Rochelle answered first. “Yeah. Pastor is really shaking things up. Just what we’d always prayed for.”
“Then why do you sound so sad about it?” It was Dahlia’s voice. We all turned, stunned. Sure she was here, but we’d neither wanted nor expected any response from her. Well, let me correct that—I hadn’t expected her to say anything. Tracey looked delighted.
“I was just thinking that myself, Dahlia,” Tracey said, taking a sip of orange sherbet punch. Another of Daddy’s recipes. “This stuff is so good.”
At least something had turned out right. I sighed. Usually I added too much ice cream or not enough Sprite. This time it was just right and with a splash of guava juice. Good stuff. Better than the direction of this conversation to be sure.
“It’s not that we’re not happy about it, Dahlia. It’s just that there’s a lot going on now, you know? When we were really pressing in and praying for Pastor to hit things harder, we thought we had it going on. Thought that we were spiritual.”
Tracey snorted. “I know that’s right. I look back at my devotionals from last year and wonder who that was. I thought I was soo-oo holy. And look at me now.”
I tried to cut her moaning off at the pass. It wasn’t info I wanted to arm Dahlia with. “What do you mean look at you now?” I took her plate and cup and headed for the trash. “You’re married, pregnant and serving God. Sure things aren’t perfect, but you’re hanging in there. You made it to the altar. That was the hard thing.” I dropped the cute pansy plate into the trash and headed back to the couch.
A tear streamed down Tracey’s face.
Oh, yeah. Definitely the hormones.
“That’s just it, Dane. I didn’t make it to the altar. And now I’m paying for it.”
My eyes crinkled like they had when Naomi was smoking earlier. “Of course you made it. I was there.”
Dahlia cleared her throat. “That’s not what she means, Dana. Get a clue.”
I got a clue. Quick. So that was the weird vibe I’d had about the whole Ryan thing. “So you lied to us the whole time?”
Rochelle hung her head. Tracey looked away.
Dahlia grabbed a handful of peanuts. “Sounds like she didn’t lie to everybody. Just you.”
I thought that was your job.
Tension knotted in my shoulders. “So you, too, Tracey? Looks like everybody here thinks I’m just someone to be lied to and played like a fool. Is there anything else I should know?”
Though it was a rhetorical question, I knew as soon as I’d asked it that it was a mistake. Concern clouded all their faces, especially Dahlia’s. Anything the others had to say worried me, but another confession from her in this lifetime might just do me in.
Dahlia rubbed her cheek until her palm was covered in foundation. “I understand what Tracey said about doing things wrong and then maybe having bad things happen because of it.” She bit a nail. “I mean, I’ve done a lot of things that I’m not proud of now, most of them to you, Dana. I know you don’t think so, but I do believe in God. This is just all new to me, you know? I didn’t really get it before.”
I rolled my head in a circle. “That’s okay,” I said in a low voice. “I still don’t get it sometimes myself. I just take it day by day.”
“Yeah,” Tracey said.
“It’s all you can do.” Rochelle poured herself some punch.
Dahlia nodded. “Still. I’ve done some pretty messed up stuff. Some of it, though, I didn’t mean to happen. I mean the thing with Trevor—”
“Let’s not go there.” Rochelle’s words trembled a little. She was probably remembering the lunatic I was for a while after the whole situation. Even after I was saved.
“It’s okay, Chelle. Let her talk.” For some reason, Dahlia’s words didn’t seem to bother me as much as what Tracey had said. I’d expected more from her. Dahlia had always hurt me. Well, maybe not always, but for a long time. I was getting used to it.
“Anyway, Trevor paid me back. No matter what I do, he still seems to want you—”
“Dahlia.” I cringed, remembering her haunted look as she’d run from the church.
Another sniff. “We’ve got Sierra. She needs us. We’ll work it out. He knows that you love Adrian anyway—”
Rochelle choked on her punch.
“It’s not like that exactly,” I whispered. My heart wrenched, refusing to acknowledge the admission in my tone. A baby shower. That was all this was supposed to be. Cake. Punch. Gifts. Fun. This was not fun.
Brown mascara blurred into the creases of Dahlia’s eyes. “That’s the thing I’m most sorry for. The thing I never meant to happen…” Her voice faded.
The room spun a little as words marched past my lips against my commands. “What thing?”
She gave me a puzzled look. “The thing with Adrian. He never told you?”
“You don’t look so good.”
I smiled at Austin. I didn’t feel so good, either.
“Rough weekend?” She stabbed at her salad.
Rough didn’t begin to describe it. “Nothing a few pounds of chocolate couldn’t cure.”
She giggled. “A few pounds? Oh, man. That must have been a doozy. Well, I’m glad you came to our lunch date anyway. Did you have girlfriends to console you?”
“You know it.” I took a sip of water.
“Feel better?”
I shook my head.
“Will Dove bars help or is that overkill?”
Not for this. “I’m not turning down anything, but I don’t want to get sick on you.”
She flashed me her TV smile. “Right. No need to overdo.” She maneuvered the fork again, bringing me face to face with her rock of a wedding ring once again. Talk about overdone. What archeological dig had unearthed that thing?
I knew she wanted to talk about my sister’s untimely revelation, but as much as I liked her, we weren’t that close. In truth, if Tracey and Rochelle hadn’t been there to hear it, I don’t know if I’d have told them. But they’d been there. I didn’t want to speculate anymore or try to figure out the gory details. It was over. He’d ripped my heart out, roots and all. “Enough about me, Austin. How’s married life treating you?”
She shrugged. “I can’t complain. There’s a lot to work out. Joshua has lived a sheltered, loving life. I haven’t. Sometimes it’s hard for me to understand how much family means to him and it’s hard for him to understand how much my work means to me. But we both love the Lord. We’ll work it out.”
My eyes crinkled again. “The Lord? I thought he was Jewish?”
A ribbon of romaine hung out of Austin’s mouth. She sucked it in like spaghetti. “Yes, the Lord. Yeshua. Josh is Jewish in heritage, but he’s Christian by faith. Messianic. Haven’t you heard of it?”
“Sort of.” Like that Nehemiah thing Adrian went to. I’d surfed the Internet to learn more about it a few times when I couldn’t sleep, but I’d delete those bookmarks now. I’d never be going anywhere near him again.
Austin munched on, oblivious. “Oh, yeah. It’s a big thing. Jews for Jesus and all that. Wonderful services. A friend from work invited me. It blew me away.”
“Sounds amazing. Did you meet Josh at the single’s group there?” Duh. Did they even have such things?
Austin smiled. “Hardly. I didn’t even give him a second glance. I was so into Jesus I didn’t pay much attention to anyone else. His mother was paying attention though…”
“His mother? She hooked you guys up?”
“Oh, yeah. She’s a little lady, but she knows what she wants. She irons her sheets. Powders her bathroom with lavender. She cracks me up.”
I dropped my fork. “I think I’ve met her. She’s a customer.”
Austin threw back her head and laughed. “Figures. She doesn’t talk much, but she knows everything. I thought that stuff had to be yours.” She cupped her chin in her hands. “We’re having Passover with them this weekend. Christian ceremony. Want to come and surprise her?”
I chewed my b
land chicken, wishing we’d gone out like I’d suggested, that I’d ordered the ribs I really wanted right now. “Sure. Why not?” At this point, the thought of surprising anyone but myself sounded pretty good.
They called him by another name, but I recognized Him immediately.
Yeshua.
Emmanuel.
Jesus.
God.
In a dimly lit parlor scented with lamb, rosemary and honeyed apples, somewhere between the bitter herbs and the matzo ball soup, Jesus became alive to me again.
Though I’d taken many communions, read all the Gospels, sang all the songs, it wasn’t until I sat around the table with a bunch of strangers that I realized that my life was not about me paying the price for my past or even making some holy tangle of rules and rituals, but rather an offering, much the same as the one made for me, however woefully inadequate it seemed.
As I envisioned the blood on the doorpost of those Hebrew slaves and the haste and hope with which they ate this meal, my anger, confusion and pain at recent events melted away, swirled into a burst of color and then ran together in one red line across my mind.
A bloodline.
“Most folks have the wine, you know. The real thing.” Mrs. Shapiro’s peppermint breath feathered across my cheek. “I had a bad time with the drink a long time ago.” She pointed upward. “He delivered me from it, but no sense in forcing the issue, eh?”
I nodded, sliding the lamb off my fork. No sense in pressing the issue indeed. The music swirled around me as she patted my hand and moved on to the next person around the table, a colossal oval that reminded me of the conference room back at Scents and Savings. Only here, people smiled.
God had brought me so far since then. Out of the stress and pressure of that world into…my own stress and pressure? The absurdity of the thought startled me. So did the gentle rushing of the music, washing over me in waves of Hebrew. The men around the table echoed the words in throaty tones. I smiled at the underlying drumbeat, eerily reminiscent of a famous rap song.
Nothing new under the sun.
Austin winked at me from across the table. Her husband waved, then gripped her hand. She blushed and I laughed, both at her and myself. She’d seemed so savvy and cosmopolitan, but in the presence of the man she loved, she acted like a sixteen-year-old girl.
They moved in to kiss and I turned away, but not before a pounding at the door sliced through the beat of the music. Austin’s stern but pleasant husband leapt from his seat and ran from the table with expectance. Austin shook her head. “Men,” she mouthed, trying to regain her composure.
I nodded, narrowing my eyes in agreement, knowing she was trying to recover. She needn’t have bothered. Her melting at the sight of her husband had only endeared me to her more. She was a sistah indeed.
Her husband returned to the table with a laughing mouth, pulling a leather-clad man behind him.
A man I knew all too well.
My fork clattered against the china. Grape juice splashed over the rim of my glass and seeped into the linen, purple raced across the table as if highlighting the path to the newcomer. “Adrian?” I choked out his name as I righted my glass.
He looked at me, first puzzled, then delighted as he grabbed a napkin to help sop up my mess. “Dana,” he said like music. “I see you found my little Bible study after all.”
Chapter Fourteen
The grape juice came out of the tablecloth, but that night stained me forever. Though I’d spent many nights since Dahlia’s confession wondering what I’d say to Adrian when we did talk again, only Christ mattered that night. We sang to Jesus. Prayed to Him. Drank Him in though worship and Word. We laughed and cried.
More intimate than any kiss or rendezvous was the simple sweetness of our Savior and one look across the table after the last prayer left me seeing Adrian as if for the first time. Seeing Jesus for the first time. As if knowing how much the night had meant and not wanting to spoil it, Adrian slipped away first with a simple wave.
“I promise not to stay away so long next time,” he said to them, while looking at me.
His presence at Broken Bread every Sunday meant his absence here, I realized.
With that, Adrian left me there to deal with Jesus. And to deal with myself. I didn’t do a good job with either.
Spring rolled in and the days peeled back, dry and scaly, ripping at old wounds. Daddy came to cook every Sunday, but he hadn’t been to church since “the incident” as he referred to the Trevor’s little confession some weeks prior. Jordan and his girlfriend remained scarce. Rochelle and I maintained our shaky peace, solidified through silence and distance. Tracey? Well, she went home to Ryan and called me more than was healthy for either of us.
Dahlia called regularly, her voice tinged with regret. I spoke lovingly to her, surprised to hear my pity in my voice, but it was there. Pity for her…and for me.
Sure it’s nice to know that Jesus loves the little children and all, but there was also a one-of-a-kind crazy love, the love I’d felt at Austin’s dinner. Song of Solomon love. Whether I’d been operating before out of duty or discipline I didn’t know, but now there was a devotion, a bond that made me want to pull away and be touched by Him.
Filled.
My once clear-cut goals didn’t even make sense anymore. I mean, yeah, I wanted the store, but I don’t want it to own me. And this thing with Adrian…despite my vows to protect myself from him, somewhere in the worship, as God lavished His love upon me, I’d forgiven my old friend and acknowledged my love for him. Whether anything would ever change between us was up to God.
I’d loved him all my life, but how could I consider being in love with him, devoting my emotion to someone else when I wasn’t sure how to love myself? There were no easy answers, but something had changed. I wanted Adrian, and I wanted to be the mother of his babies. Yes, that was plural.
Sierra proved to be the biggest eye-opener in that regard. Kids were something I wrote off my wish list a long time ago, mainly because I didn’t think I had time enough, money enough, love enough for another human being. Being with her, I saw that God had enough love and so would I, whenever the time came.
And Trevor? I realize now what I didn’t when we were together. No woman could fill his needs. Even Dahlia couldn’t fill that pit. Only Jesus could. The question was, what would I do with all my love now that I’d owned up to having some? Give it away again or give it all to God, where it would be safe?
Love your neighbor as yourself.
The only thing I’d been loving lately was this shop. And I couldn’t even carry that anymore. I loved my business. It fulfilled me. But if it had to end, so be it. Really, how much was too much? Where does good stewardship leave off and idolatry take over? Seeing as it’s 3:00 a.m. again—and I’m still here with sweaty braids and dirty jeans I tugged on out of my overflowing laundry basket, I’ve crossed the line somewhere.
My fast-food-littered apartment and the foot of junk on the floor of my car skipped through my mind. My gaze wandered, stopping at my belly partitioned distinctly by my belt. And my Bible, where was it again? Still in the car from church?
I sighed, skinning peaches for Tangela’s last bridal event—the one-day spa cruise. She’d promised to have the second installment of my fee tomorrow, though I wondered now if I’d even stay awake long enough to collect it. Of everything going on, this maid of honor thing had been the first place I’d crossed the line for the wrong reasons.
And it hadn’t been the last. The red numbers on my electronic balance sheet echoed the stark reality. Even with the money Tangela had owed me, only God could help me now.
Four hours of sleep managed to look good on me, or so I thought until I scrambled down the freezing boat dock in the midst of a pink army of DKNY-clad Tangela clones. There was something so ridiculous about their head-to-toe perfection that struck me as painfully funny.
Tangela didn’t seem as amused. “Did you bring the stuff?”
I nodded, lifting the
tubs toward her with my peach-stained fingers.
She grimaced. “Just take them inside. Everything is ready. What happened though? You were supposed to come and help me set up.”
Hmm…true enough, I hadn’t been reading the manual, but I certainly didn’t remember any such agreement. “Well, uh, sorry, but I was working to get this stuff made and I had to get Chelle to cover the—”
“Save the sob story. The maid of honor always helps with the spa cruise. Haven’t you ever read Modern Bride?”
Obviously not. I stared at her, waiting for her head to start revolving completely around.
She sniffed and stormed on to the boat. “Just come on.”
Once inside, the cabin of the boat seemed much smaller than it looked from the outside. With all that pink in a cramped space it looked as if someone had dumped a vat of cotton candy on the room. As the boat swayed under my feet, I suddenly remembered where I’d left my seasickness pills.
On land.
As I struggled to find a seat next to Shemika, whom I was surprised hadn’t been relieved of her wedding hostess duties already, Tangela slithered to the front—all she was capable of in such a tight skirt—while Shemika greeted me and offered to help carry the facial tubs. I declined, of course.
Tangela’s nasal voice whined through the microphone. “I hope you have your handbooks everyone. We’ve got some great food and fun planned, but first things first. Turn to page seven and let’s walk through the dress code again….”
I rolled my eyes. Somebody ought to be having fun. My stomach was rumbling, daring to roll down the waistband of my too tight skirt. My feet were pinched into a pair of “cute” shoes so uncomfortable I’d decided to take them back, but couldn’t find the receipt. Catching my reflection in a porthole, I gasped. With my new “auburn” wash-in hair color and my bloodshot eyes, I looked like Raggedy Ann’s sloppy sister.
I stared around the room at the princesses surrounding me. Not one of them looked capable of a smile, yet they had every hair, nail and toe in place. I unbuttoned my jacket and took a deep breath. I’d take a smile over perfection any day.
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