Epic Explanation

June pushed her way through the glass coffee shop doors, struggling to control her nerves. Seeing the invitation to coffee with her besties was the first time she regretted offering to take her neighbor’s unsold wedding cakes off her hands. Living it up on a cake-only diet had been a blast, and she definitely didn’t mind not having to buy food for two weeks, but how was she going to explain the inevitable consequences to her friends?

Neither woman offered a comment as they waited in line, but April’s double-take and May’s eyes nearly falling out of her head were dead giveaways. June tugged her white jacket a little tighter over her shoulders in futility. She’d worn her biggest top, a comically large sweater that somehow made her bloated chest look even larger. Mercifully, her friends waited until they were sitting in a secluded corner table to pounce.

“Alright,” April said. “What the hell happened to you?”

“What do you mean?” June kicked herself for playing it dumb. She hadn’t been able to get a single bra to fit. Even her most oversized sports bra refused to squeeze over her massive tits. The layers of shirts under her sweater compressed them a little, but she knew she wasn’t fooling anyone.

“You’re huge!” May hissed.

“Oh! Um… I think I had a growth spurt or something…”

“Bullshit,” April said. “They’re like twice as big as last time I saw you, and that was only… three weeks ago?”

May said, “We did that wine thing on the fifth—that was two weeks ago.”

“Okay, fine. Anyway, what the fuck?”

June saw a few blue hairs scowling at their table. “Shh! Can you try not to get us kicked out of the only decent coffee shop in town?”

April fixed her with a flat stare. “Spill.”

June scrambled to come up with an explanation. The truth was just too absurd—they’d never buy it.

“Okay, so I decided to go for a walk the other night, and I saw these girls wading in the park fountain and singing…”

June wove a narrative tapestry while her friends sipped their drinks.

“…And when the sun came up, I was all alone in the fountain, soaking wet and like five cup sizes bigger.”

“Oh, come on!” May said.

“I didn’t know you were a lesbian…”

“She’s bi, April—Keep up.”

“Anyway, even if that bullshit story is true, which I doubt, that’s way more than five sizes.” She pointed an accusing finger at June’s breasts resting on the table.

“That’s not all that happened!” June blurted. “A few nights later, I was on my way back from the store when this homeless guy came outta nowhere—“

“Unhoused…” May muttered.

“I told him I didn’t have any cash; I even gave him my bottle of rosé! But he just glared at me with his one eye—“

“Wait, he had one eye?”

“He was, um, wearing an eyepatch…”

“What, like a pirate?”

“Anyway. He put some kind of curse on me that made my girls grow as punishment for my selfishness or whatever.”

April put a palm to her forehead. “That’s even more ridiculous than your last story!”

“What’s next,” May added. “Are you gonna say you ran into a sorceress?”

Shit, May was onto her. Well, in for a penny…

“She was some kind of witch, I think.”

“Mmhmm, sure…”

“She said I had too much hubris and vanity. She was gonna turn me into a pig!”

“Yep.”

“But I begged her for mercy. I told her I never wanted to be like this; it’s just genetics.”

“Genetics, right…”

“Then she got really nasty. She called me names and said since I was already a cow of a woman, she’d turn me into a real cow!”

“For fuck’s sake, June…”

April added, “Just tell us what really happened.”

June sighed. “Okay, fine. You know how the girl across the hall from me is a baker?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, she had three weddings cancel all in one weekend. Since I have that big fridge and a chest freezer, she gave me the cakes she couldn’t sell so they wouldn’t go to waste.”

“Wedding cakes,” May said flatly.

“Y-yeah! They’re really good. If we ever get book club going again, we should invite her so she’ll bring snacks.”

“I’ve had some of her cookies,” April added. “She’s really good.”

“So anyway, I basically had nothing but cake in my fridge for the past two weeks, and I guess I went a little overboard…”

“Let me get this straight,” May said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Instead of plagiarizing Homer, you expect us to believe you spent weeks stuffing your face with cake and somehow only gained weight in your tits!?”

April scowled. “If you don’t want to tell us, just say so.”

“But it’s not… I didn’t…”

“Whatever. Are you guys caught up on Bridgerton?”