by Janet Walker
* * *
They walked without speaking to the elegant sanctuary and entered. Grace closed the great sliding white doors behind them, which shut out the sounds of the mansion. In silence, they looked at each other. Charmaine was again overcome by the sight of her friend. “Oh, my, Grace!” she marveled softly.
Grace averted her eyes and gazed at something across the room.
Hurt by the gesture of rejection, Charmaine forced her attention to her surroundings. “Tip and Sid. Oh, my!” she declared. She walked across the room and stood before the portrait. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen their faces.”
Grace watched, arms folded, said nothing.
“Talk about two people who wrung the most out of life.” Charmaine turned. “They savored living, Grace. Didn’t take it for granted. You don’t know this, but they helped inspire the philosophy for my ministry.”
Grace was silent.
“And oh, Grace, I was so devastated when I heard about their deaths. I wanted so badly to comfort you. Did you get my flowers?”
“Yes.” Grace hesitated. Softened enough to add, “And I saw you. At the service.”
“I know.”
They looked uncomfortably at each other, gnawed by unasked questions.
Grace’s patience finally broke. “How did you know we’d be here?”
“The Lord told me,” teased Charmaine.
Grace waited for the truth.
“Johnny Gibson,” Charmaine admitted.
“The record producer?”
“Yes. He lives on King Estates Way.”
“I know that. I just didn’t know you were on a friendly basis with the likes of him.”
“Are you kidding? I rolled a game of craps with Johnny in Vegas last year. Beat him, too!” Charmaine chuckled.
An image of Charmaine, famous minister, bent low and shaking dice and then exulting over a craps table in Sin City, flashed through Grace’s mind and she almost smiled.
“Oh, but he’s got a good heart, Grace. He’s a tax collector, not a Pharisee.”
“And what does that make you?” Grace asked tartly. “Christ?”
“No,” Charmaine answered gently. “But I sure am about to be crucified.”
Grace fixed onto Charmaine’s face, saw its mirth wane, saw it sober. Saw Charmaine gaze absently at something across the room. An alarm sounded somewhere in Grace and suddenly she heard her heart’s thumping.
“What does that mean?”
Charmaine sighed again but did not answer. Instead, she walked to the sofa, sat, and gestured for Grace to do the same. When Grace hesitated, Charmaine looked expectantly at her and invited, “Please. Sit with me.” However graciously said, it was an order more than an invitation, and they both knew it.
Grace hesitated—this was her house, after all—but some ancient impulse within her responded to Charmaine’s order, and she found herself obeying the charismatic woman. At the sofa, Grace sat. The pounding she had experienced in the den returned to her hearing, and she found herself consciously taking deep breaths in order to control her breathing. She detected moisture on the skin beneath her nose and touched it away with the back of a finger. She did not know what Charmaine wanted to talk about, but she suspected it had to do with Italy. Or Greece. What else could it be? “It must be damn important,” she teased feebly and felt breathless doing so.
Charmaine’s expression was a confirmation, but she was reluctant to begin. She patted her manicured hands on the tops of her thighs, which, because she was sitting, were exposed two inches above the knee.
Grace bowed her head to stare at the carpet at their feet. A warm, pleasing floral scent of perfume emanated from the other woman on the sofa, and Grace’s gaze traveled from the carpet to the feet of her former friend. In view were fabulous stiletto pumps, black and red leather, seamless, well-made, with two-inch heels. Quality. Charmaine had always possessed style and good taste—classy, sexy, the quintessential fashion connoisseur. And while Grace had shared Charmaine’s gift of knowing, without being told, what was quality, she had never possessed the other woman’s penchant for flamboyance. Grace tossed a sidelong glance at Charmaine’s long shapely legs and their integument of brown silk nylons. The short hem of the red skirt revealed what television had not shown, which is that Charmaine Miller possessed toned feminine thighs and a flawless complexion. To Grace, the minister appeared to be in excellent, glowing physical health.
“You look good.”
Grace looked up, startled. The words were her thoughts but they had not come out of her mouth. Embarrassed, she met eyes with Charmaine, who smiled tenderly. “Thanks,” said Grace and looked at the brass sculpture on the glass coffee table—an abstract figurine of smooth surfaces and sensuous curves—and stammered, “So do you.”
“You still run?” Charmaine asked.
Grace nodded.
“It shows. You still have that same tight little toned body I always envied.” Charmaine made a soft chuckling sound. “And your skin is lovely.”
“Thanks,” Grace said. She hesitated. “Congratulations on the show. It’s good.”
Charmaine gasped and lay a hand over her heart. “Oh, Grace. I’ve prayed that you watched. I really did.”
“Only when I get a chance.”
They hesitated. It was obvious from her expression that Grace was struggling with a thought, so Charmaine looked at her and waited patiently.
“Is this…for real with you? I mean, because the last time I knew you, serving the Lord was the last thing on your mind. And so imagine my shock when I turn on the ministry channel and there you are.” She chuckled dryly. “I couldn’t speak for a whole day.”
“I wrote you after I changed,” Charmaine explained, speaking softly. “But you kept sending the letters back.”
“Because by then I was tired of receiving your letters, Charmaine. And I thought those were going to say the same things the earlier letters did.”
“Well, if you had taken the time to read them, you wouldn’t have had to turn on the TV and experience a one-day heart attack.”
Charmaine chuckled. Grace smiled. And again, they sobered.
“So. What would I have read?” Grace asked.
“That like Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, I had to be knocked down by the Lord before I came to my senses.” Charmaine hesitated, thoughtful. “You remember how I was, Grace. All about having a good time and making it to the runways of Paris. And I was going to do whatever it took to get there. But of course, I don’t have to tell you that.”
They glanced at each other shyly before looking away.
“And then one day,” Charmaine continued, “I went riding with a friend. Another model. My girlfriend,” she added with a meaningful glance at Grace. “We had been drinking. Doing drugs. Having what we thought was a good time. As she drove along the cliffs of Italy. The next thing I knew, her car had plummeted over the side.” Charmaine hesitated. “She was killed. I walked away. Well, limped, anyway.”
“Oh, Charmaine.”
“No,” assured the minister, “it’s not a cause for pity, Grace, because out of it came great things: the saving of lives! Gina was taken before she could hit someone head-on and kill them—and she would have, sooner or later, I’m convinced of that. So God sacrificed her life in order to save others. I survived so that I could fulfill my purpose, which was to be used by God to draw people to salvation. And the way He knew I would most succeed at that is by taking the delight I had always gotten from sinning and turning it into the joy one gets from serving the Lord!”
Charmaine hesitated—she had become ardent. When she spoke again, it was with less passion.
“My point, Grace, is that God knew how self-indulgent and headstrong and hedonistic I was. You know. Nothing less than an experience like the crash was going to bring me to my knees and make me the humble servant He needed me to be.”
Grace nodded, impressed. “Wow.”
They hesitated, uncertain, before final
ly exchanging trusting smiles, and then Charmaine took in a cleansing, calming breath. “Oh, Grace,” she said, sliding a hand onto her friend’s hand, “it’s so good to see you again!”
The touch embarrassed Grace, making her arm flinch.
Charmaine released the hold. She was hurt by Grace’s reaction but managed to smile pleasantly, anyway.
Grace was once again guarded and grim. “Why are you here?”
Charmaine’s smile faded to gravity and she sighed heavily. “You remember the photos we took.”
Blood began thumping in Grace, louder than before. Quick exhalations of breath rushed from her nostrils, silent and urgent. The same rushes of air slipped over her parted lips, drying them. She could not muster the breath to speak, but her expression asked for a confirmation.
“Someone has them,” confirmed Charmaine.
Grace’s mouth opened in awe but from her throat came no sound, not even a gasp.
Charmaine looked down at her own hands because she was unable to look at Grace. “They contacted my people. Wanted to know how much the pictures were worth to me.”
Finally, there were sounds from Grace—an escaping of trapped breath, and then panting, and then the breathy words of one frightened. “Oh, god.” And then, to Charmaine: “When did you find out?”
“Last week. I came to you as soon as I could.”
“Are they all the pictures, or just the ones that were…?”
“All of them. It seems.”
“How did they get them? We never even got them.”
“I don’t know. The magazine’s no longer in existence. Maybe someone got them from the photographer. The editor-in-chief. My agent at the time. I’m not sure. Whoever is the actual owner is doing a good job of hiding behind negotiators.”
“What did you tell them? Did you make them an offer?”
Charmaine looked incredulous. “I’m not going to pay them money, Grace.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, Grace. Even you ought to know you can’t trust the conscience of a blackmailer. So we give him—her—whoever the one mil they’re asking for. There is no way of knowing whether that’s the end of it.”
“One million!”
“There’s no way of knowing whether the person hasn’t already sold the damn things. Or if they have the negatives.”
“So you’re not even going to fight it?”
“When there’s a fight, Grace, people want to know what you’re fighting about. We can’t win on this.”
“We can’t give in without a fight, either! Charmaine, if those pictures get out…!”
“Grace. Have you forgotten? They’ve already been out. They were published in that magazine.”
“I know that. But that was twelve years ago, in a little town in Italy. Nobody knew about that.”
“Oh, I assure you, somebody did. For all you know, you and I could have been serving as visual stimulus in a sperm bank in Milan for the past twelve years. There’s just no way to know.” Charmaine was chuckling by the end of her sentence.
Grace was appalled. “How are you laughing about this?”
“Because I thought what I said was funny. Listen,” Charmaine said when Grace remained humorless, “I’m not making light of it…”
“You seem to be!”
“I’m not. But what can we do about it now? It’s done! And I have nothing to hide.”
“But I do, Charmaine! Don’t you get that? No, you don’t, because you haven’t changed. It’s still all about you. That’s why we’re facing this now: You and your goddamn aspirations. And then you draw me into it—never mind that I didn’t want to do it! The only thing you cared about that night was getting what you wanted! Well, now we’re paying for that.”
“Which night?” Charmaine asked calmly.
“What?”
“You said the only thing I cared about that night was getting what I wanted. Which night are you referring to?”
Grace warmed with embarrassment and retreated into silence.
“Because if you’re referring to the night of the photo shoot, you’re right. I was only thinking of myself then, and my career. But if you’re talking about the next night, when we were back in Greece…then you’re wrong. I was only thinking about pleasing you.”
“Don’t”—Grace was instantly emotional, her voice raspy and vehement—“talk about that!” she hissed. “In fact”—she stood with an agitated burst of impatience—“why did you come here?”
Charmaine stood. “To warn you, Grace. The pictures are coming out in the press. When, I don’t know. But soon, I’m sure.”
“You could have called, Charmaine! Why did you have to show up? All my guests!” she said in despair. On the guest, Grace’s voice broke and her eyes filled. “What’ll they think when…?” She was unable to finish.
Charmaine reached out to console Grace with a touch on the arm, but Grace recoiled from the gesture and turned away. And tottered. A roaring began in her ears, along with what sounded like thousands of shrieks and voices, a disorienting sensation that so enveloped her she thought she would scream. She looked about the room searchingly, with no idea what she was seeking, and briefly she could not remember where she was. Momentarily, a voice broke through that was closer and clearer than the others, and she felt a hand grip her elbow.
“Grace? Are you okay?”
Grace focused on the form standing beside her, recognized Charmaine Miller, snatched her arm out of the woman’s grasp. “Don’t.” She moved to the other side of the coffee table and turned away from the red suit behind her. Things were becoming familiar again—the room, the house, the Christmas Eve dinner. Her gaze fell on the living room’s large picture window and she walked slowly toward it as if she were being drawn. At the window she looked out. Through the veneer of lace curtains and the clear panes of glass, she could see, in the soft glow of the estate’s ground lighting, the acreage of the front lawn, meticulously tended and beautifully landscaped, and the orange illumination of the lake lights, reflecting off the surface of the duck pond, and beyond that, the great stone wall of the property, a dusty white in the darkness. Her beautiful, wonderful, safe home. So carefully planned from the beginning, so carefully constructed, so adamantly guarded since. Suddenly it seemed trivial and ineffectual—a mockery!—for despite its existence, she had failed. Failed to keep away the skeletons of her childhood that gnawed at the back of her mind at night, preventing marital peace, preventing pleasure; failed to keep out the intrusive hands and faces and voices of strangers, who at that very moment swarmed through other rooms of the house, seeking her, seeking knowledge of her; failed to ward away the ugly finger of Reminder which, at that moment, stood across the room from her, dressed in the color of blood.
Grace turned toward Charmaine and spoke softly. “I want you out.”
Charmaine gasped, hurt, and then humbly lowered her head with acceptance. “I planned to do that,” she said. “But just in case it’s another twelve years….”
Grace looked.
Charmaine walked over, stood close to her friend, faced her.
“I have to tell you this, Grace. And please let me say it.” Charmaine hesitated and then spoke earnestly. “I’ve been all over the world, met hundreds of people, many of them wonderful. And I can honestly say, Grace Gresham, that no one has moved me the way you did. You are the only person I have ever completely loved.”
Grace’s eyes filled, but she tightened her face to withhold any other expression.
“And I must admit, God forgive me,” continued Charmaine, “that the only thing I regret about that night in Greece…is that it made you hate me afterwards.”
For a moment the two friends looked at each other. And then Charmaine turned away, walking toward the room’s closed doors. When she reached them, she hesitated and opened her purse. From it she pulled out a silk black handkerchief and a tiny compact. She flipped open the compact, looked in the mirror, dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief, quickly checked the
rest of her face and hair, then closed the mirror and placed it and the silk back in her purse. She tucked the clutch under her arm and looked at Grace, who was gazing, once again, out the window.
“Please give Darrel and your guests my apologies.”
Grace did not transfer her gaze from the scene outside but her expression answered Yes.
Charmaine observed Grace a moment before again reaching into her purse. From it she extracted a pink business card and held it between two fingers in a salutatory gesture for Grace to see. “A direct number to me,” she said when Grace looked at her. Charmaine laid the card on the glass surface of a nearby table.
Grace again gazed out the window.
“Call me if you want to talk,” the minister said. “Even,” she added tenderly, “if it’s three o’clock in the morning.”
Grace whipped her head around and looked at Charmaine. For a moment, both were still and breathless. Even if it’s three o’clock in the morning had been their special saying when they were friends, a symbol of the accessibility of one to the other, an earmark of the platonic devotion they had enjoyed before Greece. Charmaine would use the expression the most. Call me, Grace, and let me know when your plane gets to Seattle. You’d better call me, Grace, even if it’s three o’clock in the morning, or I’ll be upset, do you hear me? Grace had rarely used the expression, but she would demonstrate its meaning by being available any time Charmaine wanted to talk about something in the middle of the night. Grace herself sometimes awakened from sleep, troubled by memories of childhood, and found comfort from talking out her fears with Charmaine—sometimes truly at three o’clock in the morning.
But that was the past. The saying no longer applied, as far as Grace was concerned, so now she broke the spell of motionless silence by lowering her gaze to glance at the business card Charmaine had laid on the glass table. In Grace’s eyes was no appreciation for its presence.
Charmaine noted the reaction and understood what it meant. She would not hear from Grace Gresham. The minister’s eyes filled. And so with sad acceptance, Charmaine Miller brought her fingers to her lips in a silent kiss, pushed the fingers toward Grace, and left the mansion of Gracewood Estate.
End of Book II.
Please continue reading the final part of the story in Book III.
Music in Amazed by her Grace
When I write, I don’t just write—I often become my main characters in order to experience the scene that I will write, am writing, or need to revise. I do this in order to get an authentic description for the reader. Because of its emotional power, music is the medium I use to help me do this. The right song transports me into the heart of a character or into a fictional scene so that I can feel what my character feels at a given point in the story. After creating, I have but to hear a particular piece of music in order to experience—sometimes, for a whole day—the storm of emotions that constitute the personality of a character. The music also rebuilds, in an instant, the dreamscape in which the character lives. For that reason, I want to share with you, the reader, some of the music that defines for me the world of Amazed by her Grace. — JW
_________
(Please note: To avoid copyright infringement, I do not use lyrics from the following songs in my novel. Therefore, I am not obligated to cite the music exactly as would one who has used copyrighted material.)
Chapter 35: Whenever I hear these two songs, I think of Grace’s dynamic training program.
“Alright,” performed by Janet Jackson.
(Written by Janet Jackson, James Harris III, Terry Lewis, James Brown, Barbara Joyce, Bill Risbrook, Billy Nichols, Carlos Ward, Dennis Rowe, Leslie Ming, Louis Risbrook, Kashif Saleem, Richard Thompson, Samuel Taylor, Terrell Wood, Wesley Hall. From the album Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814. A&M Records, 1989.)
“Rhythm Nation,” performed by Janet Jackson.
(Written by Janet Jackson, James Harris III, Terry Lewis. Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814. A&M, 1989.)
Chapter 41: The songs Diane enjoys—and Tracy dislikes—as Diane cooks collards.
“Strokin,” written and performed by Clarence Carter.
(Dr. C.C. Ichiban, 1986.)
“Clean Up Woman,” performed by Betty Wright.
(Written by Clarence Reid, Willie Clarke. I Love the Way You Love. Alston, 1972. “Clean Up Woman” was released as a single the year before the album’s release.)
Chapter 43: This is the song I hear in my head as Tracy and Grace drive away from the Porter home for their first “date.”
“Sweetest Taboo,” performed by Sade.
(Written by Sade Adu, Martin Ditcham. Promise. Epic/Portrait, 1985.)
Chapter 44: This might be the song that moves Grace as she and Tracy play Scrabble.
“Love is a Random Thing,” performed by Sarah Vaughan.
(Written by Sammy Fain, George Marion Jr. The Magic of Sarah Vaughan. Mercury, 1959.)
The song to which Grace and Tracy waltz (and which describes the impact Grace has made on Tracy’s life).
“’S Wonderful,” as performed by Sarah Vaughan.
(Written by George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin. At the Blue Note. Mercury, 1956.)
Chapter 46: The music to which Tracy and Grace work out (and which defines the platonic infatuation Tracy feels for the woman).
Janet Jackson’s “When I Think of You.”
(Written by James Harris III, Terry Lewis, Janet Jackson. Control. A&M, 1986.)
Chapter 48: What Sarah sings as Grace prepares breakfast for Tracy.
“My Favorite Things,” as performed by Sarah Vaughan.
(Written by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II. After Hours. Columbia, 1961.)
