They easily found the side-by-side stores Velma told them about. Samuel pulled up to the curb and parked behind a Ford station wagon that a woman was loading with boxes piled on the sidewalk. She saw them and began speaking before they were all the way out of the car.
“We’re closed,” she called out without looking at them.
“We know,” Mae said. “Miss Velma told us.”
The woman stopped loading the station wagon and peered at them. “Velma from the beauty parlor?”
Mae nodded. “You must be Elaine. We’re Mae and Samuel Hillaire and Velma thought your upstairs apartment might be for rent.”
“She’s such a nice person. Always thinking of someone else.” Elaine wiped her hands on her pants and took a step toward them. “We have some people who want to buy the stores, and if they do, they want that apartment. But please tell Velma I appreciate her thinking of us.”
“We’ll tell her,” Mae said, and began to follow Samuel back to the car, when Elaine announced, “I might know someone with a house to rent a few blocks away.”
Mae and Samuel were at her side so fast she took a step backward, fear in her eyes.
“We’re not here to hurt you, Elaine,” Mae said. “I thought you knew that.”
Elaine hung her head for a brief moment, then gave them furtive glances. “Would y’all mind goin’ to sit in your car while I head inside to call Jimmy Miller and tell him you might want to rent his house?”
Mae and Samuel quickly returned to the Ford while Elaine just as quickly entered the first of the two buildings. “People might get the wrong idea they see us standing outside,” Samuel said sourly.
“I think it’s her husband she’s worried about,” Mae said. “She don’t want him seeing her talking to us.”
Samuel didn’t have time to reply before the woman was back. She thrust a piece of paper at Mae. “Jimmy Miller is at his house waitin’ on you. I wish y’all good luck,” and then she was back to loading boxes into the back of the Country Squire with such intensity that it almost felt as if she’d never paused to talk to them at all. She didn’t look their way and when Samuel pulled away from the curb, the Hillaires didn’t look back at her.
They pulled up in front of Jimmy Miller’s house moments later. It was eight blocks away on 39th, a quiet street lined on both sides with small, neat houses, very much like Gus and Velma Jackson’s 54th Street. Samuel was about to park when a lanky, almost bald white man came out of the house and gestured for them to pull into the driveway. They did and got out of the car, figuring it was safe to do so.
“Elaine told me y’all was on the way,” the man said, and Samuel shook the hand that was offered. “I’m Jimmy Miller.”
“We’re Mae and Samuel Hillaire. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Miller, and we appreciate you seeing us.”
“I just hope y’all like my house. Come on inside and take a look.”
Mae and Samuel looked at each other, then at Jimmy Miller, or at his back because his long legs already had him up the walkway, onto the porch, and at the front door, which he swung open, then stood aside to let them go in first. Three steps in, they knew they wanted to live in this house. It was practically empty and it was spotless — the walls gleamed white and the hardwood floor shone. They could see straight through to the kitchen where there was a stove and refrigerator, and in a room beyond that, a table and two chairs.
“We already know we want to rent your house, Mr. Miller, but what do you want to know about us?” Samuel asked.
“You were in the war, weren’t you, son?”
“We both were,” Samuel said, and Miller’s eyes got wide. He turned them on Mae.
“You were in the Women’s Army Corps?”
“Yes sir, I was.”
“Where did you serve and what did you do?”
“In France. I was a mechanic first, then an ambulance driver.”
“And where did you serve, Mr. Hillaire?”
“In the Pacific.”
Jimmy Miller closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. “We saw some things, didn’t we, Mr. Hillaire?”
“Yes sir, we did,” Samuel replied, and briefly closed his own eyes. When he opened them Jimmy Miller was smiling. A real smile, not one of the phony ones. He told them how much the rent was and they gave him three months’ worth on the spot. He promised to return in a couple of days with the lease. “I hope y’all like livin’ in this house as much as I did,” and he gave them a ring of keys, “’specially you, Miss Mae, ’cause my Mildred never did like it. Never did like California. She left, and now I got to go too, back to Mississippi.” He looked as miserable as Mae would if she had to return to Louisiana.
Mae clutched the keys until her hand hurt and didn’t release them while Samuel drove to a store on Vermont where they purchased enough of what they’d need to spend a first night in their new home. They didn’t talk because they couldn’t. Would Jimmy Miller play a cruel joke on them? Were they both in the same dream?
They hurried back to the place they now called home, locked and bolted the doors, went into the big bathroom, got into the tub, and counted Dave Hebert’s money. Mae began shaking her head almost immediately. “No way on God’s green earth he earned all this money. You know that Louisiana Fish Market down the other end of Central? His family owns it and they fired him ’cause he didn’t come to work half the time and he was drunk when he did go.”
“Then where’d he get almost five thousand dollars, Mae?”
“Gambling or stealing,” she answered, and Samuel knew she was right, and they both felt a bit less guilty for taking this money. Not good about taking it, just less guilty.
“We should open our own business, Mae.”
“Say what, Samuel?”
“A café. Where you’ll fry up the best chicken in town and I’ll make the best red beans and rice.”
The new menu at Mae’s Family Dining was a big hit, especially the vegetable plate and the new vegetable selections to accompany the new meat selections: baked and fried chicken and fish, beef and pork ribs, beef and turkey meatloaf, fried and smothered pork chops. Once a week, offerings of lasagna, beef, and pork ribs always sold out. So did the daily favorites macaroni and cheese, collard greens, and sweet potato casserole and soufflé, and the red beans and rice. Gone from the menu were liver and onions and oxtails. Three complaints about the discontinued items and dozens of compliments on the new menu, and the dessert menu drew nothing but praise: chocolate, coconut, and lemon layer cake, apple and peach cobbler, and nut brownies.
Customers also appreciated the newly installed air-conditioning, maybe more than the new menu, and the combination of the two created a totally unexpected problem for Mae — having to ask people to leave once they’d finished and paid for their food because there was a line of people outside waiting to get in.
“Whoever heard of too much success, Mae?” Velma Jackson, who had become a good friend, enjoyed Mae’s unusual predicament even as she helped her navigate it.
Mae had put up signs all around the room and notices in the menus so nobody could claim ignorance:
DEAR VALUED CUSTOMERS,
YOU HAVE MADE US SO SUCCESSFUL THAT PEOPLE ARE IN LINE OUTSIDE WAITING TO GET IN. SO WHEN YOU HAVE FINISHED EATING, PLEASE LET WAITING (AND HUNGRY!) CUSTOMERS HAVE YOUR TABLE.
THANK YOU,
So while no one ever claimed ignorance of the notice, quite a few simply ignored it. That’s where Velma stepped in. She patrolled the room, stopping at tables that had been cleared but where people sat talking and enjoying the cool air. Velma would point at the wall of glass that fronted Mae’s. “All those people are hungry and hot too, and Miss Mae would appreciate your good manners by letting some other people sit at this table.”