The Seaside Café Read online

  “I hope you’re not on a diet because you’re skinny as hell,” the young woman at the table said when she returned.

  Leah stared at her plate as she struggled not to lose her temper. Then her eyes met a pair of large brown eyes with gold flecks that reminded her of a pair of tortoiseshell eyeglass frames she wore whenever her eyes tired from prolonged reading. A hint of a smile lifted the corners of the full, sensual mouth of the woman with whom she was sharing the table. She looked very young, but as the mother of sons in their twenties, Leah had become quite adept in judging ages, and she knew she was close to if not at least thirty.

  “No, and that should not be any of your concern.”

  The woman’s smile vanished quickly. “You’re right about that. It is none of my business. Sit down and enjoy your breakfast, because I’m leaving.” She closed the magazine, picked up her plate and walked away.

  “What a snot,” Leah said under her breath. It was her favorite word for the students in her school who’d believed they were so privileged that they could say and do anything they wanted without regard to the consequences.

  She would make certain to avoid the rude woman during her stay, even if it meant standing up until someone at another table vacated a chair.

  * * *

  Cherie Thompson walked out of the restaurant and headed for the beach and folded her body down on the near-white sand. She knew she should return and apologize to the woman who’d asked to share the table, but an overwhelming wave of helplessness rendered her impotent. Today was the anniversary of one of the darkest days in her life, a day when she’d lost a part of herself.

  The baby she’d carried to term and delivered was one she would never see, hold, or claim as her own because of an agreement she’d made with a man she’d at one time loved more than she’d loved herself. Although she’d been well compensated, it still did not diminish the pain of having to give up her son, which was the only and last connection between her and the man she could never have.

  Two days after giving birth, she returned to her condo and sank into an abyss of depression that swallowed her whole. She’d only left her bed to relieve herself, brush her teeth, and down copious amounts of coffee, something she’d given up during her confinement. After several days of not taking a bath or shower, she discovered she found it hard to cope with her own body odor. She’d filled the tub with bath salts and hot water, waiting until the water was cool enough not to give her a first-degree burn, sat there, and cried until spent.

  It took a week for her to shake off the self-pity. Cherie finally washed her hair, ate enough to regain some of her energy, and called her favorite stylist to ask him for an appointment.

  The profusion of black curls that had contributed to her signature look lay on the salon floor, and when she stared at her reflection in the mirror, she did not recognize the image staring back at her. That’s when the person she’d known all her life was gone and would never return.

  Cherie lost track of time, reliving all she had experienced over the past three years until the sound of unrestrained children’s laughter captured her attention. A father, pretending to be a monster, lumbered along the sand, dragging one leg as his young son and daughter ran to escape him. She smiled at their antics, her dark mood suddenly lifting. She had never been able to resist the sound of a child laughing. It had been the reason she’d accepted a position to work at a childcare center. But that was before she’d discovered she was pregnant. She’d continued working until her last month, then took off to prepare herself for the inevitable. At that time, Cherie had believed she was ready to give up her child, but in the end, she discovered that if she could’ve changed her mind, she would have.

  Pushing to her feet, she made the ten-minute walk to return to the restaurant and stared at the back of the woman she’d insulted. Walking over to the table, Cherie took the chair she’d vacated. She knew she’d shocked the redhead when she looked at her as if she’d grown a third eye.

  “I’m sorry I insulted you. Will you please accept my apology? I’m . . . I was having a bad day.”

  A network of fine lines fanned out around a pair of bright blue eyes when the other woman smiled. “As for bad days, I’ve had enough of those to last me a lifetime. So, of course, I forgive you.”

  Cherie extended her hand. “Let’s begin again. I’m Cherie Thompson, and it’s nice meeting you.”

  Leah took her hand. “I’m Leah Kent, and it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  Cherie’s eyebrows lifted. “Are you always this proper?”

  Leah lowered her eyes. “Proper decorum is something we attempt to instill in the young girls at my school, but unfortunately we are losing the battle.”

  “You’re a teacher.” The query was a statement.

  “Yes. But right now I’m headmistress at a private school for girls whose parents pay through the nose for us to turn their unmanageable, rude, and spoiled little girls into ladies so they can make proper wives for so-called upper-class wealthy men.”

  Cherie smothered a laugh. She knew exactly what Leah was talking about. “Why did you call them ‘so-called upper-class’?”

  “Just because you have a lot of money doesn’t mean you are upper-class. Would you call a drug trafficker upper-class because he’s amassed a fortune selling death? No,” Leah said, answering her own question. “It’s home training that produces class.”

  “Don’t you mean breeding?” Cherie asked.

  Leah nodded. “Yes. Up north, you call it breeding, and down here we say home training.”

  “Do you also speak French?” Cherie had deftly changed the topic of conversation away from private schools for the elite because it would open a chapter in her life she’d closed and did not want to revisit.

  “Yes, but not as well as I read it. Have you read Les Misérables?”

  “It was required reading in one of my high school’s literature classes.”

  “Did you enjoy it?”

  Cherie stared over Leah’s shoulder. “I never really completed any required reading.”

  “Did you pass the class?”

  “Yes.”

  “How could you when you hadn’t read any of the books?”

  “I read the Cliff Notes.” Grinning, Cherie pointed at Leah when her jaw dropped. “Gotcha!”

  Slumping back in the chair, Leah narrowed her eyes. “That wasn’t very nice.”

  “I couldn’t resist teasing you, because you should’ve seen your expression when I said I hadn’t read any of the books. My literature teacher warned the class at the beginning of the school year that he would assign a quiz every Friday, and we had to read the required pages because what was going to be on the tests couldn’t be found in Cliff Notes.”

  A slow smile flitted over Leah’s features. “It looks as if he was one step ahead of his students.”

  “He claimed he knew every cheating trick in the book and that he’d forgotten what we were attempting to concoct. But I must admit he was an incredible teacher who kept everyone totally engaged in the classics. By the way, I got an A in all of his classes.” Pushing back the chair, Cherie stood. “I’ve intruded on you enough, so I’ll leave you to read your book.”

  She felt a lot better walking out of the restaurant the second time now that she’d apologized. It had taken more than twenty years for a poor girl who’d grown up in public housing to reinvent herself; she’d learned that having good manners was her entrée into a social milieu that she would’ve been denied without them.

  Cherie Renee Thompson no longer lived in public housing, and she had graduated college. However, it was marrying well that had eluded her; it was something she’d wanted all her life, because she didn’t want to repeat the cycle of poverty and hopelessness that had plagued most of the women in her family.

  She’d requested and was granted a two-month leave without pay from her position as the parent coordinator for the childcare center, and she prayed that, once she returned to Connecticut, s
he would know for certain which path her life would take.

  Chapter 2

  The rear door to the kitchen opened, and Kayana was shocked when she saw her brother walk in. It was only after eight. He usually didn’t start his day until ten. “Why are you here so early?”

  He set the keys to his pickup on a shelf with a metal toolbox. “Deandra called me early this morning, waking me out of my good sleep to complain that she’s never having children because your sister’s kids have completely turned her off motherhood.”

  Kayana gave her brother an incredulous look. He was the total package: brainy, tall, dark, and extremely handsome. Derrick Johnson, a masculine version of their beautiful mother, had been awarded full athletic and academic scholarships to several top colleges, and he’d eventually selected the University of Alabama. He’d become a standout as a running back for the Alabama Crimson Tide football program, and there were rumors he would eventually be drafted into the NFL. However, after tearing his ACL during his senior year, Derrick’s dream of turning pro vanished. With a double major in accounting and finance, he was able to secure a position with a Wall Street investment firm, where he met, fell in love with, and married a money manager. When his wife announced he was going to be a father, Derrick and Andrea talked about buying property in a suburb close to New York City, but no one was more surprised than Kayana when they decided to move to Coates Island, where they purchased a newly built beachfront home; both had admitted that, despite earning a lot of money, they were overworked and stressed out from the Wall Street grind and wanted a more relaxing lifestyle.

  Derrick assisted his mother and grandmother working at the Café, while Andrea divided her time taking care of their baby daughter and managing the restaurant’s finances. Their fairy-tale marriage came to a crashing stop years later, when Andrea complained about extreme fatigue and excruciating back pain. It was only after Derrick convinced his wife to go to the doctor that she was diagnosed with stage-four pancreatic cancer. Andrea refused to undergo chemotherapy, and her husband made certain she was comfortable; two months following the initial diagnosis, she passed away at home with her loved ones looking on.

  “Why is Jocelyn my sister, and not yours?” Kayana asked.

  “Because you two have always been thick as thieves.”

  “Maybe it’s because we’re only eleven months apart. And my niece claiming she doesn’t want children should put your mind at ease that she won’t become a teenage mother.”

  Derrick stared at her with large near-black eyes. “I’m definitely not ready to become a grandfather.”

  Kayana wanted to tell him that he’d waited until thirty to become a father when many of his peers with whom he’d gone to high school were fathering children in their teens and early twenties. “A lot of men are grandfathers at forty-eight.”

  Derrick slipped on an apron and then put his favorite painter’s cap on his cropped graying hair. Like their mother, he’d begun graying prematurely in his early twenties. The lighter strands contrasted dramatically with his unlined mahogany complexion.

  “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m happy just being a dad at this time in my life.”

  Kayana returned her attention to chopping sweet pickles. The Café’s pasta salads—mac and cheese, deviled egg macaroni, and Southwestern chicken and macaroni—were customer favorites that sold out night after night. Her personal favorite was her Grandma Cassie’s mac and cheese, which she was able to duplicate down to the last ingredient.

  “What was Deandra complaining about?”

  “She says Jocelyn’s kids won’t listen when she tells them something.”

  “That’s because Jocelyn doesn’t believe in disciplining her children.”

  Derrick washed his hands, dried them on a bar towel, and then tucked it under the ties of his apron. “I had a long talk with Errol after he split from Jocelyn, and he told me they couldn’t agree on child rearing. She accused him of being too strict, while he claimed she let their kids run amuck to do whatever they wanted.”

  Kayana’s hands stilled. This was the first time she’d heard why her brother-in-law had left her sister. When she’d asked Jocelyn why she and Errol broke up, she gave her an inane excuse—that he hadn’t wanted to be married any longer.

  “What about Mom? Are they running her ragged?”

  “No, because they’re Grandmama’s babies, and she claims she’s earned the right to spoil them rotten.”

  “I want no part of that,” she said under her breath. Although Kayana loved her sister and always enjoyed interacting with her niece and nephews, it was apparent they knew who they could get over on. She’d never had any children, but if she had, then she would’ve wanted them to at least be well-behaved.

  She couldn’t reveal to her brother what his daughter had confided in her. Kayana had taken family leave to be with her family during Andrea’s last days, and Deandra told her in confidence that she never wanted to have children because she didn’t want to die and leave them alone. Kayana realized Deandra’s losing her mother at thirteen was doubly traumatic because of their very close relationship. Deandra said there wasn’t anything she couldn’t talk to Andrea about because she trusted her implicitly not to repeat it—not even to her husband.

  As a young adult, she should’ve been hanging out with her girlfriends, talking about the boys they liked or what they’d wanted to be once they grew up, but Deandra had retreated into her own world, where she went to school, came home, and sat at a table in the restaurant to do homework as her father and aunts had done years before.

  Kayana had urged Derrick to get counseling for his daughter, and once they were enrolled in family therapy, the teenager began to emerge from her cocoon. She’d become involved with several clubs at the high school, while joining some of her friends for slumber parties. Derrick had closed the restaurant to host a surprise birthday party for Deandra’s seventeenth birthday, and when she walked in to find many of the school’s eleventh graders in attendance, she’d nearly fainted in shock. The celebration had become the most talked about event at the school that year.

  “Miss Johnson?”

  Her head popped up, and she saw Corey poking his head through the kitchen’s door. “Yes.”

  “We’re running low on eggs.”

  “I’ll make up another tray.” Breaking eggs in a large metal bowl, she added light cream, whisked them until they were frothy, and then poured the liquid on the heated flattop coated with clarified butter. They cooked up quickly, and she ladled the fluffy eggs onto a tray and carried it into the dining area. A knowing smile touched her mouth when she recognized someone from the prior summers who’d come to the Café for breakfast and dinner.

  The high school mathematics and economics teacher had recently purchased a two-bedroom bungalow from an elderly widow who’d left the island to live in Texas with her adult children. News of the sale spread like wildfire when folks whispered to one another about people from the North coming down to displace them. Kayana wanted to tell them that if they didn’t move or put their properties up for sale, then there was no need to concern themselves about being displaced. While most locals welcomed vacationers because it meant extra money to supplement their income, there were still a few who resented the influx of folks who crowded their narrow streets, talking too loudly, and feared the disruption of their bucolic way of life.

  “Welcome back, Mr. Ogden.”

  * * *

  Graeme Ogden stared at Kayana Johnson like a dumbstruck adolescent coming face-to-face with a girl he’d had a crush on. And, if the truth was known, he did have a crush on her. The first year he’d come to spend the summer on Coates Island and walked into the Seaside Café, he felt like Michael Corleone in The God father when he first saw Apollonia Vitelli. It was as if he, like the fictional character, had been struck by a thunderbolt. He didn’t know what it was about the pretty African American cook with a bright smile and stunning features that had him fantasizing about her. Although she’d greeted him by
name, he was more than aware that she was able to recall the names of many of the people who frequented the eating establishment during the summer season. He also knew she was single once he overhead several locals talk about Kayana returning to the island after her divorce from a prominent Atlanta-based doctor. Rather than sit and eavesdrop on their conversation, he got up and moved to another table. Just knowing she wasn’t married was enough to fuel his curiosity to find out more about her on his own.

  “Thank you, and I’d really like for you to call me Graeme. I think after a couple of years of knowing each other, we could be a little less formal.” He noticed an expression of indecision settle into her delicate features before it was replaced with a warm smile.

  Kayana handed the tray of eggs to Corey. “Then Graeme it is.”

  “Does this mean I can call you Kayana rather than Miss Johnson?” Graeme felt as if he’d been poleaxed when she lowered her eyes. The expression was so demure that it reminded him of another woman who’d bewitched him within minutes of his meeting her for the first time. Although there was no physical resemblance between Kayana Johnson and the woman who had become his wife, Graeme still could not figure out why he’d become so fixated on the restaurant cook.

  Kayana smiled and then gave him a direct stare. “I’m either Kay or Kayana to everyone on Coates Island, and yet you insist on calling me Miss Johnson.”

  “That’s because when I’d asked one of your waitstaff when I came here two years ago your name, he said Miss Johnson.”

  “Corey has always called me Miss Johnson, but you may call me Kayana.”

  Graeme inclined his head as if she were royalty. “Thank you. Is it possible for me to order a Western omelet made with egg whites?”