{"product_id":"a-piece-of-cake-isbn-9781400052295","title":"A Piece of Cake","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES \u003c\/i\u003eBESTSELLER • The heart-wrenching, uplifting tale about a woman named Cupcake\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“[Cupcake] Brown’s confessional . . . memoir is one you can’t easily put down. Her life is nothing short of a miracle.”—\u003ci\u003eChicago Sun-Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThere are shelves of memoirs about overcoming the death of a parent, childhood abuse, rape, drug addiction, miscarriage, alcoholism, hustling, gangbanging, near-death injuries, drug dealing, prostitution, and homelessness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCupcake Brown survived all these things before she’d even turned twenty. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd that’s when things got interesting. . .\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOrphaned by the death of her mother and left in the hands of a sadistic foster parent, young Cupcake Brown learned to survive by turning tricks, downing hard liquor, and ingesting every drug she could find while hitchhiking up and down the California coast. She stumbled into gangbanging, drug dealing, hustling, prostitution, theft, and, eventually, the best scam of all: a series of 9-to-5 jobs. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eA Piece of Cake\u003c\/i\u003e is unlike any memoir you’ll ever read. Moving in its frankness, this is the most satisfying, startlingly funny, and genuinely affecting tour through hell you’ll ever take.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eA Piece of Cake\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Brown] reflects now with insight and honesty on her experiences. . . . An engaging account . . . of a remarkable life filled with pain and wisdom, hope and redemption.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eSan Fracisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Dazzles you with the amazing change that is possible in one lifetime.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eWashington Post \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eCupcake Brown practices law at one of the nation’s largest law firms and lives in San Francisco. Visit her website at cupcakebrown.com.1 \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe booming music coming from Momma’s radio alarm clock suddenly woke me.  I could hear Elton John singing about Philadelphia freedom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I wonder why Momma didn’t wake me? I thought to myself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It was January 1976. Wasn’t no school that day. But Momma still had to go  to work. So, while Momma was at work, I was goin’ over to Daddy’s house to  play with Kelly, the daughter of his lady friend.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I wonder why she didn’t wake me? I thought again to myself as I climbed  out of bed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    When I passed the dresser I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Boy,  was I ugly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Skinny, black, and ugly.” That’s what the kids at school called me. Or  they’d yell out, “Vette, Vette, looks just like my pet!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    My name was La’Vette, but my first birth name was Cupcake. At least that’s  what my momma told me. Seems Momma craved cupcakes when she was pregnant  with me. She had three cupcakes a day, every day, without fail, for nine  and a half months (I was two weeks overdue). Momma said that even if she  didn’t eat anything else, she’d have her daily dose of cupcakes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Anyway, seems that while “we” were in labor, the hospital gave Momma some  pain drugs. Once Momma popped me out, the nurse said:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Pat”—that was my momma’s name—“you have a little girl. Do you know what  you want to name her?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Tired and exhausted from eight hours of hard labor, Momma lifted her head,  smiled sheepishly, and said, “Cupcake,” before she passed out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    So that’s what they put down on my birth certificate. I mean, that is what  she said. (The nurses thought it was due to the excitement of motherhood,  Momma said it was the drugs). A few hours later, however, when Daddy came  to the   hospital he decided he didn’t like “Cupcake.” Momma said Daddy wanted to  name me La’Vette. So, just to make Daddy happy, Momma said she had the  hospital change my name. I didn’t mind, really. I loved my daddy; so as  far as I was concerned, he could change my name to whatever he wanted.  But, Momma said that to her I would always be Cupcake. She never called me  anything else, ’cept sometimes she called me “Cup” for short.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Anyway, the kids at school always told me that I was ugly. They teased me,  saying I looked like “Aunt Esther,” that old lady from Sanford and Son,  the one always calling Sanford a “fish-eyed fool.” She was the ugliest  woman I’d ever seen. So if the other kids thought I looked like her, I  knew I had to be ugly. Besides, everybody knew a black girl wasn’t  considered pretty unless she was light-skinned with long straight hair. I  was dark-skinned with short kinky hair. I hated my complexion. I hated my  hair. I hated my skinny legs and arms.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But, my momma thought I was beautiful. She’d say:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Cup, you’re only eleven years old. You will appreciate your beauty as you  grow up.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Shoot, I couldn’t wait to grow up!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Momma always said things to make me feel better. I loved my momma. She was  my best friend and she was beautiful: she had cocoa-colored skin and her  long black hair hung way past her shoulders. And, Momma had the biggest,  prettiest smile you ever saw. People always told her that she looked like  Diana Ross because of her long hair and wide beautiful smile—all teeth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I passed the black ugly thing in the mirror and continued toward Momma’s  room. The radio alarm continued to blast. I giggled to myself. Momma was  like me. She hated getting up in the morning, so she put the clock way  across the room and turned it all the way up so it would scare her awake  in the morning. That way, she’d have to get out of bed and walk across the  room to turn it off.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I wonder why she didn’t turn the alarm off? I thought as I made my way  through the kitchen toward the large living room that led into Momma’s  room. The floor was cold because wasn’t no carpet in our house. Still, I  loved our old house. It was Victorian style, three bedrooms and one  bathroom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    We lived in San Diego in the heart of the ghetto, though I never knew it  until I got older. We had our share of dilapidated houses, and run-down  apartment buildings, but most of the houses and apartments in the  neighborhood were in decent order. I mean, we didn’t have any mansions,  but most folks made sincere efforts to keep their houses decent-looking:  they watered their tired brown lawns, trying to keep them up (as kept up  as a lawn could be with kids runnin’ over it all the time), and tried to  replace windows that had been broken from runaway fly balls that escaped  the imaginary fields of street baseball games.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    We had a great neighborhood store, Sawaya Brothers, that had everything  you could need or want, including the most delicious pickled pig feet. We  had a neighborhood park, Memorial Park, a boys’ club and a girls’ club.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I thought my family was rich because I was the only kid in the  neighborhood who had her own bedroom, furnished with a white  princess-style bedroom set complete with a canopy bed, matching  nightstands, and dresser. There was a pink frilly comforter with matching  frills for the canopy overhead. And, I had   a closet full of clothes. Unlike other kids in my neighborhood, I never  had to share clothes or wear hand-me-downs. Momma loved to sew and made  most of my clothes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The other kids thought we were rich too. Little did we know that we  weren’t rich—it’s just that both my mom and dad worked while the other  kids only had one parent trying to raise several kids either on one income  or, more commonly, on welfare, though being on welfare wasn’t nothing to  be ’shamed about. Most everybody was. In fact, I envied my friends on  welfare because they got government food that you couldn’t get from the  store, like this great government cheese. You ain’t had a grilled cheese  sandwich till you’ve had one made with government cheese.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The blasting radio brought me back to my immediate mission: finding out  why Momma didn’t wake me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I wished she’da woke me up, I thought as I followed the sound of the  blasting radio. I was excited about going to my daddy’s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    My momma and daddy didn’t live together. Daddy lived around the way with  my brother, Larry. I hated Larry. Larry was thin and lanky like me. And he  was dark-skinned like me. Although he was two years older than me, he  never acted like a big brother. He never protected me. In fact, HE was  usually the one I had to be protected FROM. And, usually, it was ME  jumping in a fight to protect HIM. I thought he was a wimp.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Larry hated me just as much as I hated him, but for different reasons. He  was jealous of me. He’d never admit it, but I knew he was. I was the one  who always got good grades and saved my weekly allowance so I could buy  something nice and big, while Larry hated school (and was always on the  verge of flunking out) and spent his money faster than he got it—and then  had the nerve to get mad when he didn’t have anything left.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Our hate for each other resulted in fierce fights: cussin’ each other out  (a skill I’d turned into an art from an early age) and throwing knives and  hammers (or anything else lethal we could find) at each other. Our fights  were no joke. We were trying to kill each other for real, or at least  cause loss of body parts. In our house, before Larry went to live with  Daddy, I could never slack up and always had to watch my back because we  were always trying to sabotage each other.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Once I woke to Larry trying to smother me with a pillow. Bastard. He just  woke up one day and decided he’d try to kill me. I had to fight, kick,  scratch, punch, and scream to get him off me. I got him back, though: I  tried to poi-  son him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Larry was always trying to boss me around. One day, after yet another  unsuccessful attempt at killing me, he’d ordered me to get him some  Kool-Aid. And I did—with a little rat poison in it. But watching my sudden  obedience, he got suspicious. Talkin’ ’bout he smelled “somethin’ funny.”  He ordered me to take a drink first. I took a sip, but I didn’t swallow. I  just held it in my mouth, hoping he’d now be willing to drink. He was  smarter than I thought. He fucked around and fucked around twirling the  Kool-Aid in the glass with a sly grin on his face till I couldn’t hold  what was in my mouth anymore without swallowing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Oh shit! I thought, I can’t kill myself! That’d be right up his alley!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I ran for the bathroom, which confirmed Larry’s suspicions that something  was up. He ran ahead of me and blocked the bathroom door with his body,  laughing hysterically at the irony of the situation. My only other option  was out the front door—halfway ’cross the house. I’d never make it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Swallow it, bitch!” he ordered, his body still blocking the doorway,  hands up in the air like a soccer goalie. Damn, I hated him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But, I would have the last word on this one. It took me a moment to think  of a way out, but then it came to me. As I realized my way out, the look  of terror on my face from envisioning what seemed to be my impending death  slowly changed into a wide-ass grin: I spit the Kool-Aid in his face. And  with that, it was on—we tumbled, kicked, bit, and scratched, until we  tired ourselves out and retreated to opposite ends of the house to await  the next battle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    So I was really glad when Momma sent Larry to go live with Daddy. Larry  had started talking back to Momma, being smart-mouthed and sassin’ her. I  remember the day Larry left. Momma told Larry to move a can of paint from  off the back porch. Larry angrily stomped toward the paint can, but  instead of moving it, he kicked it (as if punting a football), toward  Momma. I don’t know if he meant for the can to hit her. But it did. The  can flew into the air like a football toward a goalpost. It struck Momma  on the shoulder as it made its way back down. The impact from the can  hitting Momma’s shoulder caused the lid to topple off and paint flew  everywhere.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Momma stood there for what seemed like forever, although it was really  only a moment, paint dripping off her clothes and face like icicles off a  tree. I swear I thought I saw smoke coming out of her ears. She balled her  fist. I thought she was going to knock the shit out of Larry (actually, I  was hoping she would; then maybe I could get in a kick or two), but  instead she spun suddenly and quickly on her heels (her long black hair  flying out behind her reminded me of Batman’s cape), stomped into the  house and, over to the phone, and called my daddy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Come get this lil nigga fo I kill him!” she screamed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Needless to say, Daddy quickly came and Larry quickly went. Larry had  lived with Daddy ever since. Daddy saved Larry’s life that day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    —\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    After Larry left, we really didn’t see much of each other; which was fine  with both of us. Daddy and Momma would switch me and Larry on the weekends  so each parent could spend time with the child he or she didn’t live with.  This meant that Larry and I had to see each other only in passing (and  even that was too much   for me).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I loved my weekends with my daddy. We’d dress up: Daddy would put on his  one suit and I’d put on a nice dress and we’d go out on a date. We’d  usually go somewhere for dinner and then to the movies. My daddy was the  only person besides my momma who thought I was pretty. He’d hop me up on  his knee and ask:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Who’s the prettiest girl in the whole wide world?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And, in between giggles, I’d say:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I yam.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But I never believed it. He HAD to think I was pretty. He was my daddy.  When we were out on our dates, he’d ask everyone:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “This is my daughter. Ain’t she pretty?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    What were they going to say?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Actually sir, she looks like shit”?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    No, they smiled and lied and told Daddy I sho was pretty. I didn’t care  that they were lyin’. I loved my daddy and I loved our dates.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Didn’t bother me that Momma and Daddy didn’t live together either; they  still loved each other. Daddy did have a lady friend, Lori—but to me, she  was just that: his friend. Lori was a tall, thin white woman. She reminded  me of Popeye’s girlfriend Olive Oyl, but I still liked her because she  made the best chocolate cake (my favorite). I really liked her daughter,  Kelly, a pudgy Mexican-looking girl with long black hair, only six months  younger than me. Neither of us had a sister, so we decided we’d be each  other’s sister. We played together and always had fun together. She didn’t  mind being silly, and she was always willing to play my favorite game:  Africans. I’d be “Unga-Bunga,” and she’d be “Oooga-Wooga.” We’d jump  around with fake spears, acting a fool. I had no idea what it was like to  be a real African so I imitated what I’d seen on TV. I didn’t know that TV  was run by white folks. What do white folks know about being African?  Nothing. But at the time I was too young (and really didn’t care) to know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Anyway, I couldn’t wait to get to Daddy’s house so Kelly and I could play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Why didn’t Momma wake me? I thought again as I continued walking toward  her room, my head down in deep thought while I contemplated which outfit I  would wear to daddy’s. I looked up and froze. I’ll never forget what I saw.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The radio was still blasting in the background. Momma was lying facedown  on her stomach. She was hanging off the side of the bed from her waist up.  Her long black hair was hanging down, covering her face. Her arms hung  limp to   the floor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Momma?” I asked, walking slowly toward her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The radio continued to blare. As I got closer, it seemed to get louder.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Momma?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I thought maybe she was kidding. Momma was always playing with me. Just  the night before we were playing house and doing each other’s hair,  dancing around and acting silly. I thought Momma was just playing another  game, so I expected her to jump up like a jack-in-the-box and scream,  “Boo!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But she didn’t move.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I touched her arm. She was cool. I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew  it wasn’t good.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Momma?” I repeated as I tried to lift her up by her shoulders so I could  see her face. I didn’t know death was so heavy. When I tried to lift her,  her body slid off the bed and onto me, and we both hit the floor with a  thud. As she landed on top of me I heard a gurgling noise in her throat.  She was heavy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Still I didn’t panic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It took awhile but I managed to squeeze myself from up under her and turn  her over. She was so beautiful—even dead.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I don’t know how I knew she was dead. I’d never seen death before. I just  knew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I got up and slowly walked over to the nightstand where the phone lay and  called Lori.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Hello,” Lori answered.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Lori, this is Vette. My momma’s dead.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I said it so casually, Lori thought she’d misunderstood what I’d said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “What’d you say?” she asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “My momma’s dead.” I repeated in the same casual voice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Are you sure?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Yeah.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Stay right there! I’m gon’ call your father!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I hung up and almost immediately the phone rang. I nonchalantly picked   it up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Hello.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Punkin, this is Daddy.” My daddy always called me Punkin. Never “Pumpkin”  always “Punkin.” Once I asked him why, and he said because when I was a  baby, I had big chubby cheeks that made my face look like a little roun’  pumpkin, and ever since, he’s called me Punkin. I never had no problem  keeping up with all of my different names. Momma called me Cup. Daddy  called me Punkin. Everybody else called me Vette.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Hi, Daddy!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Punkin, what’s going on?!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Momma’s dead!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Are you sure?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Yeah, I’m sure!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    We were screaming at each other because the radio was still blasting. I’d  never turned it off.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Call the police, I’ll be right there!” he yelled before slamming down the  phone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I didn’t call the police. Somehow I knew that once they came they’d take  Momma away and I’d never see her again. So instead, I went back to her,  scooted my little body under hers so I could put her head in my lap, and  began singing our favorite song: “Chain of Fools” by Aretha Franklin. We  used to play that song as we sang and danced around the house. In fact, we  had just been dancing to it and singing it the night before. I hadn’t  known then that that would be our good-bye party. It was then I began to  cry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And that’s how Daddy found me a half hour later: sitting on the floor with  Momma’s head in my lap, stroking her hair and, through my tears, singing  “Chain of Fools.”The New York Times Bestseller","brand":"Crown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305094566117,"sku":"NP9781400052295","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400052295.jpg?v=1767720709","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/a-piece-of-cake-isbn-9781400052295","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}