Happy Birthday

Lila cracked the eggs into the metal bowl. They made a divot in the mound of flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, sugar, and a dash of salt. The sensation of mixing wet ingredients into dry ones to slowly obtain a runny cream with a rich brown color was probably going to be the most pleasant experience of the day.

Would the cake turn out fluffy and spongy like Lila preferred? Or tending toward dry, like Roderick usually wanted? Only one way to find out.

With the cake in the oven, Lila decided to make a glaze rather than a buttercream, and to frost the cake before it was cool, so that no matter how the cake turned out, there would be a squishiness for Roderick to complain about.

She’d asked for a chocolate cake for her birthday. That was all. She didn’t ask for presents or a party or even a modest dinner at her favorite restaurant. No candles were demanded, no ice cream specified, no liqueur selected. A chocolate cake.

Well, there it was. Fluffy and spongy and topped with a cocoa glaze that dripped thick tears onto the countertop. Lila knew she should’ve used a bigger plate.

Today wasn’t Lila’s birthday. It was Roderick’s.

His friends showed up at six, much more reliably than Roderick. Lila welcomed them in.

“The man of the hour, or the day, isn’t here yet. Sit down, make yourselves comfortable—or would you prefer to select your own music while you wait?”

She showed the music system to one of the tall dudes who looked like he would choose trap. Sure enough, the latest affront to musicality began to sound through the surround speakers when Lila was picking up the tray with the drinks.

“Roderick is five years older than me. You would think that would make him mature,” Lila broke into the conversation while offering the tray to a couple of older men who must have been Roderick’s coworkers. When he showed up to work.

“You know, I had my birthday recently,” she mentioned to a clump of women who’d chucked their purses in the corner. “Three weeks ago.”

“Happy birthday,” murmured one of the blondes around a cardboard straw.

“Thanks. It really wasn’t, though.”

Like all her birthdays, none of her friends had been around to celebrate her, because she had the gumption to be born during the quintessential month of summer vacations. The month no one was ever in town but Lila.

When Lila found out Roderick was going to balk the trend, and she would finally have a birthday with none other than her boyfriend, the simplest thing seemed like it would be a high point in her life.

“All I ask for is to eat some chocolate cake with you,” Lila had told Roderick as he was dropping her off a month before her big day. “I don’t even care what kind. It doesn’t have to have my name on it or anything. Buy it out of the supermarket freezer if you want.” She kissed him deeply to drive the point home. “I just want some chocolate cake with my boyfriend on my birthday.”

The big day came and went with Lila checking the clock every few minutes and no sign of Roderick. When he called the next day, there had been no apology from his side, and no recriminations from her side. But when they hung up, Lila went straight to the supermarket and bought her own darn chocolate cake.

It wasn’t like her birthday had been a mystery. He’d asked on their first date, and his nods and smiles indicated clearly that he wasn’t going to forget. And she’d slyly mentioned the day, talking about how her parents had rushed to the hospital, or that it coincided with National Pickle Day, every chance she got.

His complete passing over of Lila’s humble birthday expectations was inexplicable.

“Was a piece of chocolate cake really so much to ask?” Lila queried the man who’d chosen the trap music.

He looked at the time on his phone as his only reply.

Unlike her supposed boyfriend, Lila truly had remembered Roderick’s birthday. She’d invited his friends to her house and baked him a chocolate cake she was sure would be delicious. If anyone ever ate it.

Lila looked at the clock on the wall. It was fifteen minutes past the time she’d told Roderick to be there. Any minute now. She stood by the cake in the kitchen to wait.

An impatient knock at the door announced Roderick’s arrival. Lila scooped up the cake on its plate and hurried to the door, shushing the guests as she went. “It’s a surprise, remember!”

She opened the door with her left hand, and there was Roderick. He was so handsome, no wonder she’d put up with him for so long. Lila almost forgot what she’d been planning for nearly three weeks. But then she came to.

“Happy birthday,” she said. She maneuvered the cake to plant it firmly in his face.

These things always seem better during the planning. Better not to actually do them at all.

Because in addition to the face full of cake, Roderick received a heavy blow that broke the ceramic platter and knocked him flat on the lawn.

“Oh, no,” said Lila, kneeling on the grass next to him. “I didn’t mean it like this!”

She suddenly noticed that there was a catering van parked across the street. She set to digging the cake off Roderick’s face while he moaned.

Mixed in with the chocolate was a fair amount of blood. She touched his nose, and he screamed.

“You broke my nose!”

“I’m sorry!”

Someone was standing over them. “What happened? Why did you do that?”

It was Emma, Lila’s best friend.

“Call an ambulance,” Lila told her. “Aren’t you in Spain right now?”

“I was supposed to be, but I came back early to celebrate with you.” She held out a box of paella mix, then dialed and walked away a little to talk the situation over.

Roderick’s friends had come out of the house to stand around him, and it was then that Lila saw that her favorite people were there, too. Everyone from her book club, and even the least annoying people from work. They milled around near the catering van, waiting to see what would happen.

One of Roderick’s lady friends knelt with Lila and held Roderick’s hand while he continued to moan. “He was really impressed that you asked for so little for your birthday. He wanted to give you much more than you asked for, many more of the things he thought you probably wanted.”

“That’s what all this is?” said Lila.

“He brought us all back from vacation,” said one of the book club ladies. “He even told us how you didn’t complain when he couldn’t get us all together in time for your birthday. I thought he should’ve told you what he was planning. Could’ve prevented this.” She made a dismissive gesture at poor Roderick on the lawn.

A little more patience, a little more reason on Lila’s part could also have prevented this. “I’m so sorry. Believe me, I couldn’t be sorrier,” said Lila, kissing Roderick’s cheek, well away from his nose. The cake had turned out pretty tasty, after all.

“They’re on their way,” said Emma, holding the phone a little away from her ear. “You should see the cake he got you.”

The caterer opened the back of the van, and Lila peered inside. White tendrils of frozen air whirled around a six-layer cake with a sugar castle at the top and velvety brown frosting. Lila could smell the cacao from the door.

Every layer of the cake had a special emblem written on it: Lila & Roderick Forever.

Tamping down tears, Lila had the caterer take the cake into the house, where she removed the top layer. Lila followed the ambulance and sat with the cake layer and its castle in the waiting room, studying the brickwork and turrets for several hours.

When Roderick came out to meet her, his bandaged face free of cocoa and buttercream and pushed in a wheelchair by a burly nurse with “Abel” on his nametag, she took his hands in hers.

“You brought all my friends to eat chocolate cake with us. It was going to be the best birthday. Thank you. I’m so sorry I doubted you. I never will again.”

He patted her hands and kissed her clumsily, not sure where his own face was under the bandages.

He accepted the fork and knife she offered. They ate chocolate cake together on his birthday.