Everyone who saw her wanted to wrap her up in a warm piece of bread and would almost always tell her so. Most people thought of white bread; pure and fluffy, but there are always personal differences in a world this large: Hippie sorts favored grain breads and deli-lovers went for rye, and people who didn’t like bread would want to wrap her up in muffins. People who eschewed flour wanted to put her inside a sweet potato, but those people were few and far between.

Menina was soft and loved being soft and made a point of seeking out situations where she could be wrapped in cashmere, flannel, or angora. “I know, but it feels so good,” was the number one excuse she had given herself or a friend or a boyfriend when revealing how much she’d spent on a certain article of clothing. In fact, she maintained a friendship with a girl name Giselle because while not much of a conversationalist, Giselle often wore the softest faux-fur coat that Menina was guaranteed to “accidentally” rub up against at least 5 times during a half-hour neighborhood stroll.

Menina had, in fact, always wanted to be actually wrapped up in bread: Not an actual “wrap” type bread, which Menina felt lacked the coziness of anything she would like to be wrapped in; Menina wanted to be cozied up in a fresh-out-of-the-oven squeezable cinnamon bread. Menina felt that she could give up television and perhaps even kissing for a year if she could spend a month tucked into a warm blanket of cinnamon bread.

The problem was that as far as it ever went with anyone was that people would say, “I really want to wrap you up in bread, is that crazy?” and on many occasions even dip into the local bakery or grocer and buy an actual loaf and hand it to her and say, “I wish I had time, but, my kids…” and just hand her the loaf. Nobody was bold enough to actually go through with it and she felt too awkward about suggesting it.

*

Carter dreamed of someday being able to spend his entire day watching Little House on the Prairie and eating peanut butter. The gentleness of both experiences could perhaps make up for the rest of life being so challenging.  A calm, morals-reaffirming show about a 19th century pioneer family where bad people were punished and people stuck together in hard times made Carter feel soothed and good all over.

He would want the peanut butter to be crunchy. Peanut butter was by definition smooth and creamy, to eat the kind specifically called “smooth” or “creamy” seemed unnecessary. Carter liked just a little bit of bump in the road, a little bit of uncertainty; it was too easy to coast along while eating smooth-and-creamy style. A little nut chunk gave the mouth and mind something to stay awake and prevent a catatonic state from setting in.

Carter had just quit his job because he checked his bank account and it turned out he had enough to live on for the next six months so he called his job and said, “Yeah, sorry, this has been a downer since day one. Not into it. Ciao.” He felt the “Ciao” was overdoing it but at the same time felt lit might make him seem like less of a slacker and more of a bon vivant. Carter was 29 and knew his slacker days had to end because once you hit 30 that’s your real life. Or so a friend of his had told him who’d just turned 30 and seemed depressed. Carter hoped he would reach 30 and decide “real life” happens at 40.

Carter had loved peanut butter for so long he couldn’t remember, but he didn’t love things that were only peanut-butter flavored but didn’t have the texture. Jelly beans, for example; oh, sure, he wouldn’t say no, but it wasn’t the same high; it didn’t have the same smooth, creamy ride. And yet ice cream, he felt, was too easy. Ice cream wasn’t a man’s food; it was for those who wanted everything guaranteed and were desperate to relax.

Carter was looking for a woman he could wrap up in bread. Carter had endured enough of girlfriends who couldn’t get to the place he needed to be. His last one, Gina, was all about paper clips, she liked the edginess and how they could be twisted. She wore them all over her clothes and made art out of them, much of which inspired theorists to theorize about her message, which was the kind of thing Carter hated.

Carter was about the visceral. Like peanut butter, art should either make a person feel good and whole immediately or shouldn’t exist at all. Art that requires a graduate school education means someone’s trying to pull the wool over your eyes. Nobody has to go to school to be taught what they like, Carter would often think as he read babbling reviews of his girlfriend’s work.

Gina had achieved a certain amount of downtown fame as an artist and Carter loved being part of the scene. He’d spent two years with Gina because he hoped he could eventually come up with his own thing and be (Something) Boy. But on one snowy day she had turned to him and said, “You hate the clips, I can tell,” and he’d confessed that they irritated him to no end. She said, “I need a guy who likes hard edges and twists and it’s not you.”

“No,” he’d said, looking at her and taking in the whole thing and thinking of how often he’d cut himself on those clips and that their tinny color and cold texture made him hate the world. Gina was all wrong for him. “It’s not me. You need someone who is the exact opposite of me.” With that he said, “Excuse me, I have to go now. The L train isn’t working regularly this weekend and it will take me three hours to get to the gym. I wish you all the best.”
He’d spend that ride and the following workout thinking about how much he needed a girl who didn’t have problems that set off his problems. The trick in life, he’d thought, is to find someone who doesn’t rub what’s already sore.

Carter wanted a soft girl to wrap up in a warm loaf and when he spotted Menina at the playground he couldn’t stop staring at her. She was playing with a child and Carter cursed life for making the girl of his dreams someone else’s wife. Then he thought maybe she was divorced, or just an unwed mother, but Carter didn’t want that mess. Carter started for 47 minutes and 13 seconds before deciding that even if she were divorced or an unwed mother it might be worth suffering through the existence of some other man’s child just to spend time with her. But only if she was really his dreamgirl. Otherwise his life would be all about “some other dude’s critters,” he told himself though not out loud.

*

Menina wished the sandbox weren’t so full of sand. She didn’t mind the box and had in fact always held a fondness for places with clear boundaries, but the sand was pure annoyance and Menina wondered why anyone would find it fun. Sand was the stupidest substance around except for the fact that it was responsible for glass, which Menina rated as her fourth favorite hard substance.

Menina was babysitting her cousin Noelle, which made her terribly uncomfortable. She was pressured into it because her cousins came to town and made her feel so guilty about having leisure time while they were slaving away taking care of their child. The fact was, they had chosen to have children, it wasn’t like they were forced, and they both clearly loved having someone who looked up to them and physically resembled them.  Noelle couldn’t understand why they acted like they were doing the already overpopulated world a favor by replicating themselves and then talking about it like their unprotected sex was a community service.
Still, this one day she had agreed to take Noelle because there were no good gym classes today and she felt like, maybe if she did something for someone else, something good would come to her. Even if the people she was doing it for weren’t so great to begin with, but still.
Noelle looked up at Menina and Menina gave her a hug. After all, it wasn’t her fault that her parents were spoiled, overprivileged assholes who took advantage of the kindness of others so they could go take a one-day workshop with a pricey Reiki master and then come back thinking they know it all.

*

Carter approached Menina. He felt possessed; he couldn’t believe the words as they came out of his mouth. “Excuse me, we haven’t met, but I’d like to wrap you up in warm bread.”
She’d heard it so many times she knew it was just her and not some pickup line. And she loved hearing it. Menina made sure to maintain the kind of muscle-less, pure mush figure that made people think of protecting her. She was petite with hardly any extra flesh except on her face which gave her the cute sort of look that made men want to protect her more than it made them want to do other things. Of course they wanted to do those things too, but first they wanted to wrap her in warm bread.

“I know you do.” And then it happened. “I want to feed you peanut butter. I do. Wow.”

She got out her cell phone and called her cousins. “It’s me. Yeah, you gotta come take the kid away.”

Vanya was in the process of deciding if she wanted to buy some herbal mint healing lotion. Sure this particular brand cost as much as the average lunch at an elegant restaurant, but it was infused with all sorts of special elements and promised that within a week a person should feel their life significantly changed.

Of course it didn’t say how it would be changed, but everyone loves the idea of  “this will change your life.”

Vanya replied, “This is an important moment for me. I am making a decision that will greatly affect me. You’re so rude.”

Menina said, “No. You don’t understand. I’ve met someone. It’s about the peanut butter and bread and you can’t understand.”

Noelle was smiling at her. Noelle was the most beautiful child Menina had ever seen and it saddened her that she might grow up to be like her mother. Menina silently wished the best for Noelle while Vanya was saying, “You promised us something. You’re not going to just leave our daughter there alone, are you?”

“Of course not. I’m going up there to drop her off.” She hung up the phone and said to Carter, “Do you have a few free hours? It’s about $60 round trip to go upstate. I need to drop off the kid.”

Noelle looked sad, and Menina felt horribly guilty. She scooped up the child and said, “I love you, Noelle, you are the sweetest little girl I’ve ever met. But right now I need to do some grownup things.” Menina felt in that moment everything that stunk about being a child. So many things were unexplained and so many times when one wanted to play, the grownups had to do something else. She knew Noelle would take it personally because children think the world revolves around them and that if someone can’t spend time with them, it’s their own fault. 

Menina couldn’t stop looking at Noelle’s enormous brown eyes. They looked like sparkling chocolate if chocolate could sparkle. They were eyes that let a person know they were really being looked at. Menina explained, “Honey, it’s just that I have errands to run.”

Noelle looked at her like she had heard this before. Menina just couldn’t do it. “Okay, let’s go to a toy store.”

Noelle said, “I thought you said you would take me to a movie.”

“Well, maybe we’ll do that later.”

Noelle stared at the ground. “When grownups say ‘later,’ they mean ‘never.’ ”

“What, honey?”

“Nothing.” Noelle hugged Menina’s knees and wished this man hadn’t come along and made her change her mind.

Menina asked Carter, “Toy store?”

“I’m completely free this afternoon. My name is Carter.”

“Menina. This is Noelle.”

Noelle didn’t like meeting new grownups as they were so tall and she had to crane her neck. Noelle really preferred socializing with those of her own height, which was 3 feet and 6 inches. She smiled and looked down and thought about how she hated sand and wished that she could tell Menina that but grownups always seemed to want to take her to play in the sandbox.

*

Menina, Carter and Noelle began their walk to the new toy store on 86th and Broadway. Carter lived on the East Side and he knew that some West Side girls thought the East Side was full of snobs and he wanted to let her know he wasn’t like that. “So, Menina, I thought I’d tell you a few things about myself.”

Menina was trying to be more of a challenge. She’d had enough bozos use the bread line and not come through that she was sick of it. She was 28 and wasn’t getting any younger and she didn’t want to be 35 and still nobody had wrapped her in fluffy warm bread. It was enough that she had to endure so many of life’s difficulties and maintain a full-time job—she was only off today because it was a holiday. “Look, I don’t care where you live or if you have a flat-screen or whatever they call the not-flat screen.”

“The curved screen, I guess.”

“Whatever. And I don’t care what you do for a living or who your parents are or even what books you’ve read.”

“But then what will we talk about?”

“I don’t care what movies you like or if mints make you sneeze or if you prefer old Elvis or young Elvis. I don’t care if you spend all your time sitting around staring at the floor.”

“Well, I…” He gazed at Noelle to see her opinion and saw her untie and then retie her little red shoe with a look of pride that made it clear she had just learned this.

“I don’t care if the only note on your calendar for the entire week says ‘Get stoned and watch Fantasia.’ ”

How did she know? “Except the part with Mickey and the brooms is kind of scary…”

“I just need to know you’re sincere.”

“Am I sincere about?’

“Wrapping me up in bread. In warm bread.”

“Why, of course, I—that’s all I’ve ever wanted since I first saw you an hour ago.”

“Fresh baked.”

“What?”

She reached out and touched his cheek. It was stubbly, which she didn’t like but she figured she could always change him. While it was never possible to completely change a person, Menina knew from experience that if she mentioned it repeatedly a person might alter one thing just so that she would stop bringing it up.

“I need it fresh baked.”

“I can’t bake.”

“I can’t do this. Look, I know you. I see you buying peanut butter.”

“What?”

“I’ve seen you at D’agostinos every Saturday night when I’m buying diet chocolate soda and there you are wearing a sweatshirt and pajama pants and you’re buying a different brand of peanut butter every Saturday night.”

He worried that Menina would think he wasn’t loyal, that he was a “player” sort who needed a different brand every night. “I can explain.”

“No, you don’t have to. I understand that they’re all chunky and you’re loyal to that, you just need a little variety if you’re buying it every weekend. I’ve seen you buy that brand that comes with raisins in it and a chocolate swirl and chunks. And you need to know that it’s okay, because you know it’s kind of your thing. And I see you with those DVDs and videos of Little House on the Prairie, because sometimes I’ve been in line across from you.”

“How could I have missed you?” He felt a little stalked, but then, it was always nice if a pretty girl noticed him. He looked at her arms, which were completely on view as her sundress was held up with pink straps. They were so white and plush and he wanted to squeeze them.

“When I don’t want to be noticed, I wear glasses and sweatpants and I slouch and scowl. And it works. And the point is if you want to sit around eating peanut butter and watching Little House on the Prairie, you have to give me the fresh-baked experience. I can’t settle. I’m too young for that and I’m also too old.”

“I just…man, I’m just not a good baker. I’m a slice-and-bake guy. In fact even my plan…which really was for this Tuesday, to get stoned and watch Fantasia, that included a slice-and-bake chocolate eating festival.”

“Festival?”

“Okay, it’s just me but I like to think I’m a one-man party machine.”

“Nice.”

“Thanks.”

Noelle was really bored by now. She’d tied and untied her shoes 30 times and it was beginning to lose its magic. She wished they would get to the store already so she could play with some Hello Kitty. She wished she could stop hanging out with grownups but they seemed to be everywhere. Noelle made a vow at that moment that when she grew up and had control over her time she would not hang out with grownups. She then realized that of course once she was a grownup, they would probably be her most likely choice for companionship and that it would be hard to find children to spend time with—and that in fact, as a grownup she might not want to hang out with children.

Noelle wondered when life would get better. But she did feel happy at remembering that the store was only a few blocks away and one of these two grownups would buy her a Hello Kitty toy if she stared at them the right way. The one good thing about grownups was, now and then they were easy.

“So you won’t fresh bake for me?”

“Jesus, Menina. I need to be accepted for who I am. Look, my mom bakes like there’s no tomorrow. Seriously. She makes a mean sunflower and orange bread and a rockin’ Irish soda bread. How’s that?” He wondered why none of his relationships ever worked out. He couldn’t let this one go. She clearly thought the peanut butter-and-Prairie thing was okay, and how much was she really asking?

Menina took Noelle’s hand. “We’re going to the toy store. You think about this and get back to me.”

“Can I have your phone number? Or your email or something?”

“No.” At that she and Noelle went into the toy store where Menina bought Noelle a Hello Kitty doll dressed like a princess, and for herself a long thin pen topped with a silver star.

*

Carter went home and turned on Prairie and stuck a spoon inside a jar. This girl was high-maintenance. Fresh-baked? What did she think, that he had all day? Maybe if they’d been together for years that could be a special thing they did now and again, but right off the bat like that?

Carter wondered if there was nothing sacred in this world. Still, to touch those arms, and that white neck. Damn, he just had to get it out of his system.

*

Carter spent the next 7 years and 6 months enrolled in baking classes. He took French, Jewish, Scandinavian, and other forms of baking so that he could make certain to get it just right. He took to buying his peanut butter at a different store so that he wouldn’t run into Menina until he knew he could bake the perfect loaf of bread.

Carter became a little pudgy during this time and he rather enjoyed it. He lived on peanut butter sandwiches and felt, for the most part, happy about where his life was going. He’d always been sort of thin and he felt that the weight made him look more substantial. On a rain March afternoon at 3 o’clock, Carter knew he had baked the perfect cinnamon bread. His apartment, which was fully furnished in colonial vintage won at auction—for while during the first 4 years Carter had blown all his money on lessons and it looked like he was going to end up on the street, on one lucky day Carter had marched into the local bodega and purchased a winning lottery ticket. Since then his surroundings had been featured in a variety of decorating magazines and he was considered quite the eligible bachelor.

But Carter did not want people who loved him for his furniture, so he ignored the onslaught of female attention that arose every time his home was photographed and just kept in mind wrapping that beautiful girl in a piece of homemade bread.

*

Menina, meanwhile, had given up her bread dream and each time someone approached her with the “I’d like to wrap you up” line, she sneered and said, “You’re all alike.” Menina lived a happy, solitary life and had taken up pottery. It soothed her to work with textures and watch them change. Clay was her second favorite mushy texture. She had taken to buying her diet chocolate soda at a different store so that she wouldn’t run into Carter. She felt the whole event was too raw and embarrassing. She almost never thought of him, except sometimes, when she was at the kiln deciding between bowl and cup and she wondered what he would do.
This one March day at 3 pm she stared out the window and wondered if this was it; if her life would never move forward beyond this point. Which would be fine, she realized. Though she wished it could have worked out with that fellow years ago, Menina had found satisfaction in her pottery and her few friendships.

Still, it saddened her that she would never be wrapped in warm, homemade bread. After a lifetime of being promised and teased, it seemed the great thing she had always wanted would never happened.

A breeze floated in and it smelled like spring. Menina put on her shoes and left the house.
She took a walk through the park and felt calm and free. At 79th Street between Madison and Park Avenue, Menina smelled warm cinnamon bread. She turned and saw Carter walk out of a brownstone.

He stood in front of her. “Hi. Are you free right now?”

A few miles away in the Chelsea, Noelle sat at the head of the table at her 13th birthday party and made a wish as she blew out the candles on her cake. I wish that everybody today gets what they want.

Menina smiled. Maybe she needed a break from pottery and staring out the window. Maybe it was worth it to try to live the dream just one more time. “I think I might have some time right now. Yes.”

---

Neo-screwball wit Lisa Ferber’s short stories have appeared in various publications and on literary Web sites: "Bed of Plastic Bags and a Salad Bowl," The Shore Magazine; "Popsicle Stick on Floor," Ducts; "The Buddha’s Carb Count," Tryst; "My Lover Doth Not Like Beets," Muse Apprentice Guild and The Glut (as "My Lover Doesn’t Like Beets"). She is a member of Playwrights/Actors Contemporary Theater and her plays have appeared at various New York City venues: Penny’s One Date, 30th Annual Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Original Short Play Festival at Chernuchin Theater, Jewel Box Theater, Where Eagles Dare, The Players Loft; Lulubelle Gets a Makeover, Strawberry One-Act Festival at Producers Club II (semifinalist), Shetler Studios; Oh, Mister Cadhole!, Barrow Group Studios, Altered Stages; Hell-O, Brick Theater; Stop Calling It Cinema, Dixon Place, Polaris North; Either the Cat Goes, Brick Theater; She Was a Real Tomato, Belly, Mama’s; The Return of Toodles Von Flooz, Brick Theater; Are Not My Foibles Amusing?, Polaris North. She is a writer and performer with The Brick Radio Crash Box, with pieces including The Celery Stalker and The Very Short Adventures of Toots Feshlugenah, Psychic, among a variety of ongoing series. She also acted in Doris Wishman’s Each Time I Kill.

She writes to make herself and others laugh out loud.

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PREVIOUS WORK

"SEA AND HILLS" by Christopher Mulrooney

"BROKEN CURFEW" by Antonios Maltezos

"THIS IS THE END" by Brendan Proce

"FOR THE RECORD" by Iain Deans

"GO AHEAD" by Michael Steeves