Divas of Damascus Road

by Michelle Stimpson

  The hospitality team workers, Yolanda included, said their hellos and “welcome to Master’s Tabernacle” to hordes of people that morning. Pastor Rollins came in and made a short speech, inviting the visitors to come again and consider membership. He also introduced the hospitality team and thanked them for their service to the church.

  As the guests left, they thanked the workers again for the refreshments and went on their way.

  There was one guest in particular who had been staring at Yolanda the whole time. She could never catch him in the act, but she knew he was watching her. Her suspicion was confirmed when he approached her just as she began clearing the table.

  “Hello—Miss Jordan, is it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hi, my name is Kelan. We met in this room when I was a visitor several months ago. How are you?” He held out his hand.

  So why are you back in here eating our cookies if you’re not a first-time visitor, greedy? “Oh, I’m fine.” She shook it. “How are you?”

  “I’m blessed, blessed, blessed,” he repeated the title of the Pastor’s sermon.

  “Same here.” She smiled.

  “Yolanda,” he said, wasting no time, “I’d like to see you again.”

  Yolanda knew that worldly men came to church to find wholesome, sanctified women, but weren’t they usually a bit more subtle about it? He looked like something straight off of MTV. She gave him a little credit—he had a nice, bright Crest smile. But then came the dreadlocks. Shirttail out. Ankle socks. Probably ashy. Not her type by a long stretch.

  “I’m at the church quite often.” She tried to put it nicely.

  “Oh...“ He nodded politely. “I understand.” He wished her a blessed day and excused himself.

  For some reason, a bad feeling came over Yolanda. All the way home from church, she thought about the encounter. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d welcomed him to the church, but she did not owe him her phone number. The brother simply wasn’t her type; she couldn’t stomach dreadlocks. People with dreadlocks look like they stink. All that hair all matted up like Shaggy D. A.

  Still, the Spirit had convicted her of something.

  Later, she called Regina and Gloria to check up on them. Gloria and Richard were going out to eat. Regina and Orlando were about to take the baby over to his mother’s house so they could go out to a movie. Everybody was busy doing family things.

  Yolanda busied herself cleaning up the bathrooms (though they really weren’t dirty), mopping the kitchen, and changing her linens before taking a nap. When she got up she did a little running around. Stopped at her favorite little mom-and-pop Italian restaurant and spent a good two hours reading the paper and consuming a dish of chicken Parmesan with spaghetti. Then she shopped for groceries and toiletries at the Super Wal-Mart.

  Sometimes, on days like this particular Sunday, Yolanda wondered if there would ever be anything else in her life. Not necessarily a man or a family—maybe a dog. No, she was not cleaning up after a dog. Maybe some huge project like writing the great American novel, starting a small business, anything to make her feel more significant.

  Then again, she thought, she was doing something helpful. She helped people all the time when they had questions about what to give their children for a cough or lice. There was value in that.

  Sometimes, Yolanda wondered if she was the only person in the world who ever had such feelings. It seemed as if everybody else knew what they were doing. They were working on this or that, moving ahead, forging on. People like Brookelynn looked at Yolanda and said, “That Yolanda has really got it together!” Most of the time Yolanda felt that she had it together, through the power of God. But sometimes she just had the feeling that she was somehow falling behind or falling short— she wasn’t sure which one.

  Since the time Yolanda had completed her degree and internship and become established as a pharmacist, there really wasn’t anything else she’d worked toward. She met with the Lord every night and learned more about what it meant to serve Him mind, body, and soul. And she was involved with making the guests at her church feel welcomed and comfortable in her Father’s house. That was an important job.

  When she thought too hard about her purpose (or possible lack thereof), Yolanda’s mind could go all the way back to her childhood. Growing up without her father; her only images of him formed by snapshots and secondhand memories. She’d start wondering how her life would have been different, better, if her father had been there for her. She’d start wondering what would have happened if she had tried out for that play in the tenth grade. Would she have been a movie star making a bigger difference in the world?

  Okay, she was on the way down to a “Yo-yo” rut, so she did what she knew to do: slipped on the shoes, picked up her Bible and purse, and went back to church for the Sunday evening Bible study class.

  Ironically, despite the number of people meeting in small groups throughout the building, Kelan was in her group. She wasn’t expecting him to smile at her, but he did anyway, a genuine, sincere smile.

  Yolanda didn’t want to sit next to him, with the potential dreadlock smell and all, but she didn’t have a choice. When you’re late, you’ve got to get in where you fit in. To make matters worse, her group leader broke them up into even smaller groups of four. And—wouldn’t you know it?—Kelan was in that group, too.

  “I guess it’s hello again,” he said.

  “I guess so.” Yolanda smiled wryly. She decided just to go with the flow. As she sat in her chair waiting for their group leader to give them their topic and scriptures, she wondered if this was going to be another one of those “group work” activities, where Yolanda did all the work and the other people just chilled—the story of her high school years.

  Maybe that was another reason Yolanda couldn’t see herself paired up with anybody. She didn’t like it when her reputation, at least partially, rested with someone else. People are too unpredictable and unreliable.

  “Okay, this group can look up Isaiah sixty-four, verses five through seven. And here are the questions you need to be prepared to answer.” The leader set the papers on the table. “You’ve got about fifteen or twenty minutes,” the leader instructed them as they left their seats for a smaller meeting room down the hall.

  Kelan took the initiative to start their small group in prayer. “Catch hands with the person seated next to you, please, and let’s pray.”

  Before Yolanda could position herself between the oldest man in the group and the other woman, Kelan grabbed her hand and made her his “next of seat.” Try as she might, she couldn’t keep her mind off the smoothness of his touch. With her eyes closed and her sense of touch in overdrive, Yolanda studied his hand almost well enough to identify his thumbprint, it seemed. There was something about his touch that distracted her so much, she almost missed the “in Jesus’ name” cue for the “amen.”

  “Okay.” Kelan sat down, and the group followed his lead. He read from the leader’s notes. “Let’s turn to verse six. All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” He read like somebody with some sense.

  They all sat there for a second, letting the scriptures sink in before starting the discussion.

  “This passage was probably meant to humble us,” the other sister in their group said. “But in some ways it makes me feel like I can never be good enough.”

  “Literally taken, it does sound like that,” Kelan agreed, “but it also demonstrates the magnitude of God’s righteousness. I’ve come across this verse before, and I think the best way I have been able to make sense of it is to look at how this applies to us even now, after the death and resurrection of Christ. Ephesians two and eight”—he flipped through his Bible with ease and familiarity, glancing briefly at the headings, his hands slowing the fan of the pages in just the right spot— “reads, ‘for it is by grace you have been saved, through faith— and this
not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.’ We know that our salvation is not tied to our good deeds or to our good works. All of who we are is wrapped up in Him.

  “Really, is there anything we could actually do to pay for our lives? Is there anything worth our salvation—any amount of suffering, any amount of praying, any amount of money?”

  The group members shook their heads ‘no’.

  “Then if there is no way we could pay for it, there’s no way on earth that we could earn our way into heaven. So, we don’t do things to earn the reward God has for us; we don’t witness or help others or give to win brownie points with God. Redeemed people do do those things, but they don’t do those things to become redeemed. We do those things because we’re reedemed,” Kelan explained his interpretation.

  “I think you’re onto something,” the other brother in the group added. “We are always going to be human beings in and of ourselves. The blood of Jesus, however, makes up the enormous difference and even graces us to walk in God’s righteousness.”

  Yolanda picked up the list of questions from the table and read the first one. “Well, that brings us to our first question. If what we do will never be good enough, why do anything at all?”

  “We are so much more empowered with the knowledge that our work is useless to God,” Kelan said. “When we know that our own personal work is nothing to God, we can put ourselves aside and allow God to work through us.”

  “Precisely,” another sister said. “I think I just had an ‘aha!’ moment.” They all laughed with her. “When I make up my mind that I’m going to do something, most of the time I feel like I’m going to try and do this to secure favor in God’s sight. And then, when it’s all said and done, I feel like I’ve moved up. Maybe even like I’m better than other people.”

  Ouch! Yolanda decided to keep her mouth shut and listen. She just kept reading the questions and recording the answers, hoping they wouldn’t ask her for her two cents’ worth.

  Kelan broke her silence and asked, “Sister Jordan, you’ve been pretty quiet. What’s your take on this passage of Scripture?”

  “I think I’ve always read it the same way she read it,” Yolanda said, referring to the previous comment. “I think I’ve even used it as an excuse sometimes—you know, saying things like ‘I’m only human’. This gives a whole new light to the old saying ‘Let go and let God.’ I mean, you don’t have to make excuses for or to yourself when you know you’re already covered. These Scriptures really bring that home.”

  “So you had an ‘aha!’ moment, too?” Kelan asked Yolanda, putting her on the spot.

  “I think so.”

  And before the night was over, she had worked her way back onto his agenda. This time, she gave him her number.

  Chapter 9

  It was nice to be back in Darson again, if there was such a thing as “nice” in her life. Nice for Dianne wasn’t a matter of things that are. Instead, nice was a matter of nots: not remembering, not feeling, not thinking too hard. As she unpacked her bags and sorted through her belongings, Dianne felt herself breathing again for the first time in several days. She was drained and could think of nothing better than a hot shower and slipping between the sheets.

  The apartment was quiet. Still as a crooked picture.

  If she could pay a monetary price to be paid for peace, Dianne would have begged, borrowed, or stolen for it. Come to think of it, she had given everything already, including herself, in the pursuit. What else could she do? How can you make your mind listen? The million-dollar question.

  Everybody in Dentonville seemed to have the answer: pray, pray, pray. That was easy for them to say.

  Regina and Yolanda always had it easy, so far as Dianne could tell. Yeah, they had some things in common as far as fathers go, but even that wasn’t quite the same. It was true that neither of them ever had a father. But there was a difference in their fatherlessness and Dianne’s. Their father died in an accident. He didn’t choose to leave their lives. Dianne’s father, on the other hand, made the conscious decision to be absent from her life. How do you just throw away what came from you?

  The question that plagued her most, however, was, why her? What was it about her that made people leave and take their love away, too?

  That’s why she wasn’t like Regina and Yolanda. They also had a good mom, a good home, someone to provide for them, someone who always loved them, and somebody who was in their corner right or wrong. For the first four years of her life, Dianne thought she had that, but as it turned out, she really didn’t. When the one person who is supposed to love you unconditionally doesn’t give that love to you, then what do you have?

  Aunt Gloria and Great-aunt Toe had tried their best to fill in the gap. When she really thought about it, Dianne was thankful that they’d taken her in rather than let her bounce around in the foster care system. That was the one good thing that had happened, but even that sounded crazy. The best thing that ever happened to me was when my sister died and my momma lost custody of me, and my aunts raised me. “That is pretty sad.” Dianne managed a cynical laugh at the thought.

  She was away from all that now. Safe in Darson—as safe as she could be within her mind.

  She braced herself for the nightmares. They were sure to come, since she’d stirred up the violent anthill of her memories. Maybe if she was dirt tired when she crawled into bed, she could escape them.

  As she finalized her unpacking efforts by hanging up the dress that she didn’t get to wear to the wedding, Dianne dumped herself on the bed for a second. The nightmares were on the way. She could call Sean, but he worked the graveyard shift. He’d have to leave in another four hours. Charles was probably in Vegas with his gambling butt. He sure did know how to run through a sister’s quarters. Elvin? No. She wasn’t up for his porno flicks. Matter of fact, she wasn’t dealing with Elvin anymore. Last time he came over, he got angry because she wouldn’t perform some of the acts he’d seen on tape.

  “I ain’t no porn queen,” Dianne had proclaimed.

  “Well, you sure ain’t the virgin Mary.” A smile crept across his face, as if to say, who was she kidding?

  “I have my limits. Besides, you don’t have to be a virgin to be decent,” she’d argued.

  “I know you don’t call yourself decent, booty-calling me two and three times a month.” Elvin had sat up beside Dianne in bed and mimicked her, batting his eyelashes, taking on the voice of a southern belle. “I’m just having a bad dream. Could you come over? I’m scared and I don’t want to be alone.” He did that a little too well. Then he cracked up, falling onto Dianne as she lay in embarrassment and sadness.

  Maybe other women were lying when they said they had bad dreams, but she wasn’t. If he only knew how serious she was, that she really did want him there to shield her. Sex was only the mechanism she used to buy company, stay occupied, and appraise her remaining value.

  Regina’s eyes couldn’t roll past her stomach. It was hideous. Atrocious. She’d been undone by the weekend’s festivities. Butter cake, chocolate cake, honey mustard wings, chicken tenders, punch. Right down to the mints, it was all good. Now she was paying the price: 136.

  Panic time.

  Monday started off with an hour-long workout. Well, it was going to be an hour long, but Orlando Jr. started fussing after only two cranks of the baby swing. Regina stopped the aerobics tape after twenty minutes and decided she’d get back to it later tonight. She could not wake up tomorrow and be 136 again. The last time she weighed that much, she was... fat.

  Regina tugged the baby from the swing and kissed him in rapid succession, telling him that everything was okay. She thought to herself that he was probably scared, never having seen his momma move like that. “It’s okay, honey,” she talked to him in the choppy song tone of baby talk. “Momma doesn’t want to be a fat pig. You don’t want a fat pig mommy, do you?”

  He smiled as though it didn’t matter, but Regina figured she knew better. No one wants a fat pig around.
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  After getting the baby settled, Regina thought about fixing herself breakfast but abandoned the idea. No breakfast. Matter of fact, no lunch. Only dinner, and that would be the chicken she took out of the freezer to thaw. She’d eat only a chicken leg a day, she decided. A chicken leg and water. A chicken leg, crackers, and water. And the rest of those long-forgotten prenatal vitamins.

  Regina spent the better part of the morning running between the baby and her computer. She spent some time on the Internet researching the latest cases, brushing up on the most recent decisions in family law. She read the interoffice e-mail and learned that the dress code would be strictly enforced. Apparently, some of the office personnel were dressing down for the hot weather, but policy didn’t allow for modifications due to changes in climate. Accounting had a new associate. She was pictured wearing a formfitting red suit to die for. A size four, Regina estimated.

  Regina missed her work tremendously. She would miss the baby more, though. What would happen when he realized that his mommy was gone? Would he cry from the second she dropped him off until the moment she arrived at the babysitter’s doorstep? She thought of the time she’d taken a long shower and emerged to find Orlando Jr.’s face a reddened ball of despair, his cheeks a shiny sheet of tears—his eyes so red they made her cry. “I’m here, baby, I’m here.” She had comforted him, calmed him with every ounce of maternal instinct in her, until he fell asleep cuddled against her chest, satisfied with her presence.

  What if he cried like that again when she went to work? She couldn’t take it. All this worrying was making her hungry. Anxiety always went down well with a cinnamon roll. Or was it vice versa?

  Regina tried hard to get her mind back on track with the research, but there was a box of cinnamon rolls in the pantry. Already made. She could see it clearly, the sugary icing hanging over the sides of the box. Maybe she’d add one little cinnamon roll to dinner. A piece of chicken, crackers, water, and a cinnamon roll.