Pastor Needs a Boo (40 page)

Xavier noticed the back and forth line of communication between the DJ and Marsha Metcalf. They looked a whole lot alike.

“Must be her son,” Xavier murmured.

“You say something, Sweetheart?” Camille said in a sweet voice.

Xavier always marveled at how sweet and melodic his wife's voice was. In spite of all of her haughty and ugly ways, the girl still managed to have one of the sweetest voices he'd ever heard on a woman. In fact, he always thought Camille sounded a whole lot like Janet Jackson. While Xavier hated to talk to Camille for any length of time, he loved to hear her voice, especially over the telephone.

“No,” Xavier answered. He continued watching Marcus search for something and smiled. Morris Palmer had done him a solid, messing with the music like that.

First, he and Luther Howard had made sure that Denzelle Flowers's tuxedo was not available. And now the DJ could not find the music for Denzelle Flowers's and Marsha Metcalf's dance. This was going to be good.

Xavier knew those two had practiced and practiced on Charlie Wilson's “Life of the Party.” And now, they didn't have the song. The chances of them finding a suitable new song for their dance before it was time to perform were pretty slim to unlikely.

Mom,
Marcus texted.
Do you think you and Rev can do your dance to “Night to Remember” by Shalamar?

Let me talk to Denzelle and find out,
Marsha texted back.

I hear ya', playah,
Marcus texted.
Gone head and ask your man what he wants to do.

Marsha looked up at the DJ box. Marcus was staring at his mom and laughing. He was so enjoying watching her deal with liking a man. Reverend Flowers was a good brother and liked his mom a lot. That was a good thing, because Marcus didn't want to have to kick the pastor's behind for trying to play his mother.

“We need to get on the dance floor, Marsha,” Denzelle said.

“Marcus can't find our music. And the signal for YouTube is not that good.”

Denzelle scowled and looked around the gymnasium for Tatiana. She had the natural nerve to tamper with their music. But the tux? She wouldn't have gone through all of that trouble to mess up his tux. Tatiana may have known about this, but she was not the culprit.

He looked around the gymnasium a few more seconds and saw Xavier Franklin watching Marsha, Marcus, and him intently.

“What does he have to gain from sabotaging a dance number?” Denzelle speculated out loud.

“A lot,” Marsha told him.

“Well,” Denzelle said, “Now that our music is missing, what song does Marcus want us to use?”

“Shalamar's ‘Night to Remember,'” Marsha told him. “Do you like it?”

“Love the song,” he told her. “Marcus is the man.”

Denzelle grinned down at Marsha. He gave her ponytail a tug and said, “You know what, Honey? We can definitely make this happen.”

“Oooo,” Keisha said. “Did you all hear that? Pastor just called Marsha ‘Honey.' And he sounded like he was talking to his woman.”

“Maybe because he is talking to his woman,” Veronica said.

“Yeah. 'Cause D sho' 'nuff is standing next to Marsha like she's his woman,” Lena said in a very quiet voice.

The last thing she wanted to happen was for Denzelle to get cold feet about Marsha. As much as Lena loved Denzelle, there were times when she wanted to slap the Kappa Crimson off of his behind. He had been a big player back in the day. Now here he was, with the audacity to get scared over a woman who would take better care of his heart than he did.

Lena had to pray to hold her peace with Denzelle, because he was too smart and smooth for his own good. And that was part of the problem. The big, bad, smooth, Denzelle Flowers could not believe he had fallen for a little Miss Priss, on the goofy side woman like Marsha Metcalf. But as far as Lena was concerned, Marsha was exactly the kind of woman Denzelle needed in his life.

Marsha would love Denzelle the way he needed to and deserved to be loved. She would take good care of him. And she would have his back.

Marsha was sweet and on the goofy side. But she was also a mighty woman of God, and not one to mess with. Lena had seen Marsha take down a few folk, and she had barely raised her voice. But when she was done, the person looked like they had been in an altercation with somebody who had been trained by Special Ops.

“You got cold feet,” Keisha said.

“In more ways than one,” Denzelle said, as he watched Marsha getting ready for them to dance. He wasn't sure how he was going to feel dancing in front of folk, even though he was a very good dancer. But even more, Denzelle wasn't sure how he was going to handle dancing so close and intimately with Marsha.

He looked across the gymnasium. His enemies were sitting there hoping he would fall flat on his face—literally and spiritually. But he reasoned that they had to be awfully worried about him to go so far as to mess with his tux and then try and jack up the music.

Denzelle looked upward and smiled. He touched his heart with his hand and thought, Thank You. Sometimes the Lord lets you experience some trials at the hands of your enemies, just to let you know they were there, and also very afraid of you. Experiencing their antics was one way to alert you to the extent of their feelings where you were concerned.

“Keisha,” Denzelle said. “I think it's time you introduced me and my dance partner.”

Denzelle grabbed Marsha's hand and slid his fingers through hers. He marveled at how his fingers could fit into her tiny hand. It took considerable restraint to keep himself from kissing all five of the fingertips on Marsha's sweet little hardworking hand.

“And now for our second contestants,” Keisha said, and gave Denzelle and Marsha time to get out onto the middle of the dance floor. “Dancing the fox-trot to Shalamar's ‘Night to Remember' is our pastor, Reverend Denzelle Flowers, with his partner, Ms. Marsha Metcalf.”

The whole gymnasium went up in a roar of whistles, hand claps, stomps, and cheers.

Marsha gazed up at Denzelle's surprised expression.

“What?” she asked. “You didn't know your folk loved you like this, Boy?”

He closed his eyes for a second and nodded. It had never occurred to him that he was so loved.

“Sometimes,” Marsha said, “church folk don't always know how to let you know that they are crazy 'bout you, Boy.”

Tatiana glanced over at her husband, Todd, and clenched her teeth together. There was Denzelle out there looking fine and sexy in a red tuxedo jacket, some dark jeans, a white shirt, and his red bow tie hanging out of the jacket's breast pocket like it was a pocket square. Tatiana gave herself a moment to reminisce about what was behind that attire—a whole lot of swagger, and then some.

She fanned herself with the program and sighed, “Whew” out loud.

“Are you alright?” Todd asked his wife. He followed Tatiana's gaze to Denzelle standing with Marsha and frowned. He said, “You left him for me, remember.”

Xavier was watching Tatiana go gaga over Denzelle, too. He didn't like it any more than Todd did. Women always did that to Denzelle—acted like they wanted to throw their thongs at him. He couldn't stand the way people, especially women, went all crazy over Denzelle Flowers.

That is precisely why he was going to make sure the bishops voted to ban divorced preachers from being a bishop if they remarried while the ex-spouse was alive. That policy would fix Denzelle, and fix him good.

Camille locked eyes with Tatiana in a staring match. Tatiana got tired of looking at Camille. She rolled her eyes to break the stare, and then turned away so Camille couldn't roll her eyes back.

But Camille was not in the mood to be bothered with Tatiana and her mess this evening. She pulled out her iPhone and texted,
He is still my husband, B. Don't hate 'cause my man is fine and yours is—well, I don't know what we would call your man.

Tatiana's eyes got big. How had Camille gotten her number? She knew it wasn't from Xavier, because he was very careful about that. She got ready to text something nasty back, and almost swore out loud. Camille's number was private.

Camille stared back at Tatiana and grinned. When she knew Xavier wasn't paying any attention to her, she licked her finger and wrote an invisible point in the air. Then Camille gave Tatiana the finger and acted like she was scratching down in her weave when she saw some church folk looking at her.

Tatiana sucked on her teeth as quietly as she could. The last thing she wanted or needed was Todd all up in her grill. She was going to let Camille enjoy and savor this moment. But what Camille Creighton Franklin didn't know was that her days were numbered. Tatiana wished she'd be able to see the expression on Camille's face the morning she woke up dead.

“You look wonderful,” Denzelle whispered in Marsha's ear.

He wasn't the only one who thought Marsha looked wonderful in those leggings, those sparkling shoes, her hair and makeup, and the big tuxedo shirt hugging her body in all the right ways with that cummerbund she had tied around her waist. Reverend Larry Pristeen couldn't get over how good Marsha Metcalf was looking to him out on the dance floor.

Reverend Pristeen liked Marsha a lot more than he'd ever admit to anybody. He thought she was fine and sexy and the kind of woman a brother couldn't keep his hands off of. Larry was furious that Marsha was getting ready to dance with Denzelle Flowers. And he was pissed off over her looking so happy standing on the dance floor in Denzelle's arms.

Larry assumed Marsha would respond favorably to the stale, dry crumbs of attention he tossed at the women he found himself liking. He didn't care that his game was self-absorbed and unkind where the other person was concerned. In fact, when Larry Pristeen tried to play Marsha with that game, all it did was earn him a special spot on her list. That day he said, “You could make a man fall hard for you, Marsha Metcalf. But I don't want to make the mistake of falling for you. I want to bask in being single and in how that makes my ministry and the national singles' program I'm building better. You are single, but you want to go out on a date or talk to a man on the telephone. I don't see you striving to sacrifice enough to earn enough points to be with me.”

Marsha had stood there listening to Larry, thinking about all she'd sacrificed and done without over the past few years. She thought about her long work hours and tight budget, losing her home, wanting a new car but having to wait to buy it, and being so completely alone because the so-called good brothers didn't have sense enough to try and get to know her.

And here was Larry Pristeen, with his six-figure-plus income, top of the line BMW, and three-thousand-dollar plain black suit, standing up in her face talking mess about sacrifice. Marsha was sacrificing alright. She was making a huge sacrifice to stop herself from beating Larry Pristeen down to the lowest common denominator that he was.

But she took the high road that day and simply walked off and away from Reverend Pristeen, determined to never, ever have anything to do with him again. Even when he came to her church to preach, Marsha didn't give Larry the time of day. In fact, as soon as he got up to preach, Marsha got her purse and walked right out of the sanctuary. She went down to the church's dining room and helped the Culinary Committee set the tables for the church's special dinner for their so-called guest preacher.

Now Larry was looking at Denzelle Flowers holding on to Marsha Metcalf like he'd perish if he let her go. And Larry Pristeen didn't like that one bit. Reverend Pristeen, a man who pretended he was above basic human emotions like passion, jealousy, and resentment, decided right then that he was going to get Denzelle Flowers, and get him good.

He was going to the upcoming Board of Bishops meeting in Raleigh, and would be lobbying for them to vote in a policy that would make it impossible for Denzelle to have his cake and eat it, too. Larry wanted to see just how good it would feel when Flowers realized he couldn't have Marsha and run for bishop, too. That would fix both of them. Marsha would have to be alone, and Denzelle would become a bishop without having someone wonderful by his side.

 

Chapter Thirty-one

Denzelle saw Larry watching them. Many years ago he had a healthy dose of respect for the brother. But that respect ended when he discovered Larry was a self-serving, power-hungry ho underneath that fiery-looking evangelist persona.

Marcus saw the frown flash across Denzelle's face and followed his gaze to the source.

“That fool,” Marcus mumbled, and nodded at Keisha, who said, “Are you ready to Rrrruuummmmbbbbllllle, Pastor?” in her best imitation of a TV wrestling announcer's voice.

“Do yo' thang, Rev!” one of the teens in the audience shouted out.

Denzelle and Marsha positioned themselves to break off into the very first move of the fox-trot. Marsha held her breath. She had practiced alone and with Denzelle. They had worked hard to put those steps in place to Charlie Wilson's “Life of the Party.” It had been hard to figure out how to do that particular dance to a song like that. Now they had to figure out how to make this work to Shalamar, and without any time to redo the steps.

“It's now or never, Beautiful,” Denzelle whispered in Marsha's ear, when the first chords of the song came on.

Marsha looked in Denzelle's eyes and whispered, “Wait,” when they heard buhdah dadadada da-dahh da duhdahda duhdahda …

“Move very slightly to this beat,” Marsha whispered, and smiled when Denzelle swayed his body in sync with hers. She then whispered, “Go,” when Jody Watley's voice came on with “So, now, my love to you, baby, I surrender./Get ready, tonight, gonna make this a night to remember.”

At that point they moved smoothly and effortlessly across the dance floor in a very funky and bluesy rendition of the fox-trot. Denzelle and Marsha looked like they were gliding across the floor on some roller skates, they were so smooth. Marsha stared up in his eyes and smiled, and then blushed when he winked and took them across the floor in another rep of the dance.