The Other Side of Goodness

by Vanessa Davis Griggs

  “Of course. As usual, turn it all on me.”

  “Excuse me,” a man said having approached their table. “Paris, is that you?”

  Paris looked up. “Oh, my goodness! Hi,” she said, standing and hugging the man three inches taller than her even with her heels.

  “I wasn’t sure, but I thought that looked like you.” He reared back a tad and slowly began to scan her, starting at her head. “You look good.”

  “Thank you.” Paris turned to her father. “Daddy, this is Darius Connors. Darius, this is—”

  “The Honorable Representative Lawrence Simmons.” Darius extended his hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  Lawrence looked at his hand, but didn’t shake it. Lawrence didn’t shake hands when he was eating. “Nice to meet you. Forgive me for not shaking your hand.” He held his fork in the air.

  Darius let his hand drop to his side. “My bad. It’s no problem.” Darius turned back toward Paris. “It is so good to see you. How long has it been?”

  “Too long,” Paris said. “Are you meeting someone here?”

  “I was supposed to be, but he called just as I came in here and said something came up,” Darius said. “I guess we can say I got stood up.”

  “Then sit with us,” Paris said, sitting back down and scooting over to make room for him. “You don’t mind, do you, Dad?”

  Darius sat down before Lawrence had a chance to answer. “So how have things been? How many children do you have? You look so good. Wow . . .”

  “Me? Look at you.” Paris grinned. “I don’t have any children yet.”

  The waiter came back with their salads. “Can I get something for you, sir?” the waiter asked Darius as he matched each salad with its owner.

  “No. I don’t want to impose,” Darius said, directing his attention at Paris.

  “Oh, please stay and eat,” Paris said. “You were coming to eat already.”

  Lawrence sat back against his seat. He couldn’t believe Paris had invited him to lunch, and now she was inviting someone else to infringe on their time together.

  “If you’re sure it’s okay,” Darius said as though it was settled.

  “I’ll get you a menu,” the waiter said.

  “It’s okay. I’ll just have whatever she ordered.” Darius pointed his head at Paris.

  Paris laughed. “You don’t even know what I ordered.”

  Darius looked at Paris and smiled. “Oh, I trust you.” He looked back to the waiter. “What she ordered is fine.”

  “And what to drink?” the waiter asked him.

  “A glass of red wine,” Darius said to the waiter. He then turned to Lawrence. “I’m not on the clock, so it’s okay for me to have a glass of wine.”

  Lawrence shrugged to let him know he really didn’t care what he did.

  “So tell me,” Paris said. “What’s been going on with you? Darius Connors . . .” She ran her fingers through her hair, tossing her curls a few times.

  “Let’s see . . . what’s going on with me? Bills, bills, and oh, yes, more bills. You know how it is these days,” Darius said. “On second thought, you come from money. So you likely don’t know how it is. But let me assure you that it’s rough out there for the rest of us squirrels just trying to get a nut or two. Of course, I’m married—”

  “To someone named Tiffany, right?” Paris said. “I heard that somewhere.”

  “Yes,” Darius said, clasping his hands together and leaning forward. “And we have three crumb-snatchers: two girls and a boy. My oldest is a girl and she’s almost nine. In fact, she’s about the same age as that little girl that needed the bone marrow transplant some months back. It was all over the news at one time. You know about her, don’t you?” Darius directed that last question to Lawrence.

  Lawrence stared hard back at him. “Yes.”

  “Yeah. Look at me. What am I saying? Of course, you know. I heard that all of y’all were on television trying to get people to be tested to be possible donors.” Darius nodded. “My pastor was also promoting and pushing us to do that as well.”

  “Who’s your pastor?” Paris asked.

  “Pastor George Landris. Yeah, he’s all right. Better than a lot of preachers out there, that’s for sure. He’s a straight-up Bible guy. At least he’s not caught up in mess like that Rev. Walker got himself tangled all up in. They picked him up on IRS-related violations and some other pretty shady activities. I heard he’s taking a plea deal. Likely going to get four years, which generally means he’ll likely only serve about eighteen months. Did you hear who happened to be one of the people that helped bring his little empire down? Reputation wise, anyway.”

  “No,” Paris said with a grin as she giddily looked over at him. “Who?”

  Lawrence looked at Paris and turned the corners of his mouth down, showing disapproval of the conversation, although in truth, he was rather enjoying hearing this bit of underground gossip. Lawrence was more than familiar with both George Landris and Marshall Walker. In fact, he’d almost gotten caught up in this Rev. Walker mess. William just happened to be really good at covering his tracks. In fact, now that he was thinking about it, he needed to give William a raise soon.

  “Well, I don’t know how true it all is,” Darius said. “But I heard one of the people was Knowledge Walker, Rev. Walker’s oldest son. They say Knowledge was a little ticked because his younger brother, named Clarence, who incidentally is a member of my church, had been out there doing everything in the world while the older brother stayed there alongside his father, holding things down. But then the youngest son got his life together and came back home to the church, giving his life to the Lord, which the father equated as his son finally coming home—”

  “This sounds just like the parable of the prodigal son,” Paris said.

  “Exactly like it, now that you mention it,” Darius said. “Anyway, when the youngest son came to his senses and returned home, his father welcomed him with open arms just like the prodigal son. It appears the oldest got upset about that.”

  “Again, just like in the parable,” Paris said.

  “Yeah,” Darius said. “Well, from what I hear, Rev. Walker couldn’t stand Pastor Landris. And it didn’t help matters that Clarence didn’t go back to his father’s church, but like I said, he hooked up at ours with Pastor Landris. So Rev. Walker was planning to take Pastor Landris down in a big way.”

  “Wow,” Paris said. “And these are preachers you’re talking about.”

  “Yeah. They say Pastor Landris had some information on Rev. Walker that was never supposed to see the light of day. Some older preacher had it and had given it to Pastor Landris some years back, right before he died, to help keep Rev. Walker in check if he ever came after Pastor Landris. It was information Pastor Landris could have used, and at any time, to take Rev. Walker down. According to Rev. Walker’s secretary, who Rev. Walker initially accused of being the one to leak what had been legally sealed information to the public, Pastor Landris had walked all bold-like up into Rev. Walker’s office and handed the entire package over to him. Honestly, I don’t get that. Because everybody knows Rev. Walker was trying to take Pastor Landris down right about then. My motto is: Get them before they get you.”

  “Scandalous,” Paris said cheerily, then looked at her father as he showed his displeasure of all of this. “It’s scandalous that men of God, who are supposed to be examples for the rest of us, would actually act in such a way.”

  “Well, I got to stick up for my pastor,” Darius said. “They say Pastor Landris could have used that information to do Rev. Walker in a long time ago, but he chose not to. And when Rev. Walker was trying to set Pastor Landris up—”

  “Set him up?” Paris chimed in.

  “Yeah. Rev. Walker was trying to force Pastor Landris into some deal with some politician. I don’t know all to that part.” Darius looked at Lawrence and grinned as though he knew the politician was actually him. “Anyway, Rev. Walker was in it up to his receding hairline, and he
was trying to force Pastor Landris to get involved. Somehow, Pastor Landris was being set up to take a fall or to be blackmailed into what Rev. Walker and this politician wanted him to do. But Pastor Landris didn’t fall for it. And instead of Pastor Landris using the information he had against Rev. Walker to put him in check, he gave the whole package to Rev. Walker and essentially told him he was leaving it all in God’s hand.”

  “Well, maybe Pastor Landris made a copy and used the copy to mess him up so he would appear all righteous when the information came out,” Paris said.

  “No,” Darius said. “They say Rev. Walker had the package on his desk. His son came into his office at some point that day, found the package on his desk, and looked inside. For some reason, for which we may never know, the son decided to leak it to the newspaper people. When it came out, Rev. Walker thought his secretary had done it. Especially after he realized the package was gone. She was the one that pointed the finger at the son Knowledge, who admitted he was the one who gave it to the news folks.”

  The waiter brought their entrees and Darius’s salad and entrée.

  Darius began to eat.

  Lawrence sat watching him as he shoved food into his mouth while he talked. There was something about Darius that he didn’t care for, something about him that just didn’t sit well with him.

  “On another subject,” Darius said right before putting more food in his mouth. “That little girl that needed the transplant . . . well they ended up finding someone who matched her. I was sure they weren’t going to find a match. I mean: What are the odds?” Darius nodded quickly. “Yeah. There’s something up with that, if you ask me. At least, that’s what everybody is saying. Yep.” He nodded as he chewed hard with his mouth open.

  “Well, frankly,” Lawrence said. “I think people who do the most talking really don’t know what they’re talking about most of the time. It’s always ‘they’ said. Who is this ‘they’ that supposedly knows everything but in the end generally knows nothing?”

  Darius nodded quickly as he shoved more food in his mouth. “True that. Because, with all due respect to you, Representative Simmons, they say the way you were acting that you must be that little girl’s father.” Darius stopped chewing and grinned.

  Lawrence sat back and looked at him with a cynical face. “Is that right?”

  Darius nodded, then put another bite in his mouth as he looked on at Lawrence. “Yep. That’s the latest talk around town. They say that’s why you took that project on as vigorously as you did. Of course, we never did learn who the matching person turned out to be. They say you’re the one making sure that information remains under wraps so folks won’t know the real truth.”

  “Oh,” Paris chimed in with a dismissive wave. “Folks are always saying things when it comes to my daddy. He’s been called everything but a child of God.”

  “Well, personally, I don’t get into other folk’s business too much myself. I have enough of my own to tend to and keep me busy,” Darius said.

  Paris then changed the subject and they talked about other things.

  After about fifteen more minutes, Lawrence got the attention of the waiter to pay the check. “Well, I need to get back to the office,” Lawrence said.

  “Daddy, thank you so much for coming. I really enjoyed this,” Paris said.

  “Sure,” Lawrence said. “So, Paris . . . are you ready to go?”

  Paris pointed with her fork at her plate. “I’m still eating.”

  “You could get the rest to go,” Lawrence said, standing next to the side of the table.

  “Oh, I’ll be fine. You go on,” Paris said. “Thank you, Daddy. I love you.”

  Darius got up and moved over to the now vacated side, directly facing Paris. “Thanks, Representative Simmons, for the meal. I really appreciate it.” Darius nodded.

  “Sure,” Lawrence said to Darius. “Paris, are you sure you’re going to be all right? I can wait.”

  “Yes, Daddy. I’m a big girl. I’ll be all right. You can go. I’m fine.”

  “I know you’re a big girl,” Lawrence said. “Okay, but call me when you get home.”

  “Will do.” Paris jumped up and gave her father a big hug. “We really have to do this again soon. I had fun!” She sat back down and started back eating.

  Lawrence nodded. “Yeah.” And without another word, he left.

  Paris watched her father walk out of view, then let her fork drop to her plate, making a loud clink. “You were so good,” she said, leaning in toward Darius.

  He picked up his glass of wine and teetered his glass a few times. “Of course. Were you expecting anything less?”

  “Did you see the look on my father’s face when you said that about your daughter being the same age as the little girl who needed the bone marrow transplant?” Paris grinned, flicking her hair again. “Oh . . . my . . . goodness!”

  “Now that was priceless. You can’t buy a look like that,” Darius said, taking a sip of wine. He smacked a few times before leaning forward and gazing into Paris’s eyes. “And to think: I not only got to spend a little quality time with a beautiful woman of your caliber, but I ended up getting a nice meal with fine wine to boot. It doesn’t get any better than this.” He set his glass down and leaned back and slightly to the side. “So what’s next, Madame Butterfly?”

  Paris smiled. “Oh . . . I can take it from here.”

  Darius grinned. “I just hope you allow me to tag along for the flight. I really like the view from where I’m perched now.” He started a slow scan of her body.

  Paris narrowed her eyes at him, picked up her glass of tea, and tipped it his way. “Cheers,” she said.

  He raised his glass to her. “Cheers.” He smiled.

  Chapter 38

  Forget not the voice of thine enemies: the tumult of those that rise up against thee increaseth continually.

  —Psalm 74:23

  Lawrence went back to his office madder than he’d recalled being in a long while. He paced from the window to his desk. How dare Paris do what she just did? What kind of a fool does she take me for?

  His daughter had called and asked to take him to lunch. He was fully aware that her offering would mean he would end up footing the bill as always, but that was Paris. He hadn’t minded that. He and Paris hadn’t spoken much of late. Not since that whole thing with the bone marrow transplant campaign he’d told his family he wanted them to get behind and support wholeheartedly.

  To Paris’s credit, she did participate in the news conference. But that was it. She refused to be swabbed to see if she was a possible match. Turns out, it was just as well. Everything had worked out even better than planned. Although at first, he wasn’t sure how he felt when he learned that his youngest daughter was identified as a possible match, then a nearly perfect donor match for the little girl.

  He wasn’t going to allow Imani to be a donor. She was only fifteen. And by law, no one would actually know she’d been a match. But Imani had argued that she was old enough to decide herself and she had wanted to do this . . . had to do this. When Deidra and he talked privately about it, he’d confessed to her that the whole thing wasn’t supposed to be anything more than a campaign gambit. He admitted to Deidra how it hadn’t initially been his idea and that he had to be convinced to move forward with it.

  That part had been true. He hadn’t wanted to do it. Gabrielle had been the one to first bring it up. She’d thrown down a pretty heavy-duty gauntlet. He didn’t have much of a choice but to at least look like he was trying to do what he could. And had he been a match, none of this would have had to come out at all. But he, like Gabrielle, had not been. Gabrielle said that a sibling had a greater chance of being a match and she was fully expecting him to have his children tested, if it would possibly save the child’s life.

  He still couldn’t quite wrap his brain around the idea that he had another daughter out there. And as much as he had wrestled with the idea, he hadn’t gone to see her. He could have gone, if nothing
more than as the representative of the House who orchestrated the donor campaign. But he was afraid to see her. No one can ever say with certainty how they’ll react to something until they’re faced with it. If he was to visit with this child (which the mother had long before indicated she would have welcomed, especially after what he’d done to bring attention to her daughter’s plight), he couldn’t be sure what he would feel . . . what he would do. So he was choosing to play it safe and stay away.

  And everything had somehow worked out. His wife and children were none the wiser about what was really going on. Deidra, in fact, was the one who pressured him into allowing Imani to be the donor. But Deidra and Imani had a close bond. And Imani always seemed to get her way when it came to her mother. At least, that’s what Lawrence concluded.

  “Our daughter is an amazing young lady,” Deidra had said. “She’s smart. She’s caring. But most of all she really, honest and truly loves the Lord. Imani feels right now that her being a match is a God thing and something God would want her to do. If we don’t let her do this, it could affect her for the rest of her life. And if that child dies because she didn’t get a match, learning something like that could destroy Imani. Lawrence, we need to let her if this is what she wants to do. And she does.”

  Lawrence shook his head slowly as he thought about what his wife was saying. “I don’t know, Dee. I don’t want our baby having to go through whatever she’ll have to go through to be a donor to . . . a stranger essentially.” Lawrence had hesitated when he came to the word to call this little girl he knew now was his own daughter. In truth, she was a stranger, because they didn’t actually know her. But by DNA she was also family; she was his child. And if Imani became her donor, she would principally be donating to her own half sister.

  “Well, you know exactly what Imani would say to that,” Deidra said. “She would pull out some reference in the Bible about when Jesus was in need and He presented Himself in the form of a stranger, that in turning away that stranger, we may have been unknowingly turning Him away.” Deidra placed her hand on Lawrence’s chest. “From what those people told me as to what would be required if Imani were to do this, it will be much like donating blood. She’ll be given a few injections—”