by E. N. Joy
“Tamarra! Tamarra!” the voice called, sounding out of breath.
When Tamarra turned around she saw Maeyl, bearing a bouquet of flowers, doing a light jog toward her.
“I’m so glad I caught you.” Maeyl was out of breath once he caught up with her. “I hoped I’d find you here.”
Tamarra shot him an indignant look. “Why wouldn’t you have found me here? This is where you were supposed to meet me a half hour ago.”
Maeyl took a deep breath and then spoke. “I was at the Olive Garden on Hamilton Road. I’d forgotten all about this new one they built on 256. I don’t get out of the Malvonia city limits too often. I didn’t even know it was open yet until the waiter at the one on Hamilton suggested you might be here after I sat and waited on you forever. I’d gotten us a table and everything at the other one. I thought about calling you on your cell phone, but I didn’t have your number. I didn’t want to call and ask someone from church because well . . . you know how it is when some church folk get to talking.”
Tamarra smiled, Maeyl’s first sign that she might forgive him.
“Apology accepted.” Tamarra’s stomach grumbled. Instead of being embarrassed by the loud noise, she decided to make light of it. “At least my head accepts your apology. I can’t speak for my stomach. But it sounds like it’s speaking for itself.” There was another chuckle from Tamarra followed by one from Maeyl.
Maeyl was relieved, and so was Tamarra. A night that just a few minutes ago neither one of them thought would be, actually was. And Tamarra felt in her spirit that it was going to be a good night indeed.
“Shall we?” Maeyl extended his arm for Tamarra to grab hold of his elbow.
“Yes, we shall.” Tamarra smiled as Maeyl led her back into the restaurant.
“Oh, I see you’re back with your date,” the hostess said to Tamarra.
“Yeah,” Maeyl replied for her. “I had to keep the lady waiting. Couldn’t make it that obvious of just how much I’ve been looking forward to tonight.”
Although Maeyl was addressing the hostess’s comment, Tamarra knew he was speaking directly to her.
“Right this way,” the hostess said after grabbing two menus and leading the couple to their table.
After Maeyl and Tamarra were seated, their waitress came over and took their drink orders. The forced conversations that some couples experienced on first time dates were nonexistent in Tamarra and Maeyl’s case. They talked so much that when their waitress came back to take their dinner orders, they weren’t prepared because they hadn’t stopped talking long enough to look at the menu. When the waitress came back the second time they each ordered their entrée and continued their conversation where they had left off.
“So do you have any brothers and sisters, or are you an only child?” Maeyl asked Tamarra.
After hesitating for a moment, Tamarra replied, “I’m an only child.” Tamarra immediately felt convicted. Her and Maeyl’s first date could be the beginning of something good. Too bad she was starting it out with lies. But in her own heart, she felt justified in her reasons for lying about being an only child; reasons she hoped that all the people she’d lied to thus far would never find out about.
Chapter Seven
“Pastor know that sermon was preached today!” Paige said after the pastor gave the benediction and excused the congregation.
“Didn’t Pastor preach though?” Tamarra agreed as she gathered up her purse and Bible bag.
Paige scanned the sanctuary. “You know, I didn’t see Sister Deborah here today,” she pointed out. “And she never misses a Sunday.”
“Hmm. Me either.” Tamarra proceeded to scan the sanctuary as if, perhaps, Paige might have overlooked Deborah. Right before her eyes made their way back to Paige, she noticed Maeyl in the sound booth with his assistant. A huge smile spread across Tamarra’s lips when he looked up and noticed her.
Maeyl’s hands seemed to be busy fiddling around with equipment, so instead of waving, he gave her a wink and a nod. Tamarra nodded in return, and to keep from blushing, she quickly turned her attention back to Paige, who was shooting her a strange look.
“What?” Tamarra asked Paige, shrugging her shoulders.
Paige had a peculiar look on her face as she let her eyes fall from Tamarra, to the sound booth, then back to Tamarra again.
“What my foot, young lady.” Paige said, now scooping up her belongings from off the pew. “You got some ‘splainin’ to do, Lucy.” Paige gave her best Desi Arnez impression from the I Love Lucy show. “And I have a feeling it ain’t for the Lord’s ears to hear, so come on.” Paige grabbed Tamarra by the arm and escorted her out of the church. Once in the parking lot, she began to drill away at her friend. “Now what was all that?
“All what?” Tamarra played dumb as she walked to her car that was parked two cars away from Paige’s. She clicked the remote to unlock the doors, then removed her thyme green brimmed hat that matched the suit and pumps she was wearing. She laid it on the driver’s seat while she stood outside the door talking to Paige. “Whew, this August heat gon’ make me have to reconsider wearing church hats in the summer.” She patted at her short, moist hair.
“Don’t play with me, Sister Tamarra,” Paige warned. “I flunked kindergarten because I do not play. Now forget about that outrageous hat collection of yours and tell me what the jacks is going on with you and Mr. Sound Man in there.” She pointed toward the church.
Tamarra chuckled. “All right, already,” she gave in. “Maeyl and I went on a date.”
“A date? You went on a date with Brother Maeyl?”
“Shhh.” Tamarra put her index finger to her lips and looked around to make sure that no members walking to their cars were within earshot. “We might as well have stayed in the sanctuary if you were going to broadcast it like that.”
“Oh, my bad,” Paige apologized, lowering her tone. “But when did all of this go down? I mean, how? I’ve never even seen you two interact, so when did this man get a chance to ask you out on a date? Oh, let me guess, you took my advice again and asked him out? See, girl, I told you there isn’t a thing wrong with a woman asking a man out on a date. That last incident with you and what’s his name was just a bad fluke. But—”
“Will you shut up already, and let me tell you the dang on details?” Tamarra interrupted a speed talking Paige.
“Oh girl, I’m sorry. It’s just that I can’t believe that God has just been moving in both of our lives as far as relationships go. All in the same week at that, He’s put someone in my life and yours. I mean, can you believe . . . ” Paige’s words trailed off once she realized that she was busted. She, too, was guilty of engaging in a date without sharing the details with her friend.
Although Paige and Tamarra had only been friends a little over a year, one would think they’d been friends forever. Trust between the two was formed almost instantaneously. The way Paige had connected with the woman almost ten years her senior, she was sure God had placed Tamarra in her life as her very own counselor.
Growing up, the only person Paige had to confide in was her younger brother, and there was only so much a girl could tell her brother that was two years younger than she. Paige’s mother never had time to give mother-daughter talks because she was too busy catering to her husband.
Although Paige and her brother’s father had been a wonderful provider and a strong head of the family, she often resented him for taking up so much of her mother’s time, leaving her to have to learn things that a girl’s mother should teach her, on her own. Paige felt that her father expected too much from her mother and that her mother darn near ran herself ragged to make sure that all of his expectations were met. He was bossy and unappreciative of her mother’s time is how Paige saw it.
He expected her mother to keep the house clean, make sure the lawn was watered, meals were prepared to his daily preference, take care of the kids at home and show up for school functions as well as get them to dentist and doctor’s appointments, and do
laundry. This might not have been so bad had Paige’s mother been a stay-at-home mom, but she wasn’t. She worked full-time and paid half the bills. So Paige never understood why her father’s list only included taking out the trash and cutting the grass. The least he could do was pay all the bills since he was working her mother like a Hebrew slave.
Paige had made it up in her mind a long time ago that when she found herself a husband, he’d be nothing like her father, which explained why she had dated so many men. The first sign one of the men gave that he held a trait of her father’s, he was cut off. Deemed flawed.
Tamarra had often told Paige she wasn’t giving these men a fair chance, but Paige always countered with, “God shows me these things speedily so that I can get rid of the losers speedily without becoming attached.”
Tamarra didn’t agree, of course. She would always reply with, “God is a God of second chances, so He at least expects us to operate in the same manner.” As much as Paige valued her good friend’s opinions, she never took heed to that one.
“Well, if it ain’t the pot calling the kettle black,” Tamarra shot at Paige after hearing her slip up about God placing a man in her life. “You hounding me about keeping my date with Maeyl from you, and here you are holding out on me. So spill it. Who is he, what’s his name, and more importantly, how do you know God sent him?”
Paige cleared her throat. The same smile that had been on Tamarrra’s face when she made eye contact with Maeyl just a few minutes ago was now on her face as she thought back about her movie date with Blake.
“His name is Blake,” Paige confessed. “He’s in the real estate profession, and I just know in my spirit it was a divine set up that he came into my life.”
“Keep it coming,” Tamarra insisted.
“I just met him a couple of days ago, but I feel like I’ve known him a lifetime. The same way I felt when I first met you.”
“Don’t try to butter me up now that you’re busted.”
“Seriously,” Paige stated. “I was destined to meet this man, Tamarra.” Paige had the most sincere look in her eyes as she explained to Tamarra how she came about going to see the movie with Blake. “So what do you think?” Paige asked Tamarra. “Do you agree that this man could possibly be the one? Sent from God?” Paige’s tone was more than genuine and so was the look on her face as she waited for a reply. If there was ever a time when Paige couldn’t trust her own instincts, she truly valued Tamarra’s all the same.
Tamarra had been saved since she was twenty-five, and had been committed to church since then, which is why Paige was so drawn to the older woman. As a babe in Christ, Paige wanted to connect with someone who could mentor her; who could help wean her from spiritual milk to meat. What Paige really admired about Tamarra was that she wasn’t one of those people who thought that just because she was saved she had an automatic go-straight-to-heaven pass. Tamarra made every effort to walk in the Word and not only be committed to the church, but first and foremost, to be committed to the Lord.
Paige would often, and still did on occasion, call Tamarra up and ask her to explain certain scriptures of the Bible. Tamarra knew the Word like the back of her hand it seemed, but in all humility, Tamarra would admit to Paige that it was the Holy Spirit giving her revelation of the Word at the very moment she’d spoken it to Paige. Either way, Paige knew that God was using Tamarra to help her in her own walk.
“Either way it goes, I’m happy for you, Paige,” Tamarra concluded. “I mean, you made it through one whole date without finding a flaw. But then again, that was a date in the dark, in the movie theatre where you can’t talk to each other anyway.”
“So do you think he could be my husband, placed right there in my lap by God?”
Tamarra thought for a minute, and then shrugged. “I don’t know. Go on a date with him in a well-lit place where the two of you can hold a real conversation, then ask me.”
“Well, that will be sooner than you think. I’m having lunch with him on my day off this week.” Paige smiled. “I guess that prayer about God placing men in our lives that Sister Deborah prayed at the last Singles Ministry meeting worked.” Just then her smile faded when she remembered something. “But enough of us talking about these new men in our lives like we’re back in high school or something. We need to do a drive by to Sister Deborah’s and see why she wasn’t in church today.”
“Yeah,” Tamarra agreed in a worried tone. “It’s not like Sister Deborah to miss church on a Sunday, especially the first Sunday. Communion Sunday. If everything was all right, she’d be here.”
“Which can only mean one thing,” Paige concluded. “Something’s wrong.”
Chapter Eight
Deborah sat up rocking in her bed with her knees to her chest and her arms wrapped tightly around her legs. She couldn’t get rid of the pounding in her head, a pounding that was a result from crying all morning long.
“The Lord is my Shepard; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters . . .” Deborah had been reciting Psalm 23 ever since early this morning when she decided not to go to church.
Fully dressed in her Sunday’s best, Deborah had every intention of going to New Day Temple of Faith to get her praise on when she awoke this morning. But that nagging voice in her head had chased her around the house while she got ready for church, and it kept hurling insults at her about being a phony and fake Christian hiding her sins. That voice had finally broken her down and convinced her that the last place a wretch like her needed to be was in church. The stench of her past sin would stink up the place.
Now here she sat, rocking back and forth like she belonged in a loony bin somewhere, reciting the same Bible verse over and over while staring off into a daze. She’d hoped that her voice would drown out the one that had been taunting her, but it had yet to work.
“That stupid Helen!” she ranted right in the middle of walking through the valley of the shadow of death. “I wish she were . . . I wish she would just . . . why did she ever have to step foot in New Day in the first place? That was my church! My church! And now here she comes tainting the life I’ve built there. Here she comes digging up the bones I’ve buried. How dare she. Who does she think she is?” Deborah despised the day that the Lord had made just a few months ago when Helen showed up at New Day.
By now Deborah was out of the bed pacing back and forth in anger. Somewhere between walking in the valley of the shadow of death and not fearing any evil, she’d decided to shift blame from herself to Helen. Never mind the actual act that she had committed four years ago, the act that Helen obviously had found pleasure in dangling over her head. Helen had no right to all but threaten to reveal her dirty little secret. It was Deborah’s secret. Who was Helen to try to take ownership?
Once again there was pounding. Deborah jumped back in bed in the same position, only this time she covered her ears with her hands in order to drown the pounding out.
“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want,” Deborah started again. Her lips were fixed on the scripture, but her mind was fixed back to the very day she had been reminded of the heap of dirt she’d swept under the rug.
Deborah loved when Pastor assigned her an altar duty, be it reading the announcements or assisting during altar call. But her favorite had always been the welcoming of first time visitors. It did good for her spirit to welcome first time visitors and encourage them to keep coming back to New Day. Pastor had even shared with Deborah on more than one occasion how some visitors who were now regular members said that one of the reasons they came back was because of the warm, sincere, Holy Ghost welcome they’d received from Deborah.
All along Deborah had just thought she was doing a simple assignment weighing low on the totem pole compared to the pastor’s assignment of delivering God’s Word. It reminded her of something Mother Doreen would say to members when they’d complain about an assignment they received from Pastor, such as door greeter. “You never know what part of the
service is going to minister to someone, so never deem one assignment too small and you too big to do it.”
But on one particular Sunday a few months ago, Deborah would have given anything to be the door greeter. That way she would have seen the enemy coming and braced herself.
“Here at New Day Temple of Faith we always like to acknowledge our first time visitors,” Deborah had said that day in the pulpit. “We know it’s not by accident that you are here to praise, worship, and fellowship with us today, but it is by God’s divine order. You are supposed to be here with us, and we don’t take you for granted, as we take no blessing from the Lord for granted. And you, first time visitors, are indeed a blessing.”
“Amen.” The congregation was in complete agreement.
“So at this time, can I ask all first time visitors to stand, state your name, and have a few words if you’d like?” Deborah had asked as she scanned the room while five new faces stood.
With Malvonia being a small town, five new visitors was awesome. Most people liked to travel to one of the larger churches in Columbus just to be around new faces and to get out of the small city. Usually the visitors at New Day weren’t from outside cities, but instead, newbies to the town of Malvonia. Pastor said that God was omnipresent, in other words, He was everywhere, and it didn’t matter that residents of Malvonia went outside the city to fellowship rather than attend one of the two churches in the town. Pastor felt that as long as they were going to church, that was all that mattered. God looked at their heart and their walk, not what church they belonged to.
“We welcome each and every one of you,” Deborah had said to the last of the five visitors she’d seen stand at her invitation. “Just know that here at New Day Temple of Faith we have a loving pastor who is here if you ever . . .” Deborah’s words trailed off when she heard members shouting something to her.
“You missed one.”
She was finally able to understand what the members were trying to tell her; that another person had stood without her noticing.