You Get What You Pray For

by E. N. Joy

  Korica leaned in and, almost with a hint of venom, said, “You carried those babies in your womb. You are their birth mother, their biological mother. You are my daughter, which makes them my grandbabies. And that, Miss Thang, is what’s not ever going to change.” Korica leaned back hard in her seat.

  “I understand, Mommy. I know how hard this is for you.”

  “You’d think it would be hard for you, considering.” Korica rolled her eyes.

  “Considering what?” Unique couldn’t help but ask. “On second thought, don’t answer that. I want to enjoy breakfast with my mommy, and I see that this convo is about to go left of center and crash, resulting in fatalities.”

  Korica folded her arms and turned her face from Unique.

  Unique smiled and play kicked Korica under the table. “Come on. You know you missed me. You know you love me. Go ahead and say it. I’m your favorite. Don’t worry. I won’t tell the others.” Unique play kicked her again.

  Korica tried hard not to crack a smile, but to no avail. “Ooh, I can’t stand you, girl. So dang stubborn.”

  “I take after you, so I got it honest.”

  Korica looked into Unique’s eyes. “Yeah, you did, didn’t you?”

  “Absolutely. Now, where the heck is that waitress? I’ve been dreaming about Captain Souls.”

  Korica and Unique looked around and made eye contact with the waitress, who got the hint and hurried over and took their orders. The two women spent the next hour eating and catching up. Korica bit her tongue and didn’t bring up the twins again. She had hoped that Unique would cooperate so that she didn’t have to resort to other tactics in order to get what she wanted. But now it looked like she didn’t have a choice.

  Immediately after finishing breakfast with Korica, Unique hit the road, driving straight to West Virginia without stopping. It took her only about three hours to get there. After eating that soul-food breakfast, she had had the itis and had wanted to go back to her place in Malvonia and go to bed. But she’d caught a second wind upon getting behind the wheel and turning on her Mary Mary CD. But it was Tamar Braxton’s Love and War CD that had taken her into the homestretch.

  Once upon a time, a person wouldn’t have found anything but Tupac, Jay-Z, DMX, or Biggie blaring from Unique’s speakers. In her Christianity walk, she’d weaned herself from that genre of music. It wasn’t because she felt hip-hop or rap music was the devil’s music with coded messages. She’d simply outgrown it. When she was living in the world, clubbing it and whatnot, what the artists were singing about was pretty much the life she was living, or the one she dreamed of living if she could snag the right baller or be a side chick or whatever. But she wasn’t that person anymore. And on top of that, she was far more mature now. At some point a person had to be too old to have songs about nothing but bling, alcohol, and sex bouncing around in their head. Yeah, some of the R & B Unique listened to was a little on the ratchet side . . . but she believed in baby steps.

  Speaking of baby steps, Unique felt like a toddler as she walked up the path to the nursing home’s back door, which led to the kitchen and served as the delivery entrance. Her legs were tired and a little numb from being in the same position for almost three hours straight. One leg even felt like it was about to go to sleep. Unique could have easily waited it out in the car or walked it off in the parking lot, but being the workaholic that she was, five minutes was five minutes too many to waste. So she wobbled on into the kitchen of the nursing home.

  “Hey, Miss Unique,” one of the dishwashers greeted as Unique entered the kitchen. His hands were busy scrubbing a pot.

  “How you doing, Charlie?” Unique replied with a wave.

  “I can’t complain. Well, I can, but I won’t. When you work at a place like this, you learn better.”

  “I heard that,” Unique agreed.

  There were people in this place who weren’t entirely in their right mind. There were others who were but who couldn’t even go to the bathroom without help. Some couldn’t communicate in any manner or walk. So if they weren’t complaining, nobody else had a right to.

  “Is Patsy around?” Unique asked, scanning the kitchen for her assistant.

  “I think she’s doing rounds, talking to the patients to make sure everyone is satisfied.”

  A proud smile came across Unique’s face. Talking to the residents was something Unique made sure she did after every meal served, if time permitted. At first Unique had thought she was there just to help prepare and serve the food and then check in with a patient here and there to make sure the food was to their liking. This particular job had turned out to be far more than just a gig. She had had no idea that spiritual food would end up on the menu as well. It was really a ministry in disguise, as Unique took extra minutes to listen to the patients, pray with them, and sometimes read with them. And not only from the Bible. Unique was surprised at how many of those older folks loved them some Zane and P. R. Hawkins novels.

  Unique had never been big on reading prior to coming to West Virginia. But this job had certainly turned her on to reading. Black Expressions Book Club now automatically sent her books every month. Nice hardbacks, which she found herself cuddling up with at night. She wasn’t a techie and didn’t know a whole lot about those eBook thingamajigs, but she could cuddle up in bed with a good hardback any night of the week, especially since she didn’t have anything else that was hard lying next to her in bed, not that she didn’t desire a nice, hard body next to her every now and then. But after that one-night stand with her oldest son’s father, she’d vowed not to give her body to anybody who wasn’t her husband.

  Not only that, but sex had been the last thing on Unique’s mind of late. Sex had led to her giving birth to five kids by three different men, and not one of them had made an honest woman out of her. But then the Lord had spoken to her and had let her know that she could sit around all she wanted, waiting for some man to make an honest woman out of her, but that true self-respect came when a woman made an honest woman out of herself. For Unique, when it came to her legs, there was no spreadin’ without a weddin’.

  Unique had rarely been in the company of only herself before moving to West Virginia. She was living at home when she became a teenage mother. After that, she always had her kids in tow and always seemed to end up living with someone. Even after the boys passed away and she got her own place, she was there alone only when it was time for bed. She kept herself busy with helping Tamarra with catering jobs. On top of that, she worked as a Mary Kay consultant and spent a good deal of time either hosting parties, doing facials, or teaching skin-care classes at her house, other people’s houses, and churches, you name it. Even now in West Virginia, it seemed like she was alone only when it was bedtime. She was constantly with patients and had even managed to build a nice little Mary Kay clientele.

  Come to think of it, even at bedtime she wasn’t alone, as she usually prayed, talked to God, and listened to Him until she fell off to sleep. Lately, though, she’d found herself thinking about maybe, just maybe, starting over . . . doing things right. Allowing a man to earn her womanhood and then starting a family. A real family that started with wedding vows. Having those thoughts didn’t concern Unique. It was the person to whom her spirit was drawing her, the person with whom she perhaps would begin this new life, that had her apprehensive.

  Chapter 9

  “I feel like I’m in the Emerald City,” Lorain said as she sat in the parlor of Tabby’s house.

  The average person would call it a sitting room, but Tabby looked at her home more like a manor, estate, or plantation. Considering that she had a full-time staff of mainly African Americans, some might refer to her place as a plantation. But, not to get it twisted, she was not running any type of underground slavery. The folks who worked for Tabby and her husband did not work for free. They were getting paid . . . and paid well.

  “What good is a blessing that causes overflow if you don’t share it?” Tabby had once asked the wives.

>   Tabby and her husband shared so much, it was rumored that her husband was doing more than treating patients, that he had his own little business on the side, one that might involve some illegal prescription writing. It was simply a rumor. No one had ever had any concrete proof, nothing more than some she said, he said. If the whole illegal prescription thing wasn’t true, Tabby’s husband’s patients sure were paying him well, because the couple was always giving to this charity or that charity. And certainly a little wedding planning on the side here and there wasn’t bringing in the big bucks. Tabby had once claimed that a man whose life her husband had saved had left him over five million dollars in his will when he died.

  The wives couldn’t believe it the time the couple purchased a new car for every single person on their staff, right down to the landscapers, who were the only employees who weren’t of African American decent. And not one of the landscapers in this three-man outfit spoke a word of clear English. They were Mexicans who had fled their country, had struggled to become legal U.S. citizens, and then had started their own landscaping company. Tabby and her husband wrote each vehicle off as a gift, a work expense, or something of that nature.

  Tabby was, indeed, the queen of bragging and boasting. Although Tabby had an air of superiority about her, as if she felt she was better than all the other women, it was undeniable that she was a giver from the heart, or at least it appeared that way.

  “Since it’s March, I wanted to go with the whole St. Patrick’s Day green theme,” Tabby said to Lorain. “But I wanted to avoid the whole leprechaun and shamrock leitmotif everyone would be expecting. So I went with the whole Wizard of Oz–Emerald City theme.” Tabby’s eye’s widened with glee as she looked proudly around the room.

  The green bulbs she’d placed in all the crystal lamps with dangling crystal teardrops gave the room such a fairy-tale feel. She had placed mirrors about the room, and the green lighting reflected in them made the women feel as if they were actually in another world. Given all the time and money Tabby had put into the decorations, it was obvious that her desire was to make the women green with envy.

  “Oh, you did a great job with your Emerald City–Wiz-ard of Oz thing, all right,” Carrie said as she walked by, popping a green grape in her mouth that she’d gotten from the fresh fruit platter.

  The platter had only green fruits on it, such as green grapes, kiwi slices, green apple and pear slices, lime slices, and honeydew melon chunks, and a green yogurt dip adorned the center. It sat opposite the vegetable platter, which featured broccoli florets, celery stalks, cucumber slices, snap peas, and green bell pepper slices, with a dill dip in the center. Between the two platters was a huge bowl of a signature green alcoholic beverage. Tabby hadn’t yet shared the recipe, but it was evident that the drink contained mint leaves, as they were floating atop the liquid and really enhanced the flavor.

  Carrie stopped suddenly, turned, and faced Tabby. “You even have the wicked witch and all,” she said and then kept it moving.

  Tabby looked up. “Lord, I repent.”

  “For what?” Lorain asked, confused.

  “For just praying that she chokes on that grape.”

  A couple of the other wives who were in earshot giggled.

  Lorain shook her head. She probably would have laughed herself if she hadn’t actually choked on a grape herself before. It was nothing nice.

  “I heard that,” Carrie said as she sat down on the white couch, which, due to the lighting, looked light mint green.

  “You were supposed to,” Tabby said in a singsong voice as she walked through the archway leading into the dining room. She observed the table as her staff brought the hot food out. Then she called out to the wives. “Ladies, I think we are about set now. You guys can come on in here, and we can chow down.”

  The women had been nibbling on rabbit food for about an hour, so they practically charged into the dining room like bulls.

  “Wow. Everything looks delectable,” Mary said.

  “I concur,” added Lorain as she admired the spread.

  “What are those?” Angel pointed to a platter with little, round, crispy things on it.

  “Green cherry tomatoes, fried,” Tabby said.

  “Oh, bite-size fried green tomatoes. How cute.” Lorain scooted into one of the high-back, wrought-iron chair.

  There was also a platter with bite-size spinach quiche.

  “That green-bean casserole looks yummy,” Carrie said, licking her lips. “What’s that meat in it?”

  “Ground chuck. It’s my mother-in-law’s recipe.” Tabby looked so proud.

  “Yours and Big Mama’s on Twenty-Fifth, over in the Linden area,” Carrie said. She was referencing the neighborhood mother that almost every kid in the hood had grown up with. Most of them were nicknamed either Big Mama or Mama Dukes.

  “What?” Tabby had a huge question mark on her face.

  “I’m sure it’s delicious,” Isabella interrupted.

  Also on the table was sushi wrapped in seaweed, along with some other items. The meal was random and not really cohesive at all, but it was obviously tasty, because the women dived in. A half hour later the servers brought out some hot green tea.

  “By the way, Tabby . . . ,” Lorain began. “Did you and the family end up flying out for your niece’s wedding a couple weeks ago?”

  Tabby, who had popped her last bite of sushi in her mouth, mumbled, “Absolutely not.” She shook her head to reiterate. Once she had swallowed her food, she wiped her mouth and said, “She was marrying another woman, for Pete’s sake. I can’t even believe my sister-in-law had the nerve to get invitations drawn up and to spend money on such a sinful affair. I should have known something was funny about that girl when they started calling her Sam, instead of her given name, Samantha.” She harrumphed. “My poor brother-in-law and sister-sister-in-law spent so much time thinking that it was her son who was gay, God rest his soul, that they didn’t even notice that it was her daughter who was going to live in eternal hell.”

  “Oh, stop it, Tabby,” Isabella said. “You are being so harsh. No one here has a heaven or a hell to place anyone in.”

  “I’m so disappointed in my husband’s brother and his wife. We moved to Ohio only because they were here. My husband and I weren’t raised in the church or anything like that, but we did find Christ eventually. And with my sister-in-law calling herself a Christian, I can’t believe she not only supported the idea but also paid for practically the entire family to go on that cruise to attend that . . . that . . . Oh, I can’t even fix my lips to say it.” Tabby took a sip of her tea, hoping it would calm her nerves.

  “Wait a minute,” Carrie said, pointing her finger at Tabby. There was something about her tone that suggested craziness might fall from her lips next. “How you gon’ say you wouldn’t go to your gay niece’s wedding when just last month you were bragging about the extravagant baby shower you threw for your unwed daughter who is pregnant by her cousin’s husband?” Carrie said to Tabby.

  As Tabby practically choked on her tea, she made a mental note to be careful what she prayed for. A little while ago she’d prayed that Carrie would choke on a grape, and here she was, barely able to catch her breath.

  Isabella, who was sitting next to Tabby, stood and patted her back. “Are you okay?”

  Tabby coughed a few times before replying. “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “Well, good,” Carrie said, starting back in. “Now that you are fine, you can answer my question.”

  With flushed cheeks, Tabby replied, “My niece’s and my daughter’s situations . . . well, they’re different.”

  “Oh, so you can support a ho but not a homo. Makes perfect sense to me,” Carrie said, throwing her hands in the air.

  “Now, you wait one dang on second.” Tabby jumped out of her seat. “Are you calling my daughter a ho?” Isabella grabbed hold of Tabby’s arms as Tabby took a step toward Carrie.

  “Oh, I see. Since there is a green theme going on up in this p
iece, homegirl wanna get froggy. Homegirl wanna jump. Oh, okay.” Carrie had this smug grin on her face. She kept right on eating her food, as if she wasn’t even fazed by the host.

  “What?” Tabby said, scrunching her face in puzzlement. “Will you speak proper English for once so that someone besides hoodlums and thugs will know what the heck you are saying?”

  “Hoodlum? Thug? You’re the one jumping all bad, yet calling somebody else a hoodlum and a thug?” Now Carrie stood, which caused Lorain to stand as well, because she knew Isabella might be able to handle Tabby, but gaining control of Carrie would be out of the question for her. Lorain knew Carrie’s kind. She was Unique before she got saved . . . well, and a couple years after that too.

  “That’s only because you called my daughter a . . . a . . . a garden tool,” Tabby countered.

  The room went dead silent, and everyone looked at Tabby.

  “It’s a shame you’re too snooty to even say ‘ho.’” Carrie shook her head and wagged her hand at Tabby. “Child, I ain’t fooling with you. I ain’t got time to be catching no case.” She looked Tabby up and down. “And you are not worth a second strike.”

  Now all eyes shot directly to Carrie.

  “Don’t judge me,” Carrie said, then sat back down and finished off a quiche.

  “Oh, no, you don’t, missy,” Tabby said. She was so angry, she was shaking. “How dare you talk about my family and then think you’re going to sit down and eat my food without even apologizing!”

  “Oh, girl, I’m sorry,” Carrie said with a stuffed mouth. “You’re daughter ain’t no more of a ho than Lorain’s daughter, with her three baby daddies.”

  Nothing but gasps filled the room.

  There was a long moment of silence while Lorain let Carrie’s words sink in. “What did you say?” Lorain glared at Carrie. Had she really heard what she thought she had?