by Pat Simmons
Karyn knew that, but Patrice didn’t have to bluntly voice it. Ignoring the small stab to her heart, she headed for the café.
Levi waited at his post in a military stance. She stole a deep, brave breath as she obliged his invitation at the table and rested.
Retaking his seat, Levi inched his face closer to hers. “Do you remember the first time I asked you to go out with me?”
“Yes.”
“Me too.” He grunted, amused, and shook his head. “How about the second?” After she nodded, Levi recounted word for word each instance she had turned him down. “You would’ve crushed the ego of any ordinary man. I’m not one of them. I’m calling your bluff after your last textbook recital of ‘I don’t have anything to wear.’” He presented his offering. “Problem solved. I happened to be in the mall this weekend, and you weren’t working.” His disappointment was apparent as he mildly scolded her. “Dori and I made a special trip to buy a book from Miss Karyn. When you weren’t here, my little girl had other ideas for my wallet, so we shopped until I practically dropped.”
Karyn laughed. Levi possessed a wonderful sense of humor. He often appeared serious—until he smiled. He was a handsome man.
“When I saw it on a mannequin, I imagined you in the outfit. I don’t know why,” he teased with a shrug. “Here’s the deal. Since we’re both Christians—God drew me to you—I know honesty won’t be an issue. When you get home, try it on. If it fits, then you’ve just agreed to dinner with me on Friday night.”
This time Levi didn’t ask for a date. He already had one orchestrated as he gathered his car keys. Levi shook his head as if he could hear her formulate another ridiculous excuse. “I’ll pick you up at seven, and I’m always on time.”
Not only had he outwitted her, but his wedding band was gone. Why? On his first visit, thanks to his chatty daughter, Karyn learned his status.
“Daddy’s a widow. Sometimes he’s sad. I think he needs someone to play with,” Dori babbled on and on as Levi stood nearby, seemingly unfazed by his daughter’s assessment. A few visits later, she noted his ring finger and his bond to his deceased wife.
Karyn looked away, hoping for a diversion. She swallowed. Accepting whatever was in that bag meant more than a simple dinner. He was challenging her. Again, she hated dares.
Once Karyn found her voice, she shoved doubt aside. She never gambled, but she hoped she was wearing a poker face. She couldn’t wait to tear open her present. She knew his taste in men’s clothes and little girl’s outfits, but what did he envision for her? She beamed anyway. “I agree to your terms.”
“I’ll cherish your smile until Friday.” He winked then adjusted his glasses.
“Don’t you need my address?”
“Nope. I followed your bus home awhile back,” Levi said, unashamed, then he exited the store more conceited than when he first entered.
She didn’t register his last remark as she peeked into the bag, but the gift was protected with an army of colored tissue. “Yep. This is definitely some kind of test,” she whispered to herself. She had mapped out a schedule for school, work, and church. How was she going to make room for a man?
CHAPTER 2
“You stalked the woman?” Rossi Tolliver asked incredulously over the phone. “Have you lost your mind? There are laws against that…” He rattled on the phone from his home, advising Levi of the repercussions.
Annoyed with his cousin who was also the church youth minister, Levi gritted his teeth and huffed. Leave it to Rossi to overreact. What was stalking anyway—a misdemeanor? “Call it what you want, but it was for her protection.” Satisfied with his own explanation, Levi finger combed the fine hairs of his mustache.
Protection. His mind began to drift back forty-eight months ago to the day that his life changed forever.
“The Lord allowed the devil to steal the most important person in my life—my wife! God okayed that.” Levi had made the bold accusation as he faced off with Rossi the nightmarish day before Diane’s funeral. The two were holed up in the bedroom Levi had once shared with Diane. The closed door separated them from the crowd of comforters who did everything but console. Laughing and eating mocked the sad occasion.
“I’m angry with God. Does that make me less of a Christian?” Levi braced himself, fearing the answer. Some might have considered his questions juvenile, but his state of mind at the time was anything but logical.
“God has grace for all emotions. He doesn’t make any mistakes.” Rossi’s prayers and counsel had cushioned the blows to Levi’s distraught spirit. “Whatever you do, don’t sin against God. Our thoughts aren’t God’s thoughts. Once we’re in the Holy City, the Lord might tell us His reasons. Psalm 116:15 says, ‘Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.’ God never takes anything away without replacing what you lost.”
Rossi’s words sounded good, but provided no comfort. “Look, man, I’ve got a little girl in there—” Levi paused, pointing an unsteady finger in the direction of the other side of the door—“who is two months old. Dori won’t have a mother when she begins to talk, walk; or to take snapshots at her first birthday party. She’ll never know Diane…”
When Levi’s shoulders began to shudder, he grabbed the first available thing—a baby’s blanket—to muffle his tears of agony. He was grateful Rossi never pulled the “men don’t cry” macho line.
Once he had regained some composure, Rossi gripped Levi’s hands and prayed in a hushed whisper, “Lord, You left us with a Comforter. We need help to trust You through this stormy time in our lives.”
“Right.” But Levi hadn’t believed it.
So as the days faded into weeks, Levi’s friends and family grew impatient with his slump. Most folks expected him to get his act together, accept his fate, and move on. But it didn’t work that way. Levi had been mentally trapped. His grief was not a pre-existing condition that had a three-month waiting period in hopes he could get treatment and be better. As his emotions ran their course, well-wishers threw up their hands in defeat and abandoned Levi.
“You’re torturing yourself,” someone had accused him.
That had been Levi’s prerogative. At thirty-one, he had not been prepared for the early death of his spouse; so because of the senseless criminal act, the hole in his life continued to enlarge. Levi did what any other grief-stricken man would have done. He secluded himself and Dori inside their home, rarely leaving except for necessities.
The second year after Diane’s death was worse for Levi. It was a reminder that the previous year had been the first. It had become a cycle of heartache.
By the time Dori turned three years old, life had caught up with Levi, forcing him to make changes. He uprooted his daughter from their North St. Louis city home and moved across the Mississippi River to the bordering state of Illinois. He had to put some distance between him and the neighborhood reminders, yet he was still less than fifteen minutes from downtown St. Louis.
When his mother had suggested counseling, Levi had refused. “Sitting in a room, forming a circle, and sharing my pain with a group of strangers in exchange for listening to those competing for who suffered the worst tragedy is not going to help me move on.”
Finally, Levi ate his words when he agreed to seek help. He quit after the first grief meeting because it was as he had predicted. Talking to a group of unknown faces didn’t advance his healing. Surprisingly, one-on-one sessions with a professional, along with counseling from their pastor, did help.
Levi snapped out of his musing when Rossi pulled him out of his trance.
“I hope Karyn will interpret your stalking as protection,” Rossi said.
During that difficult time, Rossi never questioned Levi’s behavior. Being business partners, his cousin had picked up the slack at their office. Now, Levi was back in control.
“Listen.” Levi pushed aside a proposal on his desk for the revitalization of a business district in downtown East St. Louis, Illinois, they would rename Tolliver Town.
It was a historical area that had been neglected for decades. The new plans called for a strip mall that would house classy boutique shops and other small businesses but wouldn’t charge the merchants Wall Street rent.
“Role play with me. I’m driving off the parking lot at St. Clair Square Mall. I thought I saw Karyn sitting on a bus stop bench. She told me she liked flashy cars, so I assumed she had wheels. Maybe not flashy since she worked at a bookstore.” Levi leaned back, rocking his office chair, almost tilting it over because it wasn’t on wheels. He grabbed the edge of his mahogany desk for support.
“The woman is hot. That simple uniform she wears can’t hide it. At first that braid down her back gave me the impression she was barely twenty.” Levi took a deep breath. “Was I wrong? Her shapely hips would make any man think twice about dismissing her as a budding juvenile. I guarantee every male species on that bus wanted to ask her out. I wasn’t about to let that happen.” Levi’s testosterone came alive with a thunder. Instead of his world remaining in black and white, it turned into living color.
As Levi steadied himself in his chair, he stared at a beautiful set of gray eyes from a wallet size photo on his desk. Diane smiled at him. The picture was taken before they knew she was expecting. Sometime during the past year, he had swapped the eight-by-ten portrait for the smaller one.
Diane’s image was swallowed up in a shrine of Dori’s pictures at different stages in her young life. She may be hidden from sight, but Levi knew he would always feel her presence. Blinking, Levi pushed his glasses back on the bridge of his nose.
“Anyway, I thought maybe her car was down,” Levi continued. “As I drove closer, an SUV blocked my view. The bus came, and the next thing I knew she was climbing on. I started honking my horn and everybody stared at me, but her.”
Rossi didn’t control a wayward yawn. “Classy woman. Why should she give a crazy man an audience?”
“Yeah, right.” Levi ignored Rossi’s dig. “Since it was dark and the lights were on inside the bus, I noticed male riders outnumbered Karyn. I escorted her until she got off—at a distance, of course. I wanted to make sure she got home safely.”
“Of course. Although I’m not sure whether Karyn would appreciate your gallant efforts, you should’ve at least gone through the motions of taking her address, so she wouldn’t think she was about to go out with a criminal or insane person.”
Levi grunted. His cousin was most irritating when he was right.
“So, you finally asked her out—”
“Correction. She finally said yes. That woman hustled me, probably without knowing it.” Levi wasn’t about to disclose how he eliminated more of Karyn’s excuses.
While shopping for Dori, he took a shortcut through the women’s section at Macy’s. When a dress on a mannequin caught Levi’s eye, he envisioned Karyn in it. He didn’t stop his mind from drifting again.
Several female associates were eager to assist him. They eagerly agreed to model outfits until they learned it was for a woman who wasn’t his mother, sister, or cousin. They tried on several dresses until one held his attention. Karyn Wallace would definitely enhance it. He guessed the woman was about Karyn’s size.
Besides his daughter, Levi had never bought a woman a piece of clothing before. His mother, Sharon, preferred cash; Diane enjoyed the thrill of ordering out of catalogs. On the rare occasion when Diane did venture into the malls, she never deviated from her routine: Go into a store with a mission, come out with it completed.
“Would you stop zoning out on me,” Rossi ordered.
“Sorry.” Levi wasn’t. “There’s something about Karyn that makes me want to jump into the water, whether I can swim or not. There’s a certain level of mystique about her and that fascinates me.”
Rossi barked out a laugh before sobering. “Sounds like a Tolliver man talking. I just hope she lives up to your hype.”
Levi removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes “You know I wasn’t looking, but it’s as if God placed her right before my eyes, sort of like ‘Here Adam, take Eve.’”
“I hope Jesetta will see that as divine intervention.”
“I doubt it.” Levi grunted, thinking about his fiery sister-in-law. “Jet vowed to be mad at the world for eternity. That type of anger was robbing me of my life and getting old.”
“Jet needs Jesus to put her out of her misery, but she doesn’t tolerate close encounters with church folks. She cautioned me not to even think about laying hands on her for prayer. She’s too young to let bitterness ruin her life.” Rossi paused. His tone changed. “But I’m not in her shoes. Diane was her baby sister for twenty-six years, and you were married to her for almost two years.”
Jet stirred up tornadoes where there weren’t any wind. She made no excuses for taking prisoners. That’s just how devastated she was over her sister’s death. If Jet felt like lashing out, she didn’t care about the victim.
His daughter was the exception. Dori could wrap her aunt around her pinky. Jet’s attempt to usurp Levi’s authority about Dori’s proper upbringing fizzled. In the calmest Holy Ghost spirit God gave Levi, he put Jet back in her unsanctified place.
Although Levi respected Jet’s anger, he had learned how to mask his grief until he was behind closed doors. Otherwise, he had a pre-set smile in place, but if one looked closer, his sadness was undeniable.
Dori was Levi’s sunshine and rain. Her generous smile and curious eyes filled him with laughter. Her expressions, similar to Diane’s, made him ache for his daughter who was left without a chance of knowing her mother.
Levi’s life started to change months ago when he and Dori were leaving the mall after attending a Disney movie marathon. They were almost out the door when a larger-than-life poster of a clown in Bookshelves Unlimited’s window captured Dori’s fancy. If it weren’t for the guidance of Levi’s mother and father, Victor and Sharon Tolliver, Dori would be a spoiled brat, but he had caved in to her whim that day. As Karyn weaved tales, they were instantly caught up in her web.
“I like pop-up books,” Dori had informed Karyn.
“They’re my favorite, too. You can play with them as you read.” Karyn squatted to Dori’s level. The beauty of Karyn’s hair was hidden in a fat, single braid.
Before long, other children swarmed around Karyn as she lined them up to see the live clown whose image was in the poster. She played several games while the clown blew up balloons, then twisted them into odd shapes, supposedly resembling animals. Dori had remained at Karyn’s side, trailing her to the café where treats were available. Without realized it, Levi had been in the store an hour.
By the time they made it to the register, Dori wore some type of a balloon crown and carried five pop-up books. Reflecting on that day, the true magical moment happened in that bookstore for Levi, not while watching the Princess and the Frog, one of three old Disney movies they had seen that day.
After that impromptu visit, he and Dori returned to the bookstore every Saturday morning. Levi couldn’t tell if Karyn noticed him or whether she did an excellent job of ignoring him. Oddly, that was his motivation for making his presence larger-than-life.
Although Levi wasn’t conceited, he knew he was a good catch. His sister-in-law had warned him countless times about vultures ready to eat him alive. Those were Jet’s words, not his, and Levi didn’t ask for an interpretation.
“You’ve talked about her beauty. You’ve mentioned her charm, but what about Christ in her life? Any evidence that she is committed?” Rossi quizzed.
“I know that’s your focus as a minister, but man, what do you expect me to do? Walk up to her, introduce myself, then ask a list of questions, which include ‘are you saved and sanctified, been baptized in Jesus’ name, what church do you attend, who is your pastor’ and on and on?”
“It works for me.”
Levi huffed. “No surprise there. I prefer a woman who lives it, not just professes it. That’s what going out to dinner is for. I’ve never seen her have a bad day, even one
time when a coworker was giving her grief about something. I went on alert, ready to intervene and distract.”
“You mean defend,” Rossi interjected.
“If necessary. The woman was a giant over Karyn, rude and loud.”
“Hmm, reminds me of your sister-in-law. You sure it wasn’t Jet?”
“Funny.” Levi glanced at his desk clock then at the plaques on the wall, recognizing the company’s accomplishments and noting the time. “We have a business to run. I don’t have time to go over plans for the Jones development—”
“You left me hanging,” Rossi stated, “about how Karyn handled the situation with the woman. That’s a true test of a person’s character—how she reacts in conflict.”
“Karyn didn’t cower.” Levi grinned as if he was the one responsible for her tact. “She retained her professionalism and walked away. I trailed her to make sure she was okay—”
“So that was the start of your stalking addiction,” Rossi said.
“Yeah, right, but get this. I’m sure she didn’t think she had an audience when she pulled a Bible off the shelf and flipped through the pages. She mouthed a few verses, took a deep breath, and returned the Bible to its place. It wasn’t for show.”
He held a higher opinion and greater admiration for the beautiful bookseller who seemed to apply Christian principles. He wanted to know more about her. Dori served as a great interrogator. Levi learned Karyn and Dori shared September birthdays. He stored that fact in his mental notebook. Besides that and the apartment building where she lived, Levi had a running list of questions.
“Cuz,” Rossi said, breaking into Levi’s reverie, “I don’t want to deflate your fascination, but you’re right. Christians do more than quote scriptures. It’s how long they stay in the ring with the devil before they take him down that’s the true test.”
“I want this. I want to get to know Karyn, and if I have to put on boxing gloves to make that happen, then bring it on,” Levi boasted.
