Secrets of the Poppy
by
Thunder Falcon
Edited by
Daniel Bell
SMASHWORDS EDITION
PUBLISHED BY:
Thunder Falcon on Smashwords
Secrets of the Poppy
Copyright © 2006 by Thunder Falcon
All Rights Reserved
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More About Author Thunder Falcon
Other Falcon Titles
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Secrets of the Poppy
by Thunder Falcon
Teddy looked into the mirror and adjusted his tie for one last minute rehearsal before his long anticipated dinner with his mother Clementine. “Mom,” he said out loud in announcement. “I just thought I should tell you that I’m, you know...I’m ah,” he started to stray badly, feeling a knot in his throat tick to detonation. “I’m, I’m...Blaa!”
What’s blaa? Blaa isn’t a Sexual Orientation! Teddy thought better of it. Well, I suppose it could be under the right circumstances.
But these weren’t the right circumstances.
He tried to remind himself that there was no reason to panic. The last four or five trial runs went well with no stumbles and were executed with a firm sense of confidence and pride in who and what he was. And how could any mother find fault with that? He would just chuck up this most recent blunder to last minute jitters and cold feet.
Now his father, he would be another story. Mister Brave Noble Indian Savage, pride of the Lakota Nation, twice decorated for feats of valor by the United States Marine Corps, would be an altogether different matter.
Yes, when it came to his father, he was quite screwed.
In fact, if he were to impart this special truth about himself, either by suicidal intention or insanity, the old man would most certainly be looking for the nearest tomahawk for which to scalp Teddy’s short, sleek styled tresses from his pretty little head.
Thank God and the Great Mystery, he wasn’t going to be there. But Teddy couldn’t help but wonder if they were the same entity or just closely affiliated mystical forces. Either way, he was hoping for supernatural aid to see him through this night.
Yet regardless of his current standing with both his father and the divine powers of the universe, he knew his mother would understand. She would most likely drop from a heart attack, but after her quick recovery she would understand.
She would have to.
He was tired of lying. But there was one obvious risk he had failed to address directly. What would she say to his father? In her devout affection for her oldest son, she would most certainly force him to accept this new detail in their son’s character, whether he liked it or not. Was Teddy ready for that? Yes, after all this time, he was finally ready for whatever his mother would do.
The Silk Poppy was all a bustle with evening dinners. Clementine was lead to her special table, by her favorite waiter. It had been chosen for privacy and as promised, a painted silk screen could be erected at a moment’s notice. He adjusted the flourish of poppy blossoms to face Clementine just so. The bouquet, having been arranged with several pink poppies at the center with red blooms engulfing them in a circular embrace, looked up at her batting their blushed petals like eyes. She immediately noticed these poppies were alive, unlike those that anointed the other tables. Having been crafted from silk rather than grown, they were totally bereft of the transforming colors of living pink poppies.
He must have picked them out just for her, his favorite customer.
She studied his handsome face. Beautifully framed with a neatly trimmed beard, it brought her a much needed sense of calm. Patting his hand, she sat down. “Everything is just lovely Sammy. Just lovely, and the table is perfect.”
“I aim to please,” Sammy said in his soothing middle-eastern accent. His name was actually Samien, but Clementine liked to call him Sam or Sammy and he never bothered to find fault with the nickname. “I picked the flowers special,” he pointed out. “I know all of your favorite flowers are pink. I know all your favorite things are pink.”
“I could tell. But I should point out that not all my favorite things are pink.” She gave him a little wink. Yes, he was one of her favorite things that wasn’t pink. Thinking wistful thoughts, Clementine petted the petals. “I think we’ll be ordering off the Middle-Eastern menu tonight. Teddy doesn’t know it yet, but I think the food will be much more to his liking. And a cup of chai would be nice.”
“I was hoping you’d surprise me. You always order off the Middle-Eastern menu.” Sammy’s eye brows flared. “And you’re hopelessly addicted to chai.”
“I’m so predictable.” She smiled up at him, hoping he would be willing to proceed with their special ritual. As he poured water, she would inquire about his love life and he would respond with a clever joke to make her laugh. She knew tonight was different from all those other nights of dinner and playful conversation, but she wanted to believe it was like any other evening for just a few moments longer. “So, have you met anyone special?”
“Dear Mrs. Martian,” he smiled happily on cue, “I am Jordanian, which in English, translates to middle-eastern scum of the earth. Anytime I meet someone special, they’re certain I’m a spy sent to seduce them and blow up their house.”
“Could you blow up my house?” she asked pleading. “I’m too lazy to clean.”
“I left my C-40 in my other coat. I’ll go get it.” With her giggle, he turned to walk away smiling in his kind way. “And I shall also return with bread and hummus.”
She watched him as he directed the other waiters with a guiding hand. One waiter looked on him, with pleading eyes for quick aid. His hands turning to a swift blur, he quickly folded a few napkins in the shape of birds that took immediate flight to a nearby table.
Had he known she had chosen him?
Yes, he was loving, funny and kind. But most important of all, he could be called upon to manage the most difficult of situations. Truly, if it were her choice to make, she would pick Sammy to look after her most precious possession.
Far outside Clementine’s hearing, Samien assigned the last of his tables to other waiters and helped them with customer details. Feeling heavy, he took a moment to step into the men’s room as a quiet sadness trailed behind him. Pulling out the tie of his well trained pony tail, he hoped all his troubles would fall away. They didn’t. He combed his long wavy hair in a neat fashion, rebinding his tresses tightly to trail down his shoulders and back. He sighed.
The son would be here soon.
Samien had only seen him once before. Some time back, he had accompanied Clementine to The Silk Poppy to celebrate his birthday with a dinner party. Very striking. Sammy could imagine him singing and swinging like that actor he had seen in movies. What was his name? Lou Diamond Phillips. Yes. He was very fit and very handsome.
He hoped he was going to take the news well. He didn’t want to fend off flying tables and chairs. If the son’s personality was anything like that of the father, there would be flying tables and chairs. Sammy gasped. Perhaps Clementine should have done this at home. He rattled in thought. Maybe that’s her plan? He had urged her in that direction. Yes, she will have a nice dinner with her son and take him home and tell him the bad news.
No. That’s not how it was going to be handled. Clementine had been too specific about Samien’s involvement. The menu, the carefully placed table and the emergency privacy screen, as if that would matter when someone is yelling, or having a nervous breakdown. No, she was definitely going to do it here.
Maybe she had to do it here.
That’s why she needed Sammy – for support, maybe even strength. It was going to be a hard thing to tell her son. She had a daughter too. But strangely enough, Clementine found it a great deal easier to share the disparaging news with her. Yet when it came to telling Teddy, the feat suddenly seemed nearly impossible.
Sammy gasped.
She probably had already tried to tell him and she couldn’t do it. Maybe she couldn’t do it without a friend to hold her up when she was falling down.
And they were definitely friends. She was the only customer, he had associations with outside the restaurant. The occasional movie or lunch. Sometimes there was shopping. He would miss the shopping. She had such excellent taste.
The air became light and soft on his breath.
He would never forget how it all happened.
It had started out so badly.
He woke up one September morning in the city he had come to love, to watch two planes fly into the World Trade Center. On intuition, he knew the darkened forces behind the attack and his worst fears were later confirmed in the days that followed. He couldn’t help but believe it. It had been a horrible nightmare that had waited years to come true. With it, there came a deep and compelling shame, he couldn’t understand or explain. He was an American, but by birth he was Jordanian and a Muslim.
How had Clementine described this untouchable feeling? Guilt by association.
Devastating guilt by association.
For days afterward, he couldn’t bring himself to walk through the doors of The Silk Poppy where he worked. It was an East Indian restaurant with subtlety Middle-Eastern, or rather Mediterranean tendencies and he was the only Jordanian that worked there, as if Americans could tell the difference before that day. Maybe they still couldn’t tell the difference. But he was too ashamed and broken to show his face there, and he stayed home weeping, quite certain the grief would never go away.
Then one day, Clementine came knocking at his door. She had come to ask why her favorite waiter hadn’t been coming to work. She already knew why. She just pretended not to know, as she allowed him to explain in his way, how bad he felt. How sad he felt.
Then she shocked him.
“We should all feel bad,” she said as if guilty of some hidden crime. “We all have so many things we should feel bad about.” She smiled, with a little lopsided expression that seemed to hurt her face. “My husband is Native American. Did you know that?” she asked a light coming into her eye. “He’s so handsome, like Geronimo. I almost fell out of my chair when I laid eyes on him for the first time. Love at first sight. That was it!”
Her hazel eyes dimmed.
“Do you know about all of the horrible things we did to them? White Americans, I mean.” She paused as if the next words would hurt her. “Genocide, that’s what it was. The holocaust that happened in this free country. It even happened to my husband. He had family murdered in the massacre of Wounded Knee before he was even born. And there is a long list of crimes that killed thousands, even millions. And still he loved me, a little white girl from Iowa. That always amazes me. That he still loved me and never blamed me for the horrible things my people had done to his.”
She started wringing her hands in that helpless way. “But I blamed myself. I blamed myself every time he got snubbed at a party or overlooked for promotion. I blamed myself for the awful things my father said about how I couldn’t marry an Indian, because they were stupid and god wouldn’t save their souls because they weren’t really human by his law. To this day, I still can’t believe he said that. And I blamed myself for not being able to protect him from it.”
Her eyes suddenly brightened. “But then my eldest Teddy was born and I was free. I don’t know what happened, but it was like he liberated me. And I looked at people like my father and decided, I wasn’t going to take the blame for their horrible little crimes anymore. Let them live with it. Let my father live with the fact that I was forced to leave my family, because they refused to accept the man I married. What mattered was that I knew what was important. And I still know what’s important. And you’re important Samien. You’re important and I don’t want this horrible thing to hurt you anymore.”
But it did hurt and Samien wanted an explanation for the unexplainable. “Yes, but how did this happen? How could Muslims or anyone, do such a horrible thing?”
“Please Sammy,” she pleaded, “don’t do this. There is no answer for that question. This didn’t happen because the men who took over those planes where Islamic terrorists. It happened because they were human. And humans have been doing bad things to each other for a long time and we can’t blame Islam or Christianity for that.”
Her voice got strangely bitter, trapping the moment into a corner. “Well, maybe we can. And believe me, it would be really tempting. But the truth is, and no one wants to say this, but I know, I know there have been crimes on both sides. And before this is over, I’m afraid there are going to be more. In the end, we can only show people there’s another way. And we know there’s another way. You and I know that, and that’s the best we can do for now.”
She stayed with him for the whole day and made him tea and he talked with her about how he’d gotten so far from home. They washed his dishes and she told him funny stories about her husband and children. And in her company, the dim sadness that he thought would never leave, lifted away. And from that day on, she moved into his life replacing something he thought forever lost to him.
Something that remotely resembled a family, yet seemed far more precious.
Looking into the bathroom mirror as a castaway child of Islam, he prayed again, placing the wish on top of so many desperate and dear wishes that had come before that moment. Dear Allah, please save her. She’s all that I have. She’s the only family I have.
There came loud banging on the employees’ bathroom door. Ignoring it, Samien washed his hands for the required twenty seconds. Or was it thirty? Still the water was soothing and warm. His back stiffened as a silent terror set in. The bread. I forgot the bread and hummus!
He emerged from the bathroom to find his boss Ya’bashi, glaring at him. “What have you been doing?” he asked, his thick Indian accent enhancing his agitation. “And what’s this silly business about you giving your tables away? You’re my best waiter!”
“Not tonight Bashi,” Samien explained as he rushed into the kitchen to start preparations on a pot of hot chai. “Tonight I’m the worst waiter in the world. I can’t even manage bringing bread and C-40 to one table.”
“Don’t joke about such things. It’s in very bad taste.” Ya’bashi started waving his finger with his usual redundant instructions. “Try not to be vulgar and be sure to push the Arabic ah, I mean, the Mediterranean Menu.” While the course names leaned toward the later, the menu was actually a carefully articulated, yet simple balance of both Middle-Eastern and, or Greek cuisine, selected to be the most favorable to the occasionally perplexed American palette. “We just got the new cook and he has a fabulous touch with the food, especially the soups.”
Yet if anyone had bothered to ask the new cook, he would have stated that all of the food, was in fact Middle-Eastern. He was testy that way. No small wonder the American palette is so confused, Samien thought.
However, the point that was the most relevant to Bashi, was that neither cuisine suffered the fatal flaws of his native Indian food. “The food is much more tasty and it’s guilt-free if our customers can simply call it Mediterranean, yes?”
Samien rolled his eyes, remembering a time when Bashi didn’t care about such things. “You’re a traitor to your people,” he ribbed him mischievously. “You should be deeply ashamed.”
“I’m not a traitor! I’m just being honest.” And deep down Ya’bashi was very honest, which explained his guilt-ridden Freudian slips revealing the controversial origins of large portions of the Mediterranean Menu. “Besides, I’ve had to eat Hindi food all my life and it’s terrible. Especially the chutneys. I only ate them out of necessity. That’s the only way, one can eat chutney. Arabic-” He stopped correcting himself again. “Mediterranean food is much better. And if you recall, once we added the second menu after we opened, The Silk Poppy took off doing twice the business. So don’t call me a traitor for having good taste. It’s not my fault.”
“Well, I seem to recall having some wonderful Indian food, a number of times at other restaurants.” Samien pointed out, lowering his voice to a guilty whisper. “Maybe you just need to hire a better cook for the Indian Menu.”
Far less concerned about hurt feelings, Bashi glared at the chutney-challenged cook in question. “What can I do. He’s my brother-in-law.” But Ya’bashi hadn’t forgotten the main point of his agitation. “Besides, whatever the menu, you need to take care of your tables!”
“Too late. I’ve already given away my tables.” The head waiter stated bluntly tossing a polite waiter’s towel over his arm. “And the other waiters are very pleased because they get the tips. What am I supposed to do, take them back? They would be furious!”
Just in time for his planned exit, one of the pouting cooks in question, put up warm and supposedly Indian Naan Bread. It was also known as Khubz, the reclusive Arabic bread that went on to be what Americans had been carefully and subtly trained by more general Greek influences, to call pita bread. Samien piled pieces of the culturally-conflicted bread into a fresh basket, wondering if it had issues to work out. Looking past a variety of chilled chutneys including Mango and Mint, he recovered Clementine’s favorite garlic hummus and filled a bowl.
“But what about Mrs. Hampstead?” Bashi asked unrelenting. “She likes you.”
“She only likes me because she thinks I’m a Hindi. Just tell her that I’m a gay, middle eastern terrorist and she’ll want another waiter.”
“I told you not to joke about such things! And what about this Miss Clementine?”
“She already knows I’m a gay, middle-eastern terrorist and she still wants me as her waiter. And you’ll be thrilled to know, she always orders off the so-called Mediterranean Menu. In fact, she's the only person that calls it by the right name.” Ignoring Bashi’s glare, Samien picked up his tray and began to head out of the kitchen bay doors. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I promised to blow up her house.”
Ya’bashi was appalled.
Upon his arrival Clementine looked anxious. “There you are.”
Samien forced a genial smile. “I’m sorry. I got distracted.” He set down his bounty. Placing a pot before Clementine, he started to pour chai into her nervous little cup.
Much to his surprise she started to fuss. “Do I look alright?” She brought out her compact to look at herself in the mirror. That was something Clementine had never done before. For the most part, she had never worried about how she looked. But now? “I’ve been looking either too pale or too yellow.” She shuddered in front of the small mirror. “Do I look yellow?”
“No. You look pink.” Samian didn’t think he was lying. She really did look pink.
“Yeah, I really over did it with the blush. And my damn little Teddy Bear notices everything.” Forgetting her silly moment of female frustration, she patted Samien’s hand. “Remember Sammy? I told you all about Teddy.”
Yes, Clementine had told him all about Teddy. For some reason she had even given him a photo of the handsomely striking, thirty-something Tribal God. But laying eyes on him the first and only time, during his birthday? That was it! Something akin to the way Clementine had felt in seeing her husband for the first time, except it had happened to Samien, twice. He had never expected such an experience would have found him twice. But in seeing Teddy, another face returned to him, shining with dark, bright eyes that no longer graced the world.
It had been traumatic and he about fell out of his chair, or rather, dropped his tray. He cringed at the memory. In losing the balance of his tray, he spilled wine into Teddy’s lap.
In all the years he’d been waiting on tables, he had never spilled a drop of anything on the floor or a table, let alone someone’s lap. It was awful. And on Teddy’s birthday. Judging by the look on the victim’s face, Samien thought it very likely he’d never be forgiven for this small act of wine-staining terrorism against the Lakota Nation. Or was it the Dakota Nation? The many names of the Native American Tribes, often confused him. He made a mental note to consult Clementine on the subject at better time.
Still his mind couldn’t help but wander.
“I’m sorry, Sammy. I’m distracting you again,” Clementine said with some hesitance. “Go take care of your other customers. I’ll be fine until Teddy gets here.”
“I don’t have any other customers,” Sammy said happily. “Besides, I thought you wanted me to be here with you when Teddy arrived.”
“Well,” Clementine shuttered. “I thought it would be nice-” She seemed to momentarily lose her train of thought, to return to him with an unwilling smile. “But you still have to take care of your other customers and I don’t want to be a fuss.”
“You’re never a fuss. Somewhat high maintenance but never a fuss,” Samien reminded her with a smile. “But as I mentioned, I don’t have any other tables tonight.”
“Don’t be silly. Of course you do. The placed is packed.”
“Yes, but I’m being punished for insolent behavior.” Now Samien was lying. He didn’t want Clementine to know he had given up his tables because of her. And then she would feel obligated to over tip and she would be too worried about him losing money. But he was worried about losing much more than money. “You see, I called Bashi some bad names...again,” he confessed, appearing as if he was a habitual offender. “I was fortunate he let me work at all. But I explained that tonight, you had special plans and you wanted me to take care of you.”
“Right.” Clementine sounded suspicious of his cover story.
Seeing a new arrival, he added a super-spy cover smile. “In speaking of your Tribal Prince,” Samien said, pointing to the main foyer of The Silk Poppy, where he saw Teddy standing, "he’s here.”
Drawing little or no attention to himself, the handsome man stood there waiting patiently. This was very annoying. “Now if Bashi would just get up there to seat him. But no! He has to chat with everybody in the world.” Much to Samien’s dismay, the host and owner of The Silk Poppy, was stopping to converse with every customer in his path. By the most realistic estimate available, it would take Bashi approximately ten years to get to Clementine’s son. “Do you want me to get him?”