100 Days of Cake Read Online Free Page A

catch outside in the yard. As the announcer is reading off the laundry list of side effects—dizziness, drowsiness or tired feeling, upset stomach, dry mouth, changes in appetite, constipation—the woman heads outside, a little hesitantly, and starts playing with her family.
    It’s a different med than the one I’m on, and it seems to be working much more effectively for the Attractives than mine does for me.
    I study my Maury sketch and hope JoJo doesn’t have any commentary on the commercial, too.
    â€œYou go to CCH?” she asks.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œI’m class of 2011,” she says.
    â€œI just missed you,” I say, hoping to avoid that awkward conversation where we try to figure out if we have friends in common. She doesn’t know Elle, and I hardly talk to anyone else anymore.
    â€œDemarco still teaching geometry?”
    â€œI think so.”
    A look of righteous indignation falls across her face. “That A-hat sent me to detention at least once a week. For piddly shit too, like chewing gum.”
    â€œSucks.” I try to sound sympathetic. “I had Swinton; he was okay.”
    â€œLucky.” She turns back to the TV, where The Jerry Springer Show is starting. Apparently today’s episode featuresa woman who wants to marry her husband’s grandfather. I take a lap through the aisles to double-check the tanks in case she may have missed something. I even contemplate digging out the broom and sweeping.
    I took the job here because Chuck thinks minimum wage is two bucks higher than it is, and that’s what he’s paying. But the fish really are beautiful. All the bright colors of the mandarin fish and the parrot fish, and the crazy shape of the nudibranch, the way that the tasseled angelfish can disappear in its surroundings. I totally get why people (well, not people in Coral Cove, who couldn’t care less that we’re here, but people in general) might get a tank to try to calm themselves down.
    â€œYo, CCH,” JoJo calls from the front. “I’m grabbing lunch from Wang’s. You want in?”
    All strikes against JoJo are erased. Any fan of Wang’s Palace (yes, that is the actual name) is my sister from another mister.
    Wang’s opened a few months ago. It’s this confused mishmash of different Asian cuisines—Chinese, Thai, Japanese—run by a family originally from Brazil. Inside it’s decorated with black-and-white head shots of celebrities, like some of those famous places in LA and Manhattan, only none of those celebrities have ever actually set foot inside. (Not counting Jim and Joe Johnson from J&J Plumbing, the only famous person from Coral Cove is the guy who played the killer in the Murder Island movie. He hasn’t been backin years, despite numerous city council efforts to have him as the grand marshal in the Founder’s Day Parade.)
    Despite all that sketch, Wang’s is actually crazy delicious, and their house special lo mein is clearly made up of whatever food in their kitchen is about to go bad. Sometimes it’s beef and roast pork, sometimes it’s unidentifiable seafood and veggies. Once it was broccoli rabe, a vaguely Mexican sausage, and cashews. That was a good day.
    When JoJo comes back with the steamy clamshell containers, it looks like today is an indistinguishable protein—maybe duck?—and water chestnuts. JoJo and I eat behind the counter, and she gets worked into a lather about a “surprise proposals” Jerry episode, where men pop the question to girls they aren’t even dating, with mixed results.
    Her cell phone rings, and JoJo groans and hands me the remote. “This might be a while; it’s my A-hat ex.”
    I wonder if she means ex-boyfriend or ex-husband. In Coral Cove plenty of people get married right out of high school, so you never know. She’s still in the back room yelling at the ex two episodes of Family Ties later ( Golden