Delicacy book excerpt

This is the first chapter of a fictional book that I'm currently working on, entitled "Delicacy". It is about four African Americans-a single mother of four, two high school students and a family man and corporate professional-who suffer from varying degrees of depression and bipolar disorder, as well as how it affects each of them. I hope to have this novel finished sometime this year. Until then, please enjoy this first chapter of "Delicacy".

Chapter 1

7:00 a.m. A particularly violent thunderstorm hammers the quaint subdivision of Blackberry Crest in Atlanta, Georgia. Trees lean precariously close to the ground, some blown by the heavy winds, a few ripped off their bases by dangerously close lightening. Leaves, garbage and unopened newspapers are blown about throughout the neighborhood. A brave soul darts outside just long enough to retrieve his soaked newspaper. Next door, Cheryl Paxton awakens in her cozy master bedroom from a very difficult sleep. Her alarm clock screams in her ear until she finally slams it off. It has been storming all night, but that isn’t what has kept poor Cheryl up all night. Tossing and turning, she tries desperately to regain the hours of sleep that she missed.

“Damn,” she curses. Cheryl turns over in her bed, not wanting to get up. But she knows that she has to now, even though she set the alarm for 6 o’clock in the morning. What’s one more hour of sleep, she thinks to herself. The inside of her gut begins to churn, as she slowly but surely rises from her comfortable bed. Sitting on its edge, Cheryl drops her head in fatigue just to steal some more minutes of sleep. She knows her day will not go well at all.

I can’t do this; I can’t go through another day of this bullshit. Fuck!

Searching for some comfort for the day ahead, she looks around her gorgeously decorated master bedroom, looking at and studying the various trinkets and photographs she has hanging on the walls and sitting on all her bedroom furniture throughout. After some struggle with her drowsiness, Cheryl finally gets up off of the bed, and then slowly drags herself toward the slightly cluttered master bathroom. The brightest light in the world comes on with just the flip of a switch, and Cheryl squints tightly at the glare that fully awakens her. In all of her grogginess, she fumbles for her toothbrush and toothpaste to start her morning grooming routine. But she stops to say a silent little prayer:

“Lord,” she mumbles to herself, “ help me get through this day-please.”

A rush of pains comes over her as she begins to brush her teeth. Her brush strokes are rapid and angrily forced as she watches herself in the mirror. Just then, she hears lots of stumbling around in the other bedrooms. Three of her children are up for the morning. Michael, age 12, heads downstairs to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for himself. He’s pretty tall for his age, so he can pretty much reach any high cabinet in the kitchen. Per his mother Cheryl’s instructions, every morning Michael must make breakfast not only for himself, but for his sisters, Shauna, age 9, and Krystelette, age 6, and for his mother as well. Giving him this one chore helps Cheryl cut down on the time she rapidly uses up getting ready for work and making breakfast for the children. Once Michael starts cooking the eggs and bacon, Shauna and Krystelette come bounding down the stairs, both of them taking their seats at the aged, rickety old table that seems to have been in the family for decades.

“Did y’all take y’all baths and stuff?” asked Michael, turning to his rambunctious little sisters with questioning wide eyes and mouth somewhat agape.

“Yeah” exclaimed the sisters proudly. “We got up ‘fore you did,” sasses Krystelette, as she rolls her neck with a hand on her sitting hip.

Michael, not taking the sass from his little sister, smartly asks, “You wake up Rodney?” His eyes widen a little, waiting for his question to be answered.

Just then, both sisters’ eyes widen even bigger than their brother’s, their diminutive hands flying straight to their mouths.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Michael turns back to his cooking, trying hard not to burn anything.

Judging by the looks of him, a keen observer would guess that Michael is a very independent little man. He certainly takes good care of his younger siblings. Cheryl needs not worry about the young ones, as long as she charges her firstborn son to look after them while she works.

About a half hour later, Cheryl comes down the stairs with the youngest son, Rodney, age 1, in her arms. It seems that she has had to rush through her grooming routine-again-just to get Rodney ready for the babysitter. Even though she is fully and smartly dressed, her hair is only half-combed, and a little disheveled. She comes down and stops at the edge of the table. She stares perturbedly at her daughters.

“Why didn’t you two wake your brother up this morning?!” she snaps. “Y’all know good and well I ain’t got that much time to be foolin’ with y’all every morning!”

Michael turns to try to explain the situation. “Mama, I told ‘em they shoulda woke him up!” Cheryl lifts a defiant hand to her son while still holding Rodney. “Look, just pay attention to what you doin’, boy!” she screams, pointing to the now burning breakfast on the stove.

“Ooooohhh!! Michael done burnt our breakfast. Now Mommy gotta take us to McDonald’s,” chimes Shauna. The girls giggle sheepishly as Michael tries to rescue the ruined food.

“Girl, shut up!” snaps Cheryl. “Ain’t nobody takin’ you nowhere.”

Fed up, Cheryl snags Rodney’s baby high chair and works a little bit to plant his dangling feet in the chair holes. With near lightening speed, she scrambles to prepare some fresh breakfast for the girls and Michael and a tiny bowl of mushy baby cereal for Rodney. As soon as she has cooked breakfast for everyone, including Michael, she sits herself down at the table to eat her own food while feeding little Rodney at the same time.

It’s about 8 a.m., and already her day begins on a rather hectic note. While everything is going on, Cheryl’s thoughts begin rushing through her head at an alarming rate. They seem to act like several runaway trains looping through her brain. With each increasingly depressing thought she has, whether about her job, her chaotic home life, or her children’s absentee fathers, it seems to Cheryl that her life is becoming bleaker by the day. The damning thoughts stick to her like irremovable ink stains as she scrambles to finish combing her hair, straighten Rodney’s little clothes and bark instructions to Michael to have himself and his sisters at the bus stop-this time, on time-so that they can catch their buses and get to school. Cheryl rushes to her late model Chevrolet Cavalier in her slightly ragged, dark brown leather pumps, juggling Rodney on one hip, fumbling with the keys to open the right side door. Then she attempts to stuff her little one into his lightly worn car seat, again feet dangling like loose spaghetti, as he starts to whimper and cry from the impending constraints.

“Look, boy, I ain’t got time for this foolishness!” Cheryl barks. “All y’all gone make me late for work!” When she finally has him restrained in the car seat, Cheryl then runs right to the driver’s seat, hops in and starts the engine with lightening speed. She pulls out of her small, open driveway and spins directly onto the street.

About seventeen minutes later, Cheryl arrives at the babysitter’s apartment building to drop off Rodney. For some reason, he starts squirming and crying even worse than he did when he left the house. This time Cheryl tries to quiet him down a little more gently, while bounding up three flights of stairs. Since she is running late for work, and knowing that she has to fight the worst traffic in Atlanta, she silently curses her college age babysitter, Mashelle, for living on the top third floor. Once she gets to the door, Cheryl knocks gently yet hurriedly a few times before Mashelle finally opens the door, somewhat slowly. She is apparently doing her hair, but she is still in her nightgown and robe. Cheryl smells the hair gel burning on Mashelle’s freshly hot curled, short hair. Cheryl shoots her a faintly perturbed look.

“Hey,” says Cheryl, “How come you ain’t dressed yet?”

Mashelle shoots back a more disdained look. “I don’t have to be in class until this afternoon. Anyway, I wish you woulda called me if you needed to drop him off earlier this morning.”

Exasperated, Cheryl just gives up the argument and hands Rodney off to Mashelle. “Look, I’m sorry. I should have called. I just didn’t want to be late getting to work again.”

“Oh, ok. But I gotta take him over to his grandmother’s this afternoon, ‘cuz I’ll be in class and all,” Mashelle says. “So I may just have to leave him over there for you to get him after you get off.”

A sigh of relief leaves Cheryl’s lips. “Ooh, girl, thank you. I’ma try to get out of there early today, if I can,” Cheryl says, as she turns to leave out of the hallway and rush back to her still running car.

“Alright,” Mashelle calls out.

When Cheryl leaves and the door closes behind her, Mashelle immediately sits Rodney down on her light colored, slightly worn couch, as she darts into her tiny apartment kitchen to retrieve a small bottle of milk from the refrigerator. She warms the bottle up a little bit by holding it in both of her hands, attempting to warm it up with her natural body heat. After a few minutes, she sticks the nipple into Rodney’s now smiling little mouth, and he immediately begins suckling away contently.

Meanwhile, poor Cheryl is stuck in the always-congested Atlanta traffic. The radio is locked on her favorite station, B105.4 FM, The Beats. The traffic reporter, with his smooth voice, reports on what is already happening on I-85: congested, slow moving and at a standstill. Cheryl just slumps in the driver’s seat, knowing that she’ll have to call in late-again.

“Shit!” exclaims Cheryl, “I’m gonna be late again.” She digs into her leather purse and fishes out her cell phone.

Now she has to give her asshole boss, Michael “Mitch” Wallace, a call to let him know she’s stuck in traffic and she’ll more than likely be late coming in. Hesitantly, she flips open the phone with her free hand, with the other weakly on the wheel, and proceeds to dial that dreaded office number. A young, but stern voice comes on the other line:

“Hi, this is Mitch Wallace. Sorry I can’t take your call right now, but leave your name and number at the beep, and I will return your call promptly. Have a nice day,” the voice message deadpans.

“Hello, Mitch, this is Cheryl Paxton calling to let you know that I’m stuck in traffic and I’ll be running a…” Cheryl says before someone picks up on the other end.

“Hello, Cheryl? Where are you?! You do know what time it is, don’t you?” Mitch smarts off.

Cheryl coarsely rolls her eyes and lets out a perturbed sigh. “Yes, I do know what time it is, but I was trying to give you the courtesy of letting you know that I’ll be late.”

“Well, this is like, the third time you’ve come in late. Don’t make this a regular occurrence. I’ll talk to you when you get in the office.”

With that, Mitch slams the phone down in her ear. Cheryl, in turn, clicks off her cell phone and tosses it back into her purse. “Why, you prick muthafucka! I can’t wait to quit this damn job,” Cheryl curses to herself.

It takes her another twenty minutes to get to her office at GlaxoSmithKline, turning a sharp right corner into the spectacular, golden colored office building perched up on a hill. Cheryl then proceeds to drive directly into a wide garage park, when she fishes her parking pass out of her purse and shows it quickly to the parking guard, who then motions her to go ahead. Taking about five minutes to find the closest spot next to the door that leads to her office, Cheryl spots an empty space a few places away from the door and immediately parks there. Just as she turns off the engine, grabs her purse and gets out of the car and locks it, her cell rings again. Cheryl answers it, despite knowing good and well that it’s Mitch. “Hello, Mitch.” she answers, sullenly.

“Yeah, Cheryl, are you here yet?!” he asks sharply.

“Yes, I’m in the garage. I just need to walk through the door and take the elevator up, that is, if that’s alright with you,” Cheryl snaps back.

Mitch lets out an offended breath. “Just get in here and get to work,” Mitch barks before hanging up. By now pissed off, Cheryl rolls her neck and eyes at her cell phone before clicking it off. “Yes, sir,” she smarts off.

Standing in the slightly musty, smooth flowing elevator as it glides her upward to her destination, Cheryl leans back onto the back wall, feeling the rollers of the outer workings of the elevator as it wearily takes her up to the fifth floor. It stops at the third floor, to pick up some more latecomers to work, no doubt. Once the doors glide open, a couple of young and attractive ladies, smartly dressed for their day’s work, enter inside. The first one, an Asian lady named Mari, perks up at seeing the weary Cheryl inside.

“Hi Cherry,” Mari chirps in her psuedo-Asian accent.

Cheryl lights up a little bit, as if Mari’s greeting has given her a jolt of energy. “Oh, hey Mari. How you doin’?”

Mari lets out a short grunt. “Oh, my god, the traffic was unbelievable,” she complains.

The lady who comes in behind her is relatively unknown to the chattering twosome. She is blonde, slightly taller than Mari, and apparently better dressed. She stands a small distance from the two, leaning her left shoulder on the wall as she observes the two striking up their morning chitchat. As soon as the elevator reaches the fifth floor, Cheryl and Mari says a quick “see ya at lunch” to each other, then go their separate ways, leaving the unknown blonde in the elevator. She lets out a sigh of relief before the doors close so she can claim the rest of the elevator as her domain, before reaching her top floor destination.

Inside the somewhat cramped, mid-sized office suite located at the eastern end of the hallway, a short, red-haired young man in his late twenties paces back and forth with a navy blue binder in his hands. He keeps an eye on the open door and expansive hallway while he is studying the documents in his binder. He looks a little disheveled, but smartly dressed in his uniform office attire of black dress pants, white long sleeve shirt and red necktie. His eyes constantly go back and forth between clock and binder, waiting for his data processor/executive assistant, Cheryl, to arrive and get to work. After about five to ten minutes, Cheryl comes walking briskly down the hallway toward the office, toward hell. Before entering the office, she quickly glances at the sole nameplate that is glued to the right of the open office door: Michael Wallace, Executive Director, IT. Of course, her name appears nowhere on or in the office, as if she’s not important enough to even have her name displayed anywhere, or for her coworkers to know who she is.

Finally, after almost twenty minutes, Cheryl comes wearily into the office, expecting the biggest berating of her life. Mitch, who was just about to sit down at his oversized desk, straightens right back up, waiting to tear into his hapless assistant.

“You’re late again. And I need the report and figures that I asked you to work on yesterday for my meeting this afternoon,” Mitch says, glaring at her.

Poor Cheryl, who had just entered the office, turns her head angrily, yet tiredly to him. “Good morning to you, too.”

“Look, you have gotta start getting here on time, Cheryl. Punctuality is of the essence here. And if you can’t accomplish that much, you can start looking for another job.”

At that, Cheryl steels herself. “Mitch, look, I’m sorry I’m late this time. But you know I had to get my kids ready for school and drop my little one off at the babysitter. And I was stuck in traffic. And I know that you….” Cheryl continues, pleading her case when Mitch cuts her off.

“Cheryl, I meant what I just said. I need somebody working for me that will be here on time and actually doing their work. OK?!” Mitch snaps.

“Yeah, ok,” says Cheryl wearily.

After that maddening exchange, she takes her seat at her small desk, while she gathers her day’s work. She steals a few minutes for herself, as she lowers her head to fight back tears. After composing herself, she begins her work while saying a silent prayer to herself:

“Lord, help me through this day, this job and my life.”

Mitch keeps a stern watch on her, just to make sure that she starts doing her job, like a good little girl.

Then a radiant, outgoing young blonde-haired woman comes bounding in the office. She’s beautifully dressed, complete with a dazzling pearly white smile. Mitch immediately lights up when she approaches him from behind at his desk.

“Hi Mitchy,” she chirps in a high-pitched voice.

“Oh, hey Carrie. How’s it going?” Mitch says.

“Omigod! Did you see the reports we got back from logistics? They’re like, totally clueless up there.”

“Oh, yeah, I know what you mean. There seems to be a lot of incompetence around here lately,” he says, turning smirkingly to Cheryl, burning a hole in her back.

Carrie seems to get the message. “Ooohh, yeah,” she says, deepening her voice.

The two lower their voices so they can “discuss” some of the people that work at GlaxoSmithKline, namely every minority that’s been hired there for the past five years. They conclude their secret conversation after several minutes.

“Alrighty, then. See ya and the gang at lunch,” Carrie says.

“Yeah. Hey, don’t forget, we’re going to Chili’s. Rich said it was his treat today.”

With that, Carrie smiles confidently. “Right. I know how you and some people love those baby back barbeque ribs,” she says, darting her slightly devious blue eyes at Cheryl. Mitch lets out a stifled laugh. Then Carrie leaves the office as Mitch returns to his work.

Meanwhile, Cheryl turns away from her work and computer for a few minutes to shoot Mitch her angriest look. Before he could catch it, Cheryl returns her heated gaze back to her desk. After hardly doing any work himself, Mitch flips his pen on his desk and spins toward Cheryl in his executive chair.

“I’m going to the restroom for a few minutes. If anyone calls, take a message,” he orders her. Cheryl, by now ensconced, turns to tell him off, but he’s already gone. She throws a hand on her hip and berates the missing Mitch.

“Like I don’t know how to do my job!” she gripes. Then she returns to her desk.

As she was about to begin her work again, Cheryl just drops her pen on her documents, rests her head on her open-palmed hands and begins to softly cry to herself. But she must be careful not to let anyone see her do this, which will mean that they are finally getting to her. She opens her bottom drawer, fishes through her open purse, and pulls out a bottle of old medication that she had, prescribed to her when she became ill after giving birth to her youngest son, Rodney. Cheryl opens the bottle and dumps out four of the pills, then pops them all in her mouth at the same time. Afterward, she sneaks out of the office for a minute or two to grab a cup of water from the cooler. An older, white gentleman approaches to get a drink for himself as well, and upon seeing Cheryl leave the cooler, he shoots her a rather perturbed look, as if she has no business being there. When Cheryl returns to the office and to her desk, she breathes a sigh of relief that Mitch hadn’t returned yet. She sits back down at her desk, shakes off the cobwebs of this morning’s incident, and resumes her work.