Champagne Life

by Nicole Bradshaw

  I searched the entire upper shelf for the bottle but could not find it. In the cabinet, I pushed aside the canned spaghetti sauce, the box of instant mushroom noodles and even the canister of dehydrated gravy, which I had only used once for a Thanksgiving dinner two years ago. I still couldn’t locate the four-ounce bottle of real vanilla. I didn’t splurge on much. My purses could come from Walmart and my sandals from Payless, but my baking supplies and my lip glosses—they had to be top-notch.

  I opened up the next cabinet and began frantically searching. I reached behind the package of brown rice and found the box of mac and cheese I had searched for last week and a single dusty pack of beef-flavored ramen noodles. Those noodles had to have been stashed back there from last year or so.

  Since buying this house, DeShaun and I hadn’t changed a thing in our three-bedroom, two-story contemporary home outside of Philly. We made a few updates here and there, like stainless steel appliances since I loved to bake, and minor updates to the three bathrooms, but other than that, I considered our cozy place perfect. DeShaun wanted to add another bedroom for all the kids he wanted, but thank goodness I was able to hold him off that—the kids and the bedroom.

  I pulled open the cabinet above the sink.

  Aha! There it was, hiding behind the box of instant mashed potatoes. I poured a teaspoonful of vanilla into the wet mixture and stirred.

  You could not pay me a million dollars to enjoy cooking, but baking, that was a different story.

  When I was a kid, Mom introduced me to baking by way of homemade apple pie made with granny smith apples. She taught me how to treat and slice the apples so that they were thin enough to properly cook, but thick enough to hold on to the gooey sweetness of the sugar and cinnamon mixture. One holiday—I wasn’t sure if it was Thanksgiving or Christmas—we woke up early, before the sun rose, and spent the morning peeling and slicing apples. It was a moment when I remembered being truly happy. By the time the sun was high in the sky, the entire house smelled like the sweet sensation of Momma’s homemade apple pie. My mouth watered from merely thinking about it.

  “What smells good in here, Mimi?” DeShaun entered the kitchen, wearing only a beige terrycloth towel wrapped around his midsection.

  We had spent the entire Sunday afternoon, making love. While he slept, I was full of energy, so I hopped out of bed and started baking chocolate chunk cookies, one of DeShaun’s favorites.

  “It’s a surprise.” I sifted through the bottom kitchen cabinets in search of the electric mixer.

  He dug his index finger into the open bag of flour and flung it at me. I ducked and the flyaway flour missed. He then dipped his finger into my batter. “I put it on you that good that you had to jump out of bed and bake me cookies? Now that’s what I’m talking ’bout.” He raised his finger to his mouth and sucked off the chocolaty goodness. “Mmmm, this is almost as good as your sexy chocolate.” He smacked my backside. He took four fingers and dunked them into the mixture once again, this time producing a big chunk of batter and shoveling it into his mouth.

  “Hey, I need that, you know.”

  “It tastes different.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.” Greedily, he licked off the remaining batter on his fingers. “Am I tasting a hint of peanut butter?”

  “Yup. I’m trying something a little different. What do you think?”

  “You should sell these things. They are damn delicious.”

  “Aw, thanks.” With mitted hands, I went to the oven and pulled out my first batch. I reached over to the counter and stuck in the awaiting second, and last, batch.

  He sidled up next to me. “How long is that going to take?” He grabbed my waist and then planted a small peck on my forehead, then my cheek.

  “Why?”

  He looked down, grinned and then tugged at the hem of my lace boy short panties. “I’m ready for round two.”

  “Hmmmm, really? Didn’t we have round two about an hour ago? I think we’re up to three.”

  “Whatever, I just know I’m ready.” He whipped off the towel wrapped around his waist and let it fall to the tiled floor. Standing in his nakedness in the middle of the kitchen, I saw his member slowly rise to attention and salute me. “Hurry up and finish those cookies,” he said, turning and heading back into the bedroom. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  I turned off the oven, pulled out the last batch of underdone cookies and placed them onto the countertop. I scooped up several fully baked cookies from the last batch. I licked away the warm, melted chocolate chips from my fingertips as I headed back into the bedroom

  Tonight we were having dessert in bed.

  Naomi

  Mrs. Leanora Pritcherd was a stodgy old lady who reminded me of those demons in horror movies. She looked sweet and innocent on the outside, but once you got to know her, you realized she was Satan’s second coming, disguised in a pink and blue floral dress that she wore at a minimum twice a week, and yes, she was in the bank that often, which, for the life of me I couldn’t understand why. Perhaps loneliness or boredom was the bane of her existence. Mine was spotting her on the curb Monday mornings, waiting for Percy, the bank guard, to unlock the double glass doors. As soon as he did this morning, Mrs. Pritcherd made a beeline straight for my counter. She clunked her brown leather purse onto the marble countertop and pulled out a tattered, stained handkerchief stuffed with coins. She told me she wanted to open a new account.

  She may not have dressed the part, but Mrs. Pritcherd had plenty of money. She had a savings account of over sixty-seven thousand dollars. I also knew she had at least two other accounts with different banks. On several occasions, I thought about what I would do with all that money, the first being to get rid of those damn credit card bills. After that, DeShaun and I would go on vacation; it didn’t matter where, just somewhere.

  I wondered if she would even notice if a few bills were gone.

  Customers—usually older folks who didn’t have direct deposit—filed in as soon as the doors opened. In most cases, they deposited their social security checks or the meager paychecks from part-time jobs since they couldn’t afford to retire. The thought of someday not being able to relieve my weary mind and body from the hustle of the grind gave me nightmares.

  Each week, as the older folks handed me their deposit slips, I reminded them that direct deposit was an option and even gave them the necessary paperwork. Every Monday, they returned bright and early, with their check in hand.

  “I need the best possible rate.” On this particular morning, Mrs. Pritcherd was more incensed than usual. “You banks are always trying to cheat me out of my money.”

  I glanced at the line of impatient customers behind Mrs. Pritcherd. Half of them looked to me, pleading with their eyes to tell her to hit the road—or at the very least, go to the next teller.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I told her. “I’ll be sure to give you the best rate possible.”

  Several customers groaned and grudgingly changed lines.

  “Is there a problem?” Jeremy Butler, another teller, walked up behind me. He stood so close, I could smell the cinnamon on his breath from the breakfast bun he ate this morning. “You’ve been on your feet all morning, Naomi,” he told me. “Why don’t you take a break? I’ll handle Mrs. Pritcherd.”

  “I’m supposed to be on my feet. It’s what we do. Besides, I only got here thirty minutes ago.”

  He placed the palm of his hand on the small of my back. “I got this. You go take a break.”

  I shifted away from his inappropriate touch. “I’m fine. Go ahead and do whatever it was you were doing.”

  “I’m only offering because Rebecca wants you to finish up filing that stuff.”

  “What stuff?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. She told me to tell you to file some junk.” He turned to Mrs. Pritcherd, who was fidgeting impatiently on the other side of the counter. “I’d be more than happy to take care of Mrs. Pritcherd.”

  Mrs. Pritcherd w
asn’t going to make this easy. She nodded in my direction. “I normally deal with her.”

  In a perverted sense of justice, I smiled, hoping she would insist I deal with her. Normally, I would relish in someone taking away a headache, but Jeremy was a jerk; a real jackass whose aunt was the branch manager. Being the stereotypical pretty boy type with light skin and curly hair bothered me about him, too. Jeremy Butler was that guy who always got what he wanted, today, yesterday and forever. I had overheard him talking about his days as homecoming king and being president of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity during his single year at Howard University. He never finished college, though, and I never cared enough to find out why.

  “She has been my teller since I started coming to this bank,” Mrs. Pritcherd complained.

  “It’s warm in here, isn’t it?” Jeremy unfastened the top button of his white polo shirt. I rolled my eyes. It pissed me off that a few of the younger, thirsty girls stared at him like he was the flyest cat in the world. To me, he was kind of short and looked scraggly with his five o’clock shadow.

  Did Mrs. Pritcherd just check him out, too?

  “I understand you normally deal with Ms. Knowles, which is precisely why I am going to treat you as my special customer. When we finish here, I will personally walk you over to our new accounts department.” When Jeremy flashed a grin and gave a wink, it was all over for old lady Pritcherd. It was also all over for my breakfast.

  She took a second to respond, but eventually that old woman cracked a crooked smile, exposing stained, chipped dentures. “I suppose that’s fine,” she said, finding it difficult to keep her sour demeanor. “Start off with cashing in this loose change.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a glass jar. “I have at least one hundred dollars’ worth of change and I want to use that to start my new account.”

  “I’ll be going on break now.” I grinned as I headed off to the back, toward the lounge. Served him right.

  When I got to the back, I made sure the room was empty before flipping off my black peep toes. I headed straight for my purse stashed away in the closet reserved for bank employees and pulled out my phone. I quickly dialed.

  “Hey, baby,” DeShaun said when he answered the phone. “You never call me during the day. What’s up?”

  I was relieved to hear his deep voice. “Are you busy?” I reached down and massaged my aching dogs, starting with my big toe and working my way down to the littlest piggie.

  “Nah. Mr. Stiles is taking a long lunch, but let him tell it and he’ll say he’s scoping out new locations for another restaurant.”

  “Is he really considering opening another one?” I whispered into the phone, making sure Rebecca, my manager, or anyone else couldn’t hear me. “I thought you said he was in over his head with the current restaurant.”

  “He is, but when you’ve got money, you’re looking for ways to blow it.”

  “Do you believe he’ll make you manager of this new restaurant?” I asked.

  DeShaun hesitated on the other end, taking a second to clear his throat. “I don’t know. He claims I’m the front-runner, but that’s what dude from the last restaurant said.”

  I sighed, desperately wanting to tell him to quit these waste-of-time positions. Every restaurant he worked in promised him a promotion, and every one of them fell through for one reason or another. I was getting sick of it. Unlike me, DeShaun was a patient guy with these jobs. He had to be. I’m not professing to be better, but I did graduate college. DeShaun barely graduated high school and came right out of school to work full-time as a busboy at some greasy Bahamian/Chinese restaurant on the island of Freeport to help support his mom.

  I shook my head. “That’s not right. You should be the front-runner. You have been at that crappy restaurant the longest and practically running the entire joint singlehandedly. And when he does make you manager, he needs to come up off the dime and pay you what you’re worth. Don’t let him shortchange you.”

  “Relax, baby, I got this.”

  The door to the back room swung open. “I have to go. I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Are you my heart?” he asked.

  “Always my heart.” I shoved the phone back into my purse. When I looked up, Jeremy was standing there, looking at me with a cherry Kool-Aid grin on his mug.

  I slipped my feet back into my shoes. “What are you staring at?”

  “Was that your husband?”

  “Were you listening? And where is that paperwork I’m supposed to file anyway?”

  He shrugged. “I guess Rebecca took care of it after all.”

  “Whatever.”

  The corners of his mouth turned upward into a sly grin. “Oh, and don’t worry about me saying anything to the boss lady. Besides, I know her older sister. We’re tight like that.” He flipped up his collar and winked—a move that irritated me even more.

  Without warning, he pulled his shirt over his head.

  I quickly turned away. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  He looked down at his bare chest. “Oh, sorry. Changing my shirt.” He reached into the locker and pulled out a light pink long-sleeve button down. When he buttoned up the last button, he reached into a gym bag and pulled out a brush. He furiously attempted to brush the strands on his head straight, but each lock boinged back into a fluffy curl.

  Everyone in the office couldn’t stand Jeremy. In the beginning, I tried to stay impartial, but he irritated me the way a gnat buzzing in your ear would. He had started working as a teller only four months ago, but being that the manager was his auntie, he strutted around like every cent in the bank was his. I had heard at one point, he even cussed out a senior teller at another branch, something about she didn’t adhere to new procedures regarding bank loans. He was a cocky son-of-a-bitch, but even so, I gave him the opportunity to prove me wrong.

  Unsurprisingly, he didn’t.

  The younger girls at the job swooned over his muscles, curly hair and light eyes. To me, he looked like any other light-skinned dude that worked out. I only knew his daily exercise regiment because in case you didn’t hear him brag about how much he benched that week, he wore these ridiculous dress shirts that fit like the Baby Gap—exactly like the pink one he had changed into. On numerous occasions, I found myself staring at that poor middle button on his shirts, wondering when it was going to give.

  “So what did hubby have to say?” he asked, placing the brush back into his bag.

  “Are you really asking me that?”

  I never put my business out there. The only thing Jeremy knew about me was that I was married. That was only because for some reason, he confided to me that he considered getting the same style of my wedding ring for his then-girlfriend. According to him, he didn’t because my ring was way too small and she liked extravagant things. I wanted to tell him that was probably the exact same reason she dumped him—too small—but opted not to since I needed a paycheck and he was the nephew of the manager. To this day, I still believe he didn’t see the ignorance in his statement.

  “Your husband works at a restaurant, right?”

  “How in the world do you know that? Do you have connections to the FBI? Are you having me followed or something?”

  He laughed. His laugh even sounded pretentious.

  “Not at all. I heard you mention something about him being made manager of a new restaurant or something to that effect. Want some water?” He handed me a paper cup filled with lukewarm water.

  I shook my head and he quickly retracted the cup. “Being the manager would be a good thing, right?”

  I hesitated, deciding whether to give in to my desire to garner a second opinion on such a touchy subject between my husband and me. I treaded cautiously. “I guess so.”

  “If that’s the case. Why do you sound like it’s the end of the world?”

  I shrugged, realizing this wasn’t a conversation I wanted to get into.

  “He’s got a job and you’re sitting there acting like it’s the worst thin
g in the world. I will never understand what women want from a black man. You want us to get a job, we get one. Then you don’t want us to have that job you begged us to get. Maybe it’s me, but I don’t understand it.”

  “First off, you must be eavesdropping hard on my conversations to know that much about my husband. Second, you’re right. You don’t understand it.” There was a slight tinge of defensiveness in my tone. “Nobody is begging any of ya’ll to get a job, but you damn well should have one. What adult doesn’t work? I’ve had a job since I was fifteen. I can at least expect you to have one by the age of twenty-one, can’t I?”

  “Don’t get mad. I’m simply saying, it seems like ya’ll don’t know what you want anymore and us fellas are paying the price for it.”

  I stood up and headed for the door. “I’m not having this conversation with you. I have enough problems without getting into some philosophical discussion as to whether or not the chains holding down the black man are real or not.”

  “That’s cool, but that’s precisely my point. You women won’t tell us what we need to do to please you, and I’m guessing that’s because you don’t even know yourself. But, on the other side of the coin, I do feel you, though. You look good and you’re somewhat successful, and you said you’ve been working since you were fifteen. I get that you’re trying hard not to be like that stereotypical black woman who has it going on, but—” He trailed off.

  “But what?” I was like a tiny fish, trailing after the dangling bait, and he was the fisherman, reeling me in.

  “It’s really none of my business, and I don’t mean to be rude, but, you are that black woman and you could have any man you wanted. I find it odd that you chose a waiter, of all things—not that it’s a bad thing,” he quickly added. “I don’t blame you for not wanting to be in the working class all your life. Hell, I want the exact same thing. Let me ask you something. Doesn’t he want to better himself? Didn’t you say he had his bachelor’s degree in something?”