Alex and her crew spent the week in Red Oaks doing regularly scheduled lawn maintenance for their commercial accounts at banks, restaurants, schools, government offices, private businesses, and churches. Sam joined the six-man crew to earn extra spending money. His big sister offered to give him the two hundred dollars he wanted, but he insisted on working for it. It was gratifying to Alex that Sam had remembered the work ethic their parents had instilled in them. She accepted his offer and worked him as hard as she worked anyone else, including herself.
When she and Sam got home in the evenings, Vicky had a hearty meal on the table. They would engage in lively conversation throughout dinner. Afterwards, Sam would excuse himself to go hang with the boys, and he’d be out the door. Then Alex and Vicky would clean the kitchen, chatting the entire time. Later, while Vicky swept the kitchen floor, Alex would go outside to water the flowers and plants in the yard, then she’d go into the greenhouse. It was only a transparent plastic 16”x16” enclosure with a wood frame, but it was sufficient for the potted plants and flowers that needed protection from the elements. A couple of years ago, she’d had lights and an automatic watering system installed.
She was in the greenhouse on Saturday evening at a later time than usual because it had slipped her mind to go do her normal inspection after dinner. Now she was in her pale blue short nightgown and its matching robe, slippers on her feet, with her hair piled high on her head the way she’d arranged it just before she got in the tub. A few minutes ago, she’d been soaking in a fragrant bath when it had struck her that the only flowers that weren’t automatically watered in the greenhouse were the orchids, due to their delicate nature. They were more trouble than any other plant she’d ever grown. But she loved them so much that they were worth the effort.
So she’d trudged outside in the dark for the love of her orchids.
Inside the house, the doorbell rang. Vicky was sitting on the sofa in the den with the phone to her ear. “Hold on, Clarisse, somebody’s at the door.”
She slipped her feet into the leather slides underneath the coffee table and rose. Smoothing her T-shirt over her blue jeans, she hurried through the living room to the front door.
She squinted through the peephole at the tall, good-looking, dark-skinned man she was certain she’d never seen before. “Who’s there?”
“Jared Kyles,” Jared said. “I hope I’m not calling too late. Is…”
Vicky opened the door before he could finish his sentence. She wanted to get a good gander at the man who had her sister in a quandary. Alex had worried all week that her behavior in the grocery store had completely turned him off. Vicky smiled at Jared as she asked him in. He was here, so obviously his ardor hadn’t cooled off yet!
“…Alexandra at home?”
“Yes, she’s here,” Vicky said, extending her hand.
Jared shook her hand. “You must be Vicky.”
Vicky appreciated how fine he looked in jeans, a black T-shirt, and white athletic shoes. Smelled good, too. Like he’d just showered and shaved. “That’s me, Vicky. Middle child, younger sister, and closest friend in the world to Alexandra, who, I might add, is not expecting you.” She raised her eyebrows as if awaiting an explanation.
Jared smiled. Yeah, she was Alex’s sister, all right. Same “take-no-prisoners” attitude.
Jared produced a dozen long-stemmed deep red roses from behind his back. “I know. It was a spur of the moment decision. I just need to see her to explain why I acted like such a fool.”
“Stop!” Vicky cried. “Any man who wants to admit to being a fool is all right with me.” She began walking toward the kitchen. She looked back at him. “Are you coming?”
Jared put on some speed.
He admired the warm family feel of the house as he hurried through it. Hardwood floors, large airy rooms, solid well-made furniture. It looked like one of those traditional Southern homes his mother loved to ooh and ah over in decorating magazines. As an architect, he knew a well-built home when he saw one. Whoever had built this house had known what he was doing. He paused a moment. They didn’t make molding like that anymore, solid pine and shaped with such precision it was as if the artisan had left his signature upon it.
“She’s in the greenhouse,” Vicky was saying when they got to the back porch. She stood in the doorway and pointed outside. “Go down the steps and follow the cobblestone path. You can’t miss it.”
In the greenhouse, Alex was pruning the roses. After making sure the soil of the orchids was moist enough, she’d checked the roses and found that some of them needed to be pruned in order to encourage fuller growth.
She hummed as she worked on a Peace rosebush. She stopped, recalling that her mother used to do the same thing. Smiling as her mother’s face appeared in her mind’s eye, she continued.
A couple of minutes later, she stopped and looked in the direction of the entrance to the greenhouse. It was such a small space that she couldn’t help hearing everything that went on inside of it. She put down the pruning shears and turned to face Jared. In the space of those few seconds, she realized how much she had missed him and how afraid she’d been that her reaction to his attempt to apologize in the frozen food section of the supermarket a few days ago had alienated him. Relief flooded her. Still, she could not afford to run into his arms and declare her feelings for him. If there was ever a time to protect her heart, it was now. She’d decided that even if he continued to be against marriage, she wanted to see him.
Jared felt foolish offering her roses when it was obvious that she already had all of the roses she’d ever need. There were roses of every conceivable shade surrounding them. He smiled at her. “I guess I should have brought wild flowers.”
Alex stepped forward and accepted the roses, which were fresh from the florist’s shop and wrapped in green paper. She inhaled their heady scent. Then she looked up at Jared. “Thank you. Roses are my favorites. But why are you giving them to me? What are you doing here?”
“Basically, I’m here because I lost an argument with my mother,” Jared said. Seeing the puzzled expression on Alex’s face, he explained. “Last night, at dinner, I told her I was very interested in you, but because of my tendency toward infidelity, and yours toward a faithful relationship, that we weren’t compatible. She asked me why I thought I couldn’t be faithful to one woman, and I told her.”
“That spiel about your father’s proclivities, and your belief that you inherited them?” Alex asked.
He nodded. “Yeah. After she’d stopped laughing, she told me I had a fifty-fifty chance of being faithful to one mate. While my Dad obviously failed the test, she’d passed it with flying colors. She never cheated on him. I do, after all, have fifty-percent of her DNA floating around in my body.”
“Your mother’s a wise woman.”
“Very wise,” Jared agreed. He held his arms open to her.
Alex placed her roses on the table where she’d been pruning the Peace rosebush and walked into Jared’s arms. They simply held each other for a while, relishing the feel of their entwined bodies. “You smell good,” he said softly.
“I put lavender in my bath water.”
He nuzzled the side of her neck. “I missed you so much.”
“I missed you, too. I was almost certain that my comments to you the other day had made you give up on me.”
“They made me crazy. There’s no denying that. We should try to resist each other? Girl, you already had me at that point. All I wanted to do was kiss you as you stood there telling me to practice self-control.”
“You?” Alex said, tilting her chin upward, presenting him with her mouth. “I could barely keep my hands off of you.”
“Then you didn’t mean a word of it?” He gently kissed the tip of her nose.
“I had my pride, you know. You rejected me without even knowing me. Because I invited you to church, you automatically assumed you would be wasting your time with a woman like me. That hurt. You don’t know how much I was looking forward to being alone with you, and then you laid that whole ‘I’m chronically unfaithful’ bit on me. As if you were protecting my honor.” She looked deeply into his eyes. “I’m a woman, Jared. I’m not an innocent who can’t hold her own in a relationship.”
“You mean you’re not a virgin?”
Alex laughed softly. “I can’t claim a lot of experience. But, no, I’m not.”
“But I thought single women who went to church were celibate.”
“Women who go to church come from all kinds of backgrounds. Some of us are celibate. I haven’t been with a man in over two years. That’s because I prefer to be in love when I make love. The last man I dated couldn’t handle that, so he stopped calling. I don’t do booty calls. I’ve never slept around, and I have to know that a man cherishes me before I can give myself to him. But I’m in no way a prude. I like sex. I like everything that leads up to sex. I’m a healthy woman with healthy appetites. Does that answer your questions about me?”
Jared bent his head and kissed her full on the lips. Alex clasped her hands behind his neck and held on. She had to stand on her toes to accommodate his height. When his big hands moved down to caress her hips, she moaned deep in her throat and pressed closer to him. Jared was hard. Where she was concerned, he had no control over that particular physical response which his body manifested whenever he was near her. She had to feel it through her thin robe because he could feel her answering response to his nearness; her nipples were erect and pressing against his chest.
When they parted, they were both slightly breathless.
Alex gazed up at him. “Does this mean we’re officially dating?”
“Definitely,” Jared concurred with a devastating smile and kissed her again.
The next morning was Mother’s Day. Jared had gone to bed late after leaving Alex’s place sometime around midnight. They had wound up sitting in the gazebo in her backyard for more than two hours, just talking about anything and everything. They had laughed so much his cheeks were still sore this morning.
He rolled over in bed and glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was half past nine. If he got up now, he’d have plenty of time to get ready for church. Alex had invited him, but he’d told her he wasn’t certain he could make it. Actually, the thought of attending Hat Day appealed to him. He wanted to see how the good folks at Red Oaks Christian Fellowship honored the women among them. If he’d thought of it, he would have invited his mother down from Macon to join him. Emma Kyles would’ve been in her element. Jared wouldn’t lie to God, though, even in his thoughts: the real reason he was getting out of his comfortable bed was to see Miss Alexandra Cartwright again. He sat up and swung his long, muscular legs off the bed. He couldn’t wait to see what kind of hat she would be wearing, probably something chic and sassy.
Alex stood at the bottom of the steps of the church in the midst of an animated exchange between Vicky, Gayle and herself. All of them were wearing sleeveless dresses in varying shades of yellow, this year’s color. Each year they chose a certain color and then shopped separately so that their dresses would not be unveiled until Mother’s Day. Their “crowns,” or hats, were all hand-me-downs. They had been wearing their mothers’ vintage hats to the Mother’s Day service for years. It was a tradition. Alex and Vicky’s late mother, Lutece, had owned a closet full of fashionable hats which her daughters proudly wore in remembrance of her. Lutece had worn a hat to church every Sunday.
Gayle’s mother, Henrietta, who was still with them, allowed her only daughter to raid her closet with one proviso: She got first pick on Mother’s Day.
“No, he didn’t!” Gayle said as she handed around wintergreen LifeSavers. Vicky had just told her about Jared’s visit. Alex tried not to appear too pleased by the turn of events but it was obvious she was by the dreamy expression in her dark eyes.
Her solid medium-yellow dress was made of a cool linen material, with a scooped neck and a scalloped hem. Her hat, purse, and sandals were all cream colored. The hat had been one of her mother’s favorites: a wide-brimmed cloth creation with two roses on the left side. It framed her face beautifully. She wore one-carat diamond studs in her earlobes and a simple gold bracelet on her right wrist.
“Oh, yes, he did!” Vicky exclaimed. She’d opted for color in her yellow this year, and tiny lavender lilacs danced across her scooped-neck dress with a ruffled hem. Her shoes, hat, and purse were all lavender. Her purse and sandals were leather, and the hat she’d lovingly taken out of its hatbox this morning was made of straw and had a big floppy brim made of a sheer material that was practically transparent. She wore plain gold studs in her earlobes and no other jewelry.
By contrast, Gayle looked like a twenties flapper. Her dress was pale yellow and had big white gardenias on it. It had spaghetti straps, a V-neck, and she wore a long strand of bright yellow pearls with it. Her purse, sandals, and hat were in a light shade of red. The hat was a cloche. The brim almost covered her eyes, and it gave her a mysterious look. She didn’t have on any jewelry except the necklace and her wedding rings.
“I don’t know, Alex,” Gayle joked. “It’s been so long since you had a man, do you still remember what to do with one?”
Alex laughed. “I think it’s all coming back to me.”
“If you need a refresher course, you know where I am,” Gayle countered.
Vicky suddenly poked Alex on the arm and cried, “Look who’s coming this way!”
Alex followed her sister’s line of sight and almost swallowed her LifeSaver.
“Now that’s a good-lookin’ brother!” Gayle said. “Why didn’t you tell us he was coming?”
“I didn’t know!” Alex told her as she excused herself to go meet Jared.
Even from ten feet away, Jared could tell he was the topic of conversation. Women had a way of cocking their heads and pursing their lips that gave them away every time. Gayle and Vicky were both going through those motions. Alex, however, was his main concern and she was exhibiting the one emotion he’d hoped she would: pleasure at seeing him again.
“You’re a sly one,” she accused lightly as he approached. He caught her checking out his dark blue summer-weight suit. He had his suits made by a tailor in Macon so they all hung beautifully on his frame. Her gaze settled on his striped yellow tie.
She smiled, and he figured she was wondering how he’d known she’d be wearing yellow today. Fact was, he hadn’t; it was purely coincidental.
She walked right up to him and touched his tie. “Nice.”
Jared wanted to embrace her and kiss her right there in front of everybody, but he settled for grasping the hand she’d touched the tie with and gently squeezing it.
Their eyes met. “You look beautiful in that hat.”
Alex’s cheeks grew hot with embarrassment. Not because of the compliment, but because of the state her body was in due to his nearness. In less than a minute after seeing him, she was tingling all over. It didn’t help that vivid images of the passionate kisses they’d shared last night in the greenhouse and the gazebo were going through her mind.
“This old thing?” she asked, lightly touching the brim of her hat.
“I wish I had a picture of you in it,” he told her. He fairly devoured her with his eyes. Alex, unused to such intimate perusal by a man, felt she might turn into a puddle right there on the sidewalk. She took him by the hand. “Come on, let’s go inside before I forget we’re on church grounds and kiss you!”
Jared laughed softly and let her lead him back to where Gayle and Vicky were waiting.
The service that day was a mixture of the traditional and the contemporary. The mass choir sang several emotion-filled spirituals which reminded them all of the sacrifices mothers make for their families. Then the children got up and gave their Mother’s Day speeches. The really young ones, such as Madison Avery, age four, the reverend’s youngest daughter, and Ruben, Junior also four, were performing in front of the congregation for the first time. They fidgeted, forgot their lines, and finally dissolved into tears, which made them even more precious to their audience, who gave them standing ovations. Some of the older children were seasoned pros who gave impassioned recitations and evoked tears of joy from a grateful congregation.
After the children presented their offerings, the youth choir got up and sang two Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers songs, “Were You There?” and “Must Jesus Bear This Cross Alone?” The boy who sang lead was a tenor, and his young voice was so lilting and sweet that nobody was unmoved by his performance. Both songs were about the death and resurrection of the Lord and made several parishioners cry out, “Amen, amen!” in recognition of the passion the sentiments provoked within them.
Finally, Reverend Avery went to the pulpit and began his sermon: “Good morning, beloved!”
“Good morning, Brother Avery!”
“Church, as I look out amongst you in all of your finery on this beautiful morning the Lord has given us, I’m reminded of how blessed we all are. Yes, blessed to be able to come together as a family under the Lord. But, lest we forget, allow me to remind you why we’re really here. To show appreciation for the Lord’s blessings? Yes, that’s why you got out of bed this morning and came here. But you could have thanked Him at home. No, the reason you’re here is because Christ personally asked you to keep gathering together in His name until He came back, and, as we know, He hasn’t come back yet. He also gave us step-by-step instructions on what kind of observance He required of us. He said, ‘This bread is my flesh,’ and ‘This wine is my blood, keep eating it and drinking it in remembrance of me.’ Therefore, brothers and sisters being passed among you now are the sacraments of His body. The body that suffered so much on the cross, the body that was raised on the third day and was transformed into something that was more than physical: a spiritual body.”
A small army of attendants lined the aisles, carrying trays with tiny glasses of red wine on them, and other trays with unleavened bread on them. The trays were passed down the rows by the parishioners as they partook.
When it was over, the reverend said a prayer of thanksgiving, and the mass choir rose and sang “This World Is Not My Home,” whereupon the reverend got happy and joined them, his big bass voice rising to the rafters. There was a running joke among the flock that whenever his wife, Cheryl, wanted to see him show off, she would always ask the choir director to add that particular song to his line-up.
The reverend, who was usually rather understated in his delivery, would be touched by the spirit, which in turn infused the church, and everyone ended up getting out of their seats and singing along.
By the time the song ended, Reverend Avery was washed in sweat, and Cheryl went up to the pulpit and presented him with a pristine handkerchief.
Cheryl sat back down, and the reverend smiled at his wife. He was on to her ruse after all these years. But nothing pleased him more than making her smile.
“We’ll have closing comments from Reverend Hunter Danforth.” Terrance turned to smile at the assistant minister. Hunter was a tall, rugged, good-looking and sophisticated single brother in his mid-thirties. Many of the unattached sisters in the congregation made it more than clear to him that they would love to be the future Mrs. Reverend Danforth, but, so far, he wasn’t biting. “Reverend Danforth…”
Terrance went to sit in one of the tall chairs behind the pulpit while Hunter closed the service.
“You are coming to the house for dinner, aren’t you?” Ruben asked Jared after the service ended. He was holding Tyler in one strong arm and had hold of Ruben, Junior, with his other hand. Ruben, Junior, wiggled mightily. “I wanna go play with Madison!” He was at that stage where he wasn’t averse to making a scene to get his way. Ruben looked at Jared. “Would you mind?”
He placed Tyler in Jared’s arms and snatched up Ruben, Junior. He stopped short of shaking him. He never got physical with him because he thought striking a child only convinced him that striking someone else got you what you wanted in life. He held Ruben, Junior, at eye level and said, “Listen, boy, I know you’re cranky from having to sit for so long, but if you don’t behave, there will be no Nintendo for you for the rest of your natural life, comprende?”
Ruben, Junior’s eyes stretched wide with fear. “Okay, Daddy,” he said in a tiny voice.
Ruben set him back down and patted his head. “Okay, Daddy won’t be much longer, then I’ll take you to Mickey D’s for a burger.”
Ruben, Junior, immediately brightened.
In the meantime, Jared was bonding with baby Tyler. He couldn’t believe the kid hadn’t started bawling the moment his father had placed him in his arms. But he hadn’t. He’d given Jared a crooked grin instead and commenced passing gas. Being male, Jared understood that fully and whispered, “Better out than in, huh, buddy?”
Ruben had sniffed the air and reached for his son with a grin. “I should take him. He’s getting ready to load his diaper.”
Jared didn’t have to be told twice.
Ruben cradled Tyler in his muscular arms. “Alex and Vicky are coming to our house for dinner. We do it every year on Mother’s Day. You’re invited.”
“I’d hate to intrude on such short notice,” Jared began.
Ruben gave him a stern look. “Are you, or are you not, dating Alex?”
“I am,” Jared said with a smile.
“Then from now on you have an open invitation. Don’t be a stranger.”
Jared could say nothing to that except, “Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”
“Alex is my girl. We—she, Gayle and I—have been friends since we were in the second grade together. Alex has impeccable taste in friends. So I suspect you’re good people, too. Bring your appetite. We always cook too much.”
Standing across the room, watching Jared and Ruben, Alex’s attention drifted away from her own conversation with Gayle, Vicky, and Mother Maybelle. Mother Maybelle promptly got it back, with: “She told me to mind my own business. Yes, she did, and I’ve loved her ever since.”
Alex laughed because she’d heard that story numerous times. It was about her encounter with Mother Maybelle at age seventeen, when Mother Maybelle came snooping around to check on her and her siblings after their mother’s death. Mother Maybelle had insisted on seeing the adult who was living with them. Alex had dragged her inside because she didn’t want any of the neighbors to overhear what she had to say to her, then she’d confessed to what they’d been doing: hiding from Social Services, even when they should have been collecting their parents’ Social Security payments.
After patiently listening to Alex’s reasons for not getting in contact with the proper authorities, Mother Maybelle had surprised her by not turning them in. Instead, she’d insisted that they rely on her in case of emergencies, come to church every Sunday except in case of illness, and have Sunday dinner with her so she could see for herself, every week, that they were fine. Even though she was a Christian woman, she’d helped them pull the wool over the government’s eyes. “Sometimes,” she said now, “a person has to listen to a higher power.” Meaning God’s rules were more important than man’s.
It was Mother Maybelle who’d facilitated Alex becoming Vicky and Sam’s guardian at twenty-one. She’d also made sure that they collected back Social Security payments for all of the months they’d missed getting the monthly checks. That lump sum of money had been enough to shore up the business and put some aside for Sam’s and Vicky’s college tuition. As it turned out, Sam received a basketball scholarship at the University of Florida, and Vicky received a full academic scholarship from the University of Georgia. Alex had set up bank accounts for them for incidentals that their scholarships didn’t cover. She didn’t want them to have to get part-time jobs which could interfere with their studies. In spite of her well-meaning efforts, both of them wound up getting jobs anyway. As it turned out, they were as industrious as their big sister. Therefore, the accounts that Alex had set up as checking accounts became savings accounts. When they graduated they would each have nice nest eggs.
“Mother Maybelle,” Alex said now. “Every time you tell that story, I feel like kicking myself for being so disrespectful to you that day, when all you wanted to do was help us.”
“Child, you didn’t know that,” Mother Maybelle said sagely. “You helped me to recognize what some of our children have to go through to survive. You were a blessin’ to my soul.”
“And you were a blessing to mine,” Alex said and gave the shorter woman, by two inches, a warm hug.
Mother Maybelle moved away from her after a while and smiled. “Don’t you have someone waiting for you over there?”
She didn’t miss a thing. Indeed, Jared was standing next to Ruben and his sons, but he was looking at Alex. “It seems I do,” Alex said to Mother Maybelle.
“Well, what’re you waitin’ on? God helps those who help themselves, and if you’ve got the sense you were born with, you’ll help yourself to that man. Humph, he reminds me of my dear husband, Mac. He had big shoulders and narrow hips like that, too, and that was a whole lotta man!”
“Mother Maybelle!” Vicky said, pretending to be aghast.
“Darlin’, God put woman here for man, and man here for woman. That’s the way it was from the beginning, and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! And don’t nothin’ look broke on that man. He’s mighty fine. Go on, Alex, you lucky girl.”
Shaking her head at Mother Maybelle’s wit, Alex went to claim her man.