Preacher and The Prostitute

by Barrett, Brenda

  “Okay ladies,” Sister Bertram clapped her hands, “let’s begin. One would think that you hadn’t seen each other for a whole week instead of just yesterday.”

  Maribel subsided in her chair and stared vacuously into space as Sister Bertram spoke.

  “Are you all right?” Cathy whispered to her.

  “No,” Maribel said, sounding strangled.

  Cathy patted her hand and turned as Sister Bertrand gushed, “There are a few of you who have certain talents in the cooking department, like Sister Carlene.”

  Carlene grinned and got up. “I made sugar-free, fat-free molasses cookies for Pastor Brian and took them on vestry day last week. He told me it was a vast improvement on cardboard. I promised him some more this week.”

  Snickers were coming from various parts of the room.

  “I don’t think that’s a compliment,” Thelma said loudly.

  Carlene sat down huffily. “He doesn’t like baked products. Can someone tell me if that is normal or natural? So I had to rethink my woo-him-with-baked-goods strategy.”

  “So he hasn’t proposed yet, then?” Sister Greenwood asked seriously. Her hands gave her away because they were folded tightly in her lap, as if she was finding it really hard not to laugh.

  “It’s just one month,” Carlene said optimistically.

  “Watch out for Maribel and Rose,” Sister Greenwood said, looking at both women. “I heard that he went out with Maribel on Monday and Rose on Tuesday.”

  Rose looked at Maribel and Maribel swallowed convulsively.

  “You dark horse, you,” Rose said, laughing. “Here I was telling you stuff, not knowing that you were seeing him.”

  Maribel grimaced. “I had no idea that the pastor had so many fans.”

  “You thought you were the only fan?” Rose asked incredulously. “Do you know how many of these wonderful sisters are after him, married and unmarried?”

  Maribel whispered, “I had some indication at the first meeting but I had no idea that they were pursuing him so aggressively.”

  Rose whispered back, “A single pastor in a church full of women means war, Maribel. Until he chooses 'the one', he is fair game.”

  “I feel duly warned,” Maribel said. “I might just throw up my hands and bow out of this so-called war. I doubt I’ll ever be the one.” Tears welled up in her eyes and she got up. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  Rose nodded and watched her as she left the church hall in a rush.

  Cathy got up too and followed.

  Thelma had a pleased smile on her face as she moved to sit beside Rose. “I wonder if she’s coming back.”

  “Of course,” Rose said pleasantly, “she’s a strong girl, would make a great friend. I wonder why on earth you told me those awful things about her.”

  Maribel was in the bathroom stall sobbing. She had no hope now; if she revealed her past to Brian he would just skip her over in selecting a wife. When had she started thinking that it would be okay to tell him?

  Was she naïve or plain stupid? A hysterical laugh escaped her throat. She was never going to escape what had already happened in her life, and it was going to affect her future relationships—or lack thereof.

  She dried her eyes and tried to toughen her resolve. She was a big girl; she had been on her own for years; she could handle this.

  Cathy was standing at the sink when she came out. “Finished bawling now?”

  Maribel nodded.

  “You are a beautiful, intelligent woman. I don’t see why you are so lacking in confidence that you would allow a few church sisters to move you to tears.”

  “You don’t understand,” Maribel mumbled, washing her face. “I have a past, I am no competition for the virgin Carlene, and have you seen Rose? She’s really good-looking and intelligent and comes from a nice family and has connections, and did I say she was nice and has a pristine past? Spotless and unblemished … pure as the driven snow.”

  Cathy looked thoughtful. “But she has one fatal flaw.”

  “What?” Maribel asked, drying her face and looking at her red eyes in the mirror. She wasn’t a pretty crier.

  “She has a very annoying mother,” Cathy said feelingly. “No amount of connections and niceness can make up for that. A man just has to picture Thelma permanently in his life and Rose is history.”

  Maribel sniffed. “What about Carlene?”

  “Carlene?” Cathy frowned. “Are you crazy? Looks aside, even pastors consider their sex lives; it's an important part of marriage. Can you imagine Sister Carlene lying down stiffly, her hands at her side, singing Beulah Land during the sex act?”

  Maribel started giggling and couldn’t stop. “You are awful. How am I ever going to look at Carlene again with a serious expression?”

  Cathy patted her back. “I think you are assuming too much where Brian is concerned. He seems to like you very, very much. What do you think all those gifts and things were for?”

  “I got one on Tuesday,” Maribel said, frowning. “The thirteenth gift was a picture of the two of us when we went to Independence Park. We had paid one of those camera men to take the picture.”

  Cathy nodded. “There you go. I have known Greg for two years and we are going to get married in four months and I have never received such a romantic gesture.”

  “But the point is that he went to dinner with Rose the same Tuesday,” Maribel said, pouting.

  “He went to dinner with Rose and her family,” Cathy corrected. “Now come on, stop this past business and move on.”

  They walked back up to the church hall, smiling. After the meeting Thelma drew Maribel to one side and said solemnly, “Sister Maribel, I am so ashamed of myself. I talked to Rose about it and she said I should not tell you anything, but the Lord knows I have to get it off my chest.”

  “What is it?” Maribel asked wearily. Most people were standing around talking and were not paying them any undue attention.

  “Well … I …” Thelma was wringing her hands and looking uncertain. “The truth is … I should just come out and say it, I guess. Well, you see, I was tidying up my son’s room—God knows he’s a slob.”

  Maribel frowned; why was she telling her this?

  “Usually the helper would do it but it is so hard to find good help these days and my last helper just walked out of the house without a word. Anyway, I had to clean Gunther’s room. It was a sty as usual but under his bed I took out several vdv boxes.”

  “Huh?” Maribel asked curiously. “What's vdv?”

  “You know, those things that you put in the player and get good quality movies.”

  “Oh, you mean DVD?” Maribel asked, puzzled, wondering impatiently why Thelma had singled her out to tell her about Gunther.

  “Yes, that’s it." Sister Thelma’s eyes lit up and she smoothed down her blue dress nervously. “Well, I was looking at the covers and cringing at the titles—you know, those pictures with naked girls in different poses.”

  Maribel nodded, a prickle of awareness crawling up her skin. Her head felt like it was on the verge of swelling and her palms began to sweat.

  “I tell you,” Thelma said dramatically, “on this box was a naked picture of a girl in thigh high black boots and nothing else, and as God is my witness, Sister Maribel, the title of the movie was Peaches Quenches The Fire.” She shuddered. “The girl had on a blond wig and had about six men standing behind her in seductive naked poses. Holding their … ” she leaned even closer to Maribel “ … hoses. Can you imagine that?”

  Maribel felt the breath sucking out of her body. “No,” she whispered hoarsely.

  “Well, this girl … this Peaches looked just like you,” Sister Thelma said, a note of horror creeping into her voice. “I could have sworn it was you. I tell you, Rose said that everybody has a double in this world, but what a thing, to have a double who is a porn star. It is such a shame and disgrace, an upstanding church sister like you having a porn star as a double. I had to shout Lord have mercy when I saw t
he shameful abomination.”

  Sister Thelma shook her head, “I am so happy that my Rose doesn’t resemble a porn star. I am going to tell Gunther to take his trash out of my house once and for all.”

  Maribel cleared her throat. Her heart was beating a mile a minute and she felt nauseous. Her past had finally caught up with her.

  “You must not allow that rubbish in your house,” she said shakily to Thelma.

  “I know dear,” Thelma said, looking at her closely. “Are you well?”

  “Not really,” Maribel said. “I am just going to head home now and have a nap.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Brian swung in his chair and contemplated the news he just heard from his mother. His father’s chest pains had developed into a mild heart attack and his mother had been inconsolable. His sisters had tried to calm her down but he had just hung up the phone on a very distraught lady. He felt like going back home now. His mother literally fell apart without male support and with his father ill he did not want her to have a nervous breakdown and give his father another heart attack.

  There was so much news for him to process now; Pastor Green, the pastor who was now in his circuit of churches in Canada, had developed a terrible case of pneumonia and was making noises that he wanted to come back home.

  “It is as cold as a witch's tit up here, Brian,” he had said irreverently, his breathing over the phone sounding like an old truck that needed tuning.

  “I am just fifty,” he had wheezed down the phone, “and I feel like ninety now. The cold over here is going to kill me.” He had coughed after that, a big wracking, gurgling sound that had Brian thinking he really was dying.

  “It's not too late to switch back,” Pastor Green had hacked out, his voice petering out as he struggled for breath. “I already spoke to the conference heads and they agree.”

  No doubt, Brian had thought, after they heard you speaking.

  He had hung up from that conversation and his thoughts had immediately switched to Maribel. He had been praying about a relationship with her and had asked the Lord to give him a sign, but for the past two weeks she had been avoiding him. He was wondering if that was his sign. He was immensely attracted her—her love for God, her smile, her walk, her sense of humor and how when he thought about her he ran out of superlatives.

  Her birthday was next Sunday, which unfortunately for him coincided with his cousin’s wedding, a wedding that he was participating in as the best man. And it was in Negril, a place that he knew Maribel associated with some amount of trauma from her past.

  He didn’t want to leave her behind either, but the invitation did say Brian Edwards and guest. He wanted her to be his guest. Whenever they went out together he had more fun and felt a lightness that was quite unique. He had this unshakeable feeling that she was ‘the one’ and when a man found ‘the one’ he did not wait around for long.

  He considered all his alternatives. His father was ill and his mother was frantic; Pastor Green was ill and wanted to come back home. It seemed to him that all roads led to Canada. He had to run it by Maribel and see if she wanted to move to Canada. He would propose on her birthday. Have a simple wedding in church here and then a reception at his church in Canada; tie up all loose ends and then leave. He needed to pin her down. She claimed that she was tired in the nights when she came home and missed two weeks from church because of various ailments. He would have to surprise her and take her to lunch.

  Maribel stared at the numbers floating across her computer screen. One of the partners, Mr. Hayles, had stopped at her office and complimented her on her work on the Hodges Construction account but it did not put a dent in the prevailing depression that shrouded her like a cloak, a tight suffocating cloak.

  After Thelma had slyly tried to find out if she was a porn queen, she had this feeling of impending doom—that any minute now her world was going to explode into tiny fragments around her.

  She had tried to avoid Brian but he emailed, texted and called her incessantly. Damn the information age. She couldn’t escape him and she couldn’t escape her dratted naked photos. Every time she thought that she had some peace, her past kept popping up somewhere.

  She opened her computer browser and typed in “Peaches Jamaica” and up popped her image on five DVD covers, the very first images on Google’s search engine. She squeezed her eyes shut. The pictures were clearly of her—stark naked. She hurriedly closed the page and wiped it from the computer's history.

  If it was on the Internet, it was there forever; hundreds of men and women had probably looked at it from around the world. She had never thought to search for her images before and now that she had, she felt like a prisoner condemned to hang.

  Her past deeds would forever be a rope around her neck, wouldn’t they? She continually ran through the thoughts in her head until she felt a pain gathering in the region of her chest. She liked to think that her heart couldn’t take it anymore and was about to give way; they would find her dead in the office. Dead of a heart attack just a week before her twenty-fifth birthday.

  Some smart person would start searching for her next of kin and would sniff around Negril until they came upon the truth that Maribel and Peaches were the same person. But it wouldn’t matter then because she’d be dead. All her friends and acquaintances could judge her then. She wouldn’t care. She wouldn’t give a …

  “Maribel,” Vivian stuck her head around the door, “I got chocolates from England so here’s yours.”

  “Paul’s mother is here, then?” Maribel asked, trying to inject some enthusiasm in her voice.

  “Came last night,” Vivian said, placing the box of chocolates on the desk. “Apparently Paul told her that I am a chocolate lover. She carried her hand luggage full of it.”

  “Okay,” Maribel said, turning back to her computer.

  “You are going to tell me what is wrong with you,” Vivian demanded sternly. “I am getting tired of you walking around with a hangdog expression on your face. I know it’s not Mark that’s bothering you because I heard through the grapevine that he was caught en flagrante with this chick in Marketing. It’s being hushed up though, so he is very scarce around here.”

  Maribel smiled. “His wife needs to know about him.”

  Vivian shrugged. “Enough about that; tell me about you.”

  “I will,” Maribel said, sighing, “just not today and not in this office.”

  “Okay,” Vivian said appeased, “I will let you off the hook for now, but until you recover that great smile of yours, I am going to keep on asking.”

  Maribel gave her a wan look. “Thanks for caring, Viv.”

  “That’s what friends do.” Vivian went through the door and gave her a thumbs-up sign.

  Her phone rang at the same time and she picked it up. “Hello.”

  “I won’t take no for an answer; can we do lunch today?” Brian greeted her. “And before you find some excuse to deny me the pleasure of your company, I will carry the lunch and camp out in your parking lot.”

  Maribel felt the first bloom of happiness gather in her chest and tried to squelch it. But it wasn’t responding to her, it just kept blossoming like a flower unfolding its petals and suddenly all was right with her day.

  “No camping out in parking lots for you today. Where are we going for lunch?”

  “I’ll pick you up,” Brian said mysteriously. “At 12:30,” he added belatedly.

  “Looking forward to it,” Maribel whispered.

  They were seated in the air-conditioned comfort of a tropical themed restaurant, complete with parrots and water fountains. They had just ordered drinks and Maribel was looking around and playing with her straw. The middle of the straw was in the shape of a pineapple and she found it fascinating to watch the yellow liquid fill up the pineapple pouch before it reached her lips.

  Brian was watching her intently before he cleared his throat. “How long do we have?” He looked at his watch and frowned. “Is it just me or is the day flying by at
supersonic speed?”

  “It’s just you,” Maribel said, laughing at him. “My day is dragging by so slowly that I am beginning to think of work as punishment. That’s why I took the rest of the day off.”

  “You did?” Brian’s face lit up. “Are you going to spend it with me?”

  Maribel shrugged and then laughed at his crestfallen expression. “I am all yours.”

  Brian cleared his throat. “You know, I have been praying about that, Maribel.”

  “Praying about what?” Maribel asked, feeling nervous about the urgency in his voice.

  “About you being mine. And I think I have gotten my answer.”

  “What’s the answer?” Maribel asked with bated breath, her heart pounding.

  “Your answer I want to be yes; my question is, will you marry me?”

  Maribel gasped.

  Brian was tense as he watched the play of expressions over her face.

  “Do … do … I have to answer now?” Maribel asked, a cowardly feeling overtaking her. “I have to tell you something about me first.”

  “So tell,” Brian said, smiling at her and taking her hand in his.

  “I can’t tell you now,” Maribel said, grimacing.

  “Can you tell me on our way to Negril this Sunday coming? I have a wedding to go to and I would like you to be my guest.”

  Maribel withdrew her hand from his and didn’t get the chance to answer, as a waiter came to take their order.

  “Tofu in jerk sauce,” Brian said, smiling, “with lots of raw vegetables and rice and peas.”

  “Same for me,” Maribel said to the waiter. She was in shock and wasn’t thinking straight. A pastor asked me to marry him. A pastor asked me to marry him. Brian asked Maribel to marry him. Oh my God! She even ordered tofu and she didn’t like it. She was in real trouble.

  “So will you go to Negril with me?” Brian asked Maribel, a tinge of anxiety in his tone.