Just Desserts

And out of the box rose a phoenix. Well, not quite, but close.

My name is Dawn, and I own a food truck called The Cupcake Express. You guessed it, I make and sell cupcakes.

This particular day, I had just set up on the corner of MidValley and Russell, THE best spot, in my opinion, at the Food Truck Station lot. The crowd had yet to gather, as I had arrived early to claim my place.

Just as I hung up the Open sign, a flurry of dust, chips, and popcorn bags landed on the ground just yards from me.

"What the hell?" Bending down, I grabbed a strand of chips, and as I rose, I came face to face with the guy who owns a truck down the way.

"That was pretty spectacular! You should have seen the way the wind just tore these off my truck like it was nothing. I thought I had them windproofed, apparently not." He gave a low chuckle as he bent, picking up the other strands of things.

"I particularly liked the abrupt descent. Not a chip or popcorn bag lost! Very impressive." I gracefully swept the loose hair out of my eyes that liked to obstruct my view.

"Kyle." He stuck out a hand, still holding a fistful of popcorn bags in the other. "Fudgin' Nuts, three trucks down. Chocolate everything. Fudge, strawberries, chocolate-covered pretzels, chocolate-dipped bacon on a good day."

"Dawn." I shook his hand, noting the flour dust already ground into his knuckles. "Cupcake Express. I'd say we're in competing businesses, except mine actually stays put in the wind."

"Ouch." His hand flew to his chest as if I'd wounded him, though his smile never left his face. "For the record, this spot's usually mine. At the end of the row, the truck catches the morning light just right; people smell the chocolate before they even see the truck. I don't know how you beat me here."

"Early bird," I said. "I got here before the sun did."

"Well played." He tipped an imaginary hat. "Guess I'll set up in second place today. Try not to let the smell of your frosting distract my customers too badly."

"No promises," I said, and he laughed again, before jogging back down the row to his truck.

By the time the lot opened, the crowd had gathered thick between us. We didn't talk again that day, not really, just a wave here, a nod there. But when I packed up for the night, he was already gone, his spot swept clean, no trace of him except the chocolate smell lingering in the air.

I told myself I wasn't looking for him the next morning as I pulled into the lot at MidValley and Russell a full forty minutes earlier than usual, already rehearsing something clever to say about beating him to his own spot two days running.

Except his spot wasn't empty.

A truck I didn't recognize sat parked there. It was a bright, cheerful thing painted in swirls of pink, silver, and gold with a cartoon flamingo on the side balancing a cupcake stand on its beak. FLOCK OF A FEATHER, the banner read, in curling script. Bird-shaped desserts, apparently, cookies and cakes molded into little wrens and sparrows and, of course, flamingos.

A woman was setting up the awning, humming to herself, entirely oblivious to the fact that she'd parked in what was now understood to be prime real estate.

"Hey there," I said, walking over, more curious than confrontational.

"Hello." She said without stopping what she was doing, tying off a string of fairy lights along the awning's edge. "I scouted the lot yesterday evening, figured out this was the best spot, so I got here at the crack of dawn to grab it. You'd be amazed at how many people want to fight you for some pavement." She laughed, delighted with herself.

I opened my mouth to explain that the spot belonged, unofficially, to a chocolate-truck owner named Kyle, and then closed it again. I gave her a tight smile, wished her luck, and went to set up the Cupcake Express in my usual place.

Kyle showed up twenty minutes later. I watched the whole thing from behind my counter.

He slowed as he approached, that easy morning stride faltering when he spotted the pink-and-gold truck sitting square in his spot. He stood there a long moment, hands on his hips, head tilted, like he was doing math that wasn't adding up.

"Excuse me," I heard him say, polite enough, "I think there might be a mix-up. That's actually where I usually park."

"Early bird," Patty said cheerfully, "gets the pavement." She didn't even look up from arranging little bird-shaped cookies in her display case.

Kyle glanced my way. I lifted my coffee in a small salute and mouthed, " Karma,” and he pointed a finger at me, mouthing, " You”.

He parked beside me instead of down the row, which meant that all day the smell of chocolate and vanilla mingled rather than drifting past each other.

"She'll be fine," he said, at one point, motioning toward Patty's truck, where the flamingo banner snapped cheerfully in a breeze that was, I noticed, picking up.

"You sound suspiciously unbothered."

"I am extremely bothered," he said, popping the last bite of a lemon cupcake into his mouth. "I am bothered on a molecular level. I'm just choosing to be bothered next to you instead of alone."

I didn't have a comeback for that one, so I busied myself with piping frosting and ignored the heat climbing up my neck that had nothing to do with the blazing sun.

By late afternoon, the wind had turned into something with intention. Dark purple and blue clouds rolled in low over the lot, and the first gust hit hard enough to send my own napkin dispenser skittering.

"Storm's coming," Kyle said, already moving to lash down his awning.

I secured what I could, the storm rolling in fast, the way they do out here, all bluster and no warning. And then, over the growing howl of it, I heard the shriek of fabric tearing and turned just in time to see Patty's awning rip clean off its frame and cartwheel across the lot like a pink-and-gold tumbleweed.

It was, I will admit, the most spectacular thing I'd seen all week. Bird-shaped cookies flew from an overturned display case in a little flock. Napkins, a banner, a string of fairy lights, all of it snatched up and flung down the row in a whirling dust devil that seemed personally invested in the outcome.

Patty stood in the middle of it, arms out, spinning in place, trying to catch things that were long past catching, shouting something that was lost entirely to the wind.

"We should help her," I said, even as I made no move to help either.

"Oh, absolutely." He didn't budge. "Right after this part."

I bumped my shoulder into his, laughing despite myself, chocolate and vanilla mingling again in the storm-charged air, and thought that maybe losing the best spot in the lot wasn't such a bad trade after all.

"All right," he sighed. "I've enjoyed enough of the universe doing my dirty work."

He jogged into the wind before I could answer, ducking as the runaway awning made one last determined attempt to escape into traffic. He caught it by a dangling support bar, boots sliding across the pavement, while I chased down a flock of shortbread sparrows that had somehow managed to wedge themselves under my truck.

Patty looked somewhere between horrified and ready to cry.

"I'm so sorry, thank you," she kept saying, trying to gather cookies with one hand while holding a string of tangled fairy lights with the other. "I didn't know the weather turned this fast."

"Two things about this lot, it’s windy, and it gets windier," Kyle said, folding the mangled awning as best he could.

Despite herself, Patty let out a small laugh.

A pair of teenagers who'd been waiting out the storm under my service window wandered over and started collecting bird-shaped cookies that had met an unfortunate end beneath someone's shoe.

One of the taco vendors returned Patty's flamingo sign, though it now leaned permanently to one side, as if it had developed an attitude.

Even old Frank from the barbecue truck lumbered over, carrying a roll of duct tape like he'd been waiting his entire life for someone to need it.

Food truck people, I discovered, were apparently incapable of watching someone drown without tossing them a life preserver.

Or at least a roll of industrial-strength tape.

By the time the rain slowed to a steady drizzle, Patty's truck looked less like the aftermath of a tornado and more like something that had merely survived an enthusiastic disagreement with the weather.

She leaned against her truck, exhausted.

"I owe both of you."

Kyle shook his head.

"Nah. The wind has already collected your payment."

She laughed, shaking her head.

"I should've listened when everyone said the end spot catches the worst of it."

"You mean the best spot?" I teased.

"Oh, absolutely not." She pointed emphatically toward my truck. "Tomorrow, somebody else can have the scenic route to disaster."

Kyle caught my eye.

"I hear second place is lovely this time of year."

"I've heard that too."

Patty disappeared into her truck for a moment before returning with a bakery box.

"These survived," she said. "Mostly because they were in the fridge."

She opened the lid.

There were six perfectly decorated cookies—two wrens, a bluebird, a cardinal, an owl, and, somehow, one remarkably dignified flamingo that looked entirely unfazed by the afternoon's events.

"I can't possibly eat all these."

Kyle disappeared into his truck and came back carrying a tray of warm brownie bites dusted with cocoa.

"Well, if we're handing out peace offerings..."

I looked down at the dozen lemon-vanilla cupcakes I'd planned to take home.

"My turn."

A few folding chairs appeared from somewhere.

Someone produced a battered camping table.

The taco vendor wandered over with chips and salsa.

Frank showed up carrying smoked pork ends that he'd apparently been "experimenting with."

Customers who'd lingered through the storm drifted over, laughing as they sampled whatever happened to be passed their way.

Someone declared Kyle's chocolate-covered bacon unfairly delicious.

Someone else insisted my lemon cupcakes should be illegal.

Frank argued that everything improved if you smoked it first.

The rain eased.

The clouds finally broke apart, leaving the pavement shining gold in the evening sun.

Kyle nudged my shoulder with his.

"You know," he said, "getting kicked out of my favorite parking spot turned out all right."

"Oh?"

"I discovered the cupcakes are closer over here."

I rolled my eyes.

"What a coincidence."

"And..." His grin softened just enough to make my stomach perform an entirely unnecessary somersault. "Turns out the owner isn't bad either."

For once, I couldn't think of anything clever to say.

I reached into the cupcake box, pulled out the last lemon cupcake, and handed it to him.

"Careful," I said. "You keep hanging around my truck, people are going to start talking."

He accepted it with a smile.

"Well then, let them talk."

As the last of the storm drifted over the horizon, the smell of chocolate and vanilla mingled in the crisp evening air, and somewhere between the brownies, the bird cookies, and the cupcakes, I realized the sweetest thing I'd found at the Food Truck Station hadn't been on my menu after all.