Sister Betty Says I Do

by Pat G'Orge-Walker

  The following morning Bea met Sasha by the elevator in their apartment building. They’d already decided to get as much out of Porky as possible without adding a lot more to their hundred-dollar deposit. With reserved seats on the Access-a-Ride bus, they rode to downtown Pelzer to meet with him.

  The two old women arrived armed. Sasha had her cane and Bible. Bea carried her pocketbook and her small notebook. They ambled up the walkway to the El Diablo Soul Food Shanty. Bea stopped and looked at the front of the newly renovated building. She smiled.

  “Well, Sasha, at least there aren’t citations from the health department plastered all across the front of the building.” Bea looked around further before pointing toward the building. “And look at all those lovely fake silk flowers lined up on the windowsills.”

  “I still believe he set the fire to his own place just so he could get the money to fix it up,” Sasha replied. “I wouldn’t put nothing past Porky.”

  Bea glared and pointed her notebook toward Sasha, asking, “Then why are you so willing to do business with the man if he’s so shady in your eyes?”

  “I never said there was anything wrong with what he did,” Sasha replied. “I’m just saying he didn’t fool me.”

  During its almost thirty years on Ptomaine Avenue, the El Diablo Soul Food Shanty had been an eyesore and the source of more food-related illnesses than any other restaurant in Pelzer. It’d remained in business because of the prowess of its notorious owner, Porky La Pierre. Porky had a natural gift for attracting the high and mighty with their low reputations. Church folks would race there after service, looking for the latest gossip or bootleg DVD. No one ever said it was for the cuisine, as Porky loved to call his all-in-one-pot cooking.

  “So what’s happening?” Porky asked Bea and Sasha after they entered. He raised the dingy chef’s cap off his bald head and slid his feet into a pair of his favorite green flip-flops, which he always wore. Porky’s brown skin had splotches of something oily all over where there wasn’t any clothing. His huge stomach poked out of an equally dingy white apron. “Follow me.”

  Porky led Bea and Sasha into another room, which had once been his storeroom. He’d had the walls touched up in a cream-colored motif, set off by dark brown panels in each of the room’s four corners. “What do you think so far?”

  Sasha stood in one spot, saying nothing as she slowly turned around. From where she stood, she could reach over and touch the counter, so she did.

  Bea wouldn’t keep quiet as she took it all in. “Porky,” Bea said, “how many people can you fit into this room?”

  “Depends on whether you got them standing or sitting. If they’re standing, then you can get about twenty inside. If they’re sitting, then just cut that amount in half, allowing for chairs and tables. I recommend you use this room for your cocktail hour. Folks can just walk up to the counter to get what they like. I’m suggesting that you use colorful napkins. That way they won’t need paper plates. They can just suck the food off with one of those fancy toothpicks with the umbrella and use that same toothpick to stir their drinks.” Porky proudly waved his hands around the room. “You can just feel the ambulance!”

  “It’s called ambience, fool!” Sasha hissed, poking the floor with her cane like she wanted to do to Porky’s huge stomach.

  Bea began swinging her pocketbook back and forth like she was winding up, ready to throw something.

  “I can tell by the looks on your faces that you’re impressed.” Porky gently pushed Bea and Sasha from their rooted positions and led them through the door to another room, one that he used as his office. “Y’all grab a chair, and let’s get down to business.”

  Sasha regained her composure and took the small wire-bound notebook from Bea’s hands. She then laid it upon the table. The notebook had colorful tabs separating each section to make it easier to get to each. “We don’t have a lot of time, so we are stuck with you,” Sasha told Porky. “Bea and me done made our final plans for Sister Betty and Trustee Noel’s wedding reception. We expecting it to go off without a hitch, and it’d better not be in that closet you just showed us.”

  “And don’t be trying to cheat us out of what we expecting for that hundred-dollar deposit,” Bea added. “We done promised you a cut out of the first ten events we gets to plan after this one. We need Sister Betty’s send-off to be all first class.”

  Porky laid an elbow on the table and began skimming through the notebook. When he finished, he closed it and leaned back in the chair. His eyes began to blink like a broken traffic light, first one and then the other. Everyone in Pelzer knew that it was a sign that he was about to tell a bigger lie than usual. Everyone also knew that Porky couldn’t control his eyes when that happened.

  With his dark eyes alternately blinking nonstop, he began describing to Bea and Sasha what he was prepared to offer that he considered just as good as first class. “I see you want some whore derbys,” Porky said as he scratched cornflake-size dandruff off his scalp. He quickly used the same hand to sweep it off the table.

  “Let me see that!” Bea snatched the notebook and looked inside. “That’s hors d’oeuvres, stupid.” Bea quickly turned in her seat to face Sasha. “You’d think for a hundred dollars, the man would be able to read.” She turned back to face Porky, saying, “Just say or dirbs. It sounds like birds.” She shook her head as Sasha began thumping the floor with her cane to get them back on track.

  Porky clasped his hands together and continued. With his eyes still in alternate blink mode, he said, “Along with those birds, you want some crabs, lobster meat, and some of them little franks rolled up in biscuit dough.”

  “Just tell us what you gonna do,” Sasha ordered. “It’s hot, and we ain’t got time to waste here.”

  “Well, you’re in luck,” Porky said, smiling. “I’ve got some of those little franks already in the freezer from before the fire last year, and there’s some lobster meat I got in last week from old man Red Brown. Y’all knows him. He’s that fella with the teeth looking like claws, who sells fish on the side, when he ain’t chasing down a dentist. It ain’t real lobster, but it’s definitely passable.”

  Bea and Sasha looked at one another. They began shaking their heads, as though they couldn’t believe Porky would try to shortchange them after they’d already placed a deposit.

  “We’ll come back to those,” Sasha said.

  “That’s right. That part ain’t settled. What about the crabs?”

  Porky’s smile widened. “Oh, Bea Blister,” he said. “You still the same ole Bea. You know I keep a bottle of Blue Ointment for such things. I can let you have a bottle for an extra dollar or two and it’ll clear it right up. It don’t make sense, you spending hours down at the free clinic.”

  “Bea, please tell me why you had to go and hit him with that metal gravy ladle?” Sasha asked as she and Bea walked to their seats on the Access-a-Ride bus after leaving Porky laid out. “It may take weeks for that swelling on his head and lips to go down. That’s gonna cut down on the time we need to get this business off the ground.”

  “Well, at least now he won’t be able to speak or think of such stupid things.”

  “Aw, he hurt your feelings, didn’t he, Bea?”

  “He sure did,” Bea hissed. “That fool knows I’ve changed. I’m saved now.”

  “Well, that much is true,” Sasha admitted. “He shouldn’t have wanted to charge you for that bottle of Blue Ointment. He should’ve given it to you for free, like he used to do.”

  Chapter 19

  As soon as Bea and Sasha stepped off their apartment building’s elevator, they found Ima standing outside Sasha’s apartment. Her eyes were red, and one look at her tear-streaked face told them she’d been crying.

  Sasha picked up her stride, getting to Ima before Bea.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Sasha asked Ima. “How long you been in this hallway?”

  “I’m going to go on inside and make some adjustments to these flyers I’m revising,” Be
a told Sasha. “You go ahead and take care of your niece.” She slowly adjusted her pocketbook and the notebook in her hands while reaching for her door key, as if she was waiting for them to continue talking in her presence. When they kept quiet, she jammed her key inside the lock. “Sasha,” Bea said softly, “we’ll chat later.” Bea wasn’t too upset, because she knew Sasha would tell everything, anyway.

  They went inside Sasha’s apartment, and within minutes Sasha had given Ima something to drink. Without any coaxing, Ima began telling her what was wrong.

  “He hasn’t said a word,” Ima told Sasha. “I can’t figure out the man. I invite him to lunch at an expensive restaurant. He stands me up, and I pretend it wasn’t anything. I felt certain that dancing would do it. And now he hasn’t called me after I danced my heart out, and he didn’t even wait around after the prayer meeting to say a kind word or anything.”

  “Maybe he’s just been busy,” Sasha replied. “He is the pastor of a big church.”

  “Oh, never mind,” Ima said. “I should’ve never listened to you.”

  “And you said you’d do exactly what I told you to do. And I sure didn’t tell you to get up there in front of the entire congregation and channel your inner stripper.”

  Shortly after Ima’s mini-meltdown, where she left crying again, Sasha and Bea strolled to a nearby pharmacy. They walked two blocks out of their way because Bea was still embarrassed from her neighbors seeing her wigless. On the way, Sasha told her what had happened earlier, when Ima stormed out after Sasha accused her of stripping in the Lord’s house.

  “You were wrong to call what she’d done stripping, Sasha,” Bea told her. “You remember when they used to call me Bea ‘Baby Doll’ Blister?”

  “They called you a lot of dumb names, pretty much the same way they do now.”

  “Hater,” Bea snapped. “Anyway, I know stripping, and what Ima did at that prayer and testifying service was hardly stripping.”

  “Gimme a break, Bea. You couldn’t have stripped paint off a wall,” Sasha replied. “Ima is fighting a losing battle.”

  Bea stopped walking and pointed her finger at Sasha. “Then why did you tell her you’d help her snag our pastor?”

  “Do you want the truth?”

  Bea pulled at Sasha’s arm to urge her on. “It would be unusual for you, but I’d like to hear what truth sounds like coming out of your mouth.”

  “I did it because I didn’t want Sister Betty getting the better part of life’s deal.”

  Bea stopped walking and pulled Sasha closer. “What are you yapping about, Sasha? What better deal does Sister Betty have? She’s old and lonely, like you, except now she does have a half a man who done gave her an expensive ring.” Bea kept listing the differences between Sasha and Sister Betty, finally telling her, “They both rich, and you ain’t hardly got a dime between paying rent and buying toilet paper.”

  Sasha stepped away from Bea and stabbed the concrete pavement with her cane before she lifted it, as if she wanted to hit Bea. Quickly dismissing Bea’s rundown, she began walking away, leaving Bea huffing as she tried to catch up. When Sasha felt Bea had chased her enough, which was only a few feet, she told her, “I just didn’t want her niece Sharvon to get a chance with Reverend Tom. There you have it. That’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

  “That makes no sense,” Bea blurted. “What do you care who the pastor becomes involved with? I’d just be happy to see him shut them closet-door rumors for good.”

  “Why must I have to spell everything out for you, Bea? You’re the one that’s been as far as the eleventh grade.”

  “So what am I missing?”

  Sasha pointed to a bench and, with her cane, indicated to Bea that they should sit. “Listen,” Sasha began. “Sister Betty and Pastor already acting like they’re mother and son. He’s got her all up in his business.”

  “So what?” Bea replied. “Neither of them have any family in South Carolina, that is, until Sharvon came to stay with Sister Betty.”

  “Exactly,” Sasha went on. “It was bad enough having Sister Betty have the last word of telling the pastor what thus saith the Lord and him all emotionally tight. The last thing the church needs is for him to get involved with another boring woman. Can you imagine how much more boring our church would be? Folks are already leaving because of the economy or moving away. Sharvon and her dull way of thinking would send them running for the exit door in droves.” Sasha looked up toward the sky before announcing, “With Ima in his life, there’d be some sparks, some drama.”

  For the second time in two days, Bea’s jaw dropped. She leaned back on the park bench, looking at Sasha as she straightened her wig. “You know what, Smurf?” Bea snapped. “If I’d have told you everything you just told me, you’d be hauling my butt off to the loony bin. But somehow knowing the way you think, it makes sense that you’d feel that way. But I think you need to come clean and call it what it is.”

  “What do you mean, Bea?”

  “I mean, you’re just jealous of Sister Betty,” Bea replied, shaking her head.

  “Ain’t that what I just explained?” Sasha answered. “Weren’t you paying attention?”

  Still shaking her head, Bea helped Sasha off the park bench. They began their stroll once more toward the pharmacy. With dueling opinions about what was real and just downright crazy about Sasha’s reasoning, they almost walked past the pharmacy. Just as they entered, they came face-to-face with Elder Batty.

  “Sasha, Bea,” the elder greeted. “How are you ladies this beautiful afternoon?”

  “Batty,” Bea said, “I didn’t know you were coming out my way.”

  “Well, I was actually headed toward the Promised Land board meeting. I’m representing Reverend Tom.”

  “Why isn’t he heading it, like he’s supposed to?” Sasha asked. It didn’t matter that Elder Batty wasn’t talking to her. “It seems to me like he’s been doing an awful lot of shirking lately.”

  “He’s not shirking anything, Sasha,” said the elder.

  “She’s just in a bad mood today,” Bea offered. “But where is Pastor?”

  “I haven’t a clue,” the elder replied. “He said he would be gone for a couple of days and that I was to stand in for him at this meeting.”

  “Are you telling everything?” Bea asked. “I got a feeling you ain’t telling everything.”

  “C’mon, Bea,” Elder Batty told her. “You know me.”

  “I sure do,” Bea replied. “So what is it that you ain’t telling me?”

  “That’s right,” Sasha added. “What are you up to?”

  No sooner had the elder raised his hand to protest than the bag he held fell and a legal-size envelope fell out.

  Bea looked at the envelope and grinned. She immediately knew what was on the elder’s mind and gently pushed Sasha aside so Sasha couldn’t read the writing on the envelope. “Never mind us.” Bea suddenly smiled. “I see you’ve got something else on your mind. You go ahead and take care of that meeting.”

  “Thank you, Bea,” the elder replied, smiling as wide as she had. “I’ll just take my envelope here, and I’ll see you later.” He picked up the envelope, shoving the contents back inside of it as Sasha tried to lean over to see what it was.

  “Bea,” the elder said, winking as he ignored Sasha’s efforts, “you wouldn’t happen to be baking your famous red velvet cake tonight, would you?”

  “I’m not,” Bea said, nodding toward the bag now in his hands. “But I see I should prepare something tasty and sweet.”

  “Well, when I’m through processing what needs to get done, I’ll come by.” Elder Batty then turned to Sasha and asked, “Where’s that niece of yours? I’ve got something for her.”

  Sasha lifted her cane and began thrusting it at the elder. “You nasty buzzard,” she hissed. “My niece ain’t participating in nothing you and this she-rilla got going, you oversexed silverback monkey!”

  As though Bea and Sasha always car
ried with them a cheering squad for their madness, some of the patrons began gathering. It was enough of a crowd to cause the elder to rush off without looking back.

  “Y’all just plain ole nasty.” Sasha shook her head. “I betcha he got something in there to help his imagination.” Sasha stared at Bea, looking at her from head to toe. “I can see why he would.”

  “Hater!” Bea hissed. “You always hopping on those munchkin legs to the wrong conclusion. If you must be all up in my business . . . ” Bea raised her hands, as if to ask God, “Why me?” “He always wants a piece of my red velvet cake when he’s done gone and had to serve somebody one of them legal subpoena papers. It’s more stressful on him than the ones he’s got to give it to.”

  “Whatever, Bea!” Sasha exclaimed, shaking her head, as if she did not believe one word Bea told her. “Let me get what I came for, and I’ll meet you at the register. Don’t take all day.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Bea called out. “You just make sure you don’t pick up any more Preparation H instead of toothpaste.”

  Several aisles over in the same pharmacy, Sister Betty scanned the various brands of toothpaste on the pharmacy shelves. Her handheld shopping basket was completely full. She’d come to the Promised Land to visit her dear friend, the former congresswoman Cheyenne Bigelow. Cheyenne was now home from the hospital. She’d promised to pick up a few items that Cheyenne needed and bring them to her.

  “I certainly never expected to run into you,” Sasha said. “I haven’t seen you too much in church lately, either, except for the other night at prayer and testimony service.”

  “Good day to you, too, Sasha,” Sister Betty replied as she dropped the box of toothpaste into her basket and began to walk away. “Have a good day.”

  The clicking sounds from Sasha’s cane thumping on the floor caused Sister Betty to walk as fast as her arthritic knees could carry her. She knew Sasha was up to no good, and was certain that whatever Ima had done the other night had Sasha’s blessing. She was just about to reach the register when she almost knocked Bea over.