Jasmine, the young nurse in pink scrubs, pulled a framed photograph out of her tote bag and held it up carefully.
It was a picture of a little boy, bald from chemo, grinning ear to ear behind an enormous birthday cake shaped like a race car, in a hospital room strung with streamers.
Mrs. Lorraine, she said, you said you could buy a cake at Costco. Let me tell you about this one. In December, this little boy had leukemia, and his birthday party was canceled because his family could not afford it, and he was spending it in a hospital bed. A baker stayed up all night, made this cake by hand, and drove it to the hospital herself, for free. I am his nurse. I was there when she carried it in. It was the best day on that whole floor all year.
The backyard had gone quiet. Amanda had her hand to her mouth.
Lorraine said somebody has to sprinkle the sprinkles, and the woman she mocked gave a dying little boy the only birthday party he had left.
Jasmine said she had kept that photograph on her refrigerator for a year, and when a boy she knew invited her to a graduation party, she had walked in off her shift and seen the baker standing right there cutting the cake. And the little boy, she said, is in remission now. He asked her to bring the picture, in case she ever found the cake lady, so he could say thank you.
I am Amandas mother. She cut the graduation cake and said thank you, Aunt Lorraine, and took the joke, because a woman who gave a sick child a birthday does not need a country club board member to tell her what her work is worth. Lorraine set her wine down and had no more to say about Costco.