Can't Stand the Heat (4 page)

Lauren nodded. She unbuttoned her chef's jacket and opened the locker directly in front of her. “No, it's not just you. I thought I recognized him from somewhere, too. I just can't place where. He must be someone important, though, if he was the VIP Nathan was raving about earlier.”

Each woman tried to summon a recollection of his face.

“I know his name,” Paula said. “It's right on the tip of my tongue. But I just can't think of it.”

“Well, don't strain yourself. It's not like you win any money for remembering.”

“He said he'd be back here to eat again. Maybe you'll find out his name and you two will have a chance to talk a lot longer than two minutes.”

“I doubt it.” Lauren tossed her chef's coat into her locker and retrieved her sandals. She sat down and changed out of her tennis shoes and sports socks. “Besides, I'm not interested.”

“Oh, come on, Lauren! How can you
not
be interested in him? Are you
blind?
That man was beautiful! Did you see his tattoo?” She closed her eyes and groaned. “Oh, I love a man with tattoos!”

“Yes, Paula, I noticed him . . .
and
his tattoo.” Lauren rose to her feet and shut her locker door. “But he just didn't do it for me,” she lied. “Besides, I'm just focused on other things.”

“Like what?”

“My life . . . my goals . . .
me
. I'm focusing on me. I'm making myself better. I'm my biggest priority—in a good way.”

And I've still got a lot of work to do
.

Lauren climbed over the bench and waved. “See you tomorrow.”

“Wait! What are you going to do if he comes back?” she called as Lauren walked toward the door.

Lauren glanced over her shoulder. “If
who
comes back?”

“The guy from ten minutes ago! Mr. Gorgeous! Who
else?”

“Feed him, I guess,” she answered nonchalantly. “Nighty-night.”

Paula sighed. “Good night, Lauren.”

“T
wenty minutes,” Lauren muttered the next morning as she pulled her car to a stop in the circular, paved-stone driveway. “Keep it to twenty minutes and no longer. Tell them as soon as you get in that you can't stay long.”

Lauren had just left Phillip's place. She had decided to check on him that morning, not liking the sound of his voice over the phone the day before. She found him in good spirits and looking much better than he had looked when she had last seen him. He promised that he would make it to the restaurant on time and would be raring to go.

“All I need is my apron and my spatula,
chérie!
” he had growled in his Louisiana drawl. “It only takes me one day to mend. Nothin' is gonna stop me!”

It had been hard to leave him. In Phillip's fatherlike presence she felt warm and reassured. She felt the opposite now as she sat in front of her mother's palatial home. Lauren could think of a million places she'd rather be, but Saturday brunch at Mama's was a family tradition that had lasted as long as Lauren could remember. Yolanda Gibbons didn't mandate that all her girls attend, but Lauren knew she would be punished with cold silence if she didn't.

Lauren opened her car door with a loud, ear-piercing squeak, climbed out, and slammed the door shut with her hip. As she walked up the slate pathway leading to the manor's French doors, she passed several bushes of blooming pink and white dahlias and then her sisters' cars that were parallel parked along the curb: one black Lexus SUV, one silver BMW sedan, and one blue Mercedes-Benz convertible. The sparkling automobiles stood out like a line of preening beauty queens while Lauren's rusted, dented 1991 Toyota Corolla sat at the end like the ugly girl in high school who would never get asked to prom.

She took a deep breath before ringing the doorbell. After a few seconds, she spotted the silhouette of one of her mother's many maids through the stained-glass window. One of the French doors slowly opened.

“Good morning, Miss Gibbons,” the petite woman greeted timidly in her thick accent. She dipped her dark head and stepped aside, then gestured Lauren to step through the doorway.

Lauren nodded after wiping her feet on the doormat. She stepped into the air-conditioned foyer and smiled. “Hi, Esmeralda. How's it going?”

“Very good, ma'am. And you?”

“Eh, I could be better.” She glanced around her.

The foyer was decorated in baroque style with rich mahogany and cherrywood furniture, jewel-colored upholstery, and glass vases spilling over with roses and freesias that were cut from the terraced garden in the backyard.

Lauren's mother thought the space set the right tone for whoever entered her home. She wanted it to look opulent and sophisticated.

Lauren had always found it gaudy, though. She felt the same sense of claustrophobia she had felt whenever she stepped into James's mansion a mere five miles up the road. This much opulence was overbearing.

“Are they in the dining room?” Lauren asked.

Esmeralda quickly shook her head. “No, in the sunroom today.”

“Is everyone here already?”

Esmeralda gave a rueful smile and nodded.

Great,
Lauren thought morosely as she glanced down at her watch.
I'm the last one, as usual.

She was bound to hear some smack about her tardiness.

“All right, I guess I better head back there, then. Thanks.”

Esmeralda nodded again and shut the front door behind her.

Lauren made her way through the foyer and then the corridor that led to the sunroom. On one side of the hallway was a row of windows that brightened the dark corridor with shafts of midday light. On the other side was a row of portraits.

Lauren glanced at the portrait of her grandmother, Althea Gibbons. While most people had photographs of their elderly grandmothers smiling demurely at church jubilees or family picnics, the last portrait painted of Althea was quite the opposite. The seventy-five-year-old woman had looked several decades younger than her age in a blue velvet catsuit that complemented her curvy figure. She had accented it with a sapphire necklace given to her by her third husband. Her pose was also far from motherly. She reclined on a white satin chaise with her gray hair falling around her shoulders, her ample cleavage on display, and her late Pomeranian, Coco, perched at her feet.

It was a saucy portrait that epitomized Althea perfectly. Even until the day she died of heart failure, the family matriarch refused to look anything but alluring and fabulous.

“You never know what man could be watching,” Althea had always warned with a furtive glance around her shoulders, like men were stalking ninjas that could pop out at any moment. “That's why you make sure you
always
look your best, honey!” she would say with a wag of the finger. “Not a hair out of place. Not a frown on your face.”

If Althea could see her youngest granddaughter now, with her faded, wrinkled jeans, white T-shirt, and face deeply creased with a frown, the matriarch would roll over in her grave.

“There you are!” Lauren's mother exclaimed as Lauren stepped out of the corridor into the well-lit sunroom. The backyard pool and lush gardens showed through the windows behind her, flanking her like a photograph of the Garden of Eden.

Lauren's three sisters turned in unison to stare at her. Cynthia and Dawn, the oldest two, exchanged glances when she entered. Her sister Stephanie silently chuckled and shook her head. The only one who didn't look up was her seventeen-year-old niece, Clarissa. The girl kept her dark head bowed and continued to stare down at her lap.

“I was beginning to wonder if you were going to make it at all. You seemed to be aiming for a record.
Where
have you been, chile?” her mother asked as she closed her newspaper, folded it neatly, and lowered it to the breakfast table. “We've been waitin' on you!”

“Sorry, I lost track of time,” Lauren mumbled. She walked across the room and noticed that she had been the only one, as usual, to dress casual. Everyone else wore colorful sundresses in flower and paisley patterns and expensive fabrics.

When she reached her mother's chair, she leaned down and lightly kissed the older woman's cheek and inhaled, smelling the light, citrusy fragrance that her mother always wore.

“I can't stay long. I have to be at the restaurant by one o'clock.”

“So you're late
and
you have to rush off?” Though her mother was smiling, irritation was clearly audible in her voice. “Do you plan to eat or should we just make you a doggie bag?”

Lauren flopped down in the chair between her mother and Stephanie, who was snickering again. She grabbed the white linen napkin neatly folded on the bread plate in front of her, shook it open, and slung it over her lap.

“Mama, I tell you every Saturday that I have to be at the restaurant in enough time to start preparing for the evening rush. I'm a sous chef. That's my
job!
What do you want me to do?”

An uncomfortable silence fell over the sunroom. Yolanda Gibbons slowly leaned back in her rattan chair.

Many people said Yolanda bore a striking resemblance to Diahann Carroll. In fact, all she needed was the sequined gown, big hair, and big shoulder pads, and she could have been Dominique Deveraux in the 1980s soap opera
Dynasty
. She even had the character's regal air and a glare that could freeze you dead in your shoes. She was directing that withering glare now at her youngest daughter, Lauren.

“Oh, I understand that you have a job, my dear.” She adjusted her cream-colored sweater around her shoulders. “I
also
understand that your sisters have busy lives, too, but unlike you, they've always managed to make it here on time
every
week. Unlike you, they have never kept their mother waiting.”

Lauren lowered her gaze to her lap at her mother's words. She could feel her sisters staring at her, their eyes silently conveying their judgment.

“They
understand how important this is and would not dare disappoint me.”

Lauren didn't say a word, knowing it was useless to argue. Anyone would be ill advised to engage in a battle of words with Yolanda Gibbons.

After some seconds, Yolanda's face gradually softened. Her glare disappeared.

“We're family, baby,” her mother said tenderly. She placed her warm hand over Lauren's smaller one and squeezed. “And this is how we stay a family. Money comes and goes and men will
always
come and go, but no matter what, you have us. Understood?”

Lauren slowly nodded grudgingly. “Understood.”

“And we're important. Our time together is important. It should be treated preciously.”

Her mother squeezed her hand again and released it before sitting forward in her chair. She waved a hand. “Rosa, you may serve the coffee, honey.”

Another maid immediately stepped forward with silver teapot in hand.

The light air and chatter immediately returned to the room. Cynthia passed around a basket of croissants and Stephanie began to boast about a pair of Ferragamo shoes she had bought last week. Dawn took a bite from a slice of bacon while Lauren quietly thanked Rosa as she poured her a cup of coffee. Clarissa took mousy nibbles on the end of a piece of toast, making Cynthia glance at her.

“Stop
slouching,” Cynthia said tightly before nudging her daughter's shoulder.

Clarissa instantly sat upright, smoothing the pleats in her pink dress.

“I guess we can begin now,” Yolanda announced.

Of course, when she said that they could begin, she wasn't referring to just brunch itself. She was referring to that day's “agenda.” After their plates were filled and their coffee cups and juice glasses were full, Yolanda signified that their meeting had commenced by tapping her teaspoon on the edge of her porcelain teacup. The loud clinking made everyone in the room fall silent.

Lauren stared down at her plate.
This
was the reason why she was always late to Saturday brunch.
This
was the part of the tradition that she loathed the most. It wasn't because she disliked her mother or her sisters—though they could be overbearing as all hell sometimes. It was because she couldn't stand to sit through this! These meetings always made her feel like she was a member of a crime syndicate.

Yolanda interlocked her fingers and grinned. “So, who would like to go first?” She scanned her eyes around the table.

“I will,” Cynthia said, raising her slender hand. She waved her French manicured nails and proudly tossed her sun-kissed locks over her shoulder. She batted her hazel eyes and smiled. “I've made some progress with Henry Perkins, the director over at Landview Bank.”

Yolanda leaned forward, now interested.
“Really?
Is this the one that was playing hard to get?”

“Oh, he was in the beginning, but not anymore. I had to show him a little somethin'—some leg and a little boob—but I think it did the trick.”

Lauren rolled her eyes while Dawn frowned, causing a wrinkle to appear on her delicate ebony brow. “And how do you figure that?”

Unlike Cynthia, who looked similar to the actress Vanessa Williams in her younger years, Dawn looked more like the bust of Nefertiti carved out of black onyx.

Cynthia gave her sister the side eye and sucked her teeth. “Because he invited me to dinner Friday.”

“A business dinner or a
real
dinner?” Yolanda asked.

“It's a business dinner, but he wants to go out for drinks alone afterward.”

“Good.
Very
good! But you know the rules, Cindy.” Yolanda pointed across the table at her eldest daughter. “Don't get too arrogant, baby, and don't take that he's attracted to you for granted. Just because a man is responding to you doesn't mean you hold the reins yet. Remember that, ladies.” She slowly looked around the table again. “There could be a girlfriend you don't know about on the sidelines. He could think you're a woman who's there for a good time and he can just use you and move on to the next one. But if you're careful and you're
smart
, he won't know what hit him.” Yolanda smiled as she raised her teacup to her lips. She blew the hot liquid inside to cool it down. “I'm telling you. If you play your cards right, he could be your next husband, Cindy. Give it a few years and get a divorce, and you could have a nice alimony nest egg. A bank director brings home more than just pocket change.”

All the daughters, with the exception of Lauren, nodded in agreement.

Like Cynthia needs another ex-husband,
Lauren thought. Between all the women at the table, they had more than a half-dozen ex-husbands combined. Of the sisters, only Lauren had yet to take the one-way ticket down the aisle straight to divorce court.

“And what about you, Steph?” Yolanda asked, turning her attention to her other daughter.

Like Lauren, Stephanie was a shade somewhere between Cynthia and Dawn, but unlike Lauren, she wore her hair long and flowing down her back. She was also taller than her petite younger sister.

“Whatever happened to that lawyer you met at that party in Arlington?” their mother persisted. “Any progress?”

Lauren ignored the rest of the conversation, focusing on her breakfast instead.

This was every Saturday brunch at the Gibbons home: a group of women plotting—over French toast, sausage, and eggs Benedict—how to chase men and take their money.

It was a family tradition that began with Althea. The family matriarch had grown up in a crowded sharecropper shack in North Carolina but through cunning and beauty managed to successfully snare three wealthy husbands and die a
very
rich woman. She passed on her skills to her only daughter, Yolanda, who then passed it on to her daughters. In turn, Cynthia, Dawn, Stephanie, and Lauren were expected to pass it on to their kin. (Clarissa's invite to their Saturday brunch was definitely a sign that her own “classes” had begun.)