“I’ll tell you at lunch,” Maribel said wearily. “I am in the mood to go home and sleep for the rest of the week. I hate Mondays.”
“I hate that portfolio you are supposed to give me.” Vivian came into the office fully. “It is complicated.”
“Hence the reason why Maribel has it,” Mark said, opening the door wider and entering after Vivian.
Maribel jumped.
“I am not eavesdropping,” he declared importantly, “just here to announce that we got the Lawrence account, lock, stock and barrel. You, Miss Contrell, will be the proud head of that portfolio, and you, Miss Reid,” he looked at Vivian, “will be the head of Hodges Construction.”
“The two of you, I need to meet in my office at twelve today. It’s a long meeting so you might want to bring your lunch.”
Vivian looked at Maribel when Mark walked out of the office. “So much for the tell-all at lunch. But did you tell Brian?”
“No,” Maribel groaned, “not yet. I am thinking Wednesday.”
“Well, Happy belated birthday. I have a day trip to the spa for two.” She pulled out the gift vouchers from her bag. “One for me and one for you.”
“Thank you.” Maribel got up and hugged her. “You are a good friend.”
Vivian grinned. “Of course I am, and because I am your best friend I am getting one of those tickets.”
Maribel laughed. “I would rather go with you than anyone else.”
There was going to be a thunderstorm on Wednesday. Maribel was feeling as gray and dull as the clouds outside. She had psyched herself up to tell Brian and now she felt a little faint and a great deal nervous.
He had said he’d come over at five-thirty and she waited like a cat on hot bricks.
Brian was excited, though he had not quite gotten over the thought of Maribel and his uncle together. His opinion of Maribel as an innocent Christian lady had been shattered but there was so much more to her than who she had had sex with.
This evening was the evening when they would start afresh. He would reassure her that her past did not matter that much to him, and that he wanted to marry her anyway. He had even vowed to himself that he would have to keep his uncle and Maribel apart at future family get-togethers.
His family were huge fans of family gatherings, so that was something he knew he would have to deal with if he got married to Maribel. His father was the quintessential family man, who was always eager to host a family party.
His stomach twisted when he thought of his father; he was not doing well. His mother, being the alarmist that she was, had convinced him that his father was on his deathbed. Though his father had adamantly told Brian that he was doing well, he was anxious to see him.
Every day Pastor Green called him, his voice sounding like sandpaper on wood, demanding to find out if Brian wanted to switch back so that he could escape the cold. The truth was, he was getting very fond of the members at United Church and he was in no haste to go back to Canada, except to see his father.
If Maribel said yes, he would have to stay for a while for them to get married and sort themselves out. If she said no—he didn’t want to think of that. Life would be so much easier if she said yes.
He parked his car in a visitor’s parking space and anticipated the moment when he would see her sweet face. She was such a beautiful woman.
His cellular phone rang and he answered it before getting out of the car.
“Oh Pastor Brian, I am so happy I caught you.”
“Hello Sister Thelma,” Brian answered with a smile on his face. She was always calling him about something trivial or to brag about Rose.
“I went to Negril the other day, as you know.”
“Did you have a great time?” Brian asked while locking the car door.
“Oh yes,” Thelma gushed, “I learnt a lot.”
“Well, that’s good.” Brian switched the phone to his other ear and headed toward Maribel’s second floor apartment.
“I was very interested in a porn star duo called Peaches and Cream,” Thelma said, her voice still sounding high-pitched and sweet, “so I dragged Horace to Negril to find out more.”
“Porn, as in pornography?” Brian asked incredulously.
“Oh yes,” Thelma said. “I found out that they were first prostitutes on the road, selling their bodies mainly to tourists, and then they did a whopping fourteen porn videos, most of them together, with some shocking lesbian scenes.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Brian asked, exasperated. He was nearing Maribel’s door and was ready to cut off Thelma.
“Because …” Thelma said, anticipation thickening her voice, “our Sister Maribel is Peaches, and her friend Felicia was Cream. I was shocked, I tell you, pastor, that such a nice young lady was a common prostitute. Not that there is anything uncommon about prostitution.”
“Run that by me again?” Brian paused before he pressed the buzzer above Maribel’s door. Hadn’t his uncle called her Peaches? He felt a ringing in his ear and he had to lean against the wall. Could it be true? Was Maribel a prostitute?
“Shocking, isn’t it?” Thelma was saying shrilly in the phone. “I could see her doing the porn videos, but as I'm told—from some very shady sources, I should add—she used to sell her body for a measly $500 per night. I shudder to think of all the slimy men that have …”
Brian exhaled, “Sister Thelma, could you keep this to yourself? I have to go now. I will talk to you later.”
“Oh sure.” Thelma had gentled her voice to a purr. “Sure.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
He pressed the buzzer anyway, a decision he was not sure that he should have made after hearing such shattering news. He wanted to ask her about it. Hell, he wanted to laugh about it with her and tell her to sue Thelma for slander, but something inside him, that intuition which he prided himself on, was telling him that Thelma was telling the truth.
That was the major secret that Maribel was withholding. He studied the door panels fiercely; he actually felt numb.
She opened the door. She was in a pink dress and she smelled so good. He walked in the apartment and sat on a settee and stared into space. His brain ran over and over lurid scenes that sickened him to think about. This was beyond the pale. This was …
“Are you okay, Brian?” Maribel was looking at him, concerned.
He looked at her fully for the first time in his life, with all the scales dropped off from his eyes, and all he saw was the same beautiful, gentle woman he fell in love with. Thelma was just winding him up. She must have been crazy to tell him such a whopping lie about the woman he loved.
“Maribel?” Brian asked warily.
Maribel stiffened uncomfortably; he had a shattered look in his eye, as if something terrible had happened.
“Were you a prostitute?”
Maribel sat frozen in her chair. How did he find out? she asked herself. It must have been Thelma and her infernal investigation.
“I sit here and I look at you and I think, this must be a crazy question but you are just sitting there and I am thinking, no God, this can’t be right. She’s not laughing, she’s not denying it.”
“Brian, that’s … that’s … what I wanted to talk to you about.” Maribel clutched her shaking hands in her lap. “My story is not a pretty one. Just hear me out, please.”
Brian closed his eyes and swallowed. A lump had formed in his chest, a fist in his stomach and a hammer in his head. He could feel tears forming below his eyelids and he willed them not to fall. He felt amazingly let down. He felt as if he was dropped from a twenty-story building head first into concrete. “Brian?” Maribel questioned uncertainly.
“I am listening,” Brian said hoarsely.
“I ran away from home at seventeen,” Maribel said tremulously. “I ran straight into the car of a man I did not know.” She swallowed. “I lived with him for three months, till his wife kicked me out. I had to survive somehow, so I met this girl Felicia who was very street smart at the time,
and she told me we could make money as nude models.”
Maribel could hear the clock ticking in the kitchen. The room was so quiet she didn’t even know if Brian was still breathing. He had his hands clenched together and his eyes closed.
“When we went to the place where we were supposed to model, they asked us to do some videos. We drank and took drugs, and I to this day can’t recall half the things I did. In a two-month period I did about fourteen pornographic videos. The guys refused to pay us and Felicia decided to help herself to a bag of US money that she found. When she ran away I ran with her and we set up shop in a hole-in-the-wall place in Negril. We started doing high class hooking with people like your uncle. It paid the bills and fed our party lifestyle. And then two years later, I gave it up when Felicia died; went to live with a guy who was willing to keep me and started dancing for a living at different street dances. Felicia was shot at a party because of the money she stole. Ironically, it was money that she did not even use. She had hidden it in an account. That’s the money I used to escape Negril.”
Maribel bit her lip and stared at Brian. He hadn’t moved since she started telling her story.
“Do you even have any idea how many men you have had sex with?” Brian asked incredulously, opening one bloodshot eye to look at her.
Maribel frowned. “No, I don’t.”
Brian heaved a sigh. “Is there anything else? Have you murdered anyone? Had several abortions? Have a disease? Tell me; I want to know.”
Maribel sighed. A hysterical giggle was forming in her throat. “No, I haven’t murdered anyone, nor do I have a disease, nor have I had any abortions.”
“Do you still do drugs?” Brian asked, looking at her with pain stamped on his features.
“No.” Maribel frowned; she had vowed that she would not cry. She wouldn’t, at least not today. She had done all her crying already. A tear escaped her eye and she wiped it away fiercely. “I haven’t done drugs since I was nineteen. Haven’t had a drink since I joined the church.”
“Are you bisexual?” He suddenly remembered Thelma telling him about her lesbian scenes.
Maribel shook her head. “No I just did it for the money. Those kind of things copped a higher price—the kinkier, the better.”
Maribel suddenly felt lighter now that she had told him. now there was no secret between them. It was all out there for him to see now. She didn’t have to worry about keeping such a huge secret from him anymore. The ball was now squarely in his court.
Brian rubbed his temples slowly; there was a dull ache behind his eyes. This was really an explosive moment for him, “Maribel this is deep.” His voice was rough. “I just barely wrapped my mind around the fact that you slept with my uncle and now this bombshell. This is a big deal.
“I don’t want to respond to what you just told me with scorn or disdain; that would not be God’s way and I really am trying to be like Jesus but the man … the man in me is recoiling.
“The man that wanted a pure bride, or at least one that didn't have a tainted history as huge as yours, is screaming to just get up and go. And still there is another part of me that wants to know, how could you? Couldn’t you have gone to some women’s shelter? Visited a church? Gone to a children’s home until you were eighteen? Learned a skill? Done legitimate work?
“Maribel, there are women who have been in your position or worse who would never have prostituted themselves. How could you allow strange men to … even my own uncle? I have to get out of here.” Brian stood up.
He pushed his hand into his jacket pocket and felt the engagement ring he had bought for her and had fully expected to give her tonight. He couldn’t give it to her now, if ever.
He looked at her and grimaced. “I am sorry, Maribel, I need time to process all this.”
She nodded—her lips were trembling.
He wondered how many men had felt those lips on various body parts, and that thought alone had him marching to the door in blind fury.
Would he ever see her the same way again? She had broken something within him that he didn’t know if he could get back. Many things were coming clear to him now: the taunts about peaches and cream that Thelma made the other night, the reluctance of Maribel to get close to him and tell him her past.
That earth-shattering kiss they shared on Sunday—how much of that was experience from an ex-whore or just genuine passion? He braced himself on the doorjamb after he swung the door open. His mind was ticking a mile a minute.
“I’ll probably call you. I can't think right now.”
She didn’t answer. She just stared at his back in mute pain and that, more than anything, made him angrier with himself and angrier at her.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Maribel called in to work sick the next day. Her voice was so hoarse from crying that Annabelle from Human Resources had hurriedly gotten her off the phone and admonished her to see a doctor. But Maribel knew that her problem could not be helped by any doctor. In the last few months, her life had spiraled out of control. Her relatively quiet post-Negril days were now over.
She was forced to battle Mark, confide in Vivian, she had met up with Phillip at his daughter’s wedding and then the ultimate worst thing had happened—she had loved and lost the most caring man in the whole world.
Her eyes were partially swollen and her tear ducts were dry. She huddled in the bed and tried to think positive thoughts, but all of Friday passed in a blur.
She didn’t answer the doorbell or her cell phone. She didn’t care. As far as she knew her life was over. When Thelma told Horace, if she hadn’t done so already, he would probably pull their account from her company and would probably tell Mark why he no longer wanted to do business with them. The fallout from that would be too humiliating to consider.
Then there would be church. It was hard to be a sinner at church, or at least lay your sins bare for all the brethren to see.
It was night outside when she thought of the fallout from church. Some people would treat her as if she had some contagious disease; others would probably find it very hard not to be gleeful about her situation. She was pretty sure she would not be going back to that church.
It would be too much to hope that Thelma would keep her mouth shut and not broadcast what she had learned and allow Maribel a modicum of peace in her life.
A dull pounding at her door had her dragging herself out of the bed and staggering in the hallway. The pounding had gone on for close to ten minutes and Maribel could not ignore it anymore.
She peeped through the keyhole and saw Cathy and Vivian, looking concerned as they took turns knocking. She opened the door in Vivian’s mid-knock and was almost knocked sideways when Vivian fell on her and hugged her.
“Thank God, I was going to get the police, I swear, if you hadn’t opened the door.”
Cathy pushed Vivian aside and said, “Let me get a hug; I’ve been so worried. Vivian said you called in sick and that you had some major issues going on and that you wouldn’t answer your phone.”
Maribel sighed and stepped aside. “Come in.” She shuffled toward her living area and fell in a settee with her legs dangling off. “I feel like an old woman who hasn’t been taking her calcium. Can you hear my bones creaking?”
Vivian sat across from her, looking concerned. “So what’s wrong? Why are your eyes so swollen? You look as if you have been crying.”
Maribel looked at Cathy contemplatively. “Cathy, this may come as a shock to you. I told Viv already, so she shouldn’t be too shocked. I was a prostitute, starred in a couple of porn videos. Et cetera, et cetera. Blah, blah, blah.” She threw her hands up in the air.
Cathy half smiled. “You told me that one night when you came in drunk from a party while we were in college. I never pressed you about it; I figured if you wanted to tell me when you were sober you would.”
Maribel opened her eyes wider. “All this time you knew.”
Cathy nodded. “Yes, and yet we are still friends. It doesn’t change an
ything for me. I must confess I was a bit shocked when I heard—you were going on and on about how beastly your life was, and I just let you talk.”
Maribel shook her head. “I can’t believe I just freely spoke about it like that.”
Vivian stood up. “She told me the other day and I was shocked. I encouraged her to tell Brian since he proposed.”
“He did what?” Cathy jumped up and down on the settee. “You are going to marry Pastor Handsome and you did not see it fit to tell me?”
“I was uncertain, ashamed about my past, very restless in my spirit. I wondered if I should tell him or not, but it so happens that I didn’t even get the chance. It seems as if Thelma did.”
“So how did he take it?” Vivian, who was on her way to the kitchen, turned back.
“He was very distraught.” Maribel sniffed, remembering the look in Brian’s eyes. “I don’t think he will ever talk to me again. He couldn’t bear to look at me after.”
Cathy nodded. “I guess that reaction can be expected for now.”
Vivian sighed. “Well, it’s better that its all out in the open.”
Maribel looked at both of her friends and smiled. “I spent all day in bed feeling sorry for myself, even imagining that I was back at square one where my life was concerned. My job is on the line, my relationship is in the trash can, but I am just now remembering that I have several blessings. I still have you guys.”
Cathy got up and hugged her. “And you always will my dear.”
Later, after they had talked and laughed way up into the night and Maribel was alone again, she felt more like her old self and was able to look at things philosophically. She picked up her Bible for the comfort she would find in it.
After all, didn’t God say that we should come boldly to the throne of grace? Besides, what could she do about her past? It was already gone. She regretted everything that she had done, but really, there was no use in flagellating herself over the same thing over and over. God said he was faithful and just to forgive and she believed him, so her past was forgiven. She just needed to forgive herself and move on.
Preacher and The Prostitute Page 13
