Chapter 11 #3
“Well…” She shrugs. “I told him that Rich is it, but I ain’t say it was gonna be easy to convince Rich that a life outside of Lucky’s is better for him.”
“So he’s not trying to get away from i—”
“That’s enough, Lovie. You and Terrica go ahead and drop the cake off, but y’all need to just drop it off and go.
Hazel said Terrica was talking to some guy she met on vacation over the summer so that’s who she needs to stick with.
She needs to let Rich be.” She tosses the towel on the faucet, pushing away from the counter and picking up her phone.
“All these little side missions you’ve been going on stays between me and you because I don’t wanna hear Kenny’s mouth, alright?
I’ve heard enough of it in the past two months. ”
She walks back toward the hallway that leads to the sunroom, but before she crosses the threshold, she tosses one last look over her shoulder. “For God’s sake, mop the rest of the damn kitchen. Folks are paying me for a service, girl.”
I glance at the time covering Paco’s chubby cheeks on my phone—6:57 PM.
I missed Copeland’s strict fifteen minute grace period all because I had Ubered home first where I stood naked in front of my closet for thirty minutes because I couldn’t decide if my long-sleeved denim mini dress and knee-high Maison Margiela boots were too much to deliver a birthday cake to a man I know I should stay far away from.
Somehow the dress still fit the same as it did two years ago when I picked it out while shopping with AJ at Neiman’s in The Galleria even though I’m at least ten pounds lighter.
This dress and these boots were my first taste of luxury.
The first time I touched them was one of the last times I probably felt alive, and I left them in my closet along with everything else AJ bought me before our New York move because he always said that “big moves came with even bigger things.”
Tuh.
I shake my head.
A mild breeze blows across my bare legs as I glance toward the empty handicapped spot in front of Terrica’s shop. I shouldn’t be relieved that she’s gone, but I just can’t stomach another disgusted look from her.
I step under the Commons’ awning and walk toward the front of Copeland’s.
The rusty bell rings above my head as I push the door open and try to come up with all the ways I can beg Mr. Copeland to pull a German chocolate cake from thin air three minutes before he closes because the only person who can see through me says this is what he wants for his birthday.
“You picking up, lil’ lady?” Mr. Copeland asks, swiping his hands down his flour-covered apron.
“Well, I uh…I wanted to place an order, but I think it’s too late,” I stammer.
“It is.”
Dang, he’s still as tough as he was the last time I came here.
I’d popped up to buy Uncle Kenny six dozen tea cakes for a repast happening that same day.
Mr. Copeland had stared at me from behind the counter in my Rhodes uniform and smiled politely while asking if I thought he was a “goddamned magician.” I haven’t been back since.
I clear my throat, pattering up to the counter and stooping down to look at the only German chocolate cake.
I point to it. “This still available?”
He taps his fingers against the case. “Unfortunately, that German chocolate cake belongs to somebody else. Everything else is available, though.”
White hairs sprout from his bulbous nose as he leans over the glass display where all their desserts are lined up.
There’s tea cakes, banana pudding, and pecan pie. None of it sounds like anything Rich would enjoy (as if I knew) and none of it is birthday appropriate, anyway.
I push my face closer to the glass while he stares at me.
“You don’t like tea cakes?” he asks.
“It’s for somebody else. It’s for his birthday. All he wants is a German chocolate cake.”
“Well, he sounds easy.”
“Mhmm. He is. He never asks for much.”
A weird pang dances around in my stomach while I pretend to know much more about Rich than I do.
“How ‘bout you try H-E-B? They got birthday cakes there—”
“Yeah, but they’re not Copeland’s German chocolate cakes. I can’t show up with a store-bought cake on such a special day.”
This time I remember all the innocuous things about womanhood that I forgot—like to tilt my head a little and to raise my voice an octave.
Mr. Copeland’s light face reddens.
He smiles, sitting both arms on the counter and lacing his fingers together. “You tryna butter this old man up, young lady?”
“Maybe.” I smirk.
I haven’t done an audacious thing like this in so long that it makes everything feels liberating—flirting with Mr. Copeland, pretending I actually know Rich, and going wherever I want without having to report my every move.
“What’s the lucky guy’s name?”
“Rich.”
His eyebrows wrinkle. “Rich?”
“Yeah, Rich Lovelace.”
“Rich Lovelace Jr.?” His smile falters, and that bubble of liberation around me pops.
I guess this is what I get for trying to do the things the old Lovie did. There’s a reason AJ hated that version of me.
I take a step back until Mr. Copeland unlaces his fingers and holds a hand out to stop me. “Wait. You being serious?”
“Uh… yea—”
“You here for Pup?”
I swallow. “Uh…ye…yeah—Pup.”
He swipes his hand down the length of his apron and shuffles to the display case.
“Why the heck you ain’t say you was shopping for Pup’s birthday? Lemme get this together for you,” he mutters, sliding the case’s door open and snatching the sticky note off the top of the German chocolate cake. “You supposed to lead with that around here, you know that, right?”
“Lead with what?” I frown, ignoring the sweat forming under my armpits.
“Lead with ‘Pup.’” He laughs. “He ain’t teach you that?”
“N—”
“How’s his ole’ Pops doing?”
I almost laugh in disbelief, but I hold it in as he rushes around behind the counter to pack up my order that didn’t exist five minutes ago.
“He’s…he’s doing okay,” I utter back.
I don’t know where the lie came from, it just tumbled out. Mr. Copeland glances over his shoulder, raising his eyebrow.
Jesus, please don’t ask me anything else about this man or his family.
I take another step back in case I need to make a run for it.
“Oh yeah? Tell that ole’ buster we miss him causing havoc around here, but I understand with his health and Pup’s circumstances that things might be a lil’ tough right now, ya know?”
“His circumstances?”
“Mhmm. You know Pup is the last of a dying breed around here, and that’s the problem. Ain’t no more real men anymore—just a bunch of boys that need correcting,” he murmurs, hinting at that dark air of mystery that seemed to follow Rich.
Everybody dances around its edges, but nobody wants to poke it and let the truth trickle out, and what kind of pretend friend would I be if I didn’t know what trouble my “friend” had gotten himself tangled in that had his new boss upset with him?
“Right…well, you know, with great power comes great responsibility,” I mutter back, quoting Lucky’s nerdy Spider-Man loving son.
He howls out a laugh, pulling the cake out of the box and inspecting its brown layers. “Now that’s a good one.”
I nod awkwardly, biting my bottom lip. “Spider-Man…it’s…it’s from Spider-Man. Uncle Ben said it.”
“I gotta watch that one of these days.”
His glasses slide down his nose as he sits the cake on the counter and grabs a pastry bag. “What about Arnez? How’s she doing? I ain’t been down to Lucky’s in a while so I been missing her. I heard she started taking classes at Lockwood. I’m proud of her. It’s never too late to start fresh.”
Arnez?
“Uh…Arnez is good,” I reply.
“Still causing trouble?”
“All the time.” I fling my hand out. “That’s…that’s Arnez. Always been a troublemaker.”
I belt out a fake laugh, swiping my sweaty hands down the length of my dress.
“Oh yeah, I remember the days she used to get Pup in a headlock and tear his tail up. You know why we call him that, right?”
I shake my head, staring at his wrinkled, trembling hands.
“When he was little he used to follow his ole’ man around everywhere—the car wash, Jazzy’s, Lucky’s.
” He smiles big, exposing the gold implant on his canine tooth.
“So… so we used to say, ‘Senior, that boy follow you around like a goddamn puppy or something.’ He was smaller back then—nothing but a lil’ ole’ runt.
Senior couldn’t do nothing but laugh when we said that, so from then on we called him ‘Pup.’ Everybody calls Junior ‘Pup.’”
Another cloud of flutters dances around in my stomach as I hang on to every word that comes out of Mr. Copeland’s mouth.
In all the years I’ve seen him behind that counter, I’ve never seen him smile so much.
I swear his only delight ever came from turning away unprepared customers like me, but not today.
Today, he talks about Rich like I hear people talk about Uncle Kenny, but the praise for Rich is different.
He talks about Rich like he would’ve come up with those six dozen teacakes that he couldn’t come up with for Uncle Kenny.
He holds the pastry bag over the cake and starts to squeeze it, but stops. “Anything special I ought to put on here? I never knew Pup to celebrate his birthday.”
More sweat prickles my armpits as I mull over the little pieces of Rich’s business Mr. Copeland feeds me.
A man who never celebrates his birthday suddenly wanting a cake?
Yeah, I wasn’t being delusional back at Ms. Vera’s. He’s telling me to come back.
“How about ‘Happy Birthday Pup’?” I ask.
He nods at my suggestion, then looks up at the ceiling. “If I’m calculating right, he should be turning thirty today. I think LaTanya was pregnant with him in the fall of 94’. How ‘bout I put ‘Happy Thirtieth Birthday, Pup?’”
Thirty?
I hold in a choke.
He’s older than all the other guys who ran to Uncle Kenny.
“I like that. It’s simple,” I croak out, clearing my throat.
“Mhmm—a simple message for a simple man. That’s Pup for ya’.”
“Simple?”
“Oh yeah. My mama always said simple men were the best. They give you good lives…good babies…they make sure you don’t want for nothing, and if they could, they’d conquer the world too but they usually just settle for conquering everyday life shit.”
He laughs, then furrows his eyebrows as he draws out the letters with precision. He even grins at the little paw print he dots next to “Pup.”
I let out a quiet breath.
I think I finally poked a tiny hole in that dark air of mystery around Rich. It doesn’t feel satisfying, though. In fact, it feels really fucking frustrating because now I just want more.
“So, what’re you gonna give the person who ordered that cake?” I ask.
He tosses the pastry bag on the counter, then reaches underneath it, pulling a white box from a pile of other white boxes.
He pops it open. “Oh, I don’t know. I’ll give ‘em a call before I head out and explain what happened.”
“‘What happened?’” I repeat leaning forward to make sure I heard clearly.
“Yeah, I’ll just tell ‘em what today is.”
“That it’s… Pup’s birthday?” I frown, reaching inside my purse and peeling away two crisp twenty-dollar bills from the wad of money Rich gave me. “I don’t know…I think I’d be severely pissed off if you called and told me you gave away my cake to somebody else just because it was their birthday.”
He roars out a deep laugh. “‘Severely pissed off?’ I like that one too.”
My face heats as I sit the money on the counter. “If you tell them you gave away their cake to somebody else, it’ll be like admitting to giving some of your customers preferential treatment.”
“And then I’ll explain to them that there’s no preferential customers at Copeland’s—only good friends in need of a good cake.”
My lip twitches as it curves into a smile. “How much more do I owe you?”
“Pup’s money ain’t no good around here.” He closes the top of the box, turning it around and sliding it toward me.
“Right…but I’m paying for it.”
“And I’m telling you I don’t take from Pup.”
“You’re not taking his money. You’re taking my money.”
He pulls the apron over his head and grabs his cellphone from beside the register.
“Listen…” he says, glancing down and letting his glasses slide down the bridge of his nose again. “Pup’s fists paid the lease around here for plenty of months. Take that man his cake.”
He eyes my exposed legs and knee-high boots, then presses the side of the phone. I stare at him while the forty dollars sits on the counter between us.
His eyes brush the money, then my face. “Gon’ on and take that back. Buy the man some dinner or something.”
“A forty-dollar dinner?” I scoff, slapping my hand on top of the money and crumpling it in my hand. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”
I grab the cake and turn to leave.
“Hey, gorgeous…” he calls out while I reach for the door.
“Yeah?”
“Remember—lead with Pup next time. It’ll make things go a lot smoother for you around here.” He presses the phone to his ear. “And be sure to tell him I got five hundred on him next Sunday, so he best keep that goddamn chin tucked.”
I snort under my breath, pushing the door open. “Yeah, I’ll let him know!”
As soon as I step outside, my mouth falls open and I suck in a loud gasp.
What the hell am I doing?