Page 9 of Happy Endings

Trixie and Reina made eye contact and quickly looked away from each other. Josie crossed her arms and stared them down.

“The co-owner of Mama Hazel’s is Trixie’s ex,” Reina blurted out. “I’m sorry, Trixie, but they should know who that jerk is.”

“You never told us you had an ex-boyfriend who lived in the DMV.” Zoe sounded hurt.

“I had no idea he came back to the metro area,” she replied. She realized how little she knew about Andre outside of their time in New Orleans. It wasn’t for lack of trying. She’d been so absorbed with her family troubles that she hadn’t pushed him for more. “He ghosted me, remember?”

“You never did tell us what happened with him,” Josie said. “All I knew was that you had a bad breakup in New Orleans and came here to start over.”

“Even though he dumped me two years ago, it’s still hard to talk about.” Trixie owed them the full story. “He’s the reason my parents kicked me out. I’d flunked out of my first semester of pharmacy school and he’d convinced me to tell my parents I wanted to become a therapist instead.” Trixie turned to Zoe. “You know Vietnamese parents don’t believe in therapy. It’s not on the approved list of medical careers.”

“Only medical doctors, dentists, and pharmacists.” Zoe ticked off the list on her fingers. “But never therapists because that’s not ‘real’ doctoring.”

“Some Black folks don’t believe in it either.” Josie sighed. “But back to what happened in New Orleans.”

“My parents were furious with my decision and kicked me out, so I moved in with Andre. A couple of months after that, he dumped me with a Post-it note stuck to the fridge. It readIt’s over. You deserve better.”

Zoe gasped. Josie growled.

“At least he had the decency to cover three months’ rent. I—” Trixie’s voice cracked. “I never heard from him again.”

“Oh, Trixie.” Zoe reached over and hugged her. She and Zoe had grown close as roommates. Both were daughters of Vietnamese immigrants, and they understood the pressure their parents put on them to be successful. Too bad Trixie’s parents weren’t as understanding as Zoe’s parents when it came to nontraditional career choices.

“I’m sorry.” Josie touched Trixie’s hand. “It must have been terrible to see him after all that time.”

“It’s in the past. Right now, I’m focused on the future. I’m going to set up shop after I win first place. Once it’s open, my parents will see that I made the right career choice for me. Not for them. I’m not giving up.”

Chapter 5

Monday

Fuck!”

Andre resisted the urge to slam the phone down after hearing the voicemail that his bank loan application had been denied. Duct tape barely kept the battery from popping out, and the base garbled any messages it managed to record. Mama Hazel’s had moved to a digital voicemail system while he’d been in New Orleans, and the phone still worked, so why replace it?

If he was honest with himself, he wanted to keep the relic because Mama had been so excited when she’d “upgraded” the restaurant’s phones. Sometimes if he stood in the doorway of this office and looked hard enough, he could see Mama sitting in this same worn chair with the phone cradled in the crook of her neck and shoulder.

With no bank to bail them out, he had to figure out how to move the money around to replace the fryer. He dug through the stacks of bills for a scrap piece of paper but settled on using the back of an envelope from their produce vendor.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Keisha popped her head into the office. “I thought I heard a yell.”

“I thought you were in class.” Andre grabbed the unopened bills and flipped them over so she couldn’t see who they were from. “Sorry I disturbed you.”

“We had a test and I finished early.” Keisha brushed imaginary lint off her shoulder and grinned. “Your sister is a whiz at numbers, you know.”

He nodded.

“You’re supposed to say, ‘Keisha, you’re the smartest person I know,’” teased Keisha.

“If you already know it, why should I say it?” he tossed back.

She stuck her tongue out at him before throwing herself onto the futon they used for naps in between meal services.

“Now spill it.” She crossed her arms. “Or show me those bills you’re trying to hide from me.”

He wanted to tell her after he’d come up with some solutions, but she was dead serious about going through everything on his desk.

“We didn’t get the loan.”

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