The First Lady Read online

  I looked at the picture of Charlene I kept on my desk. Oh, how I missed her. My wife was a spitfire who had loved me, my family, and this church more than life itself, and to be honest, I wasn’t ready to let her go yet. And I didn’t think the church was, either.

  “That’s ridiculous, James. Let me assure you, that’s got to be the last thing on these women’s minds. Trust me. Like I told you, I know these things. I know the hearts of the women of this church. It’s just in their nature to be caring. You can’t go taking it the wrong way, James. I sure don’t.”

  “Are you kidding?” He chuckled, but there was a twinge of disdain in his voice. “No offense to your sermons, Bishop, but there’s not a hat shop in Queens with a single fancy brim left on its shelves. There are women in this borough who have wiped out their entire savings, and others who have taken out loans just to buy enough hats for as many Sundays as it’s going to take to catch the bishop’s eye. And how better to catch the bishop’s eye than to reserve a place right across from the pulpit every Sunday?”

  “James, stop exaggerating,” I chortled. “These are good churchwomen who just want to hear the word.”

  “You can play dumb all you want, T.K.,” James said as he poured the last of the liquor into our glasses. “But you can’t say that I didn’t warn you.”

  “Well, thanks for the warning, but I’m sure you’re wrong.”

  He held up his glass, a sign for me to toast. I hesitantly followed suit and lifted my glass in the air.

  “Here’s to me being wrong,” James said. Before either one of us could put our glasses to our lips, we were startled by a knock on the door. The concern in James’s eyes mirrored my own. The last thing we needed as prominent men of the church was to get caught sipping liquor. Jesus might have turned water to wine, and even taken a sip or two himself with every meal, but God forbid I was caught having an innocent drink with a friend. They’d swear I was a drunk. So, without having to say a word, we simultaneously downed the contents of our glasses. I held out my hand for James to give me his empty glass.

  “Come in,” I said as I quickly placed the empty bottle and two glasses in my bottom desk drawer. I did so just in the nick of time, because as soon as I closed the drawer, the office door opened.

  “Gentlemen,” Deacon Joe Dickens said as he entered the office.

  “How you doin', Deacon?” I asked as James replied with a courteous nod.

  “Fine, Bishop. I’m doin’ just fine. Heard you two went fishin'. Hope they were biting"—the deacon smiled—” ‘cause I’d love to have a few porgies.”

  “Put it this way, Deacon,” I told him. “If you or anyone else ever had to depend upon Trustee Black’s and my ability to catch fish, we’d all starve. The only thing we got in that cooler over there is ice.”

  Laughter filled the room momentarily before Deacon Dickens cleared his throat so that he could speak on what he’d really come for. “Speaking of food and eating, Bishop, my daughter, Savannah, is going to be doing a little cooking this weekend. You know that cobbler you were so fond of at the deacons’ banquet last month?”

  I smiled at the memory of that cobbler. It was quite possibly the best I’d ever had. “How could I forget? The darn thing was so good I must have gone back for seconds three times.” I patted my belly as I grinned.

  “Well, that was Savannah’s doing. She made that cobbler.”

  “Sister Savannah is responsible for that cobbler? Well, I may have to stop by your house a little more often, Deacon, ‘cause your daughter sure can burn.”

  “You’re always welcome, Bishop. Matter of fact, along with that cobbler, she’s cooking smothered pork chops and collard greens for dinner tomorrow. If I remember correctly, you’re rather fond of pork chops, aren’t you?”

  “Could eat them every day,” I said with a nod.

  “Well, then you’re going to have to come over for dinner tomorrow night. I insist.”

  I let out a disappointed sigh. “I wish I could, Deacon, but I already have dinner plans to meet with the bookstore committee tomorrow night. How about a rain check?”

  The deacon looked truly disappointed. “All right. How’s next Sunday sound? I can’t promise pork chops, but I’m sure Savannah will make another cobbler.”

  I glanced down at my weekly planner, then looked up at the deacon with a smile. “Deacon, it’s a date. And whether it’s pork chops or not, I’ll be looking forward to it.”

  “Good, good,” he replied. “How’s seven o’clock sound to you?”

  “Seven o’clock next Sunday is fine.” I wrote it in my planner, then made a mental note to tell my secretary, Alison, to put it in hers.

  “Well, gentlemen, I guess it’s time I got home. I’ll see you at service on Sunday.” The deacon shook our hands and left, closing the door behind him.

  It was obvious that James could barely wait until Deacon’s footsteps faded down the hall before he exploded with laughter. “Oh, my Lord, that guy is hilarious.”

  “Why? What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “What’s so funny? You’re what’s so funny. Can’t you see a setup when it’s right in front of your face?” James stood up, shaking his head. “Like I told you before the deacon came in, it’s starting, my friend. The battle for who’s going to be the next first lady has started, and it looks like the first woman in the ring is Savannah Dickens. And her father’s the one who’s throwing her in.”

  “James, my man, you’re reading far too much into this.”

  “Am I, T.K.? Since when does a prominent member of the church invite the pastor to dinner and not at least extend an invitation to any other prominent member of the church who’s in the room? I might as well have been invisible.”

  I sat back in my chair and thought about what he was saying. I didn’t reply at first because the more I thought about it, the more his words started to make sense. He did have an intriguing point. Why didn’t the deacon invite him to dinner? He could have at least invited him when I declined. Was the deacon trying to orchestrate a relationship between me and his daughter? It was possible. The real question was whether I was willing to be a participant in his plan.

  Savannah was single, and she was also a very attractive woman. She had some of the prettiest black hair I’d ever seen. For the first time, I began to imagine her as a woman and not just a member of the church. The image brought a slight grin to my face, which quickly morphed into a guilty frown as Savannah’s image was replaced by Charlene’s.

  “You might be right about the deacon, James, but then again, maybe your dinner invitation just slipped the deacon’s mind.”

  James chuckled. “If you believe that, I got a bridge to sell you out back.”

  I rose from my chair, reached in my pocket, and pulled out some money. “How much?”

  James’s chuckle became a full-fledged laugh. “You crazy, you know that, Bishop?”

  “That’s what they tell me.” I laughed with him.

  “So, T.K., what do you think?”

  “Think about what, James?” I said flatly, knowing from the look on his face what he was referring to.

  “Savannah. What do you think about Savannah? Old girl does have some hips on her, doesn’t she?” James traced his fingers in the air like he was outlining a shapely woman’s figure.

  “I hadn’t noticed,” I lied.

  “Yeah, right. Sure you haven’t.” James waved his hand at me. “Look, T.K., you may have the title of bishop, but you’re still a man. Don’t think I forgot about what happened in the Bahamas.”

  Blood rushed to my face. “You’re never gonna let me forget that, are you?”

  “Nope. Never.”

  “Okay, hold it over my head. Just don’t forget I’ve seen you in a few compromising positions too. You seem to have forgotten about Las Vegas.”

  He laughed. “Hey, whatever happened to what goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas?”

  “Same thing that happened to what goes on in the Bahamas stays in the Bahamas.
At least I was with my wife.”

  “Aw’ight, I get your point. Look, I gotta get outta here. I got a big date tonight with Sister Renée Wilcox.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know why these sisters let you get away with your foolishness, James.”

  “Same reason they’re filling the front rows of the church these past few Sundays, Bishop.”

  “And why’s that?” I asked.

  “ ‘Cause a good man is hard to find.” James smiled as he opened my office door. “Remember, Bishop,” he called as he gave me one last warning. “Deacon Dickens and Savannah are just the first.”

  I smiled, nodded, and waved as James exited the room, halfway closing the door behind him. I proceeded to remove the empty liquor bottle from my desk drawer and stuffed it down in my leather briefcase with the intent of disposing of it in the Dumpster in the back parking lot. I carried the two glasses we’d been drinking from down the hall to the church kitchen to rinse them out.

  As I turned the corner to return to my office, I spotted an envelope taped to my door. It actually gave me déjà vu because for years, Charlene would leave me messages in the same exact fashion. By the time I got to the door, my hands were shaking and my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest, I was so nervous and confused. She’d been dead for six months, but the envelope taped to the door was from my wife’s personal stationery.

  Somehow, I managed to remove the envelope from the door, make my way into my office and into my chair. I stared at the envelope for the better part of five minutes before I opened it and began to read. The note was indeed from Charlene. Although it wasn’t in her handwriting, the words were definitely hers. James was right about one thing: Armageddon was about to start in our church, but what he probably never suspected was that its creator was going to be my deceased wife, Charlene Wilson.

  2

  MARLENE

  For almost three years I’d asked God to bless me with a job so I could get off public assistance and not have to look for handouts from my son-in-law, Dante, and my daughter, Tanisha, to take care of my teenage son, Aubrey. But perhaps I should have been a little bit more specific when I put in my request. Shopping at Key Food is one thing, but working there is a completely different story, with all the rude customers and sexual harassment I had to put up with from my pain-in-the-ass manager. Every day when I left that place, I felt like I needed a drink. Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful for the job in these troubled times, but how was I supposed to support a teenage boy on $320 a week in New York City?

  Aubrey’s birthday was in two weeks, and the only thing he asked for was one of those new PlayStation 3 video game consoles, but those things cost $400, and that doesn’t include the games he wanted. How can a kid’s video game console cost more than what a parent makes in a week?

  Oh, well, I guess the landlord’s wife isn’t gonna be shopping at Lord and Taylor on my money next week, I thought. My son was going to get that gaming unit if I had to be late on my rent to get it. Just thinking about it made me depressed and ready to give up, but instead I decided to take my butt home to shower and go to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting.

  “Whatchu need?” the young drug boys hollered, interrupting my thoughts. I was only two blocks from home.

  Every day, for as long as I could remember, the drug boys had manned the corner of 109th and Guy Brewer Boulevard, selling almost any junkie’s drug of choice: weed, heroin, Ecstasy, and my personal favorite, crack cocaine. Back when I was smoking crack, they were like my own personal Walgreen’s pharmacy, open twenty-four hours a day for my convenience. Thank God, those days were long behind me, but even so, that still didn’t stop the drug boys from asking me that same question.

  “Whatchu need, Ma?” Reggie, a dealer in his late twenties, asked as he ran up to me. I used to cop from him, and I’m sure he missed me as a customer, for various reasons. When he was close enough, he opened his hands to reveal two nickel bags of crack. “I got a two-for-one special just for you, Ma. Guaranteed to solve all your problems.” He smiled, showing me a mouth full of gold teeth.

  “Fool, now you know got-damn well I don’t fuck with that shit no more,” I replied, and kept walking toward my building.

  “You may be clean now, Ma,” he shouted out behind me, “but it’s all just a matter of time. Sooner or later you gonna need to get that monkey off your back. But don’t worry. I’ll be right here waiting for you with your only real friend.”

  The scary thing about what Reggie had just said was that I had considered getting that monkey off my back. I thought about it every day, but as a recovering addict, I had to constantly fight through that temptation. For two years, I’d been winning the battle over crack cocaine and the Reggies of the world, but the war, the war over my sobriety, continued daily.

  Once I reached the stoop, I reached in my bag and dug out the key that unlocked the security door. I entered the building and headed straight for the elevator, though I don’t know why. I guess I hoped that today it would actually be working, but that same tired out of service sign was still taped to the doors.

  “Thank goodness I didn’t take the apartment on the seventh floor,” I said to myself as I finished off the last of three flights of steps. As I headed down the hall, now immune to the odor that was a combination of piss and shit, I noticed an envelope taped to my door. Immediately, my heart dropped.

  “Dammit, what’s cut off now?” I asked myself. My rent wasn’t due until next week, so that wasn’t it. I paid my electric bill with my check on Friday, so what the hell could it be? The gas, maybe, or the cable? Damn, I bet they shut my cable off. Oh, God, Aubrey would kill me.

  As I continued my slow steps toward the door, my brain raced to figure out what bill I had neglected to pay. The more steps I took, the farther away the door seemed to be and the more labored my breathing became. Three flights of stairs always had me breathing heavy, but the anxiety I was feeling had me about ready to pass out. Nonetheless, I finally made it to the door, where I removed the envelope that had my name handwritten across it.

  Entering my apartment, I locked the door behind me, went straight to my bedroom without even saying hello to Aubrey, and sat down on my bed with the envelope in hand. I held it, still trying to guess what could be inside before actually opening it.

  When I gathered my nerve and slid out the paper contained inside, I was surprised to see that it was a handwritten note on paper with First Lady Charlene Wilson’s letterhead on it. This confused me, because she had been dead for a while now. How could this letter have gotten here, and who was using her stationery? I wondered. As I kicked off my shoes, I began reading it aloud:

  Dearest Marlene,

  If you are reading this letter, it means that I have been dead for at least six months now. As the stepmother of your daughter, I’ve seen both you and her grow with Christ. Although you and I weren’t that close while I was alive, I must say that I truly admired you. You made strides in your life that most people only dream of. When I think of where God brought you from, I can’t help but think back to where God brought T.K. from as well … where he brought you two from ‘together,’ in a sense.

  At that point, the letter really had my attention. Even with the envelope open and the letter in my hand, I was more curious now than when it was sealed, taped to my door. I got into a comfortable position on the bed as I continued to read:

  Now that I’m gone, I know that right about now the issue of who will marry T.K. is probably the main topic of discussion among the members of First Jamaica Ministries. That’s why I’m writing you this letter, Marlene. It’s no secret to anyone about the life—and love—you shared with my husband before he moved to New York and became one of the most respected men of God in the city. So, it wouldn’t be a huge shock if somehow you were to become the woman at his side.

  If anything, it might be more of a shock to you to be reading these words from me. Nonetheless, I can’t help but think that God had a reason for putting you back int
o T.K.'s life after all of your years apart from him. And if it’s the Lord’s desire for you and T.K. to become one, then I find comfort in that because God doesn’t make mistakes. And since God put it in my heart to write you this letter, I only ask that if the day does come to pass that you become the wife of my T.K., take care of him like I would, because he is a good man.

  All the best,

  Charlene

  I placed the letter down on the nightstand next to my bed, almost afraid to look at it again. I stared off into space, actually wondering for a moment if I was dreaming or awake. I pinched myself, and the pain that shot through my arm told me I was indeed awake. Suddenly, I had so many questions. Was the note real? And if it was, who had left it on my door? Was it one of his kids, or was it T.K. himself? I went to Charlene’s funeral and watched them put her casket in the ground, so she obviously didn’t leave this envelope on my door.

  The bigger question, of course, was, Who had written the letter? Had Charlene, before her death, really given me her blessing to be with T.K.? I guess it was possible, but if so, why? And even more importantly, was I going to act on her request? I closed my eyes and buried my face into the palms of my hands.

  I’d been in love with Thomas Kelly—T.K., as they called him now—since I was sixteen years old. He was the captain of the football and basketball teams, and I was the head cheerleader when we were in high school in Richmond, Virginia. I let him take my virginity the last day of my sophomore year, and I never regretted it once. He had always treated me with respect. We both attended Virginia State University, and he even asked me to marry him during our freshman year.