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Authors: Victoria Christopher Murray

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BOOK: The Deal, the Dance, and the Devil
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“Talking ’bout me?”

Tamica and I looked up at the same time. Brooklyn was at least seven steps away, so I wasn’t sure how she’d heard Tamica. But that was Brooklyn—she never missed a thing or a beat.

Her six-foot frame swept toward us like a hurricane wrapped in fur. She looked more like a Hollywood starlet, overdone in her diamonds and platinum, than a pastor’s wife.

Leaning over, she sent a couple of air kisses Tamica’s way, then slid into the booth next to me.

“Hey, girl!” She wrapped me inside her fur-covered arms. “Whew!” She shrugged off her snow white fox and fanned herself. “I think I’m suffering from early menopause.”

Tamica said, “Or you could be hot because it’s forty degrees outside and that fur coat is microwaving your behind.”

Brooklyn puckered her lips as if she was blowing Tamica a kiss. “Why you hatin’ ’cause I’m beautiful? You know I do what I do.” Still fanning herself, she asked, “So, what’s going on, my heifers?”

Tamica sucked her teeth as she looked down at her brochure. “She must be talking to you, Evia, ’cause I’m nobody’s heifer.” Then, she added to Brooklyn, “That’s why you always having problems at church. ’Cause you don’t know how to talk to nobody.”

“What’s got your thong in a bunch?” Brooklyn snickered.

Looking at me, Tamica said, “See what I’m sayin’? Talkin’ ’bout thongs to church folks.”

With a laugh, Brooklyn peered across the table at Tamica’s brochure. “What’s that?”

Tamica hesitated, and since I knew why, I answered for her. “Oh, Tamica got some information from Howard.” I spoke in my most supportive voice. “She’s thinking about going back to school.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope,” I kinda whispered.

Brooklyn looked at Tamica. “She’s kidding, right?”

“No, she’s not!”

“Oh, come on.” Brooklyn laughed. “Now you’re going back to school? Last time we talked, you said you were going to become a missionary so that you could find yourself inside some rain forest in Africa. You can’t make up your mind, can you?”

It was on now. Even though Brooklyn spoke the truth, Tamica wasn’t about to let that go. So I leaned back and sipped my tea. This was pure entertainment, and the reason why, after I’d talked to Adam about our weekend plans last night, I’d called my friends to get together today.

Even though I saw Tamica and Brooklyn every Sunday in church, we hadn’t had one of these get-togethers in more than three months. Tamica had tried to gather us about six weeks ago, but I’d been so busy with my life. Thank God my friends never held that against me.

Brooklyn and Tamica went on and on, back and forth, and finally Brooklyn held her palm up in Tamica’s face. “Enough!” Turning to me, she said, “This is all about you. So, dish the dirt, because if you called a Saturday meeting, this has got to be big.”

It was true. We hadn’t gotten together in a long time, but whenever we did, because of me, we met on any day but Saturday. Saturdays were reserved for our family—the day Adam, the children, and I drove ninety minutes south to visit his mother. When Adam said last night that we’d be going on Sunday instead, I jumped right on the telephone. But I just wanted the distraction. I didn’t want to talk about me. Even though we were close, they knew nothing about what was really going on in my life right now.

Our food arrived before Brooklyn could pressure me anymore, and she took my hand and Tamica’s as we bowed our heads. As the first lady of Holy Deliverance All Saints Covenant Christian Center of Grace, Brooklyn always said the blessing. And her prayers over our food were always as long as the name of the ten-year-old church that she and her husband, Cash, had founded.

Yup, she’d married Cash, the man she’d loved since she was five. Not only had he stayed out of jail long enough to marry her but he’d also traded in the drug game for a new hustle. He’d gone from just being Cash, to Cash Supreme, the biggest dealer in Barry Farm, to finally ending up as the right Reverend Cash Supreme. (He saw no need to change his name.) Recently, he’d appointed himself Bishop; I guessed he could do that, since it was his church.

After her sermon-size grace, Brooklyn picked up her triple-decker hamburger. “So you wanna tell us why you called this get-together?”

Looked like she wasn’t gonna let me get by with saying nothing. “Can’t I just want to hang out with my girls?”

“Yeah, but …”

“And it’s not like I can get a word in over the two of you, anyway,” I joked.

Brooklyn dropped her burger on her plate, then raised her
hands. “Everybody be quiet!” She spoke so loudly that even people at the other tables stopped talking.

After a moment, she said, “Okay, Lady Evia, speak.”

I could’ve just laughed it off. If I’d kept my mouth shut for a few seconds, Brooklyn and Tamica would have been back at it. But, no. I don’t know what made me do it, but before my brain could catch up with my lips, the words spilled from my mouth. “Someone offered me five million dollars to sleep with Adam.”

At first, my girls said nothing, as if my words had shocked them into silence.

“Girl, you’re so funny,” Tamica said, waving her fork at me.

Brooklyn laughed, too. “Yeah, that’s a good one, Evia. Too bad it’s not true ’cause let someone offer me five million for anything, and they got it.”

“You know it!” Tamica was still laughing.

I took a bite of my garlic bread, and when I looked up, Tamica’s eyes were right there. She was still chuckling. Then, small giggles. Then her eyes became slits.

“Wait a minute,” Tamica said slowly. She put down her fork.

Brooklyn said, “You’re
not
kidding?”

I shook my head. “Nope.” Then I told them all about Shay-Shaunté’s offer.

Before I could get all the way to the end, Brooklyn interrupted, “You sure she got the money?”

“Oh, yeah. This is Shay-Shaunté.”

“Then do it,” my friend, the pastor’s wife, said.

“Are you kidding me?” Tamica glared at Brooklyn. Turning to me, she shook her head. “Don’t.”

Brooklyn rolled her eyes. “Spoken like a woman who’s never had a man.”

Ouch! I said inside for Tamica. Brooklyn didn’t have to
go that hard. But the thing was—that was just B. If you were gonna be in her world, sometimes you got hit.

In her no-nonsense tone, Brooklyn asked, “Has Adam found a job yet?”

I shook my head.

Brooklyn asked, “Could you guys use the money?”

Duh? Who couldn’t use five million?

“I’ll take your silence as a yes,” Brooklyn said to me. To Tamica, she said, “I rest my case.”

Tamica may have been knocked down by Brooklyn’s comment about her man-status, but she was not knocked out. “How could you tell her to do that? You wouldn’t give your husband up for money.”

“You’s a lie!” Brooklyn said, shocking me and Tamica. “It wouldn’t even have to be five million. I’d take two. And for two million, I’d give her more than my husband,” she said. “For that kind of money”—Brooklyn raised her hand and began counting off points with her fingers—“she could have the good bishop, and our kids, and our cars, and the TV remote. What?” she said, sucking her teeth. “Give me a few more minutes and I’ll think of a couple of other things to throw in.”

“You don’t have any kids,” Tamica sneered.

“For two million, the bishop and I would get busy. I wouldn’t mind giving up this girlish figure when you start talking about that kind of money.”

Okay, I had to laugh at that. But only Brooklyn and I laughed. Tamica shook her head, and her scowl told me that she didn’t find a single thing funny.

“Don’t be a fool listening to her,” Tamica said. “The Bible says that the marriage bed should not be defiled.” She growled, but I wasn’t sure who she was angrier at—me or Brooklyn. “And as the pastor’s wife, you should be the one telling her that.”

Brooklyn waved her hand in the air. “You don’t even know what that scripture means. And even if you did know, you don’t have a marriage bed. Become a wife before you start doling out marriage advice.”

Tamica was not about to back down. “I may not have found the man of my dreams yet, but I found God long ago. And right now, He’s the only Man we need to be concerned with.”

That shut Brooklyn up for a moment.

Tamica continued, “There is no way that either of you can shape it for this to be all right with God.”

“You preachin’ to me?” Brooklyn asked.

“Someone needs to … because you’re acting like you know of God, but not like you know God. Because if you really knew Him, there would be no way that you could advise Evia this way, Brooklyn.”

“You don’t know nothing about me.”

Okay, it was time to break this up. “Ladies, go to your corners, no need to fight. I’m not even considering this deal.”

“What?” Brooklyn said like she was stunned.

“There’s no way Adam and I would do something like that.”

“Good.”

“Adam said no?” Brooklyn asked.

“No; I didn’t tell him. But if I had—”

“He would’ve said yes.” Brooklyn finished my sentence as if she knew my husband better than I did.

“He’d never go for something like this,” I informed Brooklyn.

“Yeah, right!” She laughed.

That made me mad. “Look, I know my husband, and he loves me.”

“And I know men,” Brooklyn said, as if her knowledge on all things male trumped what I knew about Adam. “And
men separate love and sex—especially if there’s cash money involved.”

I guessed Brooklyn thought that because she’d been with way more men than me and Tamica combined, she was the expert. But even though she’d slept her way through every quadrant in D.C., she didn’t know what she was talking about when it came to
my
man.

Brooklyn added, “I’m telling you, Adam would jump on this.” It must’ve been the look on my face that made Brooklyn soften up a little. “But only because you need the money, of course.”

She couldn’t even say that with a straight face.

This was exactly why I hadn’t wanted to say anything, and I was so sorry that I’d opened my big mouth.

“Don’t pay Brooklyn any attention,” Tamica said as if our friend wasn’t sitting right there. “You’re right about Adam; you guys have the perfect marriage.”

“If it’s so perfect,” Brooklyn said, “then five million won’t mess up a thing. It’ll just make everything five million times better.”

“Ignore that woman,” Tamica said, staring straight at me. “Keep your marriage pure.”

“Marriage pure? Ha!” Brooklyn laughed. “This is just more evidence that single women shouldn’t be allowed to speak about nothing more than which club to go to.” Brooklyn shook her head. “Marriage and pure in the same sentence. Not possible.”

“Can we change the subject?” I asked, while trying to figure out how to kick myself.

“Definitely,” Tamica said.

“Sure.” Brooklyn shrugged. “But can I say one more thing?” She didn’t even wait for me to answer before she added, “When you finally tell your husband, and he breaks down the
truth for you, and he gets busy with Ms. Shay-Shaunté, and you bank that big check … just remember to pay your tithe!”

Brooklyn leaned back and released a howl that was supposed to be a laugh. As if that was the funniest thing she’d ever heard or said.

She laughed all by herself.

Tamica rolled her eyes and I growled. Brooklyn was so lucky that she was my girl, because if she wasn’t, and if she wasn’t so much bigger, and if she wasn’t my first lady, I would’ve slapped that laugh right out of her!

But all I did was look at Tamica, and both of us rolled our eyes at the first lady who was roaring with laughter.

Chapter 9

M
AKING LOVE TO MY HUSBAND WAS
like taking a flight straight to heaven. That’s exactly how I described it to Brooklyn and Tamica the first time it happened, and almost sixteen years later there were still no better words to express our connection. Our desire, our longing for each other was mutual when it began all those years ago, and it never stopped.

For me, the beginning of our love affair was when I finally pushed myself up after Adam wrestled me onto the ground. As I watched him walk away, my twelve-year-old heart knew that I had to have him.

Brooklyn, Tamica, and the guys were still laughing when I got up, but do you think that mattered to me? Nuh-huh. I was in love with that Banana-Pudding-Guy; he had me the moment I was staring up into his I’m-in-charge brown eyes. Although his hands held my wrists in a vise grip and not one part of my body could move an inch, I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. He couldn’t; because in those ten seconds when he was
on top of me, there was this strange kind of electricity that flickered in the center of me. But it didn’t stay there—it passed right through me to him. Oh, he felt it, too. I knew that because his body sent his energy right back to me. That was when I was sure he was going to kiss me.

But he didn’t.

Maybe it was because we were in front of my mother’s house, or maybe it was because we were in front of my friends. I don’t know. But all he did was get up and walk away.

When he did that, I was like, huh? At first, I was gonna run after him, but I wasn’t about to lose my cool status; not with my friends watching. So, nonchalantly, I brushed myself off as if being laid out on the ground was no big deal. Then I asked Cash, “Who’s your friend?”

“Adam Langston,” he told me, still kind of laughing.

“He new around here?”

“Naw, his mom stay over on Simmons. He lives there, too. Just been going to school out in Maryland somewhere. But he’ll be going to Martin Luther King with us in September.”

I was grinning hard, till Cash said, “Girl, he ain’t interested in you. Adam likes ’em straight.”

“What that mean? I’m straight.”

“Naw; he likes girls who are all about school. Who like to read, study, go to the library and what-not. You know, smart girls.” Cash shook his head. “He ain’t into girls like y’all.”

“Y’all?”

If Brooklyn hadn’t jumped in, I would’ve broken it down to Cash myself. What did he know about me? What did he know about anything except running drugs for Duke? He needed to stay out of my business and worry about how he was gonna stay out of jail.

BOOK: The Deal, the Dance, and the Devil
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