For the Sake of Love

by Dwan Abrams

  She drew a deep breath and slowly released it. “As ready as I’ll ever be.” Bria stood in front of the door and thought about how special this moment was for her. People showed up to support her vision. That meant a lot to her.

  “Welcome to The Spa Factory!” Her voice projected confidence and enthusiasm. Thank goodness she didn’t look like what she was going through. “I want to thank you all for coming out tonight to join us in celebrating our grand opening. I hope the traffic wasn’t too bad.”

  There were some chuckles and rumblings before the crowd applauded. Bria flashed a warm smile. Next, she introduced the mayor who made a brief speech before assisting Bria with cutting the red ribbon in front of the spa.

  “The doors are officially open,” Bria announced. “Come on in and tour the facilities. We have food and drinks for everyone.”

  The stampeding crowd passed her like a herd of nimble gazelle. The dimly lit room smelled like vanilla as Bruno Mars’s song “Treasure” played in the background. For the moment, Bria was out of her funk and felt like socializing. She mingled with the guests and made sure they were comfortable. The waitstaff walked around offering champagne and hors d’oeuvres. She was glad that the staff was attentive to the guests, and everyone appeared to be having a good time.

  Mini massages were available. A robust lady had her eyes closed and appeared to be a head nod away from falling asleep as the massage therapist kneaded her shoulders like dough, Bria noticed.

  “I’ve been looking for you all evening,” a man whispered in Bria’s ear, startling her.

  She turned around and said, “Oh? Do I know you?”

  “I’m Kerryngton. Kerryngton Kruse.”

  Bria guessed he was older than she was. Not because he looked old, just that he conducted himself like a more mature man. If she had to guess his age, she’d say somewhere around thirty.

  Extending a hand to him, she said, “Nice to meet you.”

  He took her hand and gazed into her eyes. His stare sent a chill through her body. She almost shivered. Although she had never met him before in her life there was something oddly familiar about him, but what? She couldn’t quite figure it out. She released his hand and said, “Are you having a nice time?”

  “Better now that I’ve had an opportunity to speak with you.”

  She tried to figure out his game because she thought he was cooler than the actor Morris Chestnut in the movie The Best Man, or her mother’s all-time favorite Denzel Washington in Mo’ Better Blues. Regardless, he had swagger with a capital “s.” He acted like he knew her, and that caught her off guard. At this point, she was not sure whether she should be suspicious or intrigued.

  He smiled, revealing beautiful white teeth and congratulated her.

  She thanked him and politely said, “It was a pleasure, Kerryngton.”

  Grabbing her hand he asked, “Will I see you again, Ms. Murray?”

  His attention was like sunshine, and she basked in the delicious warmth of it. He had totally disarmed her. She was at a loss for words. Even though she was brokenhearted from her breakup with Spade, she wasn’t blind and thought that Kerryngton was very good looking. She was tempted to give him a business card, but felt as though she was being unfaithful to Spade, so she did not. She pried her hand away from his, and before she could walk away, he handed her his card instead. She studied the black card with gold lettering and when she looked up, he was gone.

  That was smooth, she thought, grinning from ear to ear. Her father had often schooled her on the ways of young men. If a guy had a way of making a woman eat out of the palm of his hands, her dad would say, “That joker’s a smooth operator.” From what little she could tell about Kerryngton, he certainly qualified. Now she was the one standing there thinking about him. She momentarily left the crowd and placed his card in her contemporary-styled office on top of her desk. Then it dawned on her. How did he know her last name? She hadn’t told him that. She had a feeling that she would be seeing him again.

  Seven

  Spade needed to work to get his mind off of his cancer and Bria. He booked some studio time to work on his CD. He had a hard time focusing on work even though he spent most of his time in the studio hoping to get inspired. With everything going on he hadn’t been able to eat, sleep, or concentrate. Bria had been on his mind even more than his condition. He tried to throw himself into his work, but he couldn’t get into it. When he tried to write a song, everything sounded the same . . . like a country love song. He had it bad and couldn’t stop pining away for Bria. Even when he tried to do freestyle raps he noticed that his timing wasn’t right. His heart just wasn’t in it.

  “Man, what’s up with you tonight?” his sound engineer asked.

  Spade took off his headset and sulked. He thought going into the recording studio would help get his mind off Bria, but he was wrong. He kept wondering how the grand opening was going. Tempted to call Bria just to let her know he was thinking of her, he mentally reprimanded himself for being so selfish. Hearing her voice would make him feel better, but he knew hearing his would upset her. He didn’t want to confuse the situation any more than he had already done. Tonight was a big deal for Bria, and he made the difficult decision to stay away. He just hoped and prayed she would be able to forgive him someday.

  “I don’t know. I’m just not feeling it,” he finally admitted.

  “I thought tonight was your girl’s grand opening. Why are you here instead of there?”

  Spade didn’t think he could feel any worse than he already did, but this line of questioning made him sink to a lower level of low. At the time when he made the spur-of-the-moment decision to break up with Bria he had forgotten all about the opening of her spa. He thought he was making the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of love. He wanted to spare her, even if it meant breaking both their hearts. Instead, he realized that not only had he deeply hurt the woman he loved, he quite possibly ruined one of the most important nights of her life. He felt like a complete and utter jerk.

  Although he wasn’t surprised that Bria hadn’t called him to acknowledge the flowers he had sent her, he still felt disappointed. He had ordered those flowers weeks ago just to make sure they’d arrive on time for Bria’s big event the second weekend in May. At the time, he hadn’t wanted to risk the chance of him forgetting or getting too busy to place the order. He wondered if he had made matters worse. Since when did being thoughtful turn out to be a bad thing? he thought. Right about now, Spade felt like if it wasn’t for bad luck he wouldn’t have any luck at all.

  He shook his head and his muscular shoulders slumped just a bit. “Man, we broke up,” he blurted out.

  The sound engineer turned down the music. “What happened?” His New York accent was more evident than ever.

  Spade could tell that what he was really asking was, “What did you do to mess this up, man? How did you blow it with one of the finest women in the A?”

  Anyone who had ever seen Spade with Bria knew she was the best thing that ever happened to him. By nature, Spade could come off as straight to the point and hard core. Bria helped him to find the good out of life. She exposed him to art museums, plays, walks in the park, and sushi. She had him literally smelling flowers.

  Before he could give a response, a big-name producer assigned to work on Spade’s CD came into the studio with his entourage. They wore hoodies with baggy, saggy jeans, the latest kicks, and talked loudly. At first glance, they looked like a bunch of thugs ready to snatch and run. But in reality, they were rich and accomplished in the music industry.

  The sound engineer gave him a look that let him know he didn’t have to give an answer right then, but the conversation wasn’t over.

  The entourage had hot wings, french fries, sodas, bottles of booze, bags of the best marijuana money could buy, and the nefarious drug Molly.

  As soon as Spade saw the weed he tensed up. Back in the day he used to be a bona fide “weed head.” He smoked weed every day from the time he was fifteen to eig
hteen years old. Most of his teen years were spent in a haze. Like a lot of people he didn’t see anything wrong with getting high. Nearly every guy he knew got high.

  His grandmother had told him, “Smoking marijuana is just a momentary escape from life and doesn’t solve your problems. Getting high only compounds your problems. Satan wants to keep you in bondage to marijuana; God wants to set you free.”

  He had justified it because it was a plant, grown from the earth. “How bad could it be?” he had told her.

  “Baby, yes, God did create the plant marijuana comes from. However, God never ever intended for you to dry the plant out, go buy a pack of plastic Ziploc bags, crumble the dried plant in the rolling paper, roll it up, and smoke it. That’s a perverted use of God’s creation.”

  He wanted to laugh because he wondered how his grandmother knew so much about it. He knew she would’ve slapped the sound straight out of his mouth if he dared disrespect her by asking. Instead, he defended, “It’s safer than cigarettes and alcohol.”

  “First of all, it’s illegal. The only reason you smoke marijuana is to get that ‘high’ feeling. God wants us to have a sound mind, not an altered mind! When you’re high you’re not able to think clearly.”

  Spade still wasn’t convinced.

  “Listen to me, Spade. I’m not going to keep lecturing you. I’m going to pray for you, because what you do in your early years will have an effect on your later years. You may not care now, but one day when your short-term memory is gone you can think back to these times.”

  His grandmother’s concerns weren’t enough to stop him, though. It wasn’t until he met Bria and she told him that she didn’t date guys who smoked weed that he stopped. She meant so much to him that he willingly cleaned up his act. He hadn’t lit up since. And then he realized that everything his grandmother tried to tell him was true. Whenever he had difficulty remembering something, he wondered if it was a side effect of his years of getting high.

  “Hey, I’m not trying to be funny,” Spade told the guys in the studio, “but I don’t feel comfortable with y’all having drugs in here. If the cops roll up in here, I’m not trying to catch a case.” The look on his face let everyone know that he was serious. He didn’t have a criminal record, and he wasn’t trying to get one. Plus, the police department seemed to have a special task force dedicated to busting rappers. He didn’t want to give them any reason to bust him.

  There were four things Spade didn’t play with and that was his relationship with God, his freedom, his money, and his love for his woman.

  The producer nodded in his direction and instructed the guy with the ganja to get it out of there.

  One thing Spade hated about the industry was the acceptability and accessibility of drugs. Temptation was everywhere, and he refused to entertain her.

  Spade spoke to everybody who spoke to him. The producer offered him some wings and the smell of hot sauce made his empty stomach growl. He accepted the wings and an individual basket full of crinkled fries with lots of ketchup. He didn’t realize how hungry he was until he devoured the food.

  While licking his fingers he noticed a female walking into the studio. He didn’t like women in the studio because they were a distraction.

  Dressed in provocative attire, she said, “Hey, I’m Kola. I’m supposed to be singing some of your hooks.” Judging by her Coke-bottle shape, Spade figured that’s how she must’ve gotten her name.

  “Oh, okay.”

  Some of the guys made catcalls and nearly all of them were eyeing her big boobs and fatty.

  Spade turned his attention to the producer and told him his vision for his CD and let him hear some of the new tracks he had already laid down. He knew he was fortunate to be able to give his creative input on his first CD. So many artists complained that the record labels created their sounds and crafted their images with little to no regard for who the artist really was or what the artist really wanted.

  Spade knew that he needed to get his head in the game. He was a professional, and he needed to place his personal problems on the back burner and handle the business at hand. If he didn’t, he risked losing everything he had worked so hard for. Asking the question, “What would Jesus do?” had become a mainstream slogan, more like a cliché, but his personal mantra when it came to business was, “What would Jay-Z do?” He figured Jay-Z would put his emotions in check and hustle harder, and that’s what he was determined to do.

  Eight

  Bria perused the Sunday paper and felt a sense of accomplishment when she saw an article about The Spa Factory. She thought the picture of her and the mayor cutting the ribbon was a nice touch. She immediately called Nya to share the news.

  “We made the Sunday paper,” Bria boasted.

  “That’s exciting. I hardly slept a wink last night with Chance wanting a late-night rendezvous.” She yawned, and then apologized.

  Bria was so used to hearing about Nya and Chance’s love life that she turned a deaf ear. She read the entire write-up to Nya, and they agreed to meet in front of their church at their regular time.

  When Bria got off the phone she warmed up a bagel in the toaster and spread a generous amount of whipped strawberry cream cheese on top. She ate upstairs while getting dressed in a dark colored outfit as a TV evangelist sounded in the background, preaching about prosperity.

  She laughed when she saw her reflection in the mirror because she had a flashback to her college days. While in college, she favored the color black so much that her wardrobe was exclusively black, and people started calling her Elvira. It did not matter the season. Even her nail polish and lipstick were variations of black. It was not that she was depressed or morbid; she simply loved the hue. Eventually, her mom and Nya took her shopping and convinced her to add some color to her wardrobe. Hesitant at first, she eventually conceded. She stuck with it after Spade told her how vibrant she looked. His opinion meant a lot to her.

  She felt a tinge of sadness thinking about Spade but quickly did a paradigm shift. She thought about the successful opening of the spa and felt somewhat better. She figured that if she and Spade were meant to be, they would be. And she was not going to stress about it anymore.

  She grabbed her purse and keys and went to church. She prayed for a good parking spot because she didn’t want to mess up her shoes by parking on the unfinished overflow lot filled with dirt and gravel. Sure enough, someone from an earlier service had parked close to the door and was backing out. She mouthed the words “Thank you, Jesus” and whipped her Honda into the spot.

  An usher wearing a vest that read, “How may I serve you?” handed her a program at the door. She grabbed it and stood off to the side waiting for Nya and Chance. They arrived ten minutes later, both out of breath. They must’ve speed walked.

  They entered the sanctuary through double doors and took three seats near the front. The services began with prayer, and the congregation stood on their feet. Then the choir gave their rendition of a few selections. The words to the songs appeared on a projector screen, and Bria sang along, raising her hands in praise. By the time the pastor came out to preach his sermon, Bria felt uplifted. When the pastor used the analogy between life and riding an elevator, Bria was not sure where he was going with the message until he broke it down and simplified the meaning.

  He said, “When we ask God for something, it’s like pushing the button on an elevator. You know it’s coming, but you have to wait a moment. And when you’re on an elevator that’s going up, hallelujah! If you stop on different floors and people tell you they want to go down, let them. You stay on the elevator and keep going up.” He used his handkerchief to dab sweat from his brow. “And there will be people who are on the elevator with you who will end up getting off before you reach your destination. Let them. Don’t carry people with you who don’t believe in where God is taking you.”

  The message resonated with Bria. She wondered if it applied to her and Spade. Was he not supposed to be a part of her lifelong journey? Had
their season together really come to an end?

  At the end of service they headed back to Bria’s house to talk and watch a movie before it was time to go to her parents’ house for dinner. Imagine Bria’s surprise when she pulled up and noticed her parents’ car parked outside on the left side of the driveway. They never came over unannounced. What are they doing here? she thought as she pressed the button on her remote to open the garage door. She hoped everything was okay. She drove in on the right side while Nya and Chance parked behind her outside. Together, they entered through the garage and Bria pressed the button on the wall to close the garage door.

  Bria’s mom was in the kitchen preparing another one of Bria’s favorite dishes, meat lasagna. Her dad was in the family room half-asleep on the couch with the TV watching him. The gentle breeze from the open kitchen window permeated the smell of freshly cut flowers, which Bria loved, and a combination of meat, cheese, and sauce through the air.

  “What are you doing here?” Bria asked.

  Nya and Chance interjected with their greetings and sat on the love seat.

  “Since you usually come to our house for Sunday dinner, we decided to bring it to you.”

  “That was sweet. Thanks, Mom.” Bria hugged her. She offered to help, but Mrs. Murray told her that the meal was almost finished, so Bria joined everyone else in the family room.

  “How was church?” her mom hollered from the kitchen.

  Bria told her that it was good, as usual, and gave her an abbreviated version of the sermon. Since Mrs. Murray and her husband attended early morning services at a different church, Mrs. Murray reciprocated by telling them about the message she received regarding not being overwhelmed by your blessings.

  When Bria’s mom announced that dinner was ready, Bria and Nya set the formal dining-room table that seated six and Mr. Murray woke up from his nap. They gathered around as Mr. Murray blessed the food. At the end of the prayer, Chance said, “Eat now,” and everyone laughed.