Choose Me (31 page)

“So what are you saying?”

“Just that. It’s getting real hard to be with you and … not go further.”

“I told you,” she said, pointing a critical finger at me. “I told you I was serious about my celibacy. You knew up front.
It’s not like I changed on you.”

“Yeah, well …” I started weakly. “I’ve tried.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “So? You want to end it?”

The thought of losing her and her bluntness in suggesting it made me feel spiteful. “Is that what
you
want?” I asked resentfully.

“I don’t, but …”

“Or maybe you want to get married? Then we can have sex ‘the right way’”

“No! No, I don’t want to get married,” she said, becoming upset, her head snapping back slightly like she was about to get
some west-side attitude. She rubbed her eyebrows with her thumb and forefinger.

“Let me guess, you have a headache,” I said with spite. “How convenient.”

She glared at me from under her hand. “No, I don’t have a headache. I’m trying to think.”

“What do you want, Eva? What’s it going to be, friendship or a relationship? Make up your mind.”

“I don’t know … what I want, but I definitely don’t want to get married.”

“So, you’re happy with things the way they are? Kissing and hugging like we’re in junior high,” I said sarcastically. “Teasing
me?”

She flashed her eyes indignantly. “Teasing you? How am I teasing you?”

I shook my head and looked away. Now I had unintentionally done what she had harmlessly tried to do: start a fight to kill
the mood. And the mood was definitely dying, if it wasn’t dead already.

“Do I dress provocatively? Do I make sexual comments? Throw myself at you?” she asked accusingly, challenging me.

“You know what you do.” Now that I had started, I couldn’t stop. I backed up toward the door, getting ready to leave before
I said or did something I would regret.

“What? What do I do?”

“Play that innocent Virgin Mary role. Pretend like you don’t have any urges, but you know you want it just as much as I do.
And why are you wearing that dress? You
never
wear dresses.” There was nothing spectacular about the dress; it had a handkerchief hemline, a V neckline, and the flared
sleeves she seemed so fond of. I didn’t even know what kind of material it was, only that it danced when she moved. Fact was
she
was in it and it looked fabulous on her, and the painful truth remained that I wanted her and she was telling me I was never
going to have her. And it was finally sinking in.

She blinked several times and I thought she was going to cry, but I knew it wasn’t her style. When she spoke, her voice was
icy and even. “You’re right. I have urges just like you. I’m not dead. What you call ‘innocence,’ I call ‘self-control.’ We’re
not animals, Adam, ruled by our instincts. God gave us the power over our
urges,
to think before we act.”

She was right and I hated that she was right. She had been up front about her celibacy; she hadn’t sprung it on me at the
last minute. I had walked in with my eyes and heart wide open. I hated that she had the upper hand, hated that she had more
self-control than I did. I hated her tough spirit, and at the same time, I admired her ability to stick to her beliefs. At
the moment, however, that admiration only made me more furious at her, and at myself.

“And as far as this
dress
is concerned,” she continued, her eyes blazing, “my sons bought it for my last birthday and they asked me to wear it. I’m
sorry if it
provoked
you.”

When I continued to sulk, she took a couple of steps closer. “Don’t allow the enemy to spoil what we have,” she then said,
her voice taking on a softer tone.

“What
do
we have, Eva? Huh? Break it down for me ’cause I’m confused here.”

“I thought we had something different, something beyond physical. Something I’ve never had with any man before. The way God
intended.”

Lately, when she talked about God, or religion in general, it made me uneasy. She would say it was because I was being convicted,
that her words were hitting their mark. Sometimes she looked at me like she could read my thoughts, like she knew what I was
going to say before I did. And it made me nervous. It reminded me of when I was little and I did something wrong. One look
from my mother and I was confessing and bringing her the belt before she even commanded me.

“We can talk to the pastor,” she suggested. “What do you think?”

I scoffed without restraint. “Why do we have to talk to a pastor about
our
personal feelings?”

“Because he can advise us. Because I don’t know what to do.”

“I do.” Unable to resist her any longer, I closed the short distance between us and pulled her to me. “Do you know how much
I want … to be with you …” Momentarily, I released her as my hands faltered, debating which part of her to touch first.

“Adam, you have to help me be strong,” she implored.

“I can’t …” I told her truthfully.

Her hands slowly slipped from my waist. I took her face in my hands, and she closed her eyes, flinching, as if my touch stung.
I kissed her eyes one at a time, the top lip, then the bottom, before seizing her whole mouth as our bodies came together
from our chests all the way down to our feet. Slowly, we backed up until we reached the wall next to the front door; she was
trapped and unable to move. Briefly, I pulled my face away and gazed at her anxious lips, slightly parted like a baby bird
anticipating food from its mother’s beak. She wasn’t fighting me.
God, when did I fall for her?
I wondered, mystified. More bewildering, I didn’t know how to tell her without sounding and looking like I was whipped. The
words “I love you” were on the tip of my lips but they seemed so banal, so played-out, even though I had used them with only
one other woman in my entire life. I wanted to use different words, more reflective of all my feelings, but I just couldn’t
think of any. My mind was a blank.
A poet at a loss for words,
I thought,
how ironic.

“Eva …”

“What?” she whispered, her eyes still closed, her lips still waiting, trembling.

“I … I don’t want to break up. I care … I want to be with you …” I stopped, shutting my eyes tight in frustration, gritting
my teeth trying to find the right words. “I care for you … like I’ve never cared for any other woman. Do you understand how
I feel?”

She opened her eyes and tightened her arms around my back. “I care for you, too. So much.”

Then, before I knew it, something inside of me took over and I lost control. I let my hands wander recklessly where they wanted,
and didn’t stop my body as it moved with a mind of its own. What a difference a dress made. It made me think of Tina Dinwoody,
my first steady girlfriend. I was transported back to the hallway of her apartment building, one watchful eye on the door,
fearing her father might yank it open any minute. Eva’s hands moved from my back to my chest, at first pushing me away, then
grasping my tender pectorals insistently. I winced and groaned, but ignored the dull aching in my nipples, something I had
been feeling lately. She wanted me as bad as I wanted her. It was only a matter of time.
What was holding her back?
I was two seconds from falling to my knees and begging,
“Please!”
when the doorbell rang.

She peeled her face away and then tried to squeeze out from under me, as I held her back.

“Adam, don’t.”

I pinned her back against the wall again, hoping whoever was at the door would go away. She pushed against my chest with a
force that surprised me, and I almost cried out when her fingernails dug into my flesh.

“I’m serious,
Adam.
Stop it.”

Fuming, I released her and let her look through the peephole. She quickly turned around, her back against the door, her eyes
wide with alarm.

“Who is it?” I asked, massaging my sore pecs.

She swallowed hard before answering breathlessly, “My pastor.”

WHENEVER MY BOYS
did something wrong, there was no hiding from me; it was all over their faces and in what they did not say.
The look on Pastor Zeke’s face when Adam emerged from the bathroom, where he had escaped before I opened the door, made me
feel like a little girl who had done wrong, guilt scrawled on my face with bright red crayon.

Although the pastor was five years my senior, he was wise beyond his years, my spiritual leader, my mentor. He had taken the
place of a parent in my life, a role my father had long forsaken, and he had the ability to still make me feel ashamed. I
knew my face was brown-red because my cheeks would not stop burning. If he hadn’t shown up when he did, I wasn’t sure what
would have happened.

He looked from Adam to me with inquisitive eyebrows waiting for an explanation, until I finally met his eyes and tried to
appear indifferent.

“Pastor Zeke, you remember Adam Black? He visited our church.” My voice was childlike, eager to please, overcompensating for
my discomfort.

“When was that?” the pastor asked, standing to take Adam’s outstretched hand.

Adam cleared his throat and answered with uncertainty, “Last month?”

“Do you have a home church?”

“No, sir.”

“You should come back and join us more often.”

Adam nodded hesitantly, looking at me for intervention. “Sure.”

I stood up. “Pastor, let me get you some
arroz con dulce.
”

“You know that’s why I’m here,” he said, smiling from ear to ear. He turned to Adam. “This Sister makes the best rice pudding.
Have you tasted it?”

The slightest smile crossed Adam’s lips, causing me to blush once again. “No. No, I haven’t. I was actually on my way—”

“Well, let’s have some then. We can visit for a while.”

I got up, ignoring Adam’s look of desperation, and went into the kitchen. As I pulled out three dessert plates from the refrigerator,
I noticed my hands were shaking.
Stop it,
I reprimanded myself.
He’s not my father; I’m not a child. I haven’t done anything wrong. Not really,
I thought. I hurried back to the dining room, not wanting to leave Adam with the pastor too long.

“So, you don’t think attending church is important?” I overheard Pastor Zeke say as I returned with the pudding.

“No, what I’m saying is, I don’t think going to church is as important as the kind of person you really are, how you treat
others—”

“Here we go,” I announced, a little too loudly.

“Alright,” the pastor said, anxiously taking his plate. He scooped up a forkful of pudding and ate voraciously. As a hypoglycemic,
he could eat like a horse and not gain an ounce. Eating, however, did not interfere with his speaking. “You know, Adam. We’re
very fond of Sister Eva here. She’s a woman of virtue, and a woman of virtue is a very special woman. Proverbs thirty-one.”

“‘A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised,’”
Adam recited, eating slowly. He glanced sideways accusingly at me, as if I had planned the pastor’s ill-timed visit.

While I was slightly impressed by his knowledge of the scripture, Pastor Zeke didn’t seem at all moved as he continued his
lecture. “She’s also a child of God and that supersedes what she is to the outside world. One messes with that and you’re
messing with God.”

“No one is
messing
with her,” Adam said, looking at the pastor evenly for the first time as he finished his plate. “No disrespect.”

“I wish you would stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here,” I scolded them nervously as I wrapped plastic wrap over a dish
for the pastor’s wife.

Adam stood up, licking his spoon and handing me the empty plate. “You’re right, her rice pudding
is
good. I got to go. Good night.”

They shook hands and I walked Adam to the door. He tried to kiss me but I drew back, then regretted it when I saw his eyebrows
crease.

“Thank your sister for me,” I said, letting him out and closing the door, but not before catching his cold look.

I was anxious to hear what Pastor Zeke thought about Adam, but I also feared he would question me about how far we had gone.
I imagined I would be the subject of next Sunday’s sermon:
“Eva: Virtuous or Immoral Woman? You Decide.”

The pastor stood up. “I best be on my way. I got two more stops.”

“Go ahead. Let me have it,” I finally said, handing him the dish for his wife.

“What? Oh, I think you know what I’m going to say, Sister. You are a saved woman; he’s not a saved man. You know you shouldn’t
be seeing an ungodly man, especially alone. When you make a decision to be with an ungodly man, his ungodly spirit cleaves
unto you. But I think you already know that.
‘Do not be yoked with unbelievers.’”

I followed him to the door. “He’s a believer, Pastor,” I said meekly. “He’s a good man.”

“A good man and a godly man are two different beings.” At the door, he turned to me slowly. “A good man is concerned with
pleasing himself and others, while a godly man pleases God.”

I nodded silently, knowing no defense would be justifiable in his eyes.

Pastor Zeke put his hand on my shoulder. “I know you will do the right thing. Read your Bible, Philippians four, verses eight
and nine.
‘Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just…’
”

“‘If there he any virtue, and if there he any praise, think on these things,’”
I finished the verse.

“Amen.” He gripped my hand with a reassuring squeeze before going down the steps. “Sister, you have my numbers. My door is
always open. Call on me anytime. If you’d rather talk with a Sister, let me know, alright? Alright. God bless you.” At the
front gate, he exclaimed, “I hope this rice pudding makes it home!”

That night, I laid awake thinking about what the pastor had said, about his definition of a good man and a godly one. I knew
God had intervened once again, sending the pastor to the rescue. Everything he had said was true, with the exception that
I needed a chaperone. I was an adult, not a teenager who couldn’t control herself. But by his admission, Adam was finding
it more difficult to control himself. If the pastor had not come along, I wondered if I would have been able to stop Adam.
I knew I had to end it with Adam for good, but how and when were the questions.