The Famous Doll Cake; Used Bikes
Doll Cake
When I was growing up, Nancy Arnold was the perfect little girl, with all the perfect little-girl accouterments. She had hand-smocked dresses, a dust ruffle on her canopy bed, custom-made Raggedy Ann dolls?that type of thing. And her mother gave her wonderful birthday parties, the sort that you picture when you think "kiddie party," the kind you remember fondly when you look back on your childhood?pitching clothespins into milk bottles, individual ballerina party favors, tiny tea sandwiches. Mrs. Arnold was the social arbiter of the Mary Jane set of Midland, MI. The highlight was always the birthday cake, and the one that stands out in my mind was when we were in third grade and Nancy had the doll cake. It was a sight to behold?a real doll with a big picture hat, and her skirt was the cake, all festooned with pink roses and ribbons made of frosting.
Later, when we were older, Nancy and I were both planning our weddings around the same time, and my mother, I swear, gave me almost daily updates on how far along with everything Nancy and her mother were, feverishly reporting every detail. It was all, "Nancy has the swizzle sticks picked out already." "Nancy has the cocktail napkins printed up." "Nancy is commissioning an ice sculpture of Winged Victory for the reception."
Meanwhile, I am buying my white shoes at Meijer's Thrifty Acres and wondering if the priest will notice that I skipped most of the marriage classes.
In the end, though, Nancy got stood up at the altar. So who really planned better? We may have had frozen Puff 'n' Puppies as appetizers at my reception, but at least I had a groom. After all, isn't that the most important accessory at a wedding? (That is, after making sure you and your maid of honor have matching flasks?I mean, crinolines.)
I would like to report that Nancy then went on a codeine-fueled rampage, but she is now happily married with two kids and I'm a bitter divorcee facing my?well, I am facing the same birthday Nancy is, so what difference does it make how old I am? The main thing is that I am getting that damn doll cake, even if I have to order it myself, which is, in fact, what I am going to do. It's taken a long time, but when they bring it out, even if my party hat is already sliding into the bar, I am going to enjoy that cake and all it stands for. My friends will then drink a toast to me. "Here's how!" they'll all say, to which I'll reply, "I know how."
A word of caution?the baker told me that sometimes they cut the doll's legs off, to make her fit in the cake mold, so if you are getting this cake for young children, be careful when you slice into it. You don't want to traumatize the little partygoers with a reenactment of the Black Dahlia murder.
What's a girl to do with a rotting hulk of a bicycle that is collecting dust in her living room? This bike, a blue Skyrider from the 50s, has been with me since college, where it got stolen (and I went down to one of the worst neighborhoods in Syracuse in my little plaid kilt and promptly stole it back), wrecked at the bus station and had notes left in its fender by mysterious admirers. I used to ride it to my job as a waitress at an all-night diner. (A job that lasted about two months?I was just doing it to be colorful.) Since then, the bike has moved with me to at least two apartments and was in a fire. After all we've been through together, I can't just get rid of it, but it's in no shape to ride.
That's why I dragged it over to Will Wood, who runs a bike repair shop in Williamsburg called Spokes and Strings. The name somehow reminds me of that song "Stems and Seeds," but Will says it actually expresses a combination of "A future hope and a family joke." He explains: "My father had a furniture store called the Holmes County Chair Company, and he made bookcases and bedroom sets, but no chairs. When I opened the shop two years ago, I had hoped to also repair stringed instruments, but I ended up just selling and fixing bicycles."
Will himself joined the bike-riding population when he first came to New York, to be an actor.
"One January, I was on a crowded subway and just said, 'Screw this.' I went out and bought a used bike and never rode the subway after that. But after I got a couple of bikes stolen, I had to figure out how to get used bikes cheaply in the city."
The shop grew out of that.
"I started going to police auctions, and you have to buy a minimum of 10 bikes, so I did that. I rode some of them, and I fixed some of them up, and then sold those. A lot of people in the neighborhood, people who had been on the south side for years, helped me find a space for the store."
Will is a little cagey on the subject of what kind of bike he likes best, as he tends to ride many of the ones in his store.
"As you ride more, you appreciate bikes more," he says. He also says that when he was growing up, the family's furniture changed every three months, owing to his dad's business, and he apparently feels the same way about bicycles?that change is good.
The store is also a gathering point for neighborhood rides, which take place every Sunday morning.
"We meet for coffee at 8:30 a.m., and then go out after that. We take long rides, but they're slow. We go over the Williamsburg Bridge, into Manhattan or into Queens, that kind of thing. We are always looking for more riders to join us," Will said.