The Talk

Chapter 6:  The Talk

“Pinkie Pie,” Carrot Cake said, moving to sit on the bed next to the pony.  “What’s got you so upset?”

“I don’t like to hear you two fighting,” Pinkie Pie said, “especially about that…”

“I know, and what I said was wrong,” Carrot Cake said, even though he didn’t feel it.  “I love my babies, and I should be more trusting of my wife.”

“You said,” Pinkie Pie said, “you said you and your wife haven’t really talked to each other in a long time.”

“Pinkie, that isn’t—” Carrot Cake stopped, gazing at the sobbing pony with a tissue held to her eyes.  Now wasn’t the time to chastise her for getting too personal.  She deserved to know more about what was going on, especially after what he put her through.

“It’s true,” he finally said.  “Cup Cake and I haven’t really gotten to talk in a long time.  I don’t know if it’s the stress of running the store or something else, but we’ve lost a lot of intimacy, and frankly, I miss it.  Cup Cake used to be so passionate and romantic, but now it’s all about crunching numbers and keeping the business afloat.  Not like I don’t need the help, though.  If it were left to me alone I’d run the place to the ground with my head in the clouds the way it always is.  I’d be more concerned with designs than watching the bottom line.  I need Cup Cake to keep me grounded for sure, it’s just…I need more from her, too.”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about this kind of stuff with me,” Pinkie Pie said.

“After what I put you through earlier, I think you deserve to know what’s going on,” Carrot Cake said.

“What else do you need from her?” Pinkie Pie asked, her tears temporarily subsiding as curiosity took over her sadness.

“I guess…I need her to wish me a good morning when I’ve had a rough night’s sleep.  I need her to listen to my troubles and reassure me that everything’s okay.  I need her companionship, her terrific sense of humor, to help me get by during tough times.  I guess…I need her to love me again.”  Now Carrot Cake was tearing up, and Pinkie Pie let him borrow some of her tissues.

“Thank you,” Carrot Cake said.

“Mr. Cake, she does love you.  I just know she does,” Pinkie Pie said.  “You two are like the most adorable couple in Ponyville.”

“We may look that way on the outside, Pinkie, but there’s a lot of tension between us.  Sometimes I wish I had a way out of it all…”

“But how can you say that?” Pinkie Pie asked.  “You two were meant to be together.  That’s why you married her, isn’t it?”

“Oh, Pinkie Pie, I’m sorry to say this, but you’re quite naïve about that,” Carrot Cake said.  “Don’t tell Cup Cake I said this, because if you do then I will deny it, but I’ve been thinking about calling it quits and getting a divorce.”  Pinkie Pie gasped.

“But...but you just can’t do that, Mr. Cake, you just can’t,” Pinkie Pie said.  “What would happen to you, to the babies?  What would happen to Sugarcube Corner?  What would happen to me?”

“Relax, Pinkie Pie,” Carrot Cake said.  “One of us would have to move out, but you’d be allowed to stay here.  Nothing bad would happen to you.”

“So what?  Sugarcube Corner would close, I’d be out of a job, and then I wouldn’t be able to pay rent.  So I’d be out on the street and then I might have to leave Ponyville and all my friends and go back home to the rock farm and—”  Pinkie Pie started to cry again.  She took a tissue and wiped her eyes.  “Don’t send me back to the rock farm…”

“Pinkie,” Carrot Cake said, placing a hoof on her shoulder, “listen to me.  Even if you couldn’t stay here anymore, I’m sure one of your friends would be more than happy to let you stay with them.  And I assure you that there’d be other jobs for you in Ponyville.  You know practically everypony in town, so you have a strong group of connections.  Trust me when I say that that it one of the most important things you need to find a job.  You won’t have to leave Ponyville or your friends, and you wouldn’t have to go back to live on that rock farm.”

“I’m sorry,” Pinkie Pie said, sniffling a little.  “It’s just…you don’t know what it was like to live with my family.”

“What was it like?” Carrot Cake asked.

“I’m not sure if I want to tell you.”

“Well, I want to know.  We’ve worked together for years, and I know so little about you.”

“Well, if you really want to hear it…” Pinkie Pie said.  “Every day was always the same.  You had to push a bunch of boring old rocks around.  My parents were really strict, and we weren’t allowed to have any fun.  My mane was always straight back then, before I got my cutie mark and learned what it meant to smile.”

“What happened after that?”

“I threw a party for my family, and for a while, it seemed to cheer them up.  But then they went back to being sad again, so I threw another party to try to keep them happy.  But the more parties I threw, the more it became clear that nothing would make my parents or my sisters happy, not while we were living on that farm.  So I had to wait ten long years before I turned eighteen and was able to leave home.  If I couldn’t find happiness there, I figured I had to look elsewhere.

“It was really sad to leave my family, but I didn’t have a choice.  They were just too sad all the time, and I don’t blame them.  Rocks are boring and no fun.  I spent a long time missing them, and despite how bad it was there, I got really homesick.

“I wandered from town to town begging for bits so I could afford some food, but that only took me so far.  Whenever I got jobs, I would try to save some money and throw parties for everypony, trying to make them happy.  But nopony ever came to my parties, and the ponies that did come didn’t enjoy them very much.  So I got really sad and I stopped caring about my work and then I’d get fired from my job and have to look for another one.  But by then the town knew I wasn’t a good worker, so I’d have to leave again.

“Finally, I came to Ponyville, and there was something different about this place.  The ponies here were happier, and everypony was super friendly to me.  It didn’t take me long before I found your shop and applied for a job here.  Not only did you give me that job, you gave me a place to live, and the wages were good enough that I could afford to throw parties, which you kindly let me do.  And the ponies here really liked my parties, so I became happy again, and I’ve been working and playing here ever since.”  For a while silence filled the room.  Carrot Cake had been enthralled by Pinkie Pie’s story, and it took a while for him to snap out of his trance.

“Pinkie, I had no idea how hard things were for you before you came here,” Carrot Cake said.  “I’m really sorry you had to go through all that.”

“You don’t need to apologize.  You couldn’t have known about all that.  In fact, you and Cup Cake were the ponies that got me out of the funk I was in.  I’ve never told you how grateful I am for that, so I guess what I want to say is thank you.”  Pinkie Pie rested her head on Carrot Cake’s shoulder and let out a sigh, a free tear trickling down her face.  Carrot Cake wrapped his hoof around her shoulder and held her there for a while with a smile on his face.

“So where do you come from?” Pinkie Pie asked.  “I can’t believe I’ve known you for this long and I never stopped to ask that.”

“I can’t believe it either,” Carrot Cake said.  “But I’ve always been here, in Ponyville.  My parents are both Earth ponies, and they worked for the mayor’s office doing what you’d expect out of government work.  So things were pretty boring in my household, too, although I can’t imagine how bad it must have been for you to work on a rock farm.  Funny, my parents used to say they’d send me to work on a rock farm when I behaved badly.”

“Really?” Pinkie Pie asked.  “Well, trust me, it’s no fun at all.”

“Yes, well, my mom had always dreamed of being a baker, but government work didn’t pay a lot and so she could never afford to start her own bakery.  She did bake for us, though, and she taught me how to make pies and cookies and all sorts of tasty treats.  I absolutely loved it, and I got my cutie mark pretty early on in my childhood because of it.  I think I was the first in my class, actually, and I was the envy of all the other ponies at my school.  Well, my mom wanted for me what she couldn’t have for herself, and that was for me to start my own bakery right here in town.  It was all a pipe dream until Cup Cake moved here from Trottingham.”

“Why was that?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Well, you see, Trottingham is quite a bit larger than Ponyville, and the folks living there are reasonably well off, so Cup Cake had a lot of money, enough to start a business.  She had moved to Ponyville because she hated her parents’ stuffiness and the elitism of Trottingham.  So, with her money, she started what was to become Sugarcube Corner.  It was called Tasty Treats back then, and as soon as it opened up, I immediately went in to apply to work as a baker.  I showed Cup Cake the kinds of treats I could make, and she was so impressed that she hired me on the spot.

“It was a dream come true for me.  I had to bake to order, but Cup Cake had a vision for the kinds of treats she wanted to sell, and she constantly asked me for input, recognizing the talent I had for baking.  We came up with some very artistic and very good treats, and we became the talk of Ponyville.  It was during these profitable times that I suggested we name the bakery Sugarcube Corner, because I knew the Apple family and wanted to incorporate their pet name into the name of the store.  Cup Cake agreed to the name change, and the townsponies loved it so much that we were glad of the decision we made.

“Well, it was almost inevitable that we would fall in love.  Our relationship was far more than that of baker and employer, which I recognized the moment we started collaborating on ideas for treats.  It took me a while to realize I was in love, but Cup Cake told me she knew from the moment she met me.  She actually made the first move, asking me to dinner one night.  I thought for sure it was merely professional, but she told me how she’d been feeling and I gladly reciprocated.  About a year later we got married and I was named co-owner of Sugarcube Corner.

“My parents were thrilled for me, but hers were upset that she had married a commoner like me and infuriated that we hadn’t signed a prenuptial agreement.  But soon they faded from our lives, and we lived in Ponyville happily.  But the store became too big for the two of us to handle, and we knew we needed to hire somepony to help us out.  That’s when you came along and surprised us with your enthusiasm and your joy for baking.  And I must say I do not regret ever hiring you.”

“That’s such a sweet story,” Pinkie Pie said, “which makes it really sad when you say you want a divorce.  What happened?”

“Well, the novelty of Sugarcube Corner died down, and so did our profits after a while.  Cup Cake refused to ask her parents for money, after the way they had reacted to our marriage, so we struggled for quite a while.  Hiring you, though it had made sense during the boom, stretched our money even more.  I refused to fire you, Pinkie Pie, because you were an invaluable help and had proven yourself quite skilled in the kitchen, even if you had a tendency to eat the goods we were supposed to be selling.”  Pinkie Pie chuckled and sniffed.

“Well, things quickly grew sour between the two of us because the business wasn’t doing as well as we had hoped and the spark we shared in our younger years was beginning to fade, as it always does.  There was a brief moment of happiness when we found out Cup Cake was pregnant, because we’d been trying for a while to have kids without success.  Truthfully, I think the reason we wanted kids was to help save our waning marriage.”

“Really?” Pinkie Pie asked.  “But it hasn’t helped?”

“It helped for a while, but now I know that having kids causes as many problems as it solves, and as you heard during our argument, I wasn’t even sure if they were mine.  So that brought more resentment, and now, I don’t really know what’s in our future.”  Silence filled the room again as Pinkie Pie thought about Carrot Cake’s story.

“Well, I really hope things work out between you two,” Pinkie Pie said.  “I love Sugarcube Corner, and I don’t want it to go out of business.”

“Me neither, Pinkie Pie, but we’ll have to wait and see.  I hope you at least understand a bit more about what’s going on.  I certainly learned a lot about you tonight.”

“I learned a lot about you, too, and I think I do know what’s going on a little more now.”

“Okay then.  Well, it’s getting late, and my wife’s probably wondering what I’m up to, so I should probably go.  Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

“I think I’ll be fine,” Pinkie Pie chirped.  “Good night.”  With that, Pinkie Pie squeezed Carrot Cake in an unexpected hug.  Carrot Cake returned the hug nervously and quickly made his way for the door the moment Pinkie Pie relented.

“Good night, Pinkie Pie,” he said, leaving the room and shutting the door gently behind him.