Flaw Less (7 page)

—
Kina Battle

 

 

Lawson squatted on her bedroom floor that evening, sifting through the last of the clothes she, Garrett, and Namon were donating to their church's clothes drive. She was so engrossed in the task at hand that she didn't notice Garrett emerging from the hallway and into their bedroom.

“Well . . .” prompted Garrett.

Lawson looked at him over her shoulder. “Well, what?”

“Did it come? You know . . . Bloody Mary.”

“Wow, you're usually depressed this time of the month,” remarked Lawson and tossed aside a worn jacket. “Why the sudden euphoria over the prospect of seeing me in bloomers and flannels all week instead of lingerie?”

Garrett plunked down next to her. “For one, if Mary skipped our house this month like I'm hoping, we could be holding our baby a year from now.”

Lawson hated letting him down. “Not this time, honey; maybe next month.”

Garrett pressed his lips together and nodded. “I guess this gives us an excuse to keep trying every night, right?”

She rubbed his chest. “I hope you're not too disappointed.”

“It's not the news I wanted to hear,” he admitted, “but I know it'll happen soon. It probably takes awhile for your body to readjust after coming off birth control. The doctor said this could happen. It must be frustrating for you too. I know you want this baby as much as I do.”

Lawson started bagging up the clothes. “God doesn't put more on us than we can bear. At least, this gives me more time to concentrate on grad school.”

“Baby, I don't want you throwing yourself into work and school because you're not able to conceive. All that extra stress and pressure you're putting on yourself might be part of the problem.”

“I can handle it,” she told him. “The minute I do get pregnant, everything else will be put on hold. Until then, I should try to stay active. Speaking of being active, don't you and Namon have plans for tonight?”

“Kicking me out, huh?”

“Never that.” Lawson kissed him. “You know the girls are all meeting up here for a clothes-sorting party. We're going through everybody's stuff to get it organized for the clothes drive.” The doorbell rang. “That's probably them.”

“I hope it's more exciting than it sounds,” joked Garrett.

“With that crew, I'm sure it will be!”

 

 

The clothes carpeting Lawson's living room looked like fall leaves spread over the ground outside.

“Okay, we need to separate everything by colors and seasons,” directed Lawson. “Kina, you take all the summer stuff. Sully, you take spring. Angel, you get fall, and I'll take winter.”

Kina began gathering clothes. “You know we complain sometimes, but you can't look at all these clothes and
not
know we've been blessed. These are just the clothes that we don't want. It doesn't include what we still have in the closets.”

Angel nodded. “You're right, Kina. God is good.”

Lawson shuffled through the pile for winter clothes. “So, what's been going on in the lives of you girls today?” she inquired.

“I got a massage and a facial,” replied Sullivan. “I swear . . . that Jennifer can work miracles with my pores.”

Angel let out an exasperated sigh. “Of course, this isn't nearly as exciting as Sullivan's shrunken pores, but one of my patients died this morning. As a nurse, I'm glad to see him out of his misery, but it's never easy to see the toll death takes on the family.”

“Aw,” groaned Lawson. “I'm sorry to hear that, Angel.”

Angel smiled in gratitude. “Thank you, but to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. At least he's in peace now.” Lawson nodded, agreeing.

Kina cleared her throat, anxious to divert the conversation into another direction. “Umm . . . I met a lesbian.”

“Well, let's start with that, shall we?” spoke up Lawson with renewed interest.

Angel blinked back. “And just where and how did we meet said lesbian?”

“Power lesbians always have the best shoes,” Sullivan noted wistfully.

“Oh, they have powers now?” asked Lawson in a snarky tone.

Sullivan turned to Kina. “I don't know. Do they, Kina?”

Kina laughed. “Don't ask me! I said I
met
one, not that I
am
one! But Joan's cool. I like her.”

Sullivan shot her a side-eyed glance and muttered, “Yeah, I bet you do.”

“
As a friend!”
finished Kina, glaring at Sullivan. “We met at the gym and before I knew it, we were laughing and crying over our failed relationships and attempts at weight loss.”

Angel frowned. “You sure she wasn't just trying to hit on you?”

“Why would she be trying to hit on me?” asked Kina, offended by the assumption. “Do you assume that every
guy
who strikes a conversation is trying to hit on you?”

“Kina, look at me,” Sullivan scoffed. “Of course, I do.”

“I'm not saying that she's trying to turn you out,” clarified Angel. “I just think the whole thing is a little weird.”

Kina narrowed her eyes. “Why? Because she likes women? With the men being as crazy as they are, who can blame her?” Kina passed a quilt to Lawson. “Personally, I think everybody is a little bi-curious.”

“Not everybody,” insisted Sullivan, combing through the pile of spring clothes. “There ain't a woman in this world who can make me turn down a long, stiff—
ahem
—drink.”

“Amen!” Lawson concurred, slapping hands with Sullivan. They all joined Lawson and Sullivan in laughter.

Kina sidled up next to her. “You mean to tell me you've never checked another woman out before?” she asked playfully.

“No,” insisted Sullivan. “I believe everyone in here knows that I'm a huge fan of the shaft!”

Angel laughed. “If I look at a woman, it's in a
‘She's pretty'
or ‘
Her hair is fabulous!
' kind of way,” she revealed. “But not in the
‘I kissed a girl, and I liked it'
sense. I don't think you palling around with her is a good idea, Kina. You don't want to give the wrong impression.”

“What impression would that be: That I don't judge other people? That I accept people for who they are without trying to change them?” Kina shook her head. “I'm looking at who Joan is as a person, not which box she checks when asked about sexual orientation.”

“Just make sure she's not checking for
your box
—that's all I'm saying,” replied Sullivan.

Kina huffed. “Sullivan, that was very crass and uncalled for.”

Sullivan smacked her lips. “So is all this lesbian talk!”

“Avoid the appearance of evil
,” quoted Lawson. “Now that's all
I'm
sayin'.”

Kina's annoyance flared. “I'm hanging out with an adulterer, a teen parent, a stripper, and a woman who's shacking up with her ex-husband. Someone could make that same argument about all of you!”

“Don't get all sensitive, Kina,” piped in Sullivan. “You know what we mean.”

“I do, and that's the problem! I'm not going to shun this woman because we don't play for the same team. I couldn't care less who she sleeps with. I think it's sad you're not more open-minded, especially in this day and time.”

“The times don't have anything to do with what the Bible says is right and wrong,” asserted Lawson. “Now, I know that everyone here has made her fair share of mistakes and has broken more commandments than a few, but homosexuality is on a whole other level.”

“Don't tell me you're homophobic, Lawson,” countered Kina.

“No, Kina, I'm
Lord-a-phobic
.”

Kina shook her head. “Homosexuality isn't more or less of a sin than anything else. If you want to hate something, hate the sin, not the person.”

“I'm not saying I hate gays or anything like that. You know how crazy I am about Uncle James.”

“You mean
Miss Penelope
,” Kina corrected her. “He stopped going by James years ago.”

Lawson rose. “Whether he's Penelope or James, I'm still going to love him, but wrong is wrong. If the Bible calls it perversion, I do too. Do I have to remind you what 1 Corinthians says? ‘Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.'”

Kina cocked her head to the side. “What if you're born that way?”

“We're all born into sin,” disputed Lawson. “You can get born-again.”

Angel nodded in confirmation. “You better say it!”

Kina rolled her eyes. “Well, lesbian or not, Joan seems like a genuinely kind person who I would like to get to know better. There's nothing wrong with the two of us being friends.”

Angel raised an eyebrow. “The same way there's nothing wrong with a little bump and grind?”

“There will be no bumping
or
grinding,” maintained Kina. “Just a little coffee and conversation every now and then.”

Angel reached for more clothes to fold. “Just be careful about what you get yourself into. . . .”

“Or what gets into you!” added Sullivan.

Lawson held up a charcoal double-breasted wool coat and pressed it against her five foot two inch frame. “I'm surprised you're giving this away, Angel. It's beautiful.”

“Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen you wear this before.” Sullivan checked for the designer's label. “And I
know
I've never known you to invest in Burberry.”

“You would see me in it if Duke had his way,” murmured Angel. “This label says Burberry, but this is actually from the Theresa King collection.”

Lawson was surprised. “Wow, Duke finally decided to get rid of Theresa's old things. I think that a positive step in the right direction, don't you?”

“I would if he'd thought of it! You have no idea what an uphill battle it was to get him to agree to do it,” lamented Angel. “Did I tell you that he asked if I wanted to keep Theresa's clothes for myself?” She shook her head and continued to sort through the clothes. “The whole thing just weirds me out sometimes.”

“Maybe he's just sentimental,” suggested Kina.

“Maybe he's still in love with his dead wife!” spat Sullivan. Lawson and Kina glared at her with stone faces. “What? Was I not supposed to say that out loud? All of you were thinking it.”

“Duke's not in love with Theresa; he's in love with
me
,” contended Angel. “It's just taking all of them awhile to grieve. You have to give people the time and space to mourn in their own way.”

“You had to know this was going to be an issue, Angel,” voiced Sullivan. “He was married to you for two years, but he was married to her for nearly ten. They have children together, and if Theresa hadn't gotten sick, they'd probably still be married.”

“He wouldn't have asked me to marry him and move into his home if he didn't love me.”

Lawson stepped in. “We've never doubted Duke's love for you, Angel, but don't underestimate his love for Theresa either.”

“Dang, is this what it's come down to?” asked Kina. “I used to think women had to look out for anything in a skirt. Apparently, now we've got to be worried about anyone in the
dirt
too!”

Angel remembered her mother's warning given to her as a teenager. “Mama always said there are two people you can't compete with for a man's attention because you can never be either one of them: a white woman or another man. I'm starting to wonder if ‘dead wife' needs to be added to the list.”

“Angel, you know you don't have to put up with that, don't you?” rendered Sullivan. “You don't have to come second to any woman, especially not to a dead one who stole your husband! Duke's got a lot of nerve thinking he can treat you this way.”

Angel released a breath to calm down. “This is just the devil trying to plant doubt seeds and play with my mind. Duke and I will be okay. We're coming up on the anniversary of Theresa's death. Once we get through that and the holidays and really start planning this wedding, everything will go back to normal.”

Lawson flapped her lips. “Normal? What's that for any of us?”

Angel snickered. “Yeah, I know, right?”

Sullivan held up one of Miley's frilly baby dresses. “You mind if I keep this, Angel? It's adorable!”

“It's not really your size, Sully, or your style—the designer being OshKosh and all.”

“It's not for me, silly. I think it would look absolutely fabulous on Christian.”

“Christian?” repeated Lawson.

Sullivan nodded. “That's what I'm thinking of naming her . . . or him.”

Kina dumped a load of clothes out of a box and onto the floor. “Who's
her?
”

Sullivan put the dress to the side. “Our baby, of course.”

Lawson looked around the room, puzzled. “Did you and Charles procreate while I was in the kitchen?”

“No, but I have every confidence I'll be barefoot and pregnant by Christmas.”

“I think Christian is a beautiful name,” said Kina dreamily. “What better way to honor Christ?”