The Big Heat

Rats were fond of the back alley and her rodent aversion bordered on phobic. And if the rats gnawed through the Mustang’s wiring, she’d be hard-pressed to cough up the bucks to fix it after sinking her savings into her campaign fund. She’d rather jockey for on-street parking any day.

“You know, Sunny, I think this flyer’s not going to be a big deal,” Sheila said. “People will get it and toss it. I don’t think anyone’s going to pay a bit of attention.”

Sunny turned left onto her street and immediately braked.

She looked at Sheila. “I hope it’s true that there’s no such thing as bad press—” news vans sat double-parked in front of her row house, midway down the block, which also doubled as her campaign headquarters “—because they’ve definitely paid attention.”

She squared her shoulders. She’d talk to them for a few minutes and then it would be over.

How bad could it be?

2

One month later…

“HOW ARE YOU?” Sheila asked as Sunny settled opposite her onto the familiar hard laminate seat at Melvina’s Soul Food.

“I’m starving. How about you?” Sunny inhaled the aroma of collard greens, corn bread and candied yams, ignoring the deeper implication of whether or not she had fully recovered from the debacle following her election loss.

Melvina’s soothed her with its juxtaposition of stark but clean concrete floors, laminate seats, bars over the windows and rich comfort food. After the last four weeks of hell—and without being a whiner, it had truly been hellacious—she was getting back on her feet, but her soul could use a healthy dose of culinary comfort.

“I didn’t think I was hungry until I smelled the food and now…yeah,” Sheila said, leaning across the table a bit to be heard. “And I’ll let you slide now, but we’re going to talk before lunch is over.”

Melvina’s was always noisy and today was no exception, with conversation vying with a blues Christmas CD playing over the loudspeaker—Sunny was pretty sure that was Memphis’s own Koko Taylor belting out “Have You Heard the News.” A thirty-year collection of baby Jesus ornaments adorned a Christmas tree in the middle of the small restaurant. According to Melvina, Jesus was the reason for the season and there wasn’t room on her tree for anything else except the star on top.

Melvina herself delivered two sweet teas to the table. “Look at what the cat done drug in,” she said with a wide smile. “We sure have missed you.”

“Not nearly as much as I’ve missed y’all.” Melvina, her son, TJ, and his wife, Charity, were old friends. She’d known them all since she’d “discovered” Melvina’s when she was a University of Memphis student along with TJ and Charity ten years ago.

The older woman gave Sunny a bone-crushing hug—who’d have thought such a small, seemingly frail woman could hug so hard—and Sunny squeezed back.

Melvina and Sheila exchanged greetings and Melvina crossed her arms over her chest, her mouth settling into a disapproving frown. “That was just wrong what that man did to you and wrong what them news folk did after that.”

Sunny smiled and shrugged, determined to put it behind her. “It seems to be over now.” It wasn’t good when the flyers had been spread around town but she’d never dreamed it would explode the way it had. In one of those weird, totally unwelcome quirks of fate, the election and flyer had been picked up by the AP and Reuters and mushroomed into a gargantuan tabloid/Internet nightmare of humiliation. Sunny clad in a bikini had become the election flyer seen around the world. And she’d learned an important lesson. No one ever actually died from humiliation or harassment. She was still-living proof.

Melvina’s lips thinned to a hard line. “TJ saw your picture on a late-night TV show.” Who in the world hadn’t would be a shorter list. Sunny, or rather her attendant flyer, had made number three on the Top Ten Stupid Things To Do When You’re Running for Public Office list. “And Charity saw some stuff on the Internet.”

Not hard to imagine since Sunny had been the butt of innumerable jokes circulating on the blogo-sphere. She’d tried to avoid them, but couldn’t help reading each and every one. It was like watching a train wreck—the train wreck that had become her life. She’d thought after a few days of infamy it would die down. That was the way those things worked, right? Wrong. Just when it looked as if things were dying down, it flared back up. But now…four weeks and counting, it finally seemed over. Sunny considered it a minor miracle she’d managed to maintain her dignity and her temper through it all.

“I think it’s finally over.” No one had pointed or stared at her in at least two days since she’d ventured out of her house once again. No one cheered, jeered or tried to take her picture. No more Web design contracts had cancelled on her except the one. And since she’d disconnected her home phone after changing the number three times in as many weeks, the harassing phone calls had ceased. Her cell number was only available to a select few.

“That Meeks ought to be horse-whipped for starting all this,” Melvina declared.

“Too good for him,” Sheila opined.

“He’ll get his one day,” Sunny said. She wasn’t sure how or when, but he would. She was ready to get on with her life, but that included settling with Meeks. Revenge would be hers.

Melvina glanced around and lowered her voice. “Me and TJ, we know people. You want Meeks taken care of, whatever you want, we know people.”

“You’re a good friend, Melvina. I’ll keep that in mind.” Having him beat up wasn’t what she intended but it was good to know your friends had your back. In a darker, less lucid, PMS moment she had fantasized that Meeks’s penis would fall off in a very public place and then a group of rogue rabid squirrels would attack him and gnaw his nuts off. However, chocolate had helped and she’d moved on. Now she just wanted the dirt on him she knew was somewhere to be found. She’d been working some contacts, asking around. Patience and perseverance would yield results in the end.

“You just say the word,” Melvina said, nodding. “I better get back to the kitchen.” She turned, wiping her hands on the ever-present apron knotted around her waist. “I’ll send TJ out with corn bread and two vegetable plates.”

Melvina hurried off, yelling for her son along the way.

Sunny took a long swallow of the sweet tea. Sheila scraped her nail down the condensation gathered on the outside of her glass. “So things are back to normal?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it normal, but it’s not what it has been for the past few weeks.”

TJ dropped off a plate of Melvina’s corn bread, which was actually fried like a big corn bread pancake, and two pale-aqua melamine plates piled high with collards, candied yams and fried okra. “Enjoy, ladies,” he said. “This is on the house.”

“But—” Sunny protested.

TJ cut her off. “Hey, I’m the finance whiz with the college degree, remember?” He winked at her. “I say Melvina’s can afford to comp a couple of friends now and then.”

The last month had severely frazzled her nerves and pushed her to the edge, but TJ’s offer made her teary-eyed. She sucked it up. If she hadn’t cried then, she darn sure wasn’t going to lose it now. “Thanks, TJ.”

He smiled, “Just enjoy it, okay?” He moved on to the next table with his laden tray.

“That was nice,” Sheila said.

“Very.” Her mouth watering in anticipation, Sunny broke off a crispy edge of the corn bread and popped it into her mouth. Heavenly.

“I wanted to wait until the dust settled but have you given any thought to what you’re going to do next? You aren’t going to just go to ground, are you?”

“No. I’ll continue my committee work.” She’d thought about it a lot. It’d be easy to just toss in the towel but the easy thing to do wasn’t necessarily the right thing to do. Even though it meant working with Cecil, she wasn’t giving up her committee work. “If I quit altogether then Cecil’s really won.”

“Atta girl,” Sheila said with an encouraging smile.

And honestly she was sick and tired of Cecil Meeks and his fiasco consuming her life. The worst of it was that Cecil hadn’t won because he was the better candidate. If she believed he’d do his job properly, all of this wouldn’t really matter. Well, that was a lie. It’d matter but she’d feel better about him being in office.

She took a deep breath. She wanted to talk about something else, think about something else. She’d much rather talk about Sheila and Dan’s twentieth-anniversary trip to Key West. They were flying out as soon as Dan finished work today. Monday struck her as an odd time to leave but apparently the hotel offered a discounted Monday to Monday package. “You all packed for Florida?”

“I’ve been packed. I can’t wait. One glorious week of sun, snorkeling and boinking my husband senseless. And not necessarily in that order.”

As far as Sunny could tell, Sheila and Dan, both in their mid-forties, had their moments like any other couple, but unlike many others, they still seemed to genuinely enjoy one another’s company in and out of the bedroom. It was the kind of relationship she’d like to have one day, if she ever stumbled across Mr. Right.

Sunny laughed. “I’d opt for nearly senseless. He’ll be useless if he’s senseless.”

“Nah. He’s a man. The two brains operate independently.” Sheila smiled like the cat with the canary. “At least I hope so because he’s guaranteed to lose his mind.” She leaned across the table and dropped her voice, even though none of the other customers were paying them any attention. “Did I tell you about the package I shipped ahead?”

“Honestly, if you did, I don’t remember with everything that’s been going on. Do tell.”

“I wasn’t sure about getting it through security at the airport, so I shipped a toy box to the hotel.”

“A toy box?” Sunny was pretty sure she knew where Sheila was going.

Sheila leaned farther across the table, barely avoiding sticking her boob into her yams, and lowered her voice. “I ordered a selection of sex toys online. A couple of outfits for me. A couple for him. Some gels, some lotions, a collection of body jewelry and a couple of other inventive things.” She sat back with a wicked smile.