Just Marry Me Already (BWWM Romance Book 1)

by Ayo Campbell

  She got pregnant three times, and so became well versed in the ins and outs of the Planned Parenthood clinics. She understood ways to protect herself, but she was often so high that she just neglected it.

  She’d never considered herself a slut or a whore, and she managed to ignore the kids in high school who’d call her those names. She just liked to go out on dates, get high, and have fun.

  Her mother, however, was not unaware of what Vanessa was growing into, and she often sat the girl down to some soul wrenching heart-to-hearts. Sometimes Vanessa would see the light, and try hard to go clean, but then some young thug would stroll up to her, brimming with gold, an eight-ball and more in his pocket, and she’d think ‘just this once.’

  She was arrested for possession and conspiracy the night her date’s house got raided. The woman judge took pity, but more on the weeping Ellen than the surly Vanessa, and gave the girl a suspended sentence, provided that she get drug counseling. But drug counseling centers were sprouting like weeds in the Boston of those days, and most of them just gave a souped-up version of DARE; that silly program that Vanessa had been forced to sit through since fifth grade.

  She had just graduated high school, and she was griped with that fear teenagers have for the future. She had real hopes for the cosmetology school that she’d be attending in the fall, so she did her best, and got clean and sober. But one of her regular dates didn’t quite respect that. She woke up that next morning naked on a filthy old mattress, a one hundred dollar bill rammed into her, and a sticky, drying facial.

  She hated herself. She had become nothing more than a thug’s toy, and she was horrified that she would never amount to anything more. She wept then and there for that little girl who would always do her homework, and loved fried chicken and watermelon. She hated her life, she hated Brookline, she hated Boston, and she blamed the city for dragging her so low and trampling her as it did. But most of all she hated the thought of ever being able to look her mother in the eye again.

  She dressed in her tattered clothes. She ran home where she took a near-scalding shower. Then she packed a bag and, using the dirty hundred dollar bill, she got on a bus to the farthest place that she could find: Seattle, Washington.

  The ride was long and dreary, and in so many ways just like her life; get started, get going, slow down, and stop – over and over and over. But the ride was sobering, and when she stepped out in downtown Seattle, she had a new mind. She ignored the thugs and riff-raff, and went straight to the traveler’s aid station. They found her a room, and soon enough she found a job doing the only thing that she knew how: washing dishes at Tula’s Jazz Club and Restaurant.

  She worked seven nights a week, and every night there was an act. The music streamed into the noisy, steamy kitchen, the bass lines thrumming through the walls. And through those rhythms, she heard her brother’s unplugged plucking.

  Jasmine, the restaurant’s hostess, took a liking to Vanessa and her work ethic. She kept her eye on the girl, and soon enough, Vanessa was waiting tables. The young and pretty black girl did well in tips, and she naturally grooved to the music. Seeing so much more in Vanessa, Jasmine encouraged her to go to school.

  Vanessa was comfortable in the trendy club, and so rather than looking into cosmetology, or the local community college, Vanessa took courses in mixology, hoping to be of more value to her boss. Years later, she was working on her kitchen certification when the phone call came from a lawyer back in Boston, and her world changed again.

  She arrived home just in time for the funeral. There were few people at the gravesite. Aside from the minister and his attendant, there was a young girl with her strange hairdo done in shocking pink; a tall, skinny, elderly oriental woman with brilliant platinum blonde hair; a man of undetermined age in a rumpled trench coat; and there was the lawyer.

  After the body was in the ground, and the others left, the lawyer gave her his card, telling her that they should talk the next day. They made a mid-morning appointment. He also handed her a set of old keys.

  It was late afternoon when she arrived at Roxy’s, the little bell above the door tinkling. The place was immaculate. It was also different than she had remembered. The old counter-top TV was gone. The spinning stools were the same, but had been reupholstered. The floor had been tiled over, and the tables and chairs were new. But the sign was still there:

  Eat Mo’ Bettah

  It looked fresh, as if it had been recently renovated. The whole place looked good. Things must have been going well for her mother. Vanessa had opened a shiny new menu, thumbing down the selections, wondering what she was going to do, when the bell above the door tinkled. She looked up, somewhat surprised.

  “We–we’re not open,” she said.

  “I know,” the man said, taking the corner stool that she used to haunt.

  Vanessa stood, flustered. The man had just waltzed in and made himself at home. Then she recognized him from the grave.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But we’re closed. My mother…you understand...”

  “I know,” the man said, turning to her. “So, when are you going to open?”

  Chapter 2

  Vanessa stared at him. He wasn’t as old as she had thought at the gravesite; maybe he was in his early thirties. But he had the look of someone worn down by something hard. His short ponytail had those wisps of grey that presidents would get in their first years in office. His face was all sharp, hard lines, his nose almost hawk-like, and his thin lips firm and set. He was a white man, but he was a white man who had seen the sun face to face; his tawny complexion was like wet sand at sunset, and yet his face had the shadows of wrinkles that she had seen in sailors back in Seattle.

  But it was his eyes that captured her. The whites were clear and almost bright, while the brown irises were dark; they seemed brooding and set deep, giving him the look of a chess player lost in concentration. And, for all that Vanessa had known in her life, and for all that she had seen, she knew that behind those eyes was something.

  Yet he was so…so crumpled. His hair was shaggy, he hadn’t shaved in days, his trench coat looked as though he had slept in it, his pants were stained, and his shoes were well worn. She expected, that if she moved too close, that he would smell.

  “I’m sorry, Mister,” Vanessa said. “But I just buried my mother.”

  “I know. I was there,” he said, not moving. “You Vanessa?”

  “Yes,” she said, looking for the knife rack. “So, you can imagine how I feel right now. I – I sort of grew up in this place and–”

  “Boy,” he said, shaking his head and looking around. “What I would have given to have grown up in a place like this.”

  “Were you a friend of my mother’s?”

  “I was.”

  Just then the door bell tinkled, and the two women from the grave entered. The pink-haired girl looked up at Vanessa, while the older woman looked to the floor.

  The younger girl had to have fifty-two inch hips and a forty-eight bust. Yet she wore skin tight white jeans and a pink tank that was cut so low her boobs threatened to spill out. Her hair was shaved up the left side and frosted gold. Her ear had six silver piercings up the long side, and a ring-hole in her lobe that a finger could pass through. On the right side, her hair was done in a fifties-style flip, but in brilliant pink with frosty blue tips. She had blue eyes, and her lashes were dusted with silver glitter.

  “Vanessa,” the man said. “This is Colleen.”

  “Hello,” the girl said.

  “Vanessa is Momma Ellen’s daughter.”

  The other woman was very tall and very old. Her gleaming platinum blonde hair was obviously a salon job. It was long and tied in a braid that stretched down below her rear. She wore a simple white caftan over frayed jeans. Her bare feet were slid into well worn sandals, and her toes looked gnarly.

  “And that’s Bootsy,” the man added.

  “Zin chao,” the woman said, softly.

  “What?” Vanessa asked.<
br />
  “I said, ‘ello,” the woman said with a slight French lilt.

  “She’s from Viet Nam,” the man said. “Bootsy is your cook, she’s been with your mother – what? Five, six years now?”

  Bootsy smiled, and nodded.

  “She likes to punch up the dirty rice,” the man said, “with some Vietnamese flavors.”

  “Lemongrass,” Bootsy said.

  “Yeah, and a bunch of other things,” the man said. “But, Vanessa, you need to understand that Bootsy here is in the country on a special visa. There’s some bad guys in Viet Nam who don’t like her.”

  “Snakeheads,” Bootsy said. “Bad boys. I cross them big time. They ever find me, oh mon dieu, even an old chienne like me.”

  “Yeah,” the man said. “So, Bootsy has a special visa, but it is contingent on her having regular and continuous employment.”

  “Roxy’s!” Bootsy said.

  “You following me?” the man asked.

  “I think,” Vanessa said.

  “Cool. Now, behind door number two, there’s Colleen.”

  “Call me Collie,” the girl said, wiggling her fingers. “And, it’s okay if you don’t wanna play. I get that. I mean, you had a life out on the west coast and all. I get that.”

  “Play what?” Vanessa asked.

  “Restaurant,” the man said. “Last summer, Collie got busted for solicitation, her second offense. She’s been waitressing here for, like, nine months. She lives at the Warren Street Y. Grows orchids in a window box. Plays speed chess over at the Reservoir Park on her day off. Hates politics, likes women.”

  “Jeez,” the girl said. “Gonna give her my bra size too?”

  “Forty-six,” the man said. “Double-D.”

  “Sheesh.”

  Vanessa stood looking at the three people looking at her. She was confused and upset enough with her mother’s death and having to fly out there and deal with that. She wasn’t ready for this, for two people looking to her as the person holding their futures. Beyond the cool demeanor, Collie had a pensive, almost frightened look in her eyes. Bootsy looked almost resigned, as if to say ‘not again.’ The man just looked at her, his eyes expressionless.

  Vanessa thought back to that afternoon when that Lillian woman had walked away from the place, leaving her mother with three sets of eyes looking to her. She turned to the man.

  “And, just who are you?” she asked.

  “I’m Justin,” he said. “I’m the customer.”

  “So, look,” Collie began. “It’s Wednesday; senior day. We got a early-bird special that starts at four. It’s after three. What are we gonna do? I need this job.”

  Vanessa sighed a silent sigh. She shook her head and, slipping off her heels, she climbed up a stool and onto the counter. There she took off her black shawl and draped it lovingly around the sign.

  “Gonna eat mo’ bettah,” she said, slipping down from the counter. “Where’s the switch for the lights?”

  The sixty-watt humming began above as the ceiling fans began to turn. In no time, Vanessa heard clattering from the kitchen and began to smell coffee brewing.

  “What’s your special, Bootsy?” Collie called.

  “Jerk chicken.”

  “You,” she said to Vanessa. “I need a stack of dessert plates and the clean silver out here, please.”

  “Um,” Vanessa said. “Where…?”

  “Let’s see,” Collie said as she began drawing on the special’s board. “If I were a stack of clean dishes and silverware in a restaurant, where would I hide?”

  Vanessa flushed slightly and went into the dish room. She knew her way well. The smell of the place brought back the memory of a young girl’s feelings; excited to be working an important job, even if she did have to stand on a vegetable crate and could barely manage to reach into the industrial dishwasher. In those days, the dishes she would carry would be hot and her belly would be wet, despite the apron. Now the dishes were cold, her belly dry, and she wondered how long place had been dark.

  At the counter, Justin had his coffee and was doing a crossword puzzle. The chalkboard special’s sign had a drawing of a dim-witted chicken crossing a street, a truck barreling down on her. The caption read ‘Why did the chicken cross the road? Because she’s a – Jerk Chicken $9.95’. Collie was an artist. She was behind the counter filling ramekins with relishes and sauces. Wonderful aromas began wafting from the kitchen.

  “’Nessa,” Bootsy called from the kitchen. “You chop?”

  “What?”

  In no time, Vanessa found herself in the kitchen with an apron on over her good black dress, chopping greens for the salads. Bootsy had several chicken leg and thigh quarters charring on the grill while she saw to warming a pot of dirty rice and another pot of red beans.

  The door bell began to tinkle and chime, and soon enough Collie was tapping the window bell calling, “Order up”. The order wheel was in motion, and so was Bootsy. The woman was cooking and plating, calling out to Vanessa for salads or to dish out portions of rice. Vanessa found the rhythm, and after she’d found her way around the kitchen, she became a part of the dinner service. And when Collie called out, “Buss,” she knew what to do. She ran with a buss pan into the dining room to clear tables. She was amazed at the turnout. Nearly every table was full.

  “Holy shit,” she said, as she lugged her third tub into the dish room.

  “Language!” Bootsy cried. “Momma Ellen never truck with bad language. You respect.”

  “Sorry,” Vanessa said.

  And then, seeing that the dishes were beginning to pile up, she realized what she needed to do. Her heels were a ridiculous danger in the corrugated cells of the dish-room floor mats, so she kicked them off. The steam from the dishwasher played havoc with her hairdo. Bootsy kept calling her for salads. Collie kept calling her for bussing. The air was rife with wonderful aromas and the dining room was full of silver-haired customers. She and Collie and Bootsy ran and raced to serve and please.

  And then, as Vanessa closed the dishwasher around another rack, she paused. She stood listening. The place seemed quiet. The hurley-burley and the noises had vanished. It was calm. She pressed the button, and the mega washer began its cycle.

  Despite the hard muslin apron, her belly was wet. She was sure that she had ruined the dress. Her hair felt damp and lank. In her bare feet, her stockings were tatters.

  “Nessa!” Bootsy called. “Break time. Come. Eat.”

  Vanessa walked to the main room. There, Collie and Bootsy sat at a corner table, digging into the plates of food before them. The two women looked at her, then down at her feet. Their eyes grew wide.

  “You stupid?” Bootsy said.

  “Girl,” Collie said. “Barefoot is for the park, not the kitchen.”

  “My shoes,” Vanessa began. “I was in heels. They kept catching on that rubber shit—”

  “Language!” Bootsy yelled.

  “On those rubber mats,” Vanessa said.

  “You got any other clothes?” Collie asked.

  “I had a bag when I came in.”

  “Oh. That’s what that was. I shoved it under the coat rack.”

  “Maybe I should change,” Vanessa said, chuckling.

  “Eat,” Bootsy said. “I saved you crispy good chicken. Eat first.”

  Vanessa did, and she relished the soul in the food. Tula’s food was fine, but it was seasoned and tailored to the young gentry of Seattle. Roxy’s was in the heart of old Boston, and in that heart was the soul of every kind of old black man, woman, or child who had come up from somewhere. Vanessa ate like she did when she was a child.

  Her plate clean, she grabbed her bag and slipped into the back room. The back room had a Spartan office. There was a desk with no computer, but rather three old, leather bound ledgers and a calendar as a blotter. There was a coffee mug brimming with pencils and pens. In one corner saw a low, antique safe. She had never remembered seeing that, and as a child, with her eyes at three feet, it should have
been in her view. But then, a child at three feet was always looking up.

  Against the back wall was a door that she didn’t remember. Behind the door was a small apartment. She walked into a living room furnished with an over-stuffed chair, an under-stuffed settee, and a small television on a low table. A green and red braided rug lay in the center, its braids fraying below the TV.

  Adjacent was a small kitchen that had an old refrigerator, a hotplate, and a porcelain utility sink. The appliances were immaculate, almost gleaming. In the refrigerator were a bag of oranges; a pound of butter, used, but neatly wrapped in its wax paper; six eggs in their cardboard carton; a quart of milk; several neatly wrapped slices of American cheese; and a half loaf of Levi’s Jewish Rye.

  With a restaurant full of food within reach, Vanessa wondered why her mother would think these important. But then she realized that her mother would never raid the restaurant.

  Beyond the kitchen was a bedroom with no door. In there was a single bed, its head and foot-boards solid, red stained with old varnished. The mattress felt new, but the box-spring was old. Vanessa sat on it, and it both gave and sprang.

  There was a chest of drawers against a wall by a window. On top of that was a broad, oval mirror tray with a gold-like filigree frame and four gold-like tiny claw feet. On that mirror-tray Ellen had her best costume jewelry. There were gold-plate rings with polished stones. There were a few cunningly crafted necklaces along side of gold chains that had a green tinge, strange stones as pendants. There were clip-on earrings, some subtle glass, some dangling nickel, some faux pearl.

  Vanessa didn’t want to open her mother’s bureau – not just then.

  Instead, she hefted her bag onto the bed, and changed into jeans, a tee, and good socks and sneakers. She found an adjoining, cramped bathroom. It was only a toilet, a sink, and a shower stall. On the shower’s curtain rod, her mother’s underwear hung. Vanessa turned away.