Seasoned with Grace (17 page)

“Clearly, she's still in character,” Ethan said, fudging in order to fill in the gap in the conversation. “Let's have a look at the storyboards. Together,” he added, eyeing Grace.

His look and words were exactly what she needed to move to the next phase of this meeting. Javier shuffled out of the room to get the storyboards, and Dally excused himself to attend another meeting.

Ethan reclaimed his seat beside her. He must have sensed her continued discomfort, because he whispered, “I got you,” directly into her ear and locked hands with her while they waited on Javier to fetch the storyboards.

Javier reentered the conference room with a black stand in his hand on which to mount the storyboards. Several storyboards were under his arm, and a twinkle of delight was in his eyes. Grace wondered what made him tick, what made him think that what he was doing was fine, what made him think that he could get away with defiling her for a second time. While the flames of rage rallied within her, threatening to scorch anything in her line of vision, her memory dulled the fire. Her father's words cooled her and settled her. “You have played the harlot,” and “I will laugh during the time of your calamity,” he had said to her repeatedly. There was no one in this world—God or man—who was concerned with what happened to a harlot.

The Word of God confirmed the verbal beatings her father had bestowed upon her when he discovered what she'd done with David. He'd pick up the Bible she cherished, the one she'd received after her baptism. It was a teen study Bible, with her name embossed in gold on it. The youth leader, Pastor David, had given it to her. He'd said it was “God's love letter to her,” but her father had shown her that like Israel, God had written her a letter of divorcement for having tainted herself.

The gasp that escaped from Ethan's mouth brought her back to the present. Grace followed his eyes to the storyboards Javier had placed on display. Javier stood in front of the storyboards, smiling and waving his arms up and down in front of them like Vanna White did before revealing a letter on
Wheel of Fortune.
The handcrafted black-and-white drawings were clearly Javier's handiwork. Each panel vividly portrayed part of a rape scene. Detailed drawings of the photographer mounting the young ingenue while ripping her shirt off sat before them. Buttons bounced all over the storyboards. The drawings seemed to be three-dimensional.

The room began to spin like a Cracker Jack prize, just as the studio set had the first time it happened. Javier's onion breath crept up Grace's nostrils, and her skin began to crawl as her eyes followed the story being played out in front of her eyes.

“Stop!” and “I don't want to do this!” tried to climb out of her throat, but her eyes landed on the storyboard in which he'd wrapped one hand around her throat and the other around her mouth. The words reneged on her. Her throat closed and seemed to cave in on her.

“This is so graphic . . . so . . .” Ethan paused. The images on the storyboards had paralyzed him as well.

“Raw. I was striving for the same kind of grit that
Monster's Ball
had. A story that was pure and rife with . . .”

The sound of Javier's voice bounced off the walls and shook Grace up so much that the contents of her stomach—a bran muffin, blueberry-pomegranate juice, and kombucha—were suddenly all over Ethan's side, and she was barely able to sit up straight in the chair. Perspiration descended from the pits of her arms like the water in Niagara Falls.

“I'm sorry, Ethan,” she gasped, using her fedora as a fan.

“Oh my God!” Ethan shrieked. Panic engulfed his face and took his deep voice hostage. “Grace . . . Grace,” he repeated before turning to Javier.

At that moment Javier was standing at the open door and screaming, “I need a cleaning crew in here immediately!”

“Javier, this is not going to work. If just these images can traumatize her like this, she can't do this role,” Ethan declared.

Relief swelled in Grace's chest. Maybe she wasn't going crazy. She was protected and covered by the Lord.

“She was born for this. This type of visceral reaction is necessary and will register with audiences and with the academy instantaneously.” Javier snapped his fingers. “Can you imagine what's next for her, and what's next for you after helping ink the deal that got her in this film? You'll be golden, Summerville. Golden.”

Grace couldn't make out the rest of the conversation the two shared. Based on Ethan's smile and the pats on the back that Javier gave him, she knew there was no turning back from here on out. This left Grace to wonder,
Lord, where are you in all this
?

After their meeting with Javier, Ethan escorted Grace to the Suburban with tinted windows that was waiting outside of Javier's studio in the Meatpacking District. Grace ducked her head and took a seat inside the car. She abandoned all her model etiquette and slouched in the seat. Doing the jitterbug with her legs, she looked at Ethan, who was still standing on the curb and holding on to the car door.

“What are you waiting on, Ethan? I want to get out of here.” Grace's skin was still crawling, and her stomach was still jumpy. She wanted to get far away from this place and fast.

“Just hang tight for a moment. Please allow me to go down the block and get a new pair of pants. I believe I saw a Hugo Boss shop on the way here,” he said, looking away from the car. “Listen, Grace.” Ethan leaned on the roof of the car and peered in at her. A trace of sympathy registered in his eyes. “You've got to pull it together. Our next stop is the church, and you can't be in there tripping. Forgive me for the lack of a better word, but you can't lose it again today. Tomorrow . . . fine. You can go to anger management tomorrow and crack up in there all you want. But today you need to keep it together until everything is settled.”

Then Ethan slammed the car door and scuttled down the block as quickly as possible. He moved along awkwardly, trying to avoid bumping into anyone on the street. After a few minutes, Ethan returned and opened the passenger-side door with a smile on his face.

“Are you ready to take care of business?” he asked.

Sucking her teeth audibly and turning her head so she faced forward, Grace didn't bother responding to Ethan, who was obviously trying not to acknowledge her problem and was more worried about business than her well-being.

“What does that sound mean?” he asked, climbing in the SUV one well-tailored pants leg at a time.

“That sound meant I want to curse you out, but since we're on our way to a church and I already have enough to repent for, I figured I'd keep it to myself.”

Ethan drew the door shut, reached across Grace, and tapped on the driver's seat to indicate they were ready to roll. After securing his seat belt, he turned to Grace. “What are you so angry about? I'm the one running around, doing damage control for a grown woman, not some teenager who let fame go to her head. What I wouldn't give to be Justin Bieber's lawyer or publicist right now instead of yours,” he said. Then he turned his gaze to the traffic outside his window.

“Humph . . .” Grace folded her arms across her chest and sat there silently for a few moments, staring at Ethan's profile, trying to coax him with her eyes out of this frenzy he was in. When she got no response, she tapped him on the leg. “When did I stop being a person to you and become just a client?”

“When I stopped being a person to you,” Ethan replied. “Driver, turn on some music please.”

Just like that he'd silenced her. With her thoughts and feelings muted, Grace resorted to kicking the back of the driver's seat for the rest of the ride to release her frustration. All the while she was wondering what it was going to take to get him back on her side.

When the Suburban pulled up to the curb in front of Mount Carmel, shouts of praise were coming from the church.

“Ethan, I don't think they're doing community service today,” Grace said as they walked to the door. “What's going on today?”

Ethan shrugged his shoulders and scratched the center of his head. Apparently, he wasn't aware of what went on in his own church.

“What do you mean, you don't know?” Grace asked, mocking him. “This is your church, isn't it?”

Ethan looked down instead of answering her question. It was valid, after all. He was the one who was supposed to be leading her to Christ, and he hadn't even set one foot in the house of the Lord enough to know what was going on.

A voice could be heard whispering in the recesses of her soul to leave him alone, but she'd been listening to the voice of destruction so long, she couldn't resist pouncing on him and highlighting his flaws.

“What happened to all your praying and the faithfulness of God, huh?” She nudged him with her shoulder. “Where are all your words and scriptures now? Got nothing of substance to say now?” Grace fumed.

The fear and shame from what Javier had done to her, and was about to do to her again, had joined forces with the anger and hurt she'd been collecting over the years like interest. Everything she'd thought about men and God was beginning to make sense. Their words were merely that—words. None of them cared about her pain or her loss, and they were quick to judge her actions and discard her when she displeased them. First, David had done so, using her parents, and her father had been God's messenger, distilling and delivering His wrath. And Ethan had to be on the cleanup crew.

“Just as I thought,” she said, taking large strides toward the door. “You're just as lost as I am, but you don't want to say we're in the same boat.” She rolled her eyes and continued walking toward the door. Maybe today the Lord would reveal why every man she met was so royally screwed up.

Grace's neck snapped back quickly. There was that voice, invading her thoughts again. Ethan's head was down, and he was dragging his feet. All that positivity could not have come from his lips, and judging by his demeanor, he definitely hadn't heard any of those words.

Either she was losing her mind under these circumstances, all the drugs had finally caught up with her and she was day tripping, or God was speaking to her. With those possibilities looming before her, Grace hurriedly snatched the gold handle on the door to Mount Carmel, pulled open the door, and walked in. If she had a choice in the matter, her choice seemed rather clear to her. She didn't want to be saved, but she didn't want to be anybody's
E! True Hollywood Story
episode, either.

The organ music died down. The brass cymbals of the drums emitted a rattle to back up the powerful voice resonating throughout the sanctuary.

“Reclaim your life. Reclaim your life,” was the chant coming from the pew and falling on the people like dew. “Today. Be whole. Today.”

Narrowing her eyes on the speaker, Grace realized that it was Horace who was standing in the pulpit, running things today. She slid into a tight corner seat, next to a heavyset woman and a bunch of children who looked like they were from
B
é
b
é
's Kids.
She crossed her legs, wrapping them tightly around each other. She didn't even bother to check if Ethan had found a seat. Grace's focus was no longer on her issues or Ethan's when a different kind of man stood before her.

Horace strode across the platform, completely comfortable. Not a speck of nervousness could be found in his eyes or heard in his voice.

“When God comes into your life, He gives you a new one. The one that you lived is no good. Did you hit a roadblock? Been stuck at a pit stop for too long? Turn it over to Jesus and reclaim your life. Every hurt, every pain, every injury, every scar.”

As Horace went through the list of possible troubles, a tingling sensation zipped through Grace. It collected in her wrists, compelling her to raise her hands to the Lord. Every burden Horace had named belonged to her. Suddenly their weight had caught up with her, and she no longer wanted to carry it. The Holy Ghost was using Horace's words like a scalpel to peel back years of anguish buried in the cavities of Grace's soul.

Grace swayed from side to side, rubbing against the wet flesh of the woman beside her. Perspiration was dripping from every crevice of the woman's body. The Holy Ghost must have been working on the entire bench. The children who sat beside the woman were now silent, and every hand was raised to the air.

Fighting with the spirit, Grace bit down on her bottom lip. The pressure of her maxillary incisors were no match for the power of God. Her lip trembled and quivered under her teeth until they were able to break free. Next, a cry launched from her throat. Grace didn't understand why her faculties would not obey her. The next body parts to break ranks were her legs. Grace pushed down, and her legs pushed up involuntarily, forcing her to stand. She wobbled down the aisle until she reached the front of the church.

The ushers surrounded her, and she shifted from side to side, barely escaping their white-gloved touch. Horace batted them back, then manipulated his fingers to summon someone from behind her. Straining to see through the film of tears that covered her eyes, Grace fought to keep her eyes glued to Horace. Horace continued preaching as he marched down from the pulpit.

The underarms of his mustard button-down shirt were lined with semicircles of sweat. This didn't seem to faze him. His dark eyes glittered like augite, igniting a conflagration of emotions within Grace. Faces flashed before her. Words resounded in her ears.
Mistake. Monster. Love. Grace. Grace. Grace.

I want to find grace. I want to find grace.
“I want to find grace. O Lord, I want to find your grace,” she cried aloud. Amid the shadows of the people who had gathered around her and had covered her, she let go.

When Grace opened her eyes, she could see three things: the paint peeling from the ceiling of Mount Carmel, Sister Bryce's hand extended to help her up, and Sister Marva's crooked smile. It was doubtful that Sister Marva was delighted that Grace had found redemption; seeing Grace laid out was probably a joyous moment for her. Grace latched on to Sister Bryce's hand, and Sister Bryce cupped her elbow, helping Grace to a standing position. Sister Marva flicked a tissue in Grace's direction, while Sister Bryce dusted off the back of Grace's blazer and fixed her fedora back on her head. Reluctantly, Grace stretched forth her fingers to retrieve the tissue from Sister Marva.

“Come on now. Dry those eyes. There's no reason to be crying in the house of the Lord, unless it's over His goodness,” Sister Bryce said to Grace.

“Humph . . . She better come on with all this falling-out business.” Sister Marva sneered. “She ain't even a member of the church, and she carrying on like that.”

Sister Marva was right. Grace wasn't a member of the church, and she hadn't been slain in the spirit long enough not to consider slapping Sister Marva or at least stepping on Sister Marva's shoes while she struggled to find her legs. Grace's evil intentions must have been plastered on her face. Sister Bryce locked arms with Grace and leaned into her, advising her about righteousness.

“You pray for people like that,” she said. “You pray for sisters who haven't found their way yet and are in the church, still holding on to bitterness. Smile. Just like this.” Sister Bryce paused to demonstrate for Grace. She leaned forward just a bit, looked in Sister Marva's direction, and cast a wide smile at her. “Then you pray, and you let the Holy Ghost do the whippin'. You understand?” she said, laying her hand on top of Grace's and patting it gently.

Sister Bryce led Grace to a seat on the front row, beside Horace. Grace crouched down slowly. She fixed her eyes on the handcrafted pulpit. A cross with Jesus hanging on it was carved into the wood. Horace whispered something to her, which she refused to hear.

Please, Lord don't let anything get in the way of this moment,
she thought.

Pastor David mounted the pulpit and addressed his congregation. “Thank you all for attending our men's ministry celebration of our members. We have some real gems at Mount Carmel. In closing, remember what our very own Brother Horace said. ‘It is time to reclaim your life.'” This was all Grace could hear.