The Welcome Home Diner: A Novel

by Peggy Lampman

  “This went on, I guess,” she continues, “a couple of weeks. After a while, she told Mama she could help me. Said she knew a nice couple who could be my foster parents. She said she’d take Mama to visit me every Sunday. Said I’d be homeschooled and learn life skills, even share a computer with the other foster kids. I figured if I could get on track, I could find a job and straighten Mama out, too.”

  Her face pales as she stares at Braydon, running her tongue across her lips. “I was sure wrong about that.” She grabs a spatula, scrapes the batter from the bowl onto the prep table and then turns to regard him.

  “She gave Mama five one-hundred-dollar bills. We’d never seen so much cash. When I hugged Mama good-bye, I never dreamed it would be for the last time. I’d just turned fifteen—that was five years ago. Brenda had the police go to that house to get her some help, but she’s gone. I need to find her.” She swipes an eye with the back of her hand. “That is, if she’s still alive.”

  Braydon looks at her, his face pensive as he bites his lower lip. “I’ve a feeling she is. I’ve a feeling you’ll see your mother again. So what happened next?”

  “Foster parents?” Sylvia smirks. “What a joke. There weren’t no foster parents. There was just Bobby. And three other girls. I became a part of his ring. He gave me pills, which I pretended to swallow but hid beneath my tongue. When no one was looking, I spit them out. I saw what they were doing to the other girls.” She pours the walnuts on top of the batter and then lowers the empty cup on the table so hard it hits the stainless with a jolting clang. “Every day I worked the streets. Bobby laid his fist into my mouth when I didn’t earn my daily quota.” Her fingers dart to her lips in a subtle, telling reflex.

  I swallow, choking back a gag. Sylvia pulls sordid images from her past as casually as one would wipe a smudge off their cheek.

  “I quit counting the men,” she continues, straightening her bandanna, “and began counting the ways I could kill myself.”

  Beads of sweat pop above Braydon’s brow, and his eyes dart side to side like a trapped animal. He appears derailed, even panicked for a couple of seconds. Then, he composes himself, straightening his apron. He studies Sylvia, wearing an odd expression I don’t recognize as she works the chocolate and nuts into the dough.

  “Next,” he says, “let’s divide the batter into twenty-four balls. Then we freeze and then partially thaw them before baking. That step is the secret behind their delectable gooey center and exterior crispy crunch.”

  Her mouth, a splinter above her chin, is like a blade slice in a nectarine. She nods at Braydon and continues. “At first I was afraid of the men, but that fear went away in time. It was the mirror that terrified me—I was scared of what I’d see.” She presses her palms into her cheeks. “That my face had disappeared, or something.”

  Braydon glances sideways toward Sylvia, lines drawn across his forehead. His lips twitch. “So how did you escape?”

  She wipes her hands on her apron.

  “After I got used to the job, I began to feel a sliver of hope. I quit thinking about killing myself and began thinking of ways to escape.” Hands on her hips, she scowls at the prep table strewn with ingredients and empty dishes caked with batter. “Mercy. What a mess.” Dirty bowls and spoons clang together as she stacks them on a sheet pan. She carries them to the sink and places them into the first compartment of the dishwater, then returns to the table.

  “A year or so passed, and luck came a-calling. Rumor had it the dude who hung out on Cass and Temple was an undercover cop. Bobby warned me not to approach him. Said if I didn’t like my teeth now, I sure wouldn’t like them after he was done with me.” Running a wet rag across the counter, she folds her lips over her teeth, darting a glance at Braydon. “The other girls were terrified of Bobby. But not me. I made my plan. I propositioned the officer and was thrown in jail. The best place I’d been since Daddy died. Turned out they’d been trying to break up Bobby’s ring for close to a year.”

  Braydon shakes his head. “Street slime should be hosed into the sewer.”

  “It scared the starch out of me when I was on the witness stand, facing him, telling the court what he made me do. His eyes were like black coals, burning into me. Branding me. As if he still owned me. I make myself sick worrying he’ll get one of his goons to find me. Torture me. Or worse.” Biting her lower lip, her face tightens.

  “Not a chance, Sylvia. You’re safe now.” For a moment, his eyes lock on her profile, and then his gaze returns to the heap of cookie dough, dotted with nuts and chocolate bits.

  “The judge gave him a twelve-year sentence. And I’ll never forget his words. He said Bobby wasn’t selling only sex, he was also selling misery. He said no prison sentence could ever do justice for the pain and suffering us girls experienced, and, hopefully, his imprisonment would be the start of our healing. So I was sent to the High Hope Center, along with the rest of the women.” She shrugs, glancing around the room. “And here I am. In this kitchen.”

  Heads down, they begin shaping the batter with the palms of their hands. I can’t understand the rest of their conversation. But I’ve already heard too much.

  I cover the onions in plastic wrap, put them in the fridge, and head toward the pantry shelf. Studying the various ingredients, I summon inspiration for pork cutlets, trying to turn my mind off to the ugliness of this poor girl’s past. My consolation is her support team. The authorities, social workers, doctors, and lawyers who’ve given their time and hearts to help get her to this place. We’d known we wanted to help; we just didn’t know how much help people needed.

  I return to the prep table, a tub of bread crumbs, mustard, and dried herbs in my hands. Sylvia and Braydon are there, two sheet pans in front of them, large balls of cookie dough lined up in tidy rows.

  Sylvia looks at me, her eyes soft and welcoming, as if she’d just been talking about the weather. The air is filled with the ethereal scents of sugar, chocolate, and toasted walnuts from a recently thawed batch now baking in the oven.

  “Am I jabbering too much?” she asks.

  I smile, checking the time on my smartphone. “Not at all. It takes me forty minutes to prep a batch of Heartbreakers. It took you only thirty-five. After a stint in the freezer, they’ll be ready to bake to Instagrammable perfection. Good job, Sylvia.”

  “I hope it’s OK to talk about my past. Brenda encourages me to grieve. She says if I tell my story, talk about my nightmare with friends I can trust, one day the sting might get lost in the telling.”

  “Running from emotions is more painful than feeling and expressing them. Welcome Home’s your family, Sylvia. You can talk about your story as much as you like.”

  Her considering me a friend suffuses me with warmth, but at the same time, I feel uncomfortable about my comparably charmed life. Will I ever feel at ease around this woman—qualified to help her at all?

  She removes a whisk from the mixing bowl, and moist batter clings to the metal. A bit of dough drops onto her forearm, and she stares at it, her eyes glistening as if she’s tranquilized. In a flash, she brings her arm to her mouth, licks it off, and then her eyes tumble into mine, as a pair of dice being rolled onto a table.

  “Making Heartbreakers suits me fine.”

  Addie

  The full harvest moon rises quickly, her blood-orange color native to October Michigan skies. She beams across our group as a searchlight, her glint reflected in a large piece of broken glass in our neighbor Curtis’s backyard. A draft of wood smoke travels from the bonfire, burning my eyes, and it spreads across the black night air in a porous cinder shade. The air is crisp with autumn, and it’s refreshing—not as chilly as it usually is this late in the season.

  Jévon is walking toward our circle, his hand entwined with his lady friend’s. Her full-lipped, angular face is as finely wrought as a carving of ebony art, and they glide through the moonlight with catlike grace. Jévon nods at us, and Lella retrieves two additional chairs, sliding them into our circle a
round the flames.

  Paul and Tim, in a heated conversation about the recent city council elections, smile at the couple and pass them a bottle of bourbon. Kevin mentioned he’d be partying at a downtown bar. I suspected that would be his plan after learning that Sam and Uriah would be a part of our group. I wish Sam could have waited a bit longer before rubbing her new dude in his face. And their relationship is going way too fast. This morning I tried to warn her, even after David advised me to leave it alone; that train had left the station.

  “Bad news about the Banksy piece, right?” David says, addressing Jévon.

  “One hundred and ten thou’s not chump change, man, but estimates were it could fetch four hundred thousand at auction. That’s a big gap.”

  “Imagine,” Sam says. “One day a piece of graffiti is tucked away in dystopia, water lapping its base. A few years down the road, it’s eye candy in some Beverly Hills mansion. Too weird.”

  “The gallery’s official word is the proceeds will help fund an East Side art space with a focus on kids,” Jévon says.

  “That’s all fine and dandy, but the piece is part of the soul of Detroit. It should have stayed in our city,” David says, shaking his head. “The gallery would have gained prestige hanging on to it. The mural would be a tourist attraction, pumping funds into the city.”

  “Water under the bridge, I guess. Maybe, one day, the new owners will bequeath it back,” I say, crossing my fingers.

  David—his face and lips painted the pancake white of a vampire—begins strumming his guitar. Sam and Uriah rise, and bodies entwined, they slow dance around the outside of our circle. Hero clambers to all fours, and his head follows their movements. Sam said he enjoys wearing the costume of a hero, and we giggle watching the dog, so comical with those bat ears still affixed to his snow-white head.

  Sitting next to David, I feel sexy and alluring, having vamped up the costume I wore at work. After showering, I traded my tattered black shirt for a corset that laces up the front and pushes up my breasts. I tied a clove of garlic around my neck to taunt my vampire and lined my eyes heavily in thick black kohl. I hope I’ve hit the gothic wench target.

  David stops playing the Grateful Dead and, with an impish grin, kicks an orange glowing stick, which has strayed from the ring of tinder, back into the flames.

  “Let’s do some Johnny Cash—a little bad-boy music.”

  “You mean white-boy music, my man,” Jévon laughs, squeezing the hand of his lovely partner.

  David laughs and begins strumming the refrain from “Ring of Fire” on his guitar.

  Sam pushes away from Uriah. “Ouch, you stepped on my foot.” Placing her hands on her hips, she raises her chin.

  “Johnny gets all the credit for the song. But it was his wife, June, who wrote it. She penned the lyrics when she was falling in love with him.”

  Sam begins to sing, circling the fire, her lovely soprano filling the night air as David accompanies her on his guitar.

  “Johnny Cash is a legend, no doubt. But I’m with Sam on this one. I prefer listening to June,” I say. “She sang the words with such emotion and passion. Her voice touches something deep.”

  David stops playing, and his voice is soft, his eyes rising to the moon. “God, June was a beauty in her day. The way Johnny looked at her in pictures, like he was ready to eat her alive. The song’s about their forbidden love.” His eyes slide down from the heavens, and he winks at me, his voice now a growl. “And we know that’s a road paved to hell, the real Ring of Fire. Right?”

  “She didn’t set out to write a song about hell,” Sam retorts, a tiny snarl in her voice. “June was writing a song about passion.”

  David plucks a string on his guitar, absentmindedly. “Passion, hell—one and the same.”

  Turning my head, my eyes burn into his. “Passion is your idea of hell?”

  He puts down his guitar and inspects me up and down, mirth in his dancing blue eyes. “I’m talking forbidden passion—in-fi-de-li-ty—you sexy wench. June was married to another man when she wrote that song for Johnny. Move a little closer so we can bare our fangs at each other.” Fitting rubber vampire teeth into his mouth, he pushes my hair away from my neck and attempts a clumsy bite.

  What does David know about infidelity? I take the bottle from Tim, pour myself a short one, and then down the bourbon in a gulp. Its amber glow lights my chest.

  Close to midnight, everyone has left the gathering except for David and me. He stirs the embers and throws some branches into the pit, which reignites in a flash of flames.

  I am mesmerized by the pops from the crackling flames. Every spitting spark sends a flash up my groin. I turn to look into David’s eyes and, without blinking, yank away the garlic clove tied around my neck and unlace my corset. My breasts tumble into the moonlight, and I reach for his head, pressing it into the soft slopes of my flesh.

  “Mmmmm, garlic,” he murmurs.

  “Sizzle it with bacon and I’ll taste like carbonara.”

  His laughter is muffled between my boobs.

  After a pause, I stagger to my feat, noticing that his face makeup has painted streaks across the pink of my nipples. Annoyance coils around my brain like a serpent, but I catch myself before frowning and rubbing it off. Forcing my smile of seduction, I grab his hands and lean back, encouraging him to stand.

  The effects of alcohol have now subsided; I am in control of this performance. After instructing him to remove his shirt and shoes, I kneel and unzip his pants with my teeth, that thing I do in full swing. Removing his belt, I pull down his pants, and he kicks them off to the side of the fire glowing orange and red. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know what men want. Knowledge of the basics suffices. I give him a minute or two of this head-on, full-throttle attention. Then I rise and push him into a chair. The curtain falls on act one.

  After adjusting my thong and bunching the folds of my skirt around my hips, with caution, I step into the back openings of the arms of the chair. The ragged plastic scratches my thighs as I brace my heels into the ground behind him. Act two is to hex infidelity—a woman with shorter legs could never pull off this stunt.

  Straddling him, my legs hooked in place, I give him a thousand-dollar lap dance. Then I worry the chair may fall backward. I could break my legs. I slow my gyrations and get off. He’s so close to coming that I want to make this good.

  Pausing a moment, I throw my skirt next to the coals and position myself atop the taffeta. I imagine how sultry I must look now, lying here, nipples erect from the evening chill, face made up as a vixen.

  David stands, staggers, and falls to his knees. Ripping off the string of my thong, he shreds the lipstick-pink lace. Crap. Another thirty dollars sacrificed. Entering me, he whispers my name and comes after three heaving thrusts. He touches me, and I follow suit, moments after him.

  Final curtain, applause, applause.

  That was hot. But that thing is a lot of work.

  “Baby girl, you care about me, dontcha,” he whispers, stroking the side of my face. Goose bumps spread across my body, and I sandwich my hands, suddenly cold, in his armpits.

  “I do.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Sam

  Sylvia pulls out a chair, taking a seat at the two-top where I’m working. Of late, she’s been wearing her hair in two braids, which she pins up and wraps around her head. It’s a darling style on her, reminding me of Heidi. Each week I notice something different about the woman, as if she’s trying on new looks, searching for the person she wants to become.

  “Brenda printed out the stuffing recipe you sent her.” Her willowy frame appears to flutter in her seat. “Thank you, Sam. I’m so excited. This is the first Thanksgiving I’ve celebrated since Daddy died.” Her wide-set eyes are luminous, dancing in anticipation.

  “She wants to know if you could get us some fennel,” she continues. “It’s a part of the recipe, and the grocery store where we shop doesn’t stock it.”

  “Of course, S
ylvia. How many people will the recipe be serving?”

  “There will be twenty or so people. It’s mostly us women at High Hope. I guess we should triple the recipe.”

  “It would please me and Addie to be able to contribute to your celebration. I’ll speak to Brenda about getting more ingredients to satisfy all of your recipes. After all, we buy everything wholesale.”

  Sun Beam walks toward the table, carrying a plate laden with a hunk of Ginger-Molasses Bundt Cake. Sylvia glances up at the child and pushes away from the table.

  “Here, honey, take my seat. I’ve gotta get back to work.”

  Sylvia looks at me, her face flushed with happiness. “I’ll let Brenda know. She’ll be so pleased. Thanks, Sam.” She scampers toward the kitchen.

  Sun Beam places the dish on the table and sits down. After pushing the ridge of the latest fashion-forward pubescent frames against the bridge of her nose, she takes a bite.

  “Yum. This is tasty,” she mumbles, her mouth full of cake. She looks up, crumbs covering the sides of her mouth. “Whatcha working on?”

  Her inquisitive expression, and those shining owl eyes never fail to lift my spirits. “Schedules. Holiday orders.” I push the mound of paperwork toward her.

  “I hope you have lots of vegetarian food on that menu. Last week I turned myself into one.” She thumbs through the orders.

  “You’re a vegetarian?” I try to suppress my amusement.

  “Uh-huh. Mama’s irritated, says she’s got enough work without creating special menus for me. But Granny said we could make vegetarian meals together. Her doctor says she needs to lose weight.” She giggles. “This cake may be vegetarian, but I don’t think Granny’d lose weight if she ate it.”

  “Not likely,” I respond, and then point to Babcia’s picture. “You know, Sun Beam, that’s a picture of my grandmother when she was young. The cake you’re eating is her recipe. Mind if I have a taste?”

  She passes me the cake, and I help myself to a generous bite.