by C. L. Donley
If Cynthia didn’t want to— or couldn’t— go home, then he should man up. She was just starting to leave things at his place. Starting to feel comfortable.
“I can put you up someplace close. Someplace nice.”
Cynthia’s energy continued to plummet. What could he say to stop it? He cursed to himself. He saw his life in a different light looking at Cynthia’s face, suddenly like a scared animal.
“And if they find out about us? What happens then?”
“Then… I don’t know, I’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. It’s not like he could ever stop me from seeing you.”
“Are you ever going to tell Melanie the truth?”
“Obviously I am. Obviously, I have to.”
Cynthia was quiet again and Ben could sense her dismay. Her uncertainty. He didn’t know how, but one day this part of their lives would be a distant, dwarfed memory they could laugh about.
Suddenly he saw a flash of the future. Cynthia the award-winning chef. He, her financial tycoon husband. Treating clients to dinner at her very own restaurant in the city. The vision gave him a jolt of elation, followed by anxiety and anguish, dense like a pit in the center of a fruit.
Would he be able to let her go? To all the places she needed to go, to become that woman?
The answer was yes.
“If I paid for your culinary schooling, would you go?”
“What?”
“If I paid for it. For you to go to the finest school. In Paris. Would you go?”
Cynthia shifted.
“The finest school is here in New York.”
“You didn’t even look outside of the U.S. I know that you didn’t.”
“Where would you get that kind of money? Without anyone knowing?”
“It wouldn’t have to be a secret. Hell, I could probably get my dad to pay for it if it meant you moving 1,000 miles away.”
A thousand miles away.
“I can’t leave my mom. I can’t leave you.”
“Cynthia, you can’t sit in this apartment, waiting for me to come home, wasting your life—”
“I’m not wasting my life. I’m working, I’m saving up money—”
“For what?”
Cynthia was so close to just blurting it all out. But she was growing more concerned that he seemed so eager to get rid of her. And then… did she even want to be in food service for the rest of her life?
“Isn’t that what you wanted? Didn’t you beg me to be here when you got home?” asked Cynthia defensively.
“I did. And I’m grateful for that.”
“So why do you want to get rid of me?”
“Cynth, you know that’s not—”
“Get rid of your girlfriend. That you don’t love. Why am I disposable? Because I don’t have money?”
“Because I have to finish school, I have to take over The Dvorak Group, and to do that, I have to work my ass off.”
“And you don’t have time to babysit me.”
He sighed.
“Don’t think I don’t want to keep coming home to you every day, because I do. But it’s selfish. You’re talented, you’re hardworking. The world needs your chicken fried steak and your butter chicken, and… whatever else you come up with.”
“So we’re breaking up.”
He smiled at her reasoning. They never settled on exactly what they were, but there wasn’t a more appropriate term for what being apart from each other would be. He cradled her face in his hand.
“No. We’re making a plan. For the future. I didn’t say today. In fact, let’s not talk about it now. Tell your mom about dinner. Okay?”
“Fine.”
“I’m inviting my sister. She’s basically my closest friend. Besides you. Do you know what that means?”
“What?”
“It means that I’m serious about this. I’m gonna do right by you, Cynth. It’s just… people have been manipulating me my entire life. Trying to get me to do what’s best for them and get me to go along with it. Instead of just telling me what they want and letting me decide. This isn’t just which college to go to, this is an entire reality I’m altering. I gotta out-think these fuckers, Cynthia.”
“Ben… wouldn’t it be simpler to just… walk away? Give it all up? Like you said your brother did?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because fuck Solomon Dvorak. I’ve worked too hard.”
“Benji—”
“There’s a way to have it all, Cynth. There is. And I’m gonna figure it out.”
* * *
“How is it, mom?”
Cynthia, Ben and his sister Valerie all looked at Bev with bated breath, as she tried the oil down from Mooma’s, the Grenadian restaurant Ben took them all to. The cook and the waiter too looked on from their stations. Within three chews she was giving them the “ok” sign, making them smile.
“See!” the cook exclaimed, his dark skin making his white smile practically glow. “Allyuh hungry awah?”
“I could tell from deh smells it was gonna be right, enuh,” she smiled, savoring the brothy stew. They brought the entire stew pot to the table.
“This is insane,” Ben remarked when he took a bite. Val nodded with her mouth full.
Even Cynthia had to look on with fascination as she watched her mother go full patois with the restaurant staff, looking like Indian Claire Huxtable. Only Cynthia had the vaguest idea what they were saying, but they all knew when something funny was being said.
“Boy, yuh is a pappyshow!” Bev exclaimed to the cook.
“What just happened, Cynth?” Ben would chuckle.
“It’s not as funny as it sounds,” Cynthia replied with a laugh.
They politely asked Bev more and more about herself, which she artfully dodged in true Gordon fashion, volleying the questions back to Ben and his sister.
“So tell me. Yuh born walking dat way Benji, awat?”
“No. Actually, I couldn’t walk at all until I was ten.”
“My faddah’s first baby, he lost. My half sistah. She couldn’t move her left side at all, t’was so stiff. Couldn’t control heh tongue.”
“That sounds like Ataxic Cerebral Palsy. That’s kind of rare. Mine is the common type, which is Spastic CP. There’s some part of my brain that didn’t get oxygen when I was in utero, and the muscles in my legs don’t get sent certain signals. The walk comes from my other muscles overcompensating for the weak ones.”
“Does it hurt, enuh?”
“Sometimes, yeah. Can’t stand up for too long.”
“Yuh ever wish yuh walked normal-like?”
“Mom…” Cynthia quietly nudged her.
“What? Deh man’s grown. He knows I doh mean no disrespect.”
“They told me I never would, so I’m happy to be walking at all.”
“It’s all yuh know, ent it?”
“Yeah ‘mon,” Ben replied, which earned him a hit across the chest from Cynthia.
“You didn’t tell Cynthia about the surgery?” Val wondered.
“No, I did not.”
“What surgery?”
“Melanie recommended it,” Valerie piped up. Cynthia’s heart revved with shame and guilt. Ben hit Val hard underneath the table.
“Who’s Melanie?” Bev asked harmlessly.
“Family friend,” Val tried to recover.
“Apparently there’s a procedure they could do that would cause the muscles in my legs to relax and give me a much more… ‘normal’ gait.” Ben filled her in.
“They use botox, isn’t that fascinating?” Val marveled.
“Well, now!”
“Are you thinking about doing it?”
“Sort of. Not really,” Ben waffled. “I promised myself no more surgeries.”
“This one would be nothing like the others. It’s basically out-patient,” Val pushed.
“Had a pretty bad panic attack before the last one.”
“But you were like, ten.”
; “Yeah, so it was extra brutal. I’d only be doing it for someone else at this point.”
“You know I looked into having their licenses removed. Suing the hospital,” Val carried on their increasingly private conversation.
“Dr. West is no longer practicing,” Ben said as though it were good news.
“I heard. Don’t think that was a coincidence.”
“Wait, what happened when you were ten?” Cynthia asked.
“Nothing that we can prove.”
“Ben suspects that not every surgery that he had was… necessary.”
“Holy shit.”
“Our mother was obsessed with him being ‘a cripple’ as she called it. I think she liked the attention. She did everything the doctors told her, and dad did everything our mother told him.”
“I didn’t suspect anything until the fourth surgery. One of my therapists up and quit, she was so upset.”
“How have you not sued them?”
“Believe me, if we could get our dad to believe us, it would be total scorched Earth.”
“But that would involve him entertaining the idea that he was outsmarted.”
“Dat’s awful Benji.”
“It is, so let’s change the subject.”
“Okay, Benji. What yuh makin’ a lime wit’ an ol’ woman for? Yuh plan t’marry my Cynt’ya awat?”
Ben didn’t understand much of the question besides the last part. Cynthia’s instant reddening face let him know he understood it well enough. He answered by grinning over at Cynthia, grabbing her hand and kissing it.
Cynthia looked back at him, feeling dread. Knowing that once her mother got the apartment, she was going to have to find the courage to break it off, since he couldn’t. He was going to be the next CEO of the Dvorak Group, and she had to find that next thing she was going to be— whatever that is.
Serving him lunch would be hella awkward after that. But she knew him. He wanted her, but he also wanted the best for her. He’ll understand and get over it, eventually. Maybe she’ll take him up on that culinary school offer. But no way was she going to France. Unless he was willing to pay for her mom to go too. All the recipes were hers, after all.
She smiled at Ben’s reaction to her mother’s nosy question before rolling her eyes, cynically.
“Doh beat up, mom,” Cynthia shook her head, her mouth full of Grenadian food.
11
Present Day
Cynthia pulls up to the newly completed house boasting the tin roof, bold turquoise door, stately white porch columns and wood-stained shutters. She’s dressed in a casually elegant black dress that fans out at the waist, simple matching flats on her feet. A single gold watch adorned her wrist and her hair is pinned back in a high ponytail. She notices the address numbers she ordered for the side of the door came in at some point, and her crew knew what she wanted.
The Moss property is officially done. The client reveal is tomorrow afternoon, and Cynthia commences her private design property walkthrough alone, her professional tradition.
She brings her box of personal touches, heavier and heavier with each new project. She fluffs pillows, she puts prop 1st editions on selective shelves and fireplace mantles, she examines the grout lines. She eyes the cut of the marble until her blurring vision plays tricks on her. She really did have the best people working for her. It was time to talk raises.
This is her ritual, the moment she lives for. When all the screaming panic she starts with has been completely vanquished by her fully realized vision: the aspirations, the mishaps, the delays, and the serendipitous moments all coming together to create something valuable. The intangible becomes real and far bigger than her.
This was her biggest challenge to date. The unlimited budget nearly killed her. But she slayed the giant. It is more than she could’ve asked for. She’s outdone herself. Not that he even cares, but Ben is going to be very happy. Or at least, impressed.
By the time she gets to the master bedroom she’s usually crying. The master is the room she always spends the most money on.
It’s supposed to be a haven. Her mother always treated her bedroom that way. Especially in the house she grew up in, the one they lost. They never had much, but her mother’s bedroom was always bedecked with photos and fabrics, laces and pillows. The most beautiful patterned bedspreads that nourished the eye. Best of all, Cynthia was always allowed in.
She puts the same energy into all her master bedrooms. She’s convinced it’s what sells a house every time.
She retreats to the upstairs hallway bathroom a blubbering mess, thankful she stages every home with a realistic supply of toiletries to make buyers feel they’re at home already. She steals a glance at the extra large marble shower with a bench that spans the length of it. Like the locker room showers at the Y. She always loved the look and spirit of that design, and wanted to see it done in a home. She couldn’t stop staring and she knew she’d found a new design element to get stuck on for the next five years.
“I outdid myself this time, mama,” she says as she takes a few sheets of soft toilet paper from the silver stand in the bathroom. She gives herself a few blinks in the quaint oval mirror before turning off the light and heading back downstairs.
“You were right. The stairs look stunning.”
Cynthia startles at the sound of Ben’s voice at the bottom of the stairs. Making her way down, she is greeted by the sight of Ben at the front of the bannister holding a bottle of wine. She stops in her tracks.
“You actually used the stain I picked out.”
“I meant what I said, they’re all beautiful. What are you doing here?” she rasps, her fist full of tissue paper.
“Is this a bad time?”
“You’re not supposed to be here until the big reveal tomorrow.”
“I’d much rather have you show me around. Never been big on crowds.”
“…The three of us is a crowd?”
“You know what I mean.”
She sniffs as she shakes her head, rolling her eyes as she touches the bridge of her nose.
“Why did I ever think you were taking this project seriously to begin with?”
“I do take it seriously.”
“You bought this house to keep me under your thumb, Ben.”
“Not true.”
“Then what?”
“It was an investment.”
“That you stole from under me.”
“Pardon me for wanting to throw some business your way.”
“You’re insane, you know that?”
“Anyway, I didn’t come here to fight. I brought wine so we could toast our successful business venture, and I’d like the tour. If you don’t mind.”
Cynthia shrugs with a sigh of resignation.
“You’re the boss,” she replies with a lazy blink of her eyes.
She took him on the mostly wordless tour that started in the newly imagined kitchen.
“Wow.”
“You like it?” she grins, trying to dodge his penetrating gaze.
“It’s like night and day,” is his unsatisfying response. “You put the elevator in,” he also says. Yet another gloriously factual statement.
“I did.”
“Why?” he smiled.
“I couldn’t just tear out the laundry chute and dry wall it up. I had to repurpose it. And I had an unlimited budget.”
He tossed his head this way and that. “Kind of a useless extravagance.”
“Not really,” she defended, “Families with small children. Elderly parents who want the upstairs master. There’s plenty of possibilities.”
She watches as he takes everything in, seeing if he would give anything away in his eyes that he was impressed. He didn’t.
The tour ends in the backyard that is now vivid green and fenced in tall, rich-colored cedar. They sit on the luxurious cushions of the cylindrical couch patio she’d picked out, the rectangular stone fire pit ablaze and filled with glass pebbles as they stretched out in front of
it. They open the wine and retrieve two glasses from the outdoor bar area on the deck overlooking the woods behind the house. Cynthia looks over at Ben while he pops the cork of the expensive bottle of white. He is dressed in yet another crisp white shirt and dark chocolate slacks, more dressy than business.
“Did you leave a soirée to come here?”
“Something like that.”
“How’d you know I’d even be here right now?”
“Your assistant told me where you were.”
“I think she has a bit of a crush on you.”
“She told me.”
Cynthia huffed a laugh.
“Why were you crying?”
“When?”
“Earlier. When I came in I heard you crying.”
She shrugged a bit with a nervous snicker. “It’s come to be a ritual. Final day always gets me emotional. I put my all into it, and then I give it away. It’s like giving away your baby.”
“You make it sound draining.”
“It is.”
“Why do you do it?”
Cynthia shrugs. “It’s the way I’ve always done it. Seems to be what works.”
He chuckles softly, reminiscing. “First time I went to my Junior VP’s house, I swear I could feel you. It was the strangest thing.”
“I lived for that fucking bathroom,” she remembers.
“The bamboo countertops.”
“Right?”
“Very bold choice.”
“If I didn’t know better, Benji,I’d say you had an eye for design, too.”
“For beauty, perhaps,” he says, shedding a rare nervous grin as he looked down into his wine glass. Cynthia held back her own grin as she eyed him.
“You haven’t told me what you think, yet.”
“About?”
She gave him an amused, reprimanding look.
“Of your ‘investment,’” she clarified.
“You care about what I think?”
“Of course, I designed it with you in mind.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why,” she chuckles, “it’s your house.”
“But I’m selling it. This was supposed to be your vision.”
