Authors: Pat G'Orge-Walker

Somewhat Saved (15 page)

BOOK: Somewhat Saved

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She bent down and turned her ankle ever so slightly, running her fingers lightly down an invisible seam. “I'm going up to my office and attack today's trials and drama.” She took her time returning her hand to her small waistline. It was another of her feminine attributes that always caught an eye.

She'd performed the first act in her white woman's flirtation waltz. She smiled, showing a perfect set of teeth barely covered by red-painted thin lips as she continued the enticing dance of possible social death, for the black man.

Chandler suppressed a smile as he leaned against the back wall of the elevator. Her moves were transparent. He remembered that silent taboo, the racial divide, the forbidden dance that still existed in the twenty-first century. He also remembered from years of living in the South that a black man never led the waltz.

“My godmother and some of her church members are visiting,” he said, noticing her shocked look followed by a second of disappointment as he expertly sidestepped her silent invitation.

But Alicia wasn't giving up without a fight. Loneliness kept her libido ready. “Sure hope they can do something to improve our Sodom and Gomorrah image.” She puckered her lips, thinking it made her appear sexy. She, too, knew the sidestep dance.

Chandler smiled at her feeble attempt. Her sun-kissed, freckled skin and dyed blonde hair paled in comparison to the beauty he'd just spent the afternoon enjoying. Zipporah's beauty was hard to imitate, even by those who, like Alicia, at least had a head start in the good looks department.

Chandler's eyes didn't totally share the conviction of his mind as they traveled about Alicia's body. Again, he smiled. He had to admit her legs were extraordinary. “You're gonna need special prayer,” he teased. “Thou shalt not tempt a young man.” He laughed at his feeble attempt to revise a bit of scripture.

“What I need is a special singer for tomorrow night.” There wasn't a hint of tease when she spoke. “Can you handle this?” she asked while tossing her long hair to one side and handing him a piece of paper.

Chandler read the paper and immediately began laughing.

“Come on, Chandler, it's not funny. I'm in trouble.”

“I may have your answer.” Chandler's eyes grew large.

The elevator stopped, allowing several people to enter. Chandler and Alicia moved closer and continued chatting. The move wasn't necessary because no one was paying attention to them, but they'd done it anyway.

Several floors later, the elevator was empty again. Chandler and Alicia were laughing, exchanging quick sound bites about casino and hotel drama. Her mood had changed for the better and so had his.

“I'm depending upon you,” she said softly, while allowing her eyes to widen and appreciate every inch of Chandler's well-toned body.

“I got you.” Chandler winked.

Alicia knew that Chandler was good for his word.

They'd first met at a casino management workshop. It'd been about two years ago. He'd walked inâno, it was more like a stroll. He'd had a quiet strength and she could tell she wasn't the only one at the workshop who noticed. There were nothing but eyes on him from both men and women. He'd worn a dark blue, pin-striped, power suit. His shoes were polished to outshine the sun, and his physique . . . She looked over and saw that he was smiling back at her. She must've looked ridiculous while lost in her thoughts.

Embarrassed, she told him, “Well, I'm gonna hold you to your promise.” It was the best she could come up with and it was lame at best.

“Call me later,” Alicia said softly as the elevator door opened and she stepped out. She left the invitation open to interpretation.

Chandler couldn't help but laugh as the elevator door closed. “What I won't do for success.”

Sister Betty was unapologetic on her need for privacy as she unplugged her hotel room telephone and placed the
DO NOT DISTURB
sign on the knob outside. As much as she loved Chandler, the unplugged phone and privacy sign were just as much to keep him out as the others. This trip was turning out to be more of a hassle than she'd wanted.

She checked the time. There were about two hours before she was scheduled to return to the conference center for another round of battle with the Mothers Board members. She had to be honest. She really wouldn't mind avoiding another confrontation.

Lying across the bed, Sister Betty grabbed the television remote. She'd turned it on just in time to catch one of Bishop T. D. Jakes's sermons already in progress. He was speaking about Christians who'd accepted Jesus but still weren't saved.

The power of Bishop Jakes's conviction had left Sister Betty's state of mind in tatters. She'd become too comfortable. She couldn't let her salvation come under attack from her disobedience and not fight.

Reaching for her Bible, she flipped through it until she found a particular verse. She let the powerful words wash over her mind and connect with her spirit.

And, for the first time in a very long time, Sister Betty accepted the truth. She wasn't as saved as she'd thought. She'd become what she'd despised in so many religious peopleâa hypocrite. And it didn't matter to what degree. Her Bible told her that if she were neither hot nor cold, God would spew her from His mouth.

And then on her knobby and arthritic knees, she repented, over and over. Her regret wasn't necessary. God and most of the other occupants on her hotel floor had heard her the first time, she was so loud. There was no doubt that her sincerity and remorse had reached the throne of grace.

While Sister Betty repented in her room, down the hall Bea peppered Zipporah with more questions, and Chandler devised a plan to reenter the entertainment business. Throughout it all, Zipporah mourned the day she'd become involved with the geriatric set.

And thousands of miles away, Sasha's plane landed at New York's LaGuardia Airport, twenty minutes sooner than scheduled and thirty years too late.

As preplanned by Sasha's sister, Areal, Sasha hurried to a waiting car service that would rush her from LaGuardia Airport to the upper Bronx.

She sat in silence while her mind raced to find some rationale to her dilemma. Sasha might've been quiet but the chatty driver decided to tell her about every inch of highway they drove over.

“I would have to get a motormouth driver,” she murmured, and gnawed away at her bottom lip. Her eyes rolled in aggravation as she tried not-too-subtly to ignore the driver's idle chitchat. But the driver, an enthusiastic young Puerto Rican man, had no way of knowing that it wasn't Sasha's first time in New York.

“If we were going in the opposite direction,” he said with a heavy accent, “you'd be able to see the site of the old World's Fair in Queens. It's a dilapidated mess now, but it was something back in the sixties.”

Sasha could take the driver's intrusion no longer. “Will you please just shut up and take me to the Bronx!”

The driver's body stiffened. He glanced quickly into the rearview mirror as though his eyes would clarify what he'd heard, but stayed quiet.

The rest of the drive to the Bronx was happily in silence. It helped Sasha to gain control of her blood pressure. She was certain it had soared to dangerous levels since she'd left Las Vegas.

Sasha did notice that the Bronx had changed since the last time she'd visited in the early seventies. There were now high-rise apartment buildings replacing the wooden structures she'd remembered. All along the Major Deegan Expressway, there were busloads of people, too many people compared to her small town of Pelzer.

By the time the car finally arrived, on the posh tree-lined street where Areal lived, Sasha's exhaustion had doubled. She saw Areal inching her metal walker down her walkway, destroying flowerbeds along the way, and dreaded what was to come.

Within an hour both Sasha and Areal sat in the living room, crying.

“You promised me that everything was taken care of.” Areal reached for her walker and moved slowly toward the living room window. “All the embarrassment of being set down in front of the congregation. Was it all for nothing?”

“How was I supposed know that thirty years later the dirty laundry could air?” Sasha's voice rose in anger. “How could I know things would change?”

One thing that hadn't changed was Areal's home. The same plaid gray and brown fabric held a wooden sofa's frame a prisoner. There was the same plastic, five-foot-tall fern in a once-bright clay pot standing guard in a corner. The temperature was just as humid inside as it was out, but Areal had refused to change the blood red velvet drapes for something cooler or put in air-conditioning.

Not much had changed in the house but its occupants were another matter.

“Back then, you might've been the youngest but you definitely ran the show,” Areal argued. Venom coated her words. She glared, permitting her nasty attitude to punctuate the air. Without thinking, she grabbed at strands of her long white hair that had come undone. No sooner had she managed to grasp one part, another fell. The tresses refused to return to the hairpins.

Areal let her hair fall about her shoulders and sank further back onto the sofa. “It was always your way or the highway.” She stopped and pointed to a far corner of the room. “We both know what you came for. Go and get it yourself. I haven't touched it since you left.”

Sasha took the verbal abuse because for once she had to admit she deserved it.

She was exhausted and struggled to make her way through the maze of ottomans and a collection of unread and unwrapped magazines. From the outside, Areal's house looked as lavish as the others in her neighborhood. Inside it was a collection of short- and long-term memories. Most of the memories were bad.

As though she'd just secreted it there yesterday, Sasha went straight toward a small nook in the bookcase. She took a small book from it. Balancing it in one hand, she shuffled, moving as if she were playing hopscotch, and then risked sitting down next to Areal.

Sasha's small mouth grimaced as she untied the fragile bow. The yellowed paper inside bore a small raised seal and was as delicate as the situation that lay before them.

Sasha looked at the paper, examining the writing several times. She then offered it to Areal.

Areal slapped Sasha's hand away as though Sasha were a small child.

Again, Sasha said nothing, knowing she probably deserved much worse. “Does Jasper still have his copy?”

Areal let the question linger in the air as she leaned back and released a sigh. “Yes,” she finally answered. Her voice was sad and almost contrite. She was the total opposite of the spry old woman who'd just slapped at Sasha. “Jasper asked for it not long after his wife died. He'd contacted me only a couple of years after I'd left everything, and everyone, behind. I'd hoped he'd put it behind him, too.”

“Why would he?” Sasha accidentally dropped the paper but managed to catch it before it hit the floor. “That baby was his. He had a responsibility even if he didn't have a say-so.”

“Oh, now you feel he had a responsibility.” Areal inched forward on the sofa and leaned on her walker. Her voice rose, seemingly two octaves at a time, with each accusation. “You took away his responsibility and his choice when you gave away that baby!”

The telephone rang. Areal stopped ranting long enough to answer by the third ring.

Sasha could tell by Areal's body language that the call would probably bring more bad news.

“. . . Well, how soon can you get here? I don't give a flying hoot about what you're going through. Bring cash or a credit card, I really don't care which. I paid for Sasha to get here and you're gonna pay for her to return.” Areal slammed down the receiver.

“Jasper will be here in about an hour,” Areal replied to Sasha's silent question. “You may want to lie back and rest for a moment. He's putting you on the red eye back to Las Vegas.”

“Thank you,” Sasha said softly.

“Don't thank me. If I had to pay for it you'd be taking the train back.” Areal's tone suddenly softened as she saw the drained look on her sister's face. “I'm assuming that you had enough wits about you not to check out of your hotel room.”

“No, I didn't check out.”

“So, what excuse will you give when they ask where you've been or why you didn't show up at that conference election or whatever it is that's going on?”

“I will have to come up with something.”

“You mean to tell me that you haven't made up an excuse?”

“No, I haven't.”

“You'll probably have to lie.” Areal looked away. “It's not like you don't know how to lie.” She turned back and looked at Sasha. “I don't go to church anymore, but even I know that God said He wouldn't judge a liar. Liars ain't worth God's time or effort.”

The corners of Sasha's eyes, again, filled with tears. She was more frightened than she'd been in years. Everything her sister said was true. She'd maneuvered through life and customized her salvation to her liking. And now judgment was upon her. Her cover of well-rehearsed Bible verses and unorthodox bullying was about to be pulled back. She'd be revealed as the hypocrite. If necessary she could and would accept that indictment. But how would she explain giving away a child? And it wasn't just any child. The two-day-old baby was her niece. She'd chided and bullied Areal at a time when her sister was the most vulnerable.

Sasha and Areal started pulling small details from each other as they tried to reconstruct what had gone wrong. Each of the sisters had a piece to the puzzle and in a calm manner they tried to put it all in perspective, the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of earlier years.

They discussed how Areal was pregnant by not just any married man. She'd become pregnant by the illustrious Deacon Jasper Epps. The man sang spirituals as though he were born to do it. Areal remembered how churches for miles around bombarded him with their need for his vocal sermons. He could growl like the Mighty Clouds' Joe Ligon, or push out notes so smooth he'd make Smokey Robinson wish he could sing gospel.

After high school, Areal and Jasper had become closer when they formed a singing duet. They'd called themselves the Harmonizing Pair. Three months hadn't passed before they were taking harmony to another level. Jasper's excuse for the affair was the “my wife just don't understand me” one. Areal didn't have an excuse. She just wanted to make music whether in or out of bed.

Sasha again recalled how only a year later, Areal, Jasper, and she had returned to their home church after a long absence from being on the road. And it was at that church where the affair was uncovered. The three of them had become fearful when the traveling prophet had revealed Areal's pregnancy. Of course, Areal had hidden her swelling belly very well, so she thought, and the prophet hadn't mentioned Jasper at all.

The revelation that Sunday had jump-started an unholy pact between them. It was Sasha who convinced Areal of the unforgiving shame and humiliation that she'd bring to the family if she kept the baby.

Areal remembered arguing with Sasha in front of Jasper. “What do I care about bringing shame to this family?” Areal had declared. “That man loves me. We'll work something out.”

“You're the biggest fool I know!” Sasha said, as they waited for Jasper to join in the conversation.

“You do love me, don't you?” Areal's eyes pleaded but somehow she'd known better.

Neither sister wanted to bring it up but it was time for the entire truth. They talked about the day Jasper finally revealed his true self. It'd happened on the same day Areal revealed her basement level of desperation.

Jasper had finally admitted that he'd never had intentions of ever leaving his rich wife or ruining his so-called church and public reputation or social standing. When he finally came around after a month's absence, he gave a substantial amount of money to Areal for her “troubles.” As if he were doing everyone a favor by contributing financially to a situation he helped create and hoped she'd have the good sense to take care of. He'd had a lot of nerve evading blame for a mess partially created by his roaming libido.

“There ain't no more money, so don't ask for none,” he'd said as he'd hurriedly peeled off several hundred-dollar bills as though each would wash away his part.

“Why are you treating me like this?” Areal finally asked him.

“It's what God would want me to do. After all, I do have a conscience.” He'd answered as though he were insulted by the question.

Jasper never mentioned where God or his conscience had been when he was committing the adultery.

BOOK: Somewhat Saved

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