by E. N. Joy
“How so?” Paige asked. At first he was driving right down her street, but all of a sudden it appeared as though he was going to drive right past her house.
“Because going back to my relationship with God, God courted me. During this courtship I was able to give God all of me. Now had I been gallivanting around town with other gods, I’d not been able to eventually form the relationship with God that I have now. I wouldn’t have had the time to really get to know Him. Not with the distraction of all those other gods. And not with my flesh, of course, trying to see what it could get from one god and which god had more to offer, etc . . . See, the God I serve is my everything, as will be the woman God shows me to seek after. So I feel as though I can still do the dating thing, but just with one woman. Because, God willing, there is the promise that the courtship will eventually turn into a relationship; an everlasting one.”
In a matter of minutes, Paige’s entire perspective on finding a husband had changed. For the first time ever, someone had spoken to her in such a way to make her look at things differently. Perhaps it didn’t take dating several men.
How was it that this man knew everything that was in her spirit? Soul mates, she surmised. If, in fact, Blake was truly her soul mate sent from God, then there was one thing about her that she felt he should be able to deal with. There was so much Blake knew about her without her ever even having to say a word. Hopefully this would be one of them; otherwise, she didn’t know how exactly she was going to tell him.
Chapter Eleven
“Deborah, I mean Miss Lucas. This is Lynox. Chase. Lynox Chase.”
Deborah listened to what had to have been the hundredth voice message Lynox had left her since the incident at Max & Erma’s a month ago. He was persistent. She had to give him that. He’d been calling leaving messages of apology, and that he wanted to explain his relationship with Helen. That it was over. That it was nothing. That it never really started, so there actually wasn’t anything to be over. Blah-blah-blah.
Deborah didn’t want to hear it. Sure she had no doubt that that manuscript of his was a New York Times bestseller all day long, but it wasn’t worth it. Obviously, whether Lynox felt the same way or not, Helen was into him. Helen thought that there was something that had gotten started. Something she wasn’t fond of it being over with; if it was actually over. Either way it went, Deborah didn’t want to give Helen any more reasons to be on her back than she already had. So she deleted the message from Lynox without listening to the rest of it.
Running behind on her day’s work, Deborah had about twenty-five more pages of a manuscript that she needed to edit. After she finished that, she had an evening appointment with a prospective client who needed some editing work done. The woman had called just this morning sounding desperate. She was claiming that thousands of dollars had been paid to other so-called professional editors whose skills hadn’t been worth the paper the manuscript had been typed on. It was Friday, and the woman would be going on vacation for the next two weeks. She really wanted to have an enjoyable vacation knowing that her work was finally in a credible editor’s hands.
“You came highly recommended by a nice woman I met who goes to your church,” the lady had told Deborah. “Her name slips my mind, but she’s invited me to come visit your church, and I told her I’d take her up on the offer sometime after I return from vacation.”
Deborah was flattered, and at the same time, able to put herself in the woman’s shoes. She reflected on all of the money she’d wasted on persons claiming to be professional editors, although they were only professional by their own definitions. Deborah felt for the woman and agreed to meet with her.
“I have to get this done in the next hour so that I can start getting ready,” Deborah said to herself as she went through the tedious manuscript. She’d taken on the project as a favor to a fellow editor. The other editor had gone through the manuscript once, but knew giving it a second look wouldn’t do any good as the story was just awful. She needed fresh eyes; Deborah’s eyes.
Deborah never understood why her colleague just took on any and every project that was dropped on her doorstep. Perhaps it was because of that three hundred thousand dollar house she was living in. Barely able to afford the always adjusting mortgage rate, she couldn’t be too picky with the projects that came her way. Although Deborah, too, lived in a nice home, she felt that it would be wrong for her to just take on any and every project, knowing she couldn’t compliment it in any way. She trusted God to bring forth projects which her skills could enhance, and she made it a point to always read through the projects before taking them on, which is why she’d forewarned the woman she had to meet this evening not to prematurely get her hopes up too high. Deborah told her that she’d only take it on if she felt in her spirit that the manuscript could benefit from her services.
An hour and a half after Deborah declared only having twenty-five pages to go, she still had fifteen more. “I don’t care if she is paying me the full three thousand dollars the author is paying her,” Deborah complained in frustration, “this editing job isn’t worth all the money in the world. Hideous.”
She set the manuscript aside, deciding the heck with the last few pages for today. She needed to rest and clear her mind before meeting with the would-be client tonight. The poor grammar, run-on sentences, sentence fragments, misspellings, ten main characters, and six major storylines had taken its toll on Deborah’s sanity. And on top of a late appointment, she had to go to the Singles Ministry meeting afterward. Tonight they were going over the by-laws, and she knew with the bunch of rambunctious divas in that group, it was going to consist of a lot more than Mother Doreen saying, “Class, let’s all read this together,” and then meeting adjourned. No, she was certain a handful of women would have their say, especially considering Mother Doreen was proposing meeting dues to help fund some of the Single Ministry’s functions.
Just as Deborah stood up from her desk to head toward her master bath where she would prepare a nice, hot bath with the jet bubbles set on high, her cell phone rang. Deborah walked over to the phone and looked at the caller ID. It was him again. Lynox. She pressed the ignore button and sent him straight to voicemail. Surely after only two rings he’d know she’d purposely ignored his call. Hopefully, just like he’d told Helen, he himself would get the hint.
Making her way into her master bath, Deborah rinsed out the tub and ran some water. She sat on the edge of the tub watching the water spill out the faucet and fill the tub. The sound of the water flowing was soothing. As she sat there, though, for some reason her mind traveled to thoughts of Lynox. The weirdest thing; she wondered what might have come of the two of them had Helen not become a factor. Would their dealings have remained professional, or would they have taken things to a more personal level?
Deborah couldn’t deny the man was handsome, professional, confident, and very talented in the literary category. A smile rested on Deborah’s lips without her realizing it. Might she have become his manager/wife like so many successful men had appointed their wives to be, such as Sugar Shane Mosley, the famous boxer? Deborah had always admired how low-key and professional Mr. Mosley’s wife had been while guiding his boxing career. That’s exactly how Deborah would have played her role. She could see it now; auctioning her famous husband’s novels off to all the major publishers and auctioning his movie rights to major film companies, even before the books were written.
“Yeah,” she nodded with a smile, this time realizing she was smiling. Realizing she’d been fantasizing. About a man. Not just any man; Lynox. “Girl, get it together. That manuscript really is driving you crazy.” She chuckled as she turned the water off, turned the jets on, and found herself soaking, cleansing herself. The outside anyway. But if only she could cleanse away what was on the inside.
When Deborah walked into Family Café, she spotted several familiar faces. She waved and greeted as Zelda, the owner’s daughter, approached her.
“Welcome to Family Café, Miss Deb
orah. It’s good to see you.” Zelda gave her regular huge smile that displayed the gap, which she referred to as a window, between her two front teeth.
“Hello, Zelda. It’s good to see you too.” Deborah returned the greeting. She liked Zelda and was always impressed by the hard work she put into the family business. It didn’t matter what time or what day of the week Deborah patronized the café, which was often; Zelda was hard at work.
Deborah would have preferred to set up her meetings at the library in one of the meeting rooms, but Malvonia’s first and only library was still in the process of being built, and the nearest one was in Reynoldsburg. Reynoldsburg was another suburb of Columbus and about a forty-five minute drive from Malvonia. In traffic, it could take Deborah over two hours of roundtrip driving time to meet with someone. On occasion she’d had meetings at the Book Brewery, a family owned bookstore located in Malvonia. Deborah liked the set up, but the store played distracting music that she sometimes found difficult to hold a conversation over. Family Café would do just fine as far as Deborah was concerned. It allowed her to take care of business and fill her belly all at one time.
“You alone today, Miss Deborah?” Zelda asked as she led Deborah to a booth.
“I’m meeting someone, Zelda, so I’m going to need to sit facing the door so that I can watch for them.”
“Not a problem.” Zelda placed a menu in front of Deborah as she sat her in a spot facing the door as requested. She then placed a menu in the vacant space across from her. “I’ll bring you your ice water with lemon while you wait. And it’s always good seeing you, Miss Deborah.”
“You too, Zelda. Now I’m still waiting to see you over at New Day.” Deborah winked.
“Always the evangelist.” Zelda smiled back.
Zelda had once been a faithful member of New Day. Her entire family still was. But the youth Sunday School teacher repeatedly kept chastising the children, Zelda’s child included. The chastising was done in a manner that was un-Christlike and sometimes even physical. It bothered Zelda that the church didn’t really do anything about it, causing her to leave the church permanently. That was a year ago, and Deborah, as well as a few of the other members of New Day who crossed Zelda’s path, had been encouraging her to return ever since. Had Zelda been attending church elsewhere, perhaps Deborah wouldn’t have been so aggressive, but to her knowledge, Zelda hadn’t been to New Day or any other church since.
“Sometimes you just have to let people go,” the pastor had once said about members who leave their churches. “On some occasions, God removes a person from a church because He wants to do something with them. Their calling may not be at the church they are attending, so God wants to shake things up a little to give them a wake up call. Kind of a push toward their destiny.”
As far as Deborah could see, God wasn’t shaking anything up in Zelda’s life at any other church, because ever since leaving New Day, she’d not been fellowshipping elsewhere. So this had to be an exception. Perhaps this wasn’t about Zelda at all. Perhaps it was a test to see if New Day would go after one of it’s lost sheep. Deborah didn’t want to fail the test.
“I’m not going to give up on seeing you back at New Day, Zelda.” Deborah smiled as she picked up the menu and covered her face, a sign to Zelda that she didn’t want to hear anything else about it.
Zelda smiled, shook her head, and walked away, knowing that her regular customer meant well.
Deborah held the menu up and feigned reading it a few seconds later. She knew that menu like the books of the Bible. When she finally put the menu down, she immediately looked out the window to see if she might be able to recognize her meeting companion pulling up. She didn’t know what the woman looked like, but figured she’d be able to recognize a Malvonia outsider who might appear as though they were looking for someone.
“Here’s your water, Miss Deborah.” Zelda placed the glass in front of her. “I’ll be back to take your order once your guest arrives. Hopefully you’ll be trying something other than that open faced roast beef sandwich.”
“Zelda, now you know I’ve tried everything on this menu. It’s all equally delicious, but I prefer my favorite all the same.”
“I know, but like yourself, Miss Deborah, I just thought I’d try to persuade you.” Zelda winked and walked away.
Deborah shook her head and smiled as she picked up her drink, held it in both hands and took a sip of the ice cold water. “Mmm,” she closed her eyes and said after the refreshing cool liquid made its way down her throat. It was exactly what she needed for a hot summer day. And besides that, Zelda always put just the right amount of lemons in her water. She filled her mouth with more of the drink before she opened her eyes. Without being able to help herself, Deborah spat the water all over the person that sat in front of her. After all, this was the last person she had expected to see.
Chapter Twelve
“Haven’t you been getting my messages? You don’t know how to return a call?”
“Sorry. I’ve really been meaning to call you back. It’s just that—”
“I know, I know. You’re so busy and all.”
This was typically how Tamarra’s conversations with her mother went. Her mother would call for two weeks straight leaving messages before she’d finally catch Tamarra. Tamarra would apologize for not returning her calls, the excuse being she’d been busy.
“Right, Mom. I’ve been busy, and I wanted to call you when I could really—”
“Sit down and hold a conversation,” her mother finished her sentence with an exasperated tone. “How many years are you going to feed me that excuse?”
“I don’t know, Mother. How long are you going to keep buying it?” Tamarra was part joking, part serious.
“Don’t get fresh with me, girl. You might be in Ohio, and I might be in Maryland, but I got GPS. I know how to get to you in six hours or less,” her mother threatened.
“I’m sorry, Mom. It’s just that I’m in the middle of loading up food and stuff for an event I have to cater.”
“You need to slow down, girl. I know God gave you the gift to burn in the kitchen, but I hope you ain’t spending all of your time cooking and catering, and not spending any time with God.”
“Mother, please. I attend church faithfully every Sunday.”
“I hope that doesn’t mean you’re one of those Sunday only Christians.”
“It doesn’t, Mother. I commune with God daily and am constantly in His Word. I’d be a fool not to be.” Tamarra had no idea why her mother was always on top of her about church and God when she herself didn’t even go to church and never talked about God moving in her own life. But Tamarra never questioned it. That would mean having to hold a conversation with her mother for much longer than she wanted to. “God is the only person in this world who I can trust. The only person I can turn to and who I know is going to protect me no matter what. He’ll protect me when no one else will.”
There was dead silence on the line. Tamarra knew that last statement had brought back memories to her mother. She’d meant for them to. Why should she be the only one affected by the memories? Misery loved company. Tamarra’s misery deserved company.
Tamarra’s mother cleared her throat before saying, “Well, I guess I better let you go.”
Tamarra knew those were going to be the next words to come out of her mother’s mouth. Every time her mother feared the conversation was going to go in a direction she’d managed to steer clear of for years, she rushed off the phone.
“Okay, Mom. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Call me and your father sometime. Your father would love to talk to you.”
Tamarra shook her head. My father, she had thought. Yeah right. Whenever they did live in the same town, her father could barely look at her. She knew darn well he didn’t want her calling, forcing him to talk to her. Liar, Tamarra thought about her mother. But then again, once a liar, always a liar. For years her mother had lived a lie. Their entire family had lived a lie, T
amarra being forced to participate in it, forced to believe it was for her own sake.
“Sure, Mom. Take care. Bye-bye.”
“Bye, Tamarra. I—”
And just like clock work, Tamarra hung up the phone before the conversation went in a direction she didn’t want it to. No sooner than she hung up the phone, it rang again. Tamarra’s heart beat one hundred miles per hour. After all these years had her mother decided to call back and force her to say the words?
“Hello,” Tamarra answered.
“Hello to you too.”
“Oh, Maeyl.” Tamarra sighed, relieved that it wasn’t her mother calling back.
“You sound stressed. Is everything okay?” Maeyl asked through the phone receiver.
“Yeah. Well, sure, I guess,” Tamarra said as she stacked pans and warmers in the back of her jeep while locking her cell phone in between her ear and her shoulder. “Dang it!” she said when several pieces of utensils she’d had sitting on top of one of the pans hit the ground.
“Not to call you a liar or anything, but it doesn’t sound like it.”
Tamarra took a deep breath. “No, Maeyl, you’re right. I am stressed. I booked two catering affairs for one day. In addition to that, as you know, we have the Singles Ministry meeting tonight at seven. I have to be there because we are going over the bylaws, and you know how that goes. It’s speak now or forever hold your peace. If you’re not there to have input, then you can’t comment on something later. It’s just like voting. If you don’t go out and vote, then you can’t complain about the government leaders.”
“Well, what time are your catering affairs?”
“One is at four o’clock. The other is later tonight.”
“Four o’clock is just in a couple of hours.”
“I know. It shouldn’t be but a couple hours long. Only thing is, I forgot to go pick up the uniforms for me and my staff from the dry cleaners so that we’ll have them for the second catering event. We’ll be okay as long as we don’t spill anything on the ones we have while catering the first event. We can’t show up in dirty uniforms to the second affair. That would be way too unprofessional.”
