“It’s all good, Miss Reeves.” He smiled, exhibiting a mouth filled with gold caps.
Kendra gave him a questioning look. “Are you still in school, Jamal?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“How old are you now?” she asked.
“Sixteen.”
Kendra couldn’t believe it had been ten years since she’d taught his first grade class. “I hope you stay in school and graduate.”
“I will, Miss Reeves. I’m going to get a basketball scholarship so I can play in the NBA.”
She wanted to tell him not to pin his future on getting into the NBA. Unfortunately, he was one of tens of millions of young boys who viewed basketball as a way of making it out of poverty and their neighborhood. “Remember to keep your eye on your prize, Jamal.”
Jamal’s gaze shifted to the pretty teenage girl leaning against the bumper of a parked car. “I always do.”
She’s not what I meant, Jamal, Kendra thought. “Good night,” she said instead.
Kendra continued walking. She prayed Jamal would stay in school and graduate, because there were too many young men and women who preferred hanging out and getting into trouble to opening a textbook. It was good that he was involved in sports, but for her it wasn’t as important as the academics. Of the seven women and three men who came to the center, all were over forty and none had gone beyond the eighth grade.
She reached her grandparents’ house, letting herself in through a side entrance. The smell of freshly hewed wood wafted in her nose as she climbed the staircase to the third floor. So Moses Reeves had finally gotten someone to replace the worn steps that had creaked and moaned with the slightest pressure for as long as she could remember. Her grandfather claimed they reminded him of the popping sound of his arthritic knees.
Forty minutes after opening the door to her one-bedroom apartment, Kendra slipped under a lightweight blanket. She felt sleepy after listening to the radio while soaking in a tub filled with scented bath oil.
In the eight months since she’d returned to Chicago, one day had run into the next. Apart from volunteering at the church, she helped her grandparents in the restaurant. She got up at five, and by six she was serving breakfast to the regulars at Pearl’s Kitchen. She stayed until three to serve lunch and then returned to her apartment to relax and prepare lesson plans. Now with the warmer weather she planned to visit museums, attend outdoor concerts in Grant Park and shop along Michigan Avenue’s Magnificent Mile during her free time. All touristy things, but after leaving Chicago at twenty-six when she had married Nathaniel Mitchell, she felt more like a tourist than a native.
She let out an audible sigh and willed her mind blank, but the image of her ex-husband’s face and the drawling sound of his voice swept over her as if he were there in the room with her. It should have been a comfort, but instead all it did was remind her of another voice, another pair of sparkling dark eyes that haunted her even halfway across the country.
Punching the pillow under her head, she tossed and turned until she found a comfortable position. It was after midnight when she finally fell asleep.
KENDRA DEFTLY NAVIGATED her way through the tables at Pearl’s Kitchen while balancing plates along the length of her arm. “One eggs over easy with hash, scrambled eggs, grits and well-done bacon for you and pancakes, eggs and sausage for you,” she said as she set each plate in front of a trio of regulars.
The three retirees always came into the restaurant after an early-morning workout at a health club. Most times they ordered oatmeal, egg whites, whatever fresh fruit was in season and cottage cheese or yogurt—but not on Fridays. The eggs, bacon and sausage was their reward for exercising and maintaining a healthy diet for at least five out of seven days.
“When are you going to let me take you out, Miss Kendra?”
Biting back a smile, Kendra rested her hands on her hips over a white bibbed apron. “I’ll let you know, Mr. Adams, after I talk to your wife.”
Dark eyes in an equally dark face widened. “Why would you want to do that?”
“Usually when I decide to date a married man I like to ask his wife if it’s okay if only to avoid drama. And you know drama follows your wife like ducks take to water.”
The former bus driver lowered his gaze as if he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I guess we don’t need to go out, then.”
A smile tilted the corners of Kendra’s mouth. “You guess right,” she confirmed.
“Why you messing with that young girl?” asked one of the man’s dining partners.
“’Cause he thinks he’s a Mac Daddy,” said his friend.
Kendra’s smile was still in place when she slipped behind the counter to refill the coffee mug for the young soldier in desert fatigues who was sitting on a stool on the other side. “Would you like anything else, Corporal Williams?”
His head popped up and he gave her a slow grin. “No thank you.”
She’d grown used to the familiarity of the customers. Ninety-eight percent of the people who came into Pearl’s knew her from childhood, and most had seen her grow from an underweight young girl, who mimicked the other waitresses taking orders, to an adolescent and finally into a woman.
She’d started working in her grandparents’ restaurant the year she turned twelve. Her first assignment had been to load and unload the commercial dishwasher, stack dishes and sort cutlery. By sixteen she was manning the front counter and a year later she was waiting tables. She had continued to serve at Pearl’s whenever she had a break from her classes at the University of Chicago.
In her last year of college she had met Nathaniel Thomas Mitchell. He was attending the School of Architecture at the University of Chicago as a graduate student, and he’d stopped to help her change a flat tire.
“Pick it up, Kendra!” shouted Moses Reeves’s deep voice behind her.
She was daydreaming again—and about Nathaniel. It wasn’t quite seven, and every table and the eight seats at the counter were occupied. Reaching for a towel, Kendra hoisted a plate of steaming grits and fried fish and set it down in front of the soldier.
“Where’s Iman?” she asked her grandfather when she’d returned to the kitchen. The young woman was late—yet again.
Moses’s voice matched his size. Standing six-four in his bare feet, he had the girth of a professional linebacker. He and his parents had moved from Arkansas to Chicago when he was a toddler. After graduating high school, Moses went to work with his father in the Chicago Stock Yards. It was Pearl, his new bride, who’d suggested they start up their own business.
Pearl’s mother had the reputation as the best cook in Bronzeville, and had taught Pearl everything she knew, from baking, to braising to sautéing. At first Moses had balked because he didn’t want to risk leaving the security of his union job to open a restaurant. Until Pearl revealed she made more money selling dinners and catering parties than he did working in a slaughterhouse.
It was ten years in the making, but Pearl’s Kitchen became a reality when Moses and his wife purchased a dilapidated three-story house and paid a contractor to renovate the first floor for the restaurant, the second floor for family living and the third-floor apartment for rental income. Several decades later, they were still going strong.
“I’m gonna fire that girl,” Moses grumbled under his breath.
Kendra rolled her eyes upward. “You’re blowing smoke again, Grandpa.”
Moses wiped his round, dark brown, moist face and shaved head with a handkerchief, staring at his only granddaughter.
“Not this time, grandbaby-girl. If she doesn’t walk through the door in the next fifteen minutes, then I’m done with her. If I told her once I’ve told her a hundred times that she has to come in on time. You didn’t go to college to sling hash, so I know it’s not gonna be long before you go back to teaching.”
Kendra knew her grandfather was right. She couldn’t continue to work in the restaurant and occupy the apartment they could easily let out to
another tenant. She’d offered to pay them rent, but her grandmother had become so hysterical that she never broached the subject again. The trade-off was that she would waitress at the restaurant, but wouldn’t accept a salary.
“Miss Reeves, can I talk to you?”
Turning, Kendra saw a young woman who looked vaguely familiar. If the girl hadn’t been her student, then she had gone to the school where Kendra had taught. She stared intently at the petite woman with reddish-brown braids framing her oval, tawny-brown face. It was when she noticed the profusion of freckles over a pert nose that Kendra remembered her former pupil.
“How are you doing, Shirah?”
The other students in the class had teased Shirah about her freckles, saying her nose was dirty. Shirah had tried to stop the teasing by attempting to cover the freckles with her mother’s makeup. But the color was at least two shades darker than her own complexion, and she’d become a laughingstock to her classmates. It was the first and only time Kendra had lost her temper as a classroom teacher. After a lengthy lecture on respect and tolerance no one ever laughed at another student in her class again.
“I’m good, Miss Reeves.” Shirah dropped her gaze when she realized she was staring impolitely.
“What do you want to talk to me about?”
“I heard you were tutoring over at GCC Outreach.”
Kendra nodded. “Yes, I am.”
Shirah’s eyes filled with tears. “I…I need you to help me.”
Taking Shirah’s arm, Kendra pulled her gently into a corner where they couldn’t be overheard. “What’s the matter, kiddo?” As soon as the query was out she realized she’d lapsed into the role of teacher and protector.
“I was hoping you could talk to Miss Pearl about hiring me to work here. I’m willing to do anything—wash dishes or sweep up—in exchange for you tutoring me.”
A slight frown appeared between Kendra’s eyes. “Which course?”
“It’s not a course, Miss Reeves.”
“What is it?”
“It’s subjects.”
Kendra experienced a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. “You didn’t finish high school.” Shirah Hyman had been a student with exceptional intelligence who’d boasted that she was going to be the first one in her family to graduate college. “What happened?”
“I got pregnant and had to drop out.”
“How old were you when you left school?”
“Sixteen.”
“What grade were you in?” Kendra asked.
“I’d just started the eleventh grade when I got pregnant with my son. He’s going to be three in October.”
Kendra didn’t ask about the child’s father. After all, she was a teacher, not a social worker. “So you’re missing the last two years of high school.”
“Yes, ma’am. But now I want to take the test for my GED so I can apply to college.”
“Have you taken any of the tests?”
“Not yet, Miss Reeves. I was in honors math, so I don’t think I’m going to have a problem with that subject. It’s the language arts, social studies and science I need help with.”
“I’d love to coach you, but I don’t know when we’ll be able to get together,” she explained to Shirah. “I’m already teaching the literacy program two nights a week and I work here during the day.” Then a thought occurred to Kendra. “The only way I can make it happen is if I tutor you online.”
“How would you do that?” Shirah asked.
“Do you have a computer?”
Shirah wrinkled her nose. “No…but my cousin does. I’ll have to ask her if I can use it.”
“You can always work on the computers at the library.”
The young girl brightened. “Yes! I forgot about the library.”
“Do you have a GED prep workbook?”
Shirah’s expression froze. “No.”
Kendra smiled. “Good.”
“Good?”
“I know they have copies at the library, but I don’t want you to look at them or check them out. I want to give you practice tests first to assess your strengths and weaknesses. We’ll do math last, because you say you’re proficient in that subject. Come to GCC Outreach on Tuesday, and I’ll give you the first exam. Once I’ve graded them all, we can talk about the remedial work you will need to do.”
Shirah’s eyelids fluttered wildly as she tried to blink back tears of joy. “What time do you want me to be there, Miss Reeves?”
“My classes run from seven to nine, so how about getting there fifteen minutes earlier? By the way, do you have someone who can watch your son?”
“My mother said she would, but only if I’m trying to get back into school.”
“Good. Then I’ll see you Tuesday at six forty-five.”
“Umm… How much are you going to charge me?”
The incessant clanging of a bell was Moses’s signal that another order was ready. “You can treat me to dinner after you get your degree. Excuse me, but I have to go.” Kendra left Shirah with an encouraging smile and rushed over to pick up two bowls of oatmeal with applesauce and raisins, her step lighter than it had been in a very long while.
A MONTH LATER Kendra hurried upstairs to her apartment after closing the door behind the last breakfast customer. Folding down into a club chair, she rested her sock-covered feet on a matching footstool and grabbed her leather tote. She was eager to score the mathematics component of Shirah’s practice test before meeting with her later that night. Working with her former student over the past couple of weeks had been a constant reminder of why she’d decided to become an educator. Knowing someone had grasped and understood a concept was not just rewarding—it was exhilarating.
Shirah had missed two sessions when her son had come down with a cold, but otherwise she had always been on time. Kendra had administered the exams, arranging with the outreach coordinator to let Shirah use her office to take them so she wouldn’t be distracted by the people in the literacy program. In the previous four tests, Shirah had earned failing grades in reading and writing, and an unsatisfactory in science and social studies.
She was saddened that a student as bright as Shirah, who had been evaluated as intellectually gifted, was now deficient in so many subjects. Even though she’d completed the tenth grade, her writing and comprehension skills were comparable to a seventh-grade level.
Kendra smiled as she checked off the math questions. Shirah hadn’t lied when she’d said she’d been in honors math. “Nice job,” she whispered at the same time her cell phone rang. Reaching for the BlackBerry on a side table, Kendra pushed the talk button without looking at the display.
“Hello?”
“Kendra, I think you’d better come downstairs.”
She glanced at her watch. It was almost noon. “What is it, Grandma?”
“There’s someone down here asking for you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Who is it?” she asked. It wasn’t like her grandmother to be vague. Pearl Reeves was known for her in-your-face and calling-a-spade-a-spade attitude.
“I don’t have time to explain. Please come downstairs.”
Silence came through the earpiece and it was obvious that Pearl had hung up.
Slipping her feet into a pair of leather clogs, Kendra walked out of her apartment and down the staircase to the restaurant. But when she saw who was lounging at the restaurant counter, her knees buckled and she held on to the back of a stool to steady herself. It was her ex-husband. His back was to her, but she recognized his impressive height, the breadth of his broad shoulders under the jacket of a tailored suit and the arrogant tilt of his head as he listened to something Moses was saying. She noticed flecks of gray in his cropped black hair. She blew out a breath, pulled back her shoulders and approached the two men. Her pulse had returned to normal by the time she got within three feet of the man who’d changed her and her life.
Moses noticed her first. “I’ll leave you to talk to your husband.”
Ex-husband, s
he corrected silently, cutting her eyes at her grandfather as he walked away. Despite what her grandfather thought, there was no going back for her and Nathaniel. She’d learned the hard way that you couldn’t bring something back from the dead, no matter how much you loved it.
Nathaniel Thomas Mitchell turned to stare at the woman he’d been smitten with since their first meeting. The woman he had never stopped loving. He had to admit that she looked good, even if she was thinner than she’d been the last time he’d seen her. She’d pulled her luxurious dark brown hair up in a ponytail, and with the white button-down shirt, slim-fit jeans, clogs and bare face she could have been in her early twenties rather than in her thirties.
A smile flitted across his face before he remembered why he’d come to see her. Within seconds his smile vanished, replaced by a cold, hard frown. Nathaniel inclined his head. “Hello, Kendra. How are you?”
“I’m very well. What are you doing in Chicago?”
Burrowing his hands into the pockets of his trousers, Nathaniel angled his head. Kendra definitely wasn’t reticent—one of the many things he’d always liked about her. She was outspoken and direct.
“I need to see you about something.”
“What?”
“Is there some place we can talk?” he asked.
“Is it going to take a while?” Kendra asked.
“That all depends on you.”
She looked intrigued by his response. “How long do you plan to stay in Chicago?”
Nathaniel shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not certain. I’m here on business.”
Now she seemed puzzled. When they got married, Nathaniel had been adamant that he set up his architectural and design company in his home state of Florida, rather than stay in Chicago. At first she’d been hurt, until she flew to Florida to meet Nathaniel’s relatives and she understood his pride in his family and why he wanted to conduct business near them. Nathaniel was the great-grandson of Samuel Cole, purportedly the first African-American billionaire. ColeDiz International Limited, a privately held conglomerate, was the largest family-owned agribusiness in the United States. Nathaniel had been expected to join the family business, but he had decided on a career in architecture. His wedding gift to Kendra was a magnificent home that he’d designed for living and entertaining.
More Than Words, Volume 6 Page 23