Mr. Beller's Neighborhood is a website with stories, run by Thomas Beller. I was looking for something else (namely, The Redhead, which Batch's Pichet Ong told me about and I plan to try soon - the cupcakes and the bacon peanut brittle, though imagine making cupcakes with the peanut brittle?) when I came across a story there about cupcakes. Oh, and then I later found another one.
Here's the start of Thomas Beller's "The Lady With the Cupcake:"
I looked out the window and saw a woman come walking up the street eating a cupcake. She was blonde, in sneakers, alone. The cupcake’s icing was white. The woman’s timing was perfect— I had begun reading on the computer at dusk; by the time it ran out of power, and the screen went suddenly black, the sky had become dark and the streetlamp outside my window, which shines bright as a full moon, had switched on. There were no lights on in the room. I sat in darkness and looked out the window hoping for something, some gift. I saw the woman with the cupcake come up the street.
There is a famous cupcake store on the corner. Once upon a time in this town people lined up to get into nightclubs with names like “The World.” Now the world comes to New York and lines up to buy cupcakes.
I watched this lady walk with her cupcake, preparing to take a bite. She had a box in one hand, with a couple more cupcakes in it, and the cupcake in the other. She pushed the edge of the cupcake to her mouth, took a bite, but it was an indelicate maneuver even from four flights up. I wondered if she had traveled a long way to get to New York and was now achieving one of her goals, to eat these cupcakes, of if she was local, and was giving herself a Sunday treat on the way home. I also wondered if she was going to eat the cupcake by mashing it into her mouth while she walked.
Here's the start of Thomas Beller's "The Lady With the Cupcake:"
I looked out the window and saw a woman come walking up the street eating a cupcake. She was blonde, in sneakers, alone. The cupcake’s icing was white. The woman’s timing was perfect— I had begun reading on the computer at dusk; by the time it ran out of power, and the screen went suddenly black, the sky had become dark and the streetlamp outside my window, which shines bright as a full moon, had switched on. There were no lights on in the room. I sat in darkness and looked out the window hoping for something, some gift. I saw the woman with the cupcake come up the street.
There is a famous cupcake store on the corner. Once upon a time in this town people lined up to get into nightclubs with names like “The World.” Now the world comes to New York and lines up to buy cupcakes.
I watched this lady walk with her cupcake, preparing to take a bite. She had a box in one hand, with a couple more cupcakes in it, and the cupcake in the other. She pushed the edge of the cupcake to her mouth, took a bite, but it was an indelicate maneuver even from four flights up. I wondered if she had traveled a long way to get to New York and was now achieving one of her goals, to eat these cupcakes, of if she was local, and was giving herself a Sunday treat on the way home. I also wondered if she was going to eat the cupcake by mashing it into her mouth while she walked.
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Thanks for the great blogs.