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CADILLAC AND Mahogany’s breakup ceremony was held on Saturday, February 13, at the Sunflowers’ home, 123 Bluestone Road in Honeypot Hill.
It began at two p.m. The Revren Hallelujah Jones officiated.
More than two hundred people squeezed into Mama Sunflower’s backyard for the event. The Inquirer had team coverage. Mama Sunflower was shocked to see so many people come to the ceremony. She just knew most of them had never met Mahogany or Cadillac. But she was too thrilled to see the relationship ending to worry about all that. Indeed, more than half the folk at the breakup ceremony didn’t know the two. They’d come as if to a public hanging to see the end of this couple that had ruined their lives. But those who actually knew them were sad. Even though she kept dumping him, somehow their dysfunctional nonrelationship worked. The girls from the Biscuit Shop felt those two deserved each other.
Carrie Cosmopolitan, the breakup-ceremony planner, had arranged a very short, simple ceremony. First, the Revren Hallelujah would have thirty seconds to say a few words about Mahogany and Cadillac. Then their friends would have twenty seconds to say a few. Then both Mahogany and Cadillac would get five seconds to state their main gripe with the other, but both had to speak at the same time so neither could say they didn’t get the last word. And it was never on the schedule, but at every breakup ceremony there was a fight. With the baby just a month away, the city was tense. The audience at the Sunflowers’ that afternoon had the rococo sadism of a crowd at a heavyweight title fight, happily awaiting the violence that would surely arrive at any second.
Cadillac smoothed in to the Sunflower home that afternoon with a secret burning in his pocket. He was either going to win the lottery or get laughed out of town. But he had to try. Flying sex was too good to give up just because she kept dumping him. Besides, to him she was still that sexy DJ who wore Jimmy Choo heels with her Biscuit Shop uniform in the middle of the afternoon. Sure, she had a superiority complex, but if he could fly he’d probably have one, too. At the end of the day, he just loved her. To him, she was the cactus whose milk was so sweet it was worth the needles. If they were gonna have a breakup ceremony he was gonna go down fighting.
Carrie got the Revren, Mahogany, and Cadillac ready to go onstage. Cadillac turned to Mahogany. Without turning her head she said, “Shut up.” He did. The Revren, barely five-foot-two and as fragile as a man made of aluminum foil, turned up and looked at her with a stare that could stop hearts. He had baptized Mahogany. The two of them would not make a fool of him today.
The Revren Hallelujah Jones had given up breakup ceremonies a few years ago after a particularly gruesome one in which Amber Sunshower had started a near riot that left Coltrane Jones with a twice broken left arm. But the good Revren saw nothing wrong with having the spotlight shine on him now and again, and Mahogany and Cadillac were a prominent Soul City couple. (“You call them controversial and tempestuous,” the Revren told the Inquirer. “I call them misunderstood.”) But he coulda stayed at home if they thought he’d be the straight man in some madcap slapstick fiasco. “Behave yo’selves!” he commanded. Then the three moved onto the little stage.
A moment later, Ubiquity Jones quietly slipped in. She stood at the back, watching for a glimpse of Cadillac. As soon as she saw him she read his mind and found he was thinking about one thing: the surprise. People noticed Ubiquity sashaying on tiptoe over toward Mama Sunflower, but no one dared say a thing.
The Revren began the ceremony. “We are gathered here today . . .”
Ubiquity breathed in deeply, calling attention to herself, announcing less than silently that it was time for a quiet gossip bomb. She whispered just loud enough for Mama Sunflower and the ladies around her to hear. “Ain’t it a shame she has to watch her daughter marry a boy from The City?”
Mama Sunflower didn’t turn her head. Everyone knew that voice. Mama whispered, “Girl done lost the sense She gives a baby. This is a breakup ceremony and she wasn’t invited.”
The ladies gasped quietly.
“Looks to me,” Ubiquity whispered nastily, “like she in for a surprise.”
The Revren called out, “If anyone has a reason why these two should not break up, speak now or forever hold your peace!”
The city’s anger poured out from the crowd. Someone yelled, “City boy!” Then someone screamed, “Fly away, Judas!” Mama Sunflower looked ashen. It seemed the whole world was against them. Then Cadillac stepped to the center of the stage.
“I know this baby will fly,” he said to her as the yelling went on around them. “But even if it can’t, I’d still love you.” He got down on one knee and pulled out a robin’s-egg-blue box that said TIFFANY. All of Soul City gasped. He popped the question, then opened the box. There was a little rainbow trapped inside.
Mahogany turned away immediately. There was no way she could look at it. She was tired though she’d just woken up, the baby was kicking like crazy, and her Jimmy Choos were killing her. But she was impressed that he’d risked extraordinary public humiliation for her. She realized he’d stuck by her through everything. That he couldn’t ruin her life any more than he already had. And having a man she could boss around forever was not bad at all. Then she peeked at the ring. It was a two-carat nugget. It’s huge, she thought. And then her icy heart began to melt. She did love him. She’d fought so hard against it, but he was the lid to her pot. She didn’t wanna want it, but want it she did. It wasn’t a love she chose. It was a love that chose her.
And so Mahogany Sunflower finally decided to give Cadillac Jackson a chance. She looked down at him and said, “Maybe.”
The crowd went wild as if they’d seen a surprise knockout. But they weren’t sure who’d won. For anyone else maybe would’ve been crushing. But for Cadillac at that moment with that woman, maybe was victory enough. He stood and Mahogany leaned in and gave him a kiss on the mouth. A brief, closed-mouth kiss of like. Like that could blossom. Maybe.
Ubiquity crowed as she bounced out the door. The ladies looked at Mama Sunflower with pity. She’d been bombed by her daughter and her nemesis in her own home at the same time. But Mama Sunflower still would not break. She was too curious. How could Ubiquity have possibly known?
Mahogany and Cadillac began dating officially and almost nothing changed. They went right back to being a youngish old married couple that fights all the time. Mahogany complained and bossed him around, but she didn’t dump him once a week anymore.
As Mahogany’s ninth month approached Soul City grew increasingly nervous over what would happen to them after the baby was born. The Big Mamas didn’t know. No one expected an instant apocalypse, but what were they headed for?
Fulcrum went to Heaven.
All She would say is, “Have faith.”
And the entire city sat on the edge of its seat waiting for this baby to come.