Grand Opening

by Carl Weber

  “Alejandro.” I laughed out loud. Gathering my things, I left a twenty-dollar bill to pay for my drink and gratuity, and then I headed for the elevator with the key to the suite in my hand.

  Once everything had gone down at Big Sam’s and I saw Donna in LC’s arms, I slipped out the door and made my way to the bus station. No way was I dealing with that bullshit when I had a man like Alejandro waiting for me in St. Augustine, willing to devote himself to me. I might never be in love with him, but I sure as hell could learn to love his money. At least that was what I told myself the first few months I was with him.

  Eventually, though, I realized that I couldn’t shake my feelings for LC, which wasn’t fair to Alejandro, so I told him and then moved out to Vegas. I’d been working for a high-priced escort service run by the hotel’s concierge, which was a lot less work and a hell of a lot more money than working at Sam’s. I had a few regulars already, and I certainly knew how to keep them coming back once they got a taste.

  Alejandro still looked out for me, though, and actually visited every other week now that he was permanently living in L.A. Apparently his little arrangement with the Duncans was even more lucrative than what he’d had going with Sam.

  I took the elevator up, checking my makeup in a compact mirror as I looked for the suite. I found it at the end of the hall. When I opened the door, the man on the other side was not at all who I’d been expecting. I had to grab onto the door frame to keep myself from falling down on weak knees. My emotions got caught in my throat.

  “What are you doing here, LC? How did you find me?” I tried not to panic at the sight of him. Dammit, I wished I’d had some warning. He looked so good.

  He walked over to me and then moved past me to close the door; the whole time his eyes were boring into me. “Alejandro. He said he wanted you to be happy, and he knew you’d never be happy with him.” Then he moved so he was standing close enough to touch me.

  I felt my heart threatening to beat out of my chest just from his proximity. Why had he come? Just to torture me? I tried to turn away, but he held onto my arm. “I heard you married Donna,” I snapped, hating what this was doing to me.

  His face lit up, and he had the nerve to smile. I wanted to slap the happiness right off his face, until he corrected my version of events. “You heard wrong. Donna and I are no more. I couldn’t go through with it.”

  I wasn’t sure I had heard him correctly. “What? What happened?”

  “Kinda hard to marry one woman when you’re in love with another.” He took the boxed ring out of my hand and dropped to one knee. “Charlotte, I love you. Will you marry me?”

  Tears of joy sprang from my eyes. “Yes! LC, I’ll marry you.”

  He slipped the ring on my finger. “Good, because I already paid for the honeymoon,” he said, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me close. Then he whispered in my ear. “I’m gonna pay for this one time, and one time only.” And then he kissed me. It was long, deep, and exactly the way I’d imagined it would be, before he lifted me up and carried me to the bed.

  Discussion Questions

  1. Did you feel like you were in the seventies as you read the book?

  2. What did you think about Levi’s dogs?

  3. Do you remember Donna from Family Business 3?

  4. Would you have thought Chippy was a prostitute at one time before reading this book?

  5. What were your feelings about Donna?

  6. Did you feel bad for Big Shirley when she got cut?

  7. Were you shocked by Big Sam’s relationship with his accountant, Jefferson?

  8. How much did you hate Big Sam?

  9. Did you like NeeNee?

  10. Did you feel Larry was crazy?

  11. Were you upset about what happened to Levi?

  12. Is LC becoming the man you expect him to be?

  13. Were you glad Levi and Big Shirley got together?

  14. What did you think of the brothers’ mother?

  15. Were you happy with the ending?

  16. What did you think of Chippy and Alejandro’s relationship?

  If you enjoyed Grand Opening,

  Please read the teaser for Carl Weber’s

  next Family Business adventure:

  Coming February 2016

  Niles Monroe

  1

  As the cab exited the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and traveled through downtown, I couldn’t help but stare out the window like some tourist visiting for the first time, instead of a lifelong resident of my favorite borough. It was hard not to be amazed that the neighborhood I last visited five years ago didn’t look anything like it had when I left. It had undergone a real transformation, I thought, as we passed the Barclays Center, home of Jay-Z’s Brooklyn Nets basketball team. All around the area, businesses like Starbucks had sprung up, revitalizing what used to be a really sketchy area where I grew up watching my back. Now it was definitely on some other, higher end shit.

  It wasn’t that long ago that rich white folks would never have dreamed of living across the bridge, but now according to my uncle Willie’s letters, they were flocking here like shit was free. Made me wonder if the Marcy Projects, where I grew up, would be any different when I got there.

  Less than ten minutes later, the cab pulled up in front of my old building, making me nostalgic for the foreign land I had left behind me thirty hours earlier. Time had stood still, and nothing seemed to be different about this low-income projects, one of the most notorious in all of the five boroughs. A lot of things were happening here, and none of them good, as far as I could see. I knew that if I didn’t get things poppin’ straight out the gate, then like a lot of soldiers returning from the service, I’d wind up never leaving, because this place had the ability to make you sink like quicksand.

  Across the concrete walkway up ahead, I spotted a black-and-white pulled over near the entrance to my mom’s building. I wish I could say it caught me off guard, but in this neighborhood, the police, ambulance, and fire engines were always showing up to carry someone off to either the hospital, jail, or the morgue. It made me wonder which of the three the cops had come to deal with.

  “Pull over here on the right,” I instructed the Armenian cab driver, who looked like he wanted to keep moving and get the hell away from this area as quickly as possible. I was surprised he had even stopped for me at JFK once I explained that I was headed to Brooklyn, but then I assumed that it was one of the privileges of wearing a uniform. That was, until he told me about something called Uber that was cutting into his ability to make a living, meaning he could no longer afford to be picky.

  “Here?” He glanced out the window at the neighborhood denizens, huddled around in small groups like that was their job or something. There was drinking, drug dealing, and plain old-fashioned unemployables, many who had made peace with the hand they were dealt, hanging out all around us.

  “Yep!” I reached into my pocket and paid the man, noticing that he made no motion to get out of the cab to help me with my bags. Damn, this place had him shook up like a scared little girl, but if these guys hanging on the sidewalk made him nervous, then he was damn lucky he’d never been to war and seen real enemies up close. He tried to hand me the change, but I waved it off and didn’t bother to react negatively when he popped the trunk for me to get my own bags. Dude was scared, and frankly, if I hadn’t grown up in this place, there was no way I’d want to be anywhere near here either.

  I grabbed my duffle bag and backpack out of the trunk and headed toward the building. Cabbie didn’t wait one second before he bounced out of there like his ride had caught fire or something.

  For a long time, I hadn’t imagined I would ever wind up back here. My feet hadn’t moved ten steps before a couple of guys came rushing at me.

  “Hey, soldier, can we spit something at you?” The taller of the two stepped in my path, blocking me from moving forward. He had to be in his late twenties, a couple of years younger than me, but he had that look of weariness that t
old me he had already squeezed a little too much living into his time on earth, and if he wasn’t careful, he’d meet his expiration date shortly. The small guy behind him had a pockmarked face and was missing a front tooth that made him appear like a candidate for the short bus.

  “Sure.” I leaned my duffle on the ground to relieve myself of the weight while I listened to what they had to say.

  “You wanna buy a little party favor? I know shit is harder to get over in those war zones. I got some rocks and some pot.” He said it bouncing up and down, like he himself was on something.

  “Nah, I’m good.” I picked up my bag, suddenly focused on moving past them right now. I had time for a lot of things, but drugs weren’t for me. I had never seen anything positive come out of people who got involved. In fact, I had only seen the opposite. No, they could really miss me with that bullshit.

  “Brothas and sistas coming home from doing Uncle Sam’s work need to get a little high, you hear me?” His sidekick threw in his two cents. “They drop you back here and forget all about what you just been through.” He actually sounded a whole lot smarter than he looked.

  This shit I’m selling is sweet. Make you forget all your troubles. Now, I know you done seen some things over there you want to forget, so why not let me help you out, my brotha?” He continued to press, even after I had been kind enough to entertain his stupid-ass conversation and told him no.

  I don’t fuck with drugs, so no thank you!” I said in a tone meant to clarify my position before I had to stop myself from physically removing them from my way. Lucky for them, they took the hint and walked away, but not before throwing in a last word.

  You know where to find us when you realize we were try’na be helpful and shit!” the tall one snarled like I had pissed him off. I ignored them and kept moving toward the entrance. I had to walk around the cop car that didn’t seem to mind blocking the entrance.

  I hit the elevator button and felt a wave of relief when it actually showed up in working order. On the ride up to my mom’s apartment, I felt myself getting a little excited. It had been too long since I’d seen her, and I don’t care how old I get, I’m always gonna want to see her face. My moms wasn’t no saint, but she had done the best she could to raise my sister and me. It made her proud that I had gotten away and built some kind of career, instead of making the streets my business, which almost happened.

  I could have done another tour and stayed, but so much had gone down that I knew it was time to come home. I’d only been back to visit twice in almost ten years, and I couldn’t help but have guilt about it. That was the main reason I felt so glad to be home.

  “Don’t touch me!” I heard the screaming voice before I got off the elevator.

  “Shit!” I grabbed my things and bolted toward my mother’s apartment at the far end of the hall. Her door was wide open.

  “Ma’am, please calm down.” I entered as two cops were trying to reason with my mother, who held a large kitchen knife in her hands, daring them to come any closer.

  “Get out, you devils!” she yelled.

  “Lorna, please!” my uncle Willie pleaded with his sister, but she was too far into another realm to be able to comply. Seeing me, his face flooded with relief. “Niles, help her!”

  I dropped my bags and held my hands up so that the armed officers understood my passivity as I moved into the room. Last thing I needed was to become another casualty in the ongoing war between the cops and people of color.

  “Mama. Mama,” I called out to her, my voice calm and coaxing. Unfortunately, seeing my mother in this state wasn’t rare; it had just been a long time for me.

  She turned to me, her eyes glassy in that way that let me know she hadn’t really seen me yet. “Get these devils out of my house. They are trying to poison me!” she shouted, flailing her hands and waving the knife around.

  “Mom! Mom!” my voice boomed as I attempted to jar her out of her current state. I turned to the officers, their guns still drawn, and pointed at my mother. “Keep your fingers off the trigger.” I waited as they lowered their weapons before turning back to my mother. “It’s Niles. I’m home, Mama.” I moved toward her, waiting for her to recognize her only son.

  “Niles?” she said, lowering the knife, a spark of recognition coming through. “These are devils, and they are going to hurt me real bad.”

  I pointed at the cops, who were now watching us curiously. “Those aren’t devils, Mom. They’re angels in disguise.” My tone sounded light and sing-songy, nothing like how I felt. “Look closely and you’ll see it.”

  My mother glanced from me to them and back before her face broke out in a sweet smile. She then lowered the knife before collapsing into my arms. “You’re home. My baby is home!” she shouted as I removed the knife from her hand.

  Urban Books, LLC

  97 N18th Street

  Wyandanch, NY 11798

  Grand Opening: A Family Business Novel

  Copyright © 2015 Carl Weber

  Copyright © 2015 Eric Pete

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the Publisher, except brief quotes used in reviews.

  ISBN: 978-1-6228-6911-4

  This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living or dead, or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places, and incidents is entirely coincidental.

  Distributed by Kensington Publishing Corp.

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