Chapter Eighteen
Eighteen
Rashad awoke to a new day. Not just on the calendar but within himself.
He felt different. More self-assured. Like he mattered.
Undoubtedly Jamilah had something to do with that.
Not that he was ready to admit the obvious.
He was still hiding behind heartbreak, still determined to never again be the trusting soul who’d laid bare his emotions and gotten played as a thank-you.
Not only by the woman he loved but by the friend he thought was ride-or-die.
A man he’d known since high school. No, sir.
Not worth it. But still, Jamilah was an amazing woman.
One that he doubted would be down for a casual hookup.
Not that that would even work, since he was her employee.
Yet if he ever decided to get serious and give away his heart again, it would be to a woman like Jamilah.
He’d come a long way, sure, but his path to redemption wasn’t over.
Until the fall of next year, he had weekly required phone calls and/or visits to the parole office, a constant reminder that he was still tied to the system.
He still wasn’t free. He was still working for someone else, someone who’d allowed another person to color her idea of him, to use his past as a way to taint his present reality.
He couldn’t yet see the financial path to owning his own business.
Not legally. Rashad was done with the shady side of the highway but understood those who still drove down that road.
His street mentor once taught him that if your enterprise didn’t make big dollars, then it didn’t make good sense.
Society was quick to judge young men who became street-pharmaceuticals salespeople to take care of their families.
Felt nothing about suggesting they exchange a minimum two to three thousand a week for fifteen dollars an hour.
It took money to make money, and right now Rashad could barely pay attention, let alone a monthly lease.
He didn’t have a list of potential investors or silent partners.
Or a winning lottery ticket. Or a daddy like James to cosign a loan.
No, he was nowhere near being able to stroll down Easy Street with the world in his back pocket.
Rashad knew he’d do well to remember that the justice system wasn’t the only probation he was under.
Being a Black man in America came with a guilty label, automatically suspect, instantly doubted, whether the world wanted to admit that or not.
After a long, body-aligning stretch, he flopped over on his back, looked at the ceiling, and untangled his emotions.
Satisfaction. Accomplishment. Those words popped up. He kept them. They fit the vibe of what had happened the past few days. Plans were created and executed under his leadership.
Respect. Yeah, definitely that, too. Recognizing not only his talent as a cook but that he knew what he was doing.
Both Ed and Jamilah had acquiesced to following his lead.
His experience in feeding thousands three squares a day from limited funds and even fewer choices made cooking for three hundred a breeze.
Toss in the comfortable budget and bountiful ingredients, and the job was a lay-up he could almost have made in his sleep.
Rashad sat up against the headboard and reached for his notebook, thought about the crew all looking to him for marching orders.
It had felt good to be trusted, for his opinion to be valued, his instructions followed.
And to have those instructions lead to success.
He looked across the room, tried to pull up the last memory he’d had with these feelings.
He flipped through months, and then years, to one particular visit with his father’s brother, Uncle Melvin.
After Rashad’s father’s death, Melvin had tried to step in and fill unfillable shoes.
He’d tried to keep Rashad on the right path, teach the young tween how to be a young man.
In his grief, Rashad had rebelled. But there was that one weekend he’d spent in San Bernadino at his uncle’s house.
An electrician by trade who could fix anything broken and build anything needed, they’d spent the weekend constructing a shed for his wife, Whitney.
A she-shed he’d called it, which to Rashad sounded corny.
What fool would be dumb enough to give a shed a gender?
The shed was a surprise for Whitney, who’d just received her master’s degree a few months before.
Melvin had kept all the components in the garage, but on the Saturday Rashad visited, while Whitney went to a hair appointment, installing micro braids which was sure to take six to eight hours, Melvin roused Rashad from bed and put him to work.
He’d balked at the assignment, but as board by board and nail by nail the shed moved from a drawing on paper to a tangible structure, Rashad’s attitude shifted, as did his respect for Melvin.
When Whitney returned to find a shed complete with electricity, running water, skylights, and shelving for her books, she burst into tears.
“Couldn’t have done it without Rashad,” Melvin proudly stated.
Whitney had come over and given him the biggest hug. “Thank you.”
Rashad had felt accomplished, satisfied, respected…the way he did now. Last night, Jamilah had given him a big thank-you hug, too. It had elicited a whole different kind of emotion. He flipped to a clean sheet of paper and began to write.
Started at a party this part that would rock my world
Where an urban man did a scan on a suburban girl
Played no fool. LA cool. Not my type anyway
Let’s ride with the lie locked up inside
Mental games that players play
Then…
He looked toward the ceiling to contemplate the next line. His eye scanned the clock.
Gotdammit!
Rashad bounded out of bed and headed to the shower. While packing away the last of the supplies and standing by Ed’s van sharing Good jobs and Good-byes, and after agreeing that he’d see her on Friday, Jamilah had shown her faith in him by giving him the keys to the kingdom—to Side Chic’k.
“This was Blair’s set,” she’d said by way of explanation.
Four words, but a lot more meaning in their implication.
Again, she trusted him. He was part of the team, part of the family, a member she thought would stay awhile.
Rashad couldn’t guarantee that the latter was true, but while there, he would make the kitchen his own.
To do so he was going in early—to rearrange his station and break some of Blair’s bible rules.
Instead of leaving through the basement walkout, Rashad headed upstairs for an energy drink. He was surprised to hear footsteps this early in the day.
“Goddess, is that you?”
He rounded the corner to see Charles at the stove. “Sup, Pluck!”
“Me, and too early,” Charles grumbled.
“I see. What are you doing, getting ready to serve breakfast in bed?”
“I wish. Anna’s gone already. A meeting with her women’s group. Some type of fundraiser or something they’re planning. One I’ll get wrangled into most likely.”
Rashad grabbed the drink and a banana from a nearby fruit basket. “If I can help, count me in, too.”
An hour later, he was knee-deep in the kitchen transformation.
Cooking utensils were on the counter. He hadn’t touched the prep station, but basically everything else had been taken down to be rearranged.
Planks of plywood balanced against the wall with a tool set and construction items beside them.
Potatoes baked in the oven. Macaroni performed a low boil in two different pots.
Blocks of cheese, a pot of rice, and a variety of root vegetables were in various stages of preparation.
A hip-hop station streamed in the background.
Rashad acted as though this was his spot, imagined the changes he’d make to fit the establishment he envisioned.
A stage for sure, maybe a small dance floor.
The tables set up in a way that encouraged customer socialization and conversation.
His dishes would be award-winning. His the most popular space in town.
If, that is, someone forgot he was a felon long enough to give him a loan, or at least a chance.
At one point, however, he’d looked around and had to fight off panic as questions like What the heck are you doing?
and Have you lost your mind? swirled around in his head.
Jamilah had agreed to give him the lead and do things his way, but had he overdone it?
If so, oh-the-hell well. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Rashad had just measured the wall where a plank of wood would be hung to make equipment more easily accessible when he heard footsteps. He glanced at the wall clock.
Someone here already? Jamilah usually began prep ninety minutes early, a whole hour from now. He walked toward the sound with only the slightest caution. Unlike Jamilah, Rashad locked the back door.
Jamilah rounded the corner. Her jaw dropped. She gasped, then angrily plunked a filled recycle bag on the counter.
“Rashad!” she yelled. “What the heck is going on?”
Almost the exact swirling question he’d thought earlier had jumped from his mind into Jamilah’s mouth. He steeled himself against the nerves that threatened to bust in his gut and presented an unflappable demeanor.
“Calm down, Boss Lady—”
“Don’t call me that, and don’t tell me to calm down. You’ve destroyed my kitchen! And what the hell is all that on the stove!”
Jamilah marched over to the stuff boiling, baking, and simmering, then whipped around in battle stance—arms crossed, legs spread, frown chiseled.
“What are you doing?”
Rashad remained as cool as a cucumber waiting for mayo and dill. “I’m running my kitchen.”
“Running or ruining? Because right now,” she said as she flung an arm while doing a three-sixty turn, “I can’t tell.”