Queen Bee Goes Home Again (32 page)

“Tommy, what's wrong?” Carla asked as he steadied the Mame.

“Here, Mama.” He drew Miss Mamie back to her seat. “Lin's got company. Why don't we all keep Connor entertained till she's back.” He glared at me. “Very quickly, I would hope.”

Connor's gaze darted from one of us to the other, then settled on me. “Go ahead, Lin. I'll be here when you're done.”

Tommy rolled his eyes. “Let's hope so.”

Wary, I got up and headed for the foyer. As I approached, I made out a suit-clad man looking out the front window, his figure silhouetted by the sun, a huge bouquet of flowers wrapped in pink paper tucked into his arm.

Then he turned and spoke, and I almost keeled over. “Hi, Lin. It's me. I've come to apologize and beg you to take me back.”

“Phil?”

No! Not now! Not today. Not ever!

My wayward ex approached me, proffering what I could now see were red tulips, my very favorite. Until that moment.

“I had a conversion,” Phil said. “I'm not the man I was. And I want you to take me back.”

God had just dropped the A-bomb.

I faced Phil, my doubts about Connor evaporating as if they'd never existed. The two men didn't even function in the same dimension.

“Let me be the man you deserve,” he said with clear sincerity. “We made a vow to God that I broke, but I want to make it right.”

He'd never humbled himself for anyone, let alone me, yet there he was. I stood there, wanting to run, wanting to scream. But the husband of my youth had just come back, supposedly transformed, and asking my forgiveness.

Where was my forgiveness now? All I felt was panic and anger. “What about your mistress?” the worst in me spat out. “How does
she
feel about this?”

Phil's mouth tightened into a line, then he told me, “She left me. That was part of my conversion. When that happened, I finally understood what I'd done to you.”

Because his
mistress
had dumped him? Please!

Outrage exploded inside me and I felt my expression harden with rage.

Conversion, hah! A snake is a snake is a snake. “Get out.”

“Please give me a chance to make it up to you,” he kept on pleading. “To be the man you deserve. Lin, you were the best thing that ever happened to me, but I was an idiot and took it all for granted. I threw us away with both hands.”

“Along with all our money, and then some,” I retorted. “Leaving me destitute.”

“You have every right to hate me,” he said with convincing contrition. “If I could take it all back, I would, but that's not possible. But I swear, I'm not the man I was. I've been changed, and I want you back more than anything. Please give me a chance to show you.” Tears welled in his eyes. “I'm the husband of your youth. We belong together.”

No! No, no, no! God, how can You let this happen? You know I love Connor.

My inner Puritan whispered,
But weren't willing to take on what comes with him.

Was that what this was about? Penance, because I didn't want to be a holy man's wife?

Cruel. Cruel, cruel, cruel.

Phil dropped to his knees before me. “I beg you, Lin. Give me another chance. Just a chance to prove myself.”

He'd already done that. Dumped by his mistress, indeed.

“I'm seeing someone,” I heard my voice mince out.

Clearly astounded, Phil scrambled to his feet. “Really? Who?”

Once again, he revealed himself. Shocked that anybody would want to date
me
.

“If you must know, he's a Baptist minister.”

Phil actually laughed, just as I would have if anybody had said I'd date a Baptist minister before I'd met Connor. “And he doesn't care that you're divorced?” Phil challenged, showing his stripes.

“No.” I didn't want to elaborate, but my compulsion to justify myself kept talking. “He's divorced, too.”

Phil shook his head. “Goodness. The Baptists have changed.”

Then, as if he were slipping a mask back on, he went humble again. “What's his name? I'd like to talk to him, if that's okay.”

“His name is Connor,” Miss Mamie's voice declared from the dining room.

Traitor! “Miss Mamie!” Why in heaven's name was she butting in? “This is a private conversation!” Alas, no more.

“Where does this Connor live?” Phil pried, a spark of the old darkness in his eyes.

“Next door,” Miss Mamie called back, accompanied by the sound of a scuffle. Tommy, no doubt, trying to drag her back into the kitchen. Fainter than before, she sent one final parting shot. “He's in the kitchen!” The last word was muffled midway.

“So he's here.” Phil started stepping backward into the dining room. “Why don't we see what he has to say about this?”

The last thing in this God's green earth I wanted was a confrontation between my ex-husband and the man I loved. Especially with Phil claiming to have been converted—noticeably without mentioning Jesus.

“Lin,” he said as he backed toward the door, “I broke our vows, but I want to make it right.”

Before he reached the door, it swung open and Tommy shoved Connor out of the kitchen.

Connor recovered his dignity while Phil looked him over like a hungry lion spotting a lame gazelle. He stuck out his hand, taking Connor's, then clasping Connor's forearm as they shook, a clear dominance gesture. “So you're Connor,” he purred. “I'm Lin's husband, Phil.”

“Ex-husband,” I corrected, my arms still filled with tulips.

Visibly shaken, Connor looked to me. “What's this all about, Lin?”

Phil answered before I could. “I've been converted, seen the light,” Phil declared, “and I want to make it up to Lin. She's the wife of my youth, and I want to marry her again, but this time, as the husband God wants me to be.”

Connor went deadly still.

I rushed over to take his hand. “I explained to Phil that we're seeing each other.”

Connor's hand was cold as ice in my warm one, but he returned my grip with equal strength, binding us together. Then he let go and stepped back.

No! No.

I didn't know which was worse, having to deal with Phil, or Connor's desertion.

Phil straightened, a few inches taller than Connor, and faced him squarely. “As Jesus said in Matthew five, thirty-two: ‘Anyone who divorces his wife except for unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery,'” Phil recited with deceptive gentleness. He cocked his head at Connor. “Is that what you want for Lin, or yourself?”

I shuddered, watching Phil use scripture as a weapon.

Connor let out a harsh sigh, then looked down. When he looked back up at Phil, his expression radiated pain and confusion. “I'll have to pray about this.”

I grasped his upper arms. “But we have a date. Today. Please, Connor, don't let Phil ruin this. He's already ruined my life once. Don't let him do it again. Help me. We love each other.”

Connor gazed long into my face with infinite compassion. “You are the wife of his youth. He has repented.”

Phil stood back, smug in his silence. The damage had been done.

“No,” I argued. “He says so, but what if he's lying? What if this is all some self-serving ploy?”

Connor smoothed back the hair from my forehead, then wiped the tears from my cheek with his thumb. “What if he's telling the truth?”

I curled against Connor, willing him to put his arms around me to protect me from Phil. “He's lying. He always lies.” I wept into his shoulder.

Connor exhaled heavily, his arms still at his sides. “Before things go any further between us, we both need to know the answer.” He stepped away from me. “I have to pray about this, and so do you.” He shot a look at Phil. “God's will be done.” Then he left.

Wimp! Why wouldn't he fight for me?

Phil came closer, as if claiming me as his prize, but before he got too close, I shoved the flowers into his arms, then hauled off and slapped the molasses out of him.

Major ouch! I waggled my hand to ease the sting.

But instead of reacting with anger, as I expected, he laid down the flowers, then stepped back, his hand to his cheek. “I deserved that, and more. Get it out of your system, Lin. I can take it. But I'm not going away. I can't. We belong together.” He started for the door. “I'll call you, after you've had some time to think this over.”

He stood in the open doorway, letting in a cool breeze. “I love you, Lin. Just the way you are. I was a fool ever to have betrayed that.”

Then he left, getting into a very expensive Mercedes convertible and driving away.

Ruined. He'd ruined everything.

I sank to my knees and sobbed.

Then, in the fog of pain and disappointment, a single question formed, clear and distinct, in Connor's voice:
What if Phil was telling the truth?

Everything inside me rebelled at the possibility, but my soul told me I needed to know God's will in this, not my own.

Phil had challenged me with the one thing I couldn't deny. We had promised God to stay together till death parted us, and when I'd divorced, I had broken that vow, too. Hadn't I?

Forgive, and be free,
Connor's voice echoed in my head.

God, I can't. Help. Help me. Help!

What was I supposed to do now?

When no answer came, I forced myself erect, then went out the front door and headed for my apartment. Once there, I locked the door, pulled off my jeans, then crawled into bed, planning to stay there forever.

No brandy this time. No ice cream. Just denial.

 

Forty-seven

This time, I lasted five days. The good news was, I lost eight pounds. The bad news was, my classes started on the sixth.

So on the morning of the fifth, I took my minivan to the office supply store near the mall and bought a rolling briefcase big enough to hold my books. Then I set about rehabilitating myself: the works at Flora's, then a mani-pedi. Then I found some black, slim-leg Levi's stretch jeans on sale for twenty-five dollars a pair at JC Penney, and a cute jacket on sale at Chico's. Which led to a sassy new pair of comfortable Life Stride flats at Shoes R Us.

Armored to face academia, I laid out my clothes for the next morning, then nuked my supper. The bell went off just as a knock sounded at my door.

Connor?

I rose, heart pounding.

But it wasn't Connor. Tommy stood on the tiny stoop, dwarfed by a glass cylinder packed with tulips, purple this time. He barely had room to let me open the screen door.

Inside, he plunked the vase on the counter. “We're running out of room. He sends 'em twice a day. Must cost a fortune.”

I groaned, then stepped on the garbage can pedal to open the lid, and dropped the whole thing inside, slamming the top over stems and blooms alike.

Tommy nodded. “I get that, oh, yes, I do.”

Then he motioned for me to sit, moving behind me to get my supposedly healthy dinner out of the microwave. “Here. Eat. You look scrawny.”

“Scrawny?” I protested. “I'll have you know, I fit comfortably into a size twelve pair of jeans today. I couldn't wear a size twelve when I was twelve.”

“You've got big bones,” he said.

True.

He reached into the refrigerator for a couple of bottles of cold spring water. Handing me one, he sat facing me at the little table, then took a long swig of his own. “So. Are you excited about tomorrow?”

I looked down, toying with my fake mashed potatoes. “Phil pretty much took the wind out of my sails about anything.”

“I hear that,” he said with sympathy. “But you're making a new beginning tomorrow. Nobody can take that away from you, not if you choose otherwise.”

I nodded, wishing I could muster up some enthusiasm, but still feeling dead inside. “Actually, I'm looking forward to the distraction.”

Tommy took another swig of cold water. “Good stuff.”

Then he told me what he'd come to say. “Miss Mamie's really sorry for butting in. I tried to stop her, but she had the notion that Connor would stand up for you and send Phil packing.”

An elephant sat on my sternum. “Unfortunately, Phil used scripture to do the opposite.”

“I heard,” Tommy admitted. “Made me want to puke.”

And Connor hadn't stood up to him.

Tears welled at the backs of my eyes, surprising me. I'd thought I'd cried them all away. “Can we not talk about this?”

“Sorry.” Tommy patted my hand. “The Mame has decided to make it up to you by having a maid two days a week, so you can study and Carla can work.”

“Wow.” I'd already forgiven her. It was God and Phil I was having trouble with. And Connor. “That's really putting her money where her mouth is.”

“Actually, I brought in a friend of mine who's a male nurse. Straight. Thirty. Tall. Good-looking. Works four ten-hour days at the hospital, then picks up extra cash cleaning houses, so he can buy his own place with cash before he's forty. He does really well, because he actually follows instructions.” He waggled his brows. “And treats old ladies like queens. He had the Mame in the palm of his hand from the moment he cleaned the sink just the way she told him to.”

I couldn't help smiling at the picture that evoked. “Good for him. And her.”

“So you'll be free to study,” he concluded.

“All I want to do is study. Not think. Not pray. Just study and learn.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

I stood, then bent to hug my brother's shoulders from behind. “I sure am glad you're here.”

Tommy patted my arms. “You, too, Sissie-ma-noo-noo.” He faced me. “The world's a bigger place than your skin, Lin. And it doesn't start and stop on this block. There's lots waiting for you out there.”