The telephone rang. Tai glanced at the clock and was surprised to see it was almost eleven. She rolled away from King and grabbed the receiver. “Hey, Mama Max,” she said, yawning.
“Don’t tell me y’all still in the bed! Lord have mercy, I don’t know what I’m gonna do with you lovebirds. You betta’ be careful, else y’all be saying hello to number five.”
Tai had never told her mother-in-law that King had had a vasectomy. Guess he hadn’t either. “Now, Mama Max, don’t worry yourself.”
Tai swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. Donning her robe, she padded down the stairs to the kitchen and the coffee machine. It was definitely that time. “What are the kids doing?”
“The twins are outside, running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Princess is on that datgum cell phone. You’d think that thang grew out her ears long as she stays on it.”
“I told her about that. Let me talk to her. She’s at your house and should be visiting with you!”
“Ah, don’t bother that child. She alright, helped me fix breakfast this morning. We had a nice little chat. She’s a sweet baby, growing up though. Pretty soon she’ll be grown and gone just like her big brother, Timothy. You’ll have two in college.”
“Don’t remind me. The boys are circling like bees to honey.”
“Well, just watch and make sure that none of ’em sting.”
Tai jumped as King lightly patted her booty. She’d not heard a sound as he walked up. “You scared me!”
“That’s what I intended.” King reached for the phone. “Is that Mama?”
“I’ll be over in a couple hours, Mama. Here’s your son.” She pressed the speaker phone button, noticing King was dressed to go out into Kansas’s winter chill. He looked impressive in his double-breasted, knee-length cashmere wool. “You’re not eating?” Tai asked.
“Hey, Mama,” King spoke into the phone and then over to Tai, “No time, baby. I’ll grab something on the way.”
Tai shook her head. Right after she and King picked up the pieces from his last affair, he’d cut back on work considerably. Slowly but surely, however, the workaholic was heading back to a full, hectic schedule.
“Look Mama, I gotta go, I gotta go, now,” King said hurriedly when after a few pleasantries Mama Max started grilling him about his heavy workload.
“Uh-huh, such a hurry to get off the phone since she’s getting in your business,” Tai said, laughing at the easy repartee in which King and his mom communicated. It was good to hear; their relationship had suffered during his affair with April.
King promised his mother a visit, ended the call, kissed Tai lightly on the forehead and headed toward the front door. Tai could see it in his demeanor; he was already making the mental switch from husband to pastor/company president.
“I’ll call you later.” And he was out the door.
“Things still fine with Tootie back?” Mama Max asked.
“Yes,” Tai replied. “King sees her when he visits Miss Smith in the hospital. You know she just had surgery. Deacon Nash visits her often, too, prays and reads the Bible with her.”
“That’s good. Nancy will appreciate having Deke there. They’ve known each other for years.” Mama Max appreciated Deacon Nash being there regularly, too, instead of King, but she kept her concerns about King and Tootie to herself. She prayed the years apart had cooled the once unquenchable ardor between them. “You have any problems with King being at the hospital?”
“Not anymore,” Tai answered. “I’m not going to let something that happened so long ago worry me now.”
“That’s exactly right, baby. Let bygones stay gone. Who knows? She might even come to church.”
Tai didn’t know how she felt about that. “Well, hopefully not in one of her cat suits.”
Both Mama and Tai remembered the sinfully tight outfits Tootie had brazenly worn to the Lord’s house.
“Oh, chile, she probably can’t fit into those anymore.”
Tai tried to squelch her strong desire for Tootie to have aged badly. “I pray everything turns out okay with her mom,” she said, with compassion. While not extremely close to her, Tai couldn’t imagine life without her mother, or her mother-in-law. “Thank God for you, Mama.”
“Think nothing of it, baby.”
“Hey,” Tai said, wanting to change the subject and lighten the mood, “you want to work out today? You haven’t been in what, about two weeks now?”
“No, chile, these old knees been giving me trouble. Best I sit in this here house and act my age.”
“I pray you never start doing that,” Tai answered sincerely. “I told the kids I’d take them to the movies later. If you’re feeling better, we can go see something for grownups while they watch what they want. That sound good?”
“Now that sounds like something I’ll be able to handle. Can sit on my behind in their chairs as well as my own, I ’spect.”
They finalized their plans. Tai would go to the gym and then head over to Mama’s. Mama would make sure Princess and the twins were ready. Putting the omelet fixings back that she’d grabbed for her and King, Tai decided on two boiled eggs and toast instead. Better for her workout, the second one of the day. The first one had been with King and, yes, it was still good.
8
Big Booty Tootie
“I’m glad the men decided to play a few holes, give us some time to catch up,” Tai said to Vivian, as they strolled leisurely to Vivian’s Escalade.
“Me, too,” Vivian replied.
They had just enjoyed a few jostled, crowded hours in LA’s famous “garment district.” Vivian usually didn’t have the patience for the dense street vendors, or “The Alley’s” rambunctious atmosphere, but on special occasions, such as when she had her best friend in tow, she braved the traffic and ventured into the masses. It had been worth it. There were a few upscale shops that sold her beloved designer suits at a third of what she’d pay for them elsewhere. Plus, the February day was perfect, not a cloud in the sky.
Vivian punched a button and heard the locks pop open. She and Tai placed their bags in the handy back compartment and carefully slid onto soft leather seats.
“You haven’t been here since the summit,” Vivian said, as she pulled away from the curb. “I can’t believe you guys are flying back right after the wedding.”
“You know King is trying not to miss a service,” Tai answered, buckling her seatbelt. “At least he got a guest minister for the morning message. We’ll take a morning flight out and be home by five.”
King and Tai had arrived Friday, a little after nine A.M., to a sunny, warm day in Los Angeles. A car had picked them up and whisked them to Derrick and Vivian’s, where Vivian had prepared a sumptuous breakfast of homemade waffles, fluffy scrambled eggs, turkey bacon, fresh fruit, coffee, and juice. They’d spent a couple hours relaxing by the pool, and then the boys had headed off to their newfound passion, the golf course. Derrick had taken it up a year ago with some men at KCCC, and had soon thrown down the “you-can’t-play-golf-it’s-a-thinking-man’s-game” gauntlet to King. King had hit the greens shortly thereafter with the most unlikely of partners, his dad, the Reverend Doctor Pastor Bishop Overseer Mister Stanley Obadiah Meshach Brook Jr. Now, in between King’s love of golf and his dad’s love of fishing, they were spending more time together than ever before in their lives. Both Tai and Mama Max were glad for that.
“I can understand his being anxious to get back,” Vivian said, as she turned onto Olympic Boulevard and drove away from the crowded downtown area, “especially with the success of your broadcast ministry. I know it’s only been a month, and you guys are still working out the kinks, but it really is good, Tai. King’s charisma comes right through the TV screen, and he always was an awesome orator. You guys may not get that five-year reprieve you wanted between major building projects.”
“Tell me about it. We’re already seeing the increase in attendance at services. Just slightly right now, thank God, b
ut as the network opens up in more markets, and the word gets around Kansas City and the surrounding towns,” Tai sighed, “I think things are really going to blow up.”
Tai’s sigh had not gone unnoticed. Vivian glanced over. “I understand, sistah, mega-congregations are a lot of work. Any size congregation is a lot of work, for that matter, but once they get over a thousand, and then two thousand, and on and on…no joke.”
“Yeah, King’s already talking about adding a second morning service, and I never dreamed we’d have to do that.”
“Can you believe it, Tai? Did you have any idea when you were in high school and declared to me that King was going to be your husband, that your life would be anything like this?”
“Be careful what you pray for, is all I can say,” Tai said drily.
Vivian knew that Tai’s concerns were not limited to the size of the congregation. She herself had had to deal with more than one overly zealous churchgoing female trying to get her hands on her husband. “I’m glad the air cleared about Tootie being back,” Vivian segued smoothly.
“I am, too,” Tai agreed.
“You still haven’t seen her?”
“No, and honestly, that’s fine with me.” Tai no longer felt threatened but there was no love lost for the ex-girlfriend; the farther the distance between them, the better.
“According to Mama Max, she’s at the hospital mostly. You know Mama and Miss Smith have known each other forever. She’s been to see her quite a bit.” Tai looked at the foreign signs as they passed through Koreatown. “Mama Max says she looks good, says Germany must agree with her.”
“Speaking of Germany, you and King still going on that second honeymoon for your twentieth anniversary?” Vivian segued again, flowing as easily as her Escalade through traffic.
Tai blushed. The past two months had felt like a honeymoon. “That’s the plan. Don’t know where, though.”
“There are so many beautiful places: the islands, Hawaii, Mexico, Europe. I saw a brochure on Madagascar the other day. It’s beautiful.”
“Mada-who? I’m not going any place I can’t spell or pronounce, trust.”
Vivian laughed. “Don’t put off the planning too long. You know how time flies. And I didn’t miss that blush, sistah. King must be, uh, taking care of business.”
Tai’s smile was proof enough that King was being quite the businessman.
“Aw, man, that shot wasn’t nothin’ but luck.” King shook his head as he walked over and got a different iron. “Ain’t no way you’d make that shot again.”
Derrick smiled broadly and then agreed. “You’re probably right.”
King and Derrick had chosen a rather easy course, not far from Derrick’s home. Their camaraderie was the main enjoyment, the golf was gravy.
“So man, I know you’ve seen Tootie a few times. How’s she look?” Vivian had told Derrick about this thorn returning to Tai’s side.
“Fine as ever.” King putted.
Derrick eyed his friend a moment. King and Tootie had been quite the item back in the day. But that was a long time ago. “Tootie, Tootie, with the big—”
“Booty, booty,” they both finished together.
“You’re crazy, man.” King laughed even as a clear memory of Tootie’s young, tight, upturned rear end floated into his mind’s eye. “That’s the first thing I thought, too, when Von told me she was in town.”
“How’s her mother doing?”
“A little better, according to Mama. I went to see her right before she had the operation, and again just before I came here.” King watched Derrick choose an iron, practice swing, and then choose another. “You know Deacon Nash is a good friend of the family. He’s been there regularly on the church’s behalf.”
Probably best, is what Derrick thought. “It’s good Miss Smith has someone to lean on,” is what he said, and then continued. “Where’s Tootie’s husband? Although I guess I should try and call her. What’s her new name, Janet? Wonder where she got that name, anyway.”
“Home, in Germany. And it’s Janeé.”
“Huh?”
“Tootie is using her middle name now. Her name is Rita Janeé. You don’t remember?” King asked.
“I don’t think I ever knew that.”
“You knew her pretty well not to know that.”
They picked up their clubs and walked to the next hole.
“You know she’s got kids,” King said.
Derrick paused in midstroke. “Kids? Tootie?”
“Yeah, she’s got three.”
Derrick shook his head. “I never imagined Tootie as a mother.” He swung his club and frowned at the less than stellar shot. As King was getting ready to swing, Derrick commented, “Big booty Tootie.”
King laughed again. “Man, will you cut that out! It’s like you’re seventeen again.” He carefully lined up his club, shadowed the ball several times, and then hit it directly into a sand trap. “Ah, man!”
Derrick laughed, commiserating with his friend. Golf definitely wasn’t as easy as it looked. They both reached for their water bottles.
“Life is full of surprises,” Derrick said. “What’s it been, fifteen, twenty years since you’ve seen her? Guess she finally realized she couldn’t have you and moved on.”
“Humph. Hear you tell it. Remember how she used to drive everybody crazy singing Whitney?”
“And Donna, Natalie, Aretha, Chaka—anybody who can blow.”
“That girl was wild though, wasn’t she?” King asked, capping his bottle and picking up his bag. He’d thought of their wild times more than once since he’d seen her. He and Tootie were careful not to bring up the past, but one look in her eyes, and he knew Tootie had been thinking about it, too.
Derrick placed his ball on the tee and lined up his shot. He smiled slightly as he watched his ball land about six feet from the hole.
“Another lucky shot, dog,” King said, playfully taking his iron and faking a swing to Derrick’s head.
“That’s skill, my brothah. I got skills.” And then, “Tootie was something else, a sex addict before they invented the term.”
“Sure was. Always classy though,” King responded. “Even though we all knew who was doing her, it wasn’t like she was a ho, you know?”
“Yeah, Tootie had that way about her. And she was just like a man. She’d do the do and then beat you out of bed, shower, dress, and be ready to go home.”
“True that. Messed with a brothah’s ego a little bit, almost made me feel like the ho sometimes!”
Both of them knew that feeling. Derrick reflected on who he was then, and who he was now. “We were different men back then, young, foolish.” He thought the same of Tootie—Janeé—who’d obviously changed more than her name. “And she’s married? Is the man German German?”
“He’s white, if that’s what you’re asking,” King replied. “Supposed to have money, runs some financial company or something.”
“How old are their kids?”
“I didn’t ask all that. But you know, me and Tootie had a couple of close calls. I even thought she had an abortion right before me and Tai got married. She denied it, but to this day I don’t know for sure if at one time she didn’t carry my child. We were, uh, very active let’s say, but then again, she was active with a lot of dudes.” King looked pointedly at Derrick.
“Guilty as charged,” Derrick said, a bit of macho mixed in with guilt. Tootie had been a favorite notch on a young man’s belt. “All of us were fortunate to not make a baby. I wasn’t even thinking about protection back then.”
“Nobody was, man, you kidding? I never liked putting the raincoat on. I’m pretty sure she was on the pill anyway, all the action she was getting.”
“I know one thing, we better shift this conversation. All this talk of Tootie is messing up my swing, not to mention my trying to let old things that have passed away, stay away.” Derrick swung his iron just over the ball, lining up with the hole, now barely five feet away. Taking a deep
breath and settling into his stance, he lined up once more, swung, and sank the ball. He looked at King smugly. “Now, that’s what I’m talking ’bout.”
The conversation shifted to church matters, and their co-officiating plan for Hope’s wedding ceremony. Both were glad the wedding would be short and simple. They joked about Cy’s few remaining hours as a free man, but agreed he was a blessed man, too. King liked Hope, liked her spirit. Plus, she was fine. Cy had done alright for himself. An hour later, they neared the eighteenth hole. They finished without tallying scores; the game had been for the fun of it all.
Once in the parking lot, Derrick lifted his bag into the trunk of his pearl Jaguar. King followed suit. Derrick easily navigated the midday LA traffic as the two longtime friends enjoyed a companionable silence.
“I don’t know about you,” King said after a bit, “but all that walking worked up my appetite. I’m about ready for that steak place you’ve been bragging about.” King’s stomach growled as if to underscore the statement.
Derrick smiled, but said nothing. He was thinking about Tootie being back in Kansas, hoping King’s passion for his old flame had truly burned out. Little did he know, but King was thinking about Tootie, too, about how on fire their sex was back in the day. But King knew the lesson of fire better than anyone: if you played with it, you could get burned.
9
Worth the Wait
It had arrived, February 14, Hope’s wedding day. She lay staring at the ceiling, hardly able to believe that the moment was here. She yawned, stretched, ran her hand over Cy’s empty pillow. Cy, his father, and her father had spent the night in Cy’s cousin’s suite at the Ritz-Carlton. They, along with a couple of Cy’s business partners and classmates from Howard University, had held a bachelor party. She could only imagine what that crazy group had put together for him. Knowing the wild shenanigans that often took place, she’d had only one thing to say to him about it: “What happens at the bachelor party stays at the bachelor party.” Cy had assured her nothing would happen that he couldn’t share with her, or her mother for that matter. That had elicited a smile from the bride-to-be. Hope, her mother, Mrs. Jones, Frieda, Frieda’s mother, and four of Hope’s longtime friends from Oklahoma had enjoyed a bridal shower in the penthouse. They’d had it catered by P. F. Chang’s, Hope’s new Chinese food favorite, and amid great food and goofy presents, had laughed, cried, played games, and basked in Hope’s contagious happiness.
Love Like Hallelujah Page 5