“Hold on,” she said into the receiver and then she placed the phone to her chest and tiptoed into her bedroom, closed the door behind her and locked it. She took a deep breath and sat down on the bed. “Hello.”
The voice on the other end was deep, sexy. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No, Stephon,” Cydney said. Stephon James, her editor-in-chief at Urban Styles magazine, until recently the sometimes, late-night warmth that she lied to her brother about not having. “Why are you calling me this late?” And she added sarcastically, “Your wife away or something?”
“I was just checking on a fellow night owl. I couldn’t sleep,” Stephon offered. “And my wife’s with the painkillers again. She won’t be awakening anytime soon.”
“I don’t know why you think you can bring your drama into my life whenever you want to,” Cydney said. “I don’t appreciate your calling me this time of night.”
Stephon sounded wounded. “I’m sorry—I—just wanted to talk to you. You’re whispering. I imagine that must mean someone’s there with you.”
“I’m not whispering,” Cydney corrected, though she was. “And no one is here with me.”
Stephon sucked his teeth like an adolescent boy. “Yell out my name then.”
“You must be crazy. It’s almost one in the morning.”
“I was joking,” Stephon said, even though he wasn’t.
Cydney could hear the loneliness and longing in Stephon’s voice. She recognized the timbre from her own experiences. She knew how it felt to be trapped in darkness with no light apparent anywhere. “Tell me about your wife,” she told him.
Stephon sighed. “She’s at it again. Been taking Vicodin, Percocet, Advil. Claims none of them work, though I know the dosages she takes are strong enough to down a horse.”
“I know the Advil’s over-the-counter, but how does she get ahold of that other stuff?”
“Don’t know. She hid them from me this time. I found the bottles inside a can of bread crumbs.”
“What were you doing looking through a can of bread crumbs?”
Stephon laughed for the first time since he’d gotten on the phone, for the first time really in the past few days since his discovery of the painkiller medicine. It felt good to laugh, take his mind off the worries, the blues setting in on him. “That’s a long story.”
“Something freaky I bet,” Cydney teased.
“Come on now,” Stephon objected, “you know me better than that.”
“Exactly,” Cydney answered. “So what where you planning to do with bread crumbs? You got me interested now. I know about that thing you do with chocolate.” She sucked her teeth. “Oh, and that other thing you do with whipped cream.” Stephon’s boom of a laugh prodded her on. “Ditto for cherries,” she continued. “But bread crumbs? I can’t imagine.”
“You are something, Cydney Williams,” Stephon said, his voice rich with desire. “Why can’t we be together?”
Cydney clutched the fluffiest pillow on the bed close to her chest, wrapped her arms around it as she would a lover’s waist. “I got two reasons for you,” she answered. “Your daughter and your wife. I’m ashamed I let our thing go on as long as I did.” She didn’t mention her lunatic brother as a reason, but she thought it.
“You know there’s no love in this house,” Stephon reasoned.
“Don’t do that, Stephon. You dishonor your wife and daughter by saying that. When your wife isn’t popping those pills, when she’s sober and attending to you and your child, there is plenty of love in that house.”
“I’m unhappy,” Stephon said. “That’s all I was trying to say.”
“So get happy. Confront your wife again. Let her know what you’re feeling, and open yourself to what she’s feeling. Obviously she’s unhappy, too.”
“I wish I’d met you first,” Stephon mused, “before I got married, before I got myself in this mess.”
Cydney smirk-laughed. “That’s what makes life so interesting. You can’t go back, and you can’t change what has already been done. You can wish ’til the cows come home…” She looked toward the living room of her apartment. Even through the closed and locked bedroom door she could feel the presence of her brother, could feel the presence of her mother. She wished she couldn’t, wished she could completely rid herself of them both. Wished.
“I love you,” Stephon blurted.
“Yes, I suppose in your own way you do,” Cydney said. “At least as best you can under your circumstances.”
His voice registered hurt. “Are you not returning the emotion?”
“I can’t do that, Stephon. You know that.”
“You can, you just won’t.”
“Correct again, boss.” She might as well put it out there and let him know what he was instead of dwelling on what he wasn’t. Boss and not lover, at least not anymore.
“This is some hurtful shit,” Stephon said.
“You haven’t given me my restaurant assignment for this month,” Cydney said, moving on.
“How can you so easily just brush past the issue of us?”
“No one said it was easy, but it is necessary. Far as I’m concerned, there is no us.”
“We shared a lot.”
“And still do.”
“Not the same.”
“Good thing for the both of us it isn’t.”
“What if I just left my wife?”
“That would show me that when my imperfections became clear to you, you’d be predisposed to calling up some other chick in the early morning and confessing undying love to her. Not exactly what I’m looking for in a life partner.”
“You’ve got to have an answer for everything.”
“Not everything.” Cydney placed the pillow she’d been clutching back neatly in its spot on her bed. “But look, like I said, you haven’t given me my restaurant assignment for the month.”
Stephon sighed. “I want you to do a review of that new soul food spot that opened in Asbury Park.”
Cydney’s posture straightened, buoyed by interest. A new restaurant opened in the bleak city of her birth? “What’s that? I hadn’t heard about any new soul food place.”
“It’s on a…hold on.” Cydney could hear Stephon sifting through papers. “This downstairs office comes in handy when I want to just get away from it all,” he said when he came back on line.
“Yeah, I bet.”
Stephon ignored her. “Cookman Avenue. Name of the place is Cush. You know the area?”
I grew up around the corner, Cydney wanted to say but didn’t. “I’ll find it. Cush? What kind of name is that for a restaurant?” She crinkled her nose. “Sounds too much like mush.”
Stephon managed a laugh. “The cat that owns it named it after some ancient African city.”
Cydney was impressed. “Deep.”
“Yeah, this is an accomplished brother we’re talking about. Desmond Rucker. His family owned a chain of restaurants in Pennsylvania. Maybe we’ll even look to do a feature on him at some point…” Stephon’s voice trailed off; he stopped himself from waxing too poetic about Desmond in Cydney’s presence.
“Well, I look forward to this.”
“Don’t go falling in love with him now,” Stephon joked.
“It’s all about the food, Stephon, the food.”
Her words were reassurance to Stephon’s ears. “I’m going to go and try to get some sleep. Thanks, Cydney.”
She loved how he always said her name in full; didn’t break it down and call her Cyd or something along those lines. She closed her eyelids and gripped the phone receiver firmly as she thought about the inequity of life. How could his wife sleep away these precious moments when she could be snuggling with her handsome husband, cuddling with her beautiful daughter or further decorating her majestic home?
“Peace and blessings, Stephon.”
“Same to you, Cydney.”
She clicked the phone off and sat on the bed for a moment, composing herself. After a whil
e, she rose to go put the phone back on the charger stand. She attempted to turn the bedroom doorknob and then remembered she’d placed the lock on. She opened the lock and moved through the doorway with her head down and her shoulders devoid of their usual upright strength. Talking with Stephon nowadays always took something out of her. She had moved only a few steps when she bumped into something. She looked up, startled, her brother standing in her way, his eyes dull like a butter knife, but still capable of cutting.
“Who were you in there talking to? And why did you lock the door?” he demanded.
Cydney swallowed hard and tried to smile.
CHAPTER 2
Desmond Rucker leaned against the wall in the large industrial kitchen, next to the swinging doors that led out to the dining area. He could hear the mill of voices from outside. He smiled as he considered this smashing success. Opening night of his restaurant, Cush, and they were teetering on full capacity. Desmond hadn’t expected anything less, even though the nay-sayers questioned the wisdom of opening a restaurant among the ruins of Asbury Park. The block he chose to plant seed was a thoroughfare of abandoned and boarded-up buildings. Only three other entrepreneurs had had the courage to attempt commerce on this block: an antiques dealer, a sneakers retailer and a Chinese food take-out spot. None of it mattered. Desmond could feel a certain soul in the broken city, a certain soul that his restaurant could nourish and help in bringing the city back to the strength of its heyday. He remembered coming over with his parents from Pennsylvania when he was younger. He fondly recalled those stolen weekends like memories of a lost love. They were so few and far between. His parents spent so much time cultivating their business—a chain of Rucker Restaurants—that there was little time for anything else.
“What are you standing there grinning like that for?” Karen, Desmond’s handpicked hostess, asked. It was so busy she was moonlighting as a waitress.
“Success, sweetheart,” Desmond answered as Karen disappeared through the doors with a platter of hot food in hand.
A moment later, Karen came scuttling back through those same doors, stepping with energy. As she passed by, Desmond couldn’t help but notice the cling of her skirt to those luscious hips and that round ass. He blinked his eyes. She’s married, Desmond. Married with a capital M.
“Damn right this is success,” Karen said to Desmond as she passed him again to go back outside. “I’m going to have to soak my feet in Epsom salts when I get home tonight.”
“Get your man to massage them for you.” Desmond couldn’t help himself; in his life of restraint and refinement, he had but one weakness—fine women. They made him feel whole in ways he couldn’t fully explain.
Karen stopped long enough to wink at Desmond and then moved through the door.
“I hope her husband is appreciating that,” Desmond said aloud, shaking his head as Karen disappeared through the swinging doors.
The chirp of Desmond’s cell phone cut through his carnal thoughts.
He opened the flip of his StarTAC. “Desmond Rucker.” He rarely got personal calls so he always answered as if it were a business line.
Desmond was greeted by his younger sister Felicia’s voice. “Hey, baby brother.”
“I’m older by nine years and a few months,” Desmond said, smiling.
“Dang, somebody was shooting blanks for a long time…nine years.”
“Workaholics,” Desmond said. “The first child was planned. The second was a pleasant surprise.”
“Is that it?”
“Yes, it is. Where are they? They haven’t picked you up yet?”
Felicia sucked in some of the cool night air. “I love your awning…what color is this, burgundy?”
Desmond’s voice plummeted. “You’re here?”
“Walking up to your door,” Felicia said.
“Man!” Desmond slapped the flip of his cell shut and moved through the swinging doors of the kitchen. One of these days he was going to kill Felicia. She had clear instructions to call him as soon as their parents picked her up from the train station. That would give him half an hour or so to make sure everything was as close to perfect as he could get it. Half an hour to get his nerves under control. Half an hour to prepare for his father.
“Place is hopping,” Karen said as Desmond took a spot next to her at the hostess podium.
“My parents are here,” Desmond informed Karen. “My fool-ass sister just called.”
“Really?” Karen swung her head, swept her long hair off her shoulders. Her skin was the color of fresh-roasted peanuts, her teeth white like copy paper. She brushed the lapel of her jacket and straightened her shoulders. “Nervous?” she asked.
“Nope,” Desmond lied through clenched teeth. His heart was threatening to cut through the strong fabric of his suit. “The crowd helps. My father is bound to be impressed. I don’t ever remember his restaurants being this crowded, and we have more square footage here.”
“Thought your mother ran them with him,” Karen said.
“She did.”
“You only mentioned your father, Desmond.”
“Did I?”
“Yep, you did. Is that a bit of male chauvinism showing its face?”
“Not at all,” Desmond said. “My father is the more opinionated of my parents, that’s all.” An understatement if there ever was one. “Just want to do well,” Desmond reasoned. “The culinary business is in the Rucker blood.” He looked at her and returned a smile. “You know what I’m saying, baby?”
Karen could feel herself drowning in Desmond’s eyes. Before she could compose herself enough to answer his question, the front door opened.
Barbara Rucker, Desmond’s mother, stepped in first. She was a striking woman, her black hair highlighted by elegant strands of silver. The perfection of her skin, the absence of wrinkles, made her appear a decade younger than she actually was. Like all the Ruckers, she had a good amount of height on her, close to six feet even without her high-heeled pumps. She wore a burgundy pantsuit that brought out the deep mocha hue of her skin.
Frank Rucker was an older version of his son. Broad through the shoulders. Large hands with thick cords of veins running over the top to give a clue as to their true strength. Same deep mocha color as his wife, an oddity among black couples; usually one partner was shaded differently than the other. He wore a neat, short Afro, salt covering his temples and spraying his crown. His jaw was boxed, chiseled like those of male models, no flab anywhere on his fit frame. His mustard-colored turtleneck sweater and dark brown pants were even more stylish than the cream-colored suit his son wore. He seemed to gain better posture when he spied Desmond at the podium, when the reality set in that his suit was indeed more stylish than his son’s.
Felicia, at eighteen, was budding into more of a womanly flower with each passing day. It bothered Desmond that she favored close-fitting blouses that showed her full bosom, not that they could be hidden under a baggy shirt, and pants and skirts that showed off the bubble of her behind. Unlike the other Ruckers, Felicia was a shade lighter. She had large, oval eyes, a thin nose and full lips. She was a touch taller than her mother and had broken all of their hearts by moving to New York City in September to accept a modeling contract. She relished the role of heartbreaker.
Desmond was about to greet his family but then a fourth person stepped forward. Desmond’s tongue froze and a mystified look held his face captive. Nora Claxton came in on the heels of his parents and sister. Nora’s skin was the color of caramel, her eyes a grayish, bluish, greenish conglomeration. She didn’t have Mrs. Rucker’s height, but carried the same dignity and straight posture. In a past-gone lifetime, she was Desmond’s wife-to-be. She smiled at him now, warmed by his surprised look, his gaping mouth.
While the Ruckers scoped the restaurant, Nora was the first one of the group to speak. “Beautiful place you have here, Des.”
“Thanks,” he managed to say.
The trio of blood relatives then engulfed Desmond. His mother placed
a tattoo of red lips on his cheek; his father offered a firm handshake, seemingly trying to crush Desmond’s hand in his grip, and his sister served up a coy smile as she wrapped him quickly in her arms and then stood just a few feet back from the others.
Desmond stood watching them and so Karen pushed forward and extended her hand. “I’m Karen, the hostess,” she said. “I’ve heard so much about all of you.” She scanned Nora and tried unsuccessfully not to crinkle her nose. “Most of you,” she added.
Desmond sprung to life. “Um, Karen, would you show my family to their seats? I’ll join you all in a minute.” He looked at his sister. “Felicia, may I speak with you a moment?”
Karen ushered them to a reserved table in the back of the restaurant. On the way, she stopped one of the waitresses and subtly asked her to add another place setting at the Rucker table.
“What’s going on?” Desmond asked Felicia, back at the front.
“We’re here to get our eat on,” Felicia said.
“You know what I mean,” Desmond answered. “With Nora?”
Felicia looked in the direction of her seated family and the sister-in-law that wouldn’t be. “Oh, her? I honestly couldn’t tell you. From what I gather, she was speaking to Mommy and sort of invited herself when she found out they were coming. You know she really must have wanted to see you if she’d put up with Daddy for an entire car ride.”
“Figures,” Desmond sighed. “This is uncomfortable.”
“Why?” Felicia scanned the restaurant with the flair of a soap opera actress. “You got some other hoochie up in here waiting on you?”
“I don’t do the hoochies,” Desmond said, “and you know it. It’s uncomfortable, considering the circumstances of my relationship with Nora and how it ended.”
“Oh, you mean the canceled wedding. Daddy was the only person happy about your failed nuptials if I recall.”
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