Sister Betty Says I Do

by Pat G'Orge-Walker

  Leotis, with his hazel eyes appearing like velvety cognac in the sunlight and brighter than usual, stuck his neck outside the car window and chirped, “I’m blessed and highly favored.” When Ima said nothing and didn’t move an inch, he quickly added, “It’s a blessing just to see this gorgeous day.”

  Still outside the Tahoe, Sister Betty nodded at Leotis. She then shifted her Bible to one hand and reached for the car’s support handle with her other as she tried to climb in the backseat. “Don’t you move to come around and try to help me, Reverend Tom. I guess you’re so used to me sitting where Ima’s plopped down that you forgot how high the step is to get inside the back of this thing.”

  Leotis pulled his head back inside the car, allowing it to fall forward enough for a few of his short curls to touch the steering wheel. Out of the side of one eye he saw Ima twitch slightly. He didn’t bother to take a long look over at the big smile now plastered on her face. Looking upward, he murmured, “Father, whatever was I thinking?”

  Once she had pushed Leotis’s hand aside when he finally offered his help, and had entered the backseat, Sister Betty began thumbing through her Bible. It wasn’t for anything in particular. It was something to do with her hands . . . so she didn’t reach across the seat and snatch Leotis by his hair. She couldn’t believe how angry she’d become in just a few short minutes. But then again, she couldn’t believe that her beloved spiritual son and pastor was dumb enough to allow Ima to ride along.

  As they drove down the highway, Sister Betty’s eyes pierced the back of Leotis’s head, while he tried to engage her and Ima in small talk. She was sending him bad vibrations, and she knew he felt them. It was evident by the way he kept swerving in and out of traffic.

  “Are you all right, son? Anything happening that’s causing you to drive so crazy?” Sister Betty asked.

  “Nothing I can’t handle with some help from the Lord.”

  Sister Betty began thinking that if it wasn’t her signals that had him nervous, then it must’ve been something else. Perhaps it was the tiny two-piece neon orange suit Ima wore. She took a moment to pretend she was adjusting her seat belt and leaned forward enough to get a closer look at Ima’s barely covered honey-complexioned legs and thighs. It also appeared that her two double-D mares were trying to get out of their bra barn. Have mercy, Jesus. Ima looks like she shops at Whores “R”Us.

  Sister Betty quickly leaned back and again looked out the passenger window. For the second time since they’d picked up Sharvon and Ima from the airport three weeks ago, she found herself breaking out in song. “Don’t let this Devil ride . . . she’ll wanna drive.”

  With all the small talk fallen by the wayside, Sister Betty said nothing more. It was the same with Leotis and Ima, until Leotis finally turned on one of the local gospel stations. Sister Betty hoped he’d done it perhaps to put a foot on the Devil’s neck or, as she’d already prayed for, to keep his carnal thoughts in check. She’d seen him glance down toward Ima’s uncovered thighs too often for it to be an accident. Besides, he couldn’t see the road if he was looking down, or the traffic lights. Traffic lights never killed anyone; oncoming cars almost certainly did.

  Sister Betty couldn’t take another moment of the quasi silence. She had to speak up, and she intended to put the Devil in its place.

  “Ima,” she began, “I didn’t mention it the last time I saw you, but it’s too bad your engagement to Reverend Lyon Lipps didn’t work out.”

  “I’m not sorry,” Ima replied curtly. She looked over at Leotis to see if perhaps Sister Betty’s mention of her engagement had meant anything. She saw no reaction.

  “Really?” Sister Betty replied as she inched closer to the front seat without undoing her seat belt. “I thought the way you chased after the man, and him so seemingly bewitched by you, that there’d surely be a wedding.”

  Sister Betty fell back in her seat. She could tell by the way Leotis’s earlobes suddenly twitched that he was doing a bad job of pretending not to pay attention. So she continued. “Well, perhaps it’s not for you to marry or be in a relationship with a man of God. It would be very constricting to your lifestyle, I’m certain.”

  Wham! She’d laid it out there. If Leotis wasn’t aware of Ima’s recent past, well, now he was. Sister Betty let a smile appear. I’m stopping this Devil in its tracks right now.

  Somehow Ima managed to turn around in her seat without unbuckling her seat belt. She was small enough to do so, and when she did, her tiny skirt rose higher.

  “Well, Sister Betty . . . ” Ima glanced quickly at Leotis. She seemed pleased to see his eyes dashing all over the front seat and zeroing in on her girlish possibilities, and even more pleased when he blurted, “Sweet Jesus!”

  “As I was about to say,” Ima continued, “I wasn’t raised to knowingly commit adultery.” She stopped and tapped Leotis on the arm, purring once she felt his hard muscle and happy he’d taken off his suit jacket. “That is against the Word, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, ma’am. God doesn’t approve of such things.” A bluish hue had spread across Leotis’s fingers from gripping the steering wheel tightly. He suddenly felt as though he were losing his grip on his salvation and his sanity, too. He purposely didn’t watch late-night cable television so as to keep his mind uncluttered by carnal things.

  Sister Betty took a deep breath. She held her jaw until it began to ache. “What does adultery have to do with anything? As far as I know, you’ve never been married. So how is it you’d be committing adultery if you married Reverend Lipps? I hope it’s not because he expected you to behave and dress like a first lady, and you couldn’t see yourself doing so.”

  Ima fell against her seat; she began clapping before letting out a loud laugh. “Oh, Sister Betty, I didn’t know you were so judgmental, despite your ole sanctified self.” Ima gently touched Leotis’s muscle, this time through his cotton shirt. She stroked it again for a second before asking, “Did you know your spiritual mother was so judgmental? Do you approve of that, Reverend?”

  Without saying a word, Leotis took one hand off the wheel and gently removed Ima’s hand before returning his own to the steering wheel.

  Although he’d not come along, somehow Sister Betty could feel Freddie tugging at her conscience. Despite his recent outburst and threats to Bea and Sasha, she knew he’d want her to back off, saying that it wasn’t nothing but the Devil trying to score a hit.

  Freddie wasn’t there, and she wasn’t about to back off. Instead, Sister Betty craned her neck, sucked her teeth, and said sharply to the back of Ima’s neck, “Reverend Tom ain’t got nothing to do with this!”

  “I never said he did,” Ima replied without turning to speak. “I believe you were butting into my business about Reverend Lipps.”

  “I’m not butting into your business. I’m just trying to have a conversation with you while we’re driving to church. You’re the one who brought up adultery. I’m sure you got enough sinning on your record without needlessly adding to it. I’m just trying to explain that you couldn’t commit adultery, because you ain’t ever been married, and even if you had once been married, as long as you weren’t married when you remarried, it wouldn’t be adultery.”

  Leotis said nothing, but his jaw began twitching as he listened.

  “Well, thank you, most holy Sister Betty.” Ima’s lips slowly pursed before a smirk spread across her face. “I never said it was about me being married. I said I didn’t want to commit adultery. It was your precious Reverend Lyon Lipps who was the one who was married.”

  Sister Betty sat there, stunned. It took her a moment to recover. She still didn’t believe Ima. Reverend Lipps and his twin brother, Lionel, were renowned preachers. Everyone knew Lionel was married. He’d married one of their members, Sister Need Sum. If Lyon was married, too, he’d have certainly mentioned it. . . . Someone in his family would’ve.

  Sister Betty clutched her Bible and held it in front of her, as though she expected Ima to swear by it. “What made you
believe that he was married? Perhaps he just wanted to get out of the engagement.”

  “I didn’t believe him at first,” Ima began, smiling like a fox hired to watch a henhouse. “But when his wife showed up with the marriage certificate a week before we were gonna do the deed, and he couldn’t produce divorce papers, I sorta figured she had the upper hand. You know me. I don’t like a lot of drama.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I sure don’t. And, of course, Lyon didn’t want any public drama, either. He settled real quick for breach of promise and a few other charges I threatened to file against him. Then, once he found out my aunt Sasha’s brother, Uncle Brutus, was one of the divorce judges, he threw in a little extra to keep it out of the papers.”

  Before Sister Betty could reach down and pick her face up off the car mat, Ima had turned back around to face Leotis, whose jaw had dropped but no longer twitched.

  Ima suddenly pointed to a large building. “You can let me out on this corner,” she told Leotis. “Thank you again for your kindness in allowing me to ride along with you.”

  “It’s not a problem for me,” Leotis replied while staring through his rearview mirror at Sister Betty’s grim face. “The offer for you to attend tonight’s revival service still stands. If you can’t get a ride, someone will certainly give you a lift. It’s a two-week revival. You can’t find but so many excuses not to attend.”

  Ima threw a smile toward Leotis. “You certainly know how to put a woman in a tight squeeze when it comes down to the church. Let me think on it, and I’ll get back to you.” Ima then winked at Sister Betty before wiggling her way out of her seat belt and onto the pavement. She said her good-byes and then took a double look at Sister Betty, who still remained plastered against the backseat, looking like she’d been Tasered.

  “Sister Betty, are you okay?” Ima asked. “You look surprised. I got a job here the other day. It’s something of a civic nature. It’s what I do from time to time, in place of going to a morning church service. I’m what you might call a female heart defibrillator passing out books, Jell-O, and a lot of charm to the older men.” Laughing again and not waiting for an answer from either Sister Betty or Leotis, Ima strutted away toward a building with the name SERENITY MALE NURSING HOME on its sign.

  During the remaining ride to the church, Sister Betty and Leotis prayed, each silently and unknowingly, disappointed and questioning why they had given the Devil an inch. After all, they were on their way to a revival service, and not a moment too soon.

  Once they arrived at the church, Leotis went to his study to prepare for the morning service. Sister Betty took the elevator down one floor to Crossing Over Sanctuary’s fellowship hall.

  To get to the fellowship hall, Sister Betty walked down a long white-paneled hallway. Hanging on the wall were fourteen-karat gold picture frames. President Barack Obama and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., were just a sample of those who had visited the church or had had a huge impact on it.

  When she finally arrived, Sister Betty found the fellowship hall buzzing with excitement. She then remembered the combined choir was supposed to meet before the morning service. They were going to rehearse a special song selection meant as a surprise for Leotis. He’d said during a service that he’d worn out his Donnie McClurkin Live in London & More CD, with its rendition of “Great Is Your Mercy,” and wished the choir would learn the track. She didn’t have much of a singing voice, but Sister Betty had decided she wanted to be a part of such a blessed surprise.

  The choir was singing the last refrain by the time she walked over. However, what she’d heard left no doubt that everyone had fasted and was prayed up, ready for the Lord to rain down the Holy Ghost fire. But, on the other hand, because of how she’d acted on the way to the service, she now felt convicted and unworthy to participate when it was time to sing. Lord, why did I allow Ima to mess with my testimony? she thought. Instead of delivering her normal and often over-the-top greetings of “My God is a good God” and “Ain’t no Devil stealing my joy,” she walked over to the other side of the fellowship hall with her head down, saying nothing to anyone who looked her way, and found someplace to sit by herself.

  Freddie had arrived at the church about an hour ago. He and the other eleven trustees and elders sat at a table in a far back corner of the fellowship hall. The six men and six women, ranging in age from forty to seventy-five, were dressed in their ceremonial black-and-white attire and, from a distance, looked like a colony of penguins. He’d seen Sister Betty walk in, and when he noticed she hadn’t spoken to anyone, not even giving a wave in his direction, he knew something was wrong.

  Freddie stood up. He quickly closed the binder lying on the table in front of him and said, “Y’all, excuse me for a moment.” Pointing to one of the other men, he added, “Elder Batty, keep on discussing the plans for the wedding surprise for Sister Betty. Just don’t finalize nothing until I get back. I won’t be but for a minute.”

  Sister Betty saw Freddie headed her way. He was doing his usual gallop, making the limp he’d gotten from a car accident appear more pronounced, and she knew he had something urgent on his mind. It was too late to get up and leave. She inwardly scolded herself for not doing so when she first saw him in the back of the room.

  She began fingering the large cross hanging around her neck. She made a motion that looked to be more a comforting gesture than one done out of nervousness. The closer Freddie came, the more Sister Betty didn’t like the way he looked. Several times in the past few weeks she’d noticed a dark and sometimes ashen appearance to his normally lemony complexion. And at that moment, it also occurred to her that it looked as though he’d begun losing his hair and the precious sprig he liked to twirl. Now he looked like he’d been in the sun too much. Hmmm, she thought. Now that he’d come closer, she looked at his eyes. She leaned her head as though she needed to see him sideways. His eyes. . . there was something about them that didn’t set well with her. But just as she’d done for the past few weeks, she’d say nothing. “Criticizing is not a good way to keep a man,” she’d always heard.

  Sister Betty saw that Freddie was smiling; it seemed like a concerned smile, but it was a smile, nevertheless. Sister Betty took a deep breath, telling herself, This is probably all in my head. It’s good he’s in such a good mood. She needed to believe it, because she knew he’d disapprove once she confessed to what’d happened earlier on the ride to church.

  Freddie reached out for Sister Betty, attempting to give her a quick embrace. It was a move the congregation had come to appreciate from such an elderly couple. They’d obliged their fellow church members by exchanging hugs every time they complimented her about her gorgeous and most expensive engagement ring. But this time Sister Betty didn’t respond to his outreach as she normally would. She couldn’t.

  Freddie could almost feel the chill coming off her. “Honey Bee, what’s wrong? Have I done something wrong?”

  “No,” she replied. “I have.”

  Sister Betty pointed to the empty chair beside her, and Freddie sat. She told him how unbecoming she’d acted once she spied Ima seated in Leotis’s car. She went on to tell him about the Jezebel type of clothing Ima had worn and the concern she had for Leotis’s reputation if he continued to escort her about. By the time she finished telling Freddie about that morning’s ride, she’d confirmed what she’d known from the start.

  “Freddie, I am so ashamed. What if I was called upon to pray for Ima, or anyone, with those types of thoughts on my mind?”

  Freddie looked at her, and a smile crept across his face. The furrows in his brow narrowed as he reached for her hand. “Honey Bee, don’t be so hard on you.”

  “But you don’t understand. . . .”

  “Oh, but I do.” Freddie then took her free hand in his. Smiling again, he continued. “Didn’t I recently want to kill Bea and Sasha?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did I do it?”

  “No.”

  “Well, now look at it this way,
” Freddie said softly. “If Jesus got angry, why do you believe you can’t? I’ve heard that one or more of those Hellraisers have angered just about everyone in this community for as long as Pelzer’s been around. If you believe that getting angry with them is gonna keep you out of heaven or prevent your prayers from reaching there once you’ve asked God for forgiveness, then they’ve won and you’ve cheated yourself out of the victory. And you ain’t giving God much credit for His grace and mercy, either.”

  Sister Betty began to smile so hard, she risked her partials falling out. His wisdom was one of the things she’d come to truly depend upon and love about him. “Freddie, God sure did right by me when he placed you in my life.”

  “Ditto, Honey Bee.”

  Sister Betty placed her Bible beside her on another open seat. She rose, quickly smoothing an invisible wrinkle on her long skirt. She bent over a little and took one of Freddie’s hands in hers before whispering sweetly, “Lord, I just want to thank you.” And before she could add, “For this great man you’ve given to me,” Freddie’s hand slipped from hers. He slumped over the side of his chair and onto the floor in a heap.

  “Oh, Jesus!” she wept. “Please don’t take him!” She alternated between calling on her God for His mercy and promising Freddie she’d never leave his side.

  Chapter 6

  The moment they got the news that Freddie had passed out, the intercessory prayer team sprang into action. Its members included several of the church’s mothers’ board, deacons and deaconesses. They, along with Leotis, raced to Freddie’s side. Bea and Sasha, who’d never been on the intercessory prayer team during the entire time they ran the mothers’ board, waited on the sidelines.

  Sasha was truly speechless for the first few seconds. She then somehow discovered that she wasn’t completely devoid of compassion when she asked Bea, “Don’t you think we should go over and join them?”

  Bea’s eyes stayed laser focused upon those who were anointing Freddie with blessed oil, some even speaking in tongues, pointing God in Freddie’s direction. Taking into account that everything done on Freddie’s behalf was too serious to half step, Bea turned to Sasha. “No, I don’t think we need to add to the misery. Wasn’t we just talking this morning about getting back at Trustee Noel?”