Free It Looked Different on the Model by Laurie Notaro Page B

first to reach her hand out, her middle finger and thumb making the spread in preparation for a landing, when she looked at me and said:
    “Are these vegan?”
    Thank Cheezus I wasn’t drinking anything, because my mouth would have rained over the entire tray.
    Instead, I laughed. “Goodness, no!” I said in my Nice Neighbor Lady Who Makes Cupcakes voice. “Those are
real
cupcakes, right out of the Betty Crocker box, I can assure you!”
    And just like that, the little girl retracted her formerly happy hand, the glee on her face turned forlorn, her head dropped, and she simply said, “Oh.”
    Her mother came forward and patted her on the back and said to me, “She’s vegan. She made that choice when she was three.”
    It was quite possibly the saddest thing I had ever heard. That child, apparently, had never had a Pop-Tart. Cocoa Puffs. Fritos!
    Then the mom said to the tiny vegan, “I’m sorry that they aren’t the right kind.”
    Immediately, all of the other little children backed away from the tray as if someone had said they were poocakes.
    Now, I’m sure you are thinking, were they really children, or were they adults who hadn’t eaten protein or calcium in so many years that their bone structure was actually in an advanced state of atrophy and they appeared much smaller than people who eat
food
? Because that’s sort of what I was inclined to believe, and, I’m sorry, but when I was three,
cotechinata—
pork skin rolled up with garlic, parsley, and parmesan cheese, then cooked in tomato sauce—was my favorite food. My mother simply called it “skin.” When I asked her what the“skin” on my plate was, she looked at me and said, “
Skin
,” and when it was apparent I wasn’t getting it, she pointed to her arm and said, “
Skin
,” again, as in, “Skin is skin, what don’t you get?” Now, I don’t know what that lady was feeding her vegan kid for her to make that choice, but it took me years to finally understand what my mother was talking about. And then, sure, yeah, I quit asking for “skin.” Didn’t quit asking for bacon or ham sandwiches, but at three I certainly didn’t equate something as blatant as the skin on my mother’s arm with my favorite food. I’m not saying that the story about the three-year-old vegan isn’t true, just that if someone had eaten a real, moist, spongy cupcake with buttercream frosting piled on top prior to making a declaration that would ruin a Nice Neighbor Lady’s potluck experience five years later, the outcome that day might have been different. All I’m saying is that maybe she didn’t have all the information at hand when she made a definitive decision about a minuscule bit of butter and an egg. That’s what I’m saying. And for the record, upon hearing that I had decided to become a vegan at three, my mother would have shook her head as she informed me, “Well, either you should find another family or you’re going to be hungry a lot, little girl, because I’m frying an animal right now.”
    My neighbor—the hostess—and her daughter both noticed what was going on at the cupcake portion of the table and immediately came over and grabbed cupcakes for themselves, and I will forever love them both for it. But when I left a while later, twenty-five cupcakes, more or less, still sat on the tray, refused and rejected like little girls whose thighs touched and who couldn’t run to too many bases before asking to go to the nurse after the teams were picked for softball.
    I still insist my cupcakes are the right kind. It’s cupcakes without eggs and butter that are weird. And at the next potluckwe were invited to later that summer, I brought napkins. Someone else, as you might have guessed, brought cupcakes. Made from gluten-free flour and a wish, was my estimation. I had a Revenge Cupcake, just to be polite, just to take the high road, and I can report that it was nothing conversion-worthy. Chances are you’ll see me strutting a burqa before