Page 2 of Leo and His Love Bunny

Maybe we could...add Christmas lights to the breasts or something.

Like that would make it better instead of worse.

Maybe we could scoop out the middle and make them look like volcanoes.

I can just see that headline. Nora’s Cupcake and Bakeshop Serves Volcanoes that Look Like Human Breasts.

Are breast volcano cupcakes worse than regular breast cupcakes? My mind will not compute. Maybe it can’t.

All right. I pick up the tray, paste a smile on my face, and knowing that the radio station is probably off commercial break and someone is talking just to fill time, I hurry to the doors, which Stephanie pushes open for me with a tremulous smile.

I smile back, genuinely liking her, even if I feel like she could have decorated one cupcake, seen that it looked like a breast, and made the icing black, or gray, or fluorescent orange, anything other than nipple-colored red.

Is there even a name for that color?

Pushing through, I hold my head up, walk through like a queen approaching her court, and look the DJ holding the microphone straight in the eye.

“And here she is now, folks,” Ryan says as he meets my gaze, and maybe he’s trying to communicate something, although I’m not sure exactly what it is. I don’t have to worry about a cameraman, although he does have a sound guy behind him.

“Nora just arrived out here in the cafe section of her bakery with a tray of cupcakes—” He breaks off abruptly as his eyes land on the tray of human breasts that are masquerading as cupcakes in my hands.

“Those look like breasts,” Ryan says, not in his radio voice. It’s a voice that saysI’m shocked and I can’t believe what I’m seeing.

With all of his years in radio, you’d think that he’d be able to catch himself and carry on a lot faster. Instead, he has his mouth open and is staring at the tray I’m holding.

“No way! Breast cupcakes? I want one!” a girl standing at the front of the line next to the counter says, not quietly. “No, make that two. Three! Wait, I want the whole tray! My office is going to go crazy over this!”

Suddenly, behind her, the entire line starts clamoring for my cupcakes.

“And they’re a big hit,” Ryan says into his microphone, not quite back in radio voice. He sounds shell-shocked, like he’s just witnessed a massacre or something. “These are the first cupcakes I’ve ever seen that actually look like human breasts, but they seem to be a huge hit here at Nora’s Cupcake and Bakeshop in Whisker Hollow.” He doesn’t quite meet my gaze, but at least he’s back in radio voice. I’m not going to think about the fact that I’ve just embarrassed Ryan, who’s been on the radio longer than I’ve been alive and up until this point has probably seen everything, never turning a hair.

He clears his throat and looks away from me. “Come on down and join us. We’ll be here from ten to two doing a live-action broadcast. Come say hi and have yourself a cupcake...or...breast... Can I go there?” Ryan says as the sound guy puts fingers across his neck in a cutting motion, telling Ryan to shut up already.

“You should have warned me about that,” Ryan says, putting the microphone down. Large beads of sweat glisten on his forehead.

“Yeah. I should have,” I say, grimacing and trying to make it look like a smile but knowing I fail miserably.

“I’m sorry, you took too long in the back for me to do an interview. Next time we’re on, I’ll ask you some questions. Just watch it, your mic’s going to be hot during the broadcast. Don’t say anything you don’t want all of Whisker Hollow to hear.”

“All right. Thanks for reminding me.” I totally forgot about the mic they had clipped to my shirt. I didn’t need headphones or anything else, which I would have found unwieldy while trying to deal with the cupcakes.

“Are you selling those? Because I have more people coming. You do have a lot, right?” one of the ladies in line says.

“We have a lot,” I say, trying to drum up some enthusiasm for this. My mom lives in Whisker Hollow, and she will die, as in truly die, if, no,whenshe hears that I was selling breast cupcakes.

Plus, my church is here too. And they’re not going to want me to continue to play the piano if this is what I’m most known for. Of course, they’ll understand the mistake, but they won’t want me to continue to do this.

“I’ll take two dozen,” the next lady in line says, and that empties my tray.

Thankfully Stephanie is on it, and she’s already brought three more trays out.

“That’s one hundred and twenty dollars even,” I say, and she pulls out her credit card and hands it over without a murmur.

I’m charging five dollars for each cupcake, and people are paying it without blinking an eye. I can hardly believe it. Maybe that’s what they charge in big cities, but here in Whisker Hollow, they wrote an editorial in the paper when I started charging $0.57 instead of $.55 for my cupcakes six months ago.

Five dollars apiece is unheard of.

“I’ll take a dozen. I would really like two. But I don’t want to be greedy,” Navy Perkins, the owner of the sweeper repair shopdown the street, grins at me. “This is brilliant.” Her eyes glow, and she looks so happy for me.

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