The Littlest Boss

by Janet Lee Nye

  * * *

  “I HAVE YOUR supper warmed up,” Vivian called from the kitchen.

  Walking toward her, Tiana felt the fatigue of the day beginning to weigh her down. She put an arm around her mother, pulled her close. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Rough day?”

  Tiana shrugged. “No more than usual.”

  At the small dining room table, Tiana looked around at the apartment. She’d just moved her little family in a week ago, and it still seemed surreal. After years of cheap college apartments and two months in an extended-stay hotel while she began her orientation, it was certainly the nicest place she’d ever lived, even though the monthly payment about gave her heart failure. A small smile crossed her lips as she looked around. She could afford it though. Finally. Financial freedom was the ultimate freedom. Three bedrooms, hardwood floors, walk-in closets, granite-topped counters, sleek black brand-new appliances. She’d done this. Yeah, it was expensive, but she’d made it. Lily was in a great elementary school, living in a great town with endless opportunity. Everything she’d worked for when she left Lily with her mother and went away to school. Sometimes, she would stop and look around, still surprised she’d made it out the other side.

  Her mother’s hand closed over hers as if she’d read her thoughts. “You’ve done well, Tee. I’m so proud of you.”

  Squeezing her mother’s hand, she nodded. “We did it. Together. I couldn’t have done it without you. We did this, Mom.”

  “The Three Musketeers. Now eat your food and go to bed.”

  That made her laugh. “Okay, Mom.”

  She took a few bites. Her mother could cook, that was a truth. Even when she followed the recipe perfectly, her food didn’t taste like her mother’s. Tiana suspected secret ingredients.

  “Lily wants a kitten now instead of a fish.”

  “Ha! She’d rather go for furry and snuggly than for scaly and slimy? Imagine that!” Vivian mimed locking her lips and throwing away a key. “Not even going to touch that battle. Good luck.”

  Letting out a tired sigh, Tiana finished the rest of her food. As much as she hated to admit it, Lily had inherited her determined streak. When Lily put her foot down, crossed her arms, and held her chin high, she looked like a mini CEO getting ready for a meeting with the Board of Directors. In pajamas! Tiana shook her head, smiled, and sighed again. As hard as she had to be, tried to be, that girl had her heart wrapped around her little finger. The littlest boss.

  But a kitten, gah.

  Maybe a few more trips to the aquarium? Find some super enthusiastic intern who could spin tales of clever clownfish, sunlight sparkling across rainbow-colored scales just below the surface, mermaids, sails and all the wonders of the deep blue sea?

  Hey, it was worth a try.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “DESHAWN!”

  He’d barely stepped inside the restaurant when—wham—there was the tackle hug. Sadie Martin nearly knocked him over. He returned the exuberant hug, lifting her off her feet for a moment. Aw, Sadie. Seeing her was good medicine. He’d been feeling low, falling into that woulda, coulda, shoulda trap, but all that fell away as soon she’d crushed his ribs with her trademark Sadie Squeeze. He was glad to be home. Happy to return to Charleston. Where he had friends he considered family. “Boss-Lady Sadie,” he said with a smile.

  She gave him an appraising look, a single worry line between her eyebrows. “You look skinny,” she said, after a moment’s pause. Then: “Are you eating?”

  “Sure, I’m eating. Just don’t have to maintain the muscle mass required for my previous employment.” He rolled his shoulders and puffed his chest out, flexing just enough to make her laugh, keeping it light.

  “That’s all right, that’s all right,” she said. “Blame me for you being too lazy to work out. I see how you are.”

  “God, I missed you, Sadie.”

  “Glad to be home?”

  “You don’t even know.”

  “How’s that ankle?”

  The ankle. The stupid accident had held up his entry into the army but had opened a new path for him. It had been a momentary lapse in concentration, one slight misstep on a ladder followed by five months of casts and surgery and rehab. If he hadn’t been careless, yeah, well...woulda coulda shoulda, right?

  “It’s fine,” he said. “I’m back up to full speed. Thinking about doing the Cooper River Bridge Run this year. But the ankle, yeah...it does predict rain very accurately. There is that.”

  He looked around the bustling restaurant. Busy Friday night. It was new. The West Ashley area of Charleston was booming. Booming could be a good thing. Lots of work. But the traffic—the traffic was definitely not an upside. New houses and apartments going up everywhere he looked, from out past Summerville all the way up to Mount Pleasant. Used to be scenic drives out to those places, nothing but green trees and Carolina sun. Now it was a slow roll through bumper-to-bumper traffic. Still, the scent of barbecue was making it hard to dwell on all that. He was here now and his stomach growled. The hostess led them to a booth in the back.

  “The potato salad is to die for,” Sadie said. “It’s made with horseradish.”

  “Is it hot?” he said.

  “Surprisingly cool and creamy. Just enough of a zing to let you know it’s the good stuff.”

  “Huh.”

  After the waitress brought them each a glass of ice water, jotted their orders down with a few quick swipes of her pen and walked off toward the kitchen, Sadie turned serious.

  “How’s the job?” She leveled her eyes at DeShawn. It was her business look. It was a kind professionalism, to be sure. Sadie was good people. But business was business.

  “Good. I like it. It feels a little odd. I’m actually doing the things I studied in school. Who would have expected that? But I’m excited.”

  “You’re part of the navy base transition?”

  “Yep. Working on the new I-26 and Cosgrove interchange.”

  “What does that entail?”

  “Right now, a lot of walking around in the cold and measuring things.”

  “Sounds divine. I’m glad you’re happy. I was worried about you.”

  “You always worry about everyone.”

  “True. But I was extra worried about you.”

  He took her hands and looked her in the eyes. “I’m fine. You know, not gonna lie. I was disappointed that I couldn’t go into the army. That hit hard. But it’s okay. I love my job. I still get the opportunity to travel. And I’m in the Army National Guard. It’s still everything I wanted. Just...scaled down a bit.”

  She nodded. “So, it’s going well?”

  Her tone was casual but her gaze was locked on him. She could win her a staring contest. That was a fact. That was how she climbed to the top of her business. Made it with sheer determination, absolute focus. Resisting the urge to squirm when the silence stretched too long, DeShawn shrugged. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “So there’s a learning curve. But that’s normal right?”

  “Yes.” She drew the word out into at least four syllables. “Spit it out, DeShawn. What’s wrong?”

  That made him laugh. Momma Bear. That was what he and the other guys in the Cleaning Crew would call her. She could smell a problem from three miles away.

  “It feels weird,” he said. “I feel weird. I look around at my coworkers and they know everything. They’re just going around doing their jobs and I feel like I’m acting in a play.”

  Her expression softened and she bobbed her head. “I know that feeling well. When I have to go to those professional women’s meetings, I feel the same way. What in the hell am I doing here?”

  He nodded, tapped his fingers on the table. “Well, okay, so that’s what it is. But how do I fix it?”

  “Keep showing up,” she said. Her righ
t eye got a little twitchy. She looked down and to the left for a heartbeat, then met his gaze directly. “That’s how. Eventually it wears off. Well, it gets better. Just a twinge now and then.”

  He nodded along with her and smiled. It did make him feel a little better, being on the same page with Momma Bear. Sadie was his biggest role model. She’d gone from being essentially homeless—she hadn’t even had a high school degree—and from that place and time in her life, she’d went on to build an award-winning cleaning company. She’d even made herself rich along the way. It wasn’t the typical outcome one would expect. Sadie was definitely an outlier, definitely two or three standard deviations from the mean at least. But she was also right here in front of him—real, honest, relatable—and it gave him hope. He thought about that a lot these days. Hope, and what it meant to people. The difference it made in their lives, having it. Thought about the crazy idea he’d been bouncing around in his mind. About how he could maybe start spreading some of that hope around.

  “I never really thanked you,” he said to her. “For all you did. For me. For a lot of people.”

  She frowned, her brow wrinkling slightly. “What do you mean?” she said. She picked at a corner of her napkin.

  “For hiring me,” he said. “That was crucial. That was more than just a cameo role in the story of my success.”

  “I gave you a job, DeShawn. That doesn’t make me a hero.” She cleared her throat and took a sip of water, watching him over the top of the glass.

  “No, you did more than that. The only job I’d had before that—before you took a chance on me—was washing dishes in a diner. You showed me how to take pride in a job well done, how to behave like a professional adult.”

  Her cheeks flushed and she looked down at the table to fiddle with the silverware. “Ugh,” she muttered before taking a deep breath and looking up at him. “Thank you, DeShawn. You’re very kind.”

  That surprised a laugh out of him. “What was that?”

  “Lena is trying to teach me how to gracefully accept a compliment.”

  “Keep practicing,” he said. “It’ll get better. Someday it’ll just be a twinge.”

  “Smart-ass.”

  DeShawn sat back, grinning, as the waitress returned with their plates, piled high with pulled pork and all sorts of deliciousness. He looked at the bottles of sauce on the table and reached for the mustard-based one.

  “Try a dab of the white sauce,” Sadie said as she poured a generous dollop of it on her plate before handing him the bottle. “It’s lured me away from mustard sauce.”

  DeShawn made a concerned face and leaned closer. “Is it legal to not use mustard-based sauce in Charleston now?”

  Sadie snort laughed and that made him laugh. Add another point to why coming home was the best decision. He and the guys used to keep score of how many times they could make Sadie snort laugh. Highest score got Friday night drinks free.

  “Charleston has become very progressive in its acceptance of diverse barbecue sauces.”

  He tried the white sauce—“Meh.”—and went back to his favorite one.

  While they ate, he gathered the courage to speak his idea out loud. Maybe it was too soon. Maybe he needed some time. Stop feeling like a fake. How could he help others when he didn’t fully believe in himself yet?

  “Hey, Sadie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you know where Henry is teaching?”

  Sadie wiped her mouth with her napkin and swallowed a mouthful of pork. “Henry? My Henry?”

  “Yes, your Henry,” he said with a smile.

  Once a Cleaning Crew member, you were family for life. Henry had oriented DeShawn when he first joined the Crew. He’d graduated and gone off to teach a few months later.

  “I don’t remember the actual school, but it’s down near Hilton Head, Beaufort, that area, but inland.”

  DeShawn nodded. That sounded like Henry. Inland. Rural. “Do you have his number?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  He shrugged and felt a bit of heat on his cheeks. Saying it out loud was scarier than he’d expected. But this was Sadie. She wasn’t going to let him wiggle out of an answer. Maybe that was why he’d come to her. He fiddled with his silverware and, keeping his eyes on the table, he blurted it out. “I was thinking that maybe I could talk to kids who come from backgrounds like mine and, I don’t know, help them somehow.” He looked up at her. She had sat back in her chair and was looking at him appraisingly. He looked back down. “Never mind. It’s a stupid idea.”

  “No!” she said. She looked at him directly. “I think it’s an amazing idea. What would you talk to them about?”

  “Well, I haven’t gotten that far with it yet. I think I need to talk to Henry first. Find out if there’s a need. What that need is.”

  Sadie was nodding. “I’m sure there is. There’s always a need.”

  Sighing with relief, he sat back in the chair. Wasn’t that the truth? Always someone who needed a hand up.

  Sadie pulled her phone out of her purse. “Do you remember Lena? My accountant?”

  DeShawn laughed. “Remember? How could anyone forget her? She’s remarkably unforgettable.”

  Sadie narrowed her eyes in a mock show of suspicion. “What are you saying about my best friend?”

  Lifting his hands, palms up, DeShawn smiled. “Not saying anything. She’s a delight. Sunshine on spring flowers.”

  Sadie snorted out a laugh. “Let me give you Henry and Lena’s contact information. Lena did something very similar for the kids out at the Toribio Mission. I’m sure she’d be happy to help you develop this.”

  He loaded the numbers into his phone with a growing sense of excitement. He hadn’t been able to pinpoint the flat feeling he’d had the last few months. Not until this idea had begun to form. All his life, he’d been striving for a goal. Get through high school. Get through college. Get into the army. Even when he’d broken his ankle and his plans changed, it was also a goal. Get the ankle healed, rehab done, qualify for Army National Guard, and get a job. Once all that was accomplished, he’d thought he was done. But instead, he felt like everything had gone too slow, too quiet.

  He needed a new goal. And he thought he might have found it. The quiver of excitement of a new project brought a grin to his lips. “So, what’s this I hear about Lena? She found a man who isn’t afraid of her? Is that actually possible?”

  Sadie laughed. “Matt. Yeah. She’s goofy in love.”

  “Speaking of goofy in love—when’s the wedding? Soon, right?”

  “April.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s gotten out of hand.”

  “That’s just you. Only thing you’d be comfortable with would be going to a UPS store and having the notary marry you on your lunch break or something.”

  “See!” Sadie exclaimed, spreading her arms. “That’s exactly what I wanted. And they all act like I’m the crazy one.”

  DeShawn laughed. He’d missed this. Missed the Crew. Missed Sadie. For the first time since he’d slipped off that ladder and sent his careful plans flying in the wind, he felt everything was going to be okay.

  * * *

  AFTER WRESTLING OVER the check and winning, DeShawn gave Sadie another hug and headed to his car. As he slid behind the wheel, his phone vibrated in his shirt pocket. He fished it out while cranking the engine to get the heat going. Charleston winters were usually mild, but a cold snap was in progress and the temperatures were dipping down into the twenties at night. He swiped left to reject an unknown call and then dropped the phone back in his pocket.

  As he pulled out of the parking lot onto Savannah Highway, the phone meep-meeped, signaling a new voice message. Ignoring it, he drove to the little apartment he called home for now. He didn’t need much. A bedroom. A kitchen. Charleston real estate was crazy expensive right now, s
o his plan was to live as cheaply as possible, pay off his student loans and start building his meager savings. He hoped to buy a condominium after the loans were paid off. If his car held up that long. Start to put down some roots. Build a life here.

  Once home, he changed out of his work clothes into a pair of Deadpool sweat pants and an Iron Man T-shirt. Hey, he liked Marvel Comics. Time to kick back and relax. See what’s new on Hulu. But first he had to make sure that unknown call wasn’t work related. He was sure he had everyone properly identified in his phone, but didn’t want to take a chance.

  He hit the voice mail number and put the phone on speaker. He had one new message. There was a brief pause. He was just about to delete it, thinking it was a robocall, when a hesitant female voice began to speak.

  “DeShawn? This is your mother. Denise? I know we’ve had our troubles but I’ve been clean and sober for three months now. I’d like to talk to you. If you want. Okay? Just...uh...call me back? If you want.”

  He stared at the phone as it went through its beeps and prompts. Save this message? Delete? He hit Delete with a shock-numbed finger and let the phone slip from his hand. His mother. Damn. The stunned feeling began to wear off and he slowly became aware of a simmering anger building in his chest. Not now. Not when he was finally settled. Not when he’d finally crawled out of that whole situation. He’d washed his hands of his family after his grandmother, Momma G, had passed away. She had raised him, had done as right as she could by him.

  But the memories he still had of the times when he had been with his parents, the memories of his parents showing up at all hours of the night after she’d taken him under her wing, made him feel as if he were right back there, in those powerless childhood days and nights of knowing. Of knowing about the drinking, the drugs, the emotional blackmail they’d leverage against Momma G. And it was always money, needing money, when they’d show up and try to make her—Momma G, the only one who’d shown him love and compassion, the one who believed in him—feel like she was the problem, she was the one in the wrong.

  He’d never forget the way his gut would twist when he heard that first hissing sound of a beer can being cracked open, knowing that it was just the start of a night or a weekend-long rollercoaster ride through hell. He remembered feeling his body tense as he heard one or both of them shouting at Momma G. Alone in his room, he’d be too far from the argument to pick out the details, the specific words being thrown out in the air, but the intent, the tone—that was unmistakable.