Page 12 of Mr. Big Shot

On my sixteenth birthday, he came to my school and sang “Happy Birthday” to me over the PA system. Accompanied by my gym teacher Mr. Rollins.

When I got accepted into undergrad at Cornell, he came to my afterschool job at the ice cream shop dressed up as “Touchdown” aka Big Red Bear, holding up a “Go Scarlett Go” banner.

I’m his youngest child and his only daughter. He was never going to be hands-off with me the way he was with my older brothers. I’m honestly surprised he’s lasted this long before coming to surprise me. Almost 1:00 p.m.? For him, that’s showing real restraint.

I barely have time to brace myself, and unfortunately, I don’t get the chance to pre-apologize to Kendra for whatever is about to go down before my dad turns the corner with his phone held out right in front of his face, and oh, look at that—he’s already taking pictures of me.

How do I know? The flash is on and blinking about every half second. He’s going to have seven hundred versions of me wearing a dumb expression as I try to yank his phone out of his hands.

“Dad!”

He’s roped his two assistants into this too—Janice and Linda. Janice holds up a multi-tiered cake that might have been stolen from someone’s wedding it’s so insanely huge. Linda is holding enough balloons that a) I can’t see her face and b) I’m genuinely concerned she’s having a hard time keeping her feet on the ground. We’re about to have to call maintenance for a ladder to get her down from the ceiling.

“This is a lot, even for you,” I say drolly.

He laughs before obtusely asking Janice to snap a photo of us.

“Dad, her hands are full. So are Linda’s.”

Unperturbed, he turns to Kendra. “Right. Okay, here. Would you mind taking a picture?”

Kendra has to really battle with herself over her reply to this question. She doesn’t want to have to give in and be nice to my father and, by extension, me, but she certainly can’t be rude to the owner of the company. There’s really only one choice. I watch her force that smile and give her best enthusiastic nod. “Sure thing! This is so sweet of you!”

The moment—and I mean down to the millisecond—she finishes taking our picture and hands my dad’s phone back, her smile drops and she returns to her resting bitch face.

I don’t let it bother me. I turn to my father and give him a side hug. Honestly, I’m just glad to see a friendly face after my long morning.

“Balloons and cake, Dad?” I rib him.

“What?” He drops a kiss to my head. “Can’t I celebrate my one and only daughter on her first day at her new fancy job?” Then his eyes widen like he’s remembered something, and he looks behind him. “Janice, come on, show her the cake.”

Though it seemed over the top from a distance, up close…I’m actually speechless. There’s a little miniature version of me planted into the icing on the top tier. Did he get it custom made? He must have. The figurine has a leather briefcase, brown hair, and brown eyes. She’s also holding a little pennant flag that says: I love Elwood Hoyt.

Despite how much this is going to hurt me in the long run, I can’t help but feel grateful for his support. I know he doesn’t approve of my position here. There were many, many late-night discussions over rounds of Scrabble where I convinced him this was what I truly wanted. I appreciate him putting his feelings aside today and making me feel loved.

Unfortunately, Janice takes the cake to the break room, and when I go in to get a piece after lunch, most of it’s already gone, and my figurine, well…someone stuck her headfirst into the cake so all that’s sticking out are her feet and that pennant flag. Which now reads: “Loser.”

Later that night, I try to tell Jasper about it all, laughing while I do it.

“Like sure, they could have come up with something slightly more creative than loser, but the overall effect was still pretty funny.”

My boyfriend sets down his silverware and eyes me with tenacious concern from across his dinner table. “That’s not funny, Scarlett. You need to tell your father, or at the very least, Barrett. They’ll be able to do something about it.”

Panic has me leaning over to touch his arm, to reassure him that it was really nothing. “No. Come on, lighten up. So they wrecked my cake? Big deal! I still got a big ol’ slice for myself. I just happened to also accidentally decapitate my figurine in the process. They really stuck that sucker down in there.”

I laugh, but I’m alone in it, so I let it trickle away as he shakes his head at me. It’s like I’m in as much trouble as they are. I didn’t destroy my cake!

I should have known not to tell Jasper. He’s completely by the book. Everything is right and wrong, black and white. With him, there’s no nuance to life. It makes sense, I suppose. He works for the district attorney’s office. Those guys all fit a certain kind of mold, and I don’t mind it, truly. Jasper is wonderful! A perfect boyfriend! We’re about to celebrate our first anniversary. He was a year ahead of me at Columbia Law, and we were introduced through mutual friends. We didn’t jump into things right away. Jasper courted me like we were in the Victorian era. First, we’d see each other in group settings, then we slowly developed a steady friendship. From there, we moved infinitesimal step by infinitesimal step toward a relationship that was mostly long distance as he took a position in Chicago and I stayed back in New York to finish my final year of law school.

When I asked him a few weeks ago what he saw for our future, he said it was already mapped out. At our two-year mark, he’d ask me to marry him, and an appropriate amount of time after that, we’d have the ceremony.

“And what if I propose to you first? The day before our two-year anniversary?” I teased.

I meant it as a joke, but Jasper looked at me like he was horrified.

“That would make no sense, Scarlett.”

He’s looking at me much the same way now as we discuss the silly cake situation.

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