Chapter 13
Meli
I couldn’t seem to stop crying. For a woman who never sheds a tear, that was tantamount to a nervous breakdown.
I could still feel his hands on my breasts and his mouth feeding off the tender skin behind my ear. He had been gentle and yet assertive; he had been everything I had ever wanted a lover to be. Moreover, I knew I had laid claim to him; as much as a brand. Only, I wouldn’t be the woman in his arms ever again. He deserved so much more than a bastard from the inner city. He was made of good stuff; no matter the drinking or the women, he was still, simply by being born, better than I. I should have recognized this before I agreed to be his publicist. My roots wouldn’t touch him as long as it was all business. But once I lay in his arms, the game had changed. He would be judged by the trash he took to bed every night.
Deep down in my soul, I knew I was pretending to be someone other than who I was. I thought if I stayed close to him, I could maintain control and maybe, just maybe, my past wouldn’t matter so much. Just maybe I could leave the filth of the city behind me. I was so smart, and yet so naïve.
I’d walked out to the main road and hitched a ride to the bus stop. I rode for about twenty miles and then changed buses and headed east. I knew he would look for me; he was one of those kinds of men. He’d look, north, though, figuring I’d go back to what I knew best. He was wrong. I had no home. I didn’t belong anywhere, least of all with him. So, I chose east.
I’d ridden most of the day and finally crawled off in a sleepy little town in northern Louisiana. I knew I would stick out like a sore thumb, but sometimes people would leave you alone just for that reason.
I did, however, do one thing that came naturally. I headed for the first café I could find and looked for a job that would pay in room and board. I had enough coming in with my blogging to support myself otherwise.
Maudie’s Café was just the sort of place I was hoping to find. Maudie was a heavyset black woman with a heart of gold and a steady business. She was getting on in years, though, and couldn’t be on her feet all day long. She had a small room overhead with a bath and said she’d pay me all I could eat and $50 a week for pocket money, as she called it. It was perfect and I started the moment I set my bag down.
I knew how to cook; God knows for all the restaurants that Jill and I had lived over, I’d learned to cook almost every cuisine … except that eaten in the Deep South. Under Maudie’s tutelage, I learned to bread and fry catfish, hush puppies, and to bake peanut butter pie. I mastered the art of buttermilk biscuits and sausage gravy and eventually could flip a pair of eggs in a cast iron skillet by tossing them in mid-air. Maudie would sit on the stool at the counter and talk me through most of the preparation; her feet were swollen and painful to stand upon.
Maudie stayed on hand to talk to her customers. Her charm was in her personality and she knew everyone by name. Perhaps the best part of Maudie’s charm was that she never asked questions or tried to pry into your personal business when you didn’t offer anything up. She knew I was on the run, so to speak. She didn’t care, saying that I’d been a gift from God just as she was about run out of blessings. That gave us a sort of comradery and we clicked immediately.
To say I stuck out in town was an understatement. First of all, most of the community was African American and I was a tall, willowy blonde who spoke like someone from a New York diner. I had no family, no man in my life, and very, very little money. Maudie knew I wrote blogs and while she wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, she knew when it was a time when I needed to concentrate and she let me alone.
I had a twin-sized bed and one of Maudie’s quilts to cover up with at night. I hung what clothes I owned on hooks along one wall and alternated between two bath towels. I’d bought a small fan for the window and other than that, had nothing. There was no ranch guest room, no Escalade, and most of all, no Blake. To say I was miserable was an understatement, but then I was used to misery and welcomed it like a black-sheep family member who was worthlessly predictable.
I had switched cell phones so no one could find me. I figured that eventually Blake would think to go over to Jill’s and ask her help in finding me. He might even bribe her; in fact he probably had to bribe her since money was the only thing that routinely worked to make her give me up. That, and drugs.
To be on the safe side, however, I gave Maudie Jill’s phone number and address and asked that if anything ever happened to me, that she contact her. Maudie didn’t ask any questions and knew better than to send out any inquiries at the moment or that her star employee would walk. She needed me as much as I needed her.
Summer was fully underway and the heat in my little apartment and hanging over the grill was hell itself. I could barely breathe and my stomach was constantly in turmoil. I felt horrible and twice had to run for the bathroom in the middle of making someone’s lunch. Maudie watched me and finally confronted me.
“You’s gonna have a babe,” she said simply.
I whirled around. “What?” I shrieked in a horrified voice.
“I seen it afore and I knows what I lookin’ at. Girl, don’ you know nothin?” Her eyes were knowing and she was wagging her head, clicking her tongue in a manner that made me feel ridiculously naïve. How could I be so stupid?
I felt like such a fool. My cycles had always been irregular, a byproduct of anxiety and too many missed meals. Once Jeremy and I split, there wasn’t any reason to stay on the pill. Not until that one night in Dallas. A home pregnancy test that night confirmed Maudie’s statement.
“You going to fire me?” I asked her the next morning, confessing the truth about the test.
“Why would I do a fool thing like that?” Maudie was wise and had seen many things over the years. An unwed mother ranked pretty low on her scale of life’s tragedies.
I shrugged.
“I takes it you don’ want the daddy to know?”
I shook my head vociferously. “No!”
She didn’t ask the details and I didn’t offer. “Don’ you worry none. I raised my share of babes and we’ll raise this one, too. At least as long as I’m ‘round to help ya.”
“I can’t ask that of you, Maudie,” I told her, ashamed at the predicament I’d gotten into. I was having flashbacks of my mother and realized I wasn’t any better than she was.
“Don’t wanna hear that, now. Not like you come in here ‘spectin’ the help – you didn’ know. Anyhow, I got myself in a fix coupla times and we all help on ‘nother.”
I hugged Maudie and she patted my arm. “Now get in there and cook!” she shooed me away.
* * *
Thus began my new norm. By day, I was a cook and a growing part of the community. My appearance had been enough to warrant attention and once the word got around that I was with child, I somehow qualified to become their darling. It was the general assumption that the father of my child was “no account,” as was the local expression, and if it meant keeping my privacy, I was content to let that viewpoint exist.
By night I was a freelance blogger and I began to seek more and more positions so I could augment my income. I had to pay for this baby, and then there was the question of insurance. I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to handle it all, but I knew I could do it. I was grateful I’d chosen to get off the bus where I did. It could have all been so much worse.
I was on the Internet constantly, and it was my primary source of contact with the world. Rural Louisiana was quiet and disconnected from the rest of the world, so I wasn’t subjected to CNN or the sports channels. I had no idea what was going on in Blake’s world.
A storm came in one evening and I’d always loved violent weather. I huddled over my computer, composing a post about haircare products when his gray eyes and dark black hair invaded my mind and eyes. I wanted so badly to look him up, but wouldn’t allow myself to do it. I knew I was weak and in this time of trouble, I knew I could reach out to him and he’d rescue me. I knew this without a doubt. It was that very reason I had to keep my distance. I would ruin his name, his career, and everything he stood for if I came in dragging a bastard’s reputation with another one in my arms. My pride had a price, after all.
As I grew in girth, there was general speculation about how I would get along. The ladies from the Baptist Church held an impromptu shower for me and I suddenly had a baby’s wardrobe. Women began dropping off care packages for me: a few articles of clothing with elastic waists, an old crib that had been repainted, a bag of used, but sparkling clean diapers, their patches neatly fixed. It was probably the greatest sense of family I’d ever known in my life. I would never forget the people in this community and their help.
It was a rainy day in late May. Maudie had taught me to bake cinnamon rolls and the smell was escaping out of the café’s fan and customers were piling in, tapping off their umbrellas and settling in for fresh rolls and large cups of Maudie’s chicory coffee. My back had begun to ache just after noon and by two o’clock, I had a pretty fair idea of what was happening. Nothing escaped Maudie’s eyes and she went into action. Customers were shooed out of the restaurant and the closed sign turned to face the public. Maudie had put in a call to the local midwife show showed up promptly. Between the two of them, they got me upstairs and the intense labor began.
Maudie had a rocker brought upstairs and she sat there and held my hand, wiping my forehead from time to time as she regaled me with stories of her childhood. This was oddly comforting, but in my heart, I just wanted Blake to be there. At that moment, I’d have even settled for Jill.
The emotions I was feeling were completely out of character for me. I was fearful—of the pain, of the uncertainty of the future and of travelling the same path my mother had chosen. I was angry—for having gotten myself into this position and of not being able to provide the child with a more solid beginning to his or her life. Lastly and finally, I was jubilant—for I finally held my baby son in my arms. I named him Kirk David Christian and as the midwife handed him to me, I felt an immense joy and pride and at that moment, no longer lived for myself.
Kirk was a very good baby, as babies went. He slept in a tiny bassinette someone had given me, next to my bed. I awakened every few hours when his tiny hands balled up and he cried from hunger. He became quite the rage with the customers as I took him downstairs with me and his carrier sat in a protected booth at the back of the restaurant. Diners would tiptoe over and peek at him, remark at his gray eyes and black hair, and then leave me a twenty as a tip. If there ever was proof of the expression, “It takes a village,” then Kirk was proof of having been raised by so many aunts and uncles he would never be alone in his life.
I continued to write blogs at night, rocking his bassinette and eventually holding him on my lap as I one-hand typed. He grew quickly, his rotund body lengthening into long, lean legs that wanted to stand so he could explore the world.
It was late November, Thanksgiving to be exact. We’d been invited to many homes to take part in holiday dinners, but I wanted to build the feeling that Kirk and I were a family unto ourselves. I’d taken him downstairs and put together a plate of turkey and mashed potatoes that were left over from what we’d been serving all week. I spoon-fed bits of potato and he cooed and clapped, wanting more.
He needed a nap afterwards and I decided to spend the quiet time writing some blogs ahead for the times when I was busy and tired and not up to it. I was in a mellow, almost sad mood as the sounds of families coming and going could be heard around me. I felt I was finally up to it. I looked up Blake’s name.
I was not prepared for what I found.