“Nice to meet you.” We all trade handshakes. Then Trey pokes at his phone and raises it level with his face. Using it as a mirror, he adjusts the loose curls of black hair hanging over his forehead. “Sorry,” he offers, lowering his phone. “Just doing a quick hair check before we go on camera. High def TV can be very unkind.” As he slips his phone in his back pocket I notice that he has makeup on his velvety brown skin... some concealer or foundation or something. “So, you own a restaurant?”
“Yes. Halia serves the best fried chicken and waffles in town,” Wavonne says.
“Nice,” Trey says in a subdued manner. “So more basic type stuff then?”
“Basic type stuff?” I ask. “I’ve had my food called many things over the years, but ‘basic type stuff’ is a first.” I say this in a good-natured way, but I can’t say I’m thrilled by some thirty-year-old kid, who probably has delusions of being the next Jamie Oliver or Bobby Flay, saying such things about recipes that took me years to perfect.
“I’m sorry. That was a poor choice of words,” Trey says as if it suddenly occurred to him that I’m a judge at this jamboree and maybe he should not get on my bad side. “I just meant... you know . . . staples... classic American dishes. I’ve been focused on more complex cuisine since I finished at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris last year.” He says “Le Cordon Bleu” in a ridiculously overdone French accent... luh core-dawn bluh... and, of course, he pronounces Paris pah-rhee. I suspect he thinks it makes him sound cultured and worldly but, mostly, it makes him sound like a jackass.
“Complex cuisine?”
“Yes. I think the next generation of chefs... my generation needs to really get creative and shake things up. Eventually I plan to open my own place.... I’m thinking a fusion of Thai and Middle Eastern—I make a killer hummus with lemongrass and ginger. Or possibly Italian and Indian—I have a recipe for bruschetta made with tandoori chicken that is out of this world.”
I’m tempted to respond that if I had a dime for every trendy fusion restaurant, or tapas establishment... or celebrity-owned hot spot that has come and gone during the fifteen years that I’ve been serving “basic type stuff” at Sweet Tea, I’d be an obscenely rich woman. But instead I just say, “Those sound interesting... and tasty.” I’m not lying when I say this. His fusion ideas do sound pretty good, but I’ve found that this type of newfangled food is something people only want every once in a while. They are glad to try curry fried chicken and wasabi mashed potatoes, and they may enjoy them, but, when push comes to shove, they want simple fried chicken and macaroni and cheese that remind them of what their grandmothers used to make. And that’s why, or at least one of the reasons why, Sweet Tea is still going strong after all these years while so many other restaurants have gone the way of the dinosaur.
“Thank you. You have to have fresh ideas to get ahead in this business. The restaurant industry is so competitive these days. That’s why I applied to get on this program. If . . . when I win, I’ll be a household name, do a year or two at Russell’s new restaurant, and then open my own place. You almost need to be a celebrity to get a restaurant going these days. It can’t just be about the food anymore... you need flash and charisma.”
“I dunno. Halia’s been running Sweet Tea forever, and she’s about as drab and borin’ as they come,” Wavonne teases. “She’s outlasted Gladys Knight’s Chicken and Waffles in Largo, and the Planet Hollywood on Pennsylvania Avenue... and what’s the place that Oprah’s chef opened by the train station?”
“Art and Soul,” I say. “Art Smith opened it several years ago, but I have not outlasted that one. Last I heard, it was still going strong.”
“Funny you mention him,” Trey says. “Given the circumstances.”
“What circumstances?”
“Oh,” Trey replies as if he may have said something he shouldn’t have. “I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?” Wavonne asks.
“Um...” he says. “Art Smith was originally slated to be the judge on today’s episode, but there was some sort of emergency at his other restaurant in New York, and he had to cancel.”
“I thought it was Walter Carnegie who canceled.”
“Yes, but Mr. Smith was supposed to replace him.”
“So Halia was their third choice?” Wavonne asks.
“Um... well... I think they tried for José Andrés when Mr. Smith canceled.”
“So, I was the fourth choice?”
Trey looks back at me as if he’s trying to conjure up a diplomatic response before I hear the words, “fifth choice actually.” They come from a full-figured black woman who sort of snuck up from behind me. She appears to be a few years older than me with a plump face and a shoulder length bob of relaxed brown hair. “But you might get a kick out of who their fourth choice was,” she adds.
“Really? Who was it?”
“Sylvia,” the woman says. “Sylvia Woods of the famous Sylvia’s soul food restaurant in Harlem.”
“Um,” I say. “She’s dead.”
“You know that. I grew up in Harlem, so of course I know that. But Russell and Cynthia? Not so much. Cynthia and her team must have made about ten phone calls before they finally figured it out. At one point—I think it was the day before yesterday—Cynthia was on the phone when I walked by, and all I heard was, ‘Dead? Are you sure?’”
“If you knew Sylvia had passed, why didn’t you tell them?” I ask the woman, who is still a stranger to me.
“What would have been the fun in that?” she responds. “I’m Vera, by the way. I see you’ve met Vanity Smurf here.” She gestures toward Trey, who rolls his eyes but also cracks a smile following her comment. “And I saw you talking to Zendaya earlier.” She smiles and waves at Sherry, who is talking with Russell and Twyla. “So, you’ve met number one and number two. I’m contestant number three.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say, and introduce myself and Wavonne to her. Unlike Trey and Sherry, she goes right for a hug rather than a handshake. She has a warmness about her that makes this somewhat intimate gesture among strangers appropriate. I suspect it’s her age—she easily has twenty years on Sherry and maybe fifteen or so on Trey—and/or her matronly, completely nonthreatening appearance that prompts a smile, rather than a scowl, from Trey when she compares him to a notoriously vain cartoon character. She even manages to let Cynthia making phone calls to reach dead people come off as completely inoffensive. My guess is that she’s endeared herself to Trey and Sherry in a motherly sort of way and makes quips like this all the time. Within seconds of meeting her, you get the feeling she’s comfortable in her own skin. She speaks her mind, and while Trey has been trying to figure out the best way to flex his biceps for the camera, and Sherry has been touching up her hair and making sure her fake eyelashes are in place, Vera stands before us with a simple, likely drip-dry haircut, no makeup, and an outfit that consists of a pair of “mom jeans,” a plain pink T-shirt, and some basic brown walking shoes.
I’m about to ask Vera where she’s from when she lets out a loud sneeze, turning her nose in toward her elbow.
“Bless you.”
“Thank you,” she says. “But you probably only want to do that one time. This time of year, you’ll be blessing me all day. My allergies are awful at the moment.” I’m only now noticing how congested she sounds. “I think the tree pollen is hanging around late this year.”
As I nod my head in agreement Cynthia begins clapping her hands. “Okay, everyone. Let’s get this party started. We have three hours slated to tour the museum,” she calls over the general clamor of the busy concourse. “We’ll start with the lower level first. Let’s all head toward the elevators.”
Our entire gang—me, Wavonne, Russell, Twyla, Sherry, Trey, and Vera—follows Cynthia toward the other end of the main hall, where a young man gets Wavonne and I set up with clip-on microphones. Then we step into the elevator, someone presses C3, and as the doors close, Wavonne, much like a 1930s elevator operator, says, “Going down.” And, for a
quick second, I get an eerie feeling that her words are some sort of omen... a forewarning of things to come... that something other than the elevator is about to go down.
Chapter 8
The elevator doors open to a dimly lit exhibition area, and a young woman in a blue blazer greets us. “Welcome to the David M. Rubenstein History Galleries. These galleries contain three exhibitions, layered one on top of the other. You are starting at level C3: Slavery and Freedom. From here, you will work your way upwards to level C2: The Era of Segregation, and level C1: A Changing America: 1968 and Beyond. From this spot to the third level of the exhibit you’ll travel through six hundred years of history. At the end of the History Galleries there is a Contemplative Court where you can spend some time in quiet reflection before touring the rest of the facility. Enjoy your visit.”
We thank the young woman and begin to tour the displays. The weak lighting sets a certain tone for this area of the museum, and everyone, even Wavonne, seems to instinctively know to speak in lowered voices and refrain from taking selfies or talking on a cell phone. We take in a video about how, starting in the 1400s, the people of Europe and Africa began to trade with one another... and how part of this trade included enslaved individuals. Such trade continued into the 1500s, but only really began to proliferate with the advent of sugar and tobacco plantations in the Caribbean and the Americas, which created a near endless demand for labor—this combined with greed and an unimaginable disregard for human life led to the capture and transport of more than twelve million... twelve million Africans, who were made to cross the Atlantic in squalid conditions aboard European ships, bound for a life of slavery in the Americas.
“Wow,” is about all I can muster to say as the gruesome video ends, and we move on to view some relics from a Portuguese slave ship. When we come upon actual iron shackles used to restrain men, women, and children, I begin to find myself jarred in a way I had not expected. Of course, I studied slavery in school, and I’ve read the books and seen the movies, but as we move about the Slavery and Freedom area, I become increasingly unsettled. There’s something particularly unnerving, beyond anything I experienced reading Twelve Years a Slave or watching Roots on TV, about seeing an actual whip used on human beings who were bought and sold as property, coins from hundreds of years ago minted with gold generated from slave labor, and the lace shawl and hymnal owned by Harriet Tubman.
My general disquiet continues as I come upon a flat stone the size of my coffee table that, during the 1800s, served as an auction block just a few miles from here in Hagerstown, Maryland. My mouth goes dry as I begin to read some of the names, descriptions, and prices of slaves displayed around the stone—all of the information lifted from actual bills of sale—bills of sale for people... for humans.
The cameras follow us as we continue to tour this dark period of American history, but we really don’t say much to each other... or interact with each other at all. A few of us assemble in front of a 150-year-old slave cabin brought to the museum, in dismantled pieces, from a plantation in South Carolina, but no words are exchanged. I think we are all too deep in thought to speak—picturing in our minds what life might have been like for those who inhabited the structure before us. There are so many “mouthy” people in our group, but Wavonne has not offered a single smart-aleck comment since we entered these halls; Twyla, who uses any excuse to chide me, has been mostly silent; and even Russell, who has been on his cell phone more often than not since I met him, has not made or taken a single call. The subject matter... the people whose story is being told through all the artifacts... and photos... and certificates before us deserve some reverence, and we all seem to “get” that.
As we keep moving about, I’m intrigued when I see Wavonne and Sherry, one of whom I know typically doesn’t read anything that is not directly related to Beyoncé’s beauty regimen or Rihanna’s love life, engrossed in a document displayed in a glass case. I shuffle toward them, and see they are reading a small copy of the Emancipation Proclamation. The description notes that it was one of many printed for Union soldiers to read aloud as they advanced in the Southern states in the final days of the Civil War. It does my heart good to see two young women, from a generation often more concerned about where the Kardashians are vacationing or where to get braids like Zoë Kravitz than anything educational, taking an interest in African American history.
As I head up the landing to the next floor, I hear someone sneeze from behind. I’m not surprised to see Vera when I turn around. She catches up to me and reads the signage outside the next section of the History Galleries. “Defending Freedom, Defining Freedom: The Era of Segregation: 1877 to 1968,” she recites. “My momma grew up in the segregated South,” she adds.
“Really?” I ask, thinking of how my own mother grew up in Washington, DC—not quite the “segregated South,” but she’s told me stories of segregated lunch counters and department stores in which she and my grandmother were allowed to shop, but not to try on any clothing. Desegregation of private businesses came earlier to DC than in many parts of the South, but schools did not integrate until the Supreme Court’s infamous Brown v. Board of Education decision, so Momma went to an all-black elementary school until the ruling allowed her to attend classes alongside white students in junior high.
“Yes. Birmingham, Alabama. She worked in restaurants after high school in the sixties. She wasn’t allowed to eat in any of them, but waiting tables was apparently okay,” Vera says as we walk through the exhibits about the post-Civil war years and Jim Crow laws. “She met my father at a restaurant called Molly’s, named after the owner’s wife. They would let black people order takeout, but that was it—we were not allowed to stay for table service. She and my daddy decided to leave both Molly’s and Alabama when the owner legally challenged the Civil Rights Act to avoid having to offer sit-down service to African Americans. They went to New York... to Harlem, where I grew up, and eventually ended up in DC.”
I’m about to ask why her parents chose New York, but before I have a chance to speak, I hear Cynthia’s voice from behind. “Can you repeat that for the camera?” she asks Vera, waving one of the camera guys over.
“Repeat what?” Vera asks.
“The story about your mother working at Ollies and leaving Arkansas or whatever... and segregation blah blah,” Cynthia responds.
“Blah blah?” Vera raises her eyebrows.
“It’s a great story,” Cynthia says. “Viewers will eat it up.”
“Um,” Vera says. Not only is an intrusive camera pointed directly at her but, at Cynthia’s direction, someone has also shown up with some sort of light box and is projecting its beam on Vera. “My momma grew up in the segregated South—”
“Can you say it with a little more feeling?” Cynthia asks. “Maybe don’t look directly at the camera... look off into the distance... imagine your grandmother sweating over a steaming pot—”
“It was her mother,” I correct.
“And I don’t think she sweated over a steaming pot—she was a waitress,” Vera says.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, work with me here,” Cynthia says. “Give me a good story... and, if you can tear up a bit while telling it, even better.”
Vera directs her eyes toward me and throws a look that says, “Is she freakin’ serious?” my way before taking a breath, looking off into the distance as directed, and starting again. “You see.” She clears her throat. “It was summertime and the cotton was high in the fields,” she says, a wicked gleam in her eye. “My rich daddy and my good-looking momma were living easy.”
“Wait, wait,” Cynthia, who has clearly never seen Porgy and Bess, says. “I thought you said your father worked at a restaurant with your mother. Why did he work at a restaurant if he was rich?”
“He was rich in spirit, not money—he was always losing money playing craps on Catfish Row.” Vera’s allergies are upping the drama of her tale. Her sniffling and stuffy nose makes it sound like she’s been crying.
&
nbsp; Vera continues to borrow from, and take a few liberties with, the plot of Porgy and Bess as she tells a totally made-up story about her parents, complete with a fisherman named Mingo, something called “happy dust,” and a tale about how, once during a hurricane, her parents sang “Oh, Doctor Jesus” to drown out the sound of the storm. To her credit, she manages to not crack up, but Cynthia senses something is amiss when I can’t help but let out a snicker or two, and the guy holding the light box completely loses it when she talks about how her parents got married on Kittiwah Island and her father’s best man was someone by the name of Sportin’ Life.
“What? Why is everyone laughing?”
“Because Vera’s playin’ with you,” Wavonne, who apparently crept up behind me at some point during Vera’s little spiel, says. “She’s been goin’ on about the plot of Raisin in the Sun.”
“Porgy and Bess,” I correct.
“Whateva’... I knew it was some play you made me sit through when I was a kid.”
“Very funny, Vera,” Cynthia says, clearly not amused. “Can we start from the beginning with the truth... or something resembling the truth?”
I listen as Vera talks, honestly this time, about how her parents met while her mother was a waitress and her father was a cook. And how they eventually left Alabama for a brighter future in New York, where they worked in a handful of restaurants before her father landed a job with a bank, rose through the ranks, and eventually moved to DC to take a branch manager position. “He retired from banking about ten years ago, but, fortunately for me, he never forgot everything he learned about cooking in all those restaurants. To this day he can grill a rib eye to perfection and can tell whether it’s rare, medium, or well done with just a little touch.... He can poach a salmon until it’s perfectly pink and flakey and, on Sundays, he fries up some of the crispiest fried chicken you’ll ever have—I learned everything I know about cooking from him, and I still use his fried chicken recipe.”
Murder with Honey Ham Biscuits Page 5
