Rochelle picked up the lavender satin garment bag with MISS THANG’S HOLY GHOST CORNER AND CHURCH WOMAN BOUTIQUE embroidered on it with black silk thread, unzipped it, and pulled out a baby-blue velvet suit with a pale blue, cocoa, and silver silk jersey halter top. It was one of the sharpest and sexiest outfits Yvonne had seen in a long time.
Yvonne took a peek at the price tag and almost started hyperventilating. This outfit clearly came from that new designer’s corner in her friend Theresa Hopson Green’s store.
Rochelle ignored Yvonne’s theatrics and dug down in the bag for the shoes and handbag.
“Check this out,” she said, grinning just like the baby sister that she was, and held up the baby-blue suede three-inch-heeled pumps trimmed in the same colors as the halter top. She put the matching clutch bag in Yvonne’s hands.
“Don’t this feel good?”
Yvonne ran her hands across the soft suede. It did feel awfully good. She handed it to Elaine, who said, “Rochelle, you know this thang ain’t nothing but the truth,” as she put the purse in Miss Hattie Lee’s hands. “Feel this thang.”
Miss Hattie Lee ran her hands across the beautiful handbag and then eyed Yvonne, who was sitting in the chair looking about as excited as somebody waiting to get a root canal.
“Baby, don’t you like this outfit? It’s got your name written all over it.”
“That’s what Theresa and I thought when we picked it out,” Rochelle said.
“I love it,” Yvonne said, wondering if any of them had taken the time to find out how much all of this “nothin’ but the truth” merchandise cost.
Rochelle frowned. Yvonne was getting ready to get on her high horse about the sacrifices that had to be made when “one is a single parent.” She wanted to shake her sister—Yvonne could be such an ol’ stick-in-the-mud when she wanted to. Rochelle didn’t care how much this outfit cost, Yvonne needed to get out of this rut she’d buried herself in. Plus, she needed to look especially good now that Coach was taking her to the reception. Yvonne was wearing that outfit if Rochelle had to beat her down and stuff her in it.
“Yvonne likes this suit,” Rochelle began. “No … she loves this suit. She just doesn’t have sense enough to let go and let herself enjoy liking something that looks this good.”
Yvonne wanted to roll her eyes at Rochelle and say something asinine like “Forget you, Rochelle,” the way she had when they were kids and she wanted to make her sister leave her alone. But she couldn’t and didn’t because Rochelle was right. Rochelle had been right since the very first time she shared this observation, and Yvonne got mad and hung up the phone midstream during their conversation.
“I see,” Miss Hattie Lee said. “Other than the price tag on this outfit, what’s stopping you from enjoying it, Miss Yvonne?”
“Yvonne,” Rochelle jumped in before her sister, who was struggling for what she probably thought was the right and proper answer, “don’t you think I know what your budget is like? This suit is a gift from your girl Theresa. She needs somebody to start wearing her high-end merchandise and wanted to hook you up, too.”
“Rochelle, I can’t take this outfit like that.”
“Yes, you can. Yes, you will,” Elaine said. “God put it on Theresa’s heart to bless you with this gift. You mean to tell me that you, the one who’s always praying for God to bless you with increase, are going to tell God, ‘Thank you but no thank you’? Take the gift—it’s a blessing.”
“Yeah, baby. Take this gift. It’s your first step to letting the Lord know your heart is open to receive the gifts He has in store for you. Otherwise, you are telling God that you ain’t ready for a blessing to overtake you.”
“But Miss Hattie Lee, we are talking about clothes. I’ve been praying for my job to become permanent and with benefits. I’ve been praying for God to send someone into my life. I’ve been …”
“Yvonne,” Elaine asked, “don’t you think that if God laid it on Theresa’s heart to give you this outfit, He has other pieces to this plan? Do you think it is okay for the Lord to bless you with something you have secretly wanted, like a beautiful outfit, to show off the new you? I don’t know why we black women do that to ourselves.”
“Do what?” Yvonne asked. How was she supposed to be all pumped up over a suit when the other areas in her life were so dry and boring and in such lack? Because what in the tarnation was a fancy blue suit going to do to make her life better? Had somebody pinned the winning lottery ticket on the inside of the skirt?
“Read our situation with our natural eyes instead of trusting the good Lord to take care of everything, including the smallest and seemingly most insignificant of details, like a fancy new suit,” Elaine told her. “God knows what He is doing, Yvonne.”
“Elaine is right, baby,” Miss Hattie Lee said as she swung her hair around. It had taken Elaine all of fifteen minutes to style and flat-iron her new do.
Mary J.’s old school “Reminisce” came on Foxy 107. Miss Hattie Lee swung her hair around one more time and then moved her shoulders and hips in a rhythm that was in sync to Mary J.’s funky beat.
“Whew …” she said, got a sip of water, and sat down. “I still got it.”
“Yes, you do, Miss Hattie Lee,” Rochelle said as she watched this so-called senior work it. Miss Hattie Lee was just as agile and smooth as could be.
“Are you going to the reception tonight, Miss Hattie Lee?” Yvonne asked her.
“Baby, I’ll be there. But I’ll be working. Marquita is catering the event. So I’ll be working alongside her, Huge Hotsy’s baby Dayeesha, and Deena Carmichael.”
“Well, we know we’ll be eating good tonight,” Rochelle said. Because all of those sisters could throw down in the kitchen.
“Yes, you will,” Miss Hattie Lee replied. “But you know something—Marquita has been trying to get Deena, Dayeesha, and me to incorporate as a company with her. She doesn’t have a name yet, but we all believe we’d make a killing.”
“Then why don’t you go in on the deal with her? Marquita is a good businesswoman and already making money hand over fist,” Rochelle said.
“Well, I just don’t think that I will be able to be bothered with Rico. He gets on my nerves, and I know I’ll end up going off on him one day if he talks to me wrong—which is inevitable with that boy.”
“You are going to have to pray on that, Miss Hattie Lee. Going in with Marquita is too big of a deal to let Rico get in the way,” Yvonne told her.
She definitely understood Miss Hattie Lee’s not wanting to deal with Rico, though. But Rico wasn’t important enough to stand in the way of something like this.
The bell tinkled and the door swung open. A well-dressed older man walked in holding a dark gray fedora by the brim, old school style. Miss Hattie Lee rushed over to him and twirled around a few times.
Mr. Tommy smiled broadly and said in one of those sexy, raspy old-man voices, “You sure are looking good, girl. Making me feel like I’m sixty all over again.”
The three younger women thought they had seen it all when Miss Hattie Lee told them what her dance costume looked like, and then busted a smooth move to Mary J. But this had to win the award. There were times when they each thought about what it would feel like to be seventy, eighty, or ninety years old. Judging from the twinkling eyes of those two, it appeared that it might feel pretty good.
Miss Hattie Lee let her man help her into her coat, slipped her arm through his, blew a kiss at the younger women, and practically skipped out of the shop.
“What do you think they do on their dates?” Rochelle asked.
“Same thing you do on yours, probably,” Elaine answered her.
“But I like to snuggle up to my boyfriend and get some of those sweet kisses of his.”
“Okay, Rochelle,” Elaine began, “first off, you never told anybody that you had a new man. So why don’t we start there before we go any further into Miss Hattie Lee’s business? Who is this man and when and how did this happen?”
“His name is Terrence Lockwood, he is an attorney and works with the Carolina Panthers Corporation, and he is a mighty man of God.”
Yvonne smiled broadly. She said, “I know about Terrence Lockwood. He is supposed to be a wonderful and anointed man. What he look like?”
Rochelle grinned and whipped out her phone. She pulled up a picture of a light-brown-skinned man. He looked to be about five foot ten, was trim and well built, and had a mustache and some of the kindest eyes Yvonne had ever seen. And if he wasn’t the sharpest thing on two legs in that silver-blue suit, dove-gray shirt, silver, light blue, and chocolate-colored tie, she didn’t know who was.
Elaine checked out the picture. “Nice, very nice, Rochelle. And he knows the Lord. Even better.”
“Yeah,” Rochelle said softly and did something she rarely did—blush. “And he has some good kisses, too.”
“Sooo, if you and Terrence can get all snuggled up, and you get some of his good kisses, then don’t you think that Miss Hattie Lee and her new man are capable of doing the exact same thing?”
“But, Elaine, they are …”
“Old, Rochelle? But they aren’t dead … just older. And I think it is a beautiful thing to know that I’ll still want to be snuggled up and kissing on my man when I am their ages.”
“I agree,” Yvonne added. “But do you think they kiss like we do? I mean all warm and sexy like—French kissing. You think they do that?”
Elaine and Rochelle had to think hard on that observation. Neither remembered ever witnessing people that age kissing and making out.
“Girl, you have a point,” Elaine said. “How do they make out?”
Rochelle started laughing and said, “We are talking just as crazy as Yvonne’s kids. That sounds like something that little Danesha would ask, don’t it, Yvonne?”
“Umm … hmm. It sounds just like Danesha. But I still wonder how they make out.”
“Me, too,” Elaine said.
“Well, you know how secretive that age group can be,” Rochelle told them. “So we are just going to have to get old to find out. Remember, we didn’t think people who were forty, and especially somebody who was fifty, would be making out and all over each other. But they do. And I think they are worse than any little college student trying to get all up on somebody.”
“You ain’t talking nothing but the truth,” Elaine said, cracking up. She had crossed the fifty-mark some years ago, and loved being all hugged up with her new man.
Rochelle’s cell phone rang out the late great Gerald Levert’s “In My Songs.” She flipped it open, grinning. “So, you finally got out of that meeting and decided to give a black girl a call.”
Elaine and Yvonne strained their ears to pick up on a man’s voice.
“You will be able to make it? Perfect. Can you stay over? You have time to meet with Curtis? Good.”
Rochelle paused a few seconds before saying, “The Sheraton Imperial isn’t too far from my house.” She laughed and then said, “Boy, you so crazy,” before she hung up.
“So where is ‘Boy, you so crazy’ spending the night? And why is he meeting with Curtis?” Yvonne asked.
“He has a room at the Sheraton Imperial but wanted to be able to come and hang out with me for a while. And Terrence is going to give Curtis some counsel on how to handle his department over your decision to send in those grades, and effectively bench DeMarcus Brown and June Bug Washington.”
“Oooh, I didn’t mean to cause that kind of trouble,” Yvonne said, now a bit worried.
“Girl, please. Curtis is so glad you sent those grades in, he doesn’t know what to do. He just wants to make sure he handles his business, so that Gilead can’t get around him on this one. What you did was an answer to that boy’s prayers. And I bet that he respects you immensely for standing up for what you knew was right.”
“When and where did you meet Terrence, Rochelle?” Elaine asked.
“In Charlotte. I was at a meeting for attorneys who work with sports programs. Terrence was one of the workshop presenters. We hit it off, and we’ve been talking for months. And plus, Maurice had the skinny on the brother.”
“Sounds good to me,” Elaine said.
“Me, too,” Yvonne seconded, picked up her things, and then put them down to give Elaine a check.
“This is on me, sweetie. But here is your card for your next appointment. I can’t wait to hear how all of this goes.”
“Thank you, Elaine,” Yvonne said, suddenly tearful. She was so blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful and loving people.