Drama Is Her Middle Name

by Wendy Williams

  Ritz paused on that statement. So many emotions ran through her at that moment. She felt cheesy and slightly insulted. It was also a moment of harsh realization.

  I’m not marriage material.

  “Wow,” was all Ritz could muster. “I respect that. I’m sorry. I’m really not like that at all.”

  “You have no reason to apologize,” Randolph said. “Believe me, you did nothing wrong. If you’d caught me six months ago . . . well, let’s just says things would be different. Very different.”

  “There I go with my fucked-up timing!” Ritz laughed. “So what happened six months ago? Or who happened?”

  “Who? That’s an interesting question,” said Randolph. “It’s a long story. A lot of it has to do with my father and watching him and how he’s been with women—never really committing himself to anything or anyone. I guess I saw myself following in his footsteps and I didn’t like it.”

  “At least you know who your father is,” said Ritz. “I have never met my father. And I’m kind of glad. I don’t have any images of an imperfect man who may have mistreated my mother, screwing me up with a whole bunch of problems—as if I don’t have enough. But that’s another story for another day.”

  “I’d like to hear it,” Randolph said with a soft smile spreading across his face. “You’re a very interesting woman, Ritz Harper.”

  “Maybe we can pretend the proposition never happened,” Ritz chuckled. “And maybe we can start over. You never know, I could be that woman you’re looking for.”

  “You never know,” Randolph said. “Now sign this paper so I can get out of here before you make me forget my promise to myself.”

  “I’m still hoping,” said Ritz with a wink. Randolph crossed his arms across his broad chest and gave her a look.

  “Okay, okay. Where do I sign? Geez, you can’t blame a sister for trying, can you?”

  “Okay, good-night, Ms. Harper,” he said, heading for the door. “It was a pleasure meeting you. If you have any other electrical problems, call me.”

  Ritz grabbed his hand as he reached to open the door.

  “Hey, thank you for being a good man,” Ritz said. “I haven’t encountered one of those in a while. Please forgive my naughty behavior. Perhaps I can call you sometime when I don’t have an electrical problem.”

  Randolph put his hand over hers, cupping it between his big, but surprisingly soft, hands.

  “You can call me anytime,” he said.

  18

  ON THE AIR

  “Okay, I believe that people have lost their damn minds,” Ritz said. “Two crazy stories I was reading on my way in today. One is about a woman who had broken up with her husband but let him move back in. I didn’t need to read the rest to figure out that it wasn’t going to work out. I mean, when does ‘reconciliation’ actually work? There’s usually so much baggage and nasty feelings that all it takes is one thing to send that relationship right back into hell. Well, that’s what happened here. But this woman took it to another level. Apparently she and her husband got into a fight. So what does she do? She starts throwing his stuff out of the window. But she can’t stop at his clothes. She has to pick up his eight-month-old, three-pound Yorkie and toss him out of the window, too. That little doggie didn’t have a chance. Splat! Oh, did I mention, they lived on the tenth floor of a high-rise complex. She told the cops she didn’t mean to throw out the dog, she thought it was a fuzzy shirt.”

  “Daaaaaaayum!” yelped Aaron, as he hit the sound effect of a howling dog. “That’s just cold-blooded!”

  “Well, if you think that’s cold-blooded, listen to this next story. A West New York woman was arrested for throwing her newborn son out of a third-story window and into the air-shaft of her apartment building. The baby, thank God, landed on a pile of garbage and survived. His tiny skull is fractured though.

  “This story makes me so mad that I feel like hunting that bitch down and hanging her from her feet off of the Empire State Building and dropping her on her head. How helpless was this little baby. He didn’t ask his skanky mama to spread her young legs and let some man screw her. He didn’t ask to come here and have her dumb ass not be able to take care of him and then have the nerve to try to kill him. Do you know how many people want a child and can’t have one? The dumb ass could have given him to a loving home!”

  Ritz began to tear up. It was one of her few soft spots.

  “That little baby just needed someone to love him,” Ritz said, sniffling. “I can’t believe how cruel people can be. And get this! There’s more to this story. This isn’t the first time this crack ho has done something like this. And yes, I am calling her a crack ho because that’s the only kind of animal that could do something like this. They found a mummified corpse of another full-term baby underneath a pack of cigarettes in the same apartment. They believe this, too, was a baby of this crazed crack ho.”

  The phone lines began to light up.

  “You’re on with Ritz!”

  “This is Paula from Harlem. Ritz, I’ll help you hunt down that animal! Me and my husband have been trying to have a baby for years. I can’t afford fertility treatments and this bitch wants to just throw babies away?!”

  “I know,” Ritz said. “I am so angry, I can barely keep my composure. Thank you for your call and I’ll let you know when hunting season is in. Next caller.”

  “You need to shut your fucking mouth, bitch!” The caller had a brutal bite to her voice. Aaron bleeped the “fucking” but kept the bitch—it made good radio.

  “Who is this?”

  “You will know exactly who this if you keep running your mouth! You need to get your facts straight. That’s the problem I have about you—always talking and running your mouth without your shit being right.”

  “I’m reading directly from the New York Times. You can’t get more accurate than that!”

  “Well, you need to read the whole story, dumb bitch! That woman you are talking about is my sister. She’s not a crack ho or a dumb ass or anything else you have been saying about her. She is a victim. Her father—our father—has been raping her since she was seven. He had been raping me, too. I was lucky. I never got pregnant. She did. There was no way she could love that child or take care of that child, knowing who his father is, knowing what he did to her. How could she? Could you?!”

  Ritz was speechless. She could only manage an “Um.”

  “Hell, no! You probably would have killed yourself. But my sister kept moving. She was an A student. She planned to go to college and move out on her own, as I was able to do. But you know everything! You just sit on your perch and condemn people as if you’re perfect. You have no clue! You need to do your homework. Better yet, you need to shut the fuck up. You want to kick people when they’re down? Like my sister doesn’t have enough to deal with. I’m going to show you how that feels, bitch!”

  The caller hung up. There was silence in the studio. All eyes were on Ritz, wondering what her next move would be.

  “Just like a coward to hang up the phone. I don’t care what you’re going through, that first baby didn’t deserve to die and that second precious baby doesn’t deserve to be in a hospital with a cracked skull. And while I am sympathetic to the horrors of incest, the reality is that we all have things we have to go through in life. That’s life. No one is exempt. But you don’t compound your situation by inflicting harm on others.”

  The words hung in the air, and for the first time they rang true to Ritz. Her own words stung her. She shook it off, though, because she had a show to do.

  It’s a cliché, but reality: The show must always go on.

  19

  Edwin Lakes stood in the pulpit of Faith Baptist and marveled at how every single seat was filled, even the balcony. They had to have a room with monitors for the overflow. They had just built this church, and it seemed that they already needed to expand again.

  There were few areas where the Edwin disagreed with his father, who had started Faith Baptist. Their
only verbal disagreement happened to be over the direction of the ministry. Senior Pastor Lakes wanted to keep the church small and intimate. He felt that to truly teach the word, he needed a congregation of only those who truly wanted to learn the word. He believed in sifting his flock like wheat.

  “The Bible says that narrow is the way, son. And only a few will make it into heaven.”

  “Yeah, Dad. But how do you know if it will be your few?” Edwin would argue. “Jesus calls us to cast our net wide. I think we have a better chance reaching those few by expanding our horizons. If we attract more people, we can save more souls.”

  “Son, you have to be careful about mixing your messages,” Senior Pastor Lakes would say. “You can’t serve two masters. And what you’re talking about is very close to that.”

  “Dad, Jesus started with only twelve disciples and now look how huge His church is,” Edwin said. “Jesus had a vision. I have a vision.”

  “Be careful, son,” his father said. “Be careful. I’ll pray about it, and I want you to pray about it, too.”

  Both Edwins prayed a lot. Even when younger Edwin questioned whether he would indeed take over the ministry his father started, he never questioned his love for God or his desire to help people know God. Edwin Jr. had few regrets on his journey. Very few.

  Once he took over Faith Baptist, it didn’t take long for Edwin to begin to realize his vision. His style was a departure from his father’s old-time religion. Edwin was young, he was very handsome, and he was charismatic. His command of the word was unrivaled. He was well trained. He was his father’s son—he had a great understanding of the Bible and how to teach it. But he also appealed to the younger generation, which had long turned their back on the traditional black church. They were coming out to Faith Baptist, though.

  By Edwin’s second year, the church had grown as much in stature as in size. It was not unusual to see Star Jones Reynolds and her husband, Al, seated in the front row. Even Pastor Mason Betha aka MA$E, who had returned to rap after starting his own ministry in Atlanta, would spend Sunday there when he was in town.

  Sunday by Sunday, Edwin seemed to get stronger and better. He learned that running a church the size of Faith Baptist was more like running a corporation, and his undergraduate degree in business came in handy.

  During those two years of building the church, Edwin met and married Patricia Longly—a Spelman graduate who was working as a schoolteacher. She got pregnant quickly and they had a son, Edwin III. About seventeen months later, they had another on the way. That was nearly two years ago. The Ebony cover piece had been planned way in advance. By the time the piece came out, little Ashley was almost walking.

  Edwin rarely thought about the times before he took over the church from his father. He rarely, if ever, thought about Miami. It was his past. He now had a present and a future that he loved and that needed his undivided attention. He had a wife, two small children, and a nearly eight-thousand-member church in a building that only held three thousand. He was preaching three services on Sunday to accommodate everyone. They were about three years away from building a new church. Edwin was pleased with the progress and pleased with his life.

  He never looked back.

  His mother, Minnie Lakes, was also happy—as happy as she could be without her doting husband. She was proud of what her son had been able to accomplish in such a short time. Edwin never thought his mother would be happy again. His father’s death had been a horrible blow to her because they both shared the same dream. They wanted to spread the word of God and make the church a foundation, a true source of strength for the surrounding community. Minnie and Edwin Sr. were as close as any couple Edwin had known. They were the Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee of the church crowd. They shared everything, and together they built Faith Baptist.

  Mother Lakes completely doted and depended on Edwin. He was her rock.

  “Without you, baby, this church would have fallen apart,” she told him on more than one occasion.

  Little did she know that with him, the end result might be the same.

  20

  “Ritz, girl! Are you ready for this! This might be your best show yet!” Chas came strutting into the studio like a peacock.

  “Do tell!!!!!” Ritz said. She was always thirsty and Chas always had the water. Ritz and Chas had a symbiotic relationship. She was well aware the she couldn’t do the show without him. When she wanted to take it to the next level and had no idea how, Chas provided a way and they moved forward. Ritz was a radio pro, she had great delivery, but Chas kept the drama flowing. That was the reason why her ratings kept climbing: The stakes kept getting raised.

  Chas kept strolling around the studio and refused to tell her the news.

  “Okay, Mr. Thing, you got two more minutes on that runway and you better give up the goods!” Ritz said as she grabbed his arm and playfully pinched it.

  “Ouch!” Chas howled. “Girl, you know I bruise easy! Okay, okay!”

  “That’s better,” Ritz said.

  “So you know that man I left Club Red with last Friday night?”

  “Who could miss him?” Ritz said. “I didn’t want to say anything because I know how you are about your business. But who could miss two of God’s gifts to women strolling out the door with each other! I think I saw at least a dozen sisters rolling their eyes when you two left, practically arm in arm.”

  “Yes, girl, I can’t blame them,” Chas said. “We were fine, weren’t we! Anyway, honey. Wait till you hear this!”

  “Okay, I’ve waited long enough. Spill it!”

  “Ritz, you remember that preacher that they featured on the cover of this month’s Ebony?”

  “Yeah?”

  “The one with the beautiful wife and the one-point-two children and the doting mother.”

  “Yeah?”

  “The one with the really, really big church in Harlem with all of those people like Puffy and Star Jones Reynolds or whatever she’s calling herself in attendance.”

  “Will you spit it out already! What about him!!!!”

  “Well!” Chas said. “That Mr. Preacher Man was once in a relationship.”

  “With . . . ?”

  “The man I left the club with on Friday,” Chas said. “His name is Ivan.”

  Over the past few years Ritz had heard everything—from the callers to the real-life celebrity gossip items. But this little diddy left her almost speechless.

  “Shut up!”

  That was all she could muster. Ritz had been to Pastor Edwin Lakes’s church with Tracee before she moved south. Ritz had had a strained relationship with God since He took her mother, but she still believed in Him. She did, however, hate the whole organized church thing. She thought it was too much. But this preacher seemed to be one of the few who she could relate to. He delivered the message with utmost clarity, the way her favorite teacher had taught her Shakespeare— which she loved to this day.

  Pastor Lakes was so real without trying to appeal to the “ghetto,” as so many ministers tried to do. He delivered his message without appearing to be above his congregation. He was a true teacher of the word, and Ritz found it refreshing. Chas had never given her a single item that turned out to be false. Not one. But she was hoping that this would be the first.

  “But wait, child, there’s more,” Chas said.

  Ritz was thinking “Please, no more!”

  “Ivan is coming to the studio today to put the pastor on blast,” Chas said. “I got him to agree to give you an exclusive.”

  “Damn! You must have really put it on him!” said Ritz.

  “Yes I did!” Chas said, giving her a high-five. “I guess he wants a little revenge. It seems that our good pastor left my boy high and very dry without as much as a good-bye—not even a Dear John letter. Nothing.”

  “Damn!” Ritz said. “Wow. Today? What time can we expect this atomic bomb to be dropped? We have to alert the media.”

  “I am already ahead of you,” Chas said. “ ‘Page S
ix,’ Entertainment Tonight, ‘Rush & Molloy.’ Everyone has been put on high alert to tune in today at five.”

  Ritz’s mixed emotions got clear real quick. She started getting excited, as she always did when she knew she was about to make news again. She loved this part of her job and she loved Chas for always delivering the goods. She had to take a few minutes to prepare her questions. Ritz never wrote any questions down, but she had to organize in her mind the most dramatic way for the story to unfold. Her flair for the dramatic was one of her best gifts. And she had been honing that one for a while—in radio there was no one better at giving drama.

  After all, drama was her middle name!

  21

  It was an official day out for the girls. Patricia Lakes had marked it on her calendar the week before after she finished choir rehearsal, and she was looking forward to it. While most of the women at the church were reluctant to speak with Patricia and were even standoffish, Kimberly Atkins embraced her. She didn’t care about Patricia being the church’s first lady. Patricia was a lady first and from what Kim could see, she needed a good girlfriend to hang out with. Kim elected herself to be the one.

  Kim treated Patricia like a regular person because she was a regular person. And Patricia appreciated it. She hated being put up on a pedestal. She hated the distance her position gave her from everyone else. But Kim was a bridge.

  While Kim was definitely a true Christian, she didn’t take any mess and she let people know what was what. “Jesus didn’t bite His tongue,” she would say. “And neither will I.”

  Most people were afraid of Kim because while she was gregarious she also had a tongue that could only be described as a welder’s flame—it burned. But it burned with the purpose of bringing things to together. At a church the size of Faith Baptist, Kim had a whole lot of work to do.

  If choir practice was running long and everyone was getting frustrated, it would be Kim to speak up. “Um, Choir Director Jones, it’s time to go!” She didn’t do it in a disrespectful manner. She actually used humor—the kind of humor where people weren’t sure if she was being funny or not. Patricia loved her bluntness and brutal honesty—even though sometimes it was a little too much for even Patricia.