He nodded. “That was the plan.” He sat down and pulled out the seat next to him. “So seriously. What do you think? Colors? Tagline? Concept?”
“The flyers haven’t gone out yet?”
“Of course not. It’s your shop, Dane. I would never do that.” He checked his watch. “I probably need to call and check on Trevor—”
Trevor! “No. He came by. He got saved—”
“I know. Isn’t it amazing? As much as I hate that you got sick, God really used it to heal a lot of relationships—namely him and me. He and Josh really vibe, too. They want to do a record together. R&B with some Jewish worship samples. Isn’t that a trip?”
I just stared at him. Suddenly I felt so left out. So out of the loop.
He dropped the ad and reached for me. “Did I say something wrong?”
Mopping my eyes with the back of my hand, I straightened. “No. In fact, you’ve said and done everything right.” Well, not everything. “I just feel so…out of it. I mean it’s nice being home and slowing down. The Lord and I have been having a grand time, but—”
“But you want your store back?”
I took a deep breath. “Not exactly. I’m seeing that it can’t be just my store. You, Dahlia, Austin, even the cousins and Aunt Cheryl coming to help. Tracey on the computer. Renee and Rochelle’s word of mouth. Your marketing and management. It all works together.” Another sniff. “I just want to get back into it somehow. A few hours a day maybe. And I want to exercise my faith again. Listening to Trevor talk today…”
“That new fire is something, isn’t it?”
I nodded. Why did Adrian seem to still have that fire, even if it was a little more contained? “It’s like I’ve burned out completely.”
He shook his head. “No way. Sometimes God just has to stoke the embers some. He’s been doing that for me for the past few years we’ve been apart. You and I both skipped from sinner to superservant because of the expectations of others. There are a lot more pieces to the journey. Just let Him carry you right now.”
He sure knew what to say. My head dropped onto his chest. “Thanks. I needed that.”
I needed you.
His chest rose sharply at my touch. “Thank you for being you. For being real. This is the Dana that I’ve missed.”
Me, too.
With that my head popped up and I lifted the ad to eye level. “Now about this wedding dress logo…”
Adrian shook his head. “I told her you’d say that. Before you say anything more, read this.” He reached for the next glossy in the stack, a beautiful sistah with an afro and pink lip gloss sat in a bathtub with a tiara, a veil and pink sundress. She held an opened umbrella over her head with Wonderfully Made across it.
I smiled in approval and read on:
Tired of buying wedding gifts for your friends while waiting for Mr. Right? Wondering what it’ll take for you to be showered with gifts? Enter now. And bring your umbrella.
My mouth dropped open as I read the details of the Sell-a-brate Yourself contest, where the winner got a shower of bath blessings for herself and six friends—facials, makeovers and a weekend in Chicago. The occasion? Life itself.
The final sentence took my breath away. “So if being a bridesmaid is getting you down, shower yourself with love—you’re worth it.”
“Who wrote this?” My fingers trembled.
Adrian smiled, the line in his forehead filling in. Had it meant so much to him that I like it? “I wrote it, but Tracey and Rochelle edited it. It started out as a ‘Marry your Maker’ contest, but they thought that was a bit much.”
I didn’t. “Tell me more.”
He crossed his arms. “Well, the concept was for single Christian women to win actual dedication ceremonies—to Jesus. A reaffirmation of her faith and commitment. A renewed understanding of his intimate love toward her.”
Where did he get this stuff? I squeezed his biceps. Definitely real.
He pretended to scowl. “Hey!”
“You scare me sometimes.”
He leaned in closer. “I steal all my ideas from you, remember?”
I cringed and moved away. “Okay. I’m sold. But what about Kick!? You’re putting all this energy into my stuff….”
He sobered. “About that…It doesn’t make much sense for me to run back and forth across the street. We’ve really got the same customer base. Why not put both shops together?”
Breathe. “To-gether?”
How on earth would this work? Being across the street from him was bad enough. And the cost? “I can’t afford that. And your stuff is so well known. You need your name. I need mine. It wouldn’t work.”
He massaged his temples. I realized now that the ad and contest was meant to sell me ahead of time. “Money isn’t an issue—”
“It is!”
“It isn’t. I own the whole strip next to you already. I was going to give it to you as a gift.”
I stared at him as though he were speaking an alien language. “You can’t buy people real estate, Adrian.” My heart thudded. Was he trying to send me back to the hospital?
“Why not? Some jewelry costs more than those units. And real estate is a gift that keeps on giving. Not romantic I know, but it’s how my brain works.”
And I like it.
“But the names—”
“Not an issue. I just signed for national distribution. My candles will be in lots of stores, in addition to the Kick! stores around here. The warehouse will keep churning them out and I’ll commission some special edition just for your lines.”
“That’s too much. I’ve got so much stuff. Too many scents.”
He smiled. “I’ve got most of the scents duped at my home lab in case you wanted to branch out into candles later. What’d you think I bought all that stuff for?”
I just stared at him. “You’ve been working on this all that time?”
Adrian nodded. “I want to simplify my life. Smell the roses.” He took my hand and sniffed it. “One in particular.”
“Made of Honor, it is. I wasn’t thrilled about the name at first, but you’re right, I need to just embrace this wedding thing. It’s what God has given me. And I love the new logo Tracey whipped up. She is amazing.” The words came easy and so did Adrian’s response, a soft kiss on the top of my hand. I smiled at how frequent his affections were becoming. And this time it came easy. I really did love the name.
The name combined the essence of Adrian and me, all that we wanted to be but weren’t—valiant and courageous. The logo brought it all together. Just to make me laugh, I’m sure, there was a candlestick and a long-stemmed rose faded into the background. That Tracey was something else.
Perhaps this shop would help me and Adrian deal with our own altar issues. Perhaps not. At any rate, the name, logo and blended colors of teal, fuchsia and tangerine told it all. It was all about the two of us.
People flooded the place on the grand reopening like ants at a picnic. They stampeded up and down in their bare feet, slushing through the newly installed shag, sniffing, sniffing and sniffing.
Austin’s hair brushed my shoulder, her entire face in a Vanilla Smella jar candle. She inhaled in disbelief. Adrian had stayed up two nights straight to formulate that particular scent into his soy wax. From the look on my friend’s face, he’d hit the right note.
“It’s heavenly,” she whispered in a husky voice, clamping the lid and balancing the stack of bottles and jars under her arm. “But I can’t smell anymore. It all smells so good….”
I nodded and guided her to a crystal bowl full of Colombian coffee beans, where she buried her head once more.
Rising, she smiled, then snorted. “Ah, there’s my nose. That’s amazing.” She picked up the bowl and eyed it closely. “Nice touch. Your idea?”
“Nope.”
She patted my hand. “That man is a business genius.” She looked over at Dahlia, whose infraction I had finally shared with Austin. “Not so smart in other departments, but a business ma
stermind. You just keep coming up with the wonders. He knows how to make them sparkle.”
I could only nod. She had me there. Adrian and Dahlia moved about the new, enlarged double unit like flickering diamonds, shining and smiling, while I sat behind the counter with a fake grin of my own.
Usually, I’d be dishing up facials or twittering with something, but Mr. Biz had assigned a unit price per cup and packaged up the facials fresh this morning with the new labels and a “Don’t starve your skin” sticker with the day’s date. With the smaller quantity, we sold more for the same price and less would be thrown out at the end of the day. Down to the alternating instrumental jazz and gospel tracks, he’d thought of everything.
Why am I even here?
As if he’d read my mind, Adrian crisscrossed the store, pointing someone to the bathroom and politely taking her bag to the counter. “For your convenience,” I heard him say. I looked down at the new security cameras under the counter in time to see the slight nod of his head at the woman’s frustrated look.
He lifted it into my waiting hands.
“So what do you think?” He asked, sounding deep in thought. Was he really that concerned about my opinion? For the past week, he’d made all of the decisions. Did he really care what I thought now? Oh, sure, I’d approved them, but it wasn’t quite the same.
“It’s great. The customers seem to love it.”
He nodded, then took one of my hands. “Can you see everything? On the monitors, I mean? I tried to move everything so there’d be open space—”
“It’s fine.” I mustered a reassuring smile to clear the doubt from his voice. “What’s with all the nervousness, Mr. Illinois Businessman? You could pull this off in your sleep. Besides, they love it.”
His grip tightened on mine. “But do you love it?”
I’m not sure.
“I like it. The love will come.”
He stopped then and looked at me in a way that almost made me turn away. I didn’t though. He came closer. “I hope the love will come. In fact, I’m banking everything on it.” A lopsided smile eased across his face. Adrian released my hand and reached for bag of the customer who’d gone to the bathroom. He paused to thank her for shopping with us.
Warmth rushed to my face and I stared down at the new computer screen on the cash register. When I looked up Dahlia, wedged into a pair of tight jeans and a tube top covered with daisies, stepped between us. Her hand rested on Adrian’s shoulder. Was she squeezing?
Now see…this is how people end up on the news.
“Can I borrow you for a minute, Adrian? A customer needs an explanation about the ingredients in the foaming bath gel,” she asked him, without meeting my eyes.
Hadn’t she already borrowed him?
Adrian gave me an apologetic glance. “Be right back.”
I shook my head, moving around the front of the register. “That’s okay, Dahlia. You stay here. I’ve got this.” I looked over my shoulder at Adrian. “Come on.”
This was my store, and recovery or no recovery, I wasn’t handing it—or anything else—over to my little sister.
Adrian’s Birkenstocks clipped behind my clogs. “Umph,” he said. “Did love show up just then?”
Sometimes love shows up only to find its seat taken.
Why was I tripping like this? What woman had a man buying her real estate? I’d loved this fool most of my life and even with all that had happened, I couldn’t stop loving him. Me learning to love me was the problem. Dahlia’s hand on his shoulder a few minutes ago played again in my mind. Could I be brave enough to love both of them, my sister and my man—that’s what he was whether I was willing to admit it or not—even though they’d hurt me? Why couldn’t I just be a good Christian like Rochelle and have all the answers?
Because you’re you.
Yeah. Me. Without losing my customer service smile or smudging the stay-on lip gloss adorning it, I turned to Adrian and kissed him full on the mouth. “Love’s here, baby. I just have to find a place inside me big enough for her to live.”
Bibb lettuce, crisp turkey bacon, red grapes, fat-free Italian dressing…and Adrian. Add a glass of water with a twist of lemon and that concludes the menu for my lunch with Austin. Like only girlfriends can, we skewered the guy into every forkful. It’d been almost a year since Chelle, Tracey and I had bonded this way, at the time serving Ryan up to a basket of riblets at Applebee’s. I missed the two of them, but I was grateful for this new friendship, too.
“So,” Austin paused to take a sip of water. “Can you get over it? This thing with Dahlia? It’s a tall order, I know. If someone told me the story, I’d say forget the bum, but you can’t let him get away. Not again. He’s too fine.”
I looked around her sunny solarium and down at my blue-and-white china plate, looking for answers. “Listen to you, calling folks fine. What would your husband think of that?”
She picked a bit of bacon out of her pearly whites. “Nothing. I call Josh fine, too. I call ’em like I see ’em. And in you two, I see a couple of people who are destined to be together—”
“And you invited me over today to make me to understand that?”
She giggled, then cleared her throat. “Not exactly. I’ve been wanting to get you all to myself for a while. I love Dahlia and your other friends, but they don’t seem to like me too much.”
“What gives you that impression?”
“Rochelle, for one. I’ve bought some pumps and a pair of mules from her since you turned me on to her place, but she didn’t seem too happy to get my money.”
It was my turn to laugh. “She just looks like that.”
Austin shook her head. “I’m in journalism, Dana. I know when someone dislikes me. Besides, someone else came in right after me and she lit up like a bulb…and the other woman was white, so it wasn’t a white-black thing. It’s personal.”
I blew out a breath. She went there, didn’t she? Austin should fit right in. “Okay, so maybe Rochelle’s got a problem, but it’s not with you, it’s with me. Same as the thing between me and Adrian. Issues, girl. Issues.” I pulled the top off one of the lemon ices heaped next to my plate. The yellow slush oozed down my throat, swallowing my thoughts with icy sweetness.
Austin grabbed one and attacked it with her spoon. “Issues? C’mon. You don’t have to give me details, but I’ve learned these last few months that you are a resilient woman. Whatever else it is, God can handle it. Just put it out there, you know?” She licked her spoon. “Aren’t these good?”
I nodded.
My God is my shield and my salvation. Whom shall I fear?
What was I afraid of? Why not just clear things up with Adrian, Chelle and whoever else and let the chips fall where they may? “I don’t know if my sister can continue to work for me.”
Austin nodded. “She’s insecure, Dana. I’ve been around those types of women all my life. What you and Adrian have is so obvious and what she has with Trevor is tenuous. Pray for her and stand your ground.” She sipped her mineral water between spoonfuls of lemon ice. “And give her a good recommendation.”
A long, lost laugh came up from my belly. The big kind, the kind that made milk come out your nose in grade school. It seemed like forever since I’d laughed like that. “You crack me up, you know that?”
She nodded. “So you’ve told me. I do hope things work out for your sister and The Fonz—”
My head fell back at her nickname for Trevor. The Black Fonzarelli. That was him for sure. “Girl, you are about to make me holler to the top of my lungs. That is too funny.”
Austin looked blank that time. “That’s funny? I call him that all the time. He comes to the study at Nehemiah.”
I held my throat. “You call Trevor that to his face?”
She nodded, wide-eyed. “Is something wrong with that?”
He’s for real saved.
I shook my head. “I guess not. So he comes over there, too? His car is at our church like he works there or something. I gu
ess he’s taking this pretty seriously.”
“Yep. Dahlia comes too, most times brings the baby. Such a cutie, that one. The last time they came, Josh’s mother didn’t stop nudging me the whole night. She’s on the hunt for a grandchild.”
I bit my lip. “Must be nice to have things fall into place so neat like that. Rich husband—” I waved my hand over the room “—beautiful home. I guess a baby would be next.” I tried not to think about Shemika and her growing belly. She and Jericho showed up at my house more and more. The fun had worn off and the reality had set in. It would be a long haul for all of us.
Austin’s spoon thudded against the linen tablecloth. She smiled in contradiction to the tear running down her face. “Dana, I can’t have children.” She flipped the tear away. “My mother-in-law, she doesn’t know.”
I reached across the table for her hand. “I’m so sorry.” Her salad plate fell and broke as she pulled back. My hand slid across the empty space.
Austin closed her eyes for a moment. “Forgive me. I’ve asked so much of you today, while guarding myself at the same time. If we’re going to be friends, real friends, I guess that won’t work, will it?”
Shaking my head, I thought about how easy Tracey, Rochelle and I had it in our friendship. We’d grown up together, knew most everything about each other. It was easy. Comfortable. This would require more. So I closed my eyes and leaned forward, listening as Austin began her story.
“I came from nothing. And wanted everything. In between, I lost it all….”
Somewhere between the stories of our pasts, the lowfat fudge bars and the brisk walk to work them off, Austin and I gave one another a precious gift—grace. There were no commentaries or explanations, no defenses or placement of blame, only tears and laughter in all the right places. In the end, we’d parted ways with the strength to confront those we’d hurt and those who’d hurt us.
Knowing my recalcitrant nature, I dropped by Rochelle’s shop and left a note on the way home, followed by several unanswered phone calls. As the clock struck midnight, I lost my nerve for any more peacekeeping and decided to tackle Dahlia and Adrian the following morning at work. Both posed a great problem, since my claim against one involved the other. I’d forgiven Dahlia—again—that day at the shower, but somehow her wrong had grown wings from the altar where I’d left it and dropped disease all over my spirit. It was time to bring all my “issues” down to earth.
Made of Honor Page 24
