Tangie leaned in closer. “Ooh, for real? You rocked your best move like that? I tried to pull it off but it did not turn out right. I stuck the upside-down part but then I slid off the bed and right onto the floor. All I ended up with was a bump on my head and this. See, look at that carpet burn. I’ll leave all of that cartwheeling foolishness to you.”
“How many times have I told, it’s a handstand, not a cartwheel,” Dior scoffed playfully.
“That’s why that fool Tyson kept dropping me,” Tangie sighed. She began to reevaluate her decision to give up on pulling stunts of her own. “It was good seeing you again, Dior. I’d love to stay but I got to make a private call. I owe Tyson an apology and another shot at getting it right.” Tangie sprang from the table with her cell phone in hand and poised to press
SEND
. “Don’t be a stranger. Okay, bye.” She bent over for a quick cheek-to-cheek embrace then darted out hurriedly. “Handstand, maybe I should write that down.”
Dior remained at the coffee shop for a long while. She spent most of the evening sipping on overpriced chocolate syrup concoctions, flipping through wedding magazines, and marking the pages with the prettiest bridal gowns. She didn’t mind that Tangie had full knowledge of her sordid relationship with Giorgio. Her affair with Richard had potential, she’d decided. Selling men’s apparel paid the bills but she also envisioned herself living the lavish lifestyle afforded many of her client’s wives. She dreamed of jewelry boxes filled with exquisite stones and customized closets loaded to the gills with designer dresses and shelves aligned with imported handmade shoes. Dior had grown tired of faking it, rummaging through bazaars for knockoff gear and scouring department store clearance bins for cubic zirconium accessories. Richard was her ticket out of just scraping by and it was time to catch that train.
On Sunday morning Dior pulled her baby Beamer into the M.E.G.A. Church parking lot. She stepped out of the 3-Series BMW loaded for bear, with her mind set on bagging the top prize: Richard. Privately, he belonged to her. When they were alone, manipulation was easy. He fell for every sleight-of-hand maneuver, insistent whisper, and soft-talking proposition. Taking her merry-mistress show on the road was a first. If she adequately executed the plan to perfection, this opening act would be her last.
Dior sauntered past a slew of Mercedes and Lexus sedans littered throughout the vast parking lot on her way into the main foyer. White-gloved ushers greeted her as she viewed the broad area just outside of the auditorium entrance doors. After she captured the attention of several ushers bidding to accompany her to the balcony overflow section, Dior objected delicately, insinuating the balcony was simply unacceptable. She’d gone through too much trouble engineering the exact conditions to introduce herself to the other side of Richard’s world, the holy one he’d kept hidden from her. Dr. Pastor Richard Allamay, PhD, in all of his splendidly spiritual glory — that’s what Dior came to see. Of course she’d witnessed his charismatic stylings on the local television station since meeting him exactly twenty-seven days ago. Watching Richard on TV was a start, she’d determined, but this was his day, pastor’s day. Successfully unseating the current first lady called for taking a closer look at what could one day be hers.
When Dior batted her soft brown eyes just beneath her pink wide-brimmed hat, the male usher who had been awaiting her answer pursed his lips to keep his tongue from falling out of his mouth in the Lord’s house. “Normally, I wouldn’t mind sitting in the balcony,” she whispered, just this side of seductive, “but I’m a special guest of Pastor Allamay’s and he said I should be taken down front, no matter what time I arrived.” Dior flirted with the man again. She ratcheted up the heat with pouting lips and a come-hither leer. Like most men, the usher was defenseless against her sensual sighs humming in his ear like a sultry siren’s song. “I know you don’t want me to be late for the pastor’s message. He wouldn’t like that, not at all,” she contended finally.
So hurry up and get me within kissing distance
, she thought.
My man is down there and you’re in my way.
The young man watched as Dior ran her hands down the sides of her tight pink dress. It was a calculated measure to remind him that she wasn’t in the mood to be refused, on any level. With his eyes trained on her hips, the usher responded just as Dior knew he would. He treated her like a VIP when opening the doors to escort her down the main aisle. Heads swiveled when she followed the amicable attendant toward the second row, which was in direct opposition to protocol and seen as discourteous so close to the beginning of the minister’s address.
The auditorium at the Methodist Episcopal Greater Apostolic Church was filled to the rim. Dior’s first impression was that it didn’t appear nearly as ostentatious as it did on television — until she noticed the plush carpeting instead of worn-out linoleum she remembered as a child when being forced to attend Sunday service with her cousin’s family.
It sure is packed up in here
, she couldn’t help thinking.
Too bad there isn’t a cover charge. There must be 8,000 people on the hook. Let’s see, at ten bucks a head . . . that’s $80,000 a week, easy money. What if they threw in with the whole 10 percent thing? Oh man, that’s a lot of money.
In Dior’s estimations, the church was raking in close to two million dollars a month, not including cable TV rights and weekly DVD sales. Had she known membership contributions alone were four times as much and that Richard’s salary, including bonuses, exceeded $20,000 a month, she’d have fallen and bumped her head in front of all those people giving her a peculiar once-over.
Despite the host of video cameras and countless production personnel filming every movement in the pulpit, Dior had a feeling something was missing until it occurred to her. There were no rickety old hard-as-stone wooden pews — instead, the room had been custom-fitted with endless rows of comfortable, cloth covered, stadium-style chairs. It appeared the business of the day was entertainment, and she was being afforded a ring-side view. She imagined that becoming a woman of the Word, as opposed to the woman of the world she’d always been, might require some stick-to-itiveness and a couple of No Doz tabs because those cushioned chairs presented a surefire challenge to stay awake. That was before the curtain went up and the gospel hour began.
An enormous eighty-piece choir rose like a military platoon, on the command of the director of music. Dior, impressed with their pretentiousness and colorful robes, settled in for the concert. Anticipation grew as a very large man approached the microphone. Dior kept an eye on him amid intermittent glances to her immediate left. Nadeen occupied her designated throne in the front row, in the adjacent section. Dior buzzed inside when she recognized Richard’s wife, heavier than she envisioned and adorned in far less flamboyant regalia than she would have guessed. She caught Nadeen twice sneaking a peek at her. Each time, Dior returned the fleeting looks with subtle smirks. By the end of the choir’s second number, Nadeen’s glances grew increasingly more constant. Casual curiosity bordering on insecurity eventually morphed into unsettling contempt. Dior found it extremely amusing: a woman near her mother’s age obviously bothered by the presence of a beautiful stranger.
Let that be a lesson to you. You shouldn’t have let yourself go
, Dior wanted to shout in Nadeen’s direction.
It takes a bad chick like this to keep a man like yours.
There were some choice words popping into Nadeen’s head too. Because she was there to worship, other more productive thoughts quickly replaced them. She told herself to train her focus on the man and the message, not some tight-dress-wearing disruption. As the choir completed a stirring number, Richard came forward with unrivaled confidence. It lit a fire in Dior. With thousands looking on, he didn’t seem nervous at all. She would have hidden herself behind that podium like a frightened rabbit, but not him. He strolled into the limelight where he belonged, where he was adored, and exactly where Dior wanted him.
Hey Richard
, she said with her eyes when he flipped through the Bible for a specific passage.
You’re gonna be my babies’ daddy as soon as your marriage to that cow falls apart. The new and improved first lady, yeah that’s just my size and I love the way it fits.
Richard started in with his normal greeting. Nadeen was attentive as usual. She had her Bible open and at the ready to follow along with the sermon, but something gnawed at her, keeping her from concentrating. It surprised her when Richard nodded to the usher that it was alright with him to oblige the pretty lady in pink by sitting her among the most prominent members of the congregation and so close to the pulpit. Typically Richard was the consummate professional orator. He detested unnecessary interruptions when he preached, although he hadn’t actually begun his delivery then. The more she analyzed the odd occurrence, other things started appearing out of order as well, but Nadeen couldn’t resolve them without rehashing ugly business she had encountered previously.
During the past month, Richard had been distant to the point of acting out of character. He’d also been unseasonably tired and aloof. The week before, Nadeen said she could have sworn her husband was involved with another woman because nothing else made sense. Although she wasn’t certain of it, there was a knot the size of a softball tearing at the lining of her stomach and it was the one time she would have easily accepted having been wrong. Earlier that morning, Nadeen had complained to Richard about his behavior and restlessness, and a lack of romance in their relationship. After he’d almost convinced her that she was overreacting to what he called “a pampered woman’s guilt,” he balked at wearing his favorite red silk necktie. Since he’d worn the same colored power tie for the past six years on pastor’s day, his uncharacteristic banter about going in another direction and opening himself up to trying new things made her even more leery of the shaky ground supporting their marriage.
Unwittingly, Nadeen’s gaze drifted back to the woman in pink. She admired Dior’s figure and her style. The cut of her clothes was a tad too provocative for Nadeen’s taste, although she once understood the rationale for flaunting. Now she reasoned that not everything worth having had to be wrapped in a size-six frame. She had a husband, a God-fearing man, who had been satisfied with the full-figured woman he was married to — until lately. Richard was a good provider, who, in spite of a busy schedule, reserved quality time for his family — up until about a month ago. Nadeen had begun to draw some stark conclusions when she noticed Richard’s eyes glossing over the woman sitting in the fourth seat of the second row. Suddenly Nadeen found herself scoping out Dior’s toned legs and full breasts, sitting up too perfectly to be natural — at least that’s what envy forced her to believe. When Richard held his gaze on Dior for a fraction too long, Nadeen determined that this younger mystery lady, adorned in expensive labels, had pulled off a fashionably late entrance with a specific purpose in mind. It wasn’t long before Dior’s intentions became too obvious for Nadeen to overlook, try as she may.
Richard, standing tall and polished from head to toe, reached for a handkerchief from his inside breast pocket. He panned over the audience, welcomed them for the second time, and then made the extra effort to thank the crowd for helping him celebrate his day, the day set aside for the appreciation of his hard work. With his eyes now trained on Dior, he gestured toward her like an old friend. Dior’s lips rounded into a barely noticeable smile, and then she quickly tilted her head down, using that wide brim to shield her eyes. That sneaky move didn’t make it past Nadeen. She caught it like a bad cold.
Moments later, Richard sauntered nearer to the side of the aisle where Dior sat. She peered up at him as if they were the only two people in the entire arena. Richard placed his hand on his chest with his fingers outstretched, proclaiming how much he loved doing the Lord’s work. Nadeen felt her heart tighten when his gesture reminded her of the pink necktie he just had to wear that day, which happened to be the exact pattern and shade of Dior’s dress. Nadeen was utterly floored as the realization of what Richard had been up to and with whom became painstakingly obvious. It was hard to reconcile, but there it was. Her husband, the father of her children, was craving the attention of someone else. So much so that he didn’t mind parading her around his church family, in front of God and everybody.
Dior’s curiosity had gotten the best of her. She drew in a relaxed breath and turned her head partially to the left for what she thought would have been a stinging glare. Nadeen, forty-three last May and hiding the extra unwanted pounds with sturdy, quality fabrics, cast an inquisitive evil eye simultaneously. It resulted in a staredown of the ages. Neither woman blinked during what Richard later called the cold front to freeze hell over. Nadeen was appalled by the brazen disrespect of the vixen she assumed Dior to be. On the other hand, being the kind of woman who wasn’t all that quick to lie down and roll over, Nadeen winked then tossed a leer across the aisle to signify what she thought:
You need to go and find another sandbox to play in, little girl, because I don’t plan on sharing mine.
Although Dior blinked first, her resolve appeared impenetrable. Her lips tightened ever so slightly to hold in what she wanted to pledge aloud.
Oomph, all of that winking is gonna look mighty silly when you realize I took your man. Be nice and maybe I’ll let him come home at a decent hour when I’m get finished.
Nadeen was seething now. She lowered her eyes, contemplating the changes in Richard’s demeanor and the way he looked at this mystery lady with a sizable level of interest. His glance lasted an iota too long. There was certainly a haughty degree of recognition. He knew her. How well, Nadeen was afraid to guess. Richard had chosen this woman’s necktie over any of the previous gifts purchased by his wife. Nadeen felt sick to her stomach at the thought of being pushed aside for a newer model. Although Richard began his dissertation, she couldn’t get past her internal discord to hear it.