The Awkward Path To Getting Lucky

Shannon turns to me. “Where are you on the Sadie Hawkins order?”

We were contracted by a local middle school to provide tasty treats for their upcoming dance. Gesturing to the cooling racks in the back, I say, “The first hundred are cooling, I’ll start the rest now, and if I go all day, I should have all five hundred decorated long before it’s time to head home.”

“All right,” Shannon says. “Butter, you’re going to help Liz, and you’ll be working on the triplets’ smash cakes, yes?” Butter nods. “Great. And I’ll be restocking the front display case and working on the rest of the orders for tomorrow. I’ll also be doing a trial run of the personal pies so we can test those out before we launch them next week. Later today I’ll go and make our deliveries. Also, the Capuzo order is going out this afternoon, so everyone gird things.”

I roll my eyes. Mr. Capuzo is a semi-regular customer who comes in every few months and is either incredibly pleased with our services or pitches a raging holy fit about the weirdest things. Once he bought all the oatmeal raisin cookies in our display case, then came stomping back in five minutes later because he’d thought the raisins were chocolate chips. Never mind the fact that the cookies were clearly labeled—he still considered the raisins to be a “betrayal.”

I so would not have sex with Mr. Capuzo.

“Not it!” Butter calls out. “I’m still not over his meltdown from when the strawberry short-cuppies didn’t have as much filling as he thought they should. If I have to wait on him, I’ll cry.”

Shannon grins. “I’ll take him.”

“The hell you will.” I snort. “Last time you dealt with a jerky customer, you flung a cupcake at him.”

“It slipped,” she says, casually flipping through the papers in her hand.

“It slipped a good five feet and landed with surprising precision on his chest,” I correct her. “We had to pay for his dry cleaning. And Mr. Capuzo is too old to have you throw baked goods at his face—or his face through a window—so no, I will take the Capuzo when he comes in.”

Liz looks moderately terrified. Shannon smiles. “Kat is our Mouth,” she explains. “Butter cries, I throw things, Kat keeps us from getting sued.” Liz considers this and shrugs with apparent satisfaction. Shannon looks back at her list. “Okay. Is everybody good? Meeting over?”

“Actually, really quick,” Butter says, “I was thinking about doing the coconut cuppie with pineapple curd and candied bacon as the headliner tomorrow.” She can turn damn near anything edible into a gourmet cuppie. “When you’re out on deliveries, could you pick up some supplies?”

“God, yes,” Shannon agrees with an enthusiastic nod. “I think that’s my favorite of your recipes. Could you make an extra half dozen so I can take them home to Joe and the kids? They love those so much.”

Butter beams. “Sure!” she says. I foresee that extra batch getting the royal edible glitter treatment.

Looking around the shop, Shannon asks, “Is that everything?”

Butter and Liz nod. Shannon takes in a deep breath, smiles and sets her pad down. She takes another glorious sip of coffee.

“Oh, hey,” I add casually. “There is one thing.”

It’s very slight, but I swear I see her wince. “What did I forget? Is there another order?” She starts pulling invoices off the stack on her workstation and flipping through them.

I shake my head. “No, it’s nothing like that.”

Shannon sets the papers down and lets out a gust of air. “Okay, good. What’s up?” she asks, lifting her coffee mug to her lips again.

“My vagina is broken and Ryan and I haven’t had sex in almost two years and it’s really distracting. Help.” A strangled, rupturing sound escapes from Shannon, and suddenly it’s raining coffee in the kitchen.

2 (#uab22ad16-deff-5c50-a72b-43434ffdf7d5)

“Wait...” Butter asks, her eyes aghast. “What do you mean your vagina’s broken? How do you break a vagina?”

Liz, looking horrified, leans toward me and whispers, “Did you fall on it or something?”

I blink at her. “No. No, I didn’t fall on it.” Shaking my head, I answer, “It’s a disorder. Well, that’s what my doctor said two years ago, anyway.”

Shannon stops mopping the spit coffee off her station and points her towel at me. “Is it vulvodynia? Vaginismus? Vaginitis?”

My jaw flops to my chest. “Vaginismus. How could you possibly know that?”

She barely restrains an eye-roll as she resumes wiping down the coffee-splattered counter. “Oh my god, when you said your vagina was broken, I thought it was something like cancer, you dork.” She moves down the station and pushes her towel across the coffee-splattered floor. “I went through vaginismus after Heidi was born.”

Butter wheels around. “Wait! Your vagina is broken, too?”

“It’s been broken for seven years?” A very unfortunate whimper escapes me.

She looks up at us with that semi-irritating mom expression she uses when we push her patience a smidgen too far. “Guys. No. I was having trouble for a few months after I had Heidi, and the doctor said it was vaginismus. So I went to a physical therapist for maybe three months, did the rest of the therapy at home and I haven’t really had any issues since.”

I’m gaping at her. “How did I not know about this?”

Shannon grins. “Sorry. Next time one of my reproductive parts shorts out, I’ll be sure to bring it up at a staff meeting.”

I stick my tongue out at her.

“Wait,” Butter interrupts. “Physical therapists...for your...vagina?”

“Yes.”

“But...” She blinks at me, and then at Shannon. “For your vagina.”

Shannon lets out a deep sigh. “Yes.”

“They have those?” Liz squeaks. Shannon nods. “Around here?” She nods again.

Butter explodes. “Are you freaking kidding me? We don’t have an Olive Garden, but we have vagina therapists? What even is real life?”

Shannon ignores Butter’s outrage and focuses on me. “How have you had this for two years? You’re with Ryan!”

“We’ve been in a...dry spell,” I say evasively.

“Honey, you guys have gone two years without sex?” Shannon asks, awed. Liz’s eyes get wider.

“Technically,” I say with a huff, “it’ll be two years in thirty-four days. The last time we tried was on our second anniversary.”

Clutching her glitter brush like a security raft, Butter looks traumatized. “Tried? As in, you couldn’t even do it?”

As I’m trying to think of a way to explain this to her without causing her irreparable mental harm, Shannon moves in front of Butter. “It’s like this,” she says. Shannon holds up her hand and points a finger at Butter’s face. “If I try to poke you in the eye, what happens?” As she moves her hand closer, Butter instinctively slaps it away.

“If you poke me in the eye, I’ll punch you in the boob.”

I stifle a snort as Shannon continues. “Go with me here. If I move my finger toward your eye, what happens?” She waves her finger past Butter’s eye, and thankfully, no one is boob-punched.

“I blink.”

“Okay,” Shannon says, slowly. “Now, even though you know it’s coming, and you know I’m not going to actually poke you in the eye, what happens?” Moving her finger at a glacial pace, Butter’s eye still slams shut of its own accord. My knees clench a little.