Too Much of a Good Thing

by Kimberla Lawson Roby

  “Well, tell her I asked about her, and that I’ll see her on Wednesday at the ministry meeting.”

  “I will, and by the way,” Sister Fletcher whispered, “I’m so sorry about that woman and what she’s accusing Pastor of. That poor man must be a nervous wreck trying to explain all these lies that woman is telling.”

  “Thank you,” was all Mariah could say, and was amazed at what she was hearing. She didn’t understand how anyone could believe Curtis was innocent of anything. Not when there was audible evidence to prove that he wasn’t. Now Mariah wondered how many other people were planning to support him until the end.

  Over the next half hour Mariah greeted one parishioner after another and finally saw Vivian walking down the aisle.

  “So you made it,” Mariah said, embracing her.

  “I did. But as you can see, I’m running a little late.”

  “You’re fine. Service doesn’t start for another fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  “I’m loving that turquoise blouse you have on,” Mariah said, waiting for Vivian to slide before her into the second pew.

  “Well, thank you,” Vivian said, smiling. “A real good friend of mine bought it for me. And this skirt I have on, too.”

  Mariah sat down next to her and smiled. Vivian didn’t come to church very often, but Mariah was always glad when she did.

  A few more minutes passed and finally Deacons Gulley, Thurgood, Winslow, Taylor, and Evans lined up across the front of the church for devotion. Mariah still hadn’t seen Curtis come in, but he’d told her he wasn’t planning to make his entrance until devotion was over with. He’d decided that this would be the best time to address the congregation. Mariah knew it would be more like an interruption, since the board had told him he was suspended. They’d held another meeting on Friday as planned, but had decided they didn’t want to make any decisions until after they held a churchwide business meeting in a couple of weeks. They wanted to hear from the people and possibly take a vote. They’d hoped to interview Adrienne but hadn’t been able to contact her.

  After the deacons led the congregation through a scripture, hymn, and prayer, they took their seats, and one of the associate ministers stood at the podium. But when he did, Curtis walked into the sanctuary and into the pulpit. He shook hands with the young minister and the young minister took his seat again. There was noticeable stirring and whispering throughout the building. Most of the deacons looked annoyed and disturbed.

  “Good morning, church,” Curtis began, and Mariah and Vivian looked at each other. Mariah wondered if he was still planning to tell all those lies she’d heard him practicing yesterday. He’d even asked her to listen to a few lines of this pathetic speech he was about to give because he wanted to know what she thought about it. But she’d told him she didn’t have any opinion one way or the other, and he’d become irritated with her.

  “First of all, I want to apologize for all the rumors that most of you have been hearing. And I’m sure by now you know the board has suspended me indefinitely. And while I was a little upset about it in the beginning, I now realize the board was only doing its job. Because the truth of the matter is, there have been some very serious allegations made against me. They are all lies, but still, they are very serious and cannot be overlooked.”

  Curtis looked at Deacon Gulley and a few others on the board and saw that they weren’t happy about him being up there.

  “Deacons, I know you probably don’t approve of my being here today, but I’m hoping you’ll just bear with me for a few more minutes. I’m hoping you’ll allow me to explain my situation to the people of this great church,” he said, looking over at Mariah. But she never directed a smile at him.

  “It’s true that I did have some problems when I was pastor at another church, but I’m here today to ask one question. How many of you haven’t had problems? How many of you haven’t done something you’re not too proud of? How many of you don’t have skeletons you wouldn’t want anyone to know about? And don’t get me wrong, because I’m clearly not trying to place blame or trying to justify my past transgressions. I’m simply trying to make everyone in here realize that I’m no different than any of you. I’m just as human as the next person, and I’ve learned from my mistakes.

  “But what I want to talk about more than anything else is this current situation. I want to tell you that I’m innocent of all these slanderous accusations. The woman who has made them is very disgruntled and obviously unstable, and she’s gone out of her way to set me up. I’m not sure why she’s doing it, but I can only assume it’s because Satan is very, very busy in her life. And he’s using her to try and stop my ministry. He’s trying to turn all of you good people against me. He thought he’d destroyed my spirit and my faith in God when I stopped preaching a few years back, but when all of you great people offered me a position here, it made him angry. It made him realize he had to double his determination if he wanted to get revenge on me.

  “And, church, I tell you, he’s been working on every person who is special in my life,” he said, looking at Mariah again. “He tried his hardest to turn my wife against me through this woman and her lies, but thank God she’s not allowing him to do it. Thank God she told me she knew Satan was a liar, and that these allegations are all lies, too,” Curtis said, wiping tears from his cheeks. “And he’s even been trying to drive this wedge between my daughter and me. He’s attacked her in the worst possible way, and he’s trying his best to turn her against me, too. He’s even got her thinking that the church and the work I’m doing for the Lord is the reason I can’t spend as much time with her. Oh, I tell you, church, I need all of you to pray for me. I need you to stand by me and ignore all that you’ve been hearing. I need you to open up your hearts and see that this is all Satan’s doing. I don’t know how this woman got a hold of my voice and made that tape, but it’s like I told my wife, anything is possible with all this new technology.”

  “Amen,” more than one person called out.

  “So I’m begging you,” Curtis said, crying openly. “Please don’t believe these lies that are being told on me. Please tell your assigned deacon that you support me, and that you want me to stay on as your pastor. And if you would, please pray for my wife and me. Please pray for that woman and her insanity. Pray that she gets help immediately,” he said.

  “The only person who’s going to be needing any help is you, Curtis,” Adrienne yelled, strutting down the aisle directly toward him. She was decked out from head to toe. She wore a tight-fitting black dress and a wide-brimmed black hat which was pulled down over mafia-style sunglasses. A black shoulder purse hung past her waist.

  “Father in heaven, I stretch my hand to Thee,” Curtis said.

  “Come down out of that pulpit, Curtis,” Adrienne said.

  Deacon Gulley and a few other board members stood up.

  “Deacons, please,” Adrienne begged. “I didn’t come here to harm any of you or anyone else at this church. I only came here to deal with Curtis.”

  “But, miss, this isn’t the time or the place,” Deacon Gulley said. “This is the Lord’s house, and we’re going to have to ask you to leave.”

  “Not until I get what I came for,” she said, pulling out a gun and pointing it at Curtis. “Now come down out of that pulpit before I have to make you.”

  “Lord have mercy, she’s got a gun,” someone yelled.

  “She’s gonna kill him,” another shouted.

  Mariah gasped and moved closer to Vivian. Adrienne hadn’t said anything about bringing a gun. They’d spoken again on Friday night, right after Adrienne had come home from work, and then decided that the best way to stop Curtis was to recreate what happened at Faith. They’d decided Adrienne would do the same thing her husband, Thomas, had done five years ago when he’d gone before the church and disclosed all of Curtis’s sinful secrets. So Mariah wondered why Adrienne was standing here now, placing everyone’s life in danger. She wondered why there’d been such a drastic change in
plans.

  The deacons moved out of Adrienne’s way and hundreds of people screamed and started to rush out of the church. But since Mariah and Vivian were sitting barely three feet away from Adrienne, they could hear everything she was saying.

  “Curtis, don’t make me ask you again.”

  “Why are you doing this?” he said, backing away from the podium.

  “Because this is the only way to stop you. It’s the only way to stop you from hurting so many people. Now, for the last and final time,” she said, moving closer to him, “come down out of that pulpit.”

  The choir members scattered, seeming not to care that Adrienne might accidentally shoot any one of them. Mariah could hear others in the congregation steadily stampeding out. But she didn’t dare look behind her. She didn’t dare take her eyes off Adrienne.

  “I want everyone else in the pulpit to leave, nice and slow,” Adrienne instructed. “Because I will use this if I have to.”

  Curtis took a step forward.

  “No,” Adrienne ordered. “Don’t you even think about moving. I gave you a chance to come out of there, but you wouldn’t. And if you take another step, you won’t even live to regret it.”

  “What is she doing?” Vivian whispered to Mariah.

  But Mariah didn’t respond. She didn’t move, and she hoped Vivian wasn’t planning to say anything else.

  The other ministers followed Adrienne’s order, and now Curtis was left in the pulpit by himself.

  “Miss,” Deacon Gulley said. “Please don’t do this. I know you’re upset, but nobody is worth going to jail over.”

  “Move out of the way, Deacon. Please,” she said.

  Deacon Gulley saw that she was serious.

  Mariah could tell that the church was almost empty, and that the only people left were those sitting toward the front. Those who were afraid to move.

  “Why don’t y’all do something?” Curtis finally said.

  “Shut up, Curtis,” she said, holding the gun with both hands. Then she fired it.

  “Ohhhhhh, Jesus,” Curtis said, grabbing his shoulder and squeezing his eyes together. Blood forced through a bullet hole in his suit and he staggered to one side.

  Mariah covered her mouth with both hands.

  Adrienne fired another shot, and this time Curtis keeled over and slid down the stairs of the pulpit. She watched him and then, seemingly in slow motion, raised the gun to her own head.

  Blood splattered everywhere.

  Even on Mariah.

  Chapter 28

  Daddy,” Alicia said, crying and hurrying toward her father’s bed. Tanya walked in behind her and hugged Mariah.

  Curtis had been rushed to the hospital by ambulance and was immediately taken into emergency surgery. The surgeons had removed the first bullet from his shoulder and then the other one, which, according to his doctors, should have killed him. The bullet had only missed puncturing his heart by a quarter of an inch. He was now resting in the intensive care unit, and the nurses were allowing only immediate family to see him for a few minutes.

  “Baby girl,” Curtis said, forcing a smile and reaching out his hand. There was an IV needle inserted in the center of it, so Alicia lifted it carefully.

  “I’m so sorry,” Alicia said.

  “I am too.” Curtis’s voice was weak and groggy.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Alicia asked.

  “Of course,” Curtis said, trying to smile again. “Daddy . . . is . . . going . . . to . . . be . . . just . . . fine.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” Alicia asked Mariah, and Mariah could tell she was worried.

  “They have him on a lot of pain medication, so he goes in and out from time to time. But he’s okay,” Mariah said, rubbing Alicia’s back. But to Mariah’s surprise, Alicia turned and laid her head on Mariah’s shoulder and sobbed.

  Mariah wrapped her arms around Alicia.

  “Honey, he’s going to be fine. I know all these monitors and tubes are scary, but he will pull through this.”

  “You know your daddy is a fighter,” Tanya said, moving closer to where they were standing. She looked over at Curtis.

  Mariah glanced over at Curtis, too, and felt sorry for him. She knew he’d brought the entire shooting and that whole scene with Adrienne on himself, but she still had sympathy for him. Although, she was sad to say, she didn’t think she had enough sympathy to stay with him. Too much had been said, too much had gone wrong, too much had happened between them. She would stay with him until he recuperated, but that would have to be the end of it.

  Alicia saw Curtis move his head to the side and open his eyes again. She went toward the bed and again stood over him.

  “Where’s your mom?” he asked.

  “She’s right here.” Alicia reached past Mariah and pulled her mother’s arm.

  “Leave it to you to scare all of us like this,” Tanya said, smiling. Curtis smiled back at her.

  Mariah knew that shouldn’t have bothered her because he and Tanya had been divorced for years. Not to mention Mariah was preparing to divorce him herself. But it was just the way Curtis fixed his eyes on his ex-wife. He gazed at Tanya in a way that Mariah had always wanted him to look at her. But he never had.

  “Baby girl, I’m sorry about everything,” Curtis said to Alicia.

  “It’s okay, Daddy. You just get better.”

  “No, it’s not okay. I’ve . . . been . . . a . . . hor-ri-ble . . . fath . . .” Curtis dropped off to sleep again.

  “We probably need to let him rest,” Tanya said.

  “I think so,” Mariah agreed.

  Alicia bent over and kissed him on the cheek. “I love you, Daddy, and I’ll be back in here to see you in a little while.”

  One of the nurses came over.

  “He really is doing well, considering what he’s gone through,” she said.

  “I know,” Mariah said. “He’s very blessed.”

  “When will he get to go home?” Alicia asked.

  “I don’t know for sure, but over the next few days his doctor should be able to answer that,” the nurse answered.

  “Oh,” Alicia said, sounding disappointed.

  Mariah, Alicia, and Tanya walked toward the waiting area.

  “Mom, can I use your cell phone to call Danielle?” Alicia asked.

  “Sure, and when you finish you can go get me a diet soda,” Tanya said, reaching into her handbag for money. She also pulled out her cell phone.

  “Okay.”

  “Mariah, do you want anything?” Tanya asked.

  “No, thanks.”

  Alicia took off down the hallway and Mariah broke into tears.

  “I know this is hard for you,” Tanya said.

  “It is, and it’s still hard to believe that Adrienne shot him like that. In the church. And I don’t even want to think about her turning the gun on herself. It just didn’t make any sense. I mean, why would she want to kill herself over Curtis?”

  “Especially after all these years,” Tanya said.

  “Well, that’s the other thing. He’d starting seeing her again almost two months ago.”

  “No,” Tanya said.

  “Yes. And he was seeing Charlotte again, too, just like we thought.”

  “Unbelievable,” Tanya said.

  “Yeah, but with Curtis, what isn’t?”

  “I know.”

  “He is who he is, and there’s nothing anyone can do to change that.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but I definitely won’t stay married to him.”

  “Well, no one can blame you, that’s for sure.”

  Mariah waved at some of the church members walking toward them. There had been a few others who had followed the ambulance but had already gone home. Vivian had also left, but said she would be back in a few hours. Mariah suspected that over the next few days there would be a good number of people coming to visit Curtis. Because regardless of what had happened, she knew he�
��d still have loyal supporters.

  Mariah wondered if she should call Curtis’s mother, because she was sure she’d want to know about her son being in the hospital. But since Curtis was so adamant on not contacting her, Mariah would wait to ask him before doing so.

  Mariah thought about a number of things as some of the members reacquainted themselves with Tanya. But mostly she wondered how Adrienne’s family was handling the news. She wondered how they were dealing with such a terrible tragedy.

  Chapter 29

  It had been two months since that dreadful first Sunday in May, and Curtis was elated to be going home in a few days. He would have gone much sooner, but there had been major and unexpected complications. Internal bleeding, elevated blood pressure, and, worst of all, cardiac arrest. He couldn’t remember ever suffering so intensely or feeling so much pain. But now his doctors were saying his prognosis seemed promising and that he should eventually start feeling normal again. His recovery period would still take a few more weeks, but he was thankful just to be alive. Although, emotionally, he felt like his life had been turned upside down and tossed around in circles, and he still had no understanding of why Adrienne had decided things were so bad she had to shoot him. Worse, he couldn’t fathom why she’d killed herself.

  He’d known she was in love with him, but never in his wildest imagination would he have anticipated her showing up at church with a gun in her purse. Except the more he looked back on it, the more he realized he actually should have suspected something. Specifically, that night she’d rung his doorbell and announced she’d been pretending she was still married. Before that, he hadn’t noticed anything strange about her and never suspected she had mental problems, but now it was clear that she did. Curtis wished she’d chosen another route to take, though, something other than committing suicide, because now he worried about her soul. He wondered how a person could ask for forgiveness once they’d taken their last breath. Yet, on the other hand, there was the theory, once saved, always saved—by the grace of God. So who was he to judge anyone, especially since it was finally time for him to admit that he’d become the same sinful, conniving, manipulative person he used to be when he was married to Tanya. He hadn’t wanted to mess around on Mariah, but his desire for a certain type of satisfaction had gotten the best of him. He just wasn’t strong enough to fight the temptation. He’d told his congregation how they needed to do that very thing, but he wasn’t capable of it himself. So now he had to ask God again why He’d ever called him to preach. Because no matter how many women he slept with, he couldn’t deny that he truly had been called. He still remembered what it felt like, and how he’d even tried to ignore it. And the fact that God had given him another well-known church confirmed he was destined to be a minister. He was supposed to preach God’s Word to as many people as possible.