The Last Sunday (3 page)

“Did you ever consider not completing the construction of New Testament Cathedral after the tragic death of your husband, Pastor Hezekiah Cleaveland?” was one of the questions posed in
Newsweek.

“Never,” was Samantha's quoted response. “This was not only the vision of my late husband, but it was mine as well. His death was a tragedy, but I'm a woman of faith, and I never doubted for a second that this was exactly what God wanted me to do.”

The first service to be held in the new sanctuary was scheduled for the coming Sunday morning. Parishioners from around the country and the world had RSVP'd for the privilege of sitting in one of the twenty-five thousand seats at the inaugural service. A special section at the front of the sanctuary had been reserved for the hundreds of VIPs whose press secretaries, managers, publicists, and schedulers had called to announce they would be in attendance. The list of celebrities, professional athletes, local, national, and international politicians, and six- figure donors who would make an appearance assured that the world's media would be focused that day on Samantha Cleaveland and the house of worship she had built, despite her grief and the unimaginable tragedy she had endured.

 

 

Cynthia Pryce pressed the button on the remote control, causing the flat-screen television in her den to flicker and bounce from one image to the next. It was seven o'clock on a Tuesday evening, and many of the air waves were dedicated to the evening news. On every news station Cynthia was assaulted either by stories heralding the grand opening of New Testament Cathedral or by the smiling face, coiffed hair, and conture swathed Samantha Cleaveland. She was everywhere. CNN, FOX . . . all the networks and all the local news stations.

Cynthia Pryce pressed the remote harder every time Samantha's high-definition smiling head filled the screen. Her fingers ached from the death grip she had on the device.

“Tonight our guest is the incomparable Pastor Samantha—” said Anderson Cooper. Cynthia flinched and quickly pressed the remote.

“Everyone wants to know just how you were able to build this magnificent church even though you just lost your husband,” said Tavis Smiley.

“Faith in—”

Cynthia pressed the remote hard again before being battered by Samantha's response.

“New Testament Cathedral has risen like a phoenix from the ashes in downtown Los Angeles,” the blank-faced brunette anchor read from the teleprompter. “The first service at New Testament Cathedral's new forty-five-million-dollar sanctuary is only five days away.”

Cynthia had grown weary of running from Samantha and allowed the reporter to fill her head and home with the latest on the woman she hated.

“This coming Sunday morning, only eight weeks after the horrific assassination of her husband, Pastor Hezekiah Cleaveland,” the reporter continued, “Pastor Samantha Cleaveland will preach the first sermon in her new twenty-five-thousand-seat glass cathedral.”

Cynthia could feel the muscles in her shoulders and neck tighten as the woman spoke.

“In addition to the millions of viewers around the world who are expected to watch the live broadcast, the guest list for the service includes such names as Magic Johnson and his wife, Cookie, Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King, Tyler Perry, Kevin Costner, Janet Jackson, former president Bill Clinton, and former secretaries of state Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice.”

Cynthia's left eye began to twitch as the reporter droned on about the woman who had captured the hearts and minds of millions. She twisted nervously on the leather sofa and resisted the urge to change the channel once again.

The demise of Hezekiah and Samantha Cleaveland had become an obsession for Cynthia over the past two years. She derived a modicum of pride from knowing that she had leaked the story of Hezekiah's homosexual affair to the
Los Angeles Chronicle
reporter Lance Savage.

If that little reporter hadn't gotten himself killed, she thought as she stared blankly at the TV screen, the story of that disgusting affair would have been front page news, and I would be the first lady of New Testament Cathedral right now.

It was Cynthia who had printed dozens of e-mails that Hezekiah had sent to Danny St. John from the computer in his office. These communications chronicled the passionate and emotional details of the relationship between one of the most powerful ministers in the country and a young social worker in downtown Los Angeles.

Cynthia squirmed even more when she recalled the cold night months earlier, when she talked with Lance Savage in her Mercedes, behind the large mounds of dirt piled near the then metal skeleton of New Testament Cathedral.

“I knew I couldn't trust you. This is extortion,” she had said to the balding reporter.

“Now hold on, Mrs. Pryce,” Lance had said seductively. “I wouldn't call it extortion. It's more like quid pro quo. You do something for me and . . . well, I make you the first lady of New Testament Cathedral.”

A few minutes with this cretin,
Cynthia had thought as the little man massaged her knee,
is a small price to pay to get Hezekiah and Samantha out of the way permanently.

She then looked Lance in the eye and said, “I'll do this on one condition.”

Cynthia squirmed more on the leather sofa in her den as the humiliation she had endured that cold night played in her head like a movie.

Lance looked at her guardedly and asked, “What's the condition?”

“That as soon as we're done, you'll let me send the article to your editor.”

She remembered how horrible Lance had sounded when he laughed and said, “When we're done, I'll probably be too tired to send the story myself. It's a deal.”

He removed his jacket and loosened his tie while Cynthia watched his every move.

Cynthia remembered how he had leaned forward and kissed her hard on the lips. She could still taste the remnants of stale cigarettes on his lips. His breathing became intense as he kissed her neck and caressed her breasts. “Mrs. Pryce,” he panted, “you are such a beautiful woman.”

Cynthia could almost smell his cheap aftershave in her den as she recalled the horrible events of that night.

Lance fumbled awkwardly as he unbuttoned Cynthia's blouse. She felt his lips gently circling her exposed nipples. The sounds of a cold wind whirling at the base of the building and the hum of the freeway in the distance could be heard through the car's darkly tinted windows.

Cynthia lifted Lance's head to hers and kissed him passionately. Her panting matched his breath for breath. She skillfully undid his belt buckle and pants and firmly gripped his erect member.

“Fuck me,” she moaned. “I want you to fuck me, Lance.”

Lance fumbled with the levers on the side of the seat and pressed buttons until he found the one to recline the driver's seat. Their writhing bodies descended in unison into the depths of the vehicle as the seat glided into a fully prone position.

Lance lifted Cynthia's skirt, slid her panties down around her ankles, and squirmed to lower his trousers. He then climbed on top of her to explore her waiting mouth once again.

“Hurry,” she said in a whisper. “Fuck me, and then we'll send the story to your editor together.”

Lance moaned as he thrust his hips against hers. “I'm going to fuck you first, and then we'll both fuck the Cleavelands.”

Cynthia lifted her knees toward the roof of the car and in the process turned on the windshield wipers. Lance entered her forcefully and pounded double time to the beat of the whooshing rubber blades.

Cynthia could almost feel him pounding into her flesh as she thought of the sacrifices she had made that night. She remembered holding him tightly and raising her hips to meet each thrust. The two writhed in passion, heightened by the euphoric prospect of the Cleavelands' demise. The car bounced uncontrollably until Lance reached a fevered climax and then collapsed, breathless, into her arms.

Cynthia was the first to speak. “It's time. Get your computer from the backseat.”

Exhausted, Lance rolled back into the passenger seat. “Wow,” he panted. “You don't waste any time, do you?”

“That was the agreement wasn't it? I fuck you, and you fuck Hezekiah. Are you planning to back out again?”

“No, no,” he protested. “I'm a man of my word.” With his trousers still around his ankles, Lance reached behind and retrieved the laptop. He turned on the computer, and the glowing screen lit up the car. As he waited for the article to appear, he said, “You're quite a woman, Mrs. Pryce. New Testament is in for one hell of a ride.”

The headline of the article flashed on the screen:
PASTOR HEZEKIAH T. CLEAVELAND INVOLVED IN SECRET HOMOSEXUAL AFFAIR
.

“There it is,” Lance said. “This is what you've been waiting for.”

“That's exactly what I've been waiting for,” Cynthia said with a smile. “Now, stop wasting time. Let's send it.”

“Okay, Mrs. Pryce. Just press
ENTER
and you'll be one step closer to being queen of New Testament Cathedral.”

Cynthia returned her seat to its upright position. With her clothes still disheveled, she pressed the key without saying a word.

After a message appeared on the screen, confirming the article had been sent, Cynthia looked at Lance and firmly said, “Now, pull your pants up and get out of my car.”

The events of that night were etched in her brain. As Cynthia sat in her den, now months later, staring at the oversize head of Samantha Cleaveland on her television, she had no remorse for using her body to expose the story that would have brought down the Cleaveland dynasty. Her only regret was that the contemptible reporter and Hezekiah hadn't lived long enough to make her sacrifice worthwhile. “If that little bastard was still alive, I'd fuck him again, and anyone else, if that's what it would take to get rid of Samantha Cleaveland,” she said aloud.

Scarlett Shackelford stood in front of the stove in her kitchen. An apron splattered with yellow sunflowers was cinched tightly around her slender waist. Steam rising from the stove formed a glistening layer of moisture on her forehead and cheeks. A pot filled to the brim with freshly washed collard greens, crushed garlic, sliced onions, and chicken stock simmered on one burner, and a one-inch-thick rib-eye steak sizzled on another. Steam from a casserole dish of macaroni and cheese bubbling in the oven poured from a vent on the side.

The evening sun reflected off every surface in the bright and cheery kitchen. White-glazed tile countertops held stainless-steel appliances, a neatly lined row of cookbooks, and a ceramic rooster cookie jar that required beheading before it would yield its sugary treats.

The three dishes were all her husband's favorites. Scarlett was desperate to keep her man, and she knew that one way to any man's heart was through his stomach. It had been weeks since the fateful day that David had coldly announced to her that he was in love with Samantha Cleaveland. As she stood in front of the boiling pot, she could still see the loathing in David's eyes. As she stirred the greens and recalled the slap she had planted on his expressionless face, her hand stung.

“Can't we talk about this? I've told you I wasn't in love with Hezekiah. I love you,” she had pleaded on that day, only three feet from where she now stood. “Why can't you just accept that and allow us to move on?”

“This isn't about you for once, Scarlett,” David had responded.

“I told you I lied to you for Natalie, not for myself.”

“I don't believe that, and on some level I don't think you believe it, either,” he said coldly. “You lied because you wanted to cover your tracks and preserve the ridiculous victim routine that you've used your entire life. You slept with Hezekiah because you wanted to. He didn't rape you. You were an adult. I don't buy for a minute your ‘young and naive' excuse. You knew exactly what you were doing. You wanted him, and Samantha called your bluff and put you back in your place.”

“How dare you? I was the victim. I walked away on my own because I didn't want anything from them,” Scarlett replied indignantly.

“Correction, darling. You walked away because you knew you couldn't get the one thing you wanted—Hezekiah. Then the wounded little girl nonsense was the perfect cover for your being slapped back into reality by Samantha. It didn't matter that I or anyone else didn't know that Natalie was Hezekiah's daughter. The important thing was that you knew it, and you could feel like the victim back in your safe little cocoon of self-pity, and since then you've been alone there.”

Scarlett raised her hand and slapped David hard on the cheek. His head turned from the blow, but his feet remained firmly planted.

“I guess now I'm supposed to slap you back. Is this a page from your battered wife script?” he said, rubbing his stinging cheek. “I'm afraid you'll have to remind me what my next line is. I don't seem to remember this scene.”

Scarlett had been unprepared for his lack of emotion and his painfully pointed words on that day. His cold demeanor had been completely unexpected and had left her at a loss. His words swirled in her head, almost making her dizzy. Was she the perfect victim? Did the world, in fact, revolve around her and not Natalie? Was there some twisted desire to be abandoned and left alone with her scars and wounds? Was this the monster she'd created?

She slapped him again and waited for a response. But she was greeted only with a questioning stare.

“I hate you,” she finally said in a whisper.

“You don't hate me, Scarlett. You hate the truth about yourself.”

Scarlett looked puzzled. The words stung. For her entire life she felt she had sacrificed her happiness for others, and mostly for her daughter. But in the face of such a damning accusation, she slowly began to realize that in fact she had made all the sacrifices for herself. She needed to be the victim. It was all she knew. It was familiar and where she felt safe and, ironically, in control.

“You're a coward to leave me over this,” she said, turning her back to him and walking to the sink. “I thought you were a better man than that.”

“That's where you're wrong again,” he said with a hint of irony. “I'm not leaving you because you're a liar. I'm not even leaving you because you're delusional.”

Scarlett turned from the sink to face David. He had not moved from the threshold. Now the span of the room divided them. Steam from the coffeemaker on the marble island formed a light mist between them. “Then why?” she asked, her question tinged with a dare.

“I'm leaving you for Samantha Cleaveland.”

The painful memory of that day caused her hand to shake as she turned the steak in the sizzling pan. She had lost track of time and hadn't realized the steak had burned on one side. The charred meat sent puffs of smoke into the kitchen.

David had not left her, and she had never asked him why. He had sat next to her on the pew at New Testament Cathedral the following Sunday morning. Natalie had sat between them while Samantha looked down from the pulpit. He ate at the table with her and Natalie each night. He kept her car filled with gasoline, did the laundry, and paid the bills, just as he had before he learned that the little girl was the illegitimate child of his pastor.

Life seemed almost normal each day, until it was time to retire to bed. It was then that the chasm that had developed between the two became the most apparent. David, as he always had, would pull the covers over Natalie's shoulders as she drifted off to sleep, kiss her forehead, and whisper, “I love you, little princess.” From there he would walk into the spare bedroom and close the door behind him. Scarlett would not see him again until the next morning at breakfast.

He hadn't touched her in weeks. His words were succinct and civil, but strictly utilitarian. “I'm on my way to the market. Do you need anything?” or “I will be home late for dinner tonight,” was the typical length and depth of his communications to her.

Until Hezekiah's death Scarlett hadn't realized just how much she had loved him. The love she felt had been so heavily camouflaged by respect, admiration, and nostalgia that she herself hadn't recognized it for what it was.

Scarlett had been smart and beautiful her entire life, but she had never really known it. Her shyness had often been mistaken for conceitedness. Boys had found the attractive Southern girl captivating. Her naïveté and soft voice had garnered proposals of marriage long before she turned eighteen.

At nineteen she became Hezekiah Cleaveland's secretary. Scarlett was professional and efficient. Hezekiah was immediately attracted to the young beauty and pursued her from the start. She was flattered by the attention from the handsome minister but flatly refused his constant advances. She often cried after work and wondered what she had done to elicit such carnal responses from the man she admired.

After a year Scarlett could resist no longer. She gave in to the pastor and began a two-month affair. Hezekiah was the first man she had ever been with. He was gentle and attentive and never made her feel cheap. Scarlett soon learned she was pregnant. Hezekiah offered to put her up in an apartment until the baby was born. After that, he told her, she would have to give the baby up for adoption.

She was devastated. Not because she was pregnant, but because the man she had fallen in love with did not share her joy. Samantha soon learned of Scarlett's condition and immediately fired her. Scarlett then married a man who had pursued her since she was fifteen. It wasn't easy, but she convinced her new husband that the baby she was carrying was his.

For five years the couple lived a turbulent life filled with physical abuse and mistrust. Her new husband never believed the cute little girl was really his. In a violent argument he threw Scarlett and Natalie out on the street. Scarlett had never loved her husband, so the divorce came as a relief, but the pain of her secret lingered. She still held it close to her chest, like an unwanted family heirloom that she had been entrusted to protect.

Scarlett rejoined New Testament Cathedral after her marriage ended and soon became a trusted and valuable member of the church. Eventually, Hezekiah, who had never lost his deep affection for her, appointed Scarlett to the board of trustees.

She had harbored loathing for Samantha Cleaveland for years, and now it intensified. She had always suspected that Samantha would want to take over the church if Hezekiah ever died, and Scarlett vowed to do all within her power to prevent it if she ever tried.

Scarlett thought she had put all the love, pain, and rejection behind her, until she saw Hezekiah lying on the pulpit with blood pouring from his head and chest. The carnage released emotions she assumed had long passed. Now she realized that David was right. She had been in love with Hezekiah and grieved his death as a widow would. The feelings took her by surprise and left her a quivering, whimpering bundle of nerves, one who would burst into tears at the thought of him. The feelings were accompanied by a staggering dose of shame and embarrassment. Not over the fact that she had had an affair with a married man or that she had lied about Natalie. She was ashamed about the fact that she had not realized herself just how much she loved him and how much his rejection had shaped the fragile woman she had become.

Scarlett coughed from the billows of smoke that were again rising from the burning steak. Once again she had lost track of time. She quickly removed the charred meat from the pan and dropped it with a thud onto a waiting bundle of paper towels. She looked at the greens and discovered they were bubbling over the rim of the pot and spewing liquid onto the stove's surface. The beeping oven timer then caught her attention. It had run ten minutes past the time she had set. She immediately swung the oven door open and was greeted with another plume of smoke. The macaroni and cheese had bubbled over the sides of the casserole dish and had formed a pile of smoldering goo on the floor of the oven.

The meal was ruined in spite of her best efforts to please her husband.
Just like my marriage,
she thought as a tear fell from her eye.
Just like my life.

The death of Pastor Cleaveland had served to reopen the wounds that had taken her years to heal. Feelings for Hezekiah had flooded back, as if she were nineteen again. Over the years, however, she had never stopped hating Samantha, the woman who had treated her so cruelly. The woman she had once admired.

 

 

A bus filled with Japanese tourists drove onto the sacred grounds of New Testament Cathedral. Once the tourists set foot on the pavement, their digital cameras recorded images of the building and sounds of astonishment escaped their lips. They had traveled halfway around the world to see Disneyland and the new glass cathedral.

“It is magnificent!” one exclaimed in a distinct Hokkaido-ben dialect. “It is more beautiful than I imagined.”

An army of groundskeepers, in green overalls emblazoned with the church's logo of a bejeweled gold crown with a cross running through the center, carefully maneuvered golf carts filled with fresh sod, blossoming perennials, shovels, and other supplies through the throngs of visitors, who had come from around the world to marvel at the building.

Reverend Percy Pryce stood at the fifth-floor window, looking down on the carnival below. His new office was twice the size of the one he had occupied in the old building. Two walls of intricately woven glass panes offered him unobstructed views of the walkway to the main entrance, a massive satellite dish pointing toward heaven, and the outdoor amphitheater, which could seat five thousand souls.

Percy found no joy in the beauty sprawled at his feet. Every click of a tourist's camera, every exclamation of “It's the most beautiful building in the world,” and every plunge of a groundskeeper's shovel into the earth only served to remind him of the unthinkable act he and Associate Pastor Kenneth Davis had committed on the eve of Hezekiah's death.

The memory played like a horror movie in his mind, over which he had no control. He would never forget that Saturday evening when he and Kenneth had arrived at Lance Savage's little bungalow on the canals in Venice. It was a small, cluttered house with a permanent dampness in the air.

Lance had answered the door, wearing faded jogging shorts and a wrinkled T-shirt. “Hello, Kenneth,” the
Los Angeles Chronicle
reporter had said, greeting them at the door. “You didn't say you were bringing Reverend Pryce with you. Is he here in an official capacity?”

“No, he's not,” Kenneth had said as they entered the bungalow. “And neither am I. We're not here to speak on behalf of New Testament Cathedral or Hezekiah. We only represent ourselves.”

“Have a seat, gentlemen. Can I get you a beer or something stronger?”

Percy recalled, as if it were only yesterday, the irritatingly casual tone in which the reporter had spoken to them.

“No thank you,” Kenneth responded. “We don't plan on staying long.”

Lance retrieved the beer he had already begun drinking and sat on a leather sofa next to Percy. Kenneth lowered his body into a chair in front of them and sat a briefcase filled with money on the floor at his feet.

Kenneth began calmly. “We would appreciate it if whatever we discuss does not leave this room. As far as anyone is concerned, this meeting never took place, and if you ever repeat anything we say, we will deny it.”

“Fair enough,” Lance said, setting the beer on a side table.

“First of all, we'd like for you to tell us exactly what it is that you know about this affair Hezekiah is allegedly involved in,” Kenneth said.