Forgotten (Book 3--Forsaken Series)

by Vanessa Miller

  “JT, I know you’re here. You might as well get on out here and face me.”

  Margie stood up and rushed over to Lamont’s office. She hated the thought of protecting JT from anyone, but she couldn’t allow Diane to just barge into Pastor Lamont’s office. “Wait Diane, wait,” Margie called out as Diane attempted to pass her office, enroute to Pastor Lamont’s office.

  Diane swung around to face Margie. The look on her face indicated that she was about ready to leave a few pieces of her mind at Margie’s doorstep, but as she noticed who was standing in front of her, she stopped, put her hand on her hip and said, “Margie? Girl, what are you doing here?”

  “I work here.”

  Diane laughed. She pointed towards Pastor Lamont’s office door. “For JT’s little flunky… please tell me you’re joking.”

  “Would you mind stepping into my office for a moment?” Margie asked, in an attempt to get Diane as far away from Pastor Lamont’s office as possible.

  She followed Margie into her office, snapping her fingers as if she was on to something. “Don’t tell me you’ve got a thing going on with JT again.”

  Appalled, Margie swung back around. “How could you say something like that? You know that I don’t want anything to do with JT.”

  Glancing around the room, Diane said, “You’ve got a funny way of showing it. Because if I didn’t want anything to do with him, I sure wouldn’t be working for a man he’s mentoring… who is more like a son to him than a friend.”

  “I didn’t know that when I answered the employment ad, but I do need a job and I am not about to let JT take one more thing away from me,” Margie said with her arms folded across her chest defiantly.

  “Well, look at you… I guess you done went and got yourself a backbone, huh?”

  Diane was referring to the court case Diane had against JT and the fact that Margie had backed out. Margie knew that Diane thought that she was scared and pathetic for not standing up to JT.

  In actuality, Margie hadn’t wanted anything to do with the case because she was becoming bitter and angry at a time when she was trying to live, let live and forgive. She wasn’t about to rehash all of that at that moment. “Is there something I can help you with, Diane?”

  “Yeah, you can tell that no-good, so-called preacher, JT, to get out here and face me like a man,” Diane said, raising her voice.

  “You just can’t come in here and start hollering like this.”

  “You’d be hollering too, if JT wouldn’t let you see your own flesh and blood.” She wobbled a bit as she tried to point at Pastor Lamont’s door again.

  Margie narrowed her eyes and gave Diane a hard stare. “Are you drunk?”

  Laughing, Diane balked, “What’s it to you?”

  “This is a church, Diane. Don’t you have any respect for God?”

  Diane leaned closer to Margie as she said, “Does he have any respect for me?”

  Margie smelled the alcohol on her breath and stepped back. The door to Pastor Lamont’s office opened and both men walked into her office with curious looks on their faces.

  “What in the world is going on out here?” Lamont asked.

  Diane swerved around, stumbled and then righted herself. “Don’t you worry about what I’m doing; I came to see,” she jabbed a finger in JT’s direction, “this low-down, good for nothing.”

  “I’m sorry you were disturbed, Pastor Lamont. I’ll walk Diane out to her car,” Margie said hurriedly. The last thing she needed was to lose her job because she couldn’t handle the people who came in off the street.

  Margie tried to grab Diane’s arm, but Diane pushed her away. “What’s wrong with you, Margie?” Diane pointed from JT to Lamont and back again. “They are the enemy. Why are you helping them?”

  “This is my job.”

  “You don’t have to explain anything to her. If she had any sense, she wouldn’t be coming in here drunk,” JT said with a look of utter disgust on his face.

  “I know you’re not judging me,” Diane threw back. “You’re the last person that should judge anybody.”

  “Okay, Diane, you’re right. I’m the last person that should judge anybody. Now that you’ve had your say, can you just please leave Lamont’s church and stop embarrassing yourself?” JT still looked as if he’d tasted some sour milk.

  “I want to see my daughter,” Diane screamed in his face. “You can’t keep my little girl from me. I’m her mother, not Cassandra.”

  “The courts have given you visitation rights, Diane. You’re supposed to see Lily the second weekend of every month, but somehow you always have an excuse as to why you can’t pick her up when your weekend comes around.”

  “I want to take her to a party this weekend, but your awful wife told me I can’t have her.” Diane let out a bitter laugh. “I should have known better than to get involved with you.”

  “Let me take you to your car,” Lamont said as he walked over and gently grabbed Diane’s arm and walked her out of the office.

  “I don’t want to leave. I want JT to admit that he’s wrong.”

  “Okay Diane, I’ll talk to him and see if they can work something else out with you on visitation,” Lamont said as he continued escorting her to the back door.

  In an effort to get as far away from JT as possible, Margie rushed back behind her desk, sat down and began going through the paperwork on her desk as if baby mamas came into the church every day starting trouble with the preachers they used to sleep with.

  “I’m sorry you had to witness that,” JT said as he stood in front of her desk.

  Margie ignored him, just kept working and praying that he would evaporate.

  But he didn’t evaporate. In fact, after standing there for a moment, he spoke to her again. “I know this is a little awkward for you, but Lamont thinks that you’re doing a great job, so I believe that you and I can find a way to get along.”

  Was this man really standing there lecturing her about getting along, with his raggedy self? She put her paperwork down and glared at him as she said, “Maybe this is awkward for you, Minister JT.” She refused to call him pastor after all he did to her and how he left her life in shambles. “After all, here you are a married preacher with ex-lovers coming out the woodwork. That’s got to be hard to explain to your congregation.”

  JT stepped back as if he’d just stuck his hand in a fire and gotten burned. “Sorry for bothering you, it won’t happen again.”

  “Thank you. I’d appreciate it if you’d stay as far away from me as possible,” Margie said, with daggers in her eyes. Her venom was even surprising to her, because she had convinced herself that she had worked through all of the anger she’d felt for JT. But having him this close only served to remind her of how foolish she had been once upon a time.

  Six

  “Margie, can I speak with you for a moment?” Lamont asked after JT left the building.

  “Sure.” Grabbing a pad and pen, Margie rushed into Lamont’s office. “What can I do for you?”

  “Have a seat.”

  She complied and adjusted her skirt so that no excess skin was showing. “I just finished typing the Sunday program, but I haven’t printed it off yet, so if you have any changes, I can make those for you.”

  “Did you get a chance to put my schedule together for next week?”

  “Sure did.” Margie flipped a few pages in her notepad. “You have the Joy Given’s wedding tomorrow. I’ll be here to print the programs for the wedding party and to keep a look out for Diane Benson.”

  “Why are you looking for Diane?”

  “You do know that Joe Benson, the groom, is Diane’s ex-husband, don’t you?” Margie asked with a glint of devilment in her eye.

  “Yes, I know that, but Benson has been through with Diane for years now. I doubt if he would invite her to his wedding.”

  “Trust me on this, Pastor Lamont, Diane doesn’t have to be invited. The woman just shows up and causes trouble.” She turned away from Lamont as sh
e, once again, took note of his golden skin tone and handsome facial features. Looking down at her notes, Margie said, “You also have DeVon Wilson’s funeral on Monday, a marriage counseling session on Tuesday and a pre-marital counseling session on Thursday. Other than that, you should have time to work on your messages for next Wednesday and Sunday.”

  Lamont shook his head. “I hate doing funerals. But so many saints seem to be dying these days that I end up doing two or three a month.”

  “I know what you mean. The saints keep praying, but the sick keep dying.”

  “Well, thanks for keeping track of my schedule,” Lamont said.

  “Not a problem, I’ll type it up and add it to your Outlook calendar before I leave work today.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Anything else?” Margie asked like an eager beaver.

  Lamont hesitated for a moment, then said, “There is one more thing that I wanted to speak with you about.” Lamont looked at Margie with concern showing on his face.

  “Did I do something wrong?” Now she had a look of concern on her face.

  He leaned back in his chair, swiveled around and then as he righted the chair, he looked right at her. “I think I should have had this conversation with you the day you started working here, but I didn’t want it to come off as if I was trying to get in your business.”

  Lamont adjusted his seat and looked everywhere but at Margie as if this conversation was painfully uncomfortable for him. “I know that you and JT once had a thing,” he began. “I’m not asking for any details or anything, I just need for you to understand that I can’t allow your past relationship with JT to affect this ministry.”

  Margie couldn’t explain it, but somehow she knew that Cassandra had kept her word. She hadn’t been the one to tell Lamont about what she had done, it had been JT. The knowledge of that set Margie’s hair on end more than the fact that she was even having a discussion like this with her employer. “If you think that I have any interest in Minister JT Thomas, I can assure you that you’re wrong.”

  Lamont raised a hand. “No, no, no… that’s not what I’m trying to say. I do believe that JT is a changed man, so he’s not looking to do anything wrong like that.” Margie gave him a look that said, ‘But you think I am looking to do wrong?’ Lamont caught her look and quickly added, “I don’t think that you’re interested in JT in that manner any more either. But I do know that you are dealing with a bit of resentment towards him.”

  “I’m not dealing with anything towards Minister JT.”

  Lamont looked directly at her as he said, “I think you are still angry with JT—and who could blame you, but I can’t have any of the issues you have with him affect the way we conduct business here, because JT and I work very closely together. He has helped me tremendously, and I wouldn’t want anyone working here to go out of their way to offend him. Do we understand each other?”

  Margie wanted to play dumb and act like she had a hard time with making two and two equal four, but she needed this job. So if he wanted her to treat Mr. JT Thomas with respect, then that is what he would get. “I understand.” She stood up. “Did you want anything else?”

  He gave her a questioning glance, but then said, “No. That’s it. Thanks.”

  As Margie turned and walked out of Lamont’s office, she kept reminding herself that she really needed a job and that up ‘til now, this had been a great place to work.

  ***

  About the same time, Diane was wishing that she had a great, good or even a bad place to work. No matter what the working conditions, at least she would be getting a paycheck that day. With the child support payments she owed Benson, and with the fact that she was six months behind on her payments and was two seconds from getting a warrant put out for her arrest, Diane needed to change things up.

  She had two kids with her ex-husband. Shay and Joe Jr. were both teenagers, so she wouldn’t have much longer to pay child support for them. Although the idea that she should have to pay a grown man to keep his own kids galled Diane. But Benson had made sure she would pay, asking that the child support would be auto drafted out of her paycheck.

  Once she no longer received a paycheck, the child support enforcement agency was on her back. At least JT hadn’t requested child support from her. Although once she demanded visitation rights, the courts had then demanded that she pay child support. At least JT hadn’t asked that it be auto drafted, so the courts were only aware that she was behind on her child support for Benson. They had no clue that she had never paid JT a dime in the last five years.

  The thought of getting over on JT made her laugh at times. He’d certainly gotten over on her. If it wasn’t for JT, Diane would still be married to Benson and she wouldn’t be facing the possibility of spending time in jail for non-payment of child support. Diane had recently discovered that child support didn’t have to be paid if she lived with the primary care giver. That, coupled with the fact that Benson had moved up to selling Cadillacs and business was booming, made Diane want to go back home like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.

  She’d been working on getting Benson to forgive her and allow them to become a family again. Her plan could have worked if it wasn’t for the silly woman that he started dating and was now planning to marry tomorrow.

  Diane picked up the phone and called her daughter. When Shay picked up the phone, Diane said, “Hey Shay-Shay, whatcha doing?”

  “Sitting around here watching Daddy make a fool of himself.”

  Diane smiled. She knew that the one person she could count on to help her with her plan was her daughter, the original daddy’s girl. Shay seemed to hate the idea of someone new in her father’s life even more than Diane did. “I know how you feel honey, I can’t understand why your father is doing this to all of us.”

  “Are you upset about this wedding, too, Mama?” Shay asked.

  “You know I am. I always thought your father and I would get back together so that we could all be a family again. But then this woman showed up out of nowhere and stole your daddy right from under my nose.”

  Sniffling, Shay said, “I keep telling Daddy that Joy isn’t the woman for him, but he won’t listen to me.”

  With concern in her voice, Diane said, “I hate it when you cry, sweetie. Put your dad on the phone so I can talk to him about this.”

  “He’s not going to come to the phone. He already told me that he didn’t want to talk to you until after the wedding.” Shay could be heard blowing her nose through the phone line.

  “Okay, baby, don’t worry about it. Just tell me where your dad is going to be tonight. I’ll stop in and talk to him about this situation.”

  “Dad said that you embarrassed him and Joy the last time he saw you in public. I’m not allowed to give out his information anymore.”

  This was going to be tougher than Diane had thought. Shay was going to play this daddy’s girl role to the end. She should have called her son. She and Joe Jr. had always had a better relationship. He would do anything for his mother. But Joey had basketball practice tonight, and Diane didn’t want to mess with that, because Joey was really good and had the potential to make the NBA… and keep his mama in houses, cars, jewels and purses and anything else she wanted. So, no, messing with Joey’s head was not an option. “Look baby-girl, I can tell that you are hurting behind your father’s decision to throw his family away for that woman he’s only known for a few months. But I can’t help you if you won’t help me.”

  Shay cried harder. “I want to tell you, Mama, I really do, but I don’t want Dad to be mad at me.”

  Diane shook her head, she wanted to remind the girl that she was fifteen and really needed to grow up and stop worrying so much about what her daddy thought. Cut the cord already. But if she said that, Shay might also think she needed to cut the cord attached to her Mama, and Diane didn’t want that. “Let me help you, Shay. I know that Benson doesn’t want to go through with this farce of a marriage. He still loves me and if I could just get h
im to talk to me, he’d realize that, also.”

  “I do wish that you and Daddy would get back together,” Shay agreed.

  “Me too, sweetheart. I just need time to convince Benson of that.” She had her now, any moment Shay would be giving up the information she needed.

  “Diane?”

  That was not her daughter’s voice. It was a very angry sounding woman, so, Diane knew that Joy had walked in on her and Shay’s conversation. “Give that phone back to my daughter.”

  “Look Diane, this is Joy and you might as well get used to the idea of talking to me, because I’m going to marry Benson tomorrow.”

  “Over my dead body you will,” Diane retorted.

  “I hope it doesn’t come to that, but God does work in mysterious ways,” Joy said.

  “Oh, so you’re not just stealing my husband, but now you’re wishing for my death also, is that it?”

  “No, that’s not what I meant.” Joy’s voice sounded with conviction as she said, “I’m sorry about that remark, it was uncalled for.”

  Smirking, Diane said, “You so-called Christians are all alike. You pretend to be all concerned about people, while sitting in those pews listening to sermons that God himself isn’t even listening to. When you leave church, you wouldn’t even give a crust of bread to a man dying of starvation.”

  “Diane, I don’t know what this is all about, but I barely know you, so I haven’t done anything to you. And if you are hungry, Benson and I will see that you get something to eat. Do you need us to bring some food over there?” Joy asked meekly.

  “No, you idiot, I’m not hungry. I was talking about the fact that Christians don’t seem to help nobody but themselves.” Diane’s neck was rolling as she strutted around her small living room, holding the phone to her ear. “And that includes you also. You knew that Benson had a wife, but you wouldn’t leave him alone. Now his kids are being torn apart because of your selfishness.”