A Preacher's Passion (23 page)

“I’m worried about Princess.” Tai had waited all day for this now weekly conference call that had started with SOS conference strategizing and now included real talk among friends.

“I am too,” Vivian said. “She and Kelvin rarely come around anymore. I know they’re busy with school but the last time I saw her it looked like she’d lost weight. And she’s little to begin with.”

“She’ll be all right,” Carla encouraged. “Probably going through the same challenges we faced as young women.”

“That’s what Mama Max says too, says she’s been praying and the angels are watching over her. Still…I can’t stand that she’s seeing Kelvin. No disrespect to you, Viv, but he’s Janeé’s son.”

“I thought you forgave her,” Vivian gently reminded.

“Forgiving ain’t forgetting—trust.”

“Kelvin’s not a bad man,” Vivian continued, “just full of swagger, and like most nineteen year olds, not ready for a monogamous relationship.”

“We always want to grow up so fast.” Tai sighed.

“Uh-huh…Every generation thinks they’re the first ones to go through something.”

Carla added, “I know I did. Is she still calling regularly?”

“Yes, she calls…we talk. It’s almost like it used to be but not quite. Something’s going on with her and it’s not just her having sex or the pot smoking that she doesn’t think I know about. It’s something I can’t put my finger on but a mama is never wrong.”

“Let’s add her to our prayer list for the end of the call.”

The ladies went on to talk about other things including Carla’s marital progress. Stanley had agreed to counseling after finally admitting he’d been molested as a child, and after almost two months, he and Carla were seeing some improvement in their sex life.

“Girl, he let me get on top and I almost died,” Carla exclaimed.

“Still no doggy though, huh?” Tai asked bluntly. There was little these first ladies didn’t share.

“No, girl. I think that’s too close to what his aunt tried to make him do. If she wasn’t already dead, I’d kill her. In fact, I wish she’d come back so I could kill her again.”

“You don’t hear about that much, huh? Women molesting boys.”

“Yes, but it happens,” Carla responded. The three women were silent for a moment, thinking of how messed up the world sometimes seemed.

“And Lavon?” Vivian asked, after the pause.

“Haven’t seen him since January, and we haven’t talked in over a month. I’m not going to lie; it’s hard. Lavon and I have a connection that no one understands. Shoot,
we
don’t even understand it. I know that coming from a married woman this sounds out of order but…I really believe that man is my soul mate.” Carla’s voice went from nostalgic to determined. “But Stan is my husband, and my commitment is to him.”

“I’ve hired another assistant,” Vivian said, initiating yet another subject change. “Someone to help Tamika handle the administrative end of things. Maybe the two of them will equal one Millicent.”

Millicent Sims was the former administrator for the Sanctity of Sisterhood conferences who was now married and living near San Diego.

“So tell us about this new girl.”

“Not a spring chicken exactly, Tai, more like forties or fifties. She hasn’t been at our church long but I think she’s really hungry for the things of God. I feel pain in her spirit, anger, confusion…. She’s had some real challenges in life and I think the Lord wants Kingdom Citizens to be a place where she can heal.”

“What kind of challenges?” Carla asked.

“I’m not sure. It will take time for her to feel comfortable enough to open up. The biggest one, though, is probably surviving a horrific car crash last year. Now she has scars on the outside to mirror those within. I admire her; she’s a survivor.”

“Well, we’ll be glad to welcome this sister into the fold. What’s her name?”

“Mira…Mira Monroe.”

The executives at
LA Gospel
sat around the conference table, discussing the May issue.

“We’ve already sat on the story for three months,” one of them argued. “We decided to wait until their Kingdom Keys series had aired. Well, it’s aired and it’s over. I say we break it now, before summer.”

“There’s an SOS conference coming up that month so she’ll have high visibility then,” the writer of the piece added. This writer had a special distaste for mega-church first ladies…thought they benefited equally along with their “gospel-pimping husbands.” She’d pushed for the story’s release from day one.

“I still don’t think we should,” the lone dissenter said. “She is an inspiration to women across the country, and an anointed woman of God, no matter her faults. Why do we want to publish this story and bring her down?”

“Because it’s news!” one of the execs responded.

“Because it’s fact,” another said. “The pictures are proof and Ms. Perkins gave a sworn affidavit that her story was true. Any lawsuit filed against us won’t hold its weight in court.”

“I’m tired of arguing about it,” the editor said finally. “We’re going to do the story. I want caption suggestions by Thursday.”

Stacy watched Bo’s expert preparation of stuffed pork chops with a homemade apple butter sauce. Her mouth watered at the thought of how they’d taste and they hadn’t even been put in the oven.

If anyone had told her she’d be in this ridiculously unrealistic situation, watching her husband’s lover prepare dinner, she would never have believed them. She barely believed it herself.

After the three returned from Big Bear, Stacy sobered to the reality of Darius’s request. She’d asked, then begged him to cut ties with Bo. After a month, she gave up. There was no changing his mind. In February, she and Darius married in a quick, civil ceremony at city hall. Not the wedding she expected, but then again, nothing in her intimate life was as she’d planned.

The unlikely trio moved into a gorgeous, million-dollar duplex Cy Taylor found for them: she and Darius on one side, Bo on the other. Relations were understandably strained. As hard as she tried, she was resentful of Bo’s presence. Darius played peacemaker, which only infuriated her further. True, he and Bo were discreet, and Darius now slept with her at night. But that still left the daytime hours and their out of town trips for him and Bo to be together. Because of her job, Stacy had only accompanied Darius on a couple trips.

And then two weeks ago…things changed. She came home from work, sick as a dog. Feeling she didn’t even have strength to make it to the bedroom, she huddled in a fetal position on the couch. Shortly afterward, Bo knocked on the door. She answered it and Bo responded in typical BJ fashion: “You sho’ is ugly!”

“Forget you, Little Bo Peep,” she’d replied, too ill to be more caustic.

“I’m serious, girl, you look like death warmed over. What’s the matter?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m sick!”

“Lord have mercy.”

Bo left her door and returned a short time later with a container of stew, a loaf of French bread, 7 Up, and what he called “pregnancy tea.” He led her to the bedroom she shared with Darius, helped her change into a nightgown, and tucked her in bed, all the while tsking and scolding like a mother would her child: “Know you’ve got that baby growing inside you…. Why you trying to starve to death? Have that boy come out looking like ET. He’s supposed to be DC, not ET, I thought you knew!”

On and on he went, as he adjusted the pillows around her and gave her the remote. “Don’t move,” he’d commanded, and then left the room. He returned in minutes with the tea. Stacy hadn’t wanted it but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. She was surprised when halfway through the mug, she actually began to feel better.

“What is this?” she asked, when Bo came back up with a tray of food.

“Aunt Gladean’s concoction. ‘Someden from de islands, gurl.’” He then proceeded to sit on the side of the bed, spoon feed her, and tell her about his life—growing up against the backdrop of culturally rich Queens, New York, with doting Jamaican grandparents, understanding parents, and accepting siblings who loved him unconditionally. He shared the heartache of being homosexual in a condemning society as well as the triumph of realizing, through personal relationship, that God actually loved him. “That’s when I got my joy back,” he finished. “When I realized that no matter who didn’t love me…God did.”

Stacy had never conversed with an admitted homosexual before, never heard a personal story. She still held her Christian beliefs, that homosexuality was a sin. But she decided to leave the judgment to God. Because Darius had been right. Bo was a good person—kind, caring, funny, who could cook like an Iron Chef on the Food Network. If for nothing more than Bo’s chicken and dumplings, vegetable crepes, homemade biscuits, and three-berry pie, she’d find some understanding and cultivate compassion. Interesting that a homosexual had showed her what it looked like.

“Where’d you learn to cook like that?” she asked, rubbing her six months along belly.

“Aunt Glad,” Bo said with a fondness in his voice. “That sistah could cook a shoe and make it taste good.” He blanched potatoes in water before coating them in a mixture of flour and spices.

“Why’d you do that?”

“To make them crispy crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the beeping of Bo’s cell phone.

“Yo, what’s up?” Bo said, cocking the phone underneath his chin while he stirred a pot of vegetables. His countenance turned dark as he froze midstir. “What? Aw, hell no. Who told you this? But where could he have heard it? He’s just fishing—I wouldn’t get too worried. Uh-uh…we’ll sue his ass. Don’t even break a sweat, Bo Jenkins will get on this shit. You don’t mess with what’s mine. Oh, hell to the no and then hell some mo’. I’ll beat his ass until Shabach is just Shh…. Hear me? Yeah, whatever…bye.”

Bo threw the phone down on the counter and paced the kitchen. A colorful array of profanities warred with the smell of baking pork and warming homemade apple butter.

“What is it?” Stacy asked.

“Shabach’s trying to destroy Darius, said he’s got proof that Darius is gay, and that if he doesn’t drop out of this year’s Stellar nominations, he’s going to out him at the show.” Bo grabbed a knife and jabbed at an imaginary Shabach. “I know Jamaican mafia,” he said, advancing. “I’ll have his ass smoked like Bob Marley ganja. When I’m through there’ll be nothing left but ashes!”

Stacy had never seen Bo so angry. He was shaking and at one point she thought she saw tears. “Let’s call Darius,” she suggested.

“No! We will
not
bother him now. He’s doing the photo shoot for
Ebony
and I don’t want my baby upset.” Bo began pacing again and then stopped suddenly. “That’s it! Yes! Okay, Stacy, here’s what’s not going to happen. Darius will never know that Shoddy Body is trying to out gospel’s number one. What is going to happen is our, you and I, turning the tables on one Mr. Shabach Be-atch. You with me?”

“Uh, I don’t know, Bo. You and me doing what, exactly?”

“Whatever it takes to shut him up. Everybody’s got dirt…we just need to get to digging.”

Stacy saw Bo’s point. “I’ve got a friend at work who’s a whiz on the Internet.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Bo said, turning off burners, his beautiful dinner completely forgotten. “Let’s start there.”

“Let’s start after we eat,” Stacy corrected. When Bo got ready to object she silenced him effectively with, “Baby’s hungry.”

Darius’s baby, like its father, got whatever it wanted.

Robin had fully adopted her new persona, Mira Monroe. Unlike her true nature, Mira was quiet, shy even, with a tendency to talk with her head down, and without looking people in the eye. Her body language was that of a meek and humble woman, one who had been through more than her share of life’s battles. And though she often wore high-collared shirts or a scarf around them, the burn scars on her neck and the bottom of her chin added to the aura of vulnerability.

Her altered physical appearance made it easier for Robin to fully embrace a different personality. Her nose, cheek, and chin area had been reconstructed, which somehow made her eyes look different, and thanks to several weeks of intravenous feeding, Robin had lost thirty-five pounds. She’d gotten her hair cut into a short, curly, fro-like do and kept the gray that came in during her hospital stay. After years of plucking her eyebrows, and at Beth’s suggestion, she’d had permanent black, thick ones tattooed on her face. Beth had been shocked, and even Robin was taken aback at who stared back in the mirror.

Beth, Robin’s nurse and primary caretaker for over four months, was Robin’s one, lone friend. The day before she was to be released, turned out into the streets with virtually no money and nowhere to go, Beth had offered shelter and income: taking care of a neighbor’s aging aunt who lived in Lawndale, a small enclave south of Inglewood. For room, board, and a hundred dollars a week, Robin cooked, cleaned, ran errands, and kept the old woman company. Robin immediately traded off the evenings with a homeless woman she’d met panhandling down the street. After talking with her for a week or so, Robin didn’t think the woman was crazy (as if she would know), just down on her luck and a bit too friendly with the vodka bottle. The homeless woman was glad for the roof and cable TV and Robin was glad not to be tied down to “Miss Petunia.” She had bigger fish to fry.

Three weeks after being released from the hospital, Robin called Kingdom Citizens’ Christian Center and tested her bait: a backsliden Christian desperate to “get right with God.” When she told the receptionist she wanted to be a part of a women’s fellowship, to volunteer in any way she could, she was immediately transferred to Vivian Montgomery’s assistant’s line. A few days later, she sailed right past Greg, the bullet-taking, manhandling security guard, and attended a meeting for those wanting to volunteer at Vivian’s women empowerment conferences.

That’s where she was now, where everything she’d planned was about to fall in place. She had everything she needed except an appointment and…unfortunately…her Peridol. At the hospital they’d started her back up on the meds as soon as she entered the psych ward but she took them haphazardly, as always.
Those things make me crazy anyway,
she reasoned whenever she forgot a dose.

“Thank you so much, ladies,” Vivian said after she’d rechecked the conference handouts, approved the contents for the attendee welcome packets, and outlined the remaining administrative duties. “With the conference less than three weeks away, I feel really good about our progress. Your work is exactly the above-average behavior our theme speaks of. Thank you.” She looked at Mira. “Tamika says you’ve been a great help, Mira. I want to let you know that…Mira…are you okay?”

Mira could feel her eyes rolling and clamped her hands to try and maintain her sanity.
I should have taken those damn pills!
She was so close to realizing her goal. Then she realized the spasm could work to her advantage.

“I’m fine,” she squeezed out of tightening lungs. “Just need some water.”
Just get me some H
₃
O muthafucka!
Had she asked, someone would have gladly informed her that water was H
₂
0, not three. But she didn’t.

“Tamika, get her some water.” Vivian reached for Mira’s hand and saw tears in the woman’s eyes. “Mira, what’s wrong?”

“I want to talk about it, but I can’t right now. Can I maybe set a time to talk to you later…alone?”

“Why, of course,” Vivian answered. “I’ll have Tamika set it up when she gets back. In the meantime, let’s pray.”

Without waiting, Vivian reached for Mira’s other hand and began. “Our Father, who art in heaven…”

The more Vivian prayed, the more agitated Mira became. She imagined a rash developing where Vivian’s hands touched, and her body felt itchy all over. “Deliver us from evil,” Vivian continued with quiet force. Mira jerked back her hands. When Vivian looked up in surprise, Mira placed her hands over her eyes.

“Uh, here’s the water, Mira,” Tamika said, after Vivian had finished the prayer. She cautiously held the glass toward her obviously distressed coworker.

Mira was headed for an all-out psychosis diagnosis. She stood abruptly. “I’m so sorry, I have to go now.” She was out the door before either Vivian or Tamika could react.

“You want me to go after her?” Tamika asked.

“No,” Vivian said, her eyes narrowing as she focused on the spirit within. “But call her later and set up an appointment for sometime next week…Tuesday if possible.”

Mira was still on Vivian’s mind as she drove home from Kingdom Citizens. She prayed silently, hoping for answers to the afternoon’s confusion: Mira’s odd behavior. “Something’s not right,” Vivian mumbled to herself. “Lord, please give me the spirit of discernment, instruct me on how to help her, how to reach her, Lord.”

As Vivian turned into her driveway, a picture flashed into her mind. It was an incident that had happened at another time, with another woman. But the incident contained the same type of energy, one of confusion and despair. “Robin Cook,” Vivian whispered, as she reached for her briefcase and headed toward her walkway. “Father God, wherever she is, help her too.”