CHAPTER 31
T
onya and Courtney waited in the periphery, giving the family choice, covered seating at the military burial grounds. Alexis's father's service in the army resulted in a dignified, proud salute to Alexis, her mother, and her brother. The American flag, presented after two soldiers meticulously folded the symbol of freedom, was the final portion of the memorial ceremony for Mr. Nevils.
The funeral directors thanked the family and allowed the mourners a few moments to comfort the family before corralling Alexis, Mrs. Nevils, and other close relatives back into the limousines and back for the repast.
Neither Tonya nor Courtney had had the opportunity to really embrace Alexis yet. She'd been so crowded by people who were, obviously, closer than the old Sweet Treats gang. Still, they wanted her to know they cared. Since their virtual meeting last month, they'd been in touch regularly. Kyra had wanted to make the funeral, too, but her own father had surgery scheduled. Someone should have called Camille, probably, but no one ever got around to it. The one person who would have made sure it happened was too overwhelmed with grief and funeral plans to concern herself to stop to make contact with Camille.
Mr. Nevils's swift death had caught Alexis by surprise. It was no secret that he wasn't in the best of health. Still, she'd expected some kind of warning. Several days in a hospital, some drifting in and out of consciousness so she would have a clue that it was time to start saying good-bye. But, when she really thought about it, she knew she was only being selfish. Her father had passed away in his sleep. No machines, no needles, no tubes. Everybody wants to go like that. Even the doctor said her father probably felt little or no pain, though she wondered if he was just saying that to make her feel better.
Courtney knew all too well that the hardest part, the days after all the cards and meals subsided, would prove to be the toughest days. Because he knew Alexis would need his comfort more then than now, he'd almost decided to stay home from the funeral and simply contact her in a few weeks. But his wife had convinced him otherwise.
“It means a lot to the family to see an audience full of people,” Monique had said. “Even if she doesn't remember seeing your face, she'll see your name in the guest book later.”
Since money wasn't a problem, Courtney saw no reason not to buy the airline ticket and skip up to St. Louis for a day to be there for Alexis. A long time ago, neither he nor any of the Sweet Treats would have imagined not attending the funeral. Now that they were about to all get back in the swing of things, he knew this was the right thing to do.
Back at the church, the fellowship hall quickly filled with loud-talking, friendly, famished church folk. Courtney and Tonya waited their turn to pass through the serving line. He smiled at the oversized helpings of mashed potatoes and green beans the hospitality crew piled onto his plate.
“Thank you,” he said to a woman who'd done double duty as an usher during the ceremony. He remembered the days when his mother played the piano, transported flowers, and poured punch after funerals. Like these women, she had given her life over to good works in Jesus's name. He'd been blessed to find a wife with the same heart, and Monique was doing a good job of handing down the tradition to their own daughter, Jamia, who took great pride in caring for her dolls. Nurturers, the both of them.
He had been a nurturer, too. Always looked out for his little sister, until she burned him. Alexis and Tonya weren't the only ones who'd been pressuring him to move beyond this thing with Camille. Monique had joined the battle. “One of these days, you're going to realize how much you and your sister need each other,” she had predicted more than once. “I just hope you don't come to that epiphany too late.”
He hoped the same thing, too. Seeing Mr. Nevils in that casket made Courtney think of his own father. Bobby Junior wouldn't be here forever. Right now, his father was the last good memory leftover from childhood. Momma was gone. Camille estranged. He had his family with Monique, of course, but there's nothing like hanging with the people you played hide-and-go-seek with. If he hadn't spent his young-adult years trying to build his sister's career, he might have a few homeboys. Fact was, he'd given up his early twenties to make sure his sister turned out fine.
Hmmm. Maybe he had something in common with the church ladies after all.
“Dang, Tonya, we probably could have split one plate,” he joked as they grabbed cups of tea at the final serving station before returning to their seats.
“I know, right?”
Courtney took note of the fine lines gathering in the corners of Tonya's eyes. Probably from lack of sleep. All that time on the road can age a person prematurely. Coupled with the fact that Tonya had to be at least thirty now, Courtney realized how much time had passed since he'd been in her company.
He wondered how Camille was aging. Alexis had said his sister was broke. Lack of money and health insurance can wreak havoc on a person's body. Bad teeth, pot-marked cheeks, dark fingernailsâall the visible signs of hard living in America.
As the guests dined and left, Courtney and Tonya approached Alexis and her mother at the front table. Flanked by so many comforters, Courtney didn't think Alexis had even seen them in the crowd. However, she fussed at them for taking so long to give her hugs. “I saw y'all come in church! You should have sat closer.”
“Naw, girl. That's for the family,” Tonya said, pulling Alexis into a full hug.
Alexis released some of her grief on Tonya's shoulder.
Courtney completed the embrace, holding both girls in place for a moment. “It will get better. I promise,” he whispered.
Alexis switched to his shoulder now, drawing on the comfort his experience with losing a parent had to offer. “I'm so glad you decided to bring us back together. Daddy said he didn't want me to put my life on hold anymore for him and Momma. Singing again will help me get through, I think.” She collected herself and looked over Courtney's shoulder. “Where's Camille?”
“I didn't get a chance to call her,” Courtney stretched the truth.
“You didn't call her?” Alexis scowled.
“No, Lexi. I'm sorry.”
“Daddy really liked Camille, you know. He said she was a scrappy something.” Alexis laughed.
“He was right about that,” Courtney had to agree. No one had ever called his sister timid. “But don't worry. I'll call her soon.”
“You'd better,” Alexis said. “Life is too short.”
CHAPTER 32
A
n hour later, without so much as an apology, an administrative worker opened the door, handed Camille her purse, and said, “Clerical error. Computers are only as good as the people usin' 'em. You can go.”
Camille dried the last drops from her eyes and rose to her feet a new woman in Christ. Before she could even get out of the room good, a negative murmur nagged inside her head.
Don't kid yourself. Everybody gets saved in jail. Now that you're out, you'll go back to your old ways.
She found herself arguing with the voice internally.
No! I am not the same!
Yes, you are. You and everybody else who calls on Jesus when they're in trouble.
The same clerk who'd greeted her when she first got to the station interrupted the mental battle. “Here's a printout of your payments, in case someone tries to bring you in again.
“Under the circumstances, I can have an officer transport you home if need be.”
She fought the urge to make a sarcastic comment. It was their fault. A ride home was the least they could provide. “I'll take you up on the offer, thank you.”
“What's your address?”
Camille answered promptly.
“Did your car get towed?” the woman asked next.
“No. A friend drove it for me.”
“Okay. Have a seat. I'll find somebody who's going out to that part of town for you. We've always got people in
your
hood.”
Already, people were trying to make her go off. Couldn't they let her get back to her apartment first?
The trip home didn't help. She'd always guessed officers were turning on their lights and sirens so they could speed through intersections for no reason. Now she had proof. Officer McGinnis couldn't have been a better stereotype of a policeman. He had a dirty mouth, a lead foot, and he'd obviously consumed way too many free donuts. Still, Camille felt an uncharacteristic compassion for him. For as much trouble as all these men of the law had been to her, she realized they had a tough job. They'd seen people mangled in accidents, shot as a result of violence. And each of them risked their lives every day.
She bit her tongue about his rogue driving and thanked him when he dropped her off.
“Sorry about that mix-up, ma'am,” he said with a belch.
“No problem. Just remember me if you ever pull me over,” she joked.
He winked at her, bearing a smile she hadn't expected from him. “Sure thing.”
Cat made a beeline to Camille upon entrance.
Meow! Meow! Meow!
“Hey, you.” Camille threw her bag on the kitchen counter, slipped out of her too flat flats, and sat to allow Cat his routine rub. Cat, however, had something else in mind. He stood at the door to her bedroom and bellowed his little heart out.
Camille got up from the couch and made her way to the animal, feeling as though she was having a
Lassie
moment. The way he was carrying on, she honestly wondered if Cat could tell something different about her.
Really, it wasn't that deep. It was that
gross,
however. There, in the space where her feet hit the floor when she got out of bed, was a dead mouse. “Eeew!” Camille shrieked.
Cat looked up at her like he'd done something good.
“Cat! You did that!” She visually searched for traces of blood around his mouth. Nothing. Must have been a clean kill.
“Cat, you can't be killing stuffâ”
Then it hit her: Cat never left her unit. If Cat killed a mouse, the mouse must have been
inside
her apartment. “Oh my God,” she said, and not in vain, either. She needed God's help for real if there were mice in her apartment. Spiders and ants she could deal with. Mice and roaches, however, were another story.
The spiders had done their job to keep the roaches away. And good ole cat was on duty looking out for mice. Good thing he slept right under her bed most nights, too. “Good job, Cat.” He deserved a raise, and God deserved some praise because there was a very good chance she would have jumped out the window and almost broken her neck trying to escape the terrifying jaws of a mouse.
After disposing of Cat's trophy, Camille washed her hands thoroughly, then came back to her room for some more time alone with God. Those negative, doubtful whisperings had scared her. She needed more of Him. She refrained from praying bedside, however. Surely God knew her enough to understand her aversion to getting on the floor for a while. As she curled up with the comforter and closed her eyes, she couldn't help but envision herself snuggled in her Father's arms. Ronald, the church, the choirs, Brittney, her car, her job. All that would have to wait. A sweet peace surrounded her that midmorning, lulling her into a post-drunken-like sleep. And, for the first time in a long time, she slipped into an undisturbed nap.
Â
A late-afternoon splash of sun gently woke Camille. Ravenous, she charged to her kitchen for a bite to eat. After fixing a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup, she checked her cell phone. Four missed calls from Sheryl. None from Ronald. Two voice messages, presumably from Sheryl, and a text from Mercedes that there would be no evening rehearsal due to preparations for the ministers' wives conference.
First things first. Might as well call Sheryl and get it over with. If Camille was unemployed, she needed to know so she could mosey on down to her nearest temporary agency as soon as possible.
Camille decided to bum rush with an apology. “Sheryl, let me first say that I am sooo sorry. I had an early-morning appointment at a recording studio. Then my car got towed, I ended up at the police station becauseâ”
“Uh, you can stop now. You don't owe me any explanations. You've been released of your duties here at Aquapoint Systems due to job abandonment.” She added under her breath, “The way the economy is, you'd think people would want to hold on to a job. But not you, for some odd reason.”
Camille had been prepared for the axe and some kind of smart-mouthed commentary from her boss, but job abandonment was not quite the label she wanted to have slapped on her personnel file. A brief gig in a human resources office had opened Camille's eyes to the fact that while employers couldn't legally bad-mouth former employees, they could share the official reason for termination. Job abandonment was as bad as having bad credit. “I did
not
abandon my job,” Camille argued. “Don't I have to miss, like, three days in a row for it to be considered abandonment?”
Sheryl huffed. “Oh, now you want to play by the rules?”
“I've been playing by the rules.” She'd bent them, yes, but not broken them. And, in the spirit of a good employee, she'd used her earned time off to handle her personal business. Sheryl might not have liked her using all those days off for un-feline-related matters, but they were her days off to use them for whatever she wanted. No different than someone taking off two weeks' vacation.
“Fine,” her former boss spat. “I'll make the change, but you're still fired. You'll get a severance offer in the mail. I'll FedEx the contents of your desk.”
“Thank you.”
“And take care of the cat, for goodness sake,” she added with a hint of compassion.
“I will.”
Camille hung up the phone and waited for the pang of panic to swing through her body. Any moment now, she'd turn hysterical. Round up all the CDs in her trunk and stake out a corner in the Walmart parking lot so she could sell music until someone reported her to the store's manager.
But the sense of fright never came. The blanket of peace God had spread over her at the police station remained. She would be all right, one way or another.
Directly across from her hung the picture commemorating her first official date with Ronald. The fruit bowl on a pedestal. She giggled at the memory. Hers still looked better than his, but now that she thought about it, Ronald's had more character. Hers was nearly perfect, stroke for stroke. If she recalled correctly, his short pedestal made the picture a bit more curious, called for a closer analysis.
She could only hope now that Ronald would value her imperfections as much as he'd appreciated the variance in their artwork.
“Hi, Ronald,” she greeted him on the phone.
“Hey. You all right?”
“Yeah. They fixed the problem and released me.”
She was glad to hear him breathe a sigh of relief. He must have been concerned about her. “Thanks for taking my car.”
“No problem. I'll have someone follow me to your place after work.”
Not exactly what she'd had in mind. She didn't want a third party privy to their impending conversation, assuming that Ronald would listen to what she had to say. “No, I don't want to put you through any more trouble. If it's ... okay with you, I'd like to come get my car later this evening. At your house.”
She had to admit to herself that sounded pretty bold. And imposing. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Even if Ronald couldn't forgive and forget, she wanted him to know how he had watered a seed within her heart. He deserved that commendation. If his lifestyle had half the impact on Brittney that it had on a mere choir member, his daughter would be just fine.
No, a drop-off wouldn't do. He needed to hear her out, for his sake more than hers. “Ronald, I'd really like to talk to you. I need to explain.”
“No, you don't. I should have listened to the Spirit when we first met. I let my feelings for you get in the way. That's my fault, not yours.”
The
Spirit
? Okay, now she was curious. Flattered that he had feelings for her, of course, but leery of what the Spirit had told him about her. Did He say that she was a Jezebel? A Delilah? A Bathsheba who would cause him to reap a heap of trouble over time? “Ummm ... what exactly did the Spirit say about me?”
“I don't feel like talking about this right now. Probably never will, really.”
Camille's eyes closed as the finality of his words beat against her heart. They wanted in, wanted to quench the glimpse of hope she'd begun to kindle over these past weeks with Ronald. No, they hadn't made any official claims about their relationship. Every couple starts somewhere, though. He'd even called her “babe” just this morning. “Babe” had to count for something.
“Ronald, I
am
sorry about everything. When I first joinedâ”
“Camille, I have to go now. I'm pretty busy. Maybe another time. I'll drop off your car and leave the keys under your mat. Bye.”
So, this was cut-off-Camille day. No-second-chances-for-Camille national recognition, eh? She dragged herself to the couch and took the head seat at her pity party. Cat responded to the invitation, rubbing his head against her side, then curling up into a ball to enjoy the festivities.
Why do bad things always happen to me? Why can't I have a regular life like everybody else?
Then she thought about her questions and realized the very thing she
hadn't
wanted in life was a regular life. She wanted a spectacular, superstar life. The champagne, caviar, private jet lifestyle.
In all the day's craziness, her hopes and dreams had changed.
Would a regular life be so bad?
She sank into the cushions, let her head fall back, and imagined what her life would be like if she became complacent with a regular-people life. She would get up every day, go to work, come home, check on Cat, go to choir rehearsal, church on Sunday. If Ronald actually listened to her one day, they might start going out again. A movie here, dinner there, ice skating. Dare she imagine that, one day, they'd get married. Finish raising Brittney, maybe have some kids of their own. Go to soccer games, piano recitals. Cat would eventually die. Ronald would eventually die, right along with everyone else.
Then what? Nothing. No huge funeral, no memorial erected in her honor, no television documentary or
Unsung
special on TV One. Just eighty-something years of sucking up oxygen, blowing out carbon dioxide. She'd be gone and forgotten just like every other person who'd ever walked the planet.
This wouldn't do. She was born to sing, and something deep inside Camille wouldn't let her forget this fact. But she couldn't go back to her old lifeâhustling and bustling to try to make it happen. If God put her here on this earth to sing,
He
was going to have to give her an outlet for this gift before it drove her crazy.
Camille slumped to the floor and rolled onto her knees. “God, show me your purpose for my life. You know I love to sing, and I know You blessed me with a beautiful voice. Show me how You want me to use it, and I'll do what You say. In Jesus's name, Amen.”
It was all up to Him at his point. Somewhere, she'd read a scripture about God finishing what He'd started in His people. Though she had no idea where to find this promise in the Word, she felt certain that she'd heard it before. If not from her Sunday school teacher, definitely from her mother. And now that she'd turned everything over to His capable hands, she had the faith to believe He would come through. No one else had. It had to be His way or nothing at all.