“Has Preston called any meetings?” I poked around the issue.
“No. None lately. Why, is something wrong?”
“Oh no, nothing.” I had to think of another route. “Have you heard anyone . . . say anything about me being absent? Or maybe . . . complaining about the extra work load?”
“Goodness no, Tori. Everyone’s been picking up the slack. No worries.” She inadvertently launched the panic button inside me.
I tried once again. “I guess what I’m trying to ask is . . . how can I say it . . . ?”
“Has anyone missed you?” Jacquelyn finally pulled the truth out of me, chuckling.
I admitted, “Yes.”
Jacquelyn’s voice softened. “Tori, if you ask me, I’d tell you to get back to work as soon as possible, before Preston figures twenty-two people can do the work of twenty-three. Somebody, I’m not saying you necessarily, but somebody always loses a job when things like this go on too long.”
Oh, great. The entire department was at stake now. “Thanks, Jacquelyn. Could you put me through to Preston?”
“He’s not in at the moment.”
“Man,” I lamented, “I really needed to talk to him.”
“I can give him a message,” she volunteered.
I sighed. “No thanks. I’ll have to call him back later because I may not be in an area with a signal.”
“I see. Is there anything you want me to tell him in the meanwhile?”
Movement near the church door snatched my attention from the conversation. A deep chocolate, clean-shaven man wearing jeans and a white T-shirt emerged from the building, cleaning supplies in tow. His muscles bulged just below the cuff of his shirt. He wiped sweat from his forehead, dropped the buckets and mop, and walked toward my car. Looking at this man, I suddenly remembered how much I would miss working out at the gym. I’ve never been one to go for the popular, hot guys, but bodies can be so beautiful.
The visual examination finally classified his body in the top 20 percent and then scanned the man’s face. Boyishly handsome, except for the slight graying at his temples. Definitely premature. The sun beat down on his forehead and, suddenly, I recognized fine-man.
Jacob Carter III. Preacher’s kid. Correction, pastor’s kid. Every girl at Bayford High School had suffered through a crush on Jacob Carter at least one day in her life. I had for weeks, actually, but I gave it up. No need in me pining for the pastor’s son, being pregnant and whatnot.
Jacob’s father was a good pastor, but First Lady Carter had her moments. Aunt Dottie said First Lady’s bark was a lot worse than her bite, but she could bark up a storm. First Lady and Aunt Dottie sat on the advisory board of Mount Pisgah, butting heads often about the ushers’ uniforms, choir robes, and bake sales. They always seemed to work things out, though, before Sunday.
I’ll never forget the night I learned First Lady didn’t want Jacob around me, for obvious reasons. I never really knew how or why Aunt Dottie and First Lady were even discussing me, but after an earful of eavesdropping on one of their conversations, I knew better than to call myself liking Jacob. We’d be fellow congregation members, and that was to be the entire scope of our relationship.
Still, Jacob was fine, and by all appearances the fineness had only gotten better with time.
Automatically, my eyes scanned his ring finger. Bare. Behave! I already have a boyfriend. I am not here for a high school reunion.
“Tori? Are you there?” Jacquelyn broke the reverie.
“Yes, I’m here. I’ll call Preston later. Thanks.”
Jacob knocked on my window as I ended the call. I pressed the down arrow on my door’s panel. “Hi.”
His teeth gleamed more than humanly possible—or maybe it was just my imagination. “Hello. Can I help you with anything?”
“No, thanks. Virgie, at the gas station, told me this was the only place I could get a consistent signal.”
He smiled again. “Yeah, she’s right about that. Bad thing is, some people wait until Sunday morning service to make long-distance calls.”
I hadn’t heard the term long-distance in so long, the humor nearly escaped me. “Sorry to hear that.”
“I’ll be in the church finishing up on some work if you need me. My name is Jacob. I’m the assistant pastor.”
I extended one hand and used the other to pull my shades back. “Tori Henderson.”
He clapped a hand over his mouth. “You’re Aunt Dottie’s niece, right?”
He remembered me? “Yes.”
Jacob took the liberty of quickly looking me over while I sat in the car. “Good to see you again! How have you been?”
“I’m fine. How about you?”
He pursed his lips and shook his head. “Great. Just working and helping my parents with the church.”
“That’s good.”
“Nice ride,” he commented, tapping the hood. “You must be putting that college degree Aunt Dottie’s always talking about to good use.”
“Can’t complain.” What happened to my conversational skills?
“Amen and amen,” he agreed.
Was I supposed to say something back to him? Selah? Peace? Right on, my bronze brother? Church jargon always made me nervous—like there’s some secret code language shared only by lifelong members, a code that automatically identifies the reprobate by unorthodox response to insider phraseology.
Jacob ended my uncertainty with a question. “How long will you be in town?”
“Not sure. Depends on what Aunt Dottie needs when she’s released from the hospital.”
His features slackened with concern. “Aunt Dottie has done so much for my parents and this congregation. So would you please, please let us know what the church can do to help?”
“Sure, certainly.”
Jacob reiterated, “I know the hospitality board sent her a card and flowers, but I mean anything—money, meals, transportation. I’ll see to it personally that her needs are met.”
“Thank you, Jacob.”
“No problem. And feel free to use our signal waves whenever you need them.” He shook his hands in the air.
Talking to Jacob almost made me forget why I’d come up the hill in the first place. “I’m sure I’ll be up here again.”
He shrugged. “Well, if you see my car in the lot—the blue Camry—you’re welcome to come on inside so you won’t have to run your AC. Idling is hard on the environment, you know.”
“Thanks.”
He stepped away. “It really is good to see you again, Tori.”
“Same here.”
With that, Jacob retreated into the building, allowing me to regain my wits.
Chapter 9
Back at the house, peace covered my decision to stay in Bayford for a while, at least until I could get everything situated for Aunt Dottie. The option of hiring someone still involved research and coordinating, all vying for my time and attention. Bayford might have to become my second home for a while.
I took the liberty of unpacking and organizing my belongings in my old bedroom. The room hadn’t changed much—a queen-sized bed with nearly a foot of space beneath, covered by the same blue and white quilt. The cherrywood headboard and coordinating dresser still stood side by side. Across the room sat another bureau. She’d filled the top two drawers with knickknacks. I stuffed my foldables in the bottom two drawers.
In the closet, I discovered some of my old posters—Jodeci, Blackstreet, R. Kelly. “Oh my gosh!” I sat on the bed reminiscing. I used to think I was going to marry K-Ci, for real. Oooh-yeah.
A knock on the front door brought me back to the present. I walked to the front entrance, squinting to see if I recognized the silhouette on the porch. Cowboy hat, elderly slump. No one I knew.
“Hello,” I asked upon opening the door.
A white man in his late-forties with red, leathery skin tipped his hat toward me. “Hello there. Name’s Josiah, from down the road. Saw a new car in the yard and I was just makin’ sure everything was ok
ay.”
“Yes, sir. Everything’s fine.”
“Aunt Dottie gettin’ better?”
“She’s improving. Thanks for asking.”
“Alrighty then. Just checking.” He studied my face a moment. “Hey, didn’t you used to stay with Aunt Dottie long time ago?”
“Yes. I’m Tori. I lived here when I was in high school.”
His eyes lit up with remembrance. “That’s right, I remember now. That your fancy car?” He pointed toward my Cadillac.
“Yes.”
“Mighty fancy, mighty fancy. Looks like you’ve really made something of yourself. In spite of . . . everything, you know.” His eyes traveled to my stomach, rattling my sense of well-being.
The baby.
“Thank you, Josiah.”
“Okey-dokey. Believe I’ll head on back to my house. Let me know if you need anything, and tell Dottie I’ll mow the grass Friday when I do mine. No charge seein’ as she’s in the hospital and all. See you later.”
You’d think I was the first and last unwed mother to walk the streets of Bayford. Give me a scarlet A for my dress already. These people didn’t forget anything, and they had no problem rudely reiterating the past.
It took me a moment to get past Josiah’s playback. I had to remind myself: he came over to make sure things were okay. Lots of good people in Bayford cared about Aunt Dottie. I was there to round them all up and put them to work on her behalf.
A school bus entered my peripheral vision. I remained on the porch, watching the driver slow as the bus approached Humble Trail’s halfway point. Back in the day, Bayford bus number 275 transported everyone from kindergartners to seniors to our side of the tracks. Curiosity kept me outside long enough to deduce not much had changed.
Children of various ages poured out of the bus, scrambling north and south.
“What time you coming out to play?” from a robust boy whose shirt didn’t fully cover his stomach.
“In a minute,” answered another child. This little boy needed a haircut and, judging by the direction he was going, a compass. He ran straight up Aunt Dottie’s driveway, past my car, jumped over the steps and landed within an inch of my toe.
He panted, “Where’s Aunt Dottie? My grandmomma in there?” The trademark Lester nose, long and low, marked him as a relative. His cheeks held on to the last bit of baby fat. Still pinchable, if he’d hold still long enough.
“Hello. Who are you?”
“DeAndre.”
“Hello, DeAndre. How are you?”
He looked beyond me, past the screen door.
I repeated, “How are you?”
“I’m fine. Who are you?”
“Probably your cousin. Tori. And I’m fine, too. Thanks for asking.”
Clueless to my home-training lesson, he continued, “Is Aunt Dottie home yet?”
“No. She’s still in the hospital.”
“Okay.” DeAndre breezed past me and opened the door. He threw his lunch box and backpack into the foyer area, pivoted sharply, and took off down the steps again.
“Excuse me.” I stopped him. DeAndre faced me, impatience urging him to hop from one foot to the other. “I need you to pick your belongings up off the floor. And are you supposed to be here? Who’s watching you?”
He shrugged. “I was gonna get off on my daddy’s street, but I saw a car here so I got off now. Can’t you watch me while I go play with Chase ’nem?”
“Won’t your daddy wonder what happened to you?”
DeAndre shook his head. “No, he don’t care where I am, miss.”
“Tori,” I corrected him, hoping DeAndre had spoken those words regarding his father’s nonchalance casually. I reminded myself of the setting. Bayford. People watched each other’s children all the time in the country. If people still came over at the sight of an unfamiliar car in someone’s driveway, no alarm would sound because a child had decided to get off the bus at a different stop. “You can call me Cousin Tori.”
The chubby child appeared at the edge of Aunt Dottie’s yard. “Come on, DeAndre! You’re it!”
DeAndre pressed his hands together in prayer formation. “Ooh, Cousin Tori, please. I gotta go play with Chase. You watchin’ me, right?”
What could I do? I mean, DeAndre was “it.” He had to get out there and redeem himself, the quicker the better if memory served me. I sighed. “Get your stuff off the floor first.”
“Here I come!” he answered Chase. DeAndre rushed back into the house, threw the lunch box on the counter, and was off again before I could tell him to tie his shoelaces.
Is he always this rowdy?
The house phone’s ring pulled me back inside. Hopefully, one of DeAndre’s people had come to claim him. “Hello?”
“Tori?”
“Yes.”
“This Joenetta. Did DeAndre get off the bus over there?”
“Yes, he did,” I answered, glad to know that someone actually did miss him. “He’s outside playing, but I’ll go get him and bring him home right now.”
“He is home.”
“Would he be here if I wasn’t?”
“Maybe not, but you are there, so be it. I’ll come by later and cook him something to eat.”
“Joenetta, I’m not Aunt Dottie. I don’t do kids. I’m not good with kids, and I’m not going to take care of someone else’s child.” I mean, really, who did she think she was talking to? I wasn’t a teenager anymore. She couldn’t treat me like dirt because Aunt Dottie wasn’t in earshot.
“What if Dottie had said that to your momma when you got pregnant? ‘I’m not going to take care of someone else’s child’,” she mocked me. “ ‘Y’all let her get in this mess, y’all figure it out.’ Where would you be right now if it wasn’t for my sister?”
“I’d be—”
“I tell you where you’d be. You’d be somewhere with probably five or six kids by now and just as many baby daddies, livin’ in a government house on food stamps. So if my sister takes it upon herself to save DeAndre like she saved you, you got no right to stop her.”
Joenetta’s knack for turning tables hadn’t diminished in all these years. And no matter how I (or anyone, for that matter) tried to talk sense into her, she just didn’t get it. Aunt Dottie was the only one who could handle Joenetta, but even she used to say Joenetta had a “bad understanding,” that once she made up her mind about something, she wouldn’t change even if Thurgood Marshall proved her wrong.
I’d waste no more breath on Joenetta today. So far DeAndre hadn’t been much trouble. This whole situation would have to wait until I could communicate with Aunt Dottie and find out how she wanted me to handle him.
“What time you cooking dinner?” I asked.
“ ’Round seven.” Click.
Ooh! She irked me. Aunt Dottie had to hurry up and get better because I couldn’t stomach Joenetta too long. What little raising my mother did do prevented me from going left on my elders, but this woman was pushing it!
I took a seat in the living room and took a few deep breaths. How could I have forgotten that dealing with Aunt Dottie also meant dealing with Joenetta? Maybe my brain had done me a favor and blocked Joenetta out of my memory.
Calm down, Tori, calm down. Maybe I was getting all worked up for nothing. The drive down had been long, and seeing Aunt Dottie’s condition was disconcerting, to say the least. I was hungry and I needed a nap.
Aunt Dottie’s refrigerator housed nothing but high-fat, high-sodium, high-carb items galore. This had to be rectified if I planned on helping Aunt Dottie regain her health. Not to mention poor little DeAndre. An early grave awaited him if he absorbed all the preservatives and dyes lining the shelves of this fridge. After searching the pantry, too, I noted several replacements needed, including 2 percent milk, spring water, low-fat mayonnaise, low-cholesterol butter, and no-yolk eggs. How Aunt Dottie had managed to live this long amazed me.
Raisins and half a ham and cheese sandwich sufficed as my lunch. I relaxed in front of th
e kitchen television for a while. The familiar surroundings lulled me into yet another flashback. This time, I recalled the only time Aunt Dottie and I crossed each other. We’d been standing in this very kitchen when the discussion came to a head. She wanted me to wear stockings with my blue-jean skirt, said it was shameful to go around with my bare legs. “Sweetheart, I’m not telling you what to do. You have a choice. Either put on the stockings or wear a longer skirt.”
I told her no one wore stockings anymore. At that moment, the coo-coo clock went off and I remember thinking, That bird is right! Stockings are coo-coo!
Aunt Dottie gave her own interpretation. “See, even the clock knows it’s crazy to go out of the house with all these legs showing.” Though three inches shorter than me, Aunt Dottie always seemed taller. She didn’t scream or yell, but she always meant what she said, and she backed her words with a firm love.
I’d seen enough television shows to know the classic teenage line I was supposed to say next: Well then, maybe I won’t live in this house anymore. Lord knows I was tempted to say it, but I figured Aunt Dottie would call my bluff, still wearing that sweet smile of hers. And where would I go? Really, there’s no running away in Bayford. Coyotes and vicious farm animals would probably get me first. My only other option would be moving back to Houston with my mother and Mr. James.
Laughter welled up in my stomach now as I thought about the incident. Those stockings covered my legs quite nicely.
Court TV shows cluttered the local airways, much the same as Houston. I loaded up on other people’s drama to make light of my own until heavy eyelids slipped over my eyes one time too many.
My old bedroom faced the front side of the house, so I could keep an ear out for DeAndre while I took a little catnap. I had no idea how long he might be outside playing, but I was pretty sure I’d know the moment he came bounding up the front steps.
The smell of fresh laundry enveloped me as I literally climbed into the bed. Settling into the sheets, aches registered throughout my body, reminding me that I’d undergone a serious surgery only weeks before. Slowing down to take care of Aunt Dottie might actually help me get back to 100 percent, in more ways than one.
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