by Janet Walker
Chapter Fifty-Three
LA FEMME EN ROUGE
The two skycaps, smartly dressed in navy uniforms, pushed the cart of leather Gucci luggage and tried to keep up with the statuesque woman in red who walked before them. She moved through the airport with the long purposeful strides of someone accustomed to meeting deadlines, someone adept at flowing through crowds, someone always with some place to go. Beside the tall woman trotted a diminutive redhead, a freckled, bespectacled administrative assistant who had retained the grim plainness of her early life as a North Dakota farm girl. Like the skycaps, she struggled to keep pace with the leggy woman in red. Heads turned as the group streaked by, but the tall woman seemed unfazed by the looks. In fact, at a height of six-one (six-three, in heels) and 150 pounds, with artistic proportions, photogenic features, a glowing brown complexion and perfectly styled shoulder-length black hair, she possessed a beauty that shocked the senses and so was used to being the object of double-takes. Besides, she knew people recognized her.
In moments, the woman approached sliding glass doors that parted at her presence. She stepped outside the airport terminal and paused. Against the bleak backdrop of the gray winter day, she dazzled in a tailored crimson outfit, a wool Roberto Cavalli skirt and jacket with a gold silk lining and black silk blouse. A red broad-brimmed Christian Dior hat rested on her head at a sporty angle. In her fingers—the nails were long and elegant and painted fire-engine red—she gripped a black leather Carlos Falchi clutch purse. On each hand, a remarkable Cartier diamond ring glittered, and hugging her wrist was a white-gold Piaget watch. The two-toned stiletto pumps on her feet, top-of-the-line Stuart Weitzman, combined the colors of her outfit and she struck a languid pose that, with one leg extended, revealed the shapeliness of her calves.
Behind her, the red-haired assistant and skycaps hurried through the door, the cart of luggage bumping and squeaking across the threshold before the uniformed men. The woman in red looked at her assistant. Without hesitation, the helper reached into her leather carry-on and extracted a black cell phone. She speed-dialed a number, spoke into the receiver, and handed the phone to her boss. The woman in red smiled. “Thank you,” she said pleasantly, put the phone to her ear, and spoke.
“Johnny, hi…Landed safely, thank God, how are you?…No, I believe I see your driver now. You’re my knight, Johnny. That’s why I love you…Did you check things out again? The party’s still on?…Great. Fabulous. Are you kidding?—crashing’s my thing!” She hesitated, listening, and then, in the manner of a blushing lover, laughed softly and chided, “All right now. You’re talking like a man in search of a very Merry Christmas. Too bad I’m in no position to give it to you.” She chuckled, smoothly bid, “Goodbye, Johnny. Be blessed,” and hung up.
The woman handed the phone to her assistant just as a polished black limo stopped in front of her. Immediately, the trunk sprang open and the liveried driver leapt from the car and hurried around to open the passenger door for the women. “Good evening, ma’am. Johnny Gibson sent me for you,” he said pleasantly as he approached them.
The tall woman smiled flirtatiously at the man. “Of course. Johnny knows I like being picked up by handsome young men.”
The driver blushed and smiled, managed a stammered thank you, then politely addressed the red-haired assistant with a nod. “Ma’am.”
“Hello,” replied the assistant.
The driver opened the door and waited beside it. The beautiful black woman and her dowdy white assistant did not enter the car immediately but lingered near the trunk to watch the skycaps deposit the luggage. When the young men were finished, the gorgeous one handed each a crisp bill she had secured from the assistant. “That’s for keeping up with me in there,” she said, tossing her head slightly in the direction of the terminal.
The men thanked her politely, but when they saw the value of the bills she had handed them, their bashful grins became cries of wonder and glee, and they almost shouted their appreciation.
“Whoo! Thank you, ma’am!”
“Thanks, Reverend!”
“You’re welcome,” she said as she began entering the car. “Merry Christmas.”
“You, too!” the men chimed.
The limo driver, standing patiently at the open passenger door, watched as his beautiful client folded her elegant frame into the luxurious interior of the car. She was a minister, he knew, but it was not her theological status that impressed him at that moment, nor was it entirely the fact that she had handed each skycap a hundred-dollar bill. Rather, it was her long and shapely legs that most captivated him. Yards of legs that instantly made him regret he was not a part of her world, not a godly man, not a born-again Christian—not even a churchgoer. Made him ache with regret that he did not live in California, where the woman’s church was located, for then he might have had a chance, even a hope of seeing her on a regular basis, and maybe even— The driver’s reverie halted. The short white woman with the plain freckled face and round glasses moved into his field of vision as she followed her employer into the back seat. The driver smiled politely at the assistant and then carefully closed the door behind them.
Inside, Charmaine Miller spied the car’s miniature bar and reached for a tumbler. “Praise God,” she said appreciatively. “Johnny thinks of everything.” She picked up the snifter and looked questioningly at the assistant. “Join me?”
“Why do you always ask that when you know I don’t drink? And are you sure you want to do that?” cautioned the assistant.
“My nerves are shrieking,” Charmaine explained, removing the glittering glass stopper.
“Yes,” continued the assistant gravely, “but are you sure you want to see your friend, for the first time in twelve years, with liquor-scented breath?”
The fingers halted that held the glass stopper. “Ah. Hadn’t thought of that.” Charmaine replaced the snifter and glass. “Well, I need water, at least. Did you…?” She indicated the small cooler her assistant carried on a strap across her shoulder. The redhead reached into the insulated container and removed a chilled bottle of Perrier water.
Charmaine brightened with delight. “Bless you, Rachel. Where would I be without you?”
“On your way to hell, I suspect,” answered the assistant, reaching for a glass from the bar. With a white handkerchief pulled from a sealed plastic pouch, the assistant wiped the inside of the glass and then twisted the cap of the bottle, which broke open with a soft snapping hiss. Charmaine watched, smiling, as the bubbly clear liquid filled the glass. When the glass was full, Rachel handed it to Charmaine, who immediately brought it to her lips for a long drink.
“Oh, now that is delicious,” she declared after the swallow. “You’re an angel, Rachel. That’s a fact.” The assistant’s expression was reproving. “What?” Charmaine inquired when she noticed it.
“You’re already in enough trouble,” Rachel warned.
Charmaine smiled. “You worry too much.”
“And you don’t worry enough. You have an image to protect, Reverend Miller.”
“My image is fine,” Charmaine assured. She took another drink and savored the water on her tongue.
“For now, at least,” said Rachel. “But in view of what’s coming, you need to be especially careful about what you do. All this flirting and—” She broke off. “You and I both know you only have an occasional drink, but if someone spotted you with the first tumbler you’d held in six months, it’d be ‘Esteemed Female Minister a Jezebel and a Lush!’ You know how reporters are.”
Charmaine sighed heavily and rested her head against the back of the soft gray leather seat. “Yes,” she said wearily. “I know how they are.”
The driver slid open the window that separated his compartment from the women. He turned toward the opening and spoke. “To the Four Seasons, Reverend Miller?”
“Please,” she replied. “And afterwards, I need you to take me to—King Estates?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the man said. “To Mr. Gib
son’s?”
“No. I’ve another stop to make in there.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the driver obediently before sliding the window shut. He faced forward in the seat, put the car into gear, and slowly drove away from the curb.
“I wish you’d let me go with you,” Rachel said to her boss. “So I can watch what you do.”
Charmaine was grave. “I know I’ve given you a gray hair or two, Rachel, over the years, and I appreciate that you keep me in line. But I have to run this errand alone.”
“I don’t know why you have to do it at all.”
“Because this is something she needs to hear from me. Face-to-face. She deserves that much.”
The assistant hesitated, struggling with a thought before continuing her argument. “Maybe so, but I still don’t like the strategy you’ve come up with for countering the news, when it breaks. And the staff agrees with me. You’re admitting more than you have to, and maybe doing so prematurely.”
“You know I’ve never been one to obscure the truth.”
“Yes, but now there’s too much at stake.”
The minister sighed. Hesitated. Spoke softly, with earnestness. “Rachel. I am convinced that part of the reason my ministry is successful is because I’m real with people and they know it. I don’t pretend to be something I’m not. I’m not perfect and I’ve never been afraid to say that. I’m not going to change now.”
“With all due respect, Reverend Miller…your honesty is going to be the death of your ministry.”
Charmaine did not like the prediction but was unable to refute it. For a moment, they rode in brooding silence.
“Just remember,” the assistant finally concluded, a stern warning and a hint of playfulness mingling in her tone, “to behave when you get to King Estates. No flirting or drinking.”
Charmaine scoffed and smiled wryly. “I won’t have a choice,” she said softly and gazed pensively out the window of the moving car.
