One Better

  A Time Warner Company

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  ONE BETTER. Copyright © 1997 by Rosalyn McMillan. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  For information address Warner Books, Hachette Book Group, 237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017.

  A Time Warner Company

  ISBN: 978-0-446-93031-4

  A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1997 by Warner Books.

  The “Warner Books” name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  First eBook Edition: June 2001

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Part One

  Spice

  Sterling

  Carmen

  Mink

  Otis

  Spice

  Sterling

  Carmen

  Mink

  Spice

  Otis

  Sterling

  Mink

  Carmen

  Part Two

  Spice

  Otis

  Sterling

  Carmen

  Mink

  Spice

  Otis

  Sterling

  Part Three

  Mink

  Carmen

  Spice

  Otis

  Sterling

  Mink

  Carmen

  Spice

  AND FOR HER EARLIER NOVEL

  KNOWING . . .

  “True-to-life, funny, and sometimes biting dialogue. . . . Looks at passion between and beyond the sheets. . . . Explores a situation that many women can relate to.”

  — USA Today

  “An enthralling first novel.”

  — Entertainment Weekly

  “At turns vividly painful; at turns sassy and scandalous. The pages sizzle with sex and surprises.”

  —Tananarive Due, author of The Between

  “Extraordinary. . . . An energetic . . . good-hearted novel. . . . It’s about who’s most important, your husband, your kids, or yourself.”

  — Washington Post Book World

  “Ultimately it’s the story of everyone’s struggle to find that faith, that happiness. Turn the pages fast, though, or you’ll burn your little fingers!”

  —Patrice Gaines, author of Laughing in the Dark

  “Recommended. . . . Will appeal not only to African-Americans, but to most women struggling to make sense of their lives.”

  — Library Journal

  “[A] great relationship novel . . . brilliantly represents many women in today’s society as they struggle to balance their own needs against their family’s demands.”

  — Affaire de Coeur

  “A tale of love, lust, family ties, deception, dreams, relationships, and fulfillment . . . peppered with something for everyone: lustful sex scenes, passionate sermons, [and] bittersweet and powerful moments with families.”

  — Grand Rapids Press

  “KNOWING gives frustration a voice.”

  — Virginia Pilot

  “An engaging, vividly rendered story . . . undeniable momentum.”

  — Kirkus Review

  Also by Rosalyn McMillan

  Knowing

  To my daughters, Ashley Shaylynn and Jasmine Danielle, and especially to all the beautiful little children who have brought their mothers tears of pain as well as tears of joy.

  Acknowledgments

  I am blessed with loving friends like Elmira Johnson, Angela King, Angela Wynn, Fredrica Crowe, Veronica Busby, and Sheila Baker, who offer their time and help at a moment’s notice. I appreciate all of you.

  City Councilmember Anita R. Ashford, of Port Huron, Michigan, sent me hundreds of facts about Detroit’s empowerment zone. Thank you, my friend.

  Even though I’d done my research on my characters’ medical and drug histories, it is still impossible to write your story without interviewing those gifted doctors and nurses who deal with life-and-death situations every day. I offer a special thanks to Kathy Kosta in the critical care unit at Crittendon Hospital and Dr. Ira H. Mickelson (Dr. Mike). Jean Quenby, at Oakland Family Services, sent me tons of information about alcoholism and the dynamics of female alcoholics. What was really key was a dissertation that she sent me about the social and psychological aspects of African American alcoholics.

  Denise Stinson, my agent and friend, is a creative genius. Her suggestions and ideas have been invaluable.

  My new editor, Claire Zion, has been a joy to work with. She scolded me, taught me, praised me, and kept my story, my story. Bless you.

  What is especially gratifying is when a publisher makes a commitment to its author. Thank you, Maureen Egen.

  A warm thanks to firefighters Kimberly Bell and William France Jr., who risk their lives daily to save the lives of so many children, as well as the lives of others. You truly are our heroes.

  A loving thanks to my two sons, Shannon and Vester Hill Jr., who helped me tremendously with young folks’ slang.

  Saving the best for last, I’d like to thank my husband, John D. Smith, who insisted that the dialogue for my male characters sound as if a man actually said it, instead of a woman saying what she wished her man would say. To my lover, my friend, my companion, know the depth of my love. The living water of our love flows through my body, my soul, like a lake, ever creating, forever creating . . . us.

  Part One

  They {the Negroes} will endure. They are bet ter than we are. Stronger than we are. Their vices are vices aped from white men or that white men and bondage have taught them: improvidence and intemperance and evasion— not laziness: evasion: of what white men had set them to, not for their aggrandizement or even comfort but his own. . . . And their virtues . . . Endurance . . . and pity and toler ance and forbearance and fidelity and love of children . . . whether their own or not or black or not.

  —WILLIAM FAULKNER

  SPICE

  Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

  —OSCAR WILDE

  D ozens of cars were lined up for the valet service at the corner of University Drive and Pine Street in downtown Rochester, Michigan. By 8:30 A.M. BMWs, Mercedes, and Acuras began being parked by the finest red-jacketed valets money could hire. By 8:50 A.M. the lot was packed. Anyone new in town would have thought there was a party going on.

  Locals knew that 9:00 A.M. was when the four-star, multi-million-dollar gourmet restaurant Southern Spice, known for its superb southern cooking, opened for breakfast. The five-story, 27,000-square-foot Victorian mansion that housed the restaurant was originally constructed with sixty-three rooms, thirteen bathrooms, two hundred and thirty-two windows, and twenty-two fireplaces. Its Gothic exterior featured a dramatic gable roof and decorative tiles in different shapes and colors. The same tiles were repeated above doorways and over the tops of the dozens of bay windows. The roof’s steeply pitched sides, topped with pointed spires and turrets, added to the exaggerated opulence. “Southern Spice” was inscribed in beige script over the grand brick-tiled entranceway.

  Once inside, the scintillating aromas from the kitchen would cause many a belly to rumble. Orange and pineapple juice were freshly squeezed every morning. Country-cured ham from Virginia, bacon with the rind on, and egg-white shrimp omelets with a trop
ical citrus butter sauce were some of the house favorites on the breakfast menu.

  People went out of their way to dine at Southern Spice because the food and service were both unparalleled. There was always something different on a menu that changed with the seasons. Southern Spice was elegant enough to serve Russian Seruga caviar and down-home enough to have fresh catfish for breakfast.

  It was also a place where the Pistons’ Grant Hill and Joe Dumars and legendary superstars such as Aretha Franklin and Anita Baker could eat without interruption from people asking for their autographs.

  “Rosa Parks, the Winans, Mayor Quincy Cole . . . hmmm,” Spice read to her friend Carmen from the morning paper as she sipped her coffee. “There’s quite a few more black folks on the list this year.”

  Taking a break from preparing a celebratory brunch for her elder daughter in her private apartment upstairs from the restaurant, Spice was reading the Detroit News’s “Michiganians of the Year” list. The honor roll had begun in 1978, and for the third year in a row Spice Witherspoon was among the lauded Michiganians. As owner of the renowned restaurant, Spice had received numerous culinary, civic, and philanthropic awards over the past ten years.

  Even though Spice knew she made the Michiganians list because of her achievements as a restaurateur, she was still most proud of the fact that her efforts in the community were appreciated. Hard work and charity were virtues she lived by.

  The two women were two floors above the restaurant, preparing a small feast in Spice’s personal kitchen. The left side of the huge room was a well-equipped commercial kitchen with a double glass-door Traulsen refrigerator and the La Cornue $14,000 range with twin smoked-glass ovens. The far corner was filled with a wide butcher’s block curio cabinet that held an assortment of All-Clad pots and pans. Arranged along the cream Corian counters above dozens of stained-glass cabinets were various sizes of cutlery and the latest Cuisinart and mixers. In the center of the room was a long island, with back-to-back twin black porcelain sinks and a wine rack. On the right-hand wall was an arched barbecue pit and brick fireplace, with a low fire, now softly scenting the air with hickory, and right next to it floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelves filled with cookbooks. The kitchen was Spice’s favorite space in her two-story duplex, carved and refurbished from fourteen of the mansion’s original rooms.

  As Spice read the paper, the aroma of smoking meat brought her mind back to when her daughters were in school. She’d loved preparing large breakfasts and then walking her children to the bus stop on the corner. By living upstairs in the converted mansion, she’d been able to stay close to work without compromising the amount of time she spent with her children.

  Of Spice’s two daughters, Mink, the straight-A student, had always been organized, with daily homework assignments ready for her mother to check and sign. But her younger daughter, Sterling, was another matter altogether. Though Sterling’s grades mirrored Mink’s, her priority, even at age six, had always been her appearance.

  Only David, Spice’s now deceased husband, thought Sterling’s obsession with her looks was cute. Everyone else saw it as saying a lot about Sterling’s future character.

  Spice and David were married on June 9, 1972, at the courthouse in Midnight, Mississippi. David, at twenty-six, was eight years Spice’s senior, and Spice could still recall how badly his hands were shaking as they stood before the minister.

  “Having second thoughts?” Spice remembered asking David.

  There were tears in his eyes when he answered her. “Of course not. I love you.”

  David knew that when she agreed to marry him, Spice hadn’t loved him. With two small children she needed a husband, security, and a home; David offered all three. Looking back now, Spice remembered the exact moment when her feelings had shifted.

  Spice remembered the grueling eighteen-hour days that she and David used to work in the early years of the restaurant. Spice was the head chef then, and with the help of only three waitresses, David had to manage everything else. One evening, while David was cleaning the kitchen after the restaurant had closed, Spice looked over at him. Suddenly a warm pool of feeling filled her insides, and she realized then and there that he was the only man she would ever love.

  “Baby, you’re exhausted. I’ll finish.” She kissed him lightly on the neck. “You go on upstairs.”

  “No. You’re exhausted, too.” He loosened her apron and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly. “I’m okay. Now go on. I’ll be up in about an hour.”

  Hesitantly Spice walked away. Just before opening the door, she stopped and turned back. As softly as a shadow she said, “I love you, David.”

  “I know,” he answered, smiling.

  For twenty years, their marriage had been perfect. Spice’s love had grown so deep for David that it surprised her. With the girls entering college, Spice and David had begun fantasizing about grandchildren and how they would fit into their potentially glorious future.

  But it was not to be. On his way home from a weekend trip to Midnight, David had fallen asleep on the freeway and run into the back of a semi. He’d been killed instantly, he and his white Lincoln crunched up like an accordion. To protect her, David’s brother, Otis, begged Spice to let him identify the body.

  Now, widowed for five years, Spice knew that she would never again feel such an honest love as the one that she’d shared with David.

  “Who else made the list, Spice?” Carmen asked, wiping a piece of loose hair from her forehead. After dipping the wooden spoon back inside the bowl, she finished sprinkling English toffee over the top of the caramel pie cooling at the stove and then placed it inside the refrigerator.

  In eight months Carmen would be forty-five. Her small body, with tiny breasts and hips, and even her full head of naturally curly hair, cut in a sixties shag, resembled a child’s. Carmen wasn’t just thin; she looked undernourished. The bones of her gentle, latte-colored hands looked like trembling branches. It hurt Spice to see her friend’s frailty.

  Spice called off five more names, listed alphabetically, and stopped at the last entry: Reverend Golden Westbrook. “I’m not familiar with that name. I wonder—”

  “Mr. Westbrook is the pastor at Divinity Baptist in Detroit. He’s the president of the Detroit chapter of the National Alliance for the Advancement of the Black Race. He’s been getting a lot of attention because of the NAABR elections this fall,” Carmen explained as she began to pace the kitchen floor.

  “Really? I wonder if he’s looking for a wife.” Spice continued reading the morning paper and sipping her coffee. “Now that’s the kind of man Sterling should be dating.”

  “Sterling?”

  “She may be needing a husband sometime soon.” There was a bitter tone in Spice’s voice. “She’ll be twenty-six the end of February, and she’s still costing me a fortune every month. I’ll support her for one—” Spice stopped. She was becoming increasingly irritated by Carmen’s pacing back and forth. “I’m starting to feel a breeze across my face from you walking so fast. You’re making me nervous, Carmen,” she said as she flexed the paper forward. “Sit down and take a break, will you? We’ve got plenty of time.” She waited until Carmen was seated. “I’ll pay her bills for one more year, until she gets her degree. If she gets a degree, which I doubt. Degree or not, one year, then she’s on her own.”

  Carmen uttered a short laugh. “I can just see Sterling with a preacher.” She removed a flask from her apron and took a quick sip of vodka.

  Spice turned her mouth up in a half smile. “I think it’s time for Sterling to make some changes, don’t you?” she said, putting the paper away.

  “What about you, Spice?” Carmen smiled. “Are you going to make some changes? When are you getting married again?”

  “I’m not ready.” Spice watched Carmen’s smile fade. “April marks the fifth anniversary of David’s death. And to be perfectly honest with you, I enjoy my freedom and making all the business decisions around here.” Her voice was e
motionless. “I married David because I needed a man to take care of me and my kids. My kids are grown now. I’ve since learned how to take care of myself. I don’t need a husband anymore.”

  Although their friendship spanned decades, Carmen had never questioned Spice’s motives. Spice missed David terribly at times but could not afford to reveal her vulnerability. Though few people knew it, Southern Spice was opening a second restaurant in downtown Royal Oak. And with it Spice was being launched into the rough-and-tumble world of business development. She had to appear as a woman with a man’s strength and a woman’s creativity.

  When the timer went off, Spice removed the roast from the oven. Immediately the kitchen filled with the fresh scents of apricots, pecans, and thyme. She added a splash of bourbon to the robust sauce simmering on the range, the last step in the preparation of the succulent apricot-pecan-stuffed pork loin. Soft steam formed on the windows, clouding the outside view as the women worked. With the subject of husbands dropped, the two women moved on to a safer topic—food.

  “Don’t you think this is a lot of food for four people?” Carmen asked while stirring three pounds of fresh jumbo shrimp and lobster into the bubbling red pot of gumbo on the stove’s front burner.

  “Of course not! It’s time for a celebration.” Spice paused. “How often does a mother see her black child promoted to captain with a major airline? And a female child at that.” She expertly sliced the piping hot pork roll and began arranging the dual circles of meat over a circular base platter of roasted new potatoes, leeks, and baby carrots. “However,” she added, “whatever food is left over, we can wrap up and deliver to Mother Maybelle’s Soup Kitchen downtown in the morning.” As she poured a hefty amount of the hot glaze into a separate dish, Spice brought a finger to her lips and gingerly sampled the tangy bourbon sauce. “Mmmm,” she said, “perfect.”