Welcome to Cupcake Corner!

I should have written a "missed connection" on craigslist:

"Me: brunette in a white dress and orange headband. You: pale, with glasses in hipster/throwback-1960s garb: corduroy pants, retro bowling shoes and a brown sweater embroidered with geometric shapes. You complained to me that tennis is unappreciated in the United States. I thought it would be cool to photograph you with a yellow filter because it would accent your skin and your yellow shoes. If you need another ear to bend, give me a call!"

It was a chilly October evening and I couldn't keep warm despite all that sparkly, purple eye shadow I was wearing.

Cupcake Corner was an odd name for an art gallery, but alliteration is key in poetry and probably in most aspects of life so...

" Will there be cupcakes?" I asked. My friend didn't know. "There'll be alcohol right?" My friend still didn't know.

I should have worn more sparkly, purple eye shadow because I was freezing.

We finally arrived at a heath food store, Ursula's Victuals. "I'll text her so she knows we're here," my friend said.

A few minutes later, a girl in a high-waisted paisly dress opened the door. "He-llo," she said to my friend like maybe she'd forgotten her name. She gave both of us a one-armed hug. "Come in, come in; it's getting crowded, but there's room and, of course, there's always the roof." She was talking to herself, leading us up a dark staircase. It smelled like the hallway had been recently painted.

The door at the end of the hallway was open slightly and I could hear voices and see orange light poking through the crack between door and door frame. The girl in the paisly dress pushed open the door.

We were inside a living room. A colorful, India-inspired tapestry was hanging on the far wall and a tapered water glass filled with plastic flowers rested on each deep windowsill. Bits of cardboard painted sketchily with acrylic paint had been propped in front of the TV.

"Welcome to Cupcake Corner!" the girl said and I thought it was nice of her to welcome us with such an easy, genuine, unhesitant smile.

Paintings nearly covered the whitewashed living room walls. Most were acrylic numbers: animals-shapes outlined in black and imitation tribal markings sketched boldly over layers of overlapping color. All those paintings covering all that wall was probably a fire hazard.

"What do you think?" asked the girl in the paisly dress. She was smiling, her hands knotted around an empty wine glass. "It's our first show we're just starting to get off the ground what do you think?"

"It's really nice," said my friend and I quipped, "Yeah, you guys did a great job. It's awesome."

"Ooh, tell, him too; it's his show." She pointed to a kid sitting in an armchair in the corner of the room. "I'm going to get some more wine." She laughed.

The artist was reading a book about Manet. I really had no desire to compliment him; I'm just not that kind of person and I could tell he wasn't exactly gregarious either, because-despite all the people packed in the tiny living room-he was reading that book as if it were incredibly interesting and drinking good old Carlo straight from the bottle.

I wanted to put another record on the record player because Squeeze's Argby had just ended. I love playing records! But there were only oldies to choose from. Wait! I found something with a beat.

"Steely Dan!" said a guy sitting on the couch. "My dad went to the same college as they did."

"Which one?"

"Bard." He pushed his glasses to the bridge of his nose with his pointer finger.

A pretty girl with buzzed butterscotch-colored hair turned on the television and little bits of Roger Federer's face peaked through the painted cardboard pieces.

"Oh, change it, change it," a guy wearing a bandana said. "Tennis is so fucking boring."

I drifted into the kitchen. People stood by the counter, bleached in cold, white florescent light. There were cupcakes on the counter-angel food cupcakes with raspberry jelly smoothed on top, chocolate cupcakes with fluffy, pink butter cream, carrot cupcakes with little carrots sticking out of the tops suggestively. I took a chocolate one.

"Wine?" asked the paisly host. She was already pouring some into a small measuring cup. "Are you an artist?"

"Of sorts," I said. I hate pretense. And good thing, because at that moment I was sipping wine from a measuring cup. There were little droplets of oil on the surface.

"My ex-boyfriend is an artist," said the girl with a sigh.

A girl was sitting in a black office chair, twirling. She had short brown hair and stuttered a little as she spoke with a redhead with unshaved legs.

"He's actually the guy who did the stuff in this show. I'm still in love with him." she sighed again, but not in a very sad way.

The boy with glasses slid between me and Paisly-Girl. The girl wrapped her long, long arms affectionately around him in a hug; it was a friendship-hug, I was sure, though everyone knows friendship-hugs are really just excuses to feel little bits of energy that aren't supposed to be there bounce from hugger to huggee; it's a secret, those little bits of energy that aren't supposed to exist, and secrets are exciting.

He untangled himself not-so-gracefully from her embrace and she left the kitchen, kissing his stubbly cheek.

The window was open and people were sitting on the fire escape and on the roof of the building next door. The deep kitchen windowsill was scuffed with brown, powdery shoe-prints. I climbed through the window and onto the roof, bypassed a circle of smokers, squatted on the sloping peaked roof of the adjacent building.

This is my favorite party tactic: I let the people come to me. Drunk people see a girl on her own, they think something's wrong-poof-an instant small-talk-buddy.

The kid with the glasses fell right into my trap.

"So, how do you know these girls?" he asked, motioning to the girl in the paisly dress. He sat down next to me, his forearms resting on his knees casually.

"I know her," I pointed to my friend. "I don't go here."

I liked that we were sitting so close. He rolled up his sleeves to the elbows and when his arm brushed against mine I noticed his skin was very soft and his arms weren't muscular. I told him I liked his sweater because I had nothing else to say.

"Thanks," he said, his eyes a little squinty behind his glasses. "My friend got it in Barcelona." And he started talking about tennis.

A half hour or so passed. My right foot and his left foot were very close; I noticed.

Through the kitchen window I saw the girl with the buzz cut rubbing and rubbing her head until I wanted to rub it too because it looked so soft. She was talking with the stuttering girl, and I swear my eyes met the stuttering girl's eyes-though maybe she was only looking at her dark reflection in the glass-and I swear she looked like she was going to start bawling any second.