Heavens to Betsy (5 page)

“I wouldn’t lose my job.” Not since I’m planning to resign in a few months anyway. “C’ mon, LaRonda. Help me out here.”

LaRonda is nobody’s fool, least of all mine. “What’s this about?”

“I need a date for Saturday night.”

“For what? Wedding? Fund-raiser?”

“No, just to prove a point.”

Her
eyes
narrow. “So you want to use my brother to prove a point?”

I sigh. “Not a political point. A personal one.”

“Which would be?” Her generous lips are set in a thin line, and I know what it feels like to be one of her parishioners caught with a hand in the cookie jar.

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Then don’t ask me if you can use my brother.”

“I guess it did sound like that.”

“Uh-huh.”

LaRonda waits patiently for me to cough up the truth. Around us conversation buzzes in the back room of the Green Hills Starbucks, where the Volvo and BMW moms congregate after spin class. I’m not sure LaRonda and I fit in, but when do we ever? And if being a white woman minister is an uphill climb, being a black woman minister is like hauling yourself up Mount Everest with your feet tied together. With the help of her upbringing as a preacher’s kid, LaRonda has always made it look like a Cakewalk.

“Look,” I confess, “I need to save face here.”

“But who? Do you ever meet any men besides your parishioners?” I casually scan the round room tucked in the back of the coffee shop. This space was a dry cleaner when I was in divinity school, but now it’s a collage of wood and tile permeated with the aroma of burned coffee beans.

“What about David?” LaRonda swirls her straw to catch the last of her Frapp.

“David’s why I need a date.”

“What?”

“It’s a long story.”

LaRonda puts down her drink. “Which you are going to tell me right now.”

I look away. “I’d rather not.”

“Betsy, there’s no way you’re not telling me what’s going on. What happened Saturday night? I thought you guys just went to the movies.”

I set my empty cup down next to hers. “He touched my thigh. In the theater.”

LaRonda coughs, pounds her chest, and then coughs some more. “He did what?” she chokes out.

I blush. “Not on purpose. He was going for the popcorn.”

“And?”

“And … well, I felt something.”

“What kind of something?” A zing.

“A zing? You felt a zing?”

“Hallelujah,” LaRonda sighs.

“What? How can you say that?”

She leans back in her chair. “I’ve been waiting for this since the first week of div school.”

“But, LaRonda, its
David
”

“You mean smart, tall, funny, kind David? The kind of guy we’d give our eyeteeth for?” She looks me straight in the eye. “If you think this is for real, not some biological fluke, you have to tell him.”

“I know, I know. And I will. But first I have to go on this date.”

She rolls her eyes. “Why?”

“Because I told him I had a date Saturday so I couldn’t go to the movies with him.”

LaRonda massages her temples. “Let me get this straight. You turned down a date with a man you’re attracted to so you could go on a date with a man who doesn’t exist?”

Well, when you put it that way, it does sound a bit ridiculous.

“But David wasn’t asking me on a date. He was taking me for granted, assuming I didn’t have plans for Valentine’s Day.”

“Girl, that’s your fault. You didn’t just give him a license to take you for granted. You printed it, signed it, and had it laminated.”

“I know.” Even my ritual latte can’t straighten out my head. “But I don’t want to look like a complete idiot. Where am I going to find a man by Saturday?”

“What about one of the baristas?” LaRonda nods toward the bar. “There’s some nice eye candy back there.”

I laugh. “I’m not about to endanger my daily caffeine source.”

LaRonda taps her manicured nails on the café table. “Zing from David aside, when are you going to quit finding reasons not to date?”

“Face it, Betsy; it’s not that there aren’t men out there to date. You just rule them all out before they even ask you.”

The latte in my stomach turns sour. “No one’s asked me out in months.”

“And why is that? Could it have something to do with your wardrobe?”

“It’s my day off. What’s wrong with my clothes?”

“At the best of times, you dress like your mother.”

That hurts. “I do
not
dress like my mother.”

LaRonda laughs. “If I called your mom right now and asked her what she was wearing, what do you think she’d say?”

“I think she’d call you a pervert and hang up.”

We both laugh, and that feels better. “Are my clothes really that bad?”

“Not unless you mean to put the
m
in
matron.
”

“Are you telling me I’m frumpy?”

“You’re the Queen of Frumpy.”

“And if I dress differently, I’ll date?”

“You will if you agree to do that segment for Tricia.”

Now the caffeine rushes to my brain. “No way, Ronnie. I refuse to be humiliated on local television.”

LaRonda’s been after me for weeks to do a makeover segment for her cousin’s new local morning show. She says it will empower me. That I’ll be a new woman. I’m more worried that I’ll be the first failure in the history of makeovers.

“What makes you think you’ll be humiliated? Everybody wants a makeover,” LaRonda says.

“Do we need to broadcast my unattractiveness to the whole city?”

I don’t believe her. But I’m a thirty-year-old single woman with all the attendant insecurities. Desperation can be a great motivator. I wanted to change my life. Maybe my appearance is the place to start. “Okay,” I say with a dramatic sigh worthy of an early Christian martyr being thrown to the lions. “But you better be there. I don’t want to be left alone to Tricia’s tender mercies.”

LaRonda beams. “Don’t worry. I’ve got your back. You won’t regret it.”

Of course I will. But at least it will take my mind off all my other problems.

LaRonda doesn’t let any grass grow under my feet. The next day we meet a camera crew waiting at the entrance to Green Hills mall. LaRonda’s cousin Tricia hosts the local morning show for the new affiliate of a fledgling network, which would explain why someone would be desperate enough to put me on television.

Tricia is tall, thin, coiffed, and plucked. She looks like a finalist in the Miss America pageant, only without the evening gown. She smirks when she sees me. “Excellent, Rond. When I’m done with her, the
Queer Eye
guys will bow their heads in reverence.”

I don’t know about the Fab Five, but I feel my head sink lower on my neck. Am I that bad?

The camera lights go on, and I’m blinded. Tricia shoves a microphone in my face. “So, Reverend Blessing, are you ready to be transformed from holy to hottie?”

The mannequins in the window look like hookers with some cash to spend. The clothes do not look like they were made for a woman who can sing “Jesus Loves Me” in three languages.

“LaRonda—” My protest is cut off by the shove she gives me, propelling me into the den of iniquity. The camera swings to Tricia, who details the travesty that’s about to be perpetuated on me. A perky sales assistant pops up on cue and starts groping me.

“Hmm. Size 10?”

I wish I could argue with that assessment, but I’ll be lucky to squeeze into anything less than a 12.

The sales assistant looks pensive. “Normally, we don’t carry anything in double digits…” She looks at me with obvious distaste. “Perhaps monochromatic, all black…”

I snap. “Something in a burka, perhaps?”

She stares back at me without comprehension. “Is that a new kind of halter?”

Mercifully, LaRonda intervenes. “How about these?” She thrusts a pair of leather pants into my arms. The sales assistant adds a see-through chiffon blouse, and Tricia shoves me toward a dressing room even as she continues to give a running commentary of my flaws to the camera.

“A bit broad in the hips, but a flare leg can balance those saddlebags—”

I should put an end to this right now. I’ve been humiliated enough in the past year, and I know that something as superficial as my looks isn’t what’s truly important. But a tiny part of me wonders if it would help. If my appearance improved, would my life? Besides, Tricia will never put this on television. No amount of clothes and makeup could make me into a Glamazon.

I discover the leather pants will zip if I give up breathing. I beg LaRonda for a camisole to go under the blouse, and Tricia grudgingly consents. I refuse to look in the dressing-room mirror. LaRonda yanks me out into the shop and forces me to the even larger monstrosity magnifier out there.

“Open your eyes.”

“No.”

The cameraman follows my every step.

“Hmm. Not bad.” From Tricia, this is a ringing endorsement.

“Come on, Betsy. Open your eyes,” LaRonda says.

“Is the salesgirl gone?”

“Yeah.” LaRonda laughs. “I think she was afraid of guilt by association.”

“Okay, then.” Reluctantly, I open one eye the tiniest bit.

Three-way mirrors are like God. You can’t escape anything about yourself when you’re standing in front of one. Shoot, they’re worse
than God—they don’t forgive a single flaw. I’m still me, but… Dare I say it? I look semihot.

“Yes, I think that will work.” Tricia sounds more convinced now that she’s had some time to study me like a bug under a microscope. “She needs heels, though, to give her legs a longer line.”

LaRonda slips out of her mile-high sling-backs and hands them over. “Try these.”

Why not complete my humiliation? But as I bend over to slip them on, I discover tight leather isn’t conducive to reaching your feet.

“Here.” LaRonda kneels to help me into the shoes, and I turn back to the mirror. The addition of three inches to my height does perform a wonder akin to the parting of the Red Sea. The pants hang properly, and the blouse falls to just below my waist, mercifully short of my hips.

“Wow.” Suddenly I’m voluptuous. The cameraman whistles, and I blush.

“Excellent.” Tricia turns to the camera. “Now, for the next step…”

“Next step? There are more steps?” Isn’t this enough humiliation for one day?

Tricia frowns. “Hair. Makeup. The works.”

“But I took a vacation day!”

LaRonda puts an arm around my shoulders. “And what better way to spend it? What better way to get a certain lanky reverend to sit up and take notice?”

My blush could be seen by the astronauts on the International Space Station. “Ronnie!”

Tricia’s ears perk up like a Yorkshire terrier’s. “What’s this? Is there a potential romance we could exploit … er, I mean, nurture?”
“No.” The whole thing has gone far enough. I’m not the leather type or the chiffon type. Or the David type. “That’s it. I’m done.”

“No, you’re not.” LaRonda has a look of steely determination in her eyes. Tricia looks bewildered. The cameraman zooms in for a closeup of my answer.

I cave.

“New hairdo, then?” I squeak and slink back to the dressing room.