Percy stared at the card without moving. All he could think of was his wife’s final words as he left their condo for the meeting. “Call me as soon as it’s over,” she’d said, brushing imaginary lint from his lapel at the door. “And, Percy,” she’d added, “don’t screw this up.”
Samantha leaned toward the table and said, “Fold your car, Reverend Pryce, and hand it back to Reverend Davis.”
Kenneth’s card was soggy from the droplets of water that remained on the table in front of him. He was the last to fold his card and add it to the stack of four.
“Thank you, everyone,” Kenneth said nervously. “Here we go.”
“Wait a minute, Reverend Davis,” Samantha said calmly.
“Yes, Pastor Cleaveland?” Kenneth said humbly.
“I think it might be a good idea if you turned the recorder back on, for the record.”
“Of course . . . yes, of course. I’m sorry. I forgot.”
“No need to apologize, again,” Samantha said.
Kenneth reached forward and pressed the RECORD button. “Okay, where was I?”
Kenneth opened the first card and read out the name written on it. “Samantha Cleaveland.”
He opened the second card and said, “Samantha Cleaveland.”
Scarlett looked bewildered and betrayed. The numbing effects of the medication began to wear off rapidly with the reading of each card.
Kenneth unfolded the third card and let out a gush of air. “Percy Pryce,” he said with a hint of disappointment.
The last card seemed to levitate above the table in front of him. He reached for it, hesitated halfway, and then picked it up. He looked around the room at each person. Scarlett looked at him with a longing glare. Hattie’s eyes were closed. She still clutched the head of her cane. Percy’s eyes were closed, as well.
Samantha looked at him with the cold, clenched eyes of a woman who was about to lose everything.
Kenneth opened the final card and read it. “Samantha Cleaveland,” he said, dropping the card to the table. He then closed his eyes and released a puff of air. “Let the record show that Samantha Cleaveland is as of this day the permanent pastor of New Testament Cathedral. Congratulations, Pastor Cleaveland.” Kenneth slapped the table with his open palm and said, “This meeting is adjourned.”
Samantha stood immediately and walked over to Kenneth. She reached over his shoulder and pressed the EJECT button on the tape recorder, and the little cassette popped up.
“I’ll take this,” she said. Without making eye contact with anyone there, Samantha spun on her heels and left the room.
The others sat in stunned silence, and then one by one they slowly exited the conference room. The last person to leave was Percy, who slowly turned the lights off.
Chapter 14
Cynthia paced the floor of the condominium as she waited nervously for the call from Percy. A bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket of ice stood next to two glasses and a tin of caviar. In the bedroom she had placed twenty candles around the room and had laid an ivory-white negligee suggestively on the center of the satin-covered bed. It was already a quarter past ten at night, and she still hadn’t received the call.
As she walked the length of the room, she gripped her cell phone in one hand and checked periodically to ensure the volume was turned up and the battery was fully charged.
With every step she took, she muttered a prayer. “Please don’t let him fuck this up for me,” and, “If you give me this, I promise I’ll never do anything wrong again for the rest of my life.”
Midway through one such prayer, Cynthia heard keys turn in the front door. Percy entered and gently closed the door behind him. He placed his keys on a table in the foyer and walked softly across the black-veined marble floor. Cynthia appeared beneath the arch that led to the living room before he could reach the hall to the bedrooms.
He could smell the perfume, a hint of sulfur, and burning candles in the air. He saw the chilled champagne over her shoulder.
“Why didn’t you call?” Cynthia said, rushing to him and wrapping her arms around his barrel chest. “I’ve been going crazy waiting to hear from you. So what happened? Tell me everything.”
Percy did not return her embrace. He changed his course and walked past her to the living room. Cynthia knew it was not a good sign that he had not spoken.
“Percy,” she called behind him. “What happened?” This time she spoke more forcefully. “Are you the pastor? How did Samantha take it? She must be devastated. I’ll have to call her tomorrow and reassure her we won’t abandon her in her time of need.”
Percy stood with his back to her, looking out the window. The city lights below looked to him like disapproving eyes all peering in his direction.
“You’re scaring me Percy,” Cynthia said, walking behind him. “Please tell me you are the pastor.” She gripped his shoulder and spun him around. “You are the new pastor, aren’t you?”
His silence and inability to make eye contact provided her with the answer. Blood rushed to her head, and time seemed to stand still. For a brief moment she thought she would faint. She clutched the arm of the sofa and braced herself. Her breathing became shallow, and the room blurred.
“I don’t fucking believe this,” she said in a pant. “Oh my God, I don’t believe this.”
“It’s for the best, honey,” Percy said calmly, holding her by the shoulders. “I didn’t really want to be pastor. I’d rather spend more time with you. Honey . . . Cynthia, are you all right? Take a deep breath, honey. You look like you’re going to pass out.”
Cynthia straightened her back and pushed his hands from her shoulders. “Take your fucking hands off me,” she shouted. “You didn’t have to do a fucking thing. I set it all up for you. All you had to do was vote for yourself. Did you at least vote for yourself?”
Percy turned back to the window and did not respond.
“Oh my God,” she said slowly. “You mean to tell me, you didn’t even have the goddamned sense to vote for yourself? You stupid piece of shit! You fucking moron. You can’t do anything right.”
With her last words Cynthia reached for the bucket of ice and champagne and shoved it at the back of Percy’s head. The metal made a loud clank when it connected with his skull, sending the bottle crashing into the window and spewing ice cubes around the room. This was followed in rapid succession by the chair she threw with such force that it shattered the window and plummeted twenty stories to the ground below. The cold of the city and the sounds of the night rushed in through the gaping hole.
Percy dropped to his knees from the blow and said, “Cynthia, what are you doing? Get a hold of yourself. It’s not the end of the world.”
Cynthia dropped the full weight of her body onto his back and began pounding his head with her fists. “You worthless piece of shit!” she shouted as she delivered blow after blow to his head and face. “I’m going to throw your useless ass out the motherfucking window.”
Percy shielded his head from the blows. “Cynthia, stop,” he shouted through the blood now dripping from his face and mouth. “Move away from the window. You’re going to kill us both.”
“I want to fall out. I want us both to fall out,” she said, lowering her bloodstained fists again and again to his face. Her hair was tossed back and forth from each blow leveled with the full weight of her body. “I want us both to fall out the fucking window!”
Cynthia pushed the cowering man on his back. She then grabbed one of his ankles and began dragging him toward the gaping hole in the glass. “I’m going to throw your useless ass out the fucking window,” she yelled through labored breaths. “You are worthless to me!”
“Stop, Cynthia. You’re going to kill us,” Percy shouted. He twisted and turned on the carpet, leaving a trail of blood as the two moved closer and closer to the window. “Stop, Cynthia, That’s enough. You’re going to kill us both!”
Percy grabbed the leg of an end table next to the sofa, but she pulled him harde
r. The table soon was on the same course as his sliding body. The lamp, the telephone, and the vase filled with flowers on the table came crashing to the floor.
Percy began to kick Cynthia with his free foot as they neared the hole in the wall. The first blow landed on her chest. The heel of his leather shoe struck the center of her howling, contorted face with the second kick. She continued to drag him, undaunted by the now vicious counterattack. He kicked her again and again, each blow harder than the one before.
The last jolt of his foot was delivered with such power that it caused Cynthia to lose her grip on his ankle and tumble backward. She landed with a crashing thud on the floor, with her head and shoulders hanging out the window and into the cold, dark night. Shards of glass scraped against her back as she squirmed on the floor, still screaming obscenities.
Percy rolled to his knees and quickly grabbed her waist, which was now at the edge of the building.
“Let me go!” she screamed, clawing at his bloody face. “I want to die. Let me go!”
Percy pulled the flailing woman away from the window with his last ounce of strength. When he reached a safe distance, he sat on the floor next to her and quickly wrapped his arms around her chest like a vise. “Calm down, Cynthia,” he whispered repeatedly into her ear. “It’s all right, honey.”
Cynthia continued to squirm and wiggle to break free from his powerful grip and return to the window.
“It’s all right, honey,” he continued to say calmly. “Take a deep breath and calm down.”
As she grew weaker, her resistance waned. The screams and rants gradually turned into wrenching whimpers and moans. “I want to die,” she continued to cry. “Let me go. I hate you. Let me die.”
“No, you don’t, honey,” Percy repeated over and over. “I know you’re disappointed, but you don’t want to die. You have everything to live for.”
“I just want to die,” were the last words Cynthia whimper before her twitching body fell limp in his arms on the living room floor.
The sky was clear and blue above the translucent gray layer of smog that hung over the city. Danny lay by the infinity pool in the hot Los Angeles afternoon sun. Parker was curled in a furry ball near the water’s edge. The yard was a page from Architectural Digest. Towering pine trees lined the sides, leaving the rear property line unobstructed to display the spectacular view of downtown. Los Angeles Jacuzzi at the end of the pool gurgled like a volcano threatening to erupt. From the vantage point of Gideon’s home in the Hollywood Hills Danny could almost see the streets where he handed out condoms, socks, and clean needles to the homeless.
Wicker furniture and freestanding stone and artificially aged copper fireplaces were arranged throughout the wooded, grounds, creating numerous cozy nooks for intimate conversations, alfresco dining, or dancing the night away under the stars.
“Come and stay with me for a few days,” Gideon had said the night they held hands on Danny’s couch. “You shouldn’t be alone right now. You can sleep in one of the guest rooms. I promise I won’t try anything. Parker can come, too, to keep me in line.”
Exhausted from grief and weak from loneliness, Danny had cautiously accepted the invitation. Although his visit from Kay Braisden had given him some respite from his isolation, she was able to stay with him for only three days before she had to return home to D.C. Danny had dreaded the thought of crying alone in his apartment another night.
Gideon had been the perfect host since Danny arrived two days earlier. The two men would pop popcorn and watch movies in his media room when Gideon wasn’t working in his home office. They ordered takeout from Gideon’s favorite little Chinese restaurant on Sunset Boulevard and sat in the middle of the living room floor, eating shrimp egg foo yong and moo goo gai pan with cheap wooden chopsticks while sharing secrets, some of which they hadn’t even told themselves.
“I haven’t had sex in almost two years,” went one such conversation. “It’s just too risky. I’m afraid if I’m . . .” Gideon paused and stirred chow mein in a white box with his chopsticks before he continued. “I’m afraid if I’m intimate with someone, he’ll go straight to the Enquirer and tell them everything, from how big my dick is to how I stutter like Porky Pig when I cum.” Gideon raised his hands and stammered, “Tha-thatha-that’s all folks.”
Danny laughed and said, “You must be very lonely.”
“You get used to it. I have my work. I have my friends, and I have my right hand,” Gideon said, laughing. “But, yeah, I do get lonely sometimes. How about you? What was your life like before you met Hezekiah?”
“Strangely enough, it was very much like yours, except without the house in the Hills, the Mercedes, or my own television show,” Danny said with a smile. “Before I met Hezekiah, I was almost a recluse. I had a small circle of friends and my work. That was it. I’ve always had a hard time with men. They were either only after quick sex, or they wanted to parade me in front of their friends like a mannequin.”
“I can understand that. You are quite beautiful, Danny.”
“Thank you, but I don’t see myself that way.”
“How do you see yourself?”
“To be honest, I didn’t really see myself until I met Hezekiah. When we were together, every time I looked in his eyes, I swear I could see into my own soul. I could see how empty my life was. I could see how afraid I was. But I also saw how loving I could be. I saw how kind and compassionate I could be. But regardless of what I saw, he made me feel like it was okay. There was nothing about me that shocked or repulsed him. He made me feel like there was absolutely nothing about me that could make him stop loving me. He was an amazing man.”
“You were very lucky to have him in your life, even for such a short time.”
Danny looked away. “I don’t feel very lucky right now. Sometimes I think I would have been better off if I’d never met him. At least I wouldn’t be going through this hell.”
“Do you believe in fate, Danny?”
“I guess. What do you mean?”
“I believe everything in life happens for a reason,” Gideon said, looking directly at Danny. He could see his reflection in his eyes. “There are no coincidences, and wherever we find ourselves in our life, that is exactly where we were supposed to be at that time. There are no mistakes in the universe. Everything is perfect and as it should be.”
Danny stretched his bare legs on the chaise lounge by the pool as he remembered the words Gideon had said to him the night before. He wore a pair of dark blue Speedos and sunglasses. The heat had caused his skin to shimmer in the afternoon sun. Dishes could be heard clanking and water running in the kitchen behind him. Danny stood and stretched his long limbs again, then made his way to the open French doors that led directly into the kitchen.
There he found Gideon, barefoot and wearing a yellow T-shirt and short khakis, standing at a green granite island, slicing peaches, a mango, and a cantaloupe. The kitchen was a stainless-steel shrine to food. A ten-burner Wolf range was against the wall; opposite it was a Sub-Zero refrigerator with double glass doors. The room was a series of red oak cabinets from the floor to the ceiling. Silver and black appliances and gadgets occupied almost every counter, and a flat-screen television hung from the ceiling. Pristine copper pots swung from a rack above the island where Gideon stood. “I thought you might like a snack before dinner,” Gideon said, slicing into a melon. “Are you thirsty? There’s Pellegrino, lemonade, beer, and juice in the fridge. Help yourself.”
“Gideon, why are you doing this? Shouldn’t you be interviewing some serial killer instead of making me a fruit salad?”
Gideon laughed and said, “I’m going in at four o’clock. I have to interview Tyler Perry. I’d rather hang around here with you, but hey, somebody’s got to do it. I see the Speedo fits you.”
“Yeah, just barely,” Danny said, adjusting the tight briefs. “I didn’t know anybody still owned these things.”
“They were the only swim trunks I had that I thought would fit you,�
�� Gideon said and quickly looked away.
Danny laughed and replied, “Are you sure? I think you just wanted to see how I looked in them.”
Danny would have seen him blush were it not for Gideon’s amber skin.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Gideon said with a smile. “But I do have to admit you look amazing in them.”
“Gideon, you’ve been so kind to me and Parker these last two days, but I probably should be thinking about going home. I’ve been in your way too long already.”
Gideon froze mid-cut but didn’t look at Danny. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, resuming the slice. “You haven’t been in my way at all. I’ve loved having you guys here. Besides, I think Parker’s made friends with one of the raccoons. You wouldn’t want to break them up.”
“I’ll promise to bring him back soon to visit.”
Gideon began to arrange the sliced fruit on a tray. “I wish you would reconsider. I . . .” Gideon stopped and turned to face Danny. “I’ve kind of gotten used to you being here. The place isn’t so lonely with you around.”
Danny walked next to him at the island and said, “I know what you mean. For the first time since the day Hezekiah . . . since the day Hezekiah died, I’ve been able to sleep through the night.”
“Then don’t go,” Gideon said, reaching for Danny’s moist shoulder. “Stay until you know for sure that you’re ready.”
Danny leaned in and rested his head on Gideon’s chest, and Gideon embraced him tenderly. The two stood in silence and luxuriated in their comforting, long embrace. After moments, Danny raised his head and looked into Gideon’s eyes. Gideon slowly moved forward and pressed his lips to Danny’s.
“I’m in love with you, Danny St. John,” Gideon said through the passionate kiss. “Don’t leave me. I need you.”
Danny could feel Gideon’s erection pressing through his khaki shorts as his own erection stretched the Speedo to its limit. Gideon slowly slipped his hand under the tight waistband and massaged him gently. Danny lifted Gideon’s T-shirt over his head and kissed circles on his bare chest. He could feel Gideon’s heart pound with each kiss. He lifted Gideon’s hand to his mouth and kissed his palm and fingers. He could taste the nectar of the sweet fruit. With a flick of his finger Danny unbuttoned Gideon’s shorts and slowly pulled the zipper, which allowed them to drop silently to the granite floor, forming a pool of fabric around his ankles.
When Sunday Comes Again Page 22
