Bad Girls Finish First

by Shelia Dansby Harvey

  “I’m cool.” Evan was no good at casual conversation with either of his parents, so he got to the point. “I’m s’posed to sing at Uncle John and Aunt Maggie’s wedding.”

  “Baby, that’s wonderful! I haven’t heard you sing in ages.”

  “Yeah, well.” He thought about his audition. “You ought to come to the wedding, check it out.”

  “Well, I don’t know. I really hadn’t—”

  “No problem. If you can’t make it, you can’t make it.” Although we both know you don’t have anything else to do, Evan thought but didn’t say.

  Grace picked up his vibe, and said, “Evan, I’ll be there. I promise.”

  “I still don’t understand why you have to stay, Chris.” It was late on a Friday night. Christopher had flown to Dallas Thursday morning, with the promise that he’d be back in Austin with her Friday evening. Now he was telling Genie that he wouldn’t be back until Sunday afternoon.

  “It can’t be helped, Genie, I’ve got to finish this report. I’m already all set up here, so it’ll be easier for me to stay, knock it out, then come home.” Christopher wished she’d pitch a fit and demand that he come home right that minute, but Genie was a trusting, independent woman. If he told her he had to stay, she’d take him at his word.

  Genie slumped in her chair. “I’ll get one of my girlfriends to go to the comedy show with me. I miss you.”

  “Miss you, too. Have a good time.”

  Genie took Christopher’s advice and had a great time. She and her girlfriend ended up sitting in the front row, which made them prime targets for every comedian who took the stage. The comedians flirted with the women more than they made jokes about them. The one female comedian gave them props for keeping the guys in line.

  When Genie got home, she called Christopher on his cell, but didn’t get an answer.

  “Stop it!” Genie said to herself after she’d called three times. But Genie didn’t stop; she took her manhunting to level two. She called Grace.

  “Hi, Ms. Joseph,” Genie said when Grace answered. “I’m sorry for calling so late, but I’ve been trying to catch up with Christopher and he’s not answering his cell. Is he there?”

  “Genie? Hi, baby,” Grace sat up and looked at the clock. It was almost one in the morning. These young girls, she thought, then remembered that once upon a time, she’d been a pro at tracking down her man. “No, Christopher isn’t here. When did he leave Austin to head this way?”

  When did he leave Austin! Genie repeated in her head. “Thursday morning,” she said in a small voice. “He told me he’d be staying with you.”

  “Oh.” Grace didn’t know what else to say.

  “Thanks, Ms. Joseph. If you hear from him, tell him I called?”

  “Sure.”

  Pause.

  “And Genie.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Don’t stay up worrying about Chris. Get a good night’s sleep. I’m sure he’s fine.”

  The next morning, not knowing quite how she got there—after all, her mind kept saying no way—Genie found herself on the road to Dallas.

  She got to the Neighborhood Assistance Center at ten. Genie looked toward the office that Christopher usually occupied when he was in town. The lights were out. What about all the nonstop work he’s got to do?

  “Hi,” she said to the young man at the reception desk. “Is Christopher Joseph here?”

  “No. They’ll probably be in about twelve, twelve-thirty.”

  “They?”

  “He and Monica.”

  Genie felt like she was watching herself in a horror movie, making all the wrong moves. She knew that she should wait for Christopher to show up, but instead she whipped out her identification badge. “I need to use your computer for a sec, okay?”

  As soon as Genie pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex, she spotted Christopher’s Honda. She looked at the slip of paper in her hand. Monica Fowler, 5412 Finch Way, Apartment 123. This was the address and that was Christopher’s car, no doubt about it. No hiding from the truth.

  Genie took a compact from her purse and dabbed at her eyes. They weren’t red, not yet, but it was clear she’d been crying. She fluffed her hair and got out of the car. As she searched for Monica’s apartment, Genie tried to talk herself out of what she was doing. Hunting down a man; it’s degrading. Chris is where he wants to be. I don’t want a man who doesn’t want me. What if I lose it? And, most troublesome of all—What if he puts his arm around Monica and tells me to get the hell out?

  But Genie knew what every woman knows. Unless a man is cold busted—unless his woman can tell him where he was, who he was with, what he had on, when it happened, and what he said—he’ll say, “It wasn’t me.”

  Monica answered the door when Genie knocked. She looked shocked but composed. “Hey, Genie.” She wore a red silk robe. Genie had one exactly like it, in blue. Victoria’s Secret.

  “May I come in?”

  Monica tucked her hair behind her ears. “It might be awkward.”

  “I can handle it if you can.”

  Monica stepped aside and Genie came in. She didn’t sit down.

  “Chris,” Monica called out and then thought better of it. “No, wait!” Monica hurried toward the bedroom.

  Christopher, totally unaware of what was going on, yelled back, “Is breakfast done already? I’m starving.”

  Then the man Genie knew so well stood in front of her in his bare feet and briefs.

  “I was wrong,” Genie said, talking to Monica, but looking at Christopher. “I can’t handle this.”

  19

  The crowd outside New Word was enormous; one would’ve thought people were flocking to a wedding for a celebrity couple rather than to one for the owner of a small bookstore and his wife. It took four drivers to keep up with the flow of cars waiting to be valet parked. People who decided to self- park had already filled the huge parking lot and were starting to line the curbs of streets near the church. John Reese and his wife weren’t New Word members; they belonged to an older, traditional Baptist church. Once the RSVPs had started coming in, however, Maggie Reese realized that New Word was the only black church in Dallas large enough to hold the crowd that would show up to share the day with them.

  As Christopher drove toward the church, he kept glancing at Grace. She clutched the handbag on her lap with one hand and the door handle with the other.

  “Relax, Mom, you can do this. If you don’t let go of that handle, I’m afraid you’re going to end up on the highway.”

  “You’re really thinking I’m going to fling this door open on purpose.” Grace tried to make a joke of it, but her tight voice revealed how nervous she was. “John and Maggie are good people, the warmest couple I know. Your father and I wouldn’t have made it for as long as we did without them. They’re not blood, but I knew from the moment Michael introduced me to John and Maggie back when I was pregnant with you that I wanted them to be a big part of my children’s lives.”

  “Pregnant? But Uncle John and Aunt Maggie were at your wedding—I’ve seen the pictures! Don’t tell me you and Dad lied to me and Evan all these years. I thought you got married before you started having babies.”

  “Before we started having them. Not before we started making them.”

  “Mom!” Christopher looked so alarmed that Grace had to laugh. It sounded so good to hear his mother laugh, he continued to make a show of being shocked. Christopher knew that his mother was pregnant when she and his father married—he and a group of friends had counted out the months when they were preteens. Seemed to him that back in the day, a hot night was quickly followed by a rushed wedding day. His generation’s tradition, in contrast, was to get pregnant, then say good-bye.

  “I’m just saying, son, when I met the Reeses, your father and I were dating, and I was already starting to fall for him. I decided then that if Michael and I got together, John and Maggie would definitely be a part of our family.”

  Grace notic
ed that Christopher didn’t seem to be listening to her. “Chris? Honey, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  Christopher’s head throbbed. The talk about marriage and babies made him think about Genie. Since she had caught him with Monica, Christopher hadn’t had any peace. The freeway traffic looked surreal to him, just like everything else, everything he’d touched or seen, every conversation he’d had over the last few days. He was moving in slow motion, looking at the world from the other side of an invisible wall. Christopher wanted to cry, to scream, to hit something, but he couldn’t bring himself to act. He felt locked inside himself and was too ashamed to talk to anyone, even Michael, about how he’d gotten busted.

  “It’s nothing, Mom.”

  They drove a little farther, then Grace asked, “Ready to tell me yet?” Christopher said no again, but this time his answer came out weak.

  Although Grace didn’t say anything, Christopher could feel his defenses breaking down. He realized that what he was experiencing on a small scale, Grace lived through every day. If he expected her to stop holding back, he decided, the least he could do was lead by example.

  Christopher put on his right-turn signal as they neared their exit. “Mom, I told you my reason for asking you to come to the wedding with me was because you need to get back out into the world.” He slowed as he merged into the frontage road traffic. “You do need to get out, face the people you used to know, but that wasn’t my main reason. I kind of need to talk to you.” He told her what happened between Genie and him.

  “I suspected that. Genie called me that Friday night looking for you.”

  Christopher was taken aback. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Not my business. But I see it’s tearing you up, which by the way, is a good thing. Christopher, if you love the girl, you’ve got to show her. And if you have a problem with her, then you have to work it out. Running to another woman is not the way.”

  “Why did I do something so stupid?” he asked then answered his own question. “I was pissed at Genie because I’m ready to get married and she’s not. What kind of husband will I be if I’ve already started cheating?” Christopher was completely down on himself. He hit the steering wheel with his palm. “I’m so much like him!”

  “Yes, you are your father’s son, which means basically you’re a good man. But Genie’s right, you’re pretty young to be talking about marriage. By the way, I ran into Monica the other week. Hadn’t seen her since she was about twelve. I can see why you are attracted to her.”

  Pause.

  “Why the rush, Chris? Why do you want to get married so soon?”

  “I just . . . I want a family again, Mom.”

  “You’ve got a family.”

  “I mean a real one.”

  “No, son. You mean a perfect one. Not gonna happen. Not with Genie, or any other woman, for that matter.”

  “Guess I’ve still got a lot to learn,” Christopher said. He turned onto the boulevard leading to New Word. “This, this . . . thing that happened with Genie—what I did to her—it’s killing me, Mom.”

  “I know that, Chris. I’m your mother, I know my sons.” She reached over and caressed the back of his neck. “It’s going to be okay. I know what happened between you and Genie hurts, but having a broken heart from time to time is a part of life. You need to do the right thing, and she’ll take you back or she won’t. Either way, you’ll get past it.”

  Christopher wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Here,” Grace said, and handed him a tissue.

  Christopher smiled as he wiped his tears away. “I’m just a big baby, huh? That’s what Genie says.”

  Grace patted Christopher’s knee and began humming a tune—not for him, specifically, but absently, the way a mother does when she’s packing a lunch, combing hair, or bandaging an elbow. Just to assure him that she was by his side.

  As they neared New Word, the traffic slowed, then stopped. “Man. I know Uncle John and Aunt Maggie know a lot of people, but I never expected this.” Glancing at his mother he saw that she’d gone rigid. Her stare was fixed straight ahead.

  “Take me home.”

  “Huh?”

  “I said get me out of here, Christopher, right now, and I mean it.”

  Christopher followed Grace’s gaze. Up ahead, his father and Raven emerged from a limousine, arm in arm. Raven, with her cool sunglasses and dramatic cloak, looked like something out of The Matrix, except that her suit was vivid blue, not black.

  “But Mom, what about Evan? You promised him.”

  “There are so many people, Evan won’t know that I’m not here. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Take me home.” She sounded flat, like someone had steamrolled the Southern melody right out of her.

  Christopher put the car in park and turned to face his mother. “Just a minute ago you said I’ll get past my hurt over Genie. What about you, why can’t you at least try? I’m not going to let anybody disrespect you in any way. Mom, please. With me by your side, can’t you take this small step?”

  “Christopher Aaron Joseph, you turn this car around right now, or I’m calling a cab.” She pulled out her cell phone.

  Christopher made a U-turn and headed back the way he’d just come. He didn’t see Evan, who’d just emerged from the limousine, but Evan saw them.

  By the time they got back to the freeway, Christopher, whose temper had flared when Grace made him turn around, felt calmer. He snuck a glance at his watch. If, within the next ten minutes, he could convince Grace to change her mind, they’d still make the ceremony.

  “Mom, so many people love you. They miss you, too. Can you imagine how happy Uncle John and Aunt Maggie would be to have you there? Not to mention Evan. You’re wrong about him not being able to spot us. What’s he going to think when he looks out into the audience and you’re not there?” Christopher looked at Grace and realized that she’d tuned him out. The sight of Raven had driven her back to wherever she hid when life overwhelmed her. What the hell. She’s making me miss the wedding, I may as well speak my mind. Christopher kept talking, trying to convince his mother that she deserved a full life, a life filled with friends and love. This was her time. He didn’t stop talking until he dropped Grace at her front door twenty minutes later.

  David and Reverend Pope, John Reese’s pastor, agreed that David would open the ceremony and that Reverend Pope would lead the couple in reciting their vows. David didn’t try to be the center of attention—he knew the Reeses mainly through Michael, and he had enormous respect for them. He made sure the ceremony was all about John and Maggie.

  “We’ll go through the ceremony as printed in the program.”

  Everything went as planned—the first soloist caused the audience to break into applause, and the praise dance to a song by Yolanda Adams had women wiping away tears. Raven yawned and rolled her eyes.

  When the church lights dimmed, Michael leaned over to Raven and said, “The wedding procession is about to enter. Evan should step to the mike any second.”

  But Evan didn’t. The organist played through the introduction twice, and still no Evan. The wedding guests started to whisper, and David rose halfway out of his chair, about to ask the usher to throw open the double doors, when Evan finally appeared.

  “Aunt Maggie asked me to sing whatever I wanted, and to put my own twist on it.” He shifted his weight and cleared his throat. “Here goes.”

  The boy closed his eyes and sang.

  Love.

  So many people use your name in vain.

  Evan worked “Love,” a romantic, spiritual classic by Musiq, and by the time he hit the part about crying from the things love does, about wanting to die from the thought of losing love, every head in the church was nodding, keeping time with the simple melody.

  If that wasn’t moving enough, halfway through that song he took up another Musiq classic about love lasting a lifetime, through graying hair and thickening waistlines, then he switched back to lyrics from “Love.” As he w
ove a new tapestry from the familiar, beautiful songs, he had everybody thinking about love—new love, lost love, lover-done-me-wrong love. Mostly looking at Maggie and John standing at the altar, the crowd collectively longed for once-in-a-lifetime, until-death-do-us-part love that so few of them would ever experience. Even Raven could feel it.

  As he sang his heart out, Evan didn’t envision a sweet little honey who wanted to be down with him. He pictured Grace and better days.

  When Evan finished, the crowd was too wrung out to move. David stepped to the pulpit microphone and said, “That’s my godson.” He looked down at Maggie and John Reese, both of whom were wiping away tears.

  Time for some laughter. “Sorry, folks,” David said to Maggie and John, “but you’ve been upstaged.”

  The first thing Raven did when she, Michael, Evan, and Dudley got into their limousine was to slip off her pumps. “That wedding was way too long,” she said as she grabbed a glass and rummaged around for a soda. “And I don’t know what John’s wife was thinking when she bought that dress; it was at least two sizes too tight.”

  When she finally found a soda, Raven said, “Sprite? I don’t want a Sprite, where’s the Coke?” She shouted, “Lawrence? Lawrence!”

  “Hold on, Raven, let me open the partition so he can hear you,” Evan said as he pushed the button to open the panel separating the driver and passenger sections.

  “Where’s the damn Coke? You know I like Coke in my drink.”

  Lawrence wasn’t in the mood for one of Raven’s fits. He might be an assistant to Michael, but he was also an invited guest at the wedding. He and John Reese had struck up a friendship when John loaned him five hundred dollars, behind Michael’s back, to pay off a gambling debt. At the time, Lawrence, barely out of high school, was an eighteen-year-old with a wife and twin babies to take care of, and he’d just started working for Michael.

  “This isn’t just money I’m putting in your hand, son, it’s my investment in your future,” John had told Lawrence when he handed him the money. “I’m putting my faith in you that you’ll get your business straight and start carrying yourself like a responsible family man.”