The stage backdrop was an electric blue wall of light that periodically changed hues to match the desired mood of each moment during the service. The walls of the sanctuary pulsated from the brass instruments, drums, violins, guitars, organs, and pianos playing the rhythmic tune. Scenes on the two twenty-foot-high JumboTron screens alternated rapidly between panoramic shots of the congregation standing, clapping, and singing and the two-hundred-member choir and orchestra.
Another door at the foot of the pulpit opened. All heads in the room turned to the door. After a dramatic pause, Samantha Cleaveland appeared in the threshold. The cameras rushed to catch every second of her entrance. As befitting a widow still in mourning, she wore the two-piece black Givenchy suit, which traced with precision each curve, bend, and twist of her hourglass figure. A sleek skirt sloped around her full hips down to the lips of a tulip shaped hemline just above her knees. The jacket was a cascade of satiny fabric, cinched at the waist and blossoming around her hips. The heels on her one-of-a-kind black Chanel sling-back pumps were the exact height necessary to mold her legs into the perfect female form.
Samantha entered the sanctuary with the gait of a woman straddling the line between courage and grief. Applause exploded throughout the sanctuary when the people saw her, and drowned out the singing of the choir. Samantha flashed her smile and waved triumphantly to the crowd. The diamond bracelet she wore twinkled like a cluster of stars in the midnight sky.
The image of Samantha Cleaveland standing at the front row, smiling and still waving to the crowd, filled the JumboTron screens. The caption below read, “Rev. Dr. Samantha Cleaveland—Pastor and Founder, New Testament Cathedral.” She repositioned her body with each wave to ensure everyone in the room got a complete view.
David Shackelford walked swiftly down the aisle and slid sideways into a pew two rows from the front. He stepped over shoes and purses until he reached Scarlett and Natalie. David scooped up the little girl and sat her in his lap and kissed Scarlett on her cold cheek.
Scarlett looked up at the screen filled with a twenty-foot Samantha Cleaveland. God, what have we done? she thought. As usual, Samantha got everything she wanted, but at least she didn’t get my husband. Scarlett reached over and covered David’s hand with hers. She found it hard to believe he was sitting next to her. Thank God he didn’t leave me for that bitch.
When the applause subsided and the audience returned to their seats, the music gradually transitioned to a melodic and reverent tone. A soprano began to sing an operatic tune, and the audience followed her word for word. The melody from the crowd rolled from the front of the church to the top row of the sanctuary and filled the room as congregants softly sang in unison and looked upward to heaven.
The cameras followed Samantha as she walked along a path in the sea of flowers and up the steps to the center of the stage. Again, the audience leapt to their feet, and thunderous applause erupted. Samantha stood at the mike center stage, raised her hands in victory, and blew a series of kisses to the crowd.
“I love you, too, New Testament Cathedral family,” she declared, her amplified voice rising above the cheers and applause. “I love you too.” She beamed.
The outpouring of love and adoration went on for five minutes, until Samantha finally raised her hands and tamed the crowd into submission.
Cynthia Pryce sat on the front row with her husband, Percy. Dark oval sunglasses and a thick mask of Derm-ablend covered the black eye and the scars inflicted by the heel of Percy’s shoe. A wide-brimmed hat and a collar that reached her chin provided ample cover for the bruises on her neck and back. Under the glasses her left eye twitched as she watched Samantha on the stage.
Percy reached for her shaking hand, but she pushed him away. “Don’t touch me,” she said under her breath. “That should be you up there, not that bitch.”
“Good morning, New Testament Cathedral!” Samantha said to the rapt crowd. “Does anybody here know that God is still a good God?”
Thousands of voices responded with, “Yes, Lord,” or “Yes, He is,” and “I know it, Pastor. I know He is.”
“We don’t have anything to cry about this morning, New Testament. We have every reason to rejoice. God has seen fit to allow us to see another day, and I don’t know about you, but I’m going to praise Him.”
With that there was no keeping the masses in their seats. Hands flew up in the air, and shouts of praise swept through the room.
“There’s a verse in the Bible that says, ‘Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.’ Do you believe that, saints?”
“We believe it, Pastor,” was the unified response.
“Well, I’m a living witness that it’s true.”
For the next thirty minutes the room hung on every word that fell from Samantha’s glossed lips. Hattie Williams sat stiff on the front row at the end of the pew. Her arthritic knee throbbed with each pound of the drums. The head of her cane rested against her thigh, and the purse filled with Kleenex, mints and a pocket bible sat on the cushion next to her.
Hattie looked up at Samantha in the pulpit and prayed silently. “Lord have mercy on New Testament Cathedral this Sunday morning.”
The End
Urban Books, LLC
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When Sunday Comes Again Copyright © 2012 Terry E. Hill
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ISBN: 978-1-6016-2354-6
This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living, or dead, or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places, and incidents is entirely coincidental.
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When Sunday Comes Again Page 24
