CHAPTER SIX
JJ drove his Mercedes S580 into the parking lot and stopped beside the waiting minivan. Artie got out of the minivan, a vehicle that immediately reminded JJ that his campaign manager used to be a family man. And his family used to be JJ’s lifeline. Now it was a blur of a life that seemed ages ago.
JJ got out, too, and the two men, both in flawless suits, began walking toward the less-than-stellar restaurant’s entrance.
“Who picked this place?” JJ asked as he looked at the trash blowing around in the parking lot.
“Judge Parsons, who else? Not even valet service at this dump.”
“But why here?”
“Because he’s cheap. He’s got plenty money, but he hates parting with it. That’s why we stand a chance. You’re richer than he’ll ever be, thank goodness, and we therefore don’t need his money. We just need his endorsement. But we need it tonight before anybody else stands a chance. He’s the former chief judge. If you wrap up his endorsement, some voters will take note of that and be more inclined to support you. He was just that popular.”
JJ knew. He took his place. “He was popular, alright, but he was also a master politician. He’s going to want something in return.”
“Let’s hope not,” Artie said. “But if he asks, just string him along. We’ll cross that bridge later. But right now, the goal is simple: we’ve got to win his full-throttled endorsement. And we’ve got to win it tonight,” he added with emphasis as they continued to walk toward the entrance.
Inside the restaurant, Tish stood erect when the hostess returned to the welcome station after seating a customer that had just walked in. The hostess began putting an entry in the seating chart log on the podium. “Welcome to Sholey’s,” she said to Tish.
“Thank you. I’m here to apply for a job.”
The hostess looked at Tish. Looked her up and down in that dismissive way Tish was getting used to. Then the hostess looked back down at the seating chart. “We aren’t hiring.”
“I can bus tables. Wash dishes. Run errands. Anything you need.” Tish was doing all she could to keep the desperation out of her voice.
“We don’t need anybody, sorry.”
“But are you sure? There’s a help wanted sign right out front.”
“That should have been removed weeks ago. We don’t need anybody, sorry.”
Tish didn’t believe her. Or at least she didn’t want what she was saying to be true. She’d been pounding the pavement all day looking for work. Now it was nighttime. She had had no food to eat since the night before at the shelter, but tonight all shelters were full because a newly-instituted city ordinance said they had to stop doing first come, first serve and give priority to women with children. Which meant the shelters were filled to overflow with women with children. Which left no room for Tish. Which meant no meal tonight for Tish.
But she couldn’t just leave without doing all she could. This was the last restaurant in sight. “I want to see the manager,” she said to the hostess, but two men walked in and the hostess grabbed menus and went to serve them. “Good evening,” the hostess said to them with a big smile on her face. “Welcome to Sholey’s. Is it just the two of you?”
The two men were Judge Brant and his campaign manager. But Tish was too busy looking around for the manager to look at them. “Yes, ma’am, just the two of us,” said Artie, checking out the hostess as she began escorting them to their table.
But JJ felt something strange within himself when he walked through that door. At first he thought it might have been because he was in a restaurant period, given what happened ten months ago to his sister and nephew. But that couldn’t be it. He was in restaurants practically every day and never got that feeling before.
But something was haggling him. So much so that he glanced back at the only person in the entrance area at the time: a black woman standing at the hostess podium. From the back of her, in her jeans and t-shirt and thick ponytail, a small backpack across her small shoulders, she wasn’t someone he recognized. So he dismissed the feeling and kept on walking.
Tish didn’t look to see where the hostess was until too much time had elapsed to seat somebody. And when she looked over there, she could see why the hostess was taking so long. She had already seated the two men. She had already taken down their drink orders. And now she was standing there laughing and talking with the thinner man. Even though she knew Tish was waiting for her to return. But it only made Tish feel like the insignificant nobody the world thought she was.
But as the hostess seemed to be wrapping up the conversation, Tish thought she recognized the bigger man. He had put on glasses to read the menu, but she remembered that thick head of brown hair, and his muscular upper body, and those dazzling blue eyes even from across the room. But she couldn’t place him.
Then the hostess finally left their table and began heading back to her station. Tish shook her head as both men at that table watched the hostess’s ass as she walked away from them. Probably married men looking so hard. Were there any good, decent men anywhere on the planet, she wondered? Was sex the only thing they were interested in? Some of Tish’s so-called friends used to think that was all Shake wanted from her too. And maybe it was, Tish thought, with a frown on her face.
“You’re still here?” the hostess asked as she walked behind the podium and wrote down the number of guests in her seating chart. “I told you we have no openings.”
“And I told you I want to see the manager.”
‘I’m the manager,” the hostess lied. “And I’m telling you again and for the final time that we don’t need any help. None. Now will you please leave?” Then the hostess looked beyond Tish and smiled. “Welcome to Sholey’s,” she said as a new surge of people began coming in.
Tish had to step aside as the new arrivals walked up to the welcome stand. She felt insignificant, dirty, and so hungry she could barely stand up. She wanted to wait and all but beg that woman to give her something to do, even just for tonight so that she could get some food to eat, but she knew it would be a waste of time. Not because she believed that hostess. She didn’t believe for a second that that girl was the manager of that restaurant and that their help wanted sign was a mistake, but she also knew it didn’t matter. That kind of behavior starts at the top. It was being tolerated big time. She could forget getting hired on up in there.
She began to leave. She could see the overcast sky outside as she began heading for the exit, which meant certain rain tonight, and the terror of what it all meant was beginning to set in alongside her desperation. Where was she going to sleep tonight with the homeless shelters all full? Would she have to sleep in that dangerous park where the leftover people slept? And she hadn’t eaten since the night before. How was she going to make it through the night?
But as she walked, she started wondering if maybe her P.O. was right. Maybe she was better off in prison. At least she’d get three squares a day. At least she’d have a bed to lay in. At least she wouldn’t live her life under the constant threat of getting revoked. She left that restaurant, craving that food, as more people were coming in.
But just as she was about to go out the exit door something pricked what seemed like her very soul and seemed to force her to look over at that table again. And as if a lightbulb had just gone off in her head, she recognized him. It was the judge! It was that very man that had lowered her sentence in a way that baffled everybody in that courtroom. The only human being in ten months that had ever given her a break. And foolish though it might seem, and as scared as she was to approach somebody like him, she left that exit and headed for his table. It was beyond feeling now. Somehow she felt as if it was life or death.
She started making her way through the surge of people who acted like they didn’t want to let her through. But she was determined to get to that table. She was getting through.
At the table, Artie was leaned forward talking to JJ, while JJ was leaned back. “When he shows up, please don’t ask him about his wife.”
JJ looked at Artie. “Why not? Divorce?”
“’Fraid so. And she wants half of everything. He hates her guts now.”
JJ shook his head. “Women,” he said.
“You could use one,” said Artie. “Although, I heard that you have been using some.”
“With using being the operative word,” JJ said.
Artie laughed. “I knew your ass wasn’t abstaining the way Sylvie was talking like you were.” Then Artie leaned even closer. “Tell me: is it that hot clerk of yours?”
Now JJ was annoyed. “How many times have I told you I do not date, fool around with, or whatever you choose to call it, anybody that works for me.”
“Okay. Damn,” Artie said with a smile as he leaned back. “Don’t take my head off!”
JJ stared at his deceased sister’s husband. For a man who’d only lost his wife and child less than a year ago, he seemed happier to be free of them than grieved, which got to JJ sometimes. But everybody grieved differently.
Then Artie saw Tish approaching their table. “Now that’s not a bad looking girl right there,” Artie said, looking down at her body. JJ looked over too.
And as soon as JJ saw her, his heart squeezed in a tight squeeze that startled him. Why was he reacting that way? But then he remembered her. She was the young lady on his monitor inside his courtroom whose stricken demeanor touched him even then. The young lady whose sentence he reduced from the bench and that he had to scold the prosecution and the defense for treating so unfairly. The one with the large, terrified eyes. And those same eyes were fixed on him as she walked his way.
Tish was so scared she could actually hear her heartbeat pounding. But she had to do it. She had to see if just maybe he wasn’t like the rest of the world. “Judge Brant?” she asked even before she was completely up to them.
But Artie, in campaign manager mode, quickly took over. “Who wants to know?”
But Tish ignored him. Her eyes did not stray from the judge. “Can I talk to you about my case, sir?”
“Absolutely not,” Artie said more forcefully.
But Tish ignored him and continued to speak to Judge Brant. “A condition of the probation that you put me on is that I have to find full-time employment, sir. But nobody will hire me.”
“Look lady,” Artie said with more bass in his voice, “who do you think you’re talking to? This is the chief judge of the fourth circuit. He’s no employment agency. Now get away from this table. Get out of here!”
“That’s enough, Artie,” JJ said, but before he could say anything else, he heard the booming voice of former Chief Judge Holt Parsons walking toward them. “JJ Brant! Glad you could make it!” The older judge was coming toward JJ with an entourage of several people, and a bodyguard to boot.
JJ and Artie quickly stood up. Parsons had the most sort-after endorsement of the campaign. “Hello, Holt,” JJ said as he buttoned his suit coat and the two men shook hands. “I see you brought the calvary with you.”
Parsons laughed and began making introductions.
Artie looked at the bodyguard that accompanied the judge, a perk JJ refused to utilize. When the guard looked his way, Artie whispered in his ear to get rid of the black chick.
The guard didn’t hesitate. “Let’s go, lady,” he said, and grabbed her by the arm and began heading her toward the exit.
“Judge Brant?” Tish yelled back as she was being manhandled and unable to break free. “Judge Brant?!”
But there were too many rich and boisterous people surrounding JJ now, and he didn’t hear a word she said. He was too busy shaking hands. Because all of them were high-rollers, too, that could only benefit his reelection bid.
By the time he shook every hand, he finally got a chance to look where Tish had been standing, but she was gone. Unbeknownst to him, she had already been escorted out the door.
As tables were being joined together so that they all could sit together, it at first bothered JJ. Because it made no sense to him. Why would she tell him about her woes? He was a judge, not her Father Confessor! He got her sentence reduced. He did all he was going to do for her. What more did she want?
But why was he even giving her a second thought, was the bigger question.
“I understand you could use my endorsement to hold your position of power, JJ,” said Judge Parsons in that southern twang he often overexaggerated.
JJ looked at him and smiled. “That’s my understanding as well.”
“Every single candidate has asked for it, you know.”
“I suspected as much.”
“I was wondering what was taking you so long.”
“You know I’m a creature of timing. But yes, Holt, I would truly appreciate your endorsement.”
“Alright then,” Parsons said and began rubbing his hands together as if he was at a craps table in Vegas. “Let’s horse trade,” he said with a grin. “Let’s make this a win-win.”
JJ, not above doing what he had to do to maintain his position, smiled an uncommitted smile as they all began sitting down. And as he glanced over at the exit once again. But there was no sign of her.