He kissed her cheek. “Come on, baby, you know it’s true.” He waved to someone. “Monica, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine.” Up walks the praise and worship leader. “Monica, this is David Harper. David, this is Alaysia’s best friend and business partner, Monica Harris.”
“Nice to meet you.” I shook his hand. Oh my God, he was fine. Not pretty-boy fine like Kevin and Alex, but ruggedly handsome. “What a perfect name for a worship leader.”
“Yeah, my moms was prophetic.” David had the cutest smile.
Khalil said, “You guys wanna grab something to eat? We could catch brunch at The Flying Biscuit. It’ll take forever to get a table, but you know we have to go somewhere vegetarian-friendly for Granola Sunshine and Sister Rabbit.” Khalil rolled his eyes.
David laughed. “Sure, sounds good to me.”
Alaysia looked at me. “Is that okay?”
“Sure. I don’t feel like cooking anyway.”
Khalil pulled out his keys. “David, you ride with me. You ladies can meet us there.”
As we headed out of the building, I grabbed Alaysia’s arm and whispered. “I can’t believe you’re breaking the rule already.”
“What?”
“Don’t ‘what’ me. Khalil just happened to invite Mr. Fine Praise and Worship Leader out to lunch with us? This smells like a matchmaking ploy to me.”
Alaysia laughed. “It’s not like that. David’s engaged, but his fiancée lives in Charlotte. He and Khalil are good friends. The four of us go out to eat after church when she comes to town.”
Khalil and David followed Alaysia and me to the restaurant nestled at the end of a row of Candler Park specialty shops. We had expected to wait the usual hour for the Sunday brunch, but for some reason, it didn’t take too long to get a table. The hostess led us into the big, sunny room with the sunflowers painted on the wall.
After we put our orders in, David turned to me and said, “How’d you enjoy church today, Monica?”
“I loved it. The praise and worship was great. Reminded me of my old church back home.”
“Where’s back home and what church did you go to?”
“I’m from D.C. I used to go to Love and Faith Christian Center.”
“Kevin Day. I’m sure the music was awesome there. He’s a great musician and a great worshipper. His new album is the bomb. I’m sure you’ve heard it.”
I shifted in my seat.
“Do you know Kevin personally? I met him at a music workshop and he seemed like a nice guy. I’d love to do some music with him some day. We have a similar worship style.”
Alaysia looked at David then looked at me. I could see her trying to think of something to say. “Speaking of worship style, I’ve been meaning to ask you. When you say, ‘We’ve entered the presence of God,’ or ‘We’re in the throne room now,’ or ‘I see the armies of God arrayed against the enemy,’ what do you mean? Can you literally see those things? Are you really in heaven while we’re in praise and worship?”
David laughed. “The question monster strikes again. I swear, Alaysia, you ask more insightful questions than most Christians I know. I can tell you think about God a lot.”
I unclenched my jaw and relaxed my shoulders.
David rubbed his chin. “Let’s see. How I can explain this? I don’t literally, physically see those things. I see them with my spirit.”
“What do you mean? Your spirit has eyes?” Alaysia asked.
“Yes, not physical eyes, but . . .” David furrowed his eyebrows. “It’s the spiritual counterpart to our physical sight and hearing. You shut down your physical senses and your spirit man sees what’s going on. You connect with God on a plane outside of this natural realm. He gives images of spiritual things that have spiritual meaning.”
Alaysia nodded. “Kinda like prophesying, but instead of God saying something into your spirit, He shows you a picture instead.”
David said, “Exactly. Are you sure you aren’t saved, Alaysia? You have an understanding of things most Christians don’t have.”
“Yeah, I don’t know why she’s still holding out. She can’t really come up with a good reason.” I sipped my water.
The waiter brought our food. The guys had ordered big breakfast platters, but Alaysia and I had gotten salads. The large, fluffy biscuits were the best.
Alaysia shrugged. “I still have a lot of unanswered questions.”
Khalil said, “Like what?”
Alaysia thought for a minute. “Like, if God is so good, why does He allow so many bad things to happen in the world? Look at all the poverty, the sickness and disease, the people dying, bad things happening to good people. Why does a good, loving God let so much hurt happen to His people that He’s supposed to love so much?”
David looked at Khalil as if to say, “I got it.” “The real question is, why do His people allow it to happen?”
I frowned.
David continued, “If you look at God’s original plan for man on earth, it wasn’t for Him to rule us and govern everything that happens on earth. He put Man in the garden and said, ‘Subdue the earth and have dominion over it.’ God gave us authority and control on the earth and we were to rule in His name. Adam handed over that dominion to Satan when he rebelled against God in the garden. But Jesus won that legal right to dominion for us at Calvary when He destroyed the works of the enemy. We’re supposed to be taking authority in His name and subduing the kingdoms of this world and establishing His Kingdom in the earth. We’re looking at Him to fix it, but He’s looking at us to fix it. He expects us to rise up and be the sons of God we’re supposed to be.”
Wow. I had never thought of it that way before.
“So you’re saying all the bad things that happen are our fault, and not God’s?” Alaysia asked.
“I’m sure He’s more upset about it than we are. He gave us all this power and all this authority, and instead of doing something with it, we whine and pray and cry and beg Him to fix everything. Unless the sons of God stand up and act like we know, we’ll always be victims of Satan’s tools of bondage. We’ll be sick, poor, depressed, and victim to every bit of hell he unleashes on us. Until we realize who we are in Christ and the power we have, the world will continue to grow darker and darker.”
We all sat there and thought about it for a minute.
I looked at David and Khalil. “Is everyone in your church a Bible scholar?”
They laughed. David said, “The pastors are serious about their leadership having a strong foundation in the Word. Before we’re licensed and ordained, we have to go through a very intensive study of the Bible. Either through Pastor’s ministry course, or through seminary, like Khalil is doing.”
I thought about Love and Faith, where being in leadership was more political than spiritual.
David finished off the last of his pancakes. “Monica, you never answered my question. Do you know Kevin Day personally? I got tickets for Friday’s concert, but I would love some backstage passes.”
“Friday? I didn’t know he’d be here then.” I hoped everyone at the table couldn’t hear how loud my heart was beating.
“Yeah, Friday. You haven’t kept up with him?”
“No. Can’t say that I have.” Kevin said he would call when he was coming to Atlanta. Had he decided he didn’t want to see me? Did I want to see him? Alex’s conversation came to mind. Should I give Kevin a copy of the book? I didn’t want to give him any false hope of us getting back together. Was it false hope, though?
“Monica?” David was staring at me.
“Huh?”
“Do you think you can get the passes? Will Kevin remember you or have you been gone too long?”
“He remembers me, David.” I looked around the table. Alaysia had this strained look on her face, probably upset that her attempt to rescue me from David’s questions failed. Khalil was drumming on the table. I could tell he wanted to tell his boy to shut up, but didn’t want to embarrass me.
I forced a smile. “
I’ll get tickets and backstage passes for everybody. We can all go together.”
44
First thing I did when I got home was pick up the phone. I dialed my old number, but there was no answer. Kevin was probably out of town, touring somewhere.
I hung up and dialed his cell phone number. No answer. I left a quick message.
I sat on the bed. Maybe Kevin didn’t want to see me now. Maybe he decided to go on with his life. Maybe he got tired of waiting for me and found somebody else. I’m sure plenty of women in the choir were glad to see me go, and were waiting to try to snatch Kevin up for themselves. Isn’t that what I wanted?
Until I read the book.
I realized no matter how hard I’d tried, I hadn’t been able to kill the hope inside of me. Was I too late? He hadn’t called me since I called to congratulate him on the album. I tried to call him to tell him about the opening of the gym, but couldn’t reach him then either.
The tears started falling. At that moment, I realized how much I missed Kevin.
The phone rang. I jumped to answer it. “Hello?”
“Monica, it’s Kevin. I’m glad you called. I lost my cell phone with your number in it in L.A., and we’ve been on the road, and I lost my address book, and I tried directory assistance, but you guys are unlisted, and you haven’t returned any of my emails, and we’re gonna be in Atlanta next weekend, and I was afraid I wasn’t going to see you, and—”
I laughed as I wiped my tears. I sat down on the bed. “Kevin, slow down. I haven’t checked my email lately ’cause I’ve been so busy. My friend, David, told me about the concert at brunch today.”
“Who’s David?”
“He’s the praise and worship leader at Alaysia’s church. He really wants to meet you. He asked if I could get backstage passes. I told everybody I could. I hope it’s okay.”
“This David . . . is he a friend or is he a—”
“He’s a friend. His fiancée will be at the concert, too.”
“Oh.” I heard him let out a deep breath. “Okay. So you’re coming then.”
“Of course I’m coming. When do you get to town? How long are you staying?”
“We’re in Colombia, South Carolina on Thursday night then Atlanta on Friday night, then I have to do Nashville on Saturday night.”
“Gosh, Kevin, don’t you get tired?”
“Tired is not the word, Monnie. I’m living purely off the anointing. Feels like all I do is sleep, eat, and perform.”
“When’s the tour over?”
“We have a few more stops after Nashville, but we were thinking about adding some cities. It’s going better than I thought.”
“Just don’t overdo it, Kevin. When do you get to stop and get some rest?”
“Rest. What’s that? We have a few days after Nashville when I’ll probably sleep.”
“I guess I won’t get to spend any time with you then.”
“You want to?”
“Yeah . . . I mean, I haven’t seen you in forever, and I thought you said you’d be here a few days. I know you have the tour and all, so maybe I can catch up with you when you finish.”
“Ummm, okay.”
“What?”
“I’m surprised. You’ve treated me like I have the plague for the last sixteen months, and now you want to see me and spend time with me? I don’t want to be excited about seeing you and then you push me away again. My heart can’t take it. So when you say you want to see me, is it a ‘Oh, it would be nice to see Kevin’ or is it a ‘I really want to see Kevin’?”
I held my breath. I walked over to my dresser and picked up Kevin’s CD. I stared at the picture. Stared at his eyes.
“Monica?”
“It’s a ‘I really want to see Kevin’.”
Silence.
“Is it a ‘I really want to see Kevin because we have some good memories together and it’d be good to see him for old time’s sake,’ or is it a ‘I really want to see Kevin because I really want to see Kevin’?”
“Kevin, I—”
“I need to know, Monnie. I don’t want to be hoping and wishing and then getting a knife through my heart. I finally got my feelings about you where I can deal with them. I don’t need to open up my heart to get crushed again. This tour is taking all the energy I got. I can’t be—”
“Kevin, I . . . I want to see you because I really want to see you.”
Silence.
“Kevin?”
“Don’t say that if you don’t mean it. I can’t—”
“I mean it.”
“You do?”
“I do.”
“Does this mean—”
“I don’t know what it means yet. Can’t it just mean I want to see you?”
“Yeah. I guess we can take it from there.”
I took a deep breath. “A friend of mine was telling me about this ministry here. It’s run by a pastor and his wife. They have a ministry for people dealing with sexual identity issues. A lot of people have been delivered from homosexuality through their ministry. I was thinking—”
“I can’t talk about that right now, Monica. Can’t it be okay for me just to see you and us enjoy some time together?”
“Okay, Kevin. We don’t have to talk about it.”
“You didn’t talk to these people about me, did you? Last thing I need right now is to have my face on some tabloid. I can just see it, ‘Gay Gospel Artist?’ That would ruin everything I’ve worked so hard for. Please—I don’t want you talking to anyone about me. Let me deal with this in my own time.”
“I haven’t talked to them. You know I would never do anything to affect your career. I just think you need to deal with it, and I think they could help.”
“Monica, please. Can we talk about it after the tour?”
“Of course.” I tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice.
“You still want to see me?” He sounded like a scared little boy.
“Of course.”
Did I? I was feeling that sad Kevin feeling again. I put a smile into my voice. “When do you get into town and where should we meet?”
45
I couldn’t believe I was in an elevator going up to Kevin’s hotel room. I wiped my palms on my jeans and put my hand on my stomach as if touching it could ease the waves of anxiety rippling through my colon. I found my way to room 1107 and knocked on the door.
“Just a second.”
Oh my God, I was about to see Kevin.
He swung open the door. He stared at me for a second and then his mouth dropped. “Monica? You look like a totally different person. You . . . you look . . . great.”
Kevin stared at my body, then stared at my face, then back at my body again like he couldn’t believe it was me. He pulled me close to him.
I inhaled his scent, his touch, his aura, his love and was completely overwhelmed. The tears started falling. He stepped back into the room and closed the door, still holding on to me.
We stood holding each other for what seemed like forever, as if we could make up for the whole sixteen months we’d been separated with one hug. When we finally pulled apart, Kevin’s T-shirt was wet from my tears.
“Oh, sorry.” I wiped his shirt.
He took my hand and kissed my fingers. “It’s okay. I can change.” He stepped back to look at me. “I can’t believe how great you look. It’s like you’re a whole different person.”
“I am, Kevin. I really am.”
“My goodness, how much weight have you lost?”
“I should be asking you the same thing. What happened to you? You’re skin and bones.”
He glanced down at his body as if he didn’t know how he looked, and shrugged. “Working too hard, I guess.” He shook his head and smiled. “Monnie, you look great.”
“I wish I could say the same for you.” I smoothed a hand across his cheek. “Look at the bags under your eyes. Look how thin you are.” My heart pounded in my chest as I considered the unthinkable. “Are . . . are you
sick?”
He laughed. “I don’t have the dreaded disease if that’s what you’re asking. I told you about my tour schedule. It’s been real tiring these last few months. And if I have to choose between getting some food or getting some sleep, I’d rather sleep. Stop fussing, Monnie. I’m fine.”
He pulled me close and kissed my cheek. “It’s good to see you.”
I pulled back. “I wish I could say the same for you. This isn’t good for you, Kevin. You can’t keep this up. You’re wasting away. How much longer is the tour? Can’t you cancel any of the concerts? You need some rest and some food. Why can’t you take a few days off? Could you—”
He pulled me into his chest again, I guess to shut my mouth. “Monnie, please—you’re making me tired. I can’t cancel. We’re already sold out in the next few cities. I’m fine. I promise. Stop fussing and let me enjoy the little bit of time I have with you.”
He motioned for me to take a seat on the couch. The suite had a king-sized bed, couch, and a small table with two chairs. The décor was fancier than the average hotel.
“Nice room.”
“Yeah, they’ve been treating me pretty well on the tour.”
“Where have you been so far?”
“All over the place—Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, Detroit, New York, Philly, D.C., of course, Miami. You know, the usual spots.”
“What’s it like being on the road and doing the concerts?”
“I don’t want to talk about me. I want to hear about you and your business and this dramatic change. How’s your health? Is the diabetes gone?”
I smiled. “Yep. At least it’s diet-controlled. I came off the meds not too long after I got here. My blood pressure is normal too.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I was afraid you were going to end up like your mother and aunts and grandmother.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
“Tell me about this business. Did you guys open your gym?”
“I can’t believe I haven’t talked to you.” I told Kevin about our “hostile takeover” of Jim’s Gym. “I wish you had time to come see it.”
“I can come back.”
“Yeah. That would be good.”
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