The only person who was unaware of all of this movement was Essie. She had crept out of church choking with laughter, to avoid embarrassing herself. She was still giggling about that old fool's teeth when she happened to glance up and found herself staring straight into a pair of sparkling, dark brown eyes.
Together, she and Theophilus burst out laughing. "I don't know what possessed the Bishop to let Rev. Alexander preach," Theophilus said. "Essie, that old man has some sermons that'll make this one sound good. But I have to tell you, those bad-fitting teeth have slipped around plenty during his sermons, but this is the first time I have ever heard of them popping out of his mouth."
"Theophilus," Essie said, giggling. "Those were not teeth. They were 'teefs.' Anything that jump out of your mouth like those things are 'teefs.' Teeth stay in your mouth. And that sermon? Lord, Mama thought she would die. She and Mrs. Neese just started fanning themselves fast-like, trying not to laugh. But when those teeth hit the altar cushions, Mrs. Neese took her fan and started hitting Mama on the shoulder, coughing and laughing."
Theophilus shook his head, imagining what Mrs. Neese must have looked like choking on her laughs and hitting Lee Allie with a church fan. "Essie," he said. "This is one of those Annual Conferences folks will be talking about for a long time."
"You know it. And it was a whole lot of mess going on up in church today. Did you see the woman who strutted in late wearing that pink and gold lace dress? Lord knows she was so hot that I thought that dress was gonna burst into flames. It took her almost five minutes to walk into church and sit herself down. She was sashaying and carrying on so . . ."
Chapter Eight
AT THE VERY MOMENT THAT ESSIE WAS SEARCHing for the right words to describe Glodean Benson, Coral Thomas caught up with Glodean on the other side of the church. She said, "Where you think you off to?"
Glodean tipped her head back and a little to the side. "Why, Miss Coral, don't you mean to say, 'Welcome back home to Memphis'?"
"You can be all smart and sassy with me if you wants to. But I know and you know, you out here looking for the Pastor. Like to broke your neck jumping up to catch up with him when you saw him walking out of church."
"And what if I did jump up and fly out the church? The old-tail women's missionary society hasn't passed no laws that says I can't leave church when the Pastor do."
Coral leaned toward her. "Maybe our old tails should've passed a whatever just for sly cats like you. Now, gal, you know you followed that man to find out who he with. I know that much 'cause I watched you all during service, looking all around, trying to figure out who it is he supposed to be likin'."
Glodean put one hand on her hip, lifting her chin so Coral could see her eyes from up under that big hat. "I heard Theophilus took up with some heifer who came up here out of them Mississippi swamps. Is that why you're all up in my face with some mess?"
Coral pursed her lips like she had something nasty-tasting in her mouth. "For yo' information, Miss Gal, them swamps is down in Louisiana and Florida. And that heifer, as you call her, is like my baby girl. I know all about you and the Pastor. I been watchin' out, thinkin' you had the dignity and sense enough to stay away from where you ain't wanted. But you ain't worth the Tennessee dirt he sho' wallowed in when he hooked up with your nasty swiggling, trifling self."
Glodean put her hand on her hip. "Coral Thomas, you have some nerve talking to me like that. And if we wasn't at church, I'd smack your old behind for gettin' all up in my face like you doing."
Coral took a step toward Glodean and pushed her face closer to hers. "Glodean Benson, I wish we wasn't outside of this church at the Annual Conference, so that right after you'd smacked me, I could tear up yo' behind for even thinkin' about layin' a finger on me."
Glodean moved away from Coral, a little scared by her force. But Coral moved right back up on her and said, "Don't you know, if that man really want you, honey, ain't nothin' or nobody gone stand 'tween him and you. But you and I both know he don't want you. And from the way I hear it, he made that point mighty clear to you some time ago."
Glodean was hurt by Coral saying that the Pastor didn't want her, but she wasn't about to let some old woman get the best of her, either. She put her tongue behind her front teeth and sucked the air through them, then said nastily, "I'll leave that pitiful thing alone, whoever, naw, whatever she is. 'Cause I know if she need your help holding on to a man, she need all the help she can get. Now I knows the Pastor in the biblical way. And I can tell you that I knows him well— what he like, when he like it, and how he like it. And I also knows that if your baby girl is capable of making him want to know her, if he ever cry out when he get with her, the only thing she'll hear comin' from his mouth is my name. 'Cause you see, Coral Thomas, I doubt very seriously if she can tackle with what I laid on my pastor."
Glodean flicked Coral a wave with her lace-gloved hand, meant to signify that she had just been told off. "So," she said, as she daintily adjusted her hat, "I think this ends our little conversation. And I'd appreciate it if you would move your old, rolled-at-the-knee-stocking-wearing-self out of my way."
Glodean started sashaying away. But Coral wasn't finished with Glodean Benson. She grabbed her arm and pulled her back, forcing Glodean to turn around and face her.
"Gal, you can act all high and mighty with me if you wants to. But yo' butt is, and will continue to be, pitiful. You hear me? Pitiful. And when the day does come for that man to want to cry out anything, he'll be real careful about what he let pass through his lips, 'cause she'll be his wife. Now, I ain't seen the Pastor all up in your face, tryin' to marry you with yo' crazy self."
Coral dropped Glodean's arm. But she was still so mad that practically all the saints in heaven had to hold her back, to stop her from snatching that expensive hat off Glodean and stomping it into the ground. She said, "I need to bless you out some more just because you, with yo' crazy low-down ways, done made me lose my religion right here at church and service ain't even over with yet."
Glodean was so furious at Coral Thomas that she snatched the church door open and stormed back inside just as altar prayer was starting. Pushing people out of her way, she desperately moved toward the altar, hoping against all rational thinking that God would make Theophilus Simmons forget about that Mississippi woman and come to her.
Essie immediately picked up on Theophilus's uneasiness about Glodean and said, "Did I say something wrong?"
He became fidgety and looked away.
"You know her, don't you?"
"Yes," he answered in a tight voice.
"And?" Essie asked.
"And . . . I'll tell you about it during dinner."
"But Theophilus—"
"I'm not discussing it with you here," he interrupted. "Why don't you go back in there and tell your mama that we're leaving for dinner? I'm going to get the car."
Essie did as he said, slipping back into the church to whisper to her mother that she was leaving with Theophilus.
She was gone by the time Coral Thomas got back, still as puffed up with anger as a charging bull.
D.S. looked at her face, raised his eyebrows, and silently asked, "What's wrong with you?"
Coral threw him a look saying, "Too mad to talk now."
D.S. made it clear with his eyes that he expected to get the whole story once they got back home.
Chapter Nine
THEOPHILUS DROVE UP IN HIS 1961 MIDNIGHT BLUE Buick, parked, then got out and came around to the passenger side so that he could help Essie into the car. When he slid into the driver's seat, he noticed that she was practically clinging to the passenger door.
"Are you planning on jumping out of the car?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"What I mean is that you're sitting on the edge of the seat like you might need to make a quick getaway or something."
"I don't think it looks right for me to sit too close to you in your car."
"Look right?" he said. "Woman, it'll look like
we're riding in the car, which we are."
"No, it'll look like I'm your after-service woman."
Theophilus began to pull out slowly, then glanced over at Essie and said, "My what?"
She folded her arms across her chest and said, "You know.
One of those women some preachers sneak off with when they come to these conferences."
"If that is what you think, then stay your little self on over there. And while you're at it," he said, patting the seat irritably, "put your purse right here between us. That way I won't be able to slide you over here by me, in case I forget myself and start acting like the after-service man."
She gave him a "Negro please" look and moved half an inch closer to him.
They rode in silence for the next seven blocks until Theophilus told her, "There's a stop I want to make."
He pulled up in front of a medium-sized church, with a lovely white frame house with brick-red-colored shutters standing next to it.
"This is Greater Hope. And that white house is the parsonage. Just thought you might like to see my church and where I live."
"It's very nice," was all Essie could bring herself to say.
"I like it," Theophilus said, amused by her nervous air, and restarted the car.
They traveled about three miles, and then he turned into a gravel parking lot, alongside what looked like a former warehouse. Over the door was a soft white neon sign that read MABEL'S KITCHEN.
Despite its plain exterior, Essie was surprised to find that inside Mabel's Kitchen was quite elegant. She could see into a dining room that was painted off-white and had silver-trimmed, off-white curtains at all the windows. The tables were draped with soft, off-white linen tablecloths and decorated with silver-bowed clay flowerpots, filled with artificial moss and off-white silk carnations. The high-backed cane chairs that surrounded each table had off-white and silver-striped seat cushions.
"I had no idea Mabel's Kitchen was so fancy," Essie said, looking around the room.
"This dining room is nice but I think you'll like the one upstairs even better."
The second-floor dining room was decorated in gold, black, and ivory. The curtains on the windows were silk, and they matched the gold, black, and ivory striped seat cushions of the same high-backed chairs as downstairs. There were ivory linens on each table, gold-plated silverware, and shiny gold goblets filled with fresh ivory-colored roses. Beside each rose-filled goblet sat two gold candles that gave the tables a warm romantic glow. There was a small dance floor and a stage in this room, on which a Negro combo was playing very softly.
Theophilus took one of Essie's hands and tried not to sway to the music while they waited to be seated. The headwaiter, dressed in a tuxedo, led them to a cozy table near one of the windows. He left them with menus, then returned to fill their gold-rimmed crystal goblets with ice water and to take their order in a small notebook, using a tiny gold pencil that he kept in his tuxedo's breast pocket.
"I'm ready," Essie said. "I would like the small order of baby-back barbecued ribs, with potato salad and collard greens."
"And for your bread, ma'am? We have cornbread muffins, rolls, biscuits, and the evening's house special, which is red-hot bread."
"What's red-hot bread?"
"It's cornbread muffins cooked with onions, fresh-roasted bell peppers, and dried hot peppers. It's hot, but most people say that it is very good."
"Then I'll try it. And I'd like some iced tea with lots of ice and lemons."
The waiter turned to Theophilus. "And you, Reverend?" "What's the special?"
"Pot roast cooked with carrots, pearl onions, and small red potatoes, with turnip greens and buttered squash."
"That sounds pretty good. I'll have that with the red-hot bread and iced tea, a little ice and no lemons."
When the waiter left them Essie said, "Theophilus, everything about this restaurant is so formal. Why did you bring me to such a fancy place?"
"Because I thought it would be fun. In case you haven't noticed, I can be fun to be with. A lot of women can't imagine a preacher laughing and having a good time, unless of course he is involved in some kind of church activity."
"A lot of women?" Essie said. "Women like that the hipjigglin' woman in the pink dress back at church?"
"Why are you so interested in her?" Theophilus asked with irritation creeping into his voice.
"Because she is one of your old girlfriends."
He was spared from answering by a young woman carrying a gold tray, who left them with two glasses of iced tea, long-handled gold teaspoons, and a crystal bowl full of sliced lemons.
Essie continued, "Theophilus, I timed it—her walk, you know. It took that woman five minutes to walk down the aisle and to her seat. A woman don't sashay through church like that unless she got a reason to. The way you're acting about all this, Theophilus, I think that reason is you. Don't you think you should tell me about her?"
"Essie, I really don't know where to begin," he said, frowning.
"Maybe you should begin where all of this mess first got started."
"Well, I met Glodean Benson when I was in college, before I entered the seminary. Everything between us was just fine until I accepted a dinner invitation at her apartment."
Essie just looked at Theophilus. How "fine" could everything be, if a young woman was bold enough to ask a single man over to her apartment for dinner? Theophilus must have shown some kind of interest in her. But Glodean had given Essie the impression that she was very calculating. Her walk through church this afternoon certainly looked like a well-planned maneuver.
He shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. "You know something, baby, we need to put this to rest. Why would you want to know the gory details of that old relationship?"
Essie cut her eyes at him. "Theophilus, why wouldn't I want to know the 'gory details' of y'all's relationship? This thing you had with her was serious—so serious, she made a big to-do in order to get your attention in church this afternoon. She even made the Bishop wait, holding up the processional while we all had to sit there watching her swish herself down the aisle to her seat."
Theophilus tried to stifle Essie with one of the stern looks he gave members of his congregation when he felt they were out of line. Annoyingly, it didn't seem to ruffle her in the least.
"Theophilus, I don't care about you having girlfriends before me," she said. "I've known from the start that women want your attention. Just look at how Saphronia McComb acted with you"—she didn't know the half of it, Theophilus thought—"and she's color-struck. You're a preacher, and I haven't heard of a preacher who didn't have at least a dozen women chasing him down. And Theophilus, I never thought you were some kind of an angel just because you are a preacher. I would never expect or want you to be perfect, either. I know you are a man, subject to the same feelings and desires as any other man. But I did think you had a little more sense than most. What I really can't understand is how you got all tangled up with someone like her. She is fine-looking and all that, but she looked a little touched in the head to me.
"And," Essie said, letting out a deep breath, "more than that, I have a hard time believing that woman's old stuff was so tempting until it made you ignore right to do wrong and forget about your home training, and your common sense."
Theophilus started coughing and had to drink some of his tea. He would go to his grave without ever telling Essie just how tempting and good Glodean's "old stuff" truly was. He shivered a bit at that thought. The only way he would go to his grave and not tell Essie something was if she was with him when he died. And the only woman who would be with him on his deathbed would be his wife. He tried to bury that thought. "Look, Essie, I'm not a whorish man but I am a man. And as a man, I do have needs. I know church folk don't want to hear this but sometimes we all mess up, even preachers. My spirit is strong but I am still a flesh and blood man. Even as much as we hate it, we sometimes miss it and get ourselves in a position where we are not practicing what we preach. Celibacy is
hard, baby, real hard. I only messed up that one time but I messed up bad, baby."
Essie was disgusted that he would dare to hand her some tacky mess like that. She thought about what her mama always said—"A man, even a good one, can sure act like a natural fool over some loose tail." "I'll repeat myself," she said. "Theophilus, you had to know on some level that all of this business with Glodean wasn't right. It should have been clear from the start, that one step in her direction was a step toward disaster."
He sighed with exasperation. "Girl, why do you have to make all of this sound so low-down and nasty? I said—"
She quickly interrupted. "It was nasty, wasn't it? And what happened today just showed you that you can't get away from that. You need to do better, Theophilus, flesh and blood man that you are. You need to stay on your knees over this mess."
Theophilus nodded to acknowledge that Essie was right, recognizing that trying to defend himself would only make matters worse. And what could he say? Even friends like Eddie couldn't understand how he had lost his head over Glodean.
Hadn't he already let this Glodean junk mess him up enough? He didn't want to waste any more of his precious time with Essie talking about her. He took a long sip of his tea and smiled at Essie, taking one of her hands and raising it to his lips. Then, with his thumb, he gently rubbed the spot on the back of her hand that he had kissed.
Essie drew in her breath. That spot on her hand was glowing from his kiss and his touch.
Theophilus closed his eyes, still caressing her hand. He said, "Essie, I am sorry my past showed up at the very moment when I was hoping for a brighter future."
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