Chapter One
Addie
If you’re the last person to leave Detroit, don’t forget to turn off the lights.
The saying amuses me, as it does my cousin Samantha, known as Sam among our friends. Several months ago, we bought a house and opened a diner together in the city. Perhaps we are, as my stepfather says, out of our minds. Time will tell.
In the meantime, here I sit, settled into the chair at my desk, gazing through the office window. Braydon, who was our first hire, is in the kitchen garden, harvesting lettuces that we’ll use for tomorrow’s menu. A tall, thin man with a quiet manner and perfect teeth—white, shiny, and square—he possesses an air of gravitas. At this moment, however, his motions appear broad, his gesticulations wild. What could he be saying to Sam and Sandra—nicknamed Sun Beam—that would arouse such passion?
I straighten with a jolt, my smartphone jarring me out of my reverie. Cascada’s “Everytime We Touch” ringtone alerts me it’s David, my live-in boyfriend. Feeling his presence in the room, I smooth my hair and moisten my lips. Dropping my voice an octave, I answer in a whisper.
“Hey, sweetie. Whatcha need?”
“Baby girl. You know what I need.”
“Haven’t I taught you the rewards of patience?” My inflection captures the purr of a promise.
“All work and no play makes David a very sad boy.” He clears his throat. “Why was I calling? Oh yeah. Could you bring home the electric drill I lent Braydon? He was using it to install the soap canister next to the hand sink.”
“No worries. It’s already in my bag. Before you get going on the bathroom, you need to secure the shelf above our bed. The next time the headboard rams against the wall, the shelf might fall down. It will kill me before you do.”
“God forbid we let that happen.” I can see him smiling that rascal smile.
After our good-byes, I slump back into the chair and push aside a stack of cookbooks. Placing several grease-stained prep lists into the recycle bin, my gaze wanders back through the panes. Sam is my first cousin on my father’s side. She and Sun Beam are harvesting the first of the late-May crops. Now that school’s out for summer, Sun Beam will be coming into work with her mother, LaQuisha.
A burst of beaming light, Sun Beam wears braided cornrows pulled into ponytails that trail down her back. Her round glasses magnify her brown eyes so that they appear owlish—solemn, shiny, and believing. She is nine years old. Her molars are loose, and new front teeth are coming in crooked.
Lella, a young woman we recently hired to wait tables, walks toward the trio, a woven basket in her hands. She has the long, muscular frame, flat waistline, and chest of a thirteen-year-old gymnast. Her pale complexion and gleaming face are topped with an asymmetrical haircut, which is dyed in streaks of tangerine and strawberry, the colors of the poppy tattoo on her upper arm.
She bends down, hands the basket to Sun Beam, and throws back her head, laughing at something the girl says. At Lella’s arrival, the group’s tension seems to melt away. She has that effect on people. She straightens, then returns to the diner.
Braydon resumes cutting off the scalloped lettuce leaves at soil level. Afraid of bruising the tender fronds, he makes sure his motions are gentle as he hands them to Sam, who places them in the basket. In the few months he’s worked for us, he’s made himself invaluable. He was part of a volunteer group loosely organized to help revitalize the area. Helping us update the diner prior to its opening was his first project.
In fact, Braydon pointed out how the electrician screwed up the furnace wiring by running a 120-volt line into a 220-volt circuit. After the worker left, the motor wouldn’t run. Braydon corrected the mistake, but what galls me is that the electrician claimed that he checked, and the furnace was in working order. We paid him hard cash from our closely guarded funds, while Braydon worked for free. I took solace in giving the guy a bad review on Angie’s List. I hope no one else has to suffer from his inefficiencies. A place could catch fire from bad wiring.
With the savory leftovers Braydon brought the volunteers from his home kitchen—the delicate, crumbling biscuits, smoked pulled pork, and creamy chess pies—we discovered he was also an excellent cook.
Counting out the singles, I watch as Sam rests her hands on his shoulder. Their discussion appears to carry weight. Perhaps that upsetting customer returned for lunch—the guy who offended Lella with his vulgar and derisive teasing. We’ve been brainstorming ways of handling situations such as this, but it’s not the sort of discussion they’d be having with the child.
Distracted by the scene in the garden, I lose track of my counting. I recount the singles, secure them with a rubber band, and place them into the money bag stamped WELCOME HOME. Then I tap my computer and review the employee schedule for next week. That’s when Lella’s moving, and she requested the time off, so I’ll ask Braydon if he can, once again, work overtime.
Braydon has been whipping up soul food, which our clientele has embraced. Our most recent signature dish is what he refers to as a “mess of greens” served with potlikker. Potlikker, beloved by all citizenry below the Mason-Dixon, remains a foreign brew to most Yankees. Unless you’re from Detroit, where many locals have extended roots in the South.
Potlikker is the broth left behind after simmering the greens with pork, and is best served with corn pone for dunking. Would that the world were as amicable as our menu. Who would guess Southern soul food would coexist happily with Polish cooking and farm-to-table heartland fare?
I sigh, shut down the program, and stare out the window. They’ve harvested a large basket of greens—plenty for the Heirloom Salad with Blue Cheese Croutons on tomorrow’s menu. Braydon tucks his shears beneath his armpit. The three of them rise, and Sam pulls them into her, orchestrating a group hug. Sam can enlighten me as to their discussion when we return home after work. As the trio enters the corridor through the back door, their chatter now sounds casual.
Everyone warned us, said our going into business together would ruin our relationship. As it turns out, they were wrong. Sam and I shared the same crib, the same bottle, and the same toys. We shared our grandparents, Babcia and Dziadek. If I ever forget a piece of my history, I just ask Sam. It’s only logical we’d share the same business. I could never have wished for a better partner, or a better city in which to build a career.
But, so far, we haven’t attracted the customer base needed to survive. It could be the weather. These past few months, business has been conducted in a fusillade of snow, icy sleet, and rain. When it’s not raining, Detroit’s thinking about raining, and the walls in the kitchen sweat from the heat of simmering pans and humidity. It’s difficult mustering up a smile for those few patrons who don’t mind trading damp socks for a hot bowl of soup.
Aside from that one offensive man, we’ve been cooking for a handful of Detroit-area sympathizers—friendly folks more curious about the crazy women who had the stupidity to open a diner in one of the more dangerous parts of town than desirous of our made-from-scratch flapjacks and pastries.
And then there are the money worries. Some weeks we barely make payroll for our three-person staff, much less ourselves. Sixty percent of restaurants go under in their first year of business; eighty percent fail within five. You gotta know that stat’s higher in Detroit. I worry The Welcome Home Diner might fall prey to next year’s data. I try not to make this concern my mantra.
Nevertheless, Detroit is fertile ground—major corporations are beginning to pour billions into downtown revitalization, betting their money on the city’s recovery. Small businesses such as ours also have a stake in this rally. If we ever get our footing, we’ll hire David’s father’s construction company to build an addition. My eyes scan the empty, hard-packed soil bordering the garden. We have the acreage.
I shove the money bag into the safe beside the desk. Sam’s dad, Uncle Andrew, configured it to be disguised as a laminate panel in the wall. If Braydon continues to earn our trust, he’ll be the next employee we’ll train to cash out.
After closing the office door behind me, I walk through the corridor, which divides the back kitchen from the office, and pass through the swinging doors opening to the diner. The restaurant is divided into three areas. The main floor—which would seat up to thirty-four patrons if filled to capacity—houses two six-tops, four four-tops, and three two-tops. It’s framed by large windows, which suffuse the area with sunlight, and looks out to the parking lot and East La Grande Avenue.
The second area is the counter space, which is, in effect, a Formica bar, original to the restaurant. A soft shade of wintergreen, it’s embossed with a pattern of tiny boomerangs the color of doves. Pearlescent stools are permanently affixed to the floor and seat an additional twelve patrons. The counter stretches the length of the diner and divides the main floor from the third space, the prep area. This is where the action takes place, and is the highlight of the performance.
The best seat in the house—if you don’t mind being perched on a seat that’s as hard as the head of a nail—is at the center of the counter. Sun Beam’s mother, LaQuisha, works the grill. We call her Quiche, for short. Watching the blur of her arm as she flips pancakes on the flattop, your eyes wander to the stacks of mismatched china and Ball jars filled with pickled vegetables, lining shelves above the sink. When your eyes slide down the counter, you’re mesmerized by the swirl of straws in iced teas and chocolate egg creams.
In the background you listen to layers of sound: flapjacks hissing on the grill; murmurs of conversation punctuated by the rattle of plates and cutlery being set at a table; hot, sultry bebop jazz tenor saxophonist Lucky Thompson, who grew up in this area—the city’s East Side—killing his horn.
You inhale a tingling blast of aromatherapy when lavender-lime soda is placed between your hands. Taking a cooling sip, you feel a jolt when a child’s hand knocks against your wrist as she reaches for the syrup—tapped from Northern Michigan maples. And then your fork sinks into a tender pile of buttermilk pancakes, pats of melting butter oozing down the stack, apple and walnut islands in the syrup. You slide the morsel into your mouth—mmmmm, this is how food is supposed to taste.
These are the sensorial pleasures we hope our customers feel when dining in our establishment. As if you’re having breakfast or lunch in an anachronism, transported to an era set in the midcentury. Timeless. Floating. Blessedly minus the thorny issues of segregation that plagued the country in those swept-away years—we’re proud of our diverse and talented staff.
It’s a world of our creation, an oasis for our customers. This world, however, is no nirvana for the workers. We must smile when a customer complains about the wait for a sandwich, or comp a check, even if the offending item was licked clean from the plate. We take responsibility and beg pardon to other customers if someone’s kid throws a tantrum, then rush for crayons and paper to placate that child.
But now it’s half past two, and we’re closed for the day. Free from patrons, we’re transported to a place where we can let down our guard. As I cast my eyes around the scene, Braydon, Lella, and Sam are clearing tables. Sun Beam sits at the counter, in front of her a tricked-out sausage. She enjoys experimenting with leftovers after the restaurant is closed. As her mother shuts down the grill, she turns to face her child, gesturing with a knife as she speaks.
“What in heaven’s name have you got on that plate, child?”
“Stop waving that blade around, Mama. You look like a flying ninja. Hot dogs are delicious with mayo and stuffed with fries.” Sun Beam, throat stretched, chirps like a chickadee, twittering nonstop.
“Why, girl, I never,” Quiche replies, scrunching her nose. She returns the knife to the drawer and retrieves a spatula. She scrapes it across the carbonized flattop, glistening with grease, clearing it of burned bits of bread, bacon, and other relics from today’s special. With the palm of her hand, she brushes away her shiny black bangs.
“Fries have no place on a wiener. A hot dog cries out for mustard, ketchup, and relish.” She pauses and looks sideways, casting her eyes over her shoulder. “And who ever heard of using mayo? It’s un-American.” Making tsk-tsk sounds, she turns to regard Sun Beam, her spatula pointing at her daughter as if she were a teacher admonishing an unruly student with a ruler.
“Pasty gobs of goo squeezing outta that bun—I’m queasy watching you eat that mess.”
Her gaze holds steady on her child. They have the same heavy-lashed, wide-set eyes; round as disks, the irises are a coppery brown. I climb onto a stool and sit beside the girl.
“You tell her, Addie. She won’t listen to me. You spend your life trying to get folks to eat right.”
“No worries, Quiche,” I say, wiping a smudge of mayo away from the rim of her plate. “Murray Hills out of Novi hand-makes the links using organic chicken. Sam made the potato buns this morning, and what could be healthier than baked sweet potato fries?” I place a hand on Sun Beam’s shoulder and give a little squeeze. “She’s right. I’ll bet our homemade mayo tastes delicious on the dog.”
“I told you so, Mama,” says the child, adjusting her glasses and giving her mother a solemn know-it-all nod of her head.
Quiche raises her brow at me, seeming to weigh my words. I always get the feeling that she’s not quite sure my opinions are to be trusted. Pursing her lips, she returns to the grill.
“But you need something green,” I say, wiping the corner of Sun Beam’s mouth with a napkin. “And so do I.”
I pat her hand, slide off the stool, and circle back behind the counter. At the cold station, I make a spinach salad with hard-cooked eggs and smoky bits of bacon. I ladle on our lemony house dressing and, with prongs, pull some of the salad from the bowl and place it on Sun Beam’s plate. “Here ya go, hon. A jolt of iron to keep you strong.”
Babcia (a Polish endearment for grandmother) would have approved of my nurturing. I regard her portrait, a black-and-white photograph of her when she was in her early thirties. Sam and I consider this picture our most important piece of decor. Sacred, in fact. It was taken in the late forties, after she had arrived in Ann Arbor. The photograph is crooked, so I slide a chair under her portrait and climb on top, stretching to straighten it.
Her white-blonde hair is twisted back into a bun. She wears a floral dress and the hint of a smile. What isn’t apparent is her complexion: a delicate alchemy of ivory and pearl; the color of her eyes: crystal blue; the sound of her laughter: clear and light; and her fragrance: a delicate whisper of crushed violet I always smelled on her collar.
I push the right edge of the photograph up and then wiggle the top edges of the frame so that her eyes are parallel with mine. No one could ever guess her courage by gazing into those eyes, so gentle and sweet. I can’t imagine the strength of character it would take to suffer through a war, leave all that’s familiar behind, and forge a new life in a strange, new land. Our eyes lock and I smile before hopping off the chair.
Braydon picks up my chair and takes it to the side of the diner. Sam, leaning into a mop handle, watches me, her eyes soft and thoughtful. We share the same memories of our grandmother. Then she bends above the bucket, returns the mop to the water, and swishes the gray ropes in the suds.
Sam
Lunch rush—if you could call it a rush—is over, and the diner just closed for the day. I glance at Addie’s profile shining through the office window as she cashes out. She turns her head to watch us we collect the greens.
Braydon sits on his haunches, tearing yellowed leaves away from a bunch of arugula. He places them on a pile of compost and swivels to face Sun Beam.
“I must have told you this story half a dozen times. You’re still not tired of hearing it?”
She shakes her head, a solemn expression on her cute little face.
He sighs, a smile playing about his mouth. “That dog was a sight. Poor little thing. She’d made herself a nest from rags and lived under the expressway. I’ll never forget the day I found Bon Temps.” He digs out a dandelion that’s invaded the garden.
“A tornado struck Detroit the day before. That twister cut a four-mile path of destruction.” Forehead lined, eyes stretched wide, he raises his arms, swirling them about his head. “Almost one-hundred-mile-an-hour winds, the city’s never seen anything like it. I was twelve years old.”
“That’s the most terrible story I’ve ever heard. I hope a tornado doesn’t hit town when I turn twelve.” Through the thick frames of her glasses, Sun Beam gapes at Braydon in goggle-eyed admiration.
“Her fur was soaking wet,” he continues, “clinging to her ribs, which stuck out in angles.”
I wrap my jacket tighter around my shoulders. His words and the damp chill in the air are causing me to shiver. We’re taking advantage of a cease-fire in the rain to harvest the first of the cold-season crops.
His dog lies next to Sun Beam, holding her muzzle high in the air. Her snout expands, as if relishing the smells emanating from the diner. Braydon brings her to work, and she often hangs out with Hero, my dog, in the garden. As our conversation loops around dogs and tornadoes, Lella brings us the basket we had trouble locating.
No one can dismiss Bon Temps in a glance. In the world of unusual dogs, she stands alone. Judging from her short, stubby legs, extended body, and wavy coat of hair, Braydon guesses her to be a spaniel-dachshund mix. Her tail points to the sky in a flash of gold lightning finished off with a fluffy pom-pom. Long wisps of fur dangle from the tip, like ribbons festooning a parade float. Identical tendrils dangle from the summit of her long, upright ears like an ancient Chinese headdress.
Lella returns to the diner, and Sun Beam rubs the tip of Bon Temps’s cotton-ball tail between her thumb and forefinger, which she says helps the dog relax.
“How’d you find her?”
“I didn’t find her. She found me. I didn’t know she was following me until I stopped to tie my shoe. She trotted up and licked my fingers. Her fur was so wet it seemed glued to her bones.” Braydon puts his hand under Bon Temps’s chin, lifting her head. “And look at those eyes. How could I say no to those big brown eyes?”
“Her eyes look like yours,” says Sun Beam.
She’s right. Braydon has large eyes, the color mirroring his skin, the golden ash brown of forest wood. He’s only twenty-two years of age, but those weatherworn eyes seem to have many stories to tell.
“How old is she?”
“That I can’t answer with certainty.” Braydon wraps his fist around a bunch of shoots, picks up the gardening shears, and, with a swift swipe, cuts through the base of stems. While talking, he continues harvesting the bundles and handing them to me. I place the intact leaves in the basket, the more tattered ones in the compost pile.
“I’m guessing she was close to two when I found her. She wasn’t wearing a collar, so I couldn’t find her owner, much less find out her age. That was ten years ago. Two thousand five. Back then, she was full of energy, a young dog, but not a puppy. That would make her twelve now.”
“That’s old in people years, right?”
“I figure she’s sixty-two, maybe sixty-four.”
Sun Beam squints at Braydon. “That’s really old. Same age as Granny. Is she named after a candy?”
“Nope. Bon Temps means good times in French. A friend of my auntie, our next-door neighbor, speaks Creole. She suggested the name.”
“What happened to your mama and daddy?”
“Sun Beam,” I say, interrupting her inquisition. “Enough questions, honey. You’re gonna drive Braydon crazy.” Poor kid. I haven’t heard the whole story, but he did tell me he lost his parents when he was a child. I can’t imagine the pain he must feel in the retelling.
Braydon clears his throat. “That’s all right, Sam. It’s a good question.” He puts down his shears. His eyes are dreamy, half-mast, as if he were falling asleep. They wander from me to Sun Beam.
“My parents died when I was a kid. An ice storm came out of nowhere, slicking up the expressway.” A reddish-pink shine journeys across his eyes. “They were a part of a ten-car collision. I was at a sleepover.” He lifts his face to the sky. “I could have been in that car.”
Sun Beam’s chin begins to tremble, and her eyes fill with tears. Braydon looks down at her and, with his forefinger, lifts her chin to meet his eyes. “My story does have a happy ending.”
Sun Beam swallows, adjusts her glasses, and nods.
“Bon Temps saved my life as much as I saved hers. We were both orphans and needed each other.” Bon Temps, now sleeping in the grass, hears her name and looks up at her master. He pats the dog’s head.
Picturing a young boy and half-starved dog wandering under the expressway tugs at my heart. My hands are still, and I stare at the earth, biting my lips to hold back the tears.
“So here’s the happy ending,” he says, taking Sun Beam’s hands. “My aunt and uncle on my father’s side took me in. Their kids had already left home. And as long as I kept out of trouble, they said they’d let me keep Bon Temps. You’d better believe I kept my nose clean. Bad kids skip school and smoke pot. Some start stealing cars and shooting guns at thirteen. It’s not hard recognizing the kids to avoid.”
He squeezes her hands. “But, just like me, you’re going to be one of the good kids. We’ll all see to that.” He pulls at one of her ponytails, a half smile on his face. “My aunt and uncle are quiet, God-fearing Christians. But they’ve been good to me. Bon Temps, my aunt, and my uncle are the closest thing I have to a family.”
Sun Beam stares at Braydon with a timid, solemn look. “You an’ Bon Temps can be a part of our family, too. It’s just me, Mama, and Granny. I’d love having a big brother.” She presses her lips together and lowers her head as if she just confessed something profound.
She whispers into Bon Temps’s ear, to make sure the old dog hears her words. “And for sure I’d like having a dog.” The dog’s tail swishes.
Braydon is quiet, and I, embarrassed by this intimate turn of conversation, am at a loss for words. I can think only to repeat Sun Beam’s sentiments.
“She’s right. You aren’t alone, Braydon. You have your aunt and uncle, you have your dog, and now we’re your family, too.”
Sun Beam rubs Bon Temps beneath her collar and, with the other hand, scratches behind her white ears. She turns to me. “Would you let me build a doghouse next to the garden? So the dogs can have their own home?”
“What a wonderful idea, honey. Of course you can.”
She looks up at Braydon. “Will you help me?”
Pressing his lips together, he nods. Securing his shears under his armpit, Braydon runs his knuckle under his nose. Working in the garden must be healing for him—trimming, snipping, and pinching back a harvest of grief.
I place my hand on Sun Beam’s shoulder. “Why don’t you make yourself one of those fancy sandwiches while your mom breaks down the grill?”
Stretching out my arms, I pull the two of them into me, patting their backs. Then, I stoop to pick up the basket of lettuces.
Traipsing through the back door and corridor, passing Addie in the office, we cross through the swinging doors and enter the prep area. Sun Beam opens the reach-in, removes a sausage, and places the link on the flattop, which Quiche is scraping down. The woman’s hands are lashed with scars from years of manning grills, meat slicers, and bubbling fryers. Braydon wheels the mop bucket into the main area, and we move the chairs to one side of the room so that we can clean the floors.
As we work, Sun Beam busies herself by composing a sausage dog before taking a seat at the counter. Addie enters the prep area and makes a spinach salad for herself and the child. Then, she slides a chair beneath our grandmother’s portrait and climbs up to adjust the photograph, staring at the picture, as is her habit. She then hops from the chair and retreats to the office, salad in hand.
Through the side windows of the diner, I see the familiar beat-to-hell yellow Ford pickup arrive in the open cargo area that’s loaded with boxes and bags. It’s Jessie, our hot sauce and garlic vendor, on her bimonthly run.
Jessie, a heavyset African American woman in her early fifties, is a Detroit urban farmer who wears waist-length dreadlocks and frayed overalls. Her only adornments, which are as much a part of her as her mud-crusted work boots, are the beads she wears looped around her neck. Strands of gold and polished amber, and teardrops of tiny gray strung-together bones, were purchased at the African Bead Gallery on Grand River. She says they tell a story by communicating information to others who know how to read them.
Born a decade after Angela Davis, Jessie reveres the activist. She participates in one of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, which Ms. Davis founded after her split with the Communist Party. Jessie tells us her food enterprises may be capitalist, but they’re in sync with Ms. Davis’s principles and aligned toward a green-energy future that will revitalize Detroit. I could escape a trio of knife-wielding thugs more easily than I could the wrath of Jessie if I challenged her leftist ideology or got on her bad side.
A few years back, she cashed in her savings to attend Ms. Davis’s Empowering Women of Color Conference in Berkeley. Jessie says the meetings changed her life, infusing her with African American pride and confidence. At the seminar, Ms. Davis told the participants she eschews anything causing harm to animals and, thus, is a vegan. The bacon Jessie had enjoyed at her morning breakfast was her last taste of meat.
Jessie also befriended a Native American at the seminar who introduced her to practices of traditional healing. She continued her education at Integrative Holistic Medicine in Detroit. Now, she concocts home remedies and practices in her tight-knit community of like-minded women.
Braydon holds the door for her as she enters the restaurant carrying a case of her hot sauce, Jessie’s Hell Fire and Redemption. Thanking Braydon for his chivalry, she wedges her girth sideways through the door, caked mud from her boots making tracks on the just-mopped floor. A brown paper bag resting on top of the box slides off, toppling to the ground. I stoop to pick up the dirt-crusted heads, random cloves, and scapes, and return them to the bag. Braydon sweeps up the dirt and skins.
“Sorry, baby. Jévon’s at the school and couldn’t help me on my run. I’m getting too old and too fat to be doing this by myself.”
Jévon is Jessie’s only child and teaches art classes to youth groups in the city. Some condemn his public works as graffiti vandalism while others acclaim him as a street-art superstar. Jévon is the chink in Jessie’s armor; any hurt he suffers is felt tenfold by his mother.
“How’s he doing?” Braydon asks. “That mural he sprayed on Gratiot blew my mind.”
“It was somethin’, right?”
We nod, brows unmoving, in solemn agreement. Jessie has a titanic, head-turning voice, which would be a fine instrument if she were a performer. People tend to concur with whatever she says not only because of that voice but also because of her eyes. Her pupils, the inky shade of a fathomless night, are circled with a glow of cosmic energy—the color of ripe apricots, almost gold. When she casts her beams on me, I’m uncomfortable and feel undressed beneath her gaze. But when the light in her eyes dims, you’d better watch your back.
“A little boy skipping stones in the Detroit River makes you know better times are ahead,” she booms, placing the case of hot sauce on the counter with a thud. “I just hope it doesn’t get power-washed off like the one in Cass Corridor.” She hands me the receipt, crumbled and stained with dirt.
“If the building’s owner realized Jévon’s work was worth twice the cost of the building, he might have thought otherwise,” Braydon says, concurring with her son’s worth.
“You got that right. Folks call him the Picasso of Detroit,” she says, pride in her voice. “He’s instructing a group of kids at the Project today.” The Heidelberg Project is an internationally recognized art habitat—one man’s creative antidote to the scourge of his deteriorating neighborhood.
Half-moons of moisture darken Jessie’s shirt beneath her armpits. She removes a paisley bandanna from her pocket and mops her perspiring brow. “Lord have mercy, I’ve caught on fire. Will these hot flashes ever end? The change, the change. Going through the change.”
“You poor thing,” Quiche says, rinsing utensils at the prep sink. “Maybe you OD’ed on that concoction you brew. Everyone seems to love your recipe, but I can’t stomach the stuff. Don’t take offense by my words, Jess. I despise all hot sauces with equal contempt.” She looks over her shoulder toward the woman. “Lemme pour you something cold after I finish the dishes.”
“Thanks, Quiche. And loaded with ice, if you please.” Jessie takes a seat at the counter.
Braydon slides a knife down the seam of the box, opening the case. “Just in time. We sold the last bottle yesterday.”
As I busy myself returning chairs to the tables, he removes one of the bottles from the case. Smiling, he gazes at the label her son designed: a black background with orange-red flames lapping a caricature of Jessie holding a pitchfork. Another caricature depicts her as an angel, sporting wings and flying above.
“I was weaned on hot sauce myself—it was a seasoning as common as salt on our table.” He shakes a dollop of Jessie’s sauce onto his forefinger and dabs it with his tongue. “But this is different from what we used. More flavorful. Rounded.”
He reads the ingredient list: “Serrano chilies, jalapeños, canola oil, water, honey, garlic, onion, and vinegar. Hmmm. Standard stuff. What is it about your recipe that makes it so much better than the rest? There’s a taste I can’t pinpoint. Something missing on the ingredient list.”
“The ingredient, my son, is invisible,” Jessie replies, rubbing the beads in her necklace between her thumb and forefinger. “The ingredient is magic. And I’ll never disclose the full recipe. But I will tell you this.” She points her forefinger toward his face, almost touching his nose. “If you season your food with my hot sauce every day, your soul will radiate sunlight forever.”
Braydon shakes the liquid from the bottle into a pot of greens simmering on a two-burner, and stirs. He lowers a fork into the pot, then lifts a khaki mound to his mouth, taking a bite. He chews with deliberation, before batting his lips with a cloth.
“Turnip, mustard, and collard greens. Delectable. Your magic is all they needed.” He places a colander into an empty pot in the sink and strains the greens. After ladling the potlikker into shot glasses, he passes them around. Quiche pulls a face as if Braydon were offering her poison.
I swallow the brew in a gulp. Braydon tips his glass to mine. “My potlikker seasoned with Jessie’s Hell Fire and Redemption has the power to move heaven and earth.”
I would be wondering if his words held a prophecy for a long time to come.