The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Real (48 page)

An excerpt from the next book in the Yada Yada Prayer Group series,
The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Tough

1

T
he wedding cake—a modest three-tiered creation from the Bagel Bakery—sat resplendent and untouched on the pass-through counter of Uptown Community Church's kitchen. Ruth Garfield, a navy “church hat” parked on her frowzy brown hair, stood in front of it, hands on hips,muttering something about “. . . marriage can't be consummated if the newlyweds don't cut the
cake
.”

Yo-Yo Spencer, back in a pair of dry overalls after her baptism in Lake Michigan less than an hour ago, jerked her blonde, spiky hair in Ruth's direction as we folded the friendship quilt the Yada Yada Prayer Group had made for Avis's wedding. “What's got
her
tail in a knot, Jodi? We can still eat the cake. Heck, my brothers could demolish the whole thing in a couple of hours—oh.” The spiky-haired twenty-something looked at me, stricken. “Guess I ain't supposed to say ‘heck' now that I been dunked, huh?”

I stifled a laugh just as a crack of thunder outside covered for me. The threatening storm that had cut short Yo-Yo's baptism—and Bandana Woman's, which had shocked the socks off everybody—finally unloaded over the north end of Chicago, washing the high, narrow windows of Uptown Community's second-floor meeting room. Ben Garfield and my husband, Denny, were taking down the Jewish
huppah
Ben had built for Avis and Peter Douglass's wedding. My son, Josh—Mr. Clean himself with that shaved head of his—was bossing around the cleanup crew of teenagers, all of them still half wet from the “hallelujah water fight” the double baptisms had inspired down at the lake. José Enriquez and his father were packing up their guitars. And Pastor Clark sat knee to knee with a shivering Becky Wallace swathed in several layers of damp towels, his Bible open as he showed her the verses about “all have sinned” and “God so loved the world” and “by grace we are saved.”

A huge bubble of happiness rose up in my spirit and oozed out all my pores as I hugged the folded quilt with its individual squares embroidered by each of the Yada Yada sisters. What an incredible day! I wished I could capture it in freeze-frame photography and replay it again, moment by moment:

All the Yada Yadas blowing our noses and smudging our
mascara as dignified Avis Johnson “jumped the broom” with
Peter Douglass right in Uptown's Sunday morning worship
service . . .

Yo-Yo in her brand-new lavender overalls “gettin' off
the fence and gettin' dunked,” as she called it, in Lake
Michigan . . .

The spontaneous plunge into the waters of salvation by
Becky Wallace—a.k.a. “Bandana Woman,” the heroin junkie
who'd robbed Yada Yada at knifepoint last fall and ended up
as Leslie “Stu” Stewart's housemate last week on house arrest,
complete with electronic ankle monitor . . .

Could any of us have imagined such a day a year ago when we'd all met at that Chicago women's conference? A perfect “anniversary” for the Yada Yada Prayer Group!

Except for the cake, that is. I wasn't sure our resident
yenta
, Ruth Garfield, would ever forgive Peter and Avis—soaking wet from the silly dunking he'd given her after the baptisms—for deciding to forgo their wedding cake in lieu of getting into dry clothes and setting off on their honeymoon.

“Earth to Jodi!” Florida Hickman's hand waved in front of my face, breaking my thoughts. “You gonna hug that quilt all day or help me convince Ruth we should eat that cake? Avis would want us to!” She grabbed my arm. “C'mon . . . hey! Look who's back!”

Nonyameko Sisulu-Smith and her husband, Mark, appeared at the top of the stairs that opened into the second-floor meeting room, looking comfy and dry in sweats and gym shoes. “Uh-huh,” Florida challenged. “Thought you guys had ducked out on us.”

Mark shrugged. “We wanted to leave you guys with all the dirty work, but we need to talk to Pastor Clark about something.” He grinned, and probably every female heart in the room skipped a beat. Our African “princess” had definitely snagged herself an American “prince,” even if he was a Georgia-boy-makes-good. Dr. Mark Smith was not only a professor of history at Northwestern University and the father of their two polite boys, but—as Florida would say—“that brother is
fine.”

Nony rolled her eyes. “That's not the whole of it. You should've heard him complaining because he hadn't gotten any wedding cake!”

“Cake, nothing!” growled Denny, still struggling to dismantle the
huppah
with Ben. “Give us a hand with this thing, man, so we can get it out the door.”

“Better get your hands dirty, Mark,” Florida smirked. “I
know
your grandma taught you: ‘Them that don't work, don't eat.' ”

Laughter rippled through the motley crew—some damp, some dry—who'd assembled back at the church after the lakeside ceremonies. The original plan had been for Avis and Peter's wedding ceremony to take place during the morning service, followed by a brief reception with cake and punch; then everyone would walk or drive to the lake for Yo-Yo's baptism. But Chicago weather being what it was—the forecast called for scattered showers throughout the day—when the sun came out shortly after the “I do's,” Pastor Clark had suggested we all head for the lake for Yo-Yo's baptism and
then
come back for the reception.

Humph.
“Best-laid plans” and all that. Hadn't counted on ex-con Becky Wallace getting zapped by Jesus like Paul on the road to Damascus and wanting to get baptized right then and there too, and everybody ending up in the water in an exuberant celebration of God's ongoing redemption.Well . . . maybe the teenagers just saw their chance to dunk their parents or give Pastor Clark a good soaking.Whatever. It had been glorious.

Until the lightning drove us out of the water, that is. Then it'd been a toss-up whether we all ought to split for home and get out of wet clothes or if some of us should go back to the church long enough to do some cleanup first. Most of Uptown's small congregation and about half of the Yada Yada sisters—most of whom attended other churches—decided to go home. (Stu, who lived on the second floor of our two-flat, drove a carload of Yada Yadas so they wouldn't have to ride the elevated train wringing wet.)

Couldn't blame them—that's precisely what I wanted to do too.Walking around in soggy underwear under my damp dress slacks wasn't my idea of a good time. But Pastor Clark hiked up the heat so we wouldn't “catch our death,” as Ruth kept muttering, and there wasn't that much left to do. Still, it was nice of Nony and Mark to come back after changing out of their wet African dress and dashiki; they must've left the boys at home with Hoshi, the Japanese university student Mark and Nony had befriended. Nony had told Hoshi about Jesus and then brought her to the Chicago women's conference last year, where twelve of us ended up in prayer group twenty-six . . . and the rest, as they say, is history.

“Don't worry, Ruth,” Nony was saying gently. “We can lift off the top two tiers—see?—and refrigerate them till Avis and Peter get back later this week.”

“Yeah.” Florida bopped into the kitchen and reappeared on the other side of the pass-through. “Ain't much in this here fridge once we take out this stuff.”The small-boned woman with beaded braids all over her head and a scar down one cheek pulled open the door of the industrial refrigerator and pulled out two plastic jugs of red punch and a liter of ginger ale. Then Florida gingerly took the top two layers of the wedding cake from Nony and slid them carefully onto the nearly empty shelf. “There! That thang'll be safe here till them lovebirds pick it up next Sunday.” As the refrigerator door closed with a soft wheeze, Florida grabbed a large knife from the block. “OK, everybody!” she yelled out into the big room. “Cake cuttin' time!”