Born at Dawn (21 page)

After a quick shower Cynthia was out the door. Heels in hand, Cynthia ran through the parking lot and jumped in her car. It was a delightful spring day; the sun was bright and hung tenderly in the Virginia sky. Cynthia cracked the windows as she cruised to Sabor. Upon seeing it, Cynthia thought it was very Tribecaesque. The building had a very industrial feel like many of the buildings in Tribeca where anyone who was someone went when in New York, which was why she selected that property.

Thinking of New York made her think of home. Paused at a stop light Cynthia dialed home after blocking her number first. It was well after eight o'clock. She hoped Keith still rose early in the morning to watch
SpongeBob.
The phone rang several times. She was on the cusp of hanging up the phone when someone answered. “Hello,” said a woman in a tangy voice. “Hello,” she repeated.

Cynthia prayed she had the wrong the number while she parked her car at a gas station en route to the restaurant.

“Hello. Hello. Hello,” the woman shouted through the popping of her gum.

“I . . . I'm sorry.” Cynthia's voice cracked as the words came out. Cynthia cleared her throat and continued. “I'm sorry, ma'am. It seems as if I've dialed the wrong number.” Cynthia tapped the end button and threw her phone into the passenger's seat.

“Marvin, how could you?” She banged on the steering wheel, and a few tears snuck out of her eyes. “How could he?”

She rested her head on the steering wheel and continued to cry, knowing she did not dial the wrong number. She looked at herself in the rearview mirror.

“Why are you surprised? Did you think he was going to wait for you? When you were there he had other women. He's probably got all kind of freaks running in and out of there teaching the boys to engage in all kinds of lewd and perverse acts.” Cynthia pulled a tissue out of the compartment beneath the armrest and wiped the snot from her nose. “What are you going to do about it?”

Before she could answer, the melody to “Independent Women” by Destiny's Child interrupted her.

“Hello,” she croaked, answering her ringing phone.

“Cynthia, when are you coming in?”

“Well, hello to you too.” Cynthia shook her head at the telephone. “Susan, I know Chef Sullivan taught you better than that.”

“I'm sorry. I'm just a little stressed out over here.” Susan had grown out of her awkward stage and into a ravishing red-haired delight. As a favor to Cynthia, she was serving as the hostess until Cynthia hired a full-time one. “Everyone in Richmond is trying to get a reservation here. Lunch is booked solid, and I've got like one or two tables left for dinner. Of course, everyone who I deny desperately needs to speak to the manager. I know you're paying me as opposed to working for my dad for free, but this is a lot.”

“I'm sorry. I never expected this in a million years. I still need to take care of some business, but I'll be in there in a few minutes. I want you to try this: instead of just saying we're booked, take the customer's number and offer to call them if there is a cancelation, and we'll take it from there. All right?”

“All right, boss.”

Cynthia smiled while pressing the red phone icon on the screen of her phone.
Boss. I think I like the sound of that.

“Who was that on the phone, Bridge?” Keith asked after Bridget hung up the phone and shook her head at the receiver.

Wiping her hands on her apron, she returned to the pancake batter for that morning's breakfast. Bridget scraped the last bit of batter into the frying pan. Keith observed her movements, trying to figure out who was on the other end of that call.

It was Saturday, so at least he didn't have to worry about the school calling to recommend he and James see a different counselor because they had not shown significant progress. The truth was they'd stopped attending the sessions as soon as the school got off Marvin's back. Since the school didn't see the results they wanted they'd started what Bridget had dubbed as a “witch hunt” all over again.

Bridget pointed her spatula at Keith and Marvin, raising her eyebrows as though she was daring one of them to answer. “I don't know which one of you is out here driving these women crazy, but it's got to stop. In all my forty years on earth, there is one thing I know for sure, when a woman answers a man's phone and the person on the other end doesn't say anything, it's the other woman.” She flipped the last two pancakes, put them on the platter, and carried them out to Keith and Marvin.

“Just answer the boy.” Marvin slid behind her and wrapped her up in his thick arms. He dropped his voice an octave and whispered in her ear, “Who was it? You know you're my girl.”

“I don't know. She didn't say anything for a while, then she said ‘I've got the wrong number.'”

Keith's mouth hung open at the thought that Cynthia had wasted her breath on speaking to someone who believed she was dead.

“So, you're the culprit,” she said, pointing at Keith.

“I don't know what you're talking about. Pops, can I eat my food in the room?”

“Go 'head. Just don't make a mess,” Marvin replied without looking up from his food.

Keith walked into his room. Photos of bikini-clad women had replaced his Spider-Man photos, and simple wooden framed twin beds now occupied each wall of the room. He put his plate on top of his dresser and crept to his window. He prayed for her to call back. He was tired of the phone game, the waiting game, the praying game, and every other remedy that had been recommended to him to deal with this emptiness.

James entered the room, pulled out Keith's choir robe from the closet, and tossed it to him, signaling it was time for him to get ready for choir rehearsal. James may not have been speaking, but he and Keith had adopted signals in order to communicate with each other.

“Thanks, James, but no thanks. I'm not going to rehearsal today.”

James put on a scowl that said, “this isn't something you should miss.”

“One day you'll understand, man,” said Keith trying to impart some of his fifteen-year-old wisdom on his twelve-year-old brother. “Sometimes you got to strike out on your own to find out where you belong.” Keith had decided to skip out on men's choir rehearsal because he had something more important on his agenda: waiting for his mother and Rock to call him back.

Solitude hurt Keith. He was used to being cared about, talked to, and loved. He'd spent the past three and a half years trying to get over all of the attention and affection his mother had poured into him and he couldn't. That's why he jumped at the chance to be affiliated with Black Ice, a local gang intent on terrorizing the people in their neighborhood.

Rock, the leader of Black Ice, had presented Keith with the opportunity to get down with them Friday afternoon. Keith wasn't expecting his life to be changed that afternoon.

As usual he waited a few feet from the doors of Leadership Middle School on 133rd and Amsterdam to pick up James when he got out of school. Even though James was now twelve years old and could be trusted to walk home alone, Keith kept a close eye on James since he couldn't or wouldn't speak. And even as three boys poked and prodded James like a young cattle prepared for the slaughter, he didn't utter one word. Keith seized two of the boys and smashed their heads together and went into karate mode on the third member of Black Ice who'd taken a step back to gather himself when Keith arrived on the scene.

The rage that had built up inside of him had finally found an outlet. He beat the boys because his mother left them alone. He beat them because his father beat his mother. He beat them because no one was there. He beat them because his brother couldn't talk. Keith didn't stop punching and kicking, even when the sirens could be heard in the distance.

It was Rock who intervened. He grabbed Keith and threw him to the ground.

“That's enough. We hear you loud and clear. You and your brother are not to be messed with,” Rock announced. He pulled out a card and threw it on Keith's chest. “I like how you get down. You're like black ice: can't be seen but can be deadly.” Rock stroked his shiny bald head and focused his beady eyes on Keith. “Black Ice is tryin'a expand throughout Harlem, but we need dudes of a certain caliber; you know, the type who's willing to kill their mama if they had to. Holla at me if you think you can roll with us. Now beat it before the cops come and we have to press charges,” Rock said, laughing.

James helped Keith to his feet, and they scrambled home. As soon as he got home, he called Rock's cell and said he was down. Now he sat by the phone waiting for Rock to name the time and the place.

While he was waiting for Rock to call him back, he acknowledged that it might not be the right thing to do. Then again Black Ice didn't offer fake promises or tell stories about a great big God who could do all things yet this God couldn't bring his mother back.

The way Keith saw it, there were two kinds of people in this world: the ones who talked about what they were going to do and the ones who didn't wait for anything to happen. They made it happen. If Keith had to choose, Rock and his gang in their True Religion jeans and white tees were looking better than Pastor David and his choir robe crew.

Waiting caused his appetite to dissipate. Keith departed from his thoughts of world domination to handle his domestic duties. He scraped his food into the garbage and proceeded to wash the dishes from that morning's breakfast. The water was pumping at full blast to get rid of the miscellaneous food particles still stuck to a plate. He scrubbed with a passion and only paused when the phone rang.

“Hello. Hello. You could speak to me. I know you spoke to her. You could speak to me. I've never told anyone that you call. It would be nice to hear your voice again. I keep trying to remember it. I keep trying to remember the last thing you said, but I can't, and I don't want to remember anymore. Why don't you stop this? Stop calling until you're able to say, ‘Keith, I'm on my way.' I promise no one will take your place, but this I can't do.”

He hung up the phone and returned to his dishes satisfied. He'd said most of what he wanted to say and what he imagined his mother would have said. He had to believe she was coming to keep going, and she needed to be released in order to return home, however long that would take.

It had been awhile since Cynthia had to spend the night stalking the sandman, begging him to stop by her pad. At this point she couldn't care less whether he brought her a dream so long as she could close her eyes and rest her head.

Her second day in business had left her reeling. The restaurant was booked solid for lunch and dinner. It was a night of nonstop schmoozing and boozing with her guests. Cynthia tried to hide in the kitchen and remain low-key. At one point, she even hid in the meat freezer when Breezy, the hottest new rapper on the scene, requested her presence at his table. Everyone wanted her to come out for a photo op or to pay compliments to the chef.

After thirteen hours on her feet, chopping vegetables and performing salt rubs on chickens, quails, and the finch that someone actually ordered, she was lethargic and nearly motionless. Cheo escorted her to her car and drove her home.

“
Tú eres el jefe.
You are the boss. Do you understand that? You're not supposed to be running around like that now. You make a couple of key signature dishes for the prestigious guests and tell your kitchen staff to do the rest,” Cheo explained like he owned a restaurant.

Cynthia lurched up from the reclined passenger seat and stared at Cheo like he had two heads. “Wasn't it you who said I need to work hard, and now you're telling me to take it easy?”

“I meant do some interviews, a segment on
Good Morning, Virginia,
go online, set up a Facebook page; you know, try to promote the restaurant in a positive way. I didn't mean run around like a chicken
sin un cabeza.
” Cheo drew his arms up and in close to his sides then began bouncing around wildly like a chicken whose head had just been chopped off. “That's how you look,” he said, laughing between arm flaps.

“Next time you need to be clear. Besides, Sabor is my baby. I can't have just any ol' body working on the meals. I just have to be hands on.”

“Then you're going to have to get used to being tired,” he said, resting one hand on her thigh, “and I'm going to have to get used to picking you up.”

They pulled into Riverside's parking lot. Cheo got out and opened the door for her. Cynthia's legs shook like a boxer who'd just been caught with a left hook. Cheo scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the elevator.

Cynthia flung her arms around him and embraced the moment with her head nuzzled against his strong neck. She took in deep swallows of his rustic cologne and tried to forget about the pressures of the day on the ride to the sixth floor.

“Cheo, how on earth can I repay you for your kindness and generosity?” she whispered into his ear as they approached her door. Cynthia let her bottom lip hit his earlobe after every word. She wasn't trying to incite a riot. She was trying to get at least a midnight kissing session to cap off the sheer romanticism and excitement that being carried to her door caused.

Cheo lowered her to the ground, looked into her eyes, and very solemnly said, “You can be ready for church on time tomorrow. I'm tired of sitting in the back row.”

Cynthia rolled her eyes and shook her head at Cheo. “Does it matter where we're seated? Church is not like my restaurant; you're not going to get a different meal prepared based on where you're seated. Whether you're in the back row or in the first pew, the pastor has the same Word for us all.”

“Sitting in the front is way different from sitting in the back. It's like . . .” Cheo paused then waved both of his hands at her. “Awww, forget it. You wouldn't understand. You don't even care about the Lord one way or the other.”

Cynthia folded her arms across her chest, shifted her weight onto one foot, and cocked her head to the side. “Isn't my relationship with Jesus supposed to be personal?”

Cheo nodded.

“Then why are you all up in it?”

Cheo smacked himself on the forehead. “I walked right into that one, didn't I? I'm only concerned because I love you, Cynthia, and to be honest, it really drives me crazy to see how ungrateful you are considering all the Lord has done for you.”

“Done for me? What did he do for me, Cheo?” she asked angered by his assumption that God had done something for her. “Where was He when I was struggling and really needed Him? I mean needed Him so desperately; I could have been dead. You tell me where He was then, and I'll tell you how grateful I should be.”

“It looks like you're still alive to me. How did you make it out if it weren't for the Lord who I know is on your side? He was always there.”

“You don't know anything, I mean anything, about my life,” she said emphatically.

“Cause me to know. I want to know,” he pleaded.

Rolling her eyes to avoid direct eye contact, Cynthia blurted, “He used to beat me. Cheo, I was black and blue and all bruised up.”

Cheo grabbed Cynthia in an embrace. “How long did you suffer through that?”

“Too long.” She looked into Cheo's eyes and could feel the judgments forming in his head. “It's not as easy as people think to get out of an abusive relationship, especially when you love the person.”

“Love?”

“At one point I did love him.” Cynthia paused, contemplating confessing it all. The weary look in Cheo's eyes declared tonight would not be a good one to reveal that she was married with children.

“I tried to work things out. I tried to wait on God, but in the end He didn't deliver me. I just had to run away.”

“There's one thing I do know.” He held her by the shoulders, creating a little bit of space between them. “Even if He didn't work out the situation according to your desire or show up at the time you appointed to Him, He died for you. Don't you think you ought to give Him credit for that?”

“What do you want me to do, stand on a crate on Hull Street and start preaching? Or maybe you'd rather see me in a knee-length satin suit and one of those ridiculous hats prancing around.” Cynthia began hopping back and forth on each foot, mimicking the praise and worship stomp she'd seen the women do at church every Sunday.

Cheo rested his hand on her shoulder putting an end to her mockery. “Cynthia, I can't pretend to know what happened to you, especially when you won't share it, but if you ask God to soften your heart and help you to forgive whoever it was who did you wrong, if you ask Him to forgive you of all your sins, and ask Him to have mercy on you for doubting Him, I'm sure you'll be able to find peace again.”

“The only peace I want right now is a piece of cake. You want some?”

“I'll pass.”

“Fine. More for me. Listen, why don't you let me work on my issues with Jesus on my own, and you deal with whatever you have to?” Cynthia turned her back on Cheo and unlocked her apartment door.

Behind the veil of the door, she did something she had not done in a long time.

“Lord, Cheo said if I ask you'd forgive me of my sins, but there isn't forgiveness for what I've done is there?”

Although she'd fought Cheo tooth, nail, and little bit of elbow after lying awake all night waiting for God to answer her, she hungered for his knock on the door, a welcomed reprieve from these walls and her demons the church could not provide for her. Like clockwork, Cheo showed up knocking on her door at seven o'clock with the high hopes of making it to the nine o'clock service. Much to his surprise, Cynthia was already dressed in a paisley-print suit with a plain white blouse. Her hair was slicked back in a traditional ponytail. She'd forfeited her makeup on account of the sweat-inducing service that Healing and Prophecy held.

Cheo had become the most dependable thing in her life. Cynthia still longed for the companionship of a girlfriend, one she could shop with, get pedicures with, and share the burden of her secret with. In her three and a half years in Richmond, Cynthia had failed miserably at launching any new friendships.

Recently, Cheo had been prompting her to join the singles' ministry or the women's ministry so she could have some contact with actual people rather than spending her evenings talking to flambéed ducks. He told her that might prevent her from spiraling into the funnel of depression that sucked her in whenever he went on a business trip. Cynthia shied away from those events because they were held in the confines of the church's basement. Those quarters were way too close for her to hide from the Holy Ghost.

They entered the church at 8:55 and were able to attain the last two coveted seats in the front row. Cynthia rubbed her hand along the plush purple upholstery that now lined the seats of the pew. Cynthia was glad to see that the church had been using her tithe money properly.

Usually the service opened with what they called devotion and what Cynthia considered fanfare. Instead this Sunday's pastor, Pastor Wyatt, walked straight up to podium and dived into his sermon. “Good morning, saints. We have got to be careful. The Word says, ‘woe unto them who think they are something when really they are nothing,'” Pastor Wyatt shouted into the microphone, interrupting the mental inventory Cynthia was taking of all the upgrades they'd made to the church since she started attending it. “The Lord doesn't need you to do anything. He is the beginning and the end. His Word is already settled in heaven. Whatever minor task He used you to do was already established long before you considered doing it, and had you not done it as Mordecai told Esther, he would have raised up another. Amen?”

“Amen,” the congregation responded.

Crossing her legs and folding her arms across her chest, Cynthia tuned into Pastor Wyatt's sermon.

He casually took a sip from the glass of water the first lady had just placed beside him and dabbed his mouth dry with a white handkerchief. Cynthia's eyes fastened on his diamond-studded pinky ring. She could not believe he was preaching humility with an iced-out pinky ring.

“Some of you sheep have gone astray. I mean you have forgotten who the good Shepherd is and have turned to your own way seeking pasture.”

Cynthia let out a loud yawn to let everyone know she was bored. Cheo glanced at her with that “what is wrong with you, girl” look in his eyes and scooted over a bit closer to Mother Goodard to create a little distance between them.

Feigning innocence, Cynthia shrugged and whispered, “Sorry.” And truly she was sorry she'd let Cheo drag her down here once again, and all Pastor Wyatt was doing was taking that “reduce, reuse, recycle” mantra to heart, rehashing the same old topic, the will of God. Here and there, he switched out a word or two or started off with a different scriptural reference, but he was always on the same topic. Cynthia had gotten weary of waiting for a miraculously divine healing to take place or for Pastor Wyatt to issue a divinely prophetic word to the congregation beyond the textbook “Jesus is going to turn this whole situation around in your favor.”

“You know a wicked and perverse generation seeketh a sign. Why are you looking for miracles when you just being alive is miraculous? Jesus could have let Satan have you a long time ago, yet you still doubt God's plan and the Word coming from God's man. You better shake yo'self,” Pastor Wyatt said, shaking his thick, manicured hands.

Cynthia looked up to the ceiling, raising one eyebrow to form an arch as if to say, “I see what you're doing, Jesus.”

Many of the members jumped out of the pews, shaking their arms, legs, and toddlers. Cynthia peeked at Cheo who sat perfectly still convinced that the spirit of God was in this place. “Goody two-shoes,” Cynthia murmured, sucking her teeth. Halfheartedly Cynthia rolled her shoulders and tried to make room in her weather-beaten heart for the Word that was coming forth.

“He wants to lead you to still waters, but you'd rather dig in the sand to find your own because it's taking too long to walk to the path that the Lord says leads to green pastures. You're not God. You don't set the time for deliverance. He frees you.”

“Hallelujah!” the first lady shouted, stomping her silver pumps on the floor.

“Some of you in here are just ‘churching,' looking good, trying to sound good. You shake my hand after the service and kiss my wife on the cheek knowing you're living a lie. This is not the life God intended for you, and if you don't turn back to Him, you're going to remember.” Pastor Wyatt stepped away from the pulpit, walked down from the altar, and into the aisles. He stomped his shoes into the ground. “I said, you are going to remember where you came from. God is going to cause you to recall why you called upon Him in the first place.”

Pastor Wyatt paraded up and down the floor. He dragged his hand across his brow and flung the sweat off it. “It's getting hot in here. Can you feel that Holy Ghost fire burning?” he asked. The congregation clapped in agreement.

Cynthia looked at her watch, wondering when the theatrics would stop. Pastor Wyatt picked up the pace again after stripping out of his heather gray double-breasted blazer and got back into his Holy Ghost processional.

“He's going to cause you to know that you don't rule over anything,” he said, stopping directly in front of Cynthia. “My Lord,” “Have mercy, Lord,” and “Bless her, Lord,” rang throughout the congregation. The longtime members of Divine Healing and Prophecy knew when the Holy Spirit was on Pastor Wyatt like that, and he stopped in front of you if that Word was for your life.

The pastor extended his hand for Cynthia to hold. He got down on one knee. “The road you're on will lead you to destruction if you don't turn around now.”

Cynthia contorted her mouth to the side, a gesture that said, “I don't believe you.”

“He that hardens his heart shall be broken without remedy. Are you sure you can stand that pain, sister?”