Perfection

OK, folks, confession time:

Hi. My name's Joey, and I'm a perfectionist.

Of course, you'd never know that to look at my house, or my car, or my purse; I'm not that kind of perfectionist. But just ask anyone who's ever seen me try to write a paper, knit bedroom slippers, or decorate a cake, and they'll tell you that I have the potential to go from a sane, rational human to an anal, type-A lunatic faster than you can say "Clarissa Dalloway." Of course, my poor wife has seen me do all of these things. In fact, for the past 6 years, she has borne sole witness to my anxious fits of perfectionist madness. She has watched as I frantically scoured databases for minute scraps of information and listened patiently as I cried about painstakingly knitted slippers (intended as a gift) being two different sizes. Fortunately for me, Mrs. Dalloway is her favorite novel. Therefore, the literary context, coupled with her infinite patience for my madness, has thus far prevented her from responding to one of my episodes by tossing me out a window. And for that, I am grateful.

However, if ever her resolve to refrain from defenestrating me were tested, it had to have been this weekend. You see, this weekend was my dad's 56th birthday. As he is, like me, a Type II diabetic, the baking of his cake (naturally) fell to me. But see, Dad's birthday celebration this year was not to be the small, immediate-family-only gathering of years past. Oh no. No, this year was to be special. The entire extended family had been invited out to a local restaurant to celebrate. And when I say "extended family," please understand: my father is one of eight children. All of his siblings (6 brothers and 1 sister) either are or have been married, and all of them have children. Most of their children are now married, and many of them have children of their own. They were all invited, in addition to several family friends, a few close acquaintances, some not-so-close acquaintances, a complete stranger or two, and probably at least one family pet. In other words, this was to be a to-do.

Now, in addition to the sheer number and scope of the crowd about to be assembled, bear in mind that among them were my mother and aunts; women known for their southern hospitality, their ability to throw wonderful parties, and their acute attention to detail. And it was before these women (and a crowd of seemingly thousands) that I was to present this cake.

Now, I have faith in my baking skills. I am experienced enough to be confident that whatever I bake will taste just fine. Hell, I used to head-up a cooking club comprised mainly of 5 and 6 year olds, and never once did we produce anything that was inedible. But when it comes to making things pretty, that's a whole other story. I'm not one of those women to whom artistic flare comes easily. I can never quite choose the right shades of paint for my house, I suck at arranging flowers, and I can't paint my fingernails for all the tea in China without it looking like I'm bleeding to death from the cuticles. I have very little patience for acute attention to ultimately inconsequential details, and I'm generally fine with that. After all, I'm a feminist. But my desire to make my mother and aunts proud goes beyond feminism. It springs from an innate psychological need to connect with the women who raised me; those upon whom I based my first understandings of what it means to be a woman. And don't get me wrong; they are old-school southern women, yes; the kind who truly embody the adage that being dead is no excuse not to graciously hostess a funeral. But they are also strong, compassionate, self-determined women whose strength and wisdom have guided and shaped me every bit as much as their ability to throw a lovely wedding shower. If I'm being honest, their approval means far more to me than I'm usually willing to admit; certainly, it means more than I can articulate here. And so it was with all this deeply-rooted yearning for matriarchal approval simmering just below the surface of my subconscious that I set out to bake--and, more importantly, decorate-- a cake.
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"Laura understands: There are two choices only. You can be capable or uncaring. You can produce a masterful cake by your own hand or, barring that, light a cigarette, declare yourself hopeless at such projects, pour yourself another cup of coffee, and order a cake from the bakery. Laura is an artisan who has tried, and failed, publicly. She has produced something cute, when she had hoped (it's embarrassing, but true) to produce something of beauty."

"At home, the new cake waits under an aluminum cake-saver with a wooden knob shaped like an acorn. It is an improvement over the first cake [...] It's a fine cake, perfect in its way, and yet Laura is still disappointed in it. It still feels amateurish, homemade; it still seems somehow wrong. The 'y' in 'Happy' isn't what she'd hoped it would be, and two of the roses are lopsided."

-The Hours, Michael Cunningham

OK, so maybe the references to Mrs. Brown's cake in The Hours are a little heavy-handed. I certainly didn't allow my entire concept of self to hinge on the success or failure of this one cake. But in a way, I wasn't far off. While the way I view myself was not at stake, the way others view me was. Namely, in this instance, the women in my family. I am so unlike them in so many ways. I am a lesbian; I am a feminist; I am an uncouth, bawdy, opinionated liberal who lets dishes pile in the sink, carries a tote bag instead of a purse, and doesn't shave her legs in the winter time. And while I make no apologies for who I am or how I live, I have nonetheless internalized the southern woman's near-religious dedication to hospitality: to showing those dearest to you that you cared enough to try, that they are worth your effort and sweat (excuse me...glow), and that their comfort and happiness matter. While such values have long been attributed to the female sex and as such are considered restrictive tools of the patriarchy, it is my contention that hospitality, in its various forms, is a value well-adopted by everyone, male, female, or otherwise. But I digress. The point here, folks, is that I am occasionally overcome by the desire to show the women in my family that I am, in some way, like them. That despite my generally alien lifestyle, their lessons have not been lost on me and we still share some common ground.

So I made the cake. For two days, I mixed, measured, baked, shopped, whipped, chilled, and pretty much any other baking verb you can think of. I bought pastry-decorating bags and a variety of differently sized and shaped tips. I painstakingly researched recipes and decorating techniques. I used nearly every mixing bowl, wooden spoon, and spatula in my kitchen, plowed through nearly a full-dozen eggs, and I have yet to successfully remove all the flour from the various nooks and crannies into which it drifted. I lost count of how many times I ran out to the grocery store for this or that supplemental ingredient. But in the end, I had successfully produced a low-sugar, triple layer, mocha fudge chocolate cake with mocha coffee cream cheese icing, decorative piping, and the words "Happy 56th Joe" piped legibly on top, in addition to a dozen piped-icing-topped mocha fudge cupcakes. I finished with just enough time to pile the dishes in the sink, make myself reasonably presentable, pack a bag for the weekend, and drive down to South Carolina in time to beat my parents to the restaurant. My beloved wife held the cake plate in her lap as I drove us down the highway.

We were 5 minutes from the restaurant when I noticed. Having stopped briefly at a red light, I happened to glance over to the passenger seat where my wife sat, innocently holding the cake plate in her lap...slanted. She'd set the cake plate on her thighs, and evidently not noticed that in doing so, had tipped the cake plate towards herself so that the cake had slid forward into the side of the plate's cover, thereby smooshing one side against the plastic, while the other side of the cake had slipped away from the piping at the base. In short, my life was ruined.

To my credit, my melodramatic overreaction stopped short of actually yelling at Rebecca or blaming her out loud, but I certainly spared neither of us an ounce of my own self-pity. The cake I'd worked on so hard for two days, the cake of which I'd been so very proud and which was to be my crowning glory, was ruined. I didn't need to remind her that it was all her fault. We both knew it was.

My righteous anger and self-pity lasted all of about 6 minutes, which is how long it took us to get to the restaurant (to which my parents had already arrived). I dropped her off at the front to carry in the cake while I parked the car. My infinitely patient, gentle, librarian wife slammed the door so hard the car shook. By the time I got inside, she was in the bathroom. When I knocked and she opened the door, her face took all the fight out of me. I was an asshole. And what's worse is that she wasn't mad, but was genuinely sorry she'd "ruined" my cake (which, upon closer examination, was barely scathed, once set flat on a table and allowed to slide back into place). I hugged her then, and we spent the first 20 minutes of my dad's birthday party locked in the single-occupancy bathroom explaining and apologizing and blowing our noses on brown paper towels. My family was gracious enough not to comment on our red-rimmed eyes when we finally joined them at the table. We wished my dad a happy birthday, and for the first time in two days, I stopped thinking about the damn cake and remembered what we were celebrating.

Gradually, everyone trickled onto the patio of the Mexican restaurant where the party was being held. The Coronas and margaritas flowed as, little by little, the patio filled up to the point that there were not enough chairs to seat everyone and many folks simply leaned against the railings or sat on the laps of whomever they were speaking to at the time. We all ate our weight in the bottomless tortilla chips on the tables before continuing to stuff ourselves with the burritos, fajitas, and enchiladas that were eventually brought out on piping hot plates. At some point, the karaoke equipment was set up at the far end of the patio, and dad subsequently ushered the entire party to the mic for a rousing (and half-drunken) chorus of what's fondly known as "The Fort Mill National Anthem," as well as by its less inspiring title, "You Don't Have to Call Me Darlin', Darlin'." Later on, my sister and her husband performed an adorable duet of the Randy Travis classic, "Forever and Ever, Amen," and I even got up and belted out a rendition of "Cabaret" to the drunken and gracious hooting of a crowd unaccustomed to show tunes.

It was well past dark by the time we sang happy birthday, and my dad was presented with a gold-tasseled sombrero and complimentary shot of tequila. I brought out the unilluminated cake (because after everything, I'd forgotten to bring candles), and most everyone was paying such rapt attention to that moment's performers (two little girls rocking out to Taylor Swift) that they barely noticed if they noticed at all. Even if they had been paying attention, it was too dark to make out much of anything beyond the basic shape and maybe a glint of piping here and there. I did manage to take one hasty picture with a borrowed camera before we cut into it, but even that was half-hearted, with the flash reflecting off the icing as a bright glare smack in the middle. In short, no one other than me and Rebecca even saw the thing in full light.

But it was delicious. It was moist and dense, with the cool cream cheese frosting offering the perfect creamy counterbalance to the heavy mocha flavor. Dad loved it, and was still going on about it the next day as the uneaten portion sat waiting in his fridge. It was still pretty, with the now-visible layers revealed to be evenly spaced, the light-brown frosting contrasting beautifully with the dark chocolate cake layers, and the word "Happy" still in tact on the top. But I barely even thought about it. Instead, I spent all day thinking about how happy my dad had been, how much fun it had been to sing with my family, to watch my dad down a shot of tequila while trying to balance the ill-fitting sombrero on his ample head, to listen to my sister and her husband sing country love songs together. It was truly a wonderful night. On my way back to my parents' house after the party, I was literally so overcome with love and happiness that it was almost painful to think about too long. In fact, through no doing of my own, the night was pretty damn close to perfect.