Sister Betty Says I Do

by Pat G'Orge-Walker

  However, things went wrong: the Access-a-Ride bus broke down, and another wasn’t available until much later. It meant he’d be too late for his doctor’s appointment. Leotis wasn’t available to take Sister Betty to the food bank or Freddie to his scheduled doctor’s visit. Sharvon had called, saying she was stuck at work and wouldn’t be taking a lunch hour. She couldn’t do it, either.

  “We can always take a taxi,” Sister Betty suggested, reaching for the pad by the telephone, where she kept frequently dialed numbers. “It could drop me off at the church and take you on to the doctors.”

  “Nah,” Freddie said quickly. “You call a cab for yourself. I’m thinking about calling Elder Batty instead. He don’t do nothing anyhow but sit around all day, begging Bea for a slice of her red velvet cake or whatever she’s done lately to make him act crazy. He’s probably available.”

  An hour or so before Elder Batty was to arrive, Sister Betty needed to go around the corner to Freddie’s house. She wanted to retrieve some things he’d been asking for. Things such as his shaving cream, razor, and solid stick deodorant were high on his list, along with clean underwear, which he’d run out of the day before. She could’ve washed his underwear, but he wasn’t having it.

  When she’d earlier suggested he let her buy those things, he wasn’t having that, either. “Honey Bee,” he’d told her, “how would it look with you buying my drawers and we ain’t even married yet? Besides, I’m feeling pretty good, but imagine how much better I’d look and smell if I had those things that I personally bought?”

  Sister Betty threw up her hands in surrender. “Just rest a bit in my room until I get back,” she’d told him. “I haven’t put the clean sheets on your bed yet.”

  “Okay, Honey Bee,” he’d replied, smiling. “I guess it don’t make sense to climb atop no clean sheets until I bathe and change from everything I’ve been wearing for the past day and a half. Don’t you rush none, either. You walk slowly. I don’t want you passing out in this heat.” He chuckled at his attempt at poking fun at his passing out at church.

  Sister Betty left Freddie sitting in her room, watching television, and she did what he’d asked. She walked slowly around the corner to his house.

  As it happened, Elder Batty arrived early, after she had gone to Freddie’s house. He was available but wasn’t alone. When he showed up, he brought Bea along.

  Sister Betty, in her hurry to get to Freddie’s home and back, left her side door slightly ajar. Seeing that the door was not completely closed, Elder Batty reached for the doorbell. Bea was quicker than he was, and acted as though she lived there, too, and with the full rights of any tenant, Bea reached for the door handle and pushed the door completely in.

  “Sister Betty,” Elder Batty called out as he followed Bea inside and stopped in the foyer. “I’m a bit early. Where are you?”

  Instead of Bea waiting for an answer, she walked quickly through the foyer. She ducked her head inside the kitchen, and when she didn’t find Sister Betty there, she headed toward the back of the house, where she knew Sister Betty’s bedroom, along with the spare guest rooms, were. Bea waddled just past Sister Betty’s bedroom; then she quickly backtracked. Her fat jaw almost dropped to her chest, and the hunch in her back went from looking like the letter C to an I. Bea came face-to-face with Freddie. He had just stepped out of the shower in preparation for Sister Betty’s return and was dressed in nothing but the skin the good Lord gave him.

  By the time Sister Betty was two houses away from reaching her own, she heard the yelling. One quick glance at the church van in her driveway told her that Elder Batty had arrived. What in the world is all that yelling about? She began picking up speed and rushed inside her house. Inside her living room she found Bea all up in Freddie’s face, with her finger pointed at him. Elder Batty was standing with his arms stretched out, trying to separate the two, and Freddie, for whatever reason, was wearing one of her housecoats.

  “Bea Blister, what in the world is you doing in my house, acting crazier than usual?” Sister Betty flung the bag she’d carried onto a nearby chair. She immediately went at Bea. “I said, what’s going on?”

  Bea swallowed hard. She took a few steps back from Freddie but kept her finger waving at him while turning to face Sister Betty. “I believe the real question is, why do you have a naked man in your bedroom? You supposedly so saved. I knew you wasn’t nothing but a hypocrite!”

  “Calm down, Bea,” Elder Batty warned. “This ain’t none of your business!”

  “Check this old demon before I knock her out!” Freddie yelled but couldn’t finish. He had become winded and could barely manage to find his way onto the sofa without falling.

  “Bea Blister,” Sister Betty shouted as she raced to Freddie’s side. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and frankly, I don’t care. But if you don’t take your . . . ” For the first time in her adult life and since she’d given her life to Jesus, Sister Betty wanted to cuss. Instead she snapped, “Big behind out of my house . . . ”

  Freddie quickly began perspiring, and Sister Betty raced to the kitchen, returning with a cold, wet cloth to wipe his brow.

  Freddie swept Sister Betty’s hand away. “I’m okay. I don’t need that or no babying.”

  In the meantime the argument that’d started between Bea and Freddie spilled over, and now it was Elder Batty’s turn for scolding.

  Bea balled up one fat fist. She rammed her fingers through the mauve-colored beehive wig she wore, as though looking for a hidden weapon, before she shot a nasty look at Elder Batty. “That’s why you always out of that male-enhancing pill, ain’t it?” Bea accused and pointed back at Freddie. “You’ve been sharing it with this alleged man virgin!”

  As soon as the words left Bea’s mouth, the temperature in the room chilled to zero degrees. Bea’s angry admission of her and Elder Batty’s use of Viagra quieted the room.

  Sister Betty rose, with her wig now tilted a little to the side and looking like a flower behind her ear. “Say what?”

  Freddie reached down from where he sat, and closed the snaps on the housecoat he wore. They’d popped open as he’d prepared to take a swing at Bea, so he couldn’t follow through with it.

  And Elder Batty’s face turned a shade of red that did not make him look good at all.

  With nothing left unsaid, and Freddie still needing to get to the doctor’s, Freddie grabbed the bag Sister Betty had tossed onto the chair, and left the room to dress.

  Elder Batty pulled out his cellular phone. “I’m putting an end to this craziness right now.” He turned and gave Bea a nasty side look, while at the same time shaking his head in amazement. “Hello,” he said quickly into the phone. “I need a cab in a hurry. . . .”

  Bea began railing almost as soon as Elder Batty began dialing for a cab to take her home. “You ain’t just gonna call me no cab and think that’s the end of this!” Bea turned around to face Sister Betty, and her face turned a darker shade of black as she began rocking from side to side, warming up for what she thought would be a knockout punch. Her wig du jour, which now resembled a possum on her head, slid two inches off her scalp and onto her right ear.

  “And you better believe that as much as you may want me to do it”—Bea leaned forward and pointed her finger in Sister Betty’s face—“there ain’t no way in hell I’m going to give you no wedding reception!”

  Sister Betty didn’t back away an inch. Vile words rolled from Sister Betty’s brain down into her mouth to escape into the open, but her tongue got in the way. Instead of saying something that she’d certainly need to repent for, she allowed her partials the freedom to roam from one side of her mouth to the other while giving off a clicking sound each time. “I never asked you for no wedding reception, and I didn’t ask you to come to my house!”

  “Well, who else was gonna give your high-and-mighty self a reception? Just name one person who has known you for as long as I have, and can still want to do something nice for ya.” Bea tried to strai
ghten her back slowly, so as not to show how much pain she was in, and just as she finished, the sound of the cab honking caused her to lean over again.

  Bea went on. “It ain’t over. I’m going straight to the church when I leave here. I’m heading for your beloved food bank to shout it out. And I know some of them rehearsing on the senior choir would be very interested in the unholy goings-on in your so-called sanctified house!”

  Sister Betty crossed her arms over her breasts and leaned back as she threatened Bea. “You go running that mouth about something you know nothing about, and I’ve got one word for you in front of the entire congregation that’ll make you wish you hadn’t.”

  “Oh, really?” Bea replied. “Just what you got to say that’s gonna shut my mouth and stop me from telling the whole world about you being a high-minded hypocrite?”

  Sister Betty straightened her wig, and looking Bea square in the eye, she yelled, “Viagra!”

  Chapter 8

  Several days later, after Freddie had seen the doctor and returned with the good news that he could drive again, Sister Betty found time to call Leotis. She could’ve left a message when she didn’t reach him after the hospital fiasco with Ima, but she wanted to say her piece directly to him. A short time later she finally reached him at home. As much as she’d determined she’d fuss at him, she found she couldn’t. He seemed in such a good mood, and actually, she was, too.

  “Today is so bright, so warm, and just so beautiful, and of course, God is so good,” she declared. “I feel the same now as I did the other day, and I could’ve just shouted for joy right there in my living room. You just can’t imagine the relief I felt when Freddie told me that the doctor said the medicine he’s taking has his blood pressure under control.”

  “That’s a good thing,” Leotis replied with a tone that didn’t seem as jubilant as Sister Betty’s. “We got to get you two to that altar. We don’t want unnecessary stumbles along the way because he doesn’t like taking medicine. God gave us doctors for a ” reason.

  “I just hope you continue conveying that message to Freddie. He fights me tooth and nail about taking his medicine and trying to help him get well. He says faith should be all the medicine he needs.”

  Sister Betty and Leotis chatted a bit longer. She was laughing while complaining about the trustees’ stubbornness. She, however, never mentioned the fiasco from Bea’s recent visit, as well as her threats. Meanwhile, whenever she talked about how she’d love to see him settle down, too, and give the church a first lady, he avoided her innuendos regarding any possible attraction to Sharvon, or vice versa, as a possibility

  Despite the good-natured conversation they were having, Sister Betty decided she needed to say her original piece, after all. He’d just have to hear her out.

  “You know better than to try and make any attempt at soul saving with Ima,” she said in a matter-of-fact manner. “God don’t want you ending up in no fatal attraction situation.” And then, as had become her recent habit of doing, she gave him the same advice she’d give all day, every day. “Just remember what happened to that rabbit in that pot. Ima might make ya hot . . . but you’ll burn in hell if you take your hand off of God’s plow.”

  As usual, Leotis laughed it off, hoping to end the call on a good note. “You take care, my wonderfully anointed spiritual mother. I love you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “You know I feel the same way about you.” There was a short pause, however. Sister Betty hadn’t hung up yet and neither had Leotis when she suddenly heard a familiar female voice in the background. She couldn’t hear or understand everything, but she could feel her face contorting into a disapproving scowl. Was Ima there this entire time?

  Her peace of mind quickly plummeted, leaving in its place questions. As if she were his natural mother, she began to worry. Sweet Jesus, how can he allow her into his home? He’s supposed to shun every appearance of evil.

  Even though Leotis had central air-conditioning blasting throughout his home, beads of sweat suddenly peppered his forehead. He almost broke his telephone when he slammed it down, hoping Sister Betty had hung up before Ima came out of his bathroom and began speaking. While there was a grim look that crept across his face, he saw a look of complete satisfaction upon Ima’s.

  Ima took one hand and tossed back her long hair, which had covered long gold loop earrings, now swinging to a rhythm he couldn’t hear but was certain was seductive. Humming an off-key melody, she sashayed over toward where Leotis stood rooted by his desk.

  He quickly looked away. He shook his head, remembering how it’d been only minutes ago when she appeared on his porch. She’d been uninvited, and her boldness had surprised and paralyzed him.

  With the sunlight framing her beautiful face and causing the normal specks of brown to appear darker in her green eyes, she’d removed any chance of him not allowing her to enter his house. Her perfume rivaled the fragrance from the roses spread about his yard, making him want to inhale continuously, as though the scent caused orgasms. She had on a formfitting red- and white-striped sundress, wearing it as if it had been designed solely for her, and her painted toenails peeked out of sandals of the same color and pattern.

  “Thank you for allowing me to use your bathroom,” Ima purred. “I guess if Sister Betty had been home when I passed through this neighborhood, I could’ve used hers.”

  The way she’d spoken the lie had a sobering effect. She’d done it easily, and he wasn’t certain if she hadn’t convinced herself. “Are you certain you knocked hard enough or rang her doorbell?” He wavered between calling her a liar outright and getting her to admit it on her own.

  “Look at me, Reverend.” Ima took a step back so she could present him with all she’d brought to work him over with. “I’m too small to knock but so hard or press persistently on a doorbell.” She stopped to lift a leg, holding it in midair to fix a sandal strap that needed no fixing. As if the sunlight had followed her inside, its rays filtered through Leotis’s living room window. A seductive halo formed around Ima’s mango body-buttered leg. She turned her ankle so he could get a good glimpse. She’d been around long enough to know a leg man when she saw one, and she’d bet all she had that he was definitely one. Slowly lowering her leg, she continued with mock remorse. “I guess upon second thought, though, Sister Betty is old. Perhaps she don’t hear as well anymore and I should’ve knocked harder.”

  Ima didn’t wait for Leotis to respond. She went directly into the second act of her self-directed play. “Please, again, accept my apology for barging in. I should’ve known better than to bother a man in the midst of doing the Lord’s work.”

  “It’s not like we haven’t had this discussion.” Her lie having a sobering effect or not hadn’t stopped Leotis from sweating. His heart pounded. He cleared his throat, losing count of how many times he’d done so since she’d raised and lowered her leg. “Neither of us would want to give anyone or the other the wrong impression.” He then quickly folded his arms and nodded toward the door. “I think you’d better go—”

  Ima’s eyes lit up as she interrupted Leotis, asking playfully, “Says who?”

  While Leotis and Ima played a game of kitty and mouse in heat, a few doors away, Sharvon arrived home. She walked inside the kitchen, greeting Sister Betty and tossing her briefcase onto one of the counter chairs before heading straight for the refrigerator. She poured a glass of lemonade, drinking it in one gulp.

  “You must be exhausted working these nine- and ten-hour days, running back and forth between your office and home,” Sister Betty told her. “How much longer will you need to do that? It’s been almost a month and a half nonstop.”

  “You worry too much,” Sharvon replied between gulps from a second glass. Licking her lips and turning the glass in her hand, she said, “I tell you, this is so good. It’s like precious liquid gold. But I can’t stay. I’ve got to go out again.”

  “Again?”

  “Yes, I caught a cab home. My car broke
down over by the Anderson Library”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m tired, but other than that, I’m fine.” Sharvon rinsed out her glass and set it on the counter before reaching for the telephone on the wall. “I’ve got to call another cab to take me back.”

  Sister Betty walked over to Sharvon and gently took the telephone from her hand. There was a noticeable twinkle in her eyes, and a playful grin appeared. “It don’t make sense spending all that hard-earned money on no cab to go so far.”

  “It’s not like I can’t afford it.” Sharvon laughed. “I’m almost filthy rich since you won’t allow me to pay rent. And that reminds me.” Sharvon placed her arms around Sister Betty’s small shoulders. “I’m going to need you to deposit those checks I gave you toward the telephone bills and all the dry cleaning you keep picking up for me and paying for.”

  “You’ll have plenty of time to repay me when you hit the really big time with your new partnership.” Sister Betty slipped out of Sharvon’s grasp and headed toward the living room. She arrived just in time to answer the phone, which had rung just once.

  “Hello.”

  “Sister Betty, I need your help!”

  Sister Betty placed the telephone closer to her ear. Leotis was whispering, and she could only imagine why. “Why are you whispering in your own home? What’s the matter?”

  “Sister Betty, it’s about Ima, and I don’t know what to do.”

  “What about her?”

  “I know she’s gone through a lot with her former fiance hurting her, and she’s probably just seeking attention, but she can’t be popping up on my doorstep anytime she pleases.”

  “I tried to tell you those Hellraisers gonna land you in hell if you don’t stand your ground—”

  “You just hold on, Leotis. I’m coming over there right now!”

  “Sharvon,” Sister Betty snapped, “why are you in my conversation?”

  “I’m sorry, Cousin Betty. I picked up the phone the same time you did. Besides, our pastor needs help with that trollop, and I am an attorney. I can help!”