack and a nervous breakdown all at the same time.' I hid in the dark back of the shop, and agreed only to allow my hands to be tapped for the footage.