Practicing What You Preach

by Vanessa Davis Griggs

  He placed his hand on his briefcase. “One date,” Marcus said. “Come on. What do you have to lose?” He flashed me a big smile. Near-perfect white teeth, and I declare one of them appeared to have twinkled.

  I maintained my coolness, breathing evenly as I began to speak. “One, huh?”

  He held up his index finger. “One. And you can choose the time and the place. If you find we have nothing in common or that you don’t like me, then no harm, no foul. So, what do you say?”

  I had to snap out of this, and quick. I had to take back control. “Okay,” I said slowly, not wanting to answer too quickly. “How about tonight?”

  “Tonight?” He sounded as though that had caught him completely off guard. I sensed I was definitely interfering with some already laid plans.

  Good! Last-minute dates usually get the ones who aren’t really serious every single time. “I’m sorry. Is that a problem for you?” I projected a look of true concern and sincerity. “Do you already have something planned for tonight? Because if you do…”

  “I did, but for you, I’ll change it. Tonight works for me. So where would you like to go?”

  I couldn’t help but grin. “How about Bible study, my church? And we need to be there by seven o’clock.” I crossed my arms. Body language experts would likely say I was putting up a barrier between us. I’d classify it as expressing my confidence as I had officially regained control.

  He began to chuckle. “Oh,” he sang the word, “so, you’re one of those kind of women, huh?”

  “Those kind? Is church a problem for you?” I could tell despite his smile and chuckle that I’d unnerved him slightly. Double good!

  He continued to grin. “No problem. I said you could choose the place. I want you to see that I’m a man of my word.” He took out his business card and handed it to me.

  “I’m sure Dr. Brewer already has your card on file,” I said.

  “He does, but this card is for you.” He took out his Black-Berry. “Now, if I could get your home address?” He looked at me and saw what I imagine had to be a defensive expression on my face. “Miss Melissa Anderson, I need your home address so I can pick you up tonight. That’s what real men do.” A boyish grin broke across his face again.

  I looked at his card before glancing back at him. He put his glasses on and he was instantly transformed back into the harmless Clark Kent. The information on his card was personable enough. He had his home address and both a home and a cell phone number listed. A home number given—not fool-proof by any means but a positive sign—was generally a good indication that he wasn’t some married man trying to find a way to sneak around on his wife. I don’t play that other-woman stuff. Got burned once accidentally. I vowed never again if I could help it.

  Still, I weighed whether or not I should give him my home address at this point. After all, there are plenty of crazies running around in this world. On the other hand, I did sort of know him, so he wasn’t a total stranger. He’d been in here at least ten times that I know of—sometimes when patients were here, most times before office hours began. He seemed a decent enough guy.

  I rattled off my home address as he keyed it into his Black-Berry.

  All right now, Mr. Marcus Peeples. Let’s just see how much you like Bible study at Followers of Jesus Faith Worship Center as a first date. I already sensed, based on the way he had reacted when I mentioned the word “church” that this was going to be fun.

  Chapter 2

  There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.

  —Job 1:1

  Any woman who will be truly honest knows at least one good man who’s gotten a bad rap about something. And this is coming from a woman who has met some real jerks in her day.

  Like my friend Nae-nae, I started developing pretty early in life. My grandma said it was due to all those fast-food meals we ate all the time instead of home-cooked ones like she cooked for her children back in the day.

  “When you grow chicken legs and wings the size of a turkey in that short amount of time, you know there’s something unnatural,” Grandma would say. “If you grow food on steroids and you feed it to your body, what other results do you expect to get? Back in my day, we used to say, ‘You are what you eat.’ Well, the result is gonna really show up later in life if you young folk aren’t careful and don’t stop eating so much junk.”

  My mother never paid much attention to what her mother had to say, at least not on that subject. “Mama, fast food is called fast food for a reason,” she’d say.

  My brother Diddy-bo, who is two years older than me, and I would sit quietly and listen to Grandma and Mama as they argued about stuff like that. I believe that’s why Mama worked so hard to help get Grandma married off and out of her house.

  Diddy-bo and I would find ourselves confused about the two of them, mostly our mother. When we were in church singing, “Give me that old-time religion,” Mama would always sing the part about it being good enough for her mother therefore it was good enough for her. Diddy-bo brought that to Mama’s attention after a church service once when Mama and Grandma were going at it big time about something they didn’t agree on. Mama told Diddy-bo she was talking about Jesus when she sang about it being good enough for her mother, and not Church’s Chicken versus chitterlings or collard greens cooked with hog jowls or fatback.

  “Ewww!” Diddy-bo and I said in unison. “Chitterlings!”

  The thought of chitterlings still causes my nose to turn upward. Grandma lived with us for about two years, and in that time she cooked chitterlings for each of the three New Year’s Days she was at our house. Apparently, chitterlings were just one of many New Year traditions or superstitions Mama allowed that Grandma religiously subscribed to and practiced.

  We had to have our Christmas tree completely down before New Year’s Day to ensure that bad things didn’t come to the house during the year. Grandma would cook either collard or turnip greens because if you eat something green on the first day of the year, it brings green (money). Black-eyed peas (what Grandma called black folks’ caviar) were for good luck. No female could step foot into the house until a man had crossed the entryway first. That, according to Grandma, was to ward off bad luck from entering the house for the brand-new year. You couldn’t wash clothes on New Year’s Day, because if you did, “You’ll wash someone out of your life,” Grandma would say. “Wouldn’t want to lose anybody we love this year, now would we?”

  Chitterlings didn’t have any notable significance other than it happened to be a staple Grandma looked forward to. Like ribs, chitterlings were said to have their roots in the days of slavery when black folks took what was normally discarded and managed to make a meal out of it.

  All Diddy-bo and I knew the very first time we smelled that so-called southern “delicacy” cooking, when we were ten and eight, respectively, was that it stank to high heaven. After we learned what it was, I fully understood the source of its smell. Mama said the only thing she didn’t like about chitterlings was cleaning them, and the way the odor got into her draperies and lingered in the house all day.

  No kidding?!

  Still, Mama happily and excitedly ate a plateful of chitterlings and always went back for seconds, sometimes thirds.

  “Some people prefer to put mustard on theirs, but I like mine with hot sauce,” Mama said. “Diddy-bo, get me the bottle of hot sauce and bring it here.” When he did, she shook a little hot sauce on the gray matter bunched on her plate, cut it up, put a forkful in her mouth, closed her eyes as she smiled, then looked up and moaned the way I do whenever I eat a superbly made peach cobbler.

  Diddy-bo is not my brother’s real name, just as Nae-nae is not my best friend’s real name nor Peaches mine. Diddy-bo’s name is Spencer after some famous actor from my Grandma’s day named Spencer Tracy. Nae-nae is actually Denita Wilson. She’s named after her daddy Dennis and her mama Anita. And me? Like Denita, I was sort of n
amed after my father Melvin (whom most folks called Mel) and my Aunt Lisa. So I’m Melissa. Mama said I always went delightfully crazy whenever I ate peaches when I was a baby and I was as pretty as a peach. I guess Peaches just stuck.

  Diddy-bo likes to tell me that I grew into my pretty.

  When I think back on what a real brat I was (Diddy-bo says I still am), I can’t help but think about how special my brother truly is. He doesn’t let anyone mess with me, that’s for sure. Ask Cass. When Diddy-bo found out Cass had borrowed my two-thousand-dollar stereo system and refused to give it back after he broke up with me, Diddy-bo paid him a little visit. I don’t know what Diddy-bo said or did to him, but when Diddy-bo brought my system home to me, he asked me to say an extra prayer for him.

  And people wonder why I love my brother so.

  Chapter 3

  While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.

  —1 Peter 3:2

  Marcus showed up fifteen minutes early for our date. He looked amazing—different than before. When he visited my boss, he mostly wore suits and ties. For our night out, he wore a lightweight pullover sweater with a geometrical design and pecan-colored slacks. He wasn’t as lanky as I’d thought. And those nerdlike glasses he always sported? Gone.

  “Why aren’t you wearing your glasses?” I asked as we rode to the church. I thought for sure that after coming to my door to get me he would have put them on to drive.

  He looked at me and smiled. “Oh, so you noticed?” He glanced away from the road to look at me.

  “Well, yeah. I’m pretty observant. So you must wear contacts.”

  “No. I wear glasses if my eyes become strained from too much reading. And I happen to read a lot. A lot. But mostly I wear them when I want to appear more serious.”

  “Glasses make you look different, that’s for sure.”

  He tilted his head toward me and grinned. “Is that a good different or a bad different?”

  I shrugged, trying to make him think it really wasn’t that big a deal. “Just different, that’s all.” I looked over at him. With the help of streetlights, I was able to see his eyes again, and they were just as gorgeous as I remembered. I’ve never seen eyes that sexy on a man. I turned my gaze away from him. “Me? I have to have glasses to see,” I said. “Fortunately, I’m able to wear contacts, too. But I’d love not to have to wear glasses ever.”

  He didn’t respond immediately. I wanted to look back over at him, but I fought the urge and continued to focus my attention on the road ahead.

  “Well, I suppose it might stem from when I was a little boy. Everybody in my family wore glasses except me. It was something I was a little envious about,” he said. And although I didn’t see it, I heard the smile in his voice. “My mother used to think I was nuts because I wanted to wear glasses when I didn’t have to.”

  “Then aren’t you being a bit dishonest by wearing glasses?” I turned to him. “If you really don’t need them, aren’t you merely using them to misrepresent yourself?”

  “No, I don’t think I’m misrepresenting myself. My doctor prescribed them for those times when my eyes feel strained. Do I need them to read every second of the day? No. Do I need them to drive? No. But when I work a lot or late into the night, sometimes my eyes do get tired, so I put them on. My ophthalmologist says it doesn’t hurt for me to wear them all the time. So I wear them when I want to even though I don’t really have to.”

  We were getting close to the church’s exit. “Turn left at the light, then right about a half mile up, and you’ll see the church on your right,” I said.

  “So, Melissa Anderson, tell me. What are your dreams? What are your goals in life?”

  “Now that came completely out of the blue,” I replied, a little surprised, though I was impressed that he even cared enough to ask. I turned and looked at him.

  “Oh, really now? Well, I believe you can tell a lot about a person based on their goals and dreams for life.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s right. And I’d like to know you better. So what are your dreams?”

  “Okay, if you really want to know. I’d like to own my own business someday. A pretty big goal, since I’m not that crazy about everything I’d need to do to own a business. Let’s just say that I like the creative side of what I want to do a lot more than I do the business side. I’m not all that fond of having to do all the paperwork it requires, all the records you have to maintain. But one thing I’ve learned in life is you do what you have to do in order to do what you want to do.”

  The arrowed light turned green. He started moving as the line of cars in front of us began rolling. “That’s interesting. I don’t know if I would have ever guessed that about you,” he said.

  “Wouldn’t have guessed what? That somebody like me might be remotely interested in owning my own business? That I could be capable of running, let alone owning, a business? What?” I hunched my shoulders a few times. “What?”

  “No,” he said with an unspoken question I felt directed at me as though he were asking where that little outburst had come from. I quickly realized how defensive I must have sounded at that moment.

  “Honestly, the times I’ve seen you at work, you appear dependable and rather comfortable with handling everything,” Marcus said. “In fact, Dr. Brewer constantly comments on how he doesn’t know what he would do without you. He talks all the time about how you run his office practically single-handedly. He loves your work ethic and can’t seem to say enough great things about your organizational and administrative skills. I suppose I just never thought about you having a desire to leave his office and do something else entirely, that’s all. But you running your own business, I can absolutely see that.”

  I blushed. Dr. Brewer had told him how much he appreciated me. “Thank you,” I said when I realized he was surprised that I was interested in leaving Dr. Brewer someday, and not about my being able to own my own business. “I do my best. But I do have dreams. I don’t want to work for somebody else for the rest of my life.”

  “Do you have an idea of what kind of business you’d like to own?”

  “Yes. I love organizing events, putting them together, watching them work. Right now I do it more as a hobby. I charge a fraction of what I could get while I’m learning and working out all the kinks. At this point, it’s a win-win for everybody. I started out putting together small events like baby showers, birthday parties, and various get-togethers. But the past few months, I’ve been working on this wedding.”

  I started to tell him the bride-to-be’s name mostly because I thought it was pretty neat. But then I decided he wouldn’t care that her name was Angela Gabriel and that she likes being called Angel, like the angel Gabriel. When I first met Angela and she told me that, I thought she was joking. But her last name really is Gabriel and most folks really do call her Angel Gabriel.

  “The wedding is shaping up to be a major production, although the bride-to-be has done a lot of the work herself,” I said. “But I would love to own an event planning business, not just planning weddings but all types of events, and do it full time.”

  Marcus pulled into a parking space beneath a lamppost, then turned off the ignition. I could see him clearly now with the light shining down on us. He turned toward me. “Then I think you should seriously pursue it.” He smiled, and that’s when I saw them. Dimples.

  I don’t know why I’d never noticed his dimples before. I love dimples. And on top of everything (gorgeous eyes, dimples, and his going to church with me), he—unlike Cass—genuinely listened to me when I talked. He got out of the car, walked around to my side, and opened the door for me just as he had when he picked me up. And even though I was fully capable of getting in and out of a car by myself, I graciously took his proffered hand. He had the gift of making me feel special. He treated me like I was royalty or something. No man had ever opened a car door for me before. But then again, we independent women can have a way of shutting a true gentle
man down.

  I couldn’t help but thank God at this point. Here I was with a man who actually listened, seemed to genuinely care, and was not bad on the eyes at all. So far, so good.

  Yet, there is one rule I have found, and it has proved itself time and time again with accuracy, at least in my life, no matter how clichéd it is. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

  But tonight—tonight I’ve decided to suspend all negative thoughts and judgments and just see where this takes me.

  For tonight. And tomorrow…well, tomorrow is yet another day.

  Chapter 4

  That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

  —John 17:21

  Bible study was really good. Pastor Landris has been teaching everyone in the main sanctuary as opposed to the break-out sessions we normally have. He began a study three weeks ago on “Who we are in Christ.” So even though I’m really busy these days, between my job and putting together this wedding, I’m determined not to miss even one lesson. Tapes and CDs are good, but there’s nothing like being there in person.

  “That was a powerful illustration your pastor gave tonight,” Marcus said as we rode to my house. “The way he had that large envelope with the word ‘God’ on the outside, then pulling out a smaller envelope with the word ‘Jesus’ on it.”

  “Wasn’t that great! Oh, I loved that, too!” I matched his tone of excitement. “And when Pastor Landris pulled out that even smaller envelope from inside the envelope with ‘Jesus’ on it, with the word ‘Me,’ and he said that the ‘Me’ was us, I knew it was going to be on then.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like that before. Everybody was sitting on the edge of their seats, literally, including me, waiting to see how he was going to bring all of that together.” Marcus alternated his gaze between me and the road. I was thankful he was keeping his eyes on the road more than on me, specifically since he was so excited.