Chapter 12
Blake
I watched Silver drive away. It seemed like everything that I’d held out for as hope for the future, left with her. I had no idea who the man was she had chosen to spend her life with; it hurt too much to even consider that. I hoped he would take good care of her; at this point in time I wasn’t even so sure I could do that.
I walked back into the house and saw Jill waiting for me on the patio. She waved me out and pointed to a chair.
“Sit down, will you?” she asked me in a very polite and very businesslike voice I’d never heard before. “You’re hooked on her, aren’t you?” she asked me
“Yeah, I guess you could say that. She wasn’t here very long, but she fit in very well. I guess I let myself get carried away and started thinking of her in a permanent way. I had no right to do that. I never even let her know I cared until the day she left.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if I have to tell you about it, she stayed with me that last night. I told her as I fell asleep that I loved her.”
Jill rolled her eyes. “Of course she left. You just don’t get her. She doesn’t think she’s worthy of being loved by anyone. Most especially someone who is successful like you. She’s thought that her whole life. Any guy she ever went with had to be the scum of the earth or she couldn’t see herself with him. She became a writer because it allowed her to talk about her place in the world, the people with whom she was familiar and could relate to. It was cathartic for her.”
“What happened to your mother?” I asked her.
“My mother was a whore. There’s no better way to say that. She slept with anything that had a dime. One day a new guy picked her up off the corner. He was from out of town, at least that’s what I think. He spoke with a strange accent. I don’t know, maybe he was an immigrant. It doesn’t really matter. I never knew his name. He asked my mother to do something that was even beyond her ability, and that’s saying a whole lot. I think what he wanted was to have a threesome; her, Meli, and me. Of course my mother refused, and the guy beat her. Not just with his fists, but with anything he could get his hands on. Maybe he realized that what he had asked for was illegal; maybe he wanted no witnesses. I don’t know. The point is, he beat my mother to death. When it was over, she was lying naked on the floor and her blood had carpeted her body.
“Meli and I were hiding in a curtained closet so we were able to peer out and watch. I’m not really sure if he knew we were there, but we were. We had grown very good at being silent when mother was entertaining. Meli and I ran out of the apartment as soon as he left. Meli was thirteen and I was nine. The first night we stayed in the alley behind a restaurant. We ate from the garbage they threw out and Meli made us a kind of hut out of the empty food boxes. It was cold, I remember. I was shivering and scared. Meli wrapped her arms around me and sang little songs to me until I finally fell asleep. The next morning a garbage truck came and we had to make a run for it before someone saw us. If we were found out, Child Protective Services would’ve picked us up and we would have been separated forever. Meli promised me that would never happen.
“So Meli got a job as a dishwasher at the same restaurant where we’d slept the night before. They paid her $.50 an hour and all the food that we could eat. Before too long, she had talked the restaurant owner into letting us sleep inside the back room where the stacks of provisions were kept. He didn’t turn us in. He knew if he did, he’d be in trouble. He’d also lose the cheapest dishwasher he’d ever had.
“We moved from restaurant to restaurant, looking for a better job, a little more money, a little better place to stay. She got me through it, Blake. I’ve never truly thanked her for that. She carries the scars for both of us. Me? I carry my mother’s genes.”
“I had no idea,” I said.
“Of course you didn’t,” Jill said. “How could you?”
“What can I do to get her back, Jill?”
“Just love her. Let her know that you love her for who she is and all that she is.”
“I have told her. I just don’t know the right words. She’s got someone else, you know,” I said.
“And you believed her?” Jill rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue to indicate how big a fool I was.
“What do you mean?” I asked her, my heart leaping on the off chance that Silver had been lying. If ever I wanted to hear a lie, this was the time.
“You know her well enough to know she’s an honorable woman. If she had another man, she would not have come to see you. No matter how hard you begged. If her intention had been to come to see me, she would’ve come while I was still in the apartment so she wouldn’t have to run across you. You really are an idiot, you know?” she threw at me.
“I guess I never really thought of it. Once she mentioned another man, I just believed her,” I confessed to Jill as she puffed upon her cigarette in the darkness.
“Well, you’ll learn eventually, I suppose. In the meantime, I think you’re a good egg. I appreciate you trying to help me and I promise I’ll stay clean while I’m here. You won’t have any trouble out of me. I am a survivor; you know?” she posed her question.
“I think you both are. I could learn a thing or two from each of you,” I told her.
“I’ll help you try to get her back,” Jill promised. “I know her pretty well, but what I don’t know is how you treated her. If you were condescending in any way, you may have ruined it. So, just how did you treat her?” she prompted me.
I could hear suspicion in her voice. “Probably not as well as I should have,” I admitted. “I was an arrogant son of a bitch. I made her feel like she was ruining my career and yet I was magnanimous enough to give her a job.”
“You bastard! She didn’t deserve that.”
“I know that now, and I know I deserve what she’s dealing out to me.”
“Not sure what I can do for you, but I will try. You have my word on that. Now I’m going in and try out that new bed. It will be nice to not scratch tonight. Goodnight, Blake,” she said as she went indoors.
I said in the darkness by the pool for a very long time. I looked at the sky and pictured Silver driving beneath the same moon that I was watching. It somehow made me feel closer to her, even though she was driving further away. I recalled her words about drawing upon my own strengths. I had no business trying to get her back if I couldn’t take care of her. I would have to make some decisions, and no matter what, I would show her the respect she deserved. That’s when I realized that in many ways, I was like her. I had abused my body, my reputation, and the people around me because I felt as though I didn’t deserve to be treated well. She had taught me a lesson without even realizing it. Jill had been the one to help me see it. I owed her one, too.
Silver had talked about my reputation still having some value. I considered how I might put that to good use. I went inside and turned on the computer. I did a search for business ideas, and printed out pages of suggestions. I flipped off the computer and the light on the desk, picked up a pen, and went into my bedroom. I stayed up the rest of the night considering each of the business ideas and choosing which one might work for me. By morning, I thought I had found the right one. Only time would tell.
Chapter 13
Meli
Leaving Blake was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. I felt like I left a piece of myself behind. Add in my sister, and I felt like I’d just run away from home. It would have been so simple to go pick up Kirk, lock up the house and return to Dallas and the only sense of family I’d ever had. It made so much sense, so why didn’t I do it?
I wasn’t entirely obtuse. I understood where my problems had begun. The less explored about that, the better.
I stayed in a motel not far off the expressway that night. I stayed in the middle of the bed; it seemed less empty that way. I called Baton Rouge and had Sarah put Kirk on the phone.
“I’ll be coming home tomorrow, honey,” I told him.
“Sarah and I colored today,” Kirk told me in an excited voice. “We had a big storm. It rained really, really hard. Sarah and I watched it out of the window and when it was all done, I took a nap,” he added.
“That’s wonderful, darling,” I told him, loving the sound of his little voice on the phone. “I will see you tomorrow, I promise. I will bring you a surprise.”
I spoke briefly with Sarah to make sure everything was okay and then shut the phone off for the night and tried to sleep. The key word there was try to sleep. It was as if I were watching a film play before my eyes. The images began with Blake, his strong body mounted on the bull and his arm reaching upward to the sky. I remembered that body lying atop my own that one night. I had never felt such emotion and love from any human being as I did from him. The danger flashed red lights over everything from that point on. He had so much potential. I could never hope to be equal to the kind of woman he needed; this much I knew.
Then I began a flashback. I saw Jill, as she was as a little girl. I remember the night that we had hidden in the closet. The strange man had beaten our mother and while I watched, I had choked back a scream. At the same time, I remember with an absolute guilt feeling that in a very small way, she deserved what she was getting. Even as a young girl, I knew that what my mother did was wrong. We had no friends. People wanted nothing to do with us. I was the elder, and I could take it. Jill, she only had me.
I remembered sleeping outside the restaurant that night; how cold it was and how Jill had clung to me. She needed me then and although she didn’t realize it, she needed me now. In an odd way, I had provided her shelter once again, beneath the roof of the man I loved, but could not live with.
Now Kirk needed me. He was my responsibility; the life I would have to protect with my own. If that meant being away from Blake, then so be it.
I tried to shift my thinking on to other topics. I thought about the new restaurant I had planned. I made a note that upon my return to Baton Rouge I would take a week and drive the town, enlisting the aid of a real estate agent so that I might find just the appropriate property. I had no idea whether this would entail taking over an existing building, or building my own. I hoped for the former, as the latter would take too long and was really not something I knew how to do.
I began to think about branding. The name of the restaurant had made sense when Maudie owned it, but now I was planning a chain. I would have to attach visual recognition to everything about this new one. I needed a logo, stationery, business cards, social media, menus; I needed everything from the ground up. Somehow I managed to divert my attention from my heart and eventually fell asleep.
***
I had driven all day and was finally coming upon Baton Rouge, and my little boy. He flew into my arms, even more joyful to see me when I handed him the bag I had brought. I had stopped on my way home and bought him a selection of toys that he could play with in the backyard. This would be a novel experience for him.
I looked forward to finally having peace in our lives. Sarah was glad to see me and seemed to have no problem staying with Kirk by herself. This was encouraging as I would need her help a great deal in the near future.
Two days later I made an appointment with the realtor and began to tour the city. There were areas of town that I needed to avoid; they were simply too dangerous. However, much of the city loved Southern comfort food and Maudie’s recipes would be well received. I found a building on the corner not far from the expressway. The neighborhood was good; the location was even better. The building was two stories tall and would permit me to mount a billboard on its roof, thereby letting cars on the expressway see the sign and point to the next exit. I made an offer on the building, and forty-eight hours later I owned it.
I sat down with a graphic designer and began the basis of what would become my brand. I had a photograph of Maudie, and gave this to her that she might find it illustrator to make a caricature. It was only right that Maudie be a part of what was ahead. I found an attorney who seem trustworthy and drew up all the legal paperwork.
At the same time, I made out a will. I left everything, including my son, to Blake. I knew he would see to it that Jill was also taken care of, but by leaving things to Blake, I was leaving things to my son.
I was becoming very optimistic about the future. I had hired a contractor to renovate the building and my designer had become her own advertising agency as she worked not only on the logo, but the billboard signage and all the other items we would be needing. I visited some restaurant supply stores and picked out furnishings for the interior. I wanted it to look very country, very much like the original Maudie’s Café. There were uniforms to be selected, glasses and plates to be chosen. I spent several days fine-tuning the menu, pricing the ingredients so that I was making a fair profit and yet staying within the budget of the people who would become my customers. This was somewhat out of my realm of experience, but I was pretty sure I could figure it out.
I was visiting the building one day when a woman walked in. At first glance, she reminded me very much of Maudie, but somewhat younger.
“May I help you?” I asked her.
“You the owner?” she inquired.
“Yes,” I acknowledged.
“I want a job.”
I was somewhat taken aback by her brusque attitude, but I had learned that some people just didn’t have time for nonsense. “What sort of job are you looking for?”
“Anything you need. I can cook, I can wait tables, I can wash dishes, and I can tell my friends and neighbors to come and bring their business to you.” I had to admire her guts. She was bargaining with everything that she had. I understood this; I had been in her shoes before.
“Have you ever run a restaurant?” I asked her.
“Six of them,” she said. “And they were all good ones. Management sold the places out from beneath me.”
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
“Bertha. Bertha Pullens,” she informed me, her chin rising a bit with dignity.
“Well, Bertha Pullens, you’ve got yourself a job. How would you like to manage this new restaurant?” I heard myself mouth the words and was surprised. I had no intention of hiring a manager until that very moment. Bertha’s attitude had convinced me. I knew I could not handle expanding the business as well as running this newest branch. Bertha was the answer. We talked for a while and as we did she relaxed and began to smile more frequently. Eventually she was telling me jokes and old anecdotes from her years in the business. When she left, we hugged and I knew I had just added a member to my family.
Between Bertha and myself, we managed to open the restaurant only two months later. True to her word she brought in so many customers they had to line up on the sidewalk outside the café. I was thrilled. The food seemed to be well received, and the atmosphere even more so. I recognized my niche, and made a note to duplicate this with every branch I would open in the future.
Maudie’s Café, second location, was a huge success. My life and my future seemed to be golden. If it weren’t for the ache in my heart, I don’t think there would have been anything I wasn’t happy about. I longed to bring Jill, to let her see what I had accomplished and perhaps even become a part of it. I knew if I did, however, she would feel jealousy. She always had. She was so much like our mother. She was better off staying at Blake’s for the time being. Perhaps someday I would find a place for her but until then she had to be kept in the dark.