“I’m not going to blame it on the U.S. mail.” Sister Betty stared in defiance of their supposed humility. “They were mailed almost a year ago, and not to you.”
“We forgive yo bad memory and all,” Bea said, ignoring Sister Betty’s comment while at the same time nodding her head in agreement with herself before plopping down upon the sofa. “Besides, we just figured you were all lathered because you was getting married for the first time. I think it’s called having the bridal blues or something like that.”
“It’s called virginity jitters,” Sasha murmured, rolling her eyes at the same time as she sat next to Bea.
Bea waved off Sasha’s interference with a flip of her hand.
Sister Betty watched Bea’s white skirt rise, showing too much of her thick hips and thighs, which resembled sides of old mottled beef. Her calves were tattooed with varicose veins and were dangling off the sofa. Bea opened her mouth to speak; her lips fluttered, making sounds like a car engine gunning.
“When we saw you was trying to hurry past us yesterday in that big car you and Trustee Freddie always riding around in while we was standing outside, sweltering in the heat—”
Sasha didn’t wait for Bea to finish. She jumped right in. “We thought you acted like we was low-life heathens. That was just downright rude. Since when do you see good Christian folks standing about outside of Lucifer’s Barbeque Pit, and you just gonna drive on by without waving or saying a hello? How you know we wasn’t going your way?”
“Oh, Sasha, hush up,” Bea said as she turned and smiled at Betty. “I, for one, was a bit more thoughtful. I figured you had the wedding on yo mind.” She stopped and pointed at Sasha. “Only an ole she-troll like Sasha would think otherwise.”
Lord, please help me before I say or do something to blemish my salvation. Sister Betty took a breath deep enough to make her cheeks appear sunken. Turning away from Bea and Sasha, she looked out of her window and exhaled loudly, startling a robin perched on the windowsill.
Seizing the opportunity of momentary silence, Sister Betty spoke. “Since you two have said all I care to hear, you can leave now. I won’t be jealous if you spread your aggravation elsewhere.”
Sasha had never been known to bite her tongue, whether her teeth were in or out, and her dentures began making annoying sucking and clacking noises, like her gums had turned into tap shoes. “Please sit down, Sister Betty, so we can get this wedding reception planned. How are we gonna get anything done with you standing over there?”
“It’s my wedding, my day, so stay outta my way. Do I need to get a court order—”
“Harrumph,” Sasha murmured. She’d cut Sister Betty off and begun jabbing at invisible flies with her cane. “All I know is that it’s been almost a year and a half since ya got asked for your wrinkled hand in matrimony, so the sooner we get ya married, the quicker ya will stop playing holier than the rest of us.”
Suddenly, Sasha narrowed her eyes, tightened her lips, and began inching away from Bea. She nodded toward Sister Betty, with her loose dentures held captive by the tightening of her mouth, a signal that Sister Betty knew all too well. Sasha was about to tell a lie.
“I’m sharing this with you, Sister Betty, because folks whispering behind your back. They’ve been saying that since you marrying someone with a lot of money, just like you has, that it has made ya start acting funnier than usual.”
“What do you mean, Sasha, by me acting funny?”
“I mean funny, as in how you acting all unusually high and mighty, like Trustee Noel’s ice is colder than everybody else’s ice.”
Sister Betty found herself searching for a seat in her own living room. It wasn’t that she hadn’t known for years that folks talked about her. Some had always thought she was extraordinarily close to the Lord. She just couldn’t understand why they’d think badly of her because she’d become engaged. She also wanted to sit a bit closer to Sasha to see the depth of her lies or the truth, should she happen to tell it. “Go on, Sasha.”
Bea, determined that she be involved in the conversation, urged Sasha on. “Yeah, tell it, Mighty Mouse.”
“Don’t rush me. This is painful, but I must tell the truth.” Sasha laid open her Bible in her lap. It was a move she often used. However, the page she’d turned to was the appendix. “For instance,” Sasha continued, “you don’t want nobody talking about him or even to him unless it’s about the Lord. Y’all together so much, ya act like there’s some type of spell or something put on the both of ya.” She pointed in Sister Betty’s direction. “In fact, I ain’t seen you this particular sort of crazy since you snapped a few years back, telling folks the good Lord done called you on the telephone.”
“He most certainly did,” Betty murmured under her breath.
Sasha then leaned back against the sofa. “So if ya ready to get off that high horse of yourn, we can get started on planning this shindig of a wedding reception.”
“Why do you want to do something that I obviously don’t want you to do?” Sister Betty asked before adding, “For the last time, neither of you is invited.”
Sasha let out a loud sigh, hoping what she was about to say sounded reasonable or, better yet, truthful. “To tell the truth, I’m entering the business world,” Sasha confessed. “Perhaps with she-rilla. We’re pooling our knowledge of what’s trending, and planning upscale events.”
As if on cue, Bea raised her head and slowly tried to sit up straight, failing to silence the annoying cracking sound from her back. “That’s right. We haven’t made up our minds yet, but we’re thinking about calling it A B.S. Event.” Leaning forward, she explained further, “Those are also our initials.” Falling back, she smiled a little and then continued. “We even have a slogan. ‘If somebody else plans it, then it’s not B.S.’ ” Bea paused and raised her pen in the air. “I need a little mo’ time to work on yo guest list and get yo reception invites hand-printed and into the mail. This time I’m gonna see to it that it’s done right, because I’m doing it myself and all by myself.”
With her pillbox hat leaning to the side, Sasha boasted, “I’m in charge of finding places to hold the events. That’s called venue hunting.”
Sister Betty’s fingers lifted her wig a little, and she began to scratch her scalp in frustration. She became mute, unable to believe Bea’s crazier than normal audacity
Bea quickly dropped her head. She licked the lead tip of the pencil before she began to scribble something on a yellow legal pad. Suddenly, without warning, she lifted her head and added, “And if Trustee Noel even thinks about getting sick again, so y’all can’t get married this time, I gonna whup him so bad, even the good Lord won’t recognize him!”
“He was sick!” Sister Betty barked. “And if it didn’t bother me none, I don’t see why it’s anybody’s business when and how I get married. . . .”
Sister Betty’s eyes moistened as she recalled when her fiance, Trustee Freddie Noel, collapsed last February. It had happened just a few days shy of their wedding day, after he’d fallen earlier in the week while trying to shovel snow, which was rare in Pelzer. He’d spent a few days in the hospital, which caused them to postpone their wedding day. Freddie had returned home with the cause of the collapse undetermined.
“Your problem is that when you ain’t being too uppity, you too nice,” Sasha chimed in, interrupting Sister Betty’s thoughts. “That’s why me or Bea gonna plan this wedding reception for ya!”
“Tell her, Sasha!”
Sasha raised her cane. “Are you deaf or something, Bea? Didn’t I just tell her?”
Sister Betty found herself fingering the cross around her neck. As she looked around the living room, her eyes finally landed upon the large red velvet-backed picture of Jesus hanging over the fireplace. All she could do was stare at His peaceful countenance and pray. Lord, if you don’t help me with these aggravating women, I’m gonna need some of your forgiveness for premeditated violence and bail money.
“At the moment we’re almost fi
nished with outlining things,” Sasha announced proudly, interrupting Sister Betty’s silent prayer. “I’ve got some great ideas, and Bea thinks she has one or two, as well.”
“Yep, I’ve got it down pat. And this time it’ll go off without a hitch,” Bea sneered, “despite what place this lil Smurf done thought to hold it.”
Throwing up her hands, Sister Betty gritted her teeth. “Are you two back to name-calling and wasting my time?”
“You know these are just our pet names.” Sasha winked at Sister Betty before clicking her false teeth, signaling she was lying, again. Sasha then rushed from the sofa and pressed a sheet of paper into Sister Betty’s hand. “Now, all you hafta do is look over what I’ve written and decide which of these here venues is good enough for you. Just make it quick, because I have other things to attend to.”
“When ya finish balling up that wad of stupidity,” Bea quipped, “ya can take my suggestions and let me run with them.”
“I’ve had enough!” Sister Betty yelled, causing Sasha to retreat back to the sofa. “How many times I need to tell you two that this may be my first marriage, but I’ve known a carnal nature before, and I’ve been to a few weddings, too? So for the last time, you two can leave now, because I know what I want and how I want it.” Sister Betty watched Sasha, who was not one to tolerate being pushed around, pitifully try to cross her parentheses-shaped arthritic legs.
“That may be,” Sasha said coldly, “but everybody at the church knows your fiance, Freddie Noel, skinny and as yellow as a number two pencil, ain’t ever had the wrapping taken off his old carnal pleasure. . . .”
“What’d you say?” Sister Betty could feel her fist take on a life of its own as it began to ball up again.
Ignoring Sister Betty again, Sasha continued. “You gonna need some advice before Trustee Freddie returns from his monthly prison ministry visits.”
“How do you know where my fiance goes?”
“I know more than you think I do,” Sasha replied. “I know another thing, too.”
“What?” The veins in Sister Betty’s scalp began to pulsate. She could feel the heat rise from her head. She was hot!
Sasha was determined to finish what she thought was a blow to Sister Betty’s foolish confidence in matters of a worldly nature. “I know that you know nothing about how to start a life with a man his age who’s probably still a virgin. He acts like he’s had very little experience in the ways of womanizing.”
Sister Betty jammed her hand inside the pocket of her nightgown and felt around for a safety pin or a nail clipper, anything to jab Sasha. “You’re going too far, Sasha. I believe I got something, though, that’ll bring you back.”
“Sister Betty, stop acting shy and extra saved,” Sasha snapped while pointing toward Bea, who had remained busy writing on her legal pad throughout their exchange. “At least ask Bea about such sexual matters. Low-life folks she ran with back in her day called her Bea Baby Doll. This ole heifer ran a gambling parlor and a bawdy house. Everybody knows she’s done more than just a little prison time, and you know in there they learn new tricks every day. So if anyone can show you how to keep your man happy with more than just baking him a mind-crippling red velvet cake, this ole she-rilla silverback can.”
“Betty, how do you spell Becton?” Bea had suddenly turned to face Sister Betty, with her eyes twitching like a pair of Mexican jumping beans. “Is it b-a-c-k-t-u-n? And are you also taking the name Noel?”
Bea quickly dropped her head again. The front of her curly plum-colored wig moved down onto her forehead, leaving her fez slanted. She continued focusing on the legal pad in her lap, with only her dark, plump cheeks blowing in and out showing any sign of life, not acknowledging Sasha’s tasteless attempt at promoting her sexual expertise and exploits from her pre- and early Christian past.
Obviously still ignoring Sister Betty’s complaint, Bea began pushing her wig back into place and adjusting the fez before she spoke again. “I’ve been calling ya Sister Betty for more than forty years, and I ain’t ever had to spell yo last name. I’m guessing, though, that you’d want it printed on the reception invites. I’m also guessing you’d want to invite them nosy next-door fake detective cousins, Joy and Patience, as well as some of your relatives, like Thurgood and Delilah Pillar from New York.”
“Just put all your angst to rest,” Sasha told Sister Betty softly, as though she’d not said a mean word in the last two minutes. Then, sitting sideways and with her pointing finger flipped at Bea, she continued. “We can get Porky and Grandma Pudding to cater it. You’ll see that idea written on my venue suggestion list. And once the health department gives Porky the go-ahead to reopen the El Diablo Soul Food Shanty, we can hold the reception in the back room.” Sasha pointed at the paper in Sister Betty’s hands. “You’ll see it written down.”
“Have mercy” Bea raised one hand and nodded at Sister Betty. She then used her hand to circle her head, indicating what she thought of Sasha’s idea. “Look, I got to go and get things started,” Bea announced suddenly, before winking at Sister Betty. “All I can say,” she added, “is that when you and Freddie show up for the reception, y’all better be wearing sunglasses, ’cause you two gonna look like stars!”
“I believe it’s you two nosy, Satan-serving she-witches that’d better be wearing sunglasses to cover the black eyes I’ll give you if you come anywhere near me and Betty’s wedding dray!”
Sister Betty turned around fast enough to cause whiplash. “Freddie! When did you get here?”
Chapter 2
“I’ve been standing in the foyer for the past ten minutes, listening to these two interfering and signifying. Dang busybodies, the both of them. Ain’t their business about what should or shouldn’t be going on in folks’ private bedrooms.”
Trustee Freddie Noel’s yellowish complexion had turned almost ashen from anger. Before Sister Betty, Sasha, or Bea could say another word, he had already crossed the carpet and stood hovering over Sasha and Bea.
With his long bony fingers waving between the two church mothers, he blasted them further. “Let me tell you two meddlesome she-demons another thing.”
Bea tried to rise up to show she wasn’t afraid of Freddie. As much as she wanted to do so, all she managed was to move farther back on the sofa.
Sasha’s cane kept slipping out of her hand, so she kept quiet.
“Freddie, please,” Sister Betty pleaded. “Neither of them is worth it.”
“Don’t move a muscle, Honey Bee. I want you to stay right where you are!” He clasped his hands and began cracking his knuckles slowly before shuffling his feet rope-a-dope-style like Muhammad Ali. “When I’m finished with them, you can throw the leavings out into the street.”
As he turned around once more to face Bea and Sasha, Freddie’s eyes began blinking, alternating between widening and narrowing. “If I catch either of you two over here again, interfering, insinuating, signifying, or bothering my sweet Betty, with so much as a howdy-do about what she and I have or haven’t ever done, again—”
Sasha didn’t wait for Freddie to finish. “Oh really!” she growled, trying to match his threats with as much masculinity as she could in a desperate act of intimidation. “So then what are you gonna do . . . if we do?”
Freddie bent down and now stood close enough to smell the odor of the snuff Sasha always claimed she never dipped. “I will put my foot so far up your scrawny tail that every time you open your big mouth, folks can see what color drawers you’re wearing!” He stood and then added, “That is, if it’s a day that you’re wearing any. Everybody knows and has seen that you don’t always adhere to the feminine trappings of underwear.”
It took a few moments for Sister Betty to wrap her head around what had just happened. She’d never seen that side of Freddie, although she could certainly understand Bea and Sasha pushing him to that point. “My God,” she murmured.
Without saying another word, besides a unified “Harrumph,” Bea and Sasha gathered their belo
ngings. With Betty and Freddie walking close behind, the two stubborn old women took their time heading toward the front door.
Sister Betty knew Sasha wasn’t leaving without having the last word.
No sooner had Sasha stepped outside and onto the front porch than she turned toward Freddie. She curled her lips, turned her head, and said boldly to Sister Betty, “We’ll see you at Wednesday night prayer meeting.”
“That’s right,” Bea finally chimed in with her own version of false bravado. She began waving her legal pad in Sister Betty’s direction. “Perhaps then you’ll explain to the people of God how it is that the man you ain’t married to yet can come and go into your house, as well as insult good Christian-like folks with good inventions!”
“Intentions, Bea, intentions!” Sasha groaned, correcting her before shaking her head and appearing disgusted.
“Whatever!” Bea snapped. “They are doing sinful things. I just know it! I know a sinner when I see one.” Bea then turned to Sasha and quipped, “C’mon, sinner, er . . . Sasha. We gotta figure out which of those dumb ideas you have on where to hold the reception at that we’re gonna toss out.”
It took only a short time after Sasha and Bea’s visit before Freddie led Betty back into her living room. She told him about the unsettling vision she’d had the night before Bea and Sasha’s visit. “I should’ve known God was trying to warn me so they wouldn’t pluck my last praying nerve,” she said before they both fell to their knees.
Soon after saying a fervent prayer in which they repented and asked God for restoration, the couple, hand in hand, entered Sister Betty’s spacious kitchen.
“I feel such peace every time we come in here together,” she sighed.
Sister Betty and Freddie had already decided to sell his home once they were married. His house was only around the corner. With that in mind, she’d had her kitchen redecorated. It seemed like a practical idea, seeing as how they both loved to cook and would need extra space. They’d had it remodeled in cherrywood, everything but the sink, stove, and refrigerator. There was also a mirrored ceiling, which reflected the shine from the speckled white marble tiles and the red and white walls. In the center of the kitchen was an island that took up most of the space.
Sister Betty Says I Do Page 2