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Just the Way You Are	By : megabsupreme Category: +M through R > Real Ghostbusters Views: 3491 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Real Ghostbusters, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Ray and Winston’s ride back from the birthday party was a quiet one. How the mighty had fallen. Those kids would have fought each other tooth and nail to try to get close enough for an autograph a few months back, but thanks to all the bad publicity after the case, now they were considered to be “full of crap” by the “ungrateful little yuppie larvae”, as Ray had called them. They’d decided against getting the beer, both men just wanting to get back to work.

“So Ray, how’s the book business?” Winston decided to try idle conversation to try to lighten the mood.

“It’s going really good. Thanks for asking, Winston. How’s working for your mom going?”

“A hell of a lot better than working for my dad for that weekend. At least she doesn’t keep chastising me about how being a Ghostbuster was a big mistake that ruined my life and sullied the family name.”

Ray winced. “Sorry to hear that you and your dad are still having issues.” Ray brightened a bit as he had an idea. “Maybe you can talk to Peter about it. He’s a slacker most of the time, but he really is a brilliant psychologist. He could probably give you some good insight into dealing with him.”

Winston nodded and smiled, but he had no intention of asking a guy who hosted a cable access show called World of the Psychic about how to deal with his dad, especially considering how little success Peter had dealing with his own father. Charlie Venkman was a consummate conman, and his favorite victim seemed to be Peter. Not very reassuring of the psychologist’s clinical skills in this case.

They sank back into an embarrassed silence. They were both still smarting from the utter disrespect they’d been shown by those bratty kids.

Winston dropped Ray of his his bookstore, Ray’s Occult Books. He’d built it from the joke shop his uncle had left him. The imps were no longer stored in the basement, but Ray had kept a few of the joke memorabilia. The shop was closed on Sundays, but Ray said he needed to check inventory. That reminded Winston that he’d need to do the same tonight. They said their good-byes and Winston pulled off in Ecto-1. He arrived at his mother’s restaurant, entering through the front door instead of the customary side door. He went directly to the kitchen, where he grabbed a chef’s apron.

Winston’s father had taught him how to be a soldier and a construction worker. His mother had taught him how to be a chef and, inadvertently, a Ghostbuster. It was her insistence on encouraging him to attain the unattainable and to believe in the unbelievable that gave him an open enough mind to answer that Help Wanted ad in the newspaper four years before.

Ellen Zeddemore spotted her youngest son making a mad dash for the kitchen and she knew right away that something wasn’t right. Winston had always used her kitchen as a place to cool off when he was upset. The ritual began in the third grade when he’d stood up to a bully and had been trounced defending a little girl he’d liked. He’d ended up telling her the whole story while she made dinner in the kitchen. Now, a full-grown man, he was still retreating there. ‘Some things never change,’ she thought with a smile. She excused herself from the conversation she’d been engaged in and followed him.

“Winston? How was the birthday party, Sweet Pea?”

“Oh . . . uh, hi Momma. It was great.”

“Really? You’re back so early.”

“Am I?”

“Mm hmm.” Ellen didn’t miss a thing when it came to her baby Winston. “Honey, are you sure everything’s all right?”

“Sure Momma. Everything’s great.” He glanced up and caught her questioning gaze. “I mean it. I just wanted to get back to help you out.” He dazzled her with his smile.

She looked at him sternly for a moment then shrugged, a knowing smile pasted on her graceful features. She turned to the head chef. “My son . . . so capable. A regular he-man, I tell you.”

Winston groaned, remembering the taunting chants of the spoiled yuppie children. “Momma, please. Don’t mention He-Man.”

Ellen stared at him amusedly. “If you say so, Sweet Pea. Well then, get to work for Momma!”

“Okay.” He smiled and kissed her on the cheek, then donned his apron. She went back out to the front of the restaurant to continue her duties as hostess. Winston breathed a sigh of relief. ‘That was close,’ he thought. ‘Damn maternal telepathy.’

The rest of Winston’s day was uneventful. His mother’s restaurant featured a menu of her favorite Southern recipes. She’d decided to name the place Comfort Food. Winston felt there couldn’t have been a more fitting name. Whether eating it or cooking it, Winston always felt better about his troubles when he was around his mother’s food. He sank into his work, cooking for hours.

Aside from being an exceptional cook, Ellen was a shrewd businesswoman. She’d instilled a great work ethic in Winston. When it was necessary for someone to stay later to take inventory, Winston was more than happy to do it. At a little before midnight, he finished his work and closed up shop, the last to leave.

As he was departing, he happened to look across the street and saw a woman leaving the restaurant across from Comfort Food. He frowned. “Bryant,” he muttered.

She must have heard her name. The woman looked across the street, and when she saw Winston she rolled her eyes and sucked her teeth.

Kelechi Bryant was a strikingly beautiful, petite caramel-skinned woman with straight dark brown hair. She spoke with a very proper English accent. Winston’s mother told him that she’d said she grew up in London among the aristocracy. Ordinarily, Winston would have been very attracted to her, but blood ties came first with the Zeddemores and she had opened an Ethiopian restaurant across the street from his mother’s restaurant. That made her the competition.

Winston’s mom was nonchalant about it, saying that it was a free country and that free enterprise was what made her own restaurant possible in the first place, so they should respect it. Winston was not as easy-going about it. He felt that it was a serious breech of business etiquette for the Bryant woman to have opened a similar restaurant so near to his mother’s. Two Black-owned ethnic restaurants that close together would be forced to split the clientele, and he felt Kelechi had opened her restaurant across from Ellen’s to steal business. She and Winston had been hostile to each other from the day they’d met.

“Hello Winston.” She said his name as if it was the name of something that smelled horrible.

“Kelechi.” They frowned at each other for a while neither one wanting to look away first, as if they believed that the other would attack once their back was turned. Winston gave first, impatiently shifting his gaze to his watch. Thankfully, she took the hint.

“Well, I don’t want to keep you. I’ll just be going. Have a nice night.” She said it as if that was the last thing she wanted him to do.

“You too.” He sounded about as genuine as she had.

They walked to their cars and drove off, not sparing the other so much as a parting glance.
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Just the Way You Are