Apple Brown Betty

by Phillip Thomas Duck

  “It was for the best,” Desmond defended.

  “No argument from me on it being the best for Nora,” Felicia said, “but you might want to send Ms. Nora another candygram. I don’t think the sistah got the message. She was Des-this-ing and Des-that-ing the entire car ride here. I’m glad I just had to deal with it from the train station to here. I couldn’t have stood all that syrup the entire ride from Pennsy. That chick was about to make me diabetic.”

  “She wants to remain close,” Desmond said, sighing.

  Felicia smiled. “She must not know about the legend of Desmond Rucker. No one, regardless of how beautiful, intelligent or whatever, can get close to the black Clark Gable. No one can tame you…not counting Daddy, of course. See you at the table, Romeo.” She tapped Desmond playfully and walked to join the others. Desmond stood in his place, looking like he was searching for his car in a crowded mall parking lot.

  Karen returned to the podium and loudly shuffled the appointment book across the podium surface. “How come you never told me about your pretty friend?” she asked. There was a definite edge in her voice.

  Desmond turned quickly. “What?”

  “Miss America over there,” Karen said, nodding her head in Nora’s direction. “How come you never told me about her?”

  “Nothing to tell really,” Desmond said.

  “You could fool me. You looked like you saw a ghost when she walked in. She had stars in her eyes. There’s definitely history between you two.”

  Desmond tapped the podium and smiled. “Yeah, history, as in of the past, over and done with.” He reached up and touched Karen’s cheek as he left to join his family.

  It was a large crowd at Cush that first night, but sadly, the majority of the patrons were Caucasians. The blacks in the community were not at all supportive, even though the place served food targeted to their taste buds.

  One table had an older white gentleman, gravelly-throated like Redd Foxx, wearing a black mock turtleneck, a tweed jacket and purplish tinted shades. He was entertaining a brunette too young to realize she resembled Raquel Welch. Mr. White Foxx kept the waitresses busy, ordering multiple glasses of the most expensive champagne. One of the waitresses suggested he purchase a bottle, but he brushed her off, telling her neither he nor his date were big drinkers.

  At another table, the mayor of a nearby municipality entertained a party of seven—all of them big-time political movers and shakers. Loud raucous laughter emanated from the table every few seconds. For serious-minded folks, they surely were having themselves a blast.

  Off in the romantic corner of the restaurant, a young man with reddened cheeks kept peering over his shoulder as his giggly girlfriend continued to ask him why he was acting so funny. After much prodding, he reached in his side pocket, pulled out a velvet-covered jewelry box and dropped to his knee. Her giggles stopped, replaced by the heavy fanning of her hands and a high-pitched squeal.

  “You must be mighty proud of this turnout, baby,” Desmond’s mother called to him from across the table. Desmond nodded, looking at Nora out of the corner of his eye.

  “Looks almost as good as our first place on opening night,” Desmond’s father added.

  Nora leaned in, a slice of cleavage appearing, and reached across Desmond to retrieve a pat of butter from the butter bowl. “Excuse me,” she said in that breathy soft tone that she knew made Desmond wild with heat. Desmond shot a glance at his sister across the table; she looked away and smiled.

  “Build this up the right way,” Frank Rucker offered, “before you start going and thinking about expanding or opening up another one. Too many restaurants fail because the owners move so fast. I can already see from looking at your menu that you’ve got quite a bit of a learning curve. Some of these entrées and appetizers seem out of place in here.” Desmond nodded, thankful for the advice. He scanned his mother and father. Over thirty years they’d been married. Just another reminder of his father’s immense success, another yardstick that Desmond was afraid he’d never measure up to.

  “So what do you think, Felicia?” Desmond asked his sister.

  “Bangin’ like I thought it would be,” she said.

  “Bangin’?” Mrs. Rucker asked. “I suppose you’re not looking to be a contestant on Wheel of Fortune. Or ever get yourself a decent job.”

  “Come on, Mommy,” Felicia said, leaning her head on her mother’s shoulder. “That’s just the youth vernacular of the times. I’m sure if I went back to like ’67, ’68, when you and Daddy were young and carefree, I’d find you guys in bell-bottoms with big Afros, talking jive and doing God knows what.”

  Mrs. Rucker looked at her husband. “You remember that old Volkswagen with the broken passenger-side door?”

  Frank smiled. “I would always get in first and make you climb over me.”

  Mrs. Rucker’s eyes glazed over in remembrance. “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “And you’d always cop a feel, too.” They broke off into a soul-shaking kiss, oblivious to the others at the table.

  “Get a room,” Felicia said, breaking them apart. She looked over toward Nora. “I apologize that you had to witness this.”

  Nora waved her hand. “I think it’s nice, your parents still in love after all these years. All the memories…”

  “We weren’t in that broken Volkswagen for long though,” Mr. Rucker added, breaking from his wife’s warmth. “Our next car was a top-of-the-line Lincoln, been in luxury vehicles ever since.” He looked directly at Desmond as he said this.

  Desmond cleared his throat, nodded toward the jazz band. “What do you guys think of the live music?”

  Everyone turned to the ensemble on the platform at the back of the restaurant.

  “Loud and a bit off-tune,” Mr. Rucker said.

  “I might want to get up and dance to that loud, off-tune swing,” Barbara Rucker added, pinching her lips together seductively as she looked at her husband out of the corner of her eye.

  “Nice,” Nora said. She looked over at Desmond. “Just the thought, dancing cheek to cheek to a slow, romantic song, is…nice.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Slay pulled his BMW 745 up to the curb and idled. The burgundy exterior and gray leather interior held not one trace of dirt. He turned the volume up a decibel when his CD went to track six on Nas’s The Lost Tapes album. “Blaze A 50”—a banging morality tale about the downside of violence and greed oozed through Slay’s state-of-the-art stereo system. Slay nodded his head to the bass and prodigious drums. That Nas sure had a way with words.

  Slay looked in his rearview mirror and noticed a police patrol car approaching. He blinked hard to see if they were one of his own and smiled when he realized they were. The patrol car slowed as it passed and the officer gave Slay a slight head nod. Slay nodded in return.

  Waiting for this fool, Gabriel “Tuffy” Gibson, was working on Slay’s last nerve. Didn’t this young cat know making your boss wait set a bad impression? Slay tapped the steering wheel, thinking back on his sister’s behavior the night before. Off in her bedroom, whispering on the phone to someone—she wouldn’t tell who. He’d have to keep a closer watch on Cydney, not let so much time pass between visits. It was obvious she needed his guidance and direction, even though she was older. Up in that apartment acting like she didn’t know the streets. Acting like she didn’t grow up in the ’hood. Trying to block out any and everything that reminded her of how it was, coming up. Some things just wouldn’t go away that easily. He looked at himself in the rearview mirror.

  Slay thought about Theresa. He’d hit her with some of the shit he’d picked up reading through Cydney’s Essence magazines. And now that Cydney had given him some quick pointers on making himself more presentable to that caliber of female, he’d do more than just watch Theresa walk from her car to Patterson Auditorium at Mainland University. He’d place himself strategically by those large bushes right outside the entrance and when she moved to pass, he’d strike up a conversation. Dazzle her by mentioning the title of t
hat book his sister told him about. Hopefully, Theresa wouldn’t press him about the book, because he couldn’t remember how Cydney said it ended. Maybe he’d give Cydney a call later and have her run through it one more time.

  Out of the shadows from across the street, Slay spied Tuffy headed his way, smoking on a cancer stick as usual. He had to admit that was one brash shorty. That’s why Slay used him for more and more of his side projects. It took serious guts to keep Slay waiting like this and Tuffy didn’t appear to have any hurry in his step.

  Tuffy came to the passenger side of the vehicle and opened the door. Slay turned down the volume on his stereo. “Hey, yo,” Slay said as Tuffy moved to get in. “Hold up, shorty. You can’t be tracking that dirt in my shit. And kill the smokes.”

  Tuffy looked down at his Timberlands. They were caked with grass, mud and sand.

  Slay clicked a button on his key chain; his trunk lid rose. “I got shopping bags back there, double something up to free a bag and put your boots in there. You can hold them on your lap.”

  Tuffy seemed irked, but wisely said nothing. Slay had to smile as he took in the look the boy gave him before he walked to the back of the car.

  Tuffy scanned the bags in the trunk: Victoria’s Secret; Macy’s; Bed, Bath & Beyond—everything all frilly and sweet scented. Dang if this Slay wasn’t a player. Tuffy pulled a lingerie set from the Vicki’s Secret bag, put it down with the lingerie set in the Macy’s bag and pulled off his unlaced Timberlands. He dropped his boots in the bag. He carefully closed the trunk and moved to get in the BMW, tossing his cigarette to the curb as he grabbed the door handle.

  “You should have sat down in the car with your feet out, took off your boots, then bagged them,” Slay told him. “Your socks got a little dirt on them now. You still tracked some shit in here.”

  “My bad,” Tuffy replied.

  Slay shook his head. “You’re late, too.” He knew Tuffy’s reply before it even came—My bad.

  Tuffy held up the shopping bag holding his Timbs. “You sure got a lotta stuff back there for the females.”

  Slay nodded. “Ladies like to look and smell nice. They like the feel of silk, and the smell of flowers on their skin,” Slay schooled him. “And more importantly, men like seeing them in that stuff. It makes them more willing to part with their hard-earned money.”

  “Well, you in, then,” Tuffy said. “S’like a mall back there.”

  True. But Slay had other business to attend to; he’d expound on the ladies some other time. He nodded to his dashboard. An early edition of the Asbury Park Press sat on the edge, folded back, a portion of the newspaper’s text highlighted in yellow. Tuffy picked up the paper and looked over the text.

  The Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office and the Asbury Park Police Department are requesting any assistance and information concerning the investigation into the murder of George A. Williams. On Saturday, October 3, 2002, George Williams, 56 years old and a longtime resident of Asbury Park, was discovered murdered along the boardwalk on Ocean Avenue, victim of three gunshots.

  George Williams. Slay’s stepfather. Not that Slay actually considered the man to be his stepfather. Just some dude that stole his mother’s and sister’s hearts.

  Tuffy placed the paper back on the dash, turned to Slay. “My condolences,” he said with no irony in his voice.

  “You wanna tell me what happened?” Slay asked.

  “George got himself dead,” Tuffy said.

  “I told you to ‘hem’ him up, Tuffy. Not kill him.”

  “I meant to just ‘buck fifty’ his face like you had said,” Tuffy said, “but I reached in the wrong pocket. My heat is in my right and my blade is in my left.” Buck fifty was street slang for a vicious slash that required one hundred and fifty stitches to mend. “I got crossed and reached in my right instead of my left.”

  “Dang, Tuff.”

  “You mad?”

  Slay sighed. Took the newspaper and folded it away from the article about George. “He give you any problems?”

  Tuffy shook his head, his eyes wide in remembrance. “Nah, when I moved to bounce on him, he rushed me like you said he would. That old school pride. That’s when I deaded him. Spit on him for good measure.”

  Slay nodded. “Right, right.” Kept nodding, trying to calm his churning stomach. He was losing the edge needed for this tough, brutal, unkind world.

  “How ya moms takin’ it?”

  Wrinkles moved to the edges of Slay’s eyes as he narrowed them. “Hard, but she’ll pull through, she’s been through this before.”

  “Sister?”

  “Doesn’t know yet,” Slay said. “My good old sister is about as removed from this neighborhood as she can be. Lives less than fifteen minutes away and won’t darken our mama’s doorstep. She doesn’t keep up on anything to do with Asbury Park.” Slay changed the tone of his voice, mocking, “She reads the New York Times. Wouldn’t think of opening the Asbury Park Press.”

  “Oh, word,” Tuffy said. “I feel her. Me neither.”

  Slay reached into his pocket, pulled a thick wad of bills and placed them on the dash in front of Tuffy. Tuffy reached up, took the bills, placed the money in the inside pocket of his black FUBU jean jacket.

  “You sure no one saw you?” Slay asked.

  “Nada soul, it was just me and poor Georgie. I did okay with this, Slay?”

  “Yeah,” Slay said hesitantly.

  “Kewl. I hope you can use me for some more stuff.”

  Slay nodded.

  Tuffy extended his hand and they tapped fists. He opened the door, tapped the rolled-up window as he moved to part and bopped up the street. Slay watched Tuffy walk into the Chinese Jade take-out restaurant and then he moved to drive off. He did an illegal U-turn and headed off in the other direction, his Nas CD turned way up again.

  No.

  How many times did Desmond say it before it morphed to yes? Not enough times, he thought now as he stood naked over his bed and watched Nora sleeping beneath his covers. This was a major step backward for him. What’s done is supposed to stay done. But Nora, like most women, had a finger pressed to his pulse. She was beautiful, sophisticated, had a wicked sense of humor and a puppy dog’s loyalty. Anything she put her mind to, Desmond was sure she could achieve. Everything, that is, except taking Rucker as her last name.

  Regret sat heavy in Desmond’s stomach as he considered this grave mistake. It wasn’t in his nature to bring muddy footsteps onto anyone else’s polished floors. Yet, here he had trampled through Nora’s house again, leaving his tracks everywhere, pained in the knowledge that she wouldn’t be able to remove these tracks for a long time, and worse yet, the walls of her home would come tumbling down.

  He thought back to the evening prior. He was exhausted from his opening night, exhilarated by the presence of his family, broken down by Nora’s incessant plea for a “crumb of his time” when his parents prepared to drop Felicia back at the train station for her hop to New York and then leave for the drive back to Pennsylvania.

  “I can get a way back,” Nora insisted. “I’d just like to spend this special night with you, talk over some of the things we never did get settled. Can’t you give me that much?”

  Could he give her that much?

  No.

  “That’s awful harsh of you” was her response.

  No.

  She didn’t stop. “I never did you any harm.”

  No.

  “I treated you like a man deserved to be treated.”

  No.

  “I gave you my heart and my soul and now you dare to devalue that, tell me it doesn’t equal a few hours of your time in return?”

  Next thing he knew, they were headed to his home. He drove his Range Rover in silence. She looked out the window at the central New Jersey landscape in awe.

  “I must say I didn’t get the full impression of how beautiful New Jersey is from that area around your restaurant. Your place is it on that strip. But, this…this is all ab
solutely beautiful.”

  They were traveling down Ocean Avenue, the homes of IT wizards, stock-market geeks and other white-collar benefactors whirring by as Desmond drove.

  “These houses are showy,” Desmond offered.

  “What about your place?” Nora asked.

  Desmond smiled for the first time since he’d been alone in her presence. “Showy.”

  “So your place is all that?” she asked.

  “And some,” he said. He was disappointed and relieved that his parents didn’t have the time to check it out on this trip.

  “I would have loved to help you decorate.”

  He let the comment drift to that place where uncomfortable thoughts went. Let it settle beside all the other things she’d said to him tonight that he had no reply for.

  “So, have you met anyone since you’ve been here?” Nora asked.

  “I’ve met a lot of folks.”

  “Women?” Nora asked.

  “Men and children, too.”

  “You know what I mean, Des.”

  He looked to her, one of the few times he gave her the benefit of his gaze. “No, I haven’t.”

  She seemed pleased, eased her taut body back in her seat. Turned and looked out the window again at the passing castles. About a mile farther in their travel, she turned to him again. “You’re not going to ask me if I’ve met anyone since our…?” She couldn’t finish it, hoping it wasn’t finished.

  He shook his head. She felt her eyes tearing, breaking the promise she’d made them commit to. No crying. She touched his hand on the steering wheel. “What could I do better, Des? What is it about me that I could improve?”

  Desmond didn’t take long to answer. “Nothing, Nora. You’re as close to perfect as they come.”

  “That means—”

  “That means you need to move on with your life and find someone who can appreciate all that you are,” he said, cutting her off.

  “I still think you can be that someone,” she replied, defiant.

  He smiled, not really a smile, though. “Okay, I found your one flaw.”