Cake Face's Birthday Wish

The crowd around the table was silent as I, with tightly closed eyes, prepared to make a wish. Out of thirteen birthdays, this was my eighth wish. None had come true so far; at least none that I could remember. Certain that birthday wishes were a hoax I tightened my closed eye lids and prepared the ritual utterances that only heaven would hear. New friends and old, the milling crowd around me were the boys and girls of Camp Howard on the Navarro River. Encouraged to be friends by the gods who ruled the camp, we at least, had become peers. We, the gawky, pimply peers, who knew camp was a mandatory part of the life of well-adjusted thirteen year olds everywhere. Why? The camp gods would eventually reveal the truth. Most of us had been here the year before when we became twelve year old peers. I felt their nervous presence tighten around me.
Bobby, Linda, Grace, Byron, Kenny, Dennis, the Marsley twins and Gus. They were my camping peers from Ukiah, but there were other kids as well, from other cities and states; someone said they were my new friends. Funny how loosely certain terms could be defined. New friends or old we were a newly formed pack of thirteen year old campers. My wish went to the heavens and I opened my eyes. Twenty campers hovered slightly above me and began squawking out the traditional birthday song. They viciously ignored the rules of tone and beat. In the vocal melee I bent down to blow out thirteen candles on the four layer birthday cake with one inch deep chocolate frosting.
It was Byron’s hand. I knew it as it swooshed over the back of my head. The blow did not hurt but it had the force of a catapult, just enough force to push my face into the heat of recently extinguished candles. My cheeks drove the smoking stems into the cake as my nose cleared each smoldering stick to be rammed two inches into chocolate frosting and yellow cake. The smell of smoke, sugar, cocoa and rage burst into my throat as my ears were stung by the shrill laughter and uncontrolled giggles of my refined friends. I cocked all of my muscles ready to pulverize my slob of a peer.
As I came up for air, my good pal Kenny restrained my arms and hands so that I could do nothing but stand nobly before the revelers with a chocolate glazed mask plastered to my nose, forehead, cheeks and chin. I grinned the grin of an idiot as my peers, perfectly stoic offspring of doctors, lawyers, judges and teachers held their guts and tried desperately not to pee their pants.
And that’s when I first noticed her. I mean for real. I saw her before of course. But like an amateur anthropologist. Curiosity had pushed me into being a shadowy observer of her life. I observed her in the mess hall and the camp fires and the archery range. She hung out with three girls from Idaho. Within a day of this “observing” I was officially her stalker. But when you are a pre-teen boy its just called being annoying. Of the four girls I had judged her to be the least stuck up, but they all seemed to be in love with themselves. She was without her Idaho group now. All alone and in a spot light that only I could see. She was watching the aftermath of my birthday humiliation with dancing eyes and an unguarded smile that was intended just for me.
She wore a delicate pink sweater over a crisp white blouse that was tucked neatly into one of those pink skirts that flare out from the waist. Hers flowed from side to side and yet remained level with her knees. She wore ankle high white socks with dainty cuffs. Her shoes were a tan and white saddle perfectly polished. Around her neck was a red silk scarf that highlighted an expensive looking string of pearls. Her hair was pulled back in a loose pony tail that appeared to be more of a stylist’s creation than the casual mainstay of the pre-teen American girl. I couldn’t look away though I should have hid my lack of cool. Or maybe I was cool. Unaffected by the pranks of my baby peers. Maybe.
I willed her to stay connected with me and as if we were in the same sphere of influence and grace, she began to move towards me. She kept her smile and did not once glance to the sides where the comedy and mirth were coming to their natural conclusions. The seconds ticked by as I appreciated the kindness in her face, the beauty of her soulful eyes, gray and playful.
She reached for my right arm that was still pinned by my great pal Kenny. He gave it up when she put out her hand. Byron was jumping up and down proclaiming the cake to be a mucous swamp. “inedible!” “Gross!” “Contaminated!” There was more laughter, though shortened this time by the realization that there would be no cake tonight.
She pulled me close to her side and with her mouth less than an inch from my ear said, “Let’s run!”
She waited just the single second it took for my head to nod an agreement. We dashed out the mess hall doors into the early evening sun speckled parade ground. The towering Redwood trees cast long shadows across the grass covered field. Her laugh was like a simple song sung in a low key so that all can join in. I let my laugh join in her song so proud to have such a beautiful new friend.
We ran across the field towards the canyon where the Navarro River cut through the Redwood grove on the back side of Camp Howard. She let go of my hand and ran ahead. She was a strong runner and everything about her drew my affection and curiosity into unexplored regions of my soul. She would have to be like me to gain my full trust, all of my friends were naturally likeable, but they were often exactly like me. Except Byron of course, who was suddenly on my list of people to be mercilessly extinct. Tyrannosaurus Byron.
The grass had been mowed hours before and the aroma from the simmering cuttings was sweet and laced with honey, the river sounded bright and cool and the breeze from the Pacific coast added wind to chill my body in the race to keep up with my new friend. She disappeared into the dimness of the grove just as I reached the end of the field. I could see pink floating above shadows as saddle shoes pushed her over the boulders to a slip of a gravely beach. She bowed before the water to soak her red silk scarf.
The chocolate frosting was well set on my face by the time I cleared the boulders and stood on the beach. The butter cream was constricting my face into a frown.
“Happy Birthday Kyle,” she said, again laughing while trying to look earnestly at her awkward prize. Her hand took mine and pulled me to my knees by the stream where icy water was used to bathe icing from my chocolate crusted face.
“Thank you,” I said in the manner imposed upon me by my mother. Proper and courteous.
“You’re welcome,” she said in a manner that I’m sure was not approved by her mother, but was alluring and warm. A manner that I would hunt out for ages to come. Soft. Innocent. Smart.
As the last of the chocolate was scraped from my face, I was suddenly embarrassed that I had allowed my new friend to do all the work. I took the scarf from her hands and washed the chocolate out of the material. She leaned in closer to watch my work. I was overly conscious of our closeness and suddenly needed to leave.
“Don’t you want to know my name?” she asked as though reading my mind and employing words to halt my escape.
“It’s Cindy isn’t it? I said. She seemed pleased with my reply.
“Cynthia Majors actually. You can call me Cindy if you like. Nearly everybody does. You can walk me back to the mess hall if you want. Well really, you should want to. You should want to hold my hand as we walk too.”
“Of course I want to, Cindy,” I said. I had never known a Cindy before, but from that point on until forever she, Cynthia Majors, would be the definitive Cindy. Every Cindy after her would be measured by her, the original. She smiled as we stood up together and her eyes took on an even more alluring light. A sweeter charm.
“I like hearing you say my name,” she said.

I gave the red scarf back to Cindy and she put in her left hand while taking my hand in her right. We worked carefully to climb over the boulders to get back on the trail back to Camp Howard.
I had already used up all of the conversation I knew so I nodded and smiled as she began a sweet monologue.
“I’m from Longview,” she said. “Longview, Washington. It’s really neat and cool and all of my friends and I have a great time, well most of the time. We still have to go to school.”
“My dad is a doctor,” she said. “He works forever and my mom is a volunteer for a lot of special causes like cancer research and feeding the starving children all over the world. I had a boyfriend once, which of course she hated, but then he moved away and it was all ok again. He was a lot like you Kyle.” We took a longer path out of the grove. Much longer than the one by which we entered. It was a twenty minute walk through an amazing paradise where only the August sun glowed more radiantly than we did.
“Are you excited about being in the eighth grade next year?” she asked, “I am. I think I am going to be a cheerleader and learn to speak French and have at least two parties before Christmas and go to every dance. Do you like to dance Kyle?”
“Sure,” I said. I had watched people dance hadn’t I? How hard could it be to dance with someone who loved to dance? There was a dance at the camp that night. Maybe I would give it a try for the first time in my life. What I wanted was for Cindy to never stop talking. Girls had always been silly around me and their talk was kid stuff and full of practice chatter. They used up their pretend and mimic words and phrases around me. They were often miniature mature women repeating adult phrases. All of it seemed silly to me. I was delighted to find that Cindy was not silly at all.
She and I grew closer with every breath we took together and our steps became slower as they synchronized. We leaned into together thrilled to be so close. I became more like her and it was dawning on me that she was becoming more like me. Is it really like that? Does it really happen that fast I wondered? I remember when my brother Tommy began to like girls. It was impossible to get him to talk to a girl on one day and then the next he seemed to have a girl hanging around him all the time. And he wasn’t creeped out by it either.
“You’ll write to me won’t you?” Cindy asked.
“What?” I said. I couldn’t hide my sudden shock. I knew her face would be searching mine and I wanted to see her do that, talking to me with her Cindy way.
“I’ll write to you Kyle. You know when we get home.” Yes her face was pretty and sincere and just for me. “The camp will give us all the addresses. I’ve already got a thousand things I want to tell you and this is the last night of camp. I just thought, you being such a smart guy, that it would be neat to be friends through the mail.”
My heart nearly stopped. This was the last night. It was over before it began. What kind of cruel joke was this anyway? Emotional distance rose up in me. I wanted to break it off right now. No dance. No saying good bye. I wouldn’t wait for a letter. Writing was stupid. I was stupid. I was too stupid to write. Friends through the mail? There is not enough time in the world. I was playing ball this year. Joey, my project lamb for 4-H was registered in the fair. I’m in the band and singing in the chorus. I had day by day friends everywhere. I had never had to write a letter. It was like homework but without earning a grade for all the hard labor.
Something in her gentle gray eyes made it past my resistant heart and evoked from my mouth the response she wanted.
“I’ll write to you Cindy,” I said. “Of course I’ll write to you. I don’t have a thousand things to say, but I want to write.” Her eyes were big and bright and her mouth seemed ready to pronounce something profound, but she let her lips part into the most stunning smile I had ever seen.
She turned several of her steps into some quick skipping and pulled me along past the mess hall to the hill side of the boy’s cabins.
“So, I’ll see you at the dance tonight, Kyle?”
“Yes. Of course,” I said.
She slipped an arm around my waist and mine fit perfectly around her’s. For the first time I noticed how light the color of her hair was and how the pearls around her neck were perfectly alike in every way. Highly polished and pure, they would have been a gift from someone close to her life and heart. We each squeezed and I allowed my face to brush into the soft pony tail and inhaled the fragrance of a thousand honey suckle blossoms. It was a casual but extended embrace, shy and yet the most mature action I had ever taken in my life and then she quickly walked away, the pony tail dancing and the pink skirt swaying.
“You wanna play this next hand cake snorter?” Byron laughed as I floated into the darkness of my cabin. It was a moment before I could make out the grotesque features of my hilarious tormenter. Byron the gambler, was positioned to face the door where he could view easily those headed up the trail to the cabin. All gambling was strictly prohibited at Camp Howard, but hard to enforce. He was hosting Kenny and Gus and the Marsley twins in their usual after dinner penny ante poker game.
“It’s too rich for my blood,” I said. I looked at the baboon face of my friend wondering why he did some of the stupid things he did, but knowing I would never hold the cake dunk against him. “I just need to get something for the dance and then I’m outta here boys!”
I took the lock to my old blue trunk into my hands twisted the black faced dial with the precise combination to open the battered chest. I dug beneath my underwear, t-shirts and jeans and pulled out my brother’s senior class ring. It was even too big for me to wear but it was perfect. The gold band was highly polished and the gold emblem of Tommy’s high school was seated on a pearl base framed in gold. I had bugged Tommy about why he didn’t get the emerald or the ruby, but now I was glad that it was pearl.
I was sure that Cindy would never forget my dive into my cake, or the ludicrous face that proudly wore the mask of chocolate or the awkward steps of that same goofy guy on the dance floor the last night at camp. What I would recall of my thirteenth birthday was the prayer of thanks I uttered to the camp gods, and the wish I made to heaven, a wish that would continue to be true through most of my life and began that night as I offered Cindy my most cherished possession.