Pastor Needs a Boo (9 page)

When Reverend Flowers instructed his church officers to come forth and extend the right hand of fellowship to their new members, the other folk in the pews were so happy that they were not officers. Few, if anybody, in the church wanted to shake that crazy women's hand. They felt sorry for the officers, because they really didn't have a choice but to fulfill this portion of their duties in serving the church.

“I sure hope that heifer doesn't make good on her promise to stand with the pastor in the receiving line,” Veronica Washington leaned over and whispered to Marsha.

“Well, you are hoping in vain,” Marsha whispered back. “Because that thang looks like she can't wait to go and stand in the first lady spot. What in the world would make a woman do something that crazy?”

“You,” Veronica answered her friend matter-of-factly.

“Me? Why? She doesn't even know me.”

“Technically—she doesn't know you. But she knows of you. I don't know if you know this, but that Tatiana is friends with Yolanda Richardson. Tatiana doesn't know what you look like, because Yolanda doesn't strike me as somebody capable of giving an accurate description of someone else. But the crazy skank still knows that you exist and are a member of this church.”

Marsha just rolled her eyes upward. This was crazy. Why would Tatiana care about her one way or the other? Denzelle was her ex-husband, a fact made pure reality by the presence of her present husband.

“And,” Veronica continued, “Yolanda has been trying to hook up with Rev for a minute. Yolanda can't stand you because she has peeped Denzelle's card where you are concerned. And that girl just wants to get some mess started at your expense to be mean.”

“What?” Marsha whispered loudly. “First, I thought you said that Yolanda and that crazy woman are friends.”

“They are. Well, actually, they are what I call skank buddies. You know—skanks who hang together and pretend to be friends because they need somebody to talk to on the phone and go shopping with.”

“She's right, Mom,” Marcus whispered, hoping this conversation would soon end. It was hard overhearing this parent-puppy-love stuff. Based on the information Marcus was able to sneak and hear, it sounded like the pastor needed to step up his game if he was so into his mom and all of this kind of drama was popping off in church. And as far as Marcus was concerned, his mother was the poster girl for being a Proverbs 31 woman, and she deserved for a man to practically beat her door down to get her as his own treasure.

Veronica and Marsha turned to look at their godson and son. He kind of shrugged and said, “I'm a junior at Eva T. Marshall University. Don't you think I've seen skanks pretending to be each other's friends just so they can get something they can't get on their own?”

“He has a point, Marsha,” Veronica said, glad that her godson was able to sniff out the skanks at such an early age. A lot of men didn't acquire that skill until they were much older.

“I still don't understand why that woman would do all of this because of me. She is rich and married and wearing real designer clothes.”

“Marsha, Marsha, Marsha,” Veronica said, like she was talking to Marsha Brady on the old school
Brady Bunch
TV show. “Pastor has a soft spot for you, and Miss Thangy-Thang don't like that one bit—even if she doesn't know who you are.”

“Her new husband is a rich doctor, Veronica. She shouldn't care what Denzelle does.”

“She shouldn't but she does. That girl is one of those women who doesn't want to see a man she discarded happy and with someone else. Just because the fool doesn't want Denzelle doesn't mean that she won't get mad about him wanting somebody other than herself.”

“But Roni,” Marsha whispered, “ain't she kinda late on that? Denzelle has had a lot of women since she left him for that doctor of hers.”

Veronica sighed and rolled her eyes. Marsha could be so slow at times. She said, “Marsha, Denzelle didn't have a soft spot for those other women. They were just some “tap that a” calls. Okay? That crazy woman doesn't care about them. But she does care about somebody Denzelle can really like. Someone like you.”

“That's crazy,” Marsha spat out in a loud whisper, hoping she was not showing a reaction to the second part of what Veronica said.

“Yeah, it is crazy, because that heifer is rolling way past insanity.”

Marcus started coughing to stop himself from busting out laughing. His auntie Veronica was a trip. And this conversation was on its way to rolling way past insanity.

“Mom, I can't believe you and Auntie Roni have talked through the entire last part of service.”

Marsha couldn't believe that they had been so busy talking that they missed altar prayer and were now watching Denzelle prepare for the recessional.

Denzelle walked out of the pulpit, followed by his associate pastors, the choir, and the members of the Steward Board who had served in the pulpit this morning. When the last steward was on his way up the aisle, Tatiana grabbed Todd's hand, and they hopped in the recessional line right before the choir made its way up the aisle. Tatiana instructed Todd to stand next to the last Steward Board member in the line, and she went and stood right next to her ex-husband, like they were still married.

The pastor was beyond being outdone by this display. This was such a ghetto move. Denzelle's first inclination was to order Tatiana and her light-skinned man to go somewhere and sit down. In fact, it had taken all of the salvation in him to refrain from refusing those two the right to membership in his church. But he decided to allow this fiasco to run its course.

Denzelle couldn't wait to see what was going to happen when folk started pouring through the receiving line. Tatiana wasn't the friendliest of people. She hated having to talk to and grin at people she thought were beneath her.

She got away with being snooty at his old church, because she had been the first lady for real back then. But this was different. Folk at New Jerusalem didn't know Tatiana, they didn't want to know Tatiana, and they didn't give a hoot who she was. Tatiana was going to get her feelings hurt if she kept standing in that line next to him like somebody who didn't have good sense.

When the first wave of folk made their way through the receiving line, they greeted their pastor, and then recoiled when they witnessed the cold and dismissive attitude of their newest member. One of the older members had extended her hand to Tatiana, who looked at her hand like it was covered with big green buggers. The woman looked Tatiana dead in the eye and said, “Why would you hop your fancy butt up in this line if you knew you were too mean and stuck-up to speak to folk right?”

Tatiana glanced over at Denzelle as if to say, Are you going to let her talk to me like that.

All Denzelle did was issue an extra blessing to his member and then greet the next person in line. He was glad she had put Tatiana in her place.

The reprimand did not help Tatiana's deteriorating mood. Things were not working out anywhere close to what she'd hoped when she first plotted this maneuver. She stood in that line looking and acting so hateful that most of the members walked right by her as if they didn't even know she was there.

These unexpected snubs from Denzelle's church members were infuriating. Tatiana tugged on Denzelle's robe. Denzelle acted like he didn't feel a thing—he just kept on greeting his parishioners.

“Do something,” she hissed.

Denzelle acted like he hadn't heard his ex-wife. He continued to greet his church folk, hoping this fool would get the message and go over and stand with her man in his preppy white boy suit. If Denzelle had the kind of money he suspected Todd Townsend made, there was no way he'd show up anywhere dressed like that.

Todd had moved from his assigned spot and was now standing off to the side talking to a group of nice church women and secretly wondering if his wife still had a thing for her ex-husband. He wished his wife would come and stand with him, or at least stand somewhere other than up under Denzelle Flowers, grinning like she was the one rare person who actually won the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes.

 

Chapter Six

Marsha went to the end of the receiving line three times, because she did not want to say good morning to the pastor while that woman was standing next to him. She had too much to deal with right now and knew she would not act like a Christian if that Tatiana rubbed her the wrong way with some mean girl all growed up mess. What did the pastor ever see in that hard-hearted woman with the real cute shoes?

While Marsha kept making repeated runs to the end of the line, Tatiana was scanning that same line with great care. She wanted to find the woman Yolanda Richardson said had caught her ex-husband's eye. Tatiana knew this woman had not come through the line, because Denzelle kept staring around like he was looking for somebody. And he had not greeted any woman in a special or intimate manner.

Her predatory eyes zoomed in on the three women who kept hanging behind the last people in line. Two of the three were in Denzelle's preferred age group. They had the look of the type of woman she knew her ex-husband would find attractive—well dressed, their own hair, down-to-earth demeanor, and friendly. Both women looked like they were excellent cooks—something Denzelle prized and one thing Tatiana could not do. Even though she'd hooked Denzelle years ago, Tatiana always secretly knew that his true dream woman was very much like those two women—especially the short one.

Marsha, Veronica Washington, and Keisha Jackson were comparing notes and hoping their pastor's hincty ex-wife would hurry up and get out of the line.

Keisha looked up and saw Tatiana scoping them out. Something was seriously wrong with that woman, or she was on something and good at hiding it.

“Is she all there?”

“What do you mean by that, Keisha?” Veronica asked.

“I mean, why is she standing with Reverend Flowers like she is the first lady? And she is with her husband. That is beyond being trill. In fact, I find it kind of disturbing.”

Keisha studied Dr. Todd's outfit and frowned.

“Y'all, look at his pants. Why? That's all I have to say. Why?”

Marsha stared at Todd's pants and said, “Those pants look like he purchased them from the superboring white-boy section of Brooks Brothers.”

“You mean ‘bought'?” Keisha said, shaking her head. It was a shame for that black man to dress like that. He looked like one of the black guest correspondents on MSNBC people couldn't stand to listen to.

“No,” Marsha answered. “I mean just what I said—purchased. You
buy
what Metro Mitchell is wearing. That corny mess was
purchased
.”

Veronica started laughing. She could not believe those two were in church arguing over the semantics of Denzelle's ex's lame husband's apparel
purchases
. But maybe they needed to fuss over some minutia-laden issue to take the edge off what they were all facing as the newly unemployed. Veronica had gone over her checkbook three times this morning and didn't know how she was going to make her funds cover her until the end of the month. She said, “I have to agree with Marsha, Keisha girl. He had the nerve to have cuffs put in those pants, and they are not even long enough. His pants are barely skimming the top of where his oxfords come up to his ankles. You know brothers wear their pants longer than that, and they don't put on some butt-ugly shoes like that.”

“Now, look at Pastor,” Keisha added. “He is over there in a preacher robe, and he is still as fly as can be.”

Marsha sneaked a looked at Denzelle. It was a shame how good that man looked in his clerical robe. She put a fingertip to her heart, as she thought, “Lord, I am so sorry to be thinking about how good that robe looks on that man.”

“That's a sharp robe,” Veronica said.

“Yeah.” Keisha added, “Pastor is wearing that thing.”

Denzelle knew he was looking exceptional this morning. Metro Mitchell's cousin, Naye Naye, had designed this robe especially for him. It was black brocade silk, with black velvet crosses trimmed in crimson and cream silk on the sleeves, along with a black velvet stole trimmed in the same crimson and cream silk. He was wearing a black silk clerical shirt with the customary white collar, a platinum chain with a diamond cross hanging on it, and some custom-made black slip-on shoes with the thinnest red trimming on them.

Tatiana had forgotten how well-dressed her ex-husband was. She could not believe he had outdressed Todd in a preacher's robe. She watched Denzelle for a moment, and then followed his gaze all the way back to the short sister with the boobs and hips, and the head full of thick, gorgeous hair.

“So, that's her,” Tatiana thought, and suppressed an urge to frown.

That woman was competition and didn't even know it. She could see why Denzelle liked her. The woman struck Tatiana as sincere, and not overly concerned with status and outdoing folk.

Tatiana knew that her American Express Black Card, designer clothes, and new million-dollar home in Chapel Hill's Governor's Club would mean absolutely nothing to a woman like that. About the only way Tatiana could get at her was to mistreat the girl on the sly whenever they encountered one another. And she knew that would be short-lived. Women like that would get you straight if you came at them one time too many.

Tatiana was growing tired of Todd. He was so boring, and most of his friends were high-ranking white people at the hospital and medical school. And most of Todd's white friends weren't even cool white people—they were just really really smart, well paid, and white. Tatiana thought she'd puke if she went to one more cocktail party with caviar, hummus, and just plain wine.

Caviar was nasty, and hummus tasted like morning breath. Sometimes she wanted to go to a party where everybody was carrying a purple Crown Royal liquor bag and eating the kind of finger foods you could only get at a well-stocked black people event. Her mouth watered at the thought of hot wings, shrimp, fried veggies with the dip, tortilla chips and homemade salsa, potato salad, deviled eggs, juicy chunks of fruit, all kinds of fancy crackers and cheeses, tuna and chicken salad, Swedish meatballs, big old cookies, chunky squares of homemade chocolate cake, and sweet tea.