Destination Wedding

by Jacqueline J. Holness

  As I inched up the frayed green-carpeted steps to the front door, I felt my grandmother’s spirit with me, so much so that I turned around, almost expecting to see her.

  “Dr. Baker?” I called out before touching the doorknob on the door that said OFFICE.

  Dr. Baker appeared. I attempted to dredge up all of the confusing anger I had been feeling since we spoke, but all of the good memories I had of him as a child overrode my attempt. He looked like the same kind man I knew as a little girl, only with deepened lines in his forehead and gray hair.

  “You are my sister’s twin, especially with your Afro. Your mother had a similar style of hair when we knew each other,” he said. “I was so sorry when I heard she passed.”

  “Thank you,” was all I could say.

  “My office is in here.” He guided me from the outer office to his office. “Please have a seat.”

  After we sat down, he continued. “How was your drive down here?”

  “It was fine,” I answered, wanting him to start explaining immediately how he let thirty-four years go by without telling me he was my father.

  “You know, your mother was my secretary before you were born,” he said. “She used to work in that office right there.” He pointed toward the outer office.

  “Prior to meeting your mother, I had been faithful to my wife, who I am still married to,” he explained. “But I spent a lot of time with your mother since she was the church secretary, and we ended up having an affair. When she got pregnant with you, I was so excited, but I didn’t want to lose my wife. She wasn’t able to have children, and it would have killed her if I told her about you. I didn’t want to lose my ministry, either. I have a long history at this church. Your grandfather was the pastor of this church before I became the pastor in 1970. So I asked your mother to pretend you were another man’s child. She agreed to keep my secret, but she said she couldn’t lie to you, so she moved away to Atlanta.”

  He also explained that the money the deacon brought in church envelopes was his money and how my grandmother sent the money to my mother because she refused to accept it from him until after my grandmother passed.

  “Your grandmother was the only other person who knew what happened. She made an agreement with me that when you visited her in the summer she would bring you here. The last time I saw you was at her funeral. I think you were twelve.”

  I said nothing as he spoke. I concentrated on his words as if I wanted to memorize them. Everything in my life that I couldn’t explain up until that moment, I could now explain. All of the times I asked my mother about the identity of my father, and she refused to say anything or changed the subject. How she always told me that men were cheaters and couldn’t be counted on. Her dogged insistence that I be emotionally and otherwise self-reliant and know as much as I could. How Dr. Baker always spoke to me at church. My mother choosing not to come back to Vidalia after my grandmother died. Her not having my grandmother’s funeral at Redemption Baptist Church and having it at a funeral home instead. My mysterious call to ministry and my insidious attraction to married men. And I could finally answer Mimi’s question in that “dating intervention.” Dr. Baker had given me a map of my life, and I could finally trace how I arrived from one destination to the next.

  A lifetime of feelings I had guarded behind an emotional levee flooded out. My father got up, grabbed some tissue and sat down in the chair next to mine. He hugged me while he said, “I’m sorry; please forgive me,” over and over again. After what seemed like forever, I was able to dry up my tears.

  “I have something I want to give you.” He went to his desk drawer and pulled out a letter.

  I instantly recognized my grandmother’s precise handwriting. She wrote me letters almost monthly until she passed away. In the letter, she verified everything Dr. Baker told me, and she apologized if she had hurt me by keeping my identity hidden from me.

  “She gave me this letter and asked me to give it you when I decided to tell you who I am,” he said. “She told me that one day I would be ready to tell the truth. That day came last month when I had a heart attack. I thought I was going to die, but I didn’t. So I decided since God has spared my life, I needed to be honest with my wife and my church. I’ve told my wife, and I plan to tell my church tomorrow, now that I’ve told you.”

  He asked me if I wanted to stay for the next day to be there at church and meet his wife and relatives. But I wasn’t ready to deal with another scandalous public revelation in a church. Since then, my father and I have been working on developing a relationship, and I’ve started looking for a new church.

  Destination Wedding Meeting #22

  Senalda devoted October’s meeting to wedding planning. She was the Destination Wedding project leader and a bride-to-be, she reasoned. Also, her giddy text to her girls, “Happy birthday to me! I’m engaged!!!” along with a photo of her engagement ring, had renewed their interest in meeting.

  She’d been fielding congratulatory texts and phone calls from everyone since the announcement. Her mother cried, she was so happy.

  And now it was time to plan the wedding! She wanted to stay true to the original goals of Destination Wedding—to get engaged and married within a year. So Senalda and Wendell chose to have a New Year’s Eve destination wedding in Puerto Rico. With only three months to plan the wedding of her dreams, she hired Priscilla Preston Love, owner of Love Affairs, the premier wedding planning event company for Atlanta’s black elite. Priscilla was going to be the guest at the Destination Wedding meeting, but first, she wanted to speak with her friends privately. Jarena was the first to arrive. Instead of acting funny with her as she had been for some time, she hugged Senalda.

  “I’m so happy for you.”

  And Senalda opted to let Jarena be, and not question her about her love life anymore.

  “Thank you,” Senalda said, gazing at her ring. “I still can’t believe it’s happening to me.”

  “It’s your time, girl,” Jarena said with a smile.

  Minutes later, Mimi was on her doorstep. When Senalda opened the door, the both of them simultaneously screamed, grabbing each other in a messy hug. Jarena scowled but was silent. Once her friends were seated in her living room, Senalda explained why she wanted them to arrive first.

  “Ladies, we have been through so much in this Destination Wedding project, and I want to thank you for being a part of it. Mimi, since you were the first to get married, I want you to be my matron of honor. And Jarena, since your prince is still on his way, would you be my maid of honor?”

  “Fa sho,” Mimi said initially, “but what ’bout Whitney? She’s your best friend?”

  “I already explained to her that since she was just a consultant to the project, I wanted to honor the women who were actually in the project with me. But she is a bridesmaid.”

  “Cool. I’m honored to be your matron of honor,” Mimi said. “Jarena, I’m a matron of honor! Can you believe it?”

  “Not really,” Jarena snapped with sarcasm.

  “What about you, Jarena?” Senalda said, turning to her.

  “I’m honored as well,” she said, quickly morphing her downturned lips into a cheery smile. “Puerto Rico, here we come!”

  And then Priscilla Preston Love made an entrance. She was everything Senalda thought and more. First of all, she smelled like she soaked in flowers. Every time she moved, the scent of them mushroomed in the air like dust. Her cascading weave of black, silky, doll hair was fashioned to one side, exposing large chandelier earrings. Her brown face was smooth, but her cheeks were rounded with filler. Her purple dress was so tight, her D-cup breasts had no choice but to try to escape. Her heels were so high, Senalda thought she would wobble in them. But she pranced in them like they were ankle socks.

  After consulting with Priscilla, Senalda was convinced that her wedding would be everything she had dreamed about, even if there was only three months to execute it. Priscilla commanded her matron and maid of honor to immediately start plan
ning her bridal shower to be held in November. She gave Senalda a copy of the personalized timeline she created to ensure that every detail was handled. Whenever Senalda doubted what she could accomplish with so little time, Priscilla would declare, “I’m a pro-fes-sional, and I don’t play piss-poor service,” with a snap of her fingers. She could see why Priscilla Preston Love was featured on every wedding reality show that was filmed in Atlanta.

  After her girls left, the wedding planning continued.

  “If you like, I can get Chula Ramirez—you know, the big star—to sing at your wedding,” Priscilla said. “She was the featured soloist at another one of my weddings, and her voice is just magical.”

  Senalda was quiet for a moment. Given Mimi’s past with Chula, her first inclination was to say no. But Mimi had been happily married to Ian for almost a year. She was confident her friend could care less about Chula anymore.

  “Having Chula sing at my destination wedding would make it absolutely perfect,” she replied.

  CHAPTER 24

  November

  Mimi

  DAMN, THAT SLAA MEETING was just what I needed, I said to myself as I left the noon Saturday meeting. Since getting married, I attended meetings when I could, cuz it was taking a minute gettin’ used to being someone’s wife, plus I was working on a new songwriting career.

  “Hey Mimi, wait up,” Richie called. We hadn’t been talking much, and I’d been hoping the drama he had been going through with Whitney for the last few months had eased up.

  “How’s it going, man?” I yanked one of his now collarbone-length dreads.

  He sighed and then smiled.

  “That good, huh?” I said, checking out his weak-ass smile.

  “Yeah, but we’re making it, I guess,” he said. He moved one of my locs away from my face. “How’s married life treating you?”

  “Why does erebody ask dat? One day at a time.” I smiled big so he could see my teeth, even though on the inside I still wasn’t as settled down as I wanted to be.

  “Wanna have lunch?” Richie asked.

  “I did see an Atlanta Bread Company nearby,” I said.

  “I can do that.”

  Settled into a booth with our sandwiches, I asked, “So how are the twinsies? Every time I see them, they’ve grown up so much!”

  “They are just about the only reason I can tolerate being at home.”

  It was already one of those dark fall days, and the look on his face made me feel even more down.

  “What you sayin’? Cheer up! It couldn’t be dat bad?”

  “Whit and I,” he began, while shaking his head from side to side, “I don’t know. I don’t want to make you feel negative about marriage since you’re still a newlywed, but we’re just going through it.”

  “But y’all gon work it out, right?” I bit into my veggie sandwich while waiting for him to answer.

  “We’ve been trying, but I keep feeling like she is trying to wait me out, like she thinks I’m having some kind of midlife crisis and life will go back to what it was before I went on this spiritual journey,” he said. He pulled at the bread on his chicken salad sandwich but left it on his tray.

  “Are you having a midlife crisis, fool? You a lot different since I met you years ago.”

  “C’mon Mimi, I thought you would understand. We’re both on a spiritual journey in these recovery meetings,” he said.

  “I have heard that recovery will make a good marriage better and break up a bad one.”

  “YOU are giving marriage advice?” Richie snickered at me. “If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought YOU had a shotgun wedding. You married Ian after only dating him for a few weeks!”

  “Obviously, I wasn’t pregnant,” I shot back, a second too fast. “And I met him months before we started dating. I didn’t know you were all up in my relationship like dat!”

  “I’m sorry,” he said with a straight face. “But you were in love with another man just before you married Ian. Being married won’t keep you from having feelings for other people.”

  I smiled as big as I could even with a little bit of my sandwich left in my mouth before speaking. “I love my husband, and my marriage is working,” I declared.

  “Alright, I will leave well enough alone.”

  While Richie went to the bathroom, I took out my cell phone, scrolled through my contacts and stopped at Jovan’s name. I thought about deleting it right then, but I just wasn’t ready yet.

  Destination Wedding Meeting #23

  All of the preparations came together nicely for Senalda’s bridal shower brunch.

  “The women are simply going to adore their souvenir bags,” Whitney pronounced as she positioned them at each woman’s place setting. She took one last look at the contents of each bag: Bath & Body Works lotion, heart-shaped chocolates, a miniature champagne bottle with Senalda’s moniker on the label, and a spa gift card.

  “I hope so, with all dis money we spending,” Mimi quipped.

  “Thanks for hosting Senalda’s shower, Whitney,” Jarena said, attempting to soften Mimi’s statement. “Everything looks fabulous!”

  “I just want everyone to be in a festive mood,” Whitney said, her eyes narrowing. She surveyed the decorating, which included crimson and crème balloons attached to matching ribbons cascading from the ceiling, crimson and crème place settings, crème chair covers and crimson floating candles on the table. The caterer was in the kitchen, but the smell of the food wafted to the formal dining room where the brunch was being held.

  “What time we serving the food again?” Mimi asked.

  “We start serving at noon if we can wait that long,” Whitney answered. “We estimated that after the welcome, door prizes, Senalda’s speech and some time built in for ‘our people,’ it should be noon.”

  “Noon sharp,” Priscilla declared as she marched into the dining room with a clipboard in hand. She took bridal shower schedule copies and handed them to each of the women. “Whether our people have arrived or not!”

  Mimi rolled her eyes as she looked at Jarena and Whitney.

  “I’m so glad Senalda don’t want games,” Mimi said, folding her schedule in half. “I hate playing games at showers. I just wanna eat, drink, get my laugh on, maybe get some free stuff and go home.”

  “Hush,” Jarena managed to get out as she giggled.

  About thirty women started streaming in at 11. Wearing a crème tea-length dress that cinched at her waist and flared at the sides, Senalda arrived last. Priscilla stayed on schedule.

  “Mimi and Jarena, are you ready to welcome everyone?” she said to them as the women sat at their assigned seats. They nodded while walking to the head of the table.

  “Hi ladies. I recognize many of you, but for those who may not have met me before, I’m Jarena, Senalda’s maid of honor, and this is Mimi, Senalda’s matron of honor. Along with Whitney, who so graciously agreed to host Senalda’s bridal shower brunch, we want to welcome you. We are so glad you want to help celebrate our girl as she gets ready to marry her love NEXT MONTH.”

  The women cheered as Jarena said the last two words. Nashaun was the loudest, belting out “Won’t He do it?! Praise Him!” as she stood up at her seat. Whitney’s eyes blazed as she fixed them on Senalda’s assistant, but Nashaun was not deterred, doing a quick dance before she sat back down.

  “To thank y’all for coming, please enjoy your gift bags, and in a minute, we’ll be giving out door prizes!” Mimi said, once Nashaun was done.

  The women conversed and intermittently strolled over to Senalda, cooing at her engagement ring. After the door prizes were awarded to the woman who had arrived first, the woman who had known Senalda the longest, and Senalda’s mother, the bride-to-be rose from her seat and read from a note card.

  “My dearest friends, thank you from the bottom of my heart for celebrating the love that finally found me.” She lifted her hand in the air for all to admire her sparkling engagement ring. The luster of the ring matched the warmth sp
reading over her as she recounted the journey, starting with the news report with its bleak statistics and ending with her meeting the love of her life. “Mimi, Jarena, and Whitney as our married consultant, started the Destination Wedding project to defy the statistics by getting engaged AND married in a year! There were some setbacks along the way, but Mimi got married last December, I’m getting married this December, and Jarena’s prince, I know, is on the way. Black women can be successful in their careers AND in their personal lives. Forget the statistics and the haters!”

  Conversations erupted about the room as women discussed duplicating Destination Wedding’s results in their own lives or the lives of friends. Optimism weaved throughout the chatter.

  Raising her flute in the air, Nashaun coalesced the jubilance. “I’ll drink to that, Mizz—I mean soon-to-be Mizzus—Senalda.”

  “Hear, hear,” the women echoed after one another.

  “Before I sit down, I have a surprise for my Destination Wedding crew.” Her friends glanced at one another, not knowing what to expect. Senalda reached down next to her chair and pulled up a large Tiffany bag, handing each of them a Tiffany blue box with a white bow around it from the bag. Her shower guests reacted with “ooh” and “ahh.”

  Mimi opened hers first, holding up a sterling silver locket with the initials “D.W.” engraved on it for everyone to see. “Girl, you spent some money on this!”

  “I remember this photo of us from SpelHouse’s homecoming a few years ago,” Whitney said, peering into hers. “We had so much fun that day. How did you get that photo in there?”

  Jarena shook her head in admiration, allowing the resentment she had been feeling lately to dissolve in a flood of good memories of their friendship over the years. “A project manager who thinks of everything! I got to give it to you. You’re the boss for a reason!”