Hometown Favorite: A Novel (6 page)

Mother and son stood in the outdoor terminal with passengers
moving behind them and boarding the bus. A shy pride had
taken both of them. Unable to look very long in the eyes of
the other, neither were willing to finalize the end of this phase
of their lives and take the step of faith into independence now
required of them.

"I packed all the leftover fried chicken from last night,"
Cherie said, handing him a paper sack full of chicken pieces
wrapped in wax paper.

Dewayne frowned, knowing there would be a long hiatus
before he could enjoy this kind of cuisine again.

"Two things to remember" Cherie reached into her skirt
pocket. "Your judgment is good. I trust it and so should you.
And I'm gonna pray for you every day." Then she pulled out
five one-hundred-dollar bills and gave a quick account of the
number before she placed them in her son's hand.

"Mad money," she said.

Dewayne started to resist, but Cherie raised one finger in
the air, halting any budding quarrel.

"Now hug your mama before she starts making a fool of
herself and says no to this college nonsense."

The embrace was eighteen years' worth of gratitude and
thankfulness for a life that could not have been lived with
any other parent-and-child combination. Cherie ended it by
taking Dewayne's hulking shoulders in her petite hands and
pushing him away. He accepted the gesture as the signal from
the stronger of the two that there was no turning back now,
and he took that first step onto the bus.

"What was the present Coach Hopper brought you last
night? I put it on your dresser"

Dewayne paused at the top of the steps. "I forgot to open it.
Next time I'm home I'll get it. Thank him for me."

Those were his last words before the bus driver closed the
door. Dewayne stepped into the center aisle and found an empty
seat as the bus pulled out of the dock.

With a final wave to each other, their independence was
complete.

As the new BMW 325 convertible raced along a winding road
through the Hollywood Hills, Dewayne watched the expensive
homes whizzing past. They were nothing like the houses in
Springdale, Mississippi. Even the pricey homes where he had
grown up did not compare to the size and opulence he now
passed. He never could have imagined coming so far in just a
few years, but he swore never to forget the humble life he had
left behind in Springdale and those qualities of character that
had shaped him.

In this new world where cultures from all over the globe
gathered for higher education, free expression of every kind
was an accepted practice, and it was displayed in a variety of
ways that never would have been dreamed of in Springdale.
Even after two and a half years of living in the midst of the
liberated society of the university campus and achieving success playing football for USC, Dewayne still felt like a stranger
in a strange land. Were it not for the letters Cherie wrote twice
a month keeping him informed of Springdale's comings and
goings-from time to time including a fifty-dollar bill from
Webb Furniture overtime-and reminding him there was no
doubt of his worth in her mind, he might have faltered along
the way and slipped from the foundation of his faith.

A rust-colored haze had settled over the San Fernando Valley.

"It's gonna be all right, baby;" the sweet voice said from the
driver's seat.

Rosella Caldwell shifted the BMW into a lower gear as she
approached the sharp curve before starting another steep ascent. She lifted her hand from the gearshift and gave a reassuring squeeze on top of Dewayne's left leg that bounced from
nervous energy. He scooped her hand into his and stroked each
finger before he kissed the back of her hand.

Dewayne had declared himself a business/finance major
his first year and had met Rosella, also a business major, in
an English class that first semester. Her sparkling obsidian
eyes caught his attention when he looked up from scanning
his textbook as she took her seat beside him on the first day
of that class. They were now in their fifth class together, and it
was early this semester when a partnership for a class project
finally prompted them to yield to the natural chemistry between
them as they began to date.

It was not just the dazzling beauty of Rosella's eyes arresting
his attention that first day of class but the formidable intention
behind them, a confidence reminiscent of his mother. In Mississippi, a confident black woman was a rarity. The inequality
among races and genders there made Cherie's inner confidence
all the more impressive in Dewayne's realm of experience. These
two women might have come from different worlds, but both
had a depth of self-assurance Dewayne respected and valued.
Rosella knew what she wanted. She valued the opinions of
others and gave the proper respect to professor and student
alike, but she never lost herself in the process of absorbing
other people's ideas.

With each business class the two of them had taken together, their attraction had grown. But each of them had priorities and
commitments, and neither had been willing to allow a romance
to derail those goals ... until this semester, in Entrepreneurial
Finance, where their professor had drawn the names of each
team from his country gentleman's walking hat. The project for
team Caldwell and Jobe was to decide what to do with an ailing
movie studio: spin it off by selling it as separate businesses, or
produce a genre of film that has a track record for success and
thus save the studio? The project required viewing a number
of different types of films and conducting an unscientific poll
of audience reactions to determine genre tastes, then settle on
the type of film the troubled studio should produce to save it
from Chapter 11. It was a winter semester class, so Dewayne's
schedule was more flexible, although he still had to maintain
a strict conditioning regimen.

In the beginning, going to the movies was solely for educational purposes, but their drives to the theaters had given
Dewayne and Rosella the intimate time necessary to build a
relationship beyond what academic, athletic, and film class
dialogues had accomplished so far. This was a significant raise
in the bar of personal interest. An early sign that this classroom
partnership had moved to the next level was the number of
romantic films compared to the other genres they viewed. The
ultimate shift from class project to full-blown romance came
when they forgot to conduct the survey after the movie. The
blame could lie on an extraordinarily sad film that flayed bare
the human condition, involved the death of one of the lovers,
and was a sure Oscar contender. Their efforts yielded only a B
from the professor, but their own Hollywood romance made
up for the average grade.

Dewayne clicked off one three-story mansion after another
as they traveled the meandering road. He was a kid, staring wide-eyed at palatial spectacles he had only seen in magazines
or on television. Were there that many people in the world who
can live like this? And how can people live in these places and
not get lost?

The car slowed as they turned into a well-manicured entry.
Rosella keyed the numbers on the pad that unlocked the gate.

"My heart is beating like a sledgehammer on a steel door"
Dewayne massaged his chest, trying to relieve the pain.

As they pulled up the drive, he stared at the extravagant
three-story house with its Corinthian-style columns stretching the length of the front porch. Dewayne had been adjusting to three stories as the normal height for the houses in this
neighborhood. However, Rosella's home not only rose up three
stories, it also spread out from north to south, wings on a great
domiciliary bird. "I think I might be sick"

He felt Rosella's fingers digging into his side. She must have
thought a brief tickle might relieve some of his angst, but it
only made it worse. The big tough football man was having a
mild panic attack.

"You know my mama gave birth to me on the floor of a furniture factory;" Dewayne said, shaking his head at the sight of this
mansion he could only imagine as a heavenly reward. "You are so
out of my league. I grew up in an outhouse compared to this"

Since the tactic of tickling had failed to dissipate Dewayne's
anxiety, Rosella took a different approach.

"It's not too late. I'll call them right now and tell them ...
what do I tell them?" Rosella lifted her cell phone out of her
purse, flipped it open, and set her index finger on the speeddial position.

Dewayne had not expected such a quick resolve and felt
ashamed by Rosella's stone-faced demeanor, but getting his legs
to move out of the car seemed a near impossibility.

He gritted his teeth. Even though he would rather face two
charging three-hundred-pound linebackers, Dewayne knew
showing weakness was not something he wanted Rosella to
remember. So he opened the door and set one foot on the driveway, and said, like a fire chief leading his men into a burning
building, "We're going in." His confidence waned, however, as
they walked down the path.

Rosella's parents watched their approach through the glass
door from inside the house.

"Look at that. She's dragging him along like a pet zombie"

"Franklin Caldwell, not another word"

High school sweethearts Franklin and Joella Caldwell had
been married for thirty-five years, both of them LA born and
bred. Both had taken personal vows never to return to their
former neighborhoods once they discovered the way out. They
were the first in their families to go to college, and both became
instant high achievers: Joella ran her own successful high-end
interior design company, and Franklin was the founder and
CEO of Caldwell & Associates, an architecture firm with buildings and complexes across the country.

"Another football player," Franklin mumbled.

"How many times do you have to be warned?"

"From Mississippi, no less"

Joella stomped her foot on the floor, rattling the glass figurines on the antique table in the foyer.