“Lady and gentlemen,” Ronald announced, “I'm sorry to disappoint you all, but I cannot sing this song.”
“What's the problem?” Stevie asked. “It's a powerful arrangement.”
“True,” Ronald said, “but this isn't the song for me. I can't lend my voice, my gift to something I disagree with.”
“What's there to disagree with?” from Stevie again.
“Look, I know that sex sells. This is your business, you do what you do,” Ronald reasoned. “But I have to do what I do, too. I'm a minister; I'm a father. I can't lend my voice to a song that promotes principles I don't believe in.”
As though he'd been awaiting Ronald's reaction, John David pressured, “Aw, come on, dude. It's just a
song
. It's not like you're killing anyone. And if you want to make some good of it, just donate some of your royalties to charity.”
Bewildered, Stevie threw up his hands. “For crying out loud, this song is about sex, God's best gift to mankind. I don't understand what's wrong with that?”
Ronald shook his head. “I don't expect you to understand. I'm playing by different rules.”
“Hey,” Stevie barked, “I'm a Christian, too. I know right from wrong.
This
is not wrong. It's art. Music.”
Ronald put palms to his chest. “I can't tell you what's right or wrong for you. Only God can judge that. All I know is,
I
don't use
my
talent to oppose the One who gave it to me. Whatever you decide to do with your God-given talent is between you and Him.” Ronald pointed toward the ceiling.
Camille watched as though she were a fly on the wall. These men were arguing about her future. She'd been so busy observing, she'd almost forgotten the lines she'd mentally rehearsed all night long. “Stevie, I was thinking ... maybe we could change a few of the lyrics. Or just have him harmonize with me on a few notes.”
She had Ronald's attention now.
“You know âNobody Greater' by VaShawn Mitchell? He and the choir sing most of the song, but one lady does a few ooohs and repeats what the choir says. You think that would work. I mean, in light of your convictions?”
“We could try it,” John David interrupted cheerfully. “I'm willing to try anything.”
Ronald's cheeks dropped another inch, as if that were possible. “I'm not. Camille, I thought you and I had the same convictions.”
“We do,” she all but whined, “I'm just asking, for this
one song,
Ronald, to get my foot back in the door.
Please
.”
“Camille, believe meâI really wish I could. But I can't. My life, this voice, doesn't belong to me,” he said.
Ronald stood. John David scrambled to his side, grabbed Ronald by the shoulders, and fast-talked. “Okay, Ronald, forget Camille. She's ... she's a chameleon. How about you? A different song? I've heard you, you're right. You have an amazing gift. Your voice is heavenly. I could match you with a different woman. Same soundtrack, different song. It'll be as innocent as ... what was that reggae song? âDon't Worry, Be Happy
.
'”
Now Camille stood. “Are you kidding me?”
“You can leave now,” John David ordered.
She would do no such thing!
But before Camille could speak, Ronald asked John David a question that zipped her mouth, sent her pulse through the roof. “When have you heard me sing?”
John David pointed at Stevie. Stevie unplugged a cord, pushed a button, and the room filled with voices Camille and Ronald's voices.
Mmm, I don't know. I was trying to get to the gym tonight.
You look fine to me.
Thank you, but that's only because I've been working out lately.
It's definitely paying off. But I was really hoping we could grab a bite since Brittney's still in practice..
Cool.
“Sorry. Let me back it up,” Stevie said. He stopped the tape, pushed another lever.
Ronald crossed his arms, stared Camille dead in the face. “You were recording our conversations?”
“No,” she denied. “I recorded us singing. I just forgot to turn it off.”
“That's What I Live For” blared through the speakers now. Soprano and tenor, their undeniable mix, along with background.
“Ronald, you're incredible. You're a force all by yourself, but you'd also make anybody's voice sound like a million dollars next to yours. You
balance
, man, like Billy Ocean. Stevie Wonder.”
“Thanks, but I'm not interested,” Ronald declined. “I'm gonna call me a cab now so I can go to work. Sorry to have wasted your time.”
Ronald excused himself and walked out, just like she'd imagined he would. In fact, watching his backside leave the room in blue jeans and a red shirt was exactly the way she'd pictured this going down. Begging John David, that two-faced, male chauvinist, was out of the picture. John David was straight triflin', right along with three-fourths of the other people in the industry. Ridiculous!
“There went your last chance with me, Camille,” John David piled insult on top of injury.
“No,” she countered, “there went
your
last chance. I see who you really are. All you care about is the bottom line.”
John David crossed his arms, stared down at her condescendingly. “I thought that was all we
both
cared about.”
“God made the earth, but money makes it go 'round, sweetheart,” Stevie added.
She started down the nearly vacant hallway, her heels echoing so loudly they almost made her ears hurt. “Ronald, wait.”
He stopped, pivoted with alarming speed, and tore into her. “What else have you been recording, Camille? What is this all about?”
She sighed. “Ronald, I can explain. I needed a demo to give to John David.”
“So you took it upon yourself to record us anyway, without my permission.”
“Yes, butâ”
“What else have you recorded?”
“Nothing else.”
He hung a hand on his neck. “Why couldn't you just tell me?”
“I didn't want you to think that I was ... I don't knowâ”
“Using me?” he completed her sentence precisely.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You recorded other people, too. What's your excuse there? For all I know, you could have been recording the choir, making copies, and selling bootleg CDs.”
“Don't be silly.”
“Am I, really, being silly, Camille? Let me ask you this, why did you join Grace Chapel to begin with?”
Now was her chance to come clean. Even if it meant losing him forever, at least she'd lose him for the truth, not because of this craziness with John David and the recording. She forged ahead, hoping if nothing else that he would at least appreciate her honesty on his way out of her life. “I did join the church, initially, to be a part of the choir. At John David's recommendation. Butâ”
“So you've been using all of us.”
“No. I mean, at first, yes, but not now.”
His eyes misted slightly. “Brittney, too? Was she just part of the plan to get closer to me?”
“No, not Brittney,” Camille declared plainly. “Brittney's different. We connected before I even knew she was your daughter, Ronald, I swear.”
He sighed. “Leave us alone.” He took off again.
“Ronald, I'm telling you the truth.”
He yelled over his shoulder, “You want a sticker for that?”
She quickened her pace but held her breath as they turned the final corridor and beheld flashes of red, white, and blue bouncing off the walls.
What's going on?
Up ahead, Ronald opened the exit door. Quickly, he called to her, “Camille, the police are at your car.”
“What!”
She pushed past him, rushing toward her vehicle. “Hi. What's the problem?”
“You Camille Robertson?” a female officer in her mid-forties who'd never heard of lip gloss or Chapstick asked.
“Yes.”
“First of all, you parked in a handicap spot. One of the tenants of the building couldn't even park, thanks to your inconsiderate actions.”
“Sorry about that.” In her presunrise rush, she must have missed the faded sign atop the leaning pole in front of her car. Weren't the building owners responsible for making the signs visible? And why did this slight error merit a cruiser with lights?
“Secondly,” the officer continued, “we have a warrant for your arrest.”
“Huh?”
John David and Stevie appeared at the door now.
“Unpaid ticket.”
“There must be some kind of mistake. I paid my ticket,” Camille claimed loud enough for everyone, including her former agent, to hear.
“Tell it to the judge, Miss Robertson. Let's go.”
“Wait.” Camille backed away from the officer.
“Are you resisting me?” she taunted.
“No. I just want to give him my key.” She motioned toward Ronald. He stepped forward. Camille removed the vehicle's key from the ring and placed it in his hand.
He took it without a word.
Obviously chomping at the bit to tow Camille's car, the smart-mouthed officer asked, “Not so fast. Is the vehicle insured?”
“Yes. The card is in the glove compartment,” Camille stated. She looked at Ronald again. “I've already paid this ticket. This is a mistake.”
Again, he held on to his words.
Ms. I-Love-Hating-People flirted with Ronald. “Honey, I wish I had a dollar for every time someone told me I was arresting them for no reason. You and I could run off to Hawaii.”
The second officer slapped the cuffs on Camille's wrists.
“Officer, do you really have to restrain her?” Ronald asked.
“Policy,” he explained compassionately. “It's not safe for us to escort hostile subjects unrestrained.”
Then he led Camille into the backseat of the cruiser and escorted a boo-hooing Camille to the station.
CHAPTER 30
S
omehow, she'd managed to convince the nicer male officer that there was something wrong. If he'd just open her purse, he'd see carbon copies of the checks she'd written to the county as payment for the ticket. But his partner said she'd heard this story a million times. She confiscated Camille's purse and told Camille to save her story for the judge.
Camille stopped talking and did the only thing she could do ... pray. She closed her eyes and asked God to intervene and do whatever He had to do to make everything right. Everything, including this situation with Ronald.
God, I'm sorry. I'm going to jail, God! Jail!
Inside her heart, she heard a whispered rhyme.
Better jail than hell.
Surely, God didn't find this situation funny. Was this His way of getting her attention? She'd heard about people having to be flat on their backs before looking up. Why did it have to be this way? Why couldn't He just teach her a lesson the easy way?
You wouldn't listen.
Okay, there it was againâthis argument emanating from within herself. If she had been pondering, thinking to herself, she might have believed these words were her own. But they couldn't be. She would never accuse her own self of not listening, let alone decide that a trip to jail was preferable to the eternal elevator down. Aside from all that, God's sentences were awfully short.
This was God, speaking to her like a father chastising His child. No hint of condemnation, only an undeniable truth. God was right.
Â
Between God softening the officer's heart and the check copies Camille was able to show the booking clerk, she managed to avoid a cold, hard jail cell and the humiliation of taking a mug shot. She whispered a thank you to God as she waited for the error to be unearthed.
As she waited in what looked like a secured interrogation room, Camille put her head down on her desk, encircled by her arms. She wanted more than anything to wake up from this nightmare. She'd never imagined things could turn out this bad. As far as she knew, no one in her immediate family had seen the inside of a police station. Not even Bobby Junior, for all his shady ways.
How would she explain this to him? His only daughter, downtown. On false premises, of course, but still ... nobody wants to have to call someone and say, “Hey, can you come pick me up? I'm at the jailhouse.”
His first question, of course, would be, “What did you do?” And all of this would make it back to Courtney. He'd probably have something smart to say, even if, in his heart, he, too, was disappointed in his little sister.
Maybe that's what hurt most. The disappointment. After all her efforts, all her scheming and even praying, nothing had worked out to her advantage.
Why me?
Why couldn't she live her life, sing, and then die when it was all over with? Was it too much to ask to just be happy again?
She'd even lost the handsome guy, which was
not
supposed to happen. He was supposed to love her through all this. Be there for her, have compassion and pity on her. Instead, he'd walked away. Driven, away, actually, in her ticketed, insured vehicle.
Stupid. This whole thing was stupid. Her whole life was stupid, now that she thought about it. Nothing had been right or fair since her mother died. Couldn't God give her a break? If anyone deserved to have a great life, it was her! Hadn't He taken enough from her without taking her dreams and her almost man, too?
Tears leaked onto the table as Camille found herself sobbing again. She had come to the end of herself. There was no way up or down, left or right. This was simply the end.
If her mother had been alive, she would have been the most let down by all this mess. How many times had she prayed over Camille's life? Dabbed blessed oil on her forehead, asking the Lord to protect Camille, guide Camille, and give Camille a heart for Him?
Better yet, if her mother had still been alive, none of these terrible things would have happened. She'd still have her brother, and her father would still be the respectable man she'd known growing up. Sweet Treats would still be together. Maybe. Or, at least, the rest of the group wouldn't hate her so much.
Yes, everything would have been different if God hadn't taken her mother away. Now, for the first time since eleventh grade, she asked aloud, “Why my mother, Lord? Why did you have to take her and leave me without the one person who loved me more than anything?”
No response. It was as though God Almighty decided He didn't need to answer to anybody. He would just do what He wanted, when He wanted, how He wanted, and people could love Him or hate Him, he didn't care. He didn't have to care; He was God.
I love you. I have never left you.
Camille bolted straight up. She looked around the room because, this time, the words sounded like they had come from inside and outside, too. She blinked a few times, examined the four corners of the empty room. Every logical cell within her tried to discount what she'd just heard, but the truth resonated more loudly than anything else that had ever passed through Camille's soul.
The Inner Witness brought to mind Chrisandrea's thoughts about the footprints poem.
When you look back over, like, the sands of your life and see only one set of footprints, that's not when God left you. That's when God was carrying you through the tough times because you were too weak to walk,
the young girl had said.
He loved her and had never left her. If that was true, then He'd been there when her mother died, when Sweet Treats broke up, when she'd moved into that ratty apartment, when she joined Grace Chapel under false pretenses. Even when she met Ronald. If He had been there all the time, why didn't He say anything?
She recalled the words He had spoken in the car.
You wouldn't listen
. She charged, “How was I supposed to listen when I couldn't hear you?”
You couldn't hear because we don't talk.
He had a point.
A flood of scriptures rushed through Camille's mind. From stuff she'd learned in Sunday school almost twenty years ago to things Pastor Collins preached the previous Wednesday night. All of them pointing at one idea: Draw close to God and He will draw close to you.
Only, this time, she realized God had actually taken the first steps in love. He had pulled her into this situation. He had allowed her to sabotage Sweet Treats and live in her own self-imposed wilderness long enough to realize she had to do something to get out. That
something
had drawn her back to church, back to Him. Even to jail, where He wanted to answer her mother's prayers after all these years.
She must have read that verse in the eighth chapter of Romans a hundred timesâall things work together. But it never made sense until that very moment, sitting in an examination room in a jailhouse, of all places. Everything, the good, bad, and ugly, had come to this. Because He loved her. Like the old folk said at the old church, it's one thing to have the information. Another thing altogether to have the revelation.
One word from Him makes all the difference.
Suddenly, divinely, she wanted to know God for herself. Not to get a record deal, not to stay out of hell. But if He loved her this much, she wanted to love Him, too, singing contract or not.
“Jesus, I'm sorry I tried to use you.” Even though she'd said the prayer of faith when she was twelve years old along with everyone else in the youth choir, she realized now that she hadn't really meant it. Yes, she knew Jesus was God's son, that He had died for her sins. But, like Pastor Collins had preached, even the demons have that little bit of information. The truth was, in the past, she'd wanted him to save her from the consequences of sin, not sin itself.
She'd made that Romans 3:16 confession in hopes of avoiding hell (and not hurting her mother's feelings), but not because she had any intention of making Jesus her Lord.
This time was different. “Jesus, I love you. I can't make it without You. I confess You as my savior, and I surrender myself to You. Thank You for standing in the gap until it all made sense. And thank you for making it make sense to me.” And then she thanked Him in tears as she marveled at His Excellency. His grace, which had paved the way and opened her ears to hear God's voice in a way she had never heard before.
Though she felt a lifetime has passed since the officer ushered her into this life-changing situation, the wall clock showed only twenty minutes had passed. Camille wiped her face dry and used her cotton shirt sleeve to clear the table as well. Yesterday was over. Today was the first day of the rest of her life. As soon as these people cleared her name, she'd walk out of the station, find Ronald, and tell him the whole truthâincluding the fact that she liked him more than she'd ever let on, more than she was willing to admit to herself because that might foil her master plan. Whatever happened after her confession ... well ... she'd leave that up to God.