by Carl Weber
At first I’d make plans to go to the restaurant he was working at that day and eat with him while he was on break. That never went well. Every five minutes one of his employees had an issue they needed him to tend to.
“I’m sorry, Jam-Jam,” he’d say, using the nickname he’d given me. “Maybe another time.” He’d get up from the table, leaving his not even half-eaten meal on the table. I’d find myself eating both my meal and his, just to at least be under the same roof with him for as long as I could.
Eventually I came around to the concept of if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. In between school and homework, I started working with Daddy at the restaurant. Even though my time with him was business, it was a pleasure, and it sure beat being at home, where Glendora always found something for me to cook or clean. I figured I might as well do it where I could get paid for it.
Needless to say, working at my dad’s restaurant had other benefits, too, besides me just being able to spend time with him. A sista could get her grub on. Getting my work permit was like getting a food stamp card. Working at the restaurants, I had access to all the food I wanted. That’s when I began to pick up weight. Food started to become both a comforter and a protector for me. It was a struggle, though, finding comfort in my size-eight clothes anymore. They were getting tighter by the day. If there was ever a time when Glendora had a reason to give Brielle all the clothes I was outgrowing, it was then.
A local paper ended up doing a write-up on Daddy’s restaurant. That landed him a cooking segment on a morning show. The next thing we knew, one of his to-go desserts ended up as one of Oprah’s favorite things. Business was booming so much that Daddy decided to open up another restaurant. This meant he was now much busier. He was always working and running back and forth between the two locations. He wasn’t as accessible as he was when we were both working out of the same restaurant, which used to be the only one—the first restaurant he and my mom had started together.
That didn’t deter me from trying to spend quality time with my dad. I would arrange for us to go to the museum or for a walk and picnic in the park or something. Whenever Glendora caught wind of it, though, she’d be sure to dig deep in her tool chest and pull out a monkey wrench to throw in our plans.
“Honey, remember, you have a meeting,” Glendora would remind him. “You have a doctor’s appointment.” Then there was, “You promised me you’d take me out.” Anything she could do or say, she did.
As the clock wound down to my appointed daddy-daughter time with my father, I’d sit back and wait for the infamous knock on the door. The door would crack open, and he’d stick his head in.
“Honey, I’m sorry, but—”
“It’s okay, Dad. Maybe another time,” I’d say without him even having to finish his sentence.
I eventually gave up on planning anything. Glendora went out of her way to see to it that my dad didn’t spend time with me—or even just talk to me. At one point I thought she had blocked my number from his cell phone because I could never seem to get through. I would text him and he would never get my text messages.
“I’ll have Glendora call the cell phone company and look into it,” he would tell me.
My father was a busy man. I knew he didn’t have time to do it himself. There was just no use. Glendora was running things, and there was no way around her. But somehow, today, as I sat with my favorite guy at my second favorite restaurant (my father’s restaurants were my number one, of course!) he’d somehow managed to make it through Glendora’s maze of distractions to have dinner with his daughter.
As if he could read my thoughts, Daddy said, “I’m glad we’ve got this alone time too.” He crunched his giant crab leg with the small pliers that accompanied his meal.
I had no idea where Glendora was today or how she’d allowed Daddy to slip through the cracks and land at this dinner table with me. Something or someone must have been keeping her quite occupied. I knew for certain that it wasn’t either of her two spoiled children. Brielle, who was now almost seventeen, and Brendon who, like myself, would be nineteen on his next birthday, were doing their annual Easter weekend visit with their father in Long Island, New York.
I couldn’t have cared less where they were. They could have been in Europe having tea with the royals for all I cared. I was just grateful to get this time with my dad.
“Things have been busy at the restaurants,” Dad said. “Which I don’t have to tell you.” He chewed his food and then looked at me and said, “By the way, you are doing an excellent job, sweetie. I know you are just working there because it’s the family business and it allows you a little bit of extra spending money, but, honey, you are doing a real fine job. Word gets back to me, you know. You take initiative, just like a true leader.” Daddy pointed his fork at me. “You know, I could even see you possibly taking over the restaurants one day when I’m dead and gone or too old to fry chicken.” He laughed.
“Daddy, don’t say that,” I scolded. I couldn’t even think about anything happening to my father. If it did, trust and believe Glendora would go to the end of the world to make sure I didn’t run those restaurants. Even though she knew absolutely nothing about the business, with the exception that it brought in enough money for her to own several pairs of red bottoms, she’d never allow me to be in charge.
“Anyway,” Daddy continued, “it’s nice to be able to spend some time with you, daughter. It’s been a while.”
“Same here, Dad, and yes, it has been a minute since you’ve been able to get away from . . .” I swallowed my last words and just left it at, “Been able to get away.” I took a bite of my salmon. I closed my eyes and inhaled. I was taking in every moment, not just of the taste of the delicious food, but every second spent with my father. No telling the next time he’d manage to go missing without Glendora getting a whiff of it. I mean, you’d think I was his mistress or something the way she tried to keep my father away from me.
“Oh, yeah,” my father said. “I can’t believe I almost forgot,” he said, wiping his hands on his napkin.
“Forgot what, Dad?” I asked as he started to feel around in his pockets. “What happened?” I was thinking the worst: that he’d forgotten about something he had to do for his wife, and now he was in search of his keys so he could go do it.
“I have a little gift for you.”
I got excited. “Oh, what is it?” I might as well have been jumping up and down like a six-year-old. I loved it when my dad made me feel like his favorite girl. I guess I would always be a daddy’s girl at heart no matter how old I got.
“Hold on. I’m going to give it to you.” Dad held up his finger and chuckled at my excitement, shaking his head.
I intertwined my fingers and waited impatiently, shaking my knee under the table.
My dad looked over at me while he continued his search. “You’re starting to look more and more like your mother each day.”
Just that morning I’d said the same thing to myself. While getting dressed, I looked up at the picture of my mother I had hanging in the corner of my dresser mirror. I looked into her eyes and then at my reflection. My mother was a beautiful woman—a beautiful, hardworking woman. Even though for the most part she was always wearing an apron with her hair pulled back and a hairnet on her head, when she got cleaned up, she was drop-dead gorgeous. Like in the picture. It was one of those Glamour Shots photos. She looked like a movie star. I kept looking back from her picture to my reflection, pinpointing our similar features. The more I stared at myself, the more of my mother I saw in me, but no way could I possibly be that beautiful.
“You know your mother named you Jamela because it means beautiful,” my dad said, bringing my attention from my bedroom mirror back to the dinner table.
“Huh?” I said, shaking out the thoughts from earlier so I could focus on my dad.
“I said your name means beautiful, and you are, baby.”
I could never understand for the life of me how my dad always managed to addr
ess questions that rested in my internal thoughts.
“If a man can’t appreciate your natural beauty, then don’t deal with him.”
I blushed at the compliment. It was the norm for a girl’s father to think she was beautiful, but in the back of my mind I always wondered if the rest of the world felt that way. I had a warm, dark espresso complexion like my late mother, Jade. My father was a mocha brown, which meant I was considered dark-skinned by society’s standards. Everybody knows that in this world, dark things are connected to negativity. Black cats crossing a path is bad luck. Blackmail. Black ball. The verdict is still out on Black Friday considering people get crushed to death trying to get great deals on electronics. Nonetheless, my dad always made me feel like royalty.
On the other hand, Glendora and her children were all light-skinned. I’ve heard lighter-skinned blacks say they experienced the whole “not black enough” thing. I try to empathize, but for some reason, redbone just doesn’t sound as hurtful as tar baby. In addition to that, my stepmother always made sure to remind me that my darker complexion wasn’t the more “desirable” one. Here we were, living in 2015, and colorism still existed within the black community . . . within the black family!
“Before I give you your gift,” Dad continued, “I want you to know how proud I am of you. You’re a good daughter, Jamela. You could’ve gotten off your program, you know, with the loss of your mother, fitting in to a new family, but you stayed on track and now you’re at the top of your high school class with the opportunity to go to almost any college you want. I know it hasn’t been easy.” He paused.
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do, Dad, was to make you happy.”
“And you’ve done a hell of a job doing just that,” he replied with a smile.
“I must say, though, that I’m glad they didn’t come because I know she wouldn’t be happy—not really. Not with Brielle looking like she’ll have to go to junior college.” In spite of Glendora’s constant efforts to make her daughter outshine me, Brielle could never compete with my academic success.
“Clear your mind of Glendora and the kids. Let’s not talk about them right now,” Daddy said sternly. He then quickly changed the subject to a good note—the reason why we were out celebrating in the first place. “You know with that SAT score you can write your own ticket now and go to any Ivy League college you want.”
I smiled, but my mind was on what the gift was inside the box he was now holding in his hand. Was it a key to a new car?
“You could probably even apply to—”
“Da-aaa-d! The gift,” I said anxiously, my impatience totally getting the best of me.
“Here’s what I’d like to give you,” he finally said, handing me the box. “This was your mother’s.”
I knew that whatever was in that box, it was pricelesss, because it had once belonged to my mother. With anticipation, I opened the box, and to my surprise, I found an antique-looking golden locket with a sepia picture of my mother encased in it. She was throwing her head back in her usual proud West Indian way, and she looked healthy and strong. A flood of memories rushed at me. These were happy days. In this picture, my mother was about twenty-five. She looked so radiant and strong. By the time she was thirty-two, which was the age she died from leukemia, she’d been just a shell of her old self. The photo in the locket was just the way I wanted to remember my mother.
“I love it! Oh, thank you, Daddy!” I got up and walked over to my father. I threw my arms around him. “This is beautiful.” I looked down at the necklace I was twisting between my thumb and index finger. “I really do love it!” Tears welled up in my eyes, but these were tears of joy. Now I could always wear my mother near my heart.
My father put the necklace on me and I sat back across the table from him.
“Well,” he said, “I understand you’ve already gotten acceptance letters from several different schools. Have you made any decisions?”
I knew my father would be happy with whatever school I chose. I could’ve gone south, west, or east, but after much consideration, I had decided to stay in California. I couldn’t wait to get out of the house, but at the same time, I wanted to stay close to my father. With my dad getting older, I didn’t feel comfortable leaving him with her. I’d never seen her do anything bad to my father, but with a woman like Glendora, she could never be trusted. She was a manipulative, sneaky liar. She was a leopard and a leopard never changes its spots, just its location. If I wasn’t around, I could imagine her redirecting all the hate she had for me toward my father.
I nodded. “I think I want to go to Stanford.”
Dad smiled. I could tell he was pleased.
I knew my stepmother would be furious when she found out I wasn’t going away to college out of state. I was sure she wanted me as far away from her and Daddy as possible.
Speaking of my evil stepmother, at that moment my father’s cell phone began to ring on the table between us. I looked at the screen before he had a chance to pick it up, and I could see Glendora’s face on the screen. Ugh!
I rolled my eyes as I watched my father answer the phone. Her mouth was so loud I could hear her as if I was the one holding the phone to my ear.
“Where the hell are you, Victor?” she snapped.
He cleared his throat. “I’m, uh, I’m with Jamela,” he answered in a constricted voice. He probably would have had an easier time telling his wife he was out with his mistress. I couldn’t believe the way he was informing her of his whereabouts as if he was up to no good. “You know I told you we were going out to celebrate.”
“Yeah, yeah. Well, it’s almost six o’clock.”
“The fundraiser doesn’t start ’til eight,” my father reasoned. “And it’s not like we have to show up at eight o’clock on the nose.”
“Yes, but the cleaner’s closes at seven, and you still have to pick up your tux before they close.”
“I thought you would have grabbed it while you were out.”
“I can’t do everything. I had to go to the salon to get my hair done, get a mani and pedi. Bella is here now doing my makeup. You don’t want your wife to be on your arm looking like a ragamuffin, do you? But if you do, then fine. I’ll send Bella away and I’ll go pick up your tux. I can just do my own makeup. Who cares if I show up looking like Boy George?”
Talk about nails down a chalkboard. Her voice sent chills down my spine. In that instant, the entire atmosphere shifted. The sun disappeared into the ocean, and that was the end of our last happy moments together.
CHAPTER TWO
GLENDORA
First of all, let me say this: I couldn’t stand my raggedy-ass stepdaughter. But not to worry, I was almost certain that the feeling was mutual. Cow wouldn’t shoot milk on me from her titties if I were on fire. If I were a dog, I wouldn’t piss on her if she were a fire hydrant.
When I first met my husband, I honestly had no idea that he and his dying wife had a child together. By the time I found out about her, he and I had already had a little spark flickering between us. There was no need to let it fizzle out. I had plans, and some brat of a daddy’s girl was not going to make me stray from them.
I tried my best not to let the little troll get under my skin. It was difficult to maintain, though, considering my plan, I mean my marriage, would have been just fine if it weren’t for her. He called her a daddy’s girl, and it made me cringe. I, on the other hand, called her a home wrecker. The only disagreements Victor and I had were when it came to her. When it came to my kids, everything was hunky-dory, but with Jamela . . . Whoever said being part of a blended family was easy told a lie. We certainly weren’t the Brady Bunch.
There was a light at the end of the tunnel, though. Soon she’d be graduating from high school and then taking her tired ass off to college in the fall. I couldn’t wait. I had no idea how far across the map she was going, and I didn’t care just as long as it was out of my house.
“Baby, you sure you can’t stay out longer?” Jasper, m
y sexy caramel sidepiece called from the bed. He’d interrupted my train of thought as I dried myself off after having stepped out of the shower. I wrapped myself in the oversized Egyptian bath towel and then walked into the room where he was lying in the king-sized bed with his penis lying between his legs. Yes, that’s just how packed his junk was. Shit was lying, like a girl lays out her prom dress before sliding into it. And damn did I want to slide onto that . . . again.
I glanced down at the clock on the hotel nightstand. It was 6:15 p.m. I was due at the UCLA charitable event at eight. I’d already called and hounded Victor about it before I got into the shower. I played it as if I’d been all day riding around town getting ready for the event when, in all actuality, I’d been all day riding Jasper’s dick.
“No, I’ve got an important event to attend tonight.” I looked down at Jasper’s sculpted body. “I’ll see you next week, though. Same time.”
He frowned. Clearly that was unacceptable to him. He wanted more of me and he wanted it now.
“Don’t get greedy.” I kissed my fingers and touched his lips. This turned up the corners of his lips into a smile, but it also made his manhood stand at attention.
Jasper flexed his pecs. Damn it! He knew what that did to me. He looked so youthful lying there. Every time I climbed onto him it was like diving into the fountain of youth. Afterward, like now, him lying there without a care in the world with nothing to do in life but fuck, sleep, and eat made me remember how I was approaching the big five-oh. Although I worked out, had a physical trainer, and kept my grays touched up, I was still no longer in my twenties, like Jasper, or even in my thirties for that matter.
