Divas of Damascus Road

by Michelle Stimpson

  “Sounds like you don’t want to live,” Gloria huffed. “You know, you can’t go through your whole life pushing people away because they might alter your plan or mess up your perfect little world.”

  She should talk! “You did.”

  Gloria’s hands went still in the dishwater. “And I was wrong.”

  “What do you mean, you were wrong? You raised me and Regina and Dianne; you taught us to live by the Word, gave us a respect for education, kept us fed and clothed—we never wanted for anything,” Yolanda raved. “How do you figure you were wrong?”

  “Because I put my life on hold for twenty-something years,” Gloria admitted. She lifted her hands from the water, dried them on her apron, and faced her youngest child. “When your father died, I spent a good three or four weeks living in chaos. Angry, frustrated, crazy. I ran as far away from God as I could. It was all I could do to get back in church and lay out on the altar—I was a wreck. I don’t know what would have happened to me if it hadn’t been for the prayers of the saints.

  “After that bout with my mind, I made the conscious decision to do everything within my power to keep from ever having to go through that kind of pain again. I wanted complete control over everything—I kept the house spotless, I scrimped and saved every penny I had, I planned everything for you girls down to the last detail because I didn’t want any more surprises in my life. God was faithful and blessed those plans because He knew I couldn’t bear anything else happening. We made it—not because I was so perfect but because God is faithful.”

  She turned back toward the sink and continued washing the dishes, talking as though she were reading a story. “I met Richard fifteen years ago at a revival in Dallas. He asked me for a date then, but I didn’t accept his invitation. I knew I’d prayed and asked God to send me a man who would be a loving husband for me and a good father to you and Regina, but when God sent him I was too afraid my life would be torn apart again. So I let him go. And now, many lonely years later, we’re together again. I don’t have many regrets in my life, Yo-yo, but I do regret that I didn’t say yes to Richard that night at the revival.”

  “So you’ve known him all this time?”

  “I can’t say that I’ve known him. I put him away in a corner of my mind.”

  “And he stayed there?”

  “Yes, I guess he did.” She laughed to herself. “He threw himself into full-time ministry, missions, volunteering, and helping his immediate family.”

  “That’s a wonderful story, Mother,” Yolanda sighed, realizing now that her mother had held Richard in her heart all these years but denied her feelings in order to maintain balance for the girls.

  “So, now that I’ve poured my heart out to you, you still claiming to be friends with Kelan?” Gloria flicked soapsuds at Yolanda’s face.

  “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.” Yolanda returned the playful gesture and savored this moment in her mother’s presence without Richard.

  “Momma,” Yolanda asked as she finished drying the last few items, “Regina told me that you’re letting Aunt Joyce Ann move back into your rent house.”

  “Regina’s got a big mouth.” Gloria scrubbed. “But it’s true. Joyce Ann is moving in first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “When were you going to let me know?”

  “You plannin’ on payin’ the rent for her?” she came back.

  “No, ma’am.” Yolanda softened. “I was just wondering if she’s moving back for good. I mean, does she have herself together now?”

  “I can’t be sure.” Gloria avoided her daughter’s eyes. “She just asked me if she could move in, and I told her she could. She’s paying half rent right now, but it’s better than no rent, which is what I’ve had since last year.”

  “I thought you were going to sell the house.”

  “We were thinking about it, but I guess God had other plans for it.” She chuckled a bit.

  “This isn’t funny.” Yolanda shocked herself with the sharpness in her voice. “If Aunt Joyce Ann isn’t in her right mind, she’s liable to do anything. I think she ought to go to a rehab or something.”

  “For your information, she’s already been to rehab.” Gloria threw her hands to her hips. Aunt Toe’s wheelchair creaked across the slightly elevated divider between the living room and the kitchen. “Joyce Ann has a right to God’s mercy just like every other person on the planet. You think we’ve all been perfect? Huh? Some of us have done things that we’d sooner jump off a cliff than have everybody know what we did.

  “Your aunt Joyce Ann has been through the worst pain known to womankind. She lost a child, Yo-yo. Worse than that, she watched her child die right in her own home, in her own care. You can’t even measure that kind of pain. I imagine it’s enough to make anybody go crazy, but for the grace of God.”

  Aunt Toe rolled onto Yolanda’s foot, letting the weight of her body and her wheelchair rest on Yolanda’s tiniest toe. “Ow, Aunt Toe! You’re on my foot.”

  “I mean to be on your foot,” Aunt Toe said as she held her wheels in place. “You don’t forget what your mother said, you hear? Joyce Ann is family. She belongs with us.” She rolled herself off, but not before Yolanda was sure that her great aunt had left a bruise.

  Chapter 12

  As her latest fling showered, Dianne watched his figure through the clear glass shower door. Trey’s body was a perfect poem waiting to be written. Not a scratch, not a stretch mark, not a bump on it. He didn’t even have the mark on his arm that everyone else had from those horrid childhood booster shots. Flawless. Trey was liquid-smooth yellow skin from top to bottom and every place in between, with a booty that could shelter you from the rain.

  She wondered what it would be like to go places with him—to walk around holding hands, talking, laughing with him before he tried his darnedest to please her with that twinkle of a thing he had the nerve to call “the rocket.” Bless his heart, he did try. But Dianne dared not tell him what she wanted in bed—he might not like that. He might get angry and hit her, like one of her past bed partners.

  Who was she kidding, anyway? She couldn’t push “rewind” and play it all over again. Furthermore, he really didn’t have anything to bring to the table financially. He was far better-looking than smart, and he had a lot of baby-mommas. The best thing about Trey, and all the other men, was the fact that he was an available warm body. Sometimes he stayed all night. Tonight, however, would not be one of those nights.

  “I’ve got to be at work early tomorrow,” he said as he zipped his pants.

  “Yeah, me, too,” Dianne lied, too.

  “Well,” she said, pushing back the comforter and sheets and pulling her T-shirt down in a moment of unnecessary modesty, “I’ll see you later?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed, slipping into his shoes. “I’ll call you.”

  Dianne walked him to the front door of her one-bedroom apartment. A kiss would have been nice, but it wasn’t essential. She liked Trey, but he was just another man she knew. Another person to whom she’d given a piece of her. As she locked the dead bolts behind him, she wondered, How many more of these pieces do I have left to give away? The trip home to Dentonville had jolted her sense of morality.

  She knew better. Aunt Gloria had taught her better. But that didn’t help when her sheets were freezing cold.

  Dianne had been reminded of the fact that she needed to get serious about God. But facing God would mean facing herself and facing her past, and she just wasn’t ready for all that. She figured there was too much that couldn’t be changed. There was too much that she’d done wrong. And it was far too late for her to reconcile with her ghosts, namely, Joyce Ann. Yet, in the weeks since she’d come back from Dentonville, she found herself praying, almost involuntarily, and piddling around with the thought that He might actually be listening to her.

  She stood with her back against the door and let her head hit the wood with a soft, deliberate thud. As she did, her eyes landed on the clock: 1:42. She retired
to her bedroom and flicked the television on to Nick at Nite, turning up the volume so that Gilligan could rescue her if the nightmare returned.

  Eight hours later she was named the information systems analyst for the month of August. She got a reserved parking space near the main entrance, a certificate, and the first slice of the cake that her coworkers later devoured to celebrate her recognition.

  “Dianne,” her boss, Marguerite, read from a piece of paper as the rest of her team stood assembled in the small conference room, “this month couldn’t have been nearly as productive without your contribution to Palljen Technologies. We want you to know that we appreciate your sound skills, sound practices, and sound thinking.”

  Gwen, one of the few African- American women with the company, gave Dianne a secret sisterly pat on the back as Dianne made her way to the cake. The room was decorated with the pathetic arrangement of streamers and confetti—about all that could be expected from a bunch of computer geeks. It was a nice gesture.

  Dianne stood before her coworkers as they applauded. The whole time she felt like pulling a poor-little-rich-girl routine: running to the bathroom and locking herself in for a good cry. All these people applauding her for her “soundness.” Little did they know how unsound she felt inside.

  She yanked her office smile into place and held the tears at bay. “Thanks, everyone.”

  During the lunch hour Dianne felt obligated to sit with her coworkers since they’d all been so gracious during her morning spotlight. The twelve o’clock news shot across the TV screen in the break room: a man killed his wife after forty years of marriage, two kids got arrested for throwing things off a bridge, and a little girl was missing. Dianne wondered if, compared to her life, the people on television had bigger problems than she did.

  Genevieve, the oldest and by far the largest woman in IT, was first to strike up the age-old woe-is-my-body conversation at the table. “I don’t know what possessed me to have kids. I knew my behind was big before I got pregnant—I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “I don’t have any kids, and I’m putting on weight. What’s my excuse?” Dianne joked. Dianne wasn’t close to any of her coworkers, but she figured any group of women could get together and rattle off a list of grievances about their bodies.

  “Well, at least you didn’t grow up fat.” Gwen shook her head while biting into a half-baked potato.

  “You were fat?” Genevieve asked in amazement.

  “I was fat until about four years ago. I had a gastric bypass and lost almost a hundred pounds. But my self-image is still the same. It’s like, in my mind, I’m still overweight and undesirable and all this other crap. I’ve turned into a total slut—weekend after weekend of great meaningless sex,” she laughed halfheartedly. “I’m seeing a shrink now,” she admitted, carrying on as though she’d just announced that she was seeing a movie.

  It had never occurred to Dianne that she might actually know someone who had seen a psychologist, let alone that the person would be black. She was careful not to gaze into Gwen’s eyes. Maybe Gwen knew—as in, it takes one to know one. Dianne excused herself only half an hour into the lunch hour, smiling at their comments that she was a workaholic. But she called Gwen later.

  It took some convincing and a promise to accompany Dianne to the psychologist, but Gwen had done it. Dianne sat in the waiting room, noting that it looked exactly the way Dianne had pictured a shrink’s office: exactly the opposite of crazy. All those nice, calming pictures were enough to make her want to run out of there. What was the point? Every patient in there was so far away from peace and serenity that the office probably only made them painfully aware of the distance between themselves and any semblance of normality.

  Gwen placed her hand on Dianne’s knee to stop the bouncing. “You’re going to be okay, girl. It’s just the first visit. Dr. Tilley is a good psychologist who’s also a Christian, remember? She knows how to help you professionally and spiritually. I promise you, you won’t be sorry.”

  Gwen gave Dianne’s hand one final squeeze before letting go of her completely. “I’ll see you when you’re finished.”

  Dr. Tilley was just as open and inviting as Gwen had said she’d be. Her cocoa skin caught light on all the right slopes, her smile taking center stage beneath lips with just enough gloss to keep the chap away. She was naturally beautiful, the kind of woman who woke up gorgeous every single day of her life. She could have been anything she wanted to be: a model, a rich man’s wife, the Jet beauty of the month, a stuck-up snob. Yet, for all her good looks and education, she wasn’t the least bit arrogant. Dr. Tilley had a humble servant’s spirit about her. Dianne liked her already.

  “Dianne,” she began. “I’m sure Gwen told you, I am a psychologist and a Christian as well. I don’t force my beliefs on my patients, but I know Gwen well enough and I’ve heard enough about you to take for granted that you don’t object to prayer before sessions.”

  Gwen had taken a lot for granted, but Dianne’s response fell right in line with the plan. “I welcome the idea.”

  “Very well, then. Shall we pray?” They bowed their heads as Dr. Tilley prayed for guidance and wisdom in helping Dianne dwell in the peace God promised His children.

  In Dr. Tilley’s prayer, Dianne found the glimmer of hope she needed to open herself up to the fullness of life’s possibilities. It wasn’t enough hope to light up a Christmas tree, but it was something.

  Chapter 13

  Finally, she’d found something that worked, at least marginally. The laxatives and metabolic enhancers had stopped the scale at 139, and Regina could take a little breath long enough to figure out plan B. With Plathene off the market and her appetite too powerful a force to combat, she’d have to come up with something else. She didn’t weigh enough for a gastric bypass, and she was too busy to fool with some group approach to weight loss. It occurred to her that she might need to take this whole weight thing to the Lord in prayer. That, she realized, would leave her at the mercy of God’s timing. Left up to Him, it might take months to get this thing right.

  With the way the past months had flown by, it wouldn’t be long before she had to return to the office. She was determined to return to work in the tailored suits she’d worn before the birth of Orlando Jr. No secretary or paralegal at the law firm of McGruder & Lawson was going to out-skinny attorney Regina Hernandez. She would see to it that Fat Regina stayed dead at all costs. It was only a matter of time before she uncovered the magic shortcut.

  “Mmm,” Orlando hummed, snuggling up behind her naked body as she finished her self-evaluation routine following her morning shower. He missed the old Regina, but not because she’d been thinner. Truthfully, he liked the fuller curve of his wife’s behind and how these new, round hips felt in his grip.

  But lately, her libido had been pushing the snooze button, putting him off until the last possible minute, when he brought up the fact that they hadn’t been intimate for a week or so. Then she’d roll over with that go-ahead-and-do-it attitude, as if she was doing him a favor.

  Alas, he told her what she wanted to hear in hopes that she would make him late for work. “I can tell you’re losing weight.”

  “Can you?” she raised her arm and ran her nails along the back of his neck. There, she thought as she focused on her body’s reflection. If I could just get my waist to look the way it does when I raise my arms.

  Orlando kissed his wife behind her ear and along her shoulders, from left to right. Slowly, intently. With each kiss, he hoped to implant the idea that she was beautiful just the way she was right now. He walked his fingers down her spine, savoring every inch of her body. Regina’s mind, however, was fast at work computing the number of hours she’d have to wait until she could take her next laxative.

  It was risky, she knew, but to feel half as sexy and as powerful as she did now was worth it because there were definite drawbacks to being fat and unattractive. Six weeks after giving birth, when she’d weighed 147, Regina couldn’t muster
up an ounce of sexy. When Orlando caressed her body, she didn’t feel the tingle of his touch. She could only calculate the extra half-second it took for his hand to cross her waist.

  This morning, however, she felt a teeny, tiny bit of sexy. She welcomed her husband’s advances. Regina let the warmth of her husband’s hands take her back to the way things were. She closed her eyes, and fantasized, something she could do now that she was soon to be on her way back down the scale. She saw herself skinny again. Skinny. So skinny, in fact, that she could wear her college clothes again. No, maybe she could do better. Junior sizes—that’s the kind of skinny she wanted to be.

  While fully in the swing of things with Orlando, Regina made the mistake of looking over at the closet doors—all mirrors.

  Dang! My thighs are huge!

  And just like quickly, she fell off the rollercoaster of love.

  Aunt Toe rolled around her house straightening up what she could before Regina and Yolanda came over to do the heavy-duty cleaning. She hummed her favorite gospel hymns, ignoring conditions that might raise an eyebrow or two at the Department of Housing. The antique heater had no cover, the wooden floors had weak spots, the outlets (what few there were) were all jammed with extension cords to compensate for the fact that, when the house was built, there weren’t many things running on electricity. No central air-conditioning, only wall units to aid her in staying “comfortable.” Against her wishes (and sometimes while Aunt Toe was out with her senior friends), Yolanda, Regina, and Gloria managed to sneak in a handyman to fix up this or that.

  Aunt Toe laughed at them. Little did they know, she’d lived through many a day without all these modern conveniences. She’d lived with dirt floors, outhouses, and a whole slew of other circumstances that young folks today couldn’t imagine in their wildest dreams. The present condition of her house was a hundred times better than the shack she grew up in, so Aunt Toe was not about to leave her house, no matter how much Gloria and the girls pressed her on the issue. They’d understand, years from now, when their own grandchildren declared, “Grandma, we can’t possibly let you live in this house without an Internet connection!”