Cupcakes

Chapter 4: Grand Opening

Chapter 4: Grand Opening

Cupcakes “ … is to die for,” according to food editor, Wayne Rightsville, of the Snowden Post. “If you want something yummy, serious, or teaspoon-perfect, drop by the place and try anything!”

Wayne wrote a fabulous review of the bakery before it opened for business, which pleased Richter and I. He mentioned the original Tiffany windows over the front doors, the mahogany floor that squeaked when customers walked over it, and the vintage U-shaped glass cases filled with breads, pies, cookies, cakes, and other treats. He said the tiny, two-person dessert tables at the front of the store were “comfortable and eye-appealing,” and added that “playful music from the fifties and sixties” filled the bakery and added “much cheer and friendly zest.”

Such a review helped Cupcakes’ grand opening. Richter and I opened the place on January 14, sixteen months ago. Business textbooks say the first year of a business is the hardest, but I have to confess that it was breeze, minus a water leak during our grand opening, an asbestos ceiling that needed removal during remodeling, funky tasting white icing during the month of March, and the mysterious death of a beefhead named Marcus Sa, one of Jarr’s s****l flings.

As for the water leak in the kitchen, it was nothing. Sink Helpers came out and fixed it with no pain. As for the funky tasting icing in March, neither Richter nor I were certain what happened, but both of us thought it was because of a bad bag of powdered sugar. As for the Marcus Sa incident, that was a little more dramatic.

Marcus was a bronze God: all beef from head to toe, muscles out his ass, and handsome oval eyes. He was Vietnamese and quite stunning in my opinion. Jarr dated him twice, slept with him four times, and said that he was just a few years younger than us and not his Mr. Right. Such details did not stop Marcus from frequenting Cupcakes. Long story short, Marcus liked a maple cinnamon cupcake and black coffee, his weakness according to Jarr. One morning in late February, he trotted his hot stuff into Cupcakes, placed his order, and dropped dead of a heart attack in front of the raspberry muffins. It was almost nine o’clock in the morning and Cupcakes had gained its first death.

Once the beefhead’s body was taken away by the coroner and the floor of Cupcakes was scrubbed down with some Lysol, the bakery was open for business again.

Three days later Richter, Jarr, and I learned that Marcus Sa’s heart attack was due to steroid use. His little heart within his muscled body had literally exploded inside his chest. One minute Marcus was enjoying his coffee and cupcake, and during the next he was visiting the Lord in Heaven.

Besides those traumatic incidents, Cupcakes ran like a gem. Richter baked his butt off, I did the books and generated business, and Jarr sometimes worked the counter pro bono. By mid-April we needed more help and hired two more counter people and an assistant for Richter. And by July of that first year we opened the place at seven every morning and closed at seven each night.

Truth was Cupcakes was a success from the very start. All of Snowden and its surrounding towns raved about our peach jelly rolls, Easter Egg Nest Cake, meringue tortes, Heavenly Shakes, spiced cocoa donuts, double-fudge chocolate cake, and cinnamon apple pie bars.