Chapter 21
I stepped into my condo, dropped my purse, and kicked my shoes off in the coat closet where I kept them. I flicked the light switch and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw Greg sitting in one of the club chairs near the bay window. “You almost gave me a heart attack.” I raised my hand to my chest. “What are you doing here?”
“Where have you been?” He stood and came toward me.
“Working. I told you I had per diemâ”
Greg closed the space between us and covered my mouth with a hungry kiss. He raised his hand and reached for my body like he hadn't touched a woman in ten years. I could feel the envelope shifting out of my pocket, but before I could pull away, pills began to spill on the hardwood floor.
I dropped into a squatting position and quickly tried to pick them up, but Greg leaned over to help. “What's this?” he asked, picking one up of the green ones. I took it out of his hand. “It's a pill.”
“That's pretty obvious, but what is it? What are they doing in an envelope in your pocket?”
I moved around him and headed for my bedroom.
“Don't tell me you're stealing from the med room.” He followed me.
Okay, so I won't.
“Are you addicted to this stuff?”
I turned sharply. “No, of course not.” I couldn't believe I had been caught by Greg. If it hadn't been for that darn Nadine, I would have put the envelope back in the car console. These pills wouldn't be here. “I have a sick aunt.”
“A sick aunt without a prescription?”
“A sick aunt without a med plan.”
“You can't steal pills. They'll catch you, and your career will be over. Forget your career. You'll go to prison.”
Did he think he was telling me something I didn't know? “What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I came to see you.”
“That's pretty obvious since I live alone, and there's no one else to be seeing, but I thought we had an agreement that you wouldn't show up without calling.”
“Don't be annoyed.” He closed the space again. “If you needed money to fill your aunt's prescription, why didn't you ask me?”
“I didn't want to involve you.” I was careful with my words.
Stroke his ego.
“You're already so generous.”
“You know I'm here for you. How much is the prescription? Add it to the invoice you send to my office.”
I feigned relief. “Thanks, baby. I've been really going broke helping with all her medical bills.” I decided to see if I could get more.
“Well, stealing is not the way to help her. What would she do if you got caught? They have ways of knowing ...”
“I know. It was just this one time. I won't do it again.”
He looked concerned. I supposed it was a good sign that he gave a rat's behind about me, but I really didn't want him in my business like this. Especially knowing the bad. What kind of doctor's wife would a thieving medication nurse make?
“Why don't you take a shower? I don't have much time,” he said.
I looked at him. This midnight drive by was a booty call. He'd fallen out with Angelina or couldn't get her to give up the goods, so he got in his car and told me to go wash it off and give him some. I was starting to wonder if I were fooling myself about this man. His marriage was busted, but he never talked about his wife. It was time for him to give up some information.
“Greg, it's midnight. I don't usually press this issue, but what is going on at home that's got you out here in the middle of the night?”
He rolled his eyes upward. “I was thinking about you. I miss you. It's been a few days.”
“Umm, hum, and I suppose the cow jumped over that full moon out there.”
“Samaria.” He put his hands on either side of my arms. “Please don't add to my aggravation with these questions.”
I moved out of his grasp, put my hands at my hips, and continued to wait for his answer.
“My wife and I have been having a tough time,” he offered. “We're at an impasse about something she wants that I don't want.”
“Would that be children?” I asked.
His eyebrows went up. “Why would you assume that?”
“Because you don't have any. You're forty-four, and she's whatever age she is. You've been married forever, and you don't have kids.”
“I'm aware of all of that, and if I wanted to be talking about it I'd be at home, right?”
“So it is about kids?”
He shot me a nasty look. I didn't want to piss him off. The younger model's job was not to piss the man off by reminding him of the older model. “I'd like to know if I'm the substitute for someone you can't have or someone you don't want.” I stepped closer to him, slid one leg between his and placed a hand on his chest. “Tell me. I think that's a fair question.”
He hesitated for a moment, looked in my eyes, and stroked my hair. “You are not the substitute for anyone. You're your own person. Unequivocally. Trust me; my interests in you are singular.”
I resisted the temptation to roll my eyes and went into the bathroom.
What in the heck kind of answer was that?
I turned on the shower and stripped out of my clothes. I laid June's envelope on the sink and copped a squat on the toilet while the water got hot. I needed it to match the angry tears I was fighting.
Greg was treating me like a whore tonight. I mean, who walks in the door and tells you to wash your butt and lie down but a pimp? No “How are you? How was your night?” He let himself in because he paid the mortgage, and now he was lying on my bed because paying the mortgage paid for me. My mother had taught me to sell myself to a man. That was the only mother-daughter lesson: Don't give it away for free. But somehow I couldn't help feeling like the price I was paying to get this money was more than it was worth. Getting this money was actually costing me.
Chapter 22
I had to show up in church or be excommunicated from the women's Bible Study. I knew that I dare not disappoint my new mentor who for sure was going to ask me, “What did you think of Pastor's sermon?” like she always did.
I choose the eleven o'clock service. Seven
A.M.
was out of the question on a Sunday, and I was glad I'd arrived on time, because it was a packed house. Angelina was front and center. She'd seen me when I made the rounds for the collection of tithes and offerings, smiled like a proud mother, and pointed to the empty space next to her like she wanted me to move from my back row pew to join her. I waved and scrunched up my nose. I wanted to sit in the back. Heaven forbid she try to push me to the altar. Plus depending on what the message was about, I might need the cover of the rear in case I fell asleep.
The preacher was standing up there talking about some lost sheep, lost coins, and a lost son, and he would have lost me, except the stories were kind of interesting, or at least his presentation was. In particular I was struck by the one about the lost sheep. He, or rather the Bible, said that if a shepherd had one hundred sheep, he would leave the ninety-nine to go look for one who was lost, and that's what God does with us. He wants all of us to be saved, not just the Christians that are already in the church. Same thing with the coins, that if one out of ten was missing, the Lord would frantically search for the one because it had value too. Then there was the prodigal son. I got that. Two kids, you don't give up on one, but a hundred sheep? I'd grown up in a world where you cut your losses and kept on moving. Nothing had value, nothing was worth fighting for.
I could remember the countless times we got evicted. It happened at least once a year until we moved into White Gardens when I was eight. I would come home from school and find the sheriff had come and gone. Our things were strewn up and down the street like trash. Mama had packed some clothes in garbage bags, grabbed the food she wanted, but left the rest for the neighborhood vulturesâhuman and animalâto pick through.
I hated that we always had to start over. We'd go to the Salvation Army like vultures ourselves, picking through rich people's leftovers for new sheets and new curtains and new pots. I mean, none of it was new. It was gently used and new to us. It didn't make sense to me that we kept leaving behind the stuff I'd gotten attached to, so one time I got up the nerve to ask. “Mama, why you always gotta leave our stuff on the corner?”
I don't know if it was my huffy little tone or my mother's own frustration that caused her to react to me so strongly, but she reached back as far as she could and slapped me across the face so hard that for a moment, I thought the taste buds had come off my sharp little tongue.
“Don't question what I do.” She looked like a monster more than a mother. “We don't need that mess. Cost more to move than to get some more.”
She was still that way today. Even though she'd been in White Gardens for almost twenty years, the apartment was sparsely furnished. She didn't care to paint or really hang pictures. It was like she was waiting for the sheriff to come and tell her to get out. She still wasn't collecting anything worth moving.
“How many of you are living on God's good grace?” The preacher, or pastor, as Angelina called him, yelled into the microphone and rattled me to attention. “How many of you are living your life any old kind of way because you think God doesn't care what you do?”
He had stepped down from the pulpit and was making a slow sojourn up the aisle. I wasn't often paranoid, but I would swear that man was looking directly in my eyes when he asked that question. The back of the church wasn't quite far enough. Who knew the man would take his show on the road when he started trying to go after the prodigal coins like me?
“Beloved. The truth is God is gracious. He loves the saved and the sinner, the righteous and the unrighteous, the lost and the found. Every thought of His heart, every action of His power, goes toward reaching out to the needy, the guilty, and the lost souls. The sheep that need to be bought back into the fold.”
I shrank, averted my eyes so he couldn't catch themâtried to melt into the pew. After a few more words he called for people to come to the altar for prayer and salvation and the ordeal of a church service was over.
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“I'm so glad to see you today.” Angelina gave me the church sister hug.
“I know it's been a few weeks, but I usually take up residence here with the amen choir on the back pew.” I laughed and waved my hand toward the seat I'd vacated.
“Awesome message, wasn't it?”
I nodded. It was pretty powerful if you believed that kind of stuff.
“Have you met Pastor?” Angelina asked.
My eyes bugged. “Oh, no. I don'tâhe seems so busyâI really should be going.”
“It'll only take a second.” Angelina grabbed my arm and pulled me to the front of the church to join the line of people who were waiting to shake the
Honorable
Bishop Winston Bennett's hand.
“Angelinaâreally, there's always next time.” I had no interest in shaking that man's hand. He had an aura about him. Made me think he was Jesus incognito.
My mother had taught me that pastors weren't nothing but pimps with Bibles, but she was wrong. The flip flopping in my stomach told me this man was the real deal, and I was afraid when he touched my hand he would see all the dirt I had been doing.
Angelina and I waited our turns, which came quickly. She stepped up, thanked the Bishop for something to do with DYFS, and then said, “Pastor, I want you to meet Rae Burns. Remember I mentioned the industrious young woman who was helping us to pull together the health fair?”
He nodded and hesitated before his teeth split his lips in a wide grin. “Yes, Ms. Burns. I'm told you've been a tremendous asset. Welcome to Greater Christian.”
He stuck out his hand. I closed my eyes and slid mine in his, waited for the lightning bolt that would strike me, the new and improved version of Mary Magdalene. I did know some Bible.
“I appreciate you being of service to Sister Preston and all that you're doing to make the health fair a big success for us.” I opened my eyes. He continued. “I know you've been attending women's Bible Study, but please make sure you join us again on Sunday morning. Come on up to the front row next time.” He chuckled, winked, and released my hand. There was no tremor of the earth, no lightning bolt from the sky. Bishop Bennett moved on and grabbed the next parishioner's hand and began a conversation with them about a son in college.
I let go of my breath. He wasn't clairvoyant. I had not been discovered as a fraud.
Chapter 23
I didn't do this often, but I needed help making sure my mother was going to have a place to live like she'd told me. In particular I wanted to find out if she were getting into my cousin, Ebony's, complex, so I decided it was time to do some checking on my own. I called Ebony.
“Hey stranger,” Ebony said. Ebony was the daughter of my mother's oldest brother, Jimmy Ray. Jimmy Ray was dead. He'd been shot for cheating in a poker game when Ebony was ten years old. A good looking man and natural born talker, he'd had a well paying job driving a tour bus around the city of Atlanta. It was packed daily with people; mostly business travelers, who wanted to sightsee and shop without the bother of renting a car or taking public transportation. Shortly after Jimmy Ray was killed, Ebony and her mother moved into White Gardens because it was the only place Emma, Ebony's mother, could afford working as a hotel maid.
I could hear the little tribe my cousin called children screaming in the background. “I thought you had gone off and married some rich sheik in Saudi Arabia,” Ebony teased.
I smirked. “Not yet, but I'm working on it.”
“No doubt.” Ebony's smile came through the phone. “So to what do I owe the honor?”
“I need a favor. I'd like to stop by the complex and see what's up with my mom's application. Is the management office open today?”
“It ain't been that long since you was renting. You know all the leasing offices are open on Sundays. We got to have some place to complain after Saturday night.” Ebony chuckled. “I didn't know your mother was moving over here.”
I pursed my lips. My mother not telling Ebony her plans was suspect. “Eb, give me directions.”
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I pulled off I-20 onto Panola Road and made the few quick turns it took to get to Farrington Gardens. It amazed me that the word garden was used in so many low income housing complexes where there wasn't a shred of green landscaping, and the only thing growing was crime, drug use, and teenage pregnancy.
Farrington Gardens was a rehabbed townhome complex. The owner received a huge amount of federal funding to do the renovations provided he reserved a certain percentage of units for low income residents. It was kind of a win-win for the owner because the tenants had HUD vouchers, and they paid what HUD didn't. The problem was most of the current non-low income residents would move out leaving the place to be occupied by all low income residents; hence, it became a better looking project. This wasn't the intent of the relocation program, but it was better than White Gardens, for now.
Ebony had called me midway through my trip to ask me not to knock because she had gotten the kids down for a nap. When I pulled in front of her unit, she opened the door and sprang out with her husband, Tyrone, on her butt. He grabbed her hand, pulled her back, and gave her a peck on the lips followed by a look that said, “Don't be too long.” No wonder they had four kids in six years.
Ebony skipped to my car. The smile dropped from Tyrone's face, and he waved to me. I could see reluctance. Tyrone didn't like me. He was broke, so I didn't care.
“What's up, cuz?” Ebony slid onto the butter leather seat and closed the door. Wide eyes admired the interior. She scrunched up her face. “When you get this?”
“A few months ago.” I backed out of the parking space. “Which way am I going?”
Ebony gave me directions to the management office. I made my way to the back of the huge complex, and we climbed out. There was a line of people in the waiting room, most complaining about needing this or that repaired, slow trash pickup, or noise from their neighbors during a rowdy party the night before.
Ebony reached into a tiny purse and pulled out a pack of gum; offered me a stick which I declined. She popped one in her mouth. “So when did ya moms put in her application? I think they got a long waiting list over here.”
I let out a sigh. “I don't know. She said her housing social worker did it.”
Ebony shook her head. “That don't sound right. We had to do the applications ourselves. They told us how much money we could spend, and we had to find our own place. I been trying to talk to Auntie 'bout what she was gonna do, but she keep telling me she working it out.”
“That's what I was worried about.” I was glad I'd enlisted Ebony's help because no way was the leasing agent going to be willing to tell me anything about my mom's application. I knew my cousin. She had a chatty personality, and I had no doubt that she was in good with the staff.
“Hey.” Ebony tapped my shoulder. I had been looking in the opposite direction. When I turned to her, she was looking me up and down like the fashion police. “Where you coming from all done up? If I didn't know any better, I'd think you went to church.”
I raised my chin and cocked my head. “I did. I go to church, Miss Smarty Pants.”
Ebony laughed. “Uh-uh. What you going to church for? You got to be scheming on some poor pastor or deacon.”
I dropped my chin and cut my eyes. “I know you think you've got the church of the Lord on lockdown, cousin, but there is room in the house for those of us that have been lost. I'm one of the ninety-nine sheep the shepherd is looking for.” I rolled my neck.
This time Ebony's laugh was an out and out cackle. “Girl, that would be the one sheep. The ninety-nine are found, and if the shepherd is looking for you, he gonna need to take a map and some hunting equipment. Heck, he might need an exploration team or something.”
I squinted and started to say something when the leasing agent let us know we were next.
Ebony was real cool with her. Just like I knew she would be. Ebony explained who I was and asked about my mother's application. Their friendly banter got her past all the confidential privacy stuff, and the agent looked in her computer file for all the pending applications. Just as I suspected there was nothing for Winnie Jacobs. Ebony inquired about how long the waiting list was. The woman told her it would probably take two years to clear off, and no way could they move names around. That was a locked file that the manager kept. We left.
“You have time for an early dinner?” I asked when we climbed back in the car.
She shook her head. “I don't like to go to restaurants without my family, so I'ma have to say no.”
“We can go to Applebee's and order take-out for your crew. You won't have to cook dinner, and everyone will get hooked up.” I knew she'd like that offer.
Ebony stuck her hands in the pockets of her jacket and knitted her brow. “My kids are too young for Applebee's, but there's a new place on Covington Highway we been dying to try.”
“Doesn't matter to me.” I pulled off and headed in that direction.
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The restaurant was a cute little place. I wasn't a big soul food eater. Grease and fat and butter did not make a banging body. But the smell coming from the kitchen was enough to lure me out of my fried chicken moratorium. I'd have to hit the gym later.
We gave our orders to the waitress; she collected the menus and left us alone. That's when Ebony knit her fingers in front of her on the table and asked, “So what you want, Sam?”
I sat back like she had smacked me. “Dang, why it gotta be like that?”
Ebony smirked and rolled her neck as she spoke. “Heifer, please, you know it's like that. Don't nobody hear from you unless something's up.”
I pretended to be insulted, but I knew it was kind of true. The real thing was I avoided Ebony a lot of times because she was always preaching at me. Like she would for sure do before this dinner was over.
“I need my mom settled on a place to live. I've got a ton of projects going on for my business, and I don't have time to run all over Atlanta looking at apartments and putting in applications with her. I was wondering if I gave you a couple of dollars if you'd do it for me.”
“You want to pay me to help my aunt?”
“I want to pay you for your time,” I said.
“You ain't got to pay me to help Aunt Winnie. All you had to do was ask.”
That was it. A commitment from Ebony, and it was a done deal. I reached into my purse and pulled out two hundred dollar bills and slid them across the table. “Gas isn't free. I appreciate you, girl.”
She raised her eyebrows. “That's a lot of gas, and I hate to think about how you got that and the car.”
“I work, Ebony. Every day.”
“Yeah, well, Panola Medical is right up the street, and I see them nurses pull up every day. Ain't none of them getting out of no new Beamers.”
I swallowed a protest and slid the money closer. “Take it. I know it could come in handy. Maybe you and Tyrone could take the kids to Six Flags or something on Auntie Sam.”
With that, she reached for the money and tucked it away in her purse. If nothing else, Ebony was a great mother. She wasn't going to pass on doing something for her kids.
The waitress delivered the drinks and salads we'd ordered. I was starved and started to dive in when Ebony said, “Ms. Lost Sheep, can we say grace?”
I bowed my head, and she led the blessing.
“So how's Tyrone?”
“You know my boo is good.” She did a little dance in her seat like thinking about him had her body singing. “He's still working at the church with the audio-visual equipment and stuff. They paying him for that now, so it's a part-time job. Plus he's painting and doing all the other work he can get.”
I nodded. Tyrone was fine. He was sweet actually, and he and Ebony were about as in love as in love could get; had been since eighth grade. But a part-time job at the church and painting when he could with four kids? I wanted to throw up my salad.
“He's working on something else. A little something with Mekhi.”
I resisted rolling my eyes, but my jaw clenched. I knew what was coming now.
“Gosh, Sam.” She put her fork down. “Why you tripping on Mekhi so hard? You act like he did something to you.”
“You
act
like you know he didn't.”
“I know Mekhi is a good brother. He's got a good heart. And ain't nobody perfect, including you and whoever you laying with, so you need to think about that.” Ebony turned up her nose. “You gonna be real disappointed if
Mr. Knight in Shining Armor
don't come through and Mekhi done moved on and got him somebody else instead of sitting around trippin' about you.”
“You don't know the deal about what went down between Mekhi and me, so please don't sit across the table and judge me.” I slammed my fork down, which got the attention of the people next to us. I avoided their stares by reaching into my purse for my ringing cell phone.
The waitress arrived with our meals. She stood looking between the two of us as we sat there with our arms crossed over our chests.
“We gonna need you to wrap this up to go,” Ebony said, looking me in the eye. “And I need to see the menu again. I'd like to place a takeout order.”
Ebony and I had reached that point again. The point where we would no longer enjoy each other's company. My business with her was completed, so I eased out of the booth and returned the call I'd just missed from Greg.