When the Fairytale Ends (7 page)

After services were over, Greg laughed and joked with some of the students. Interacting with the youth made him feel energized and alive. He felt his iPhone vibrate in his pocket and saw that it was Shania. She must've been looking for him. He answered as he made his way down the hall and up the stairs to meet his wife. He told her that he was en route and ended the call.
When he walked into the church vestibule, he had to stop and greet one member after the other. It wasn't until a woman with a familiar face caught his eye that he thought about the woman from the bike dealership, the one with the body carved out of a fantasy. He stared at the brown-eyed, black-haired woman for the longest time and could almost swear that it was the woman from the dealership. But something about her looked… different. This woman didn't have that look of danger in her eyes. And plus, the woman at the dealership had curly brown hair with blond highlights. This woman's hair was jet-black. And even in the modest white dress she was wearing, he could tell that she had a nice shape, but it was nothing like the hourglass figure that had turned every head at the dealership.
To his surprise, he watched as the woman headed over to Mother Washington, and he watched as Mother Washington hugged her tight, rocking her from side to side, as though she had known this woman for a very long time. With unanswered questions eating at him, Greg continued staring at the woman until her eyes just happened to catch his. In her eyes, he saw no recognition. There was no way this could be that same woman from the dealership. She had recognized him from the church instantly, even in his casual weekend gear. So he knew she would recognize him in the congregation.
Perturbed, Greg decided to drop the issue and scanned the congregation for his wife and Franklin. Franklin was still nowhere in sight, but Sister Catherine and her three kids were already sitting on the fourth row from the front. He saw his wife standing in the hallway, accompanied by Jonathan and Cheyenne. He greeted a few more members, making sure to give the women innocent church hugs, then made his way over to his wife. All the while he couldn't stop thinking about that woman. He wondered who the woman was that looked so much like the woman from the dealership. Or was it the same woman? If it was her, what kind of game was she playing with him?
Five
“Greg's on his way,” Shania explained to Cheyenne and Jonathan.
They stood in the hallway outside of the sanctuary next to the water fountain. Shania observed people as they entered the church. Some of the older women were dressed in colorful suits and hats of varying sizes. Most of the men wore dress shirts with slacks; a few had on suits and ties. She saw a cute little boy wriggling his hand, trying to free himself from his mother's grip. She smiled as she imagined herself in a similar predicament one day with the son she hoped to have.
Turning away, she spotted Greg walking toward her with a troublesome expression on his face. She hoped that the kids at youth church hadn't been too hard on him. Dealing with the youth could be unpredictable. Those kids tended to be more moody than a woman going through menopause.
“There's Greg,” Shania announced.
Cheyenne and Jonathan looked in his direction.
“I hope you guys weren't waiting too long,” Greg said as he approached. He then kissed Shania on the cheek.
“Not that long,” Shania assured him. “You all right?”
He took a sip from the water fountain and dabbed his mouth on his shirt sleeve. “Yeah, I'm okay.” He exhaled. “We talked about some heavy stuff today in youth church.”
Shania gave him a half smile, but something in his expression still worried her. “It's tough being a kid these days. They're forced to grow up so fast.”
Greg nodded his head. He touched her lower back, sending a shiver up her spine, and ushered her into the sanctuary with Cheyenne and Jonathan following behind. Something in his demeanor still struck her as disturbed and distant, but she decided to let it go. At least for now.
They took their seats in the front row, greeting the people sitting around them. Services started with praise and worship, followed by the congregational scripture reading. When they finished, it was time for altar prayer. After a couple of songs performed by the choir, the congregation acknowledged visitors and gave their tithes and offering. Then the pastor came out and delivered a powerful sermon titled “The Kind of Friends That Are Dangerous.” The pastor preached from the book of Job and gave a breakdown of Job's friends. He then told the congregation to walk in integrity wherever they were, because God saw what they were doing. He encouraged the people to hold on and trust God. If people waited on God, He would go after their adversaries.
Shania stood to her feet and shouted, “Preach, Pastor!” She knew that he was speaking the truth.
After services ended, they hugged some of the members and wished them well before heading out. Greg walked with Shania, Cheyenne, and Jonathan to Shania's Range Rover, and he held the door open for her. He leaned in and pecked her cheek, then said, “I'll meet you at the house later.”
She frowned at him. “Where're you going?”
Greg reached across her and buckled her in. “Franklin didn't come to church today, so I'm going to swing by there and check up on him.”
“Really?”
He frowned at her. “Are you mad?”
She wiggled her hands in the air. “No, I'm not mad, per se. I'm just not feeling this aura, this vibe you're putting out in the air. What's wrong with you? You've been acting strange all morning.”
“And what's wrong with you?” he tossed back. “You've been having a real funky attitude lately.”
Shania glared at him and ignored the gasps and whispers that reached her ears from the front and backseat passengers. “Move out of my way so I can close my door, please.”
“Babe,” he said and reached out for her hand. He held her hand and gave it a squeeze before placing a kiss across her knuckles. “I'm sorry, okay? I just . . . I have a lot on my mind.”
She tilted her head to the side. “You want to talk?”
“Maybe later.” He thumped the roof of the car, then stepped out the way so he could close the door. “I'll meet you at the house later.”
She knew that whatever was on Greg's mind would eat at her until they finally talked about it and put it out in the open. For now, she would let the situation rest.
During the drive home, Shania struck up a conversation with Cheyenne. Although they talked on the phone daily, having Cheyenne at home meant the world to Shania, even if it was only for the weekend. She missed having her sister around since she had gone off to college. As much as she knew she needed to let her go, it was difficult to do. The twelve-year age gap between the sisters seemed to lessen as they got older. The more mature Cheyenne became, the better their relationship got. To Shania, they were beginning to feel more like sisters instead of the mother-daughter role they had been thrust into.
The thought of Cheyenne being a sophomore in college spoke volumes about God's favor. Shania was even more surprised that Cheyenne decided to major in engineering. She had always pictured Cheyenne majoring in journalism or English, because she loved writing poetry. She had to admit, though, it pleased her that Cheyenne went for a male-dominated profession; she wished that more women would challenge themselves and not be intimidated by professions that required heavy math or science concentrations.
“So,” Shania began, and glanced at the passenger seat to make sure Cheyenne was listening to her, “how's school coming along?”
Cheyenne whistled and let her hand glide through the air. “It's a breeze. I'm making As in all my classes and passing all my exams. Thanks to my hubby”—she glanced over her shoulder at Jonathan and they shared a smile—“who stays on me all the time and makes sure I start on my papers well ahead of time.”
“Oh, how sweet,” Shania wanted to say, but refrained from doing so because she knew it would come out sounding very sarcastic. So instead, she plastered a strained smile on her face and said, “How are you liking your new apartment?”
At first Cheyenne lived in the dorms. After getting married, Shania had helped her sister move into a cute one-bedroom apartment in a gated community near the campus. Shania even went to Valdosta to help her decorate and make sure she was settled in.
“We're loving it,” Cheyenne said with an even bigger smile, and Jonathan and she shared googly eyes again.
At the sound of “we're,” Shania visibly cringed, and at the sight of their googly eyes, she felt like throwing up. For the life of her, she couldn't understand where this bitterness and attitude were coming from. This was not like her; it must've been getting pretty close to that time of the month.
Trying to be nice, Shania looked at Jonathan in the rearview mirror and asked, “Have you thought about what you want to major in?”
He grinned, revealing a chipped tooth in the front of his mouth. “I wanna major in finance.” She was impressed until he said, “Somebody's gotta help Cheyenne manage all of that money she's gonna get when she graduates from school.”
Shania's eyes bucked, and she almost ran off the road. She wouldn't be surprised if smoke tendrils were escaping her nose. Her fingers dug into the steering wheel as she navigated the car to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes, causing everyone inside to jerk forward. She placed the car in park. Whipping her neck around like a scene from the horror movie classic
The Exorcist,
she looked Jonathan straight in the eyes.
Without blinking, flinching, or smiling, she said, “I know that you and Cheyenne are married. I get that. But there's one thing I want to make perfectly clear.” She held up her index finger to express her point even though she really felt like sticking up the middle one. “I'm the executor of my parents' estate. That means Cheyenne doesn't get a dime without my approval. I don't know what Cheyenne told you, but she will not receive all of the money in her trust until she's thirty-five years old. So, if your whole purpose for eloping was to get her money and run, you can forget that.”
Cheyenne gasped. “Why would you even say something like that, sister?”
“Because you know it's true!” Shania hit the steering wheel and rolled her eyes. “When he saw you, he saw dollar signs, and you know it.”
She knew that her statement about Cheyenne not receiving all of the money in her trust until she turned thirty-five wasn't completely true. She really said it for shock value. The truth of the matter was that their parents had left them $2 million; each parent had a million-dollar life insurance policy. Her parents had planned their estates so well that they even had a mortgage pay-off in the event of their death, so Shania and Cheyenne didn't have any mortgage payments. Their house had been paid for.
Because Shania was the oldest, she had control of the money. In her parents' will, they left instructions for the money to be divided equally between the sisters. Since they didn't want to risk the girls losing the money, they put stipulations on the distribution. Shania received $400,000 right away, because she had met the age requirements. She received $200,000 more when she turned twenty-five, and another $200,000 payment on her thirtieth birthday. Her final payment would be received in three years, on her thirty-fifth birthday.
Shania used some of her money to start a catering company, Eat Your Heart Out. She remodeled her basement and turned it into a commercial kitchen. In the seven years that her company had been in existence, she had become quite successful. She catered everything from private parties to weddings to corporate events. With her company consistently turning a profit, she hadn't needed to spend any more of her inheritance money. Instead, she invested in land, real estate, bonds, and CDs to diversify her portfolio.
As for Cheyenne's portion of the money, Cheyenne received a $200,000 distribution check when she turned eighteen. A portion of her money went toward her college tuition, books, and a Honda Accord. Most recently, they used some of her money for the deposit on her apartment and furniture. The rest of the money went into their family trust, from which Cheyenne received a monthly stipend to help with living expenses. Because of that, she didn't have to work. All she had to do was focus on her studies. She'd receive the rest of her money in equal installments at ages twenty-two, twenty-five, thirty, and thirty-five.
Feeling relieved to have gotten that off her chest, Shania faced forward and blinked. When she glanced into the rearview mirror, she saw Jonathan's cheeks puffed out like a blowfish, and then he blew out the air and started working his jaw. Just when she thought she'd explode if he didn't say what was on his mind, he finally opened his mouth and spoke.
“You think you know me, but you don't know me,” Jonathan said to the back of her head.
She put one hand on the steering wheel and used the other to put the car in drive. She waited until she had enough space between cars before easing her way back into traffic.
“If that was the case,” he continued, “I wouldn't have been with her this long.”
Shania cut her eyes at her sister and then looked straight ahead. Cheyenne didn't utter a word. The tips of her ears were red, and she continued to stare forward as she gnawed her nails down to their nail bed.
“I know that you can't stand the ground I walk on,” Jonathan continued, “and I'm sure it would make your day if I would just disappear out your sister's life forever.”
Before she could stop herself, her head nodded on its own volition.
“But you know what?” he added. “Whether you like me or not, you should have enough respect for your sister to respect her decision. You think you got me all figured out, but you don't. You think you know me, but you don't know the half. What I do know is that I love your sister, and as long as God allows me to be on this earth, I'm going to do everything I can to keep her happy. And if that's not enough for you, then, hey, it is what it is. But as long as that's enough for Cheyenne, then that's all that matters.”
“Okay.” Shania smirked. “Let's drop it.”
“Yes, let's,” Cheyenne added in a soft voice, still nibbling on her nails and staring out the passenger window.
No one spoke for the rest of the ride, which suited Shania just fine. She appreciated the quiet, and used the silence to force herself to calm down.
Once at the house, Greg joined them outside and he seemed a little less disturbed than he had been at church. Jonathan nearly tripped out of the car when his eyes landed on Greg's bike.
“Man, is that a BMW motorcycle?” he exclaimed with his hands on his hips as he gave the bike a good looking over. “I ain't even know BMW
made
motorcycles.”
Cheyenne looked at her sister with her mouth hanging open. “You actually let him get a bike?”
Shania rolled her eyes. “I didn't let him do anything, but that's a whole other can of worms that I don't feel like opening right now.” She opened the door and hopped down from the Rover. “Come on, Cheyenne. We'll leave the boys out here, and you can help me put something on the stove.”
Greg was more than a little ready to show off his new motorcycle and explain all the gadgets to Jonathan. He and Jonathan spent a few moments in the garage doing some male bonding while Shania and Cheyenne went into the kitchen.

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