(38) Sarah Perret-Goluboff: Tastes Like
Hostess Cupcakes taste like summer nights’ gas stations, like the feeling of being nudged awake in a warm bucket seat, the car slowing to a stop and the whisper of “you want anything?” and even though you tell her not to get you anything she gets you just the right thing, Hostess Cupcakes, which arrive in pairs and taste like bonding, the two of you, mother and daughter, explorers, and you don’t even mind when she comes back with the bottles in one hand because the other hand has Hostess Cupcakes, which taste like co-conspiracy when the flashing lights pull you to the side of the highway and she asks you to hide her opened bottles in the backseat with you, where you place them in the middle console, covering them with a blanket and the crinkling wrapper of Hostess Cupcakes, the first of the plasticized icing still clings to the backs of your baby teeth tasting like victory when she pulls right back onto the road have a nice day, officer-ing, laughing, asking you to pass the sixpack back to the front, clumsy in your small hands, so you pick up the second Hostess Cupcake, which tastes like the sides of your stomach, lurching with the swerves of the car, trilling with the charge of her lapsed silence and her clenching jaw and what the fuck are you doing back there getting crumbs everywhere, the bile in your throat rising is tinged with the sweetness of Hostess Cupcakes, which taste like white knuckles on the armrest because you hadn’t buckled your seat belt after the stop and you know you can’t move now and when the car pulls to a stop, your heart settling back against your lungs, pressing its beat like a gavel, you grab the wrapper of the Hostess Cupcakes, which taste like keeping your head low and your mouth shut, shut, shut, wondering if next time you could do the whole trip without stopping for gas at all and never once tasting a single Hostess Cupcake.
Sarah Perret-Goluboff is an emerging writer based in Chicago. Her writing can be found in Bridge Eight Press, 805 Lit + Art, Five South, and is anticipated at Drunk Monkeys. Most recently, her work was nominated for Sonder Press’ Best Small Fictions 2021 Anthology. Follow her on Twitter