by Neta Jackson
Other novels in the Yada Yada series:
The Yada Yada Prayer Group, book 1
The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Down, book 2
The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Real, book 3
The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Tough, book 4
The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Caught, book 5
The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Rolling, book 6
© 2007 by Neta Jackson.
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
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Thomas Nelson, Inc. titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].
Scripture quotations are taken from the following: THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® (NIV). Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.,Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
The New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, businesses, organizations, and locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN 13: 978-1-59554-361-9
CIP has been applied for.
Printed in the United States of America
07 08 09 10 11 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
A note from the author:
Reading Group Guide
Celebrate!
Recipes
U. S. To Metric Conversion Table
Notes
For Dave
without whose love, patience, encouragement,
and takeover of the Jackson kitchen
this novella would never be
Prologue
The steady ding-a-ling of the Salvation Army bell down the street punctuated the Christmas lust of the three boys gawking into the window of the game store. “Look, they got PlayStation Portable! That’s what I want, man. ’Member those ads we saw on TV, JJ? Awesome graphics.”
“Ha! Look how much it cost. That PSP is over two hundred bucks! How you gonna get that, Boomer?”
Boomer, almost as tall as his thirteen-year-old cousin even though he was two grades younger, shrugged inside his bulky jacket. “I dunno. Ask for it for Christmas.Why not?”
The older boy snorted. “Yeah, right. Yo’ mama ain’t gonna spring for no two hundred bucks. ’Specially when she finds out you ain’t home, grounded like she said when you cut class yesterday.”
“She ain’t gonna find out ’less you tell her, JJ. She at work.”
The third boy snickered.
Boomer glared at his cousin’s friend. “Don’t you start, Mitch. C’mon, let’s go in. I wanna check out the new games.”
The three middle school boys pushed their way into the crowded store, jackets unzipped, knit caps pulled over their ears, wet gym shoelaces dragging. The week after Thanksgiving had followed early winter’s treacherous trend: first a drizzling rain, then freezing temperatures, then a light snow to dust the icy sidewalks and streets. Shoppers filled the aisles of the game store, even though it was a weeknight. With only “24 Shopping Days till Christmas,” stores were open all over Chicago until ten at night, every night.
Boomer pulled back the hood of his sweatshirt layered under his sport jacket as he paused in front of the big display featuring the new game console: Sony PlayStation Portable! Get it while supplies last! “Oh, man, you think they gonna run out ’fore Christmas?”
His cousin, the bottoms of his baggy jeans hanging wet around his ankles, rolled his eyes.“C’mon. You wanted ta look at the games. Oh, hey, dudes! Look at this.” JJ snatched up a game under a sign that screamed, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories! New!
Mitch punched his shoulder. “Forget it, JJ. See that ‘M’? That means ‘Mature.’ Ya gotta be eighteen ta buy it.”
“That sucks.” JJ turned it over to read the back.
The other two boys sauntered along the game shelves, the intense cover graphics competing for attention. Boomer pounced. “Oh, man. This is the one I want. Forty bucks. That ain’t so much.”
“What’s that?” Mitch looked over his shoulder.
Boomer’s eyes glowed. “Ridge Racer. Driving simulator. Really cool, man. I played it once—”
“Lemme see that.” Coming up behind them, JJ grabbed the game, read the fine print, then waved it in his cousin’s face. “Ha. Even if you had forty bucks, ya gotta have a PSP to use it.”
“So? Told ya I’m—”
“Man comin’,” Mitch hissed.
A store clerk in a rumpled white shirt hugging a paunch headed toward them, pushing past other customers until he stood in their way. “You boys buying?”
Boomer put on a smile. “Just lookin’, mister.”
“Well, look someplace else. Go on, git. An’ keep your hands off the merchandise.”
JJ shrugged. “Oh, all right. C’mon guys. Let’s go.”
Boomer looked at his cousin in surprise. JJ wasn’t one to be pushed around. He’d expected some lip.
Out on the sidewalk, JJ headed up Clark Street at a fast clip, zigzagging around other early-evening shoppers. “Hey, wait up, JJ! Where you goin’ so fast?” Mitch and Boomer scurried after him, pulling up their sweatshirt hoods and zipping their jackets, hunched against a smart wind off the lake. “What’s his problem?” Mitch mumbled as JJ turned the corner at the next intersection, walking fast.
When they’d left the bright streetlights and storefronts along Clark Street, JJ turned to his two companions. “Man! He never even saw it!” Gleefully, he pulled something out of his jacket. Even in the dimmer light along the side street, Boomer could see the title: Ridge Racer.
“Oh, man! How’d you—?” Boomer’s eyes widened. “Really? You just walked out with it?”
“Said you wanted it, didn’t ya?” JJ tossed it at his cousin.
Boomer caught it. “Yeah, but . . .” He held the treasured game hungrily.
Mitch giggled nervously. “Man, oh man. You could a got us all in big trouble back there, JJ.” He laughed harder. “Ooo, JJ, you one slick dude.”
JJ punched Boomer on the shoulder. “So, how ’bout a little gratitude, huh?”
Boomer frowned. “Thanks . . . I guess. ’Cept I can’t play it with-out that PSP console.”
JJ glanced down the street and suddenly pulled Boomer and Mitch into the shadows. “Well
now, maybe we can fix that too.”
“Whatchu mean?” Boomer craned his neck, following JJ’s gaze.
All he saw was a woman getting out of a car, carrying several boxes.
“Look how that lady carryin’ her purse,” JJ murmured.
Even in the dim streetlights along the residential street, the boys could see the woman’s purse slung over one shoulder, swinging freely.
“Oh, man.” Mitch’s breathing got heavy. “But she’s white, JJ.”
“So? White women carry green money. Credit cards too.”
“Hey, wait.” Boomer grabbed JJ’s jacket sleeve. “I don’t want no trouble. I’m in enough already with my mom.”
“You wanna play that video game or not, Boomer?” JJ jerked his arm away. “Now come on.” He headed out of the shadows, running lightly on the snow-covered sidewalk. An adrenaline rush of excitement drowning his apprehension, Boomer followed in his cousin’s wake, Mitch tight on his heels as they closed the distance to the woman walking ahead of them.
With one smooth move, JJ jerked the purse from the woman’s shoulder and kept going. The jerk caused the woman to spin on the slippery sidewalk and she fell sideways, the boxes in her arms flying in all directions. “Run!” yelled JJ.
As the woman landed, she let out a cry of pain. Mitch and Boomer parted ways as if she were a traffic island they had to go around and kept running after JJ.
“Help!” the woman cried. “My ankle! . . . Somebody, help me!”
Boomer slowed and looked back. Something about that voice . . . “Ohh . . . My ankle . . . I can’t . . .”
Boomer turned. Somewhere down the street he heard JJ yelling, “Boomer! Whatchu doin’? Come on!”
The woman on the ground was crying, trying to get up but falling back. Desperately, Boomer looked up and down the street, hoping someone else would hear her. But no one else was out. No doors opened.
“Boomer, you idiot! Get outta there! . . .We’re leavin’, man!”
Itching to run, Boomer’s feet moved like lead back to the fallen woman. She was still moaning with pain. Pulling his knit cap down low and his hood around his face, he bent slightly to get a look.
It couldn’t be her. But it was! Half his mind screamed, Run, idiot! The other half said, You can’t! What if she’s really hurt?
The woman looked up. She flinched. Then she gasped, “Help me . . . please. I’m hurt. I need my cell phone. I . . . lost it when I fell. Do you see it?”
He glanced this way and that among the boxes—they were empty! But there . . . a glint in the snow. He picked it up. A silver cell phone. Without a word, he flipped it open and punched in three numbers: 9-1-1. Then he hit Send and set it down within her reach.
And fled.
1
The last time I’d stood on this sidewalk, firefighters were battling fierce flames leaping from the old church that had housed Manna House, the homeless women’s shel-ter. T Flashing red-and-blue lights had sliced through the frigid night air, heavy with smoke and the whimpers of frightened children. The blaze, started by faulty wiring and fed by a dry, brittle Christmas tree, had gutted the old church and consumed the few possessions of several dozen women and children who called the shelter “home.” Bulldozers had finished the job, creating an ugly gap like a pulled tooth along the crowded row of buildings.
But today, almost two years later, crisp November sunshine brightened the narrow street in the Chicago neighborhood known as Wrigleyville. My eyes feasted on the new brick building that had risen on the same spot, its facade similar to the noble lines of the old church. A few broad steps led to a set of double oak doors, flanked by stained-glass windows on either side. At the peak of the new building, the wooden beams of a cross stretched top to bottom and side to side inside a circular stained-glass window.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Wonder what the inside is like?”
“Only one way to find out.” My husband, Denny, took my arm and hustled me up the steps. A small brass plate nailed to the door said, simply, Manna House.
Instead of the dark sanctuary of the old church, a brightly lit foyer welcomed us. On the right side, a large main office with wide glass windows overlooked the foyer and room beyond; the oppo-site side of the foyer accommodated restrooms and an office door marked Director. Straight ahead, double doors led into a large multipurpose room in which a decent crowd filled rows of folding chairs, sat on plump couches or overstuffed chairs with bright-colored covers, or clustered around a long table with a coffee urn, a punch bowl, and plates of cookies.
“Mom! Dad! You made it!” Josh bounded over and gave us a hug. “We’re just about ready to start . . . Edesa! Did you save seats for my folks?”
Josh’s fiancée, Edesa Reyes, scurried over. Her thick, dark hair—longer now and caught back from her rich mahogany face into a fat ponytail at the nape of her neck—seemed to pull her broad smile from ear to ear. “Jodi! Denny! Si, we saved seats for you, see? Next to Avis and Peter—oh. Others are coming in.” She gave each of us a warm hug. “Can’t wait to give you a tour! Just don’t look at my room. I haven’t had a chance to get settled yet.”
So. She’d actually given up her apartment to live on-site. I watched as Josh slipped an arm around Edesa’s slim waist, turning to greet the newcomers. When did my lanky son muscle up and start looking like a grown man? He’d turned twenty-one this fall but was only in his second year at the University of Illinois, Circle Campus. Edesa, in the U.S. on a student visa from Honduras and three years his senior, had just started her master’s program in public health at UIC. They’d been engaged for a year and a half—a fact that still boggled my eyeballs. But as far as we knew, no wed-ding plans yet.
Thank goodness. Let them get through school first—
“Sista Jodee!” A Jamaican accent hailed us from the coffee table, and Chanda George made a beeline for Denny and me, grip-ping a cup of hot coffee and a small plate of cookies. “Dis is so exciting! Mi can hardly believe it’s happening.”
Chanda had reason to be excited. After winning the Illinois Lottery Jackpot and going from single-mom-who-cleaned-houses to a multimillion-dollar bank account overnight, Chanda had gone nuts, taking her kids on exotic vacations, buying her dream house and a luxury car with leather seats—in cash—and lavishing expensive gifts on her friends. But when the women’s shelter burned down, her greedy lifestyle had gotten a wake-up call: she, Chanda George, had the financial means to do major good with her unearned blessing.
“Are those cookies for me?” Denny’s dimples gave him away as he helped himself to a cookie from Chanda’s paper plate. “Thanks, Chanda—hey!” Denny barely caught himself from being bowled over as Chanda’s two girls threw themselves at him.
“Uncle Denny!” they cried. “Where’s Amanda? Ain’t she home from college yet?” Cheree was leggy for ten, but eight-year-old Dia was still a Sugar Plum Fairy in my eyes: tiny, sweet, flighty, dipped in chocolate.
“Next week. She’ll be home for Thanksgiving.” Denny waggled his eyebrows at the girls. “Say, think you could get me some of that punch and cookies?”
The girls ran off. All three of Chanda’s children, including thir-teen- year-old Tom, had different fathers, none of whom had mar-ried their mother, a fact Chanda grumbled about regularly. “Dia’s daddy” had come waltzing back briefly when Chanda won the lot-tery, and she had been sure wedding bells were in the air. But with a dozen Yada Yada Prayer Group “sisters” telling her the bum was just after her money, Chanda wised up and gave him the boot. As for Oscar Frost, the “fine” young sax player at SouledOut Community Church who Chanda had had her eye on . . . well, let’s just say he treated Chanda respectfully, like an older sister. Not exactly what she’d had in mind.
Yada Yada. I glanced around the room to see how many of our prayer group had made it to the dedication of Manna House. I saw Florida Hickman serving punch at the table and even halfway across the room I could hear her chirp to the next guest in line, “How ya feel? . . . That’s
good, that’s good.”
In another corner of the room, Leslie “Stu” Stuart, who lived on the second floor of our two-flat, perched on the arm of a couch, red beret tilted to one side of her blonde head as she laughed and talked to several other Yada Yada sisters: Yo-Yo Spencer, Becky Wallace, and Estelle Williams, Stu’s current housemate.
I didn’t see Adele Skuggs, but the owner of Adele’s Hair and Nails usually had her busiest day on Saturdays. Didn’t see Delores Enriquez, either, probably for the same reason. She often had to work weekend shifts as a pediatric nurse at Cook County Hospital.
And then there were our missing sisters. Nonyameko Sisulu-Smith had been in South Africa the past year and a half, and Hoshi Takahashi had returned to Japan last summer, hoping to reunite with her estranged parents. We’d been able to keep in touch by e-mail, and the last one from Nony had Yada Yada buzzing . . .
“Avis!” I plonked into the chair beside Avis Douglass, the principal at Bethune Elementary, where I taught third grade, and the leader of our Yada Yada Prayer Group. “Did you hear any more from Nony? All she said was that they might be home before the end of the year, ‘details to follow.’What does that mean?”
Avis shook her head. “You know as much as I do.”
“Is this on?” Rev. Liz Handley, the director of Manna House, tapped on a microphone. “Good. Welcome, everyone!” The short white woman with the wire-rim glasses and cropped, salt-and-pepper hair waited a few moments as those still standing found seats. “We are delighted to see so many friends here to celebrate with us today as we dedicate Manna House II . . .” A commotion at the back of the room distracted her attention. “Come on in, folks. We’re just getting started.”
I turned my head. Ruth Garfield bustled in, flushed and frowsy, followed by her husband, Ben, each carrying one of their two-year- old twins. I tried to keep a straight face as Yada Yada’s own Jewish yenta whispered, “Sorry we’re late,” and Yo-Yo snickered back, “So what else is new?”
Rev. Handley resumed her introduction. “I’d like to ask Peter Douglass, president of the Manna House Foundation, to say a prayer of thanksgiving as we begin.”
