Taylor Made

by Sherryle Kiser Jackson

  Pill thought what an asinine question. He’s homeless. How do you think it’s going for him?

  Pill got an eyeful of the wad left behind. Corey extended the cash out the window to the man’s awaiting grasp.

  “Thanks so much,” the beggar said. He didn’t just grab the money and run, but rather cupped Corey’s hand in his and pumped it several times before releasing it. “God bless you.”

  “I’m on my way to church now with my lovely wife,” Corey said, patting Pill on the thigh. The man leaned in to acknowledge her, but Pill sat back, trying to remain anonymous. “Keep the faith, man. God knows.”

  The man shook his head solemnly as if he knew what Corey had said was the absolute truth. He rapped his knuckles on the side of Corey’s car door a few seconds before a car horn sounded behind them to indicate the light had changed. Corey waited for the man to step up on the curb of the medium strip before accelerating. Pill caught an over-the-shoulder glance of the man placing Corey’s offering into his front pants pocket rather than his bucket.

  The entire scene struck Pill as odd. She expected the man to sound like a Neanderthal struggling to form words with a series of grunts and hand gestures. Then there was the familiarity, bordering on kinship, between the man and Corey. They couldn’t be further from the same. Pill was willing to bet that neither Pop nor Rico stopped to give to every bum that they met on the street. They were always in the local paper about their tax-deductible donations to charities. They gave and benefited. That’s how the rich stayed rich. She didn’t understand her husband. As far as Pill was concerned, Corey’s allegiances were drawn with his sudden burst of generosity.

  “Why don’t I just trade places with him? Let the two of you go to church and bless the Lord while I beg for my offering.” Pill put one hand up in a hallelujah gesture before swinging her bangs out of her face in indignation. “Maybe I’ll have better luck with the charitable hearts of the motorists on the street.”

  “The man is down and out, Pill. Gosh, what is wrong with you?”

  “What is wrong with you? This is not the first time I’ve seen you give to that man, that very same man.” Pill pointed over her shoulder in the direction they had left the man minutes before. “He should be a billionaire by now, working the bank corner. There goes our sacrificial giving right there.”

  “Let me get you to the church fast. You’re starting to sound heartless, for real,” Corey said, giving Pill side glances as if he weren’t quite sure who she was.

  “What’s heartless is how you could give to this man, but you wouldn’t give to your own wife. With no lectures. I could have stayed with my sister for that. No drama. I got Boss Lady Carmen filling that role. I don’t need my husband to reduce me to a beggar to prove a point,” Pill managed to say, taking a deep cleansing breath to keep tears at bay.

  She realized the tears she was trying to control were out of frustration with herself. She had a BGBC bag with not so much as pocket change in it. How did she allow herself to be dependent on this man?

  Tuesday could not come soon enough because she knew with each head that she styled came redemption. After she pulled herself out of debt, she would try her best to never ask Corey for another thing.

  Silence saturated with their strain permeated the car. There was no use in turning on the radio or trying to lighten the mood with small talk for the remainder of the ride. They reached the parking lot of the Dominion Baptist Church at total odds with each another. Corey found a space to the far left of the vestibule doors.

  “Here,” Corey said, tossing twenty dollars Pill’s way before exiting the car.

  Pill became that beggar, scrambling for the bill before it hit the car floor.

  Chapter 7

  It appeared as if their relationship was coding and needed Marriage 911 instead of Marriage Maintenance as they arrived at the classroom. After two hours of church service, Corey could not believe Pill was still upset from the drive over.

  The other three couples were already seated around the front of the classroom when they arrived after service. They waited on Corey and Pill to round out their semicircle. Blake Foster and his wife, Martha, were the oldest of the group. Mr. Foster looked like an older Morris Day from the 1980s group The Time, and had been married twice before, but admittedly just turned in his playa’s card for good when marrying the everperky Ms. Martha. The Blains, Paula and Keith, on the other hand, looked like they came direct from the Bill Gates Geek Squad with their horn-rimmed glasses and analytical thinking about each topic they discussed in class. Marc and Kasey Reynolds were closer in age to Pill and Cory and were so perfectly matched they could have been brother and sister. They took verbatim everything the instructors and guest speakers shared and applied it to their eight-month marriage.

  The couples were led in reciting the opening mantra by their instructor, Deacon Tripp and his wife, Belinda.

  We pray often

  We pray together

  We pray for each other

  Before we let the devil win

  In our marriage

  We go back and pray again

  Corey couldn’t hear Pill, who was sitting right beside him, like he could the other couples. Mr. and Mrs. Foster always took it upon themselves to be dramatic and face each another while reciting the mantra as if they were renewing their wedding vows.

  Corey stared at Pill before reciting the last, and in his opinion, the most important line. This caused her to increase her volume to a peep above a whisper. Divorce is not an option. He barely got the line out himself for watching her. It was like a sigh of relief each month. Anyone could see she was a leading lady, and he was just an understudy lucky enough to play opposite her. As far as he was concerned, they had the contract of the Bible and the script from this class to pull off a believable performance. He benefited from the information they received from the class each month, but nothing appeased him more than hearing that affirmation from Pill, especially when her actions and attitude said otherwise. Today, he couldn’t be concerned with whether she meant it just as long as she said it.

  “Divorce is not an option, Sister Tripp,” Deacon Tripp said, turning ever so slightly to his wife with a sly grin.

  Sister Tripp shook her head as if to say, “No, it most definitely is not,” causing her tightly coiled curls to spring forward and snap back in place.

  “Although I bought that flat-screen television on sale without consulting you first . . .” Deacon Tripp had his hand over his mouth now as if he didn’t mean to let the cat out of the bag.

  Sister Tripp put her hands on her hips. “Financial Fidelity, Brother Tripp. Must I remind you that we are a team in every aspect of this marriage? As a team, we have set up a budget and spending plan that did not include such a big-ticket item.”

  Or many smaller-ticket items, Corey thought of his own situation with his wife when he realized this was another of their instructors’ cornball Ozzie and Harriet skits to introduce the topic.

  “Can’t the man get a flat screen though?” Mr. Foster yelled out. His chuckle showed that he was being more of a heckler than a student with an actual inquiry. He had no problem amusing just himself even if it was inappropriate.

  Mrs. Tripp sighed and looked at her husband for direction about whether they were going to break from the scene to answer Mr. Foster or continue. Deacon Tripp nodded for her to finish her lines.

  “You have been un—” Sister Tripp started.

  “I mean, every man needs a flat screen in his life,” Mr. Foster retorted simultaneously. “Am I right?”

  “We were trying to show that he has been financially unfaithful,” Mrs. Tripp said, pointing at her husband with a determination to get out the improvised line before being interrupted further. “You have been financially unfaithful, which has caused a rift in our relationship. It’s going to take prayer, a working consensus, and a commitment to our financial goals to get us back on track.”

  A few in the class clapped, including Corey, at Sister T
ripp’s perseverance and performance.

  Deacon Tripp grabbed his wife’s hand. “You caught me. You caught me cheating on our financial agreement. I’m sorry, but divorce is still not an option.”

  Corey thought he heard Pill smack her lips in disgust.

  “This topic may hurt today, folks. Why don’t we do this like the Fosters—turn to your spouse and repeat that.”

  Corey was surprised to find Pill rolling her eyes at him as if he had staged the entire production. Through a snarl, she said, “You caught me. I have cheated on our financial agreement. I’m sorry, but divorce is not an option.”

  Corey smiled, but there was a look of embarrassment on Pill’s face. Apparently everyone else had simply recited the last line of their Marriage Maintenance mantra over again instead of making a full confession as the Tripps had demonstrated. She swooshed her bangs out of her face as she often did to save face.

  “Divorce is not an option,” Corey assured her. He took her hand, relishing in the two-for-one affirmation that they would weather their current dilemma.

  Pill snatched her hand from his grasp. This time it was Corey who needed to save face. “I guess that hit a little close to home,” Corey said to his classmates, who were like a live studio audience.

  At that, Pill sat back in her chair. She crossed her arms at her chest and her leg at the knee, allowing her top leg to lead her midsection away from him. They had been outted. It took awhile for Deacon Tripp to resume. He examined their body language like he didn’t know whether to disband class and do an intervention or let them stew in their own cabbage. Corey could no longer be concerned about Pill’s attitude. They were there to learn something and make their marriage better. Someone had to absorb the material; they could hash it out later.

  “We can all benefit from this review, Brother and Sister Taylor. We talked previously about those issues that lead many couples to divorce court, finances being at the top of the list. In fact, I believe many of you saw Michelle Singletary herself, Washington Post financial columnist, speak on financial infidelity last year during your Marriage Prep. We’re flipping the script for this review, keeping it positive. We’re talking about being financially faithful to our spouse in the same way we are romantically faithful to each another.”

  Corey sat forward as he thought of the dumb luck of missing the financial prep course Deacon Tripp was referring to. Of all the Marriage Prep classes he and Pill could have missed, they had to miss the one they needed the most. Financial Infidelity. He never thought of it quite like that. That is exactly what Pill was committing, and if she could be unfaithful in this way . . . He took a deep breath to clear his mind. He didn’t want to take the trail his mind was leading him on.

  The class ran on the practice of killing a few trees to duplicate reference materials. On their first session, Paula Blain suggested making only one set of articles and outline notes for each couple so Corey and Pill would be forced to share.

  Mrs. Tripp passed out the day’s handout while speaking. “Fidelity in our finances means being faithful first to God, and then to each other with your finances. How can you get real with your partner, especially about where you are financially and where you want to go as a couple, if you aren’t giving God what belongs to Him? If you believe God will open up the windows of heaven and pour out blessings as a reward to being faithful with your tithes, then one partner can possibly block or hamper the blessing on the household by withholding what rightfully belongs to God. The tithe should be factored into each family budget.”

  “And the tithe should be taken off the top. I used to think of it like that popular song, ‘Just Got Paid (Friday Night),’” Deacon Tripp snapped his fingers to create an offbeat melody for his off-key singing, “except my version says, ‘Gotta go to the bank and set aside my tithes.’”

  “Yeah, yeah, that was . . . uh . . . Johnny, Johnny Kemp, except Johnny was talking about taking his money to the club on Friday night.” Mr. Foster stood, raising his voice and pointing a finger at Deacon Tripp as if settling an argument in a neighborhood barbershop.

  “That’s why Johnny hasn’t recorded another song since then,” Corey said, sitting back while patting Pill on the thigh to see if she caught the cleverness of his comment.

  “Maybe ole Johnny boy lost favor by being unfaithful with his finances with the Lord, huh?” Deacon Tripp took a consensus of the group with his eyes. His bobblehead effect set most of their heads in motion to agree with him.

  Something wasn’t sitting right with Corey. He looked at Pill, who held their handouts and seemed to be engrossed in them. He put his hand up midway to ask a question and waited to be recognized. “Can a person pay his spouse’s tithes and offerings? That’s an individual chore, right? That’s 10 percent of your earning, and bringing it should be your own sacrifice, right?”

  Corey tried to dissemble his thinking, somehow detach his comments from him and Pill, to no avail. “I guess I am asking if 10 percent of my earnings, and say, uh, my wife’s earnings can come from the same person.”

  Deacon Tripp nodded yes to one of his inquiries and was about to expound on it when Pill came to life. Corey was a little worried about what his wife, who usually had to be coaxed into their class conversation by a compliment or a direct comment, had to say.

  “So, you are saying if your spouse has taken it upon himself to lord over the family finances, if you will, he should be responsible for deducting the giving portion for the family to the church?” Pill said, sitting upright.

  Once again Deacon Tripp began to speak, but Pill, pulling a Mr. Foster, was determined to get her point across. “As long as the bills are evenly distributed and everyone is paying their share, then there should be no need for complaint, should there?”

  There was a point when a general group counseling session jumped course and became pointed and personal. The class officially took that turn, and Pill had taken it there. It was not Corey’s intention to turn this session into The Corey and Pill Show, but he wanted Pill to hear what the instructors had to say. He could tell his wife, on the other hand, had put on the gloves.

  “Are you partners or roommates?” Mrs. Tripp intervened. “It seems you all need to sit down and talk about your finances from the standpoint of committed partners.”

  “There is not a problem with one person handling the finances, but your contributions and distributions have to be decided on by the two of you. Which one of you is the family financial executor, the money manager? Put simply, who is the person who writes the checks and balances the books?” Deacon Tripp asked, opening the discussion to the entire class with the span of his hand.

  Corey was surprised to see Mrs. Blain raise her hand, rather than her husband. He was not surprised to see Mr. Foster waving his hand in the air like he “just don’t care.”

  “And I got my wife on a spending allowance too,” Mr. Foster declared with a wink toward Corey. His wife nodded her confirmation.

  “Do tell,” Corey replied, intrigued by the prospect.

  “When I get paid, I load a certain amount on her all-access card to use in the shopping mall and beauty parlor, which, in turn, allows me full access in the bedroom, know what I mean?” Mr. Foster nudged Mr. Blain, who, by appearance, didn’t get the pun or didn’t want to be associated with his crass classmate. “Then everyone’s happy in the Foster household.”

  Corey meant to keep his thoughts to himself, but they found their escape. “Let me write that down. So, that’s the trick, huh?”

  There were no head movements, just eyes that shifted from Mrs. Foster to Pill. Corey noticed his shame-faced wife. That candid slip of the tongue would cost him. He knew she expressed herself in what she wore; other than that, she was extremely private.

  There was a brief but torturous silence.

  “Everyone has their own way of doing things. I must caution what works in one household might not necessarily work in another. Now, where were we? I don’t think we heard from the Reynolds. I believe we we
re sharing who held the responsibility of money manager,” Deacon Tripp surmised, trying to get back on course.

  Marc and Stacey finally gestured and mouthed that they both shared the task as if they were suddenly thrust into a no-talking zone. Neither Corey nor Pill raised their hand; both looked away in indifference, as if their comments hadn’t sparked this random poll in the first place.

  “Like my wife said, you are married. Look at the giving campaign we just finished here at Dominion to complete the church. Pastor Rawls said it’s not about equal giving but equal sacrifice. With roommates, everything is split fifty-fifty, but in my relationship, if my spouse makes more than me or is laid off with no income at some point, we bring what we have to the table to share because we are one,” Deacon Tripp said, moving to the seat between Corey and Pill and the Reynolds.

  “The operative phrase is bringing what we have,” Corey mumbled.

  “Pastor Rawls has also taught that there are correlations between your financial relationship and your emotional relationship. That could be the root of your problem,” Deacon Tripp said.

  Mrs. Tripp stood in front of them. “Is that clear? Do you see that?”

  Corey was baking, and he knew Pill was still stewing. He nodded his head emphatically to Sister Tripp’s question to take the heat off them.

  “All I am saying is there should be some money left over for incidentals and a few luxuries. I mean, we all work hard,” Pill said.

  “A girl deserves a set of earrings or a new pair of stockings every once in a while,” Mrs. Foster tried to help. “We can all tell Sister Taylor likes to look good.”

  “That’s what I am talking about, Mrs. Foster,” Pill said.

  Deacon Tripp stood now in the middle of their circle with his wife and raised his hand as if he were an Indian chief who was holding the Spirit stick. His body language was indicative of the hope that there would be no more calling out. Even the Fosters mellowed out. Mrs. Tripp stood ready to enforce and interpret for her husband.