Advance Praise for
Made of Honor

“Made of Honor is most definitely sassy, cynical, humorous chick lit. But in Mary’s inspired hands, her book is also custom-made with love, faith and a huge dollop of aromatic tenderness.”

—Sharon Ewell Foster, Christy Award-winning author of Ain’t No Valley

“With a voice that begs you to relax, sit down and put your feet up, Marilynn Griffith writes of the complexities of love, family, friendship and what it means to be the bride of Christ, and does so with honesty, humor and grace. Don’t miss Made of Honor or Marilynn—both welcome additions to Christian fiction!”

—Lisa Samson, Christy Award-winning author of Club Sandwich

“Marilynn Griffith’s voice just sings! Watch out, world, Made of Honor will make you laugh out loud and welcome you into the Sassy Sistahood.”

—Kristin Billerbeck, bestselling author of She’s All That

“Fun! Fresh! Full of faith! A merry heart does good like a medicine, and Marilynn Griffith’s writing is just what the doctor ordered.”

—Annie Jones, bestselling author of Mom Over Miami

“With poetic description and compelling storytelling, Marilynn Griffith delights readers with every sentence.”

—Stephanie Perry Moore, bestselling author of the Carmen Browne series

“Hilarious! Marilynn Griffith is a great new voice readers won’t forget!”

—Cyndy Salzmann, bestselling author of Dying to Decorate

“Whether it’s a book or a blog, Mary Griffith brings a fresh, funny, faith-filled new voice to the world of Christian chick-lit. More, please!”

—Lynn Bulock, bestselling author of Love the Sinner

“Marilynn Griffith is a fresh voice in Christian fiction. Her funny, breezy style is sure to take the market by storm!”

—Tracey V. Bateman, bestselling author of Leave it to Claire

“From the beginning to end, you can’t help but see the hand of God ministering through Marilynn Griffith’s work.”

—Vanessa Davis Griggs, bestselling author of Wings of Grace

“Marilynn Griffith digs deep inside to write a novel about everyday people who love the Lord.”

—LaShaunda C. Hoffman, editor, Shades of Romance magazine

“Looking for a sassy, engaging read that keeps you turning pages and recalling your faith? Look no further. Marilynn Griffith won’t disappoint.”

—Stacy Hawkins Adams, bestselling author of Speak to My Heart

“I roared with laughter when I read the opening lines! And what a refreshing change to read a novel where not one, not two, but most of the Christians don’t have lily-white backgrounds! Made of Honor is sassy and soulful, laugh-out-loud funny and oh-so-real. A welcome addition to Christian chick lit!”

—Laura Jensen Walker, bestselling author of Dreaming in Technicolor

Made of Honor
Marilynn Griffith

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my parents, Donna Lee McElrath and

Michael Onyedika. Thank you for giving me life.

Because of your love I was created, fearfully

and wonderfully made.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing a book is never the work of one woman. The fingerprints upon these pages are many. My apologies if someone is not mentioned by name as space is limited. My gratitude, however, is not, I thank you all, with all my heart. That said, special thanks to:

Christ, for helping me tell this story. As always, You brought me through.

Ashlie, Michelle, Fill Jr., Ben, James, John and Isaiah, thanks for eating all that Chunky soup without complaining and for tolerating all the soap and candles I made instead of dinner. I love you all.

Fill, for your unflinching belief in me, for proofreading my proposal, keeping my computer running, making graphics when I need them yesterday and tolerating my mania in general. You are my hero. Your love makes me strong.

My mother, Donna, and all the Freeman clan, thanks for being so funny, even when life was serious. I’m honored to be part of such a gifted family.

Kent and Debbie Nottingham and the family of Calvary Chapel Tallahassee, thanks for loving my family and teaching us the Word for the past ten years. Thanks for being a place of refreshing.

My editor, Diane Dietz, for laughing in all the right places and for being a pleasure even amidst her losses; executive editor Joan Marlow Golan, thanks for giving me a chance and for your hard work for our line.

Dave Robie, for his diligence in finding a home for my work.

Jessica Ferguson, thanks for being my best critic and my cheerleader in hard times. I never could have done this without you.

To the many people who gave input on this book at varying stages: Lisa Samson, Sharon Ewell Foster, Laura Jensen Walker, Linda Baldwin, Beth Ziarnik, Tracey Bateman, Lynn Bulock, Rachel Hauck, Stacey Hawkins Adams, LaShaunda Hoffman, Vanessa Davis Griggs, Stephanie Perry Moore, Dr. Gail Hayes, Cyndy Salzmann, Kristin Billerbeck, Colleen Coble and everyone I’m forgetting to name.

Angela, Jackie, Vicki, Donna, Rosemary and the other godly single women in my life. You inspire me.

My friends, Joy, Melissa, Gail and Claudia, thanks for tolerating my silences and disappearances. Each of you is a gift to me.

The ladies of The Threshing Floor: Amy, Jennifer and Staci, thanks for your great feedback and support. You mentored the mentor.

Yolanda Callegari Brooks, for your friendship and support. I love you. Sisterly.

My Faithchick.com sisters. Blogging with you and getting to know you has been a pleasure. I’m honored to know you all.

To Heather, Claudia, Bobbie, Paula and all my friends in the blogosphere. Thanks for being there. It means a lot.

To the Word Praize family, thanks for your support and friendship and for hanging around despite all my absences. I believe in each of you.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1 As the book opens, Dana has mixed feelings about her best friend’s wedding. When her instincts turn out to be correct, she prays for Tracey and tries to help her sort out her feelings but realizes she wants her own marriage to be different. Have you ever known ahead of time that a relationship might not be the best idea for you or for a friend? Did you go through with it anyway? What happened?

2 Dana, Tracey and Rochelle are some of the last members of the Sassy Sistahood e-mail list. If you had a chance to join a group like this, would you? If so, which of the three friends would you probably be closest to? Whom did you identity with most?

3 Dana’s sister has done some hurtful things to her, but now Dahlia’s trying to live for Christ. Would you struggle with having someone like her back in your life or would you freely forgive Dahlia, knowing that God will transform her as she grows as a Christian? Did Dana do well in how she handled this situation? If not, what could she have done better?

4 Austin, the local news reporter who visits Dana’s shop, becomes a new and unexpected friend. Though the two women seem to have little in common at first, as they spend more time together, they realize they have much to share. Have you ever made an “instant friend” like Austin? Are you still friends with that person today?

5 Dana spends a lot of time thinking about the past with Adrian and struggles at first to consider a future with him. Though her memory of him stealing her business idea turns out to be false, something much worse turns out to be true. Have you ever reached a turning point when you had to let go of the past to grab on to the future? What did you decide? Do you think that Dana made the right decision with Adrian?

6 Dana’s relationships with her father and brother start out rocky at best. Yet, in the end, Jordan and her dad are there for her and support her. Have you ever had to rethink your feelings on someone in our family? Has someone you know made a great turn around in their life? Did you find their new life hard to accept?

7 Though Dana’s goal is to make products to help women relax, she stresses herself out to do it, to the point of endangering her own health. Have you ever been so concerned for others that you couldn’t find time to take care of yourself? Do you struggle to balance work, family and faith? If so, what is one thing you can do this week to relieve some stress?

8 Throughout the story, Dana struggles with her weight, although she ends the story at the same weight she started at. At the end of the tale, however, she is healthier and feels better about herself. What do you think made the difference in her attitude?

9 Dana’s business started out as a hobby. Is there something you’ve always wanted to try or learn about, but you’ve never had the time? If your resources were unlimited, what kind of craft or hobby wold you try? If the funds for a business startup were at your disposal, what kind of business would you be interested in?

10 The verse at the front of this book is Psalms 139:14 “I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made…” The return of her brother and old boyfriend, starting a new business and almost losing her life certainly showed Dana what she was made of. In the end, she was both stronger and weaker than she’d thought. Have circumstances in your life revealed what’s in your heart? Were you surprised by what you saw? If not, what do you think made the difference?

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter One

I’m turning into a Chia Pet.

With legs.

Little children are starting to toss dandelions when they see me. The brides of Leverhill, Illinois, have taught the kiddies well. One little darling wants to grow up and be just like me—a big flower girl. She nailed it, especially about the big part, but we’re not going there. Not today, with my formerly fat friend looking like Twiggy-goes-bridal, while I gasp for breath in a dress fit for a train wreck. My only consolation is not having to worry about Tracey aiming a floral missile—known to some as a bouquet—at me later on.

She wouldn’t do me like that, would she? Nah. At least that’s what I tell myself, but then I thought this wedding wouldn’t happen, either. Still, this bride is one of my closest friends and my roommate for the past three years. Tracey Cox—well, Tracey Blackman now—has picked enough baby’s breath out of my teeth to know better.

Just in case though, a pint of Chunky Monkey and a pedicure appointment await me after this reception. Who knows? Tracey just might snap and throw long. Marriage does things to people. One day they’re normal and the next they’re inviting total strangers to wear ugly dresses in their weddings, and then after the ceremony, said brides proceed to cut off all communication with members of the wedding party except for goofy Christmas photos of the newlyweds cradling an ugly dog, signed “from all of us.” And don’t let them actually get pregnant. Have you ever seen an entire album of birth photos? Not cute.

Do I sound bitter?

I’m not. I have friends. And trying to keep up with them, keep my job and stay right with God occupies most of my time. Like now. I need to find Rochelle, my other best friend—yes, I have two—and founder of the Sassy Sistahood e-mail list. If I don’t catch up to her soon, she might make a fool of herself.

Or me.

Though my girlfriend is a paragon of virtue most days, weddings turn Rochelle into a gelatinous pool of desperation. Remember the birth photo album I mentioned? It’s worse. Okay, so nothing’s worse than that, but it’s bad. Even the sight of me, tangled in tulips after a bouquet toss, is easier on the eyes.

Using my emergency X-ray vision, activated by squinting so hard I almost fused my contacts to my eyeballs, I glimpsed a pink satin horror similar to my own, but a set of three-inch shoulder pads blocked my view. Who would wear a power suit to a wedding—?

My boss. There she was, looking just as angry as when I’d left her at work last night. I ducked before she saw me, recovering from my shock that she’d even shown up. The bride, who left our office to start her own graphic design firm six months ago, insisted on inviting Naomi, her former and my current employer, and Renee, my assistant, who was probably somewhere taking pictures of me for later blackmail. She’d be giggling in my ear for the next month. At least.

My next few weeks of torture aside, I was proud of Naomi for actually leaving the office—I think she secretly lives there. For her to show up at her own funeral would be the height of etiquette. Some people just don’t grasp interaction, you know? And having “interacted” with Naomi daily for the past six years, I could do without her today. Besides, I needed to find Sassy Sistah #1 before she melted down and kissed somebody.

With that thought as fuel, I forced my satin shoes that were dyed to match the gown—the dye was free, I guess Tracey couldn’t resist—across the sprinkle of autumn leaves on the ground. Rochelle tiptoed up beside me, fanning her face, despite the growing chill. Man Mania was in full swing.

“Did you see Ryan’s brother?” she said breathlessly. “From the looks of things, Tracey should have picked him.”

From the reality of things, anyone seemed a better choice. I mentally squashed the nagging doubt about my friend’s hour-old marriage. Thoughts like that were getting me nowhere. It was done. God would have to take it from here. Me worrying myself to an ulcer before I got back to work on Monday was definitely a waste of resources.

I shook my head at Rochelle and considered reaching out and shaking hers. This time she was really in the zone. I spoke right into her ear, hoping it would jar her brain. “I wasn’t really paying attention to the brother of the groom.” Or any other man around here. What would be the point? The last guy I dated had just married my best friend.

Rochelle made a clucking sound. “You should have been paying attention. His brother is fiiine.” She rolled her neck for effect, but didn’t quite pull it off. I just stared. She’d been watching too much UPN again.

“Come on.” I tugged at her arm and started back across the smattering of red-gold leaves, away from Mr. Fiiine. She’d hate me tomorrow if I didn’t. If a man showed up later on in response to Rochelle’s flirting, she would run for her life while dictating a restraining order into her recorder.

Usually, her wedding trance would have been long since broken. But this was Tracey’s wedding. And whether Rochelle and I were willing to admit it or not, we’d both thought that if anyone got married, it’d be us, not the cute, fat, geek of the group. Not that Tracey was fat anymore. Plump-but-cute girl was currently being played by moi, my midsection pressed against the strangling fabric of my dress as if in agreement.

Rochelle made a shrill sound, almost like a whistle. The weary-in-well-doing sigh. Not a good sign. Her pink leather t-strap shoes, designed by her own hand and much prettier than my prom knockoffs, peeked from underneath her Pepto-pink frock, several sizes smaller than my own. Our skirts skimmed the lawn every few steps. This was downright antebellum.

Rochelle’s words cut through my thoughts. “I can’t help feeling romantic on days like this. Lately, I even wonder if—”

“If what?” My body stiffened. I’d heard this speech before. All my die-hard single friends give this little talk before crossing over into the sea of wanna-be wives. Tracey’s little rant three months ago was still fresh in my mind. Rochelle? Despite her wedding breakdowns, I never thought I’d hear it from her. Well, not this soon anyway.

“I’m just talking,” she said, moving faster. “It’s nothing, really.”

More like a big something, but I decided to leave it. This day had enough mess going without adding to it. Time for a detour. “I hope the punch is good.”

Rochelle nodded, gathering her skirt to gain a little speed. Good punch could cover a multitude of sins. Even Tracey marrying Ryan. Okay, he’s not so bad. He’s rich, handsome and loves her to pieces. But there’s just something creepy about the guy. I don’t know. Forget I said anything.

While I pondered the groom’s strangeness, Rochelle grabbed my wrist, digging her natural-length nails into my flesh. Without looking at her, I knew it was already too late. And we’d almost made it to punchdom.

Tracey wouldn’t, couldn’t throw that bouquet at me.

But she did.

A few inches ahead, a group of women floated onto the green in front of us, forming a frightening pastel cloud. The bride broke through, holding her weapon of choice—peach hybrid roses from the Leverhill Botanical Gardens.

“Run!” Rochelle screamed with the concern of a fire marshal at a brewing blaze.

Obeying her command was my first mistake. The stop-drop-and-roll technique is always best to achieve my goals: avoid head trauma, keep the contacts in and keep the dress covering my backside.

As previously stated, I deviated from this method.

When nothing tagged the back of my head—seriously, they stopped aiming for my hands two summers ago—I did a dumb thing and turned around. The bouquet slapped against my forehead like a Jackie Chan sound effect. I tripped on my skirt trying to escape—she’d already nailed me, of course, but it was instinct. My dress ballooned around my waist like a giant boat made of Bubble Yum.

Then…the pain burned beneath my eye. What was that? I dropped to one knee, jerking the whole pink mess of me back into place, while peeking through my fingers. Something I mistook for tears trickled into my mouth. Blood.

I wobbled to my feet. “What in the world?” I’d been hit with a lot of flowers, a few small shrubs even, but no one had ever drawn blood. This was past wrong.

Rochelle hovered over me, panting and picking greenery from between my braids. Satisfied with her job on that, she peeled back my fingers and surveyed the scratch under my eye. “The thorns. Tracey forgot to have them removed. It was the only thing on her list…sorry.”

I took my hand off my eye. Rochelle’s tone let me know that she hadn’t been in on this but she had been aware of the possibility. Not for the first time, the Sassy Sistahs made me mad. Tracey approached slowly, waving like she always does after doing something crazy. I felt my anger wash away at the sight of her silly grin. Still, this was a bit much. “Thorns? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Wish I was.” Rochelle dabbed my face with a napkin from her clutch. No doubt there was a first-aid kit, needle and thread, makeup bag and two shades of pantyhose crammed in that tiny thing. How she’d even managed to hold on to it while trying to drag me to safety was beyond me, but I’d long given up on trying to figure out Chelle’s superhuman womanhood. She just has skills like that. I’m lucky to keep my shoes on. Although I did manage to keep my contacts in. A new accomplishment.

Just before Tracey reached us, someone from the groom’s family intercepted and wheeled her away. The beginning of the end. She was no longer my roommate, my best friend. She was someone’s wife. We walked past Tracey, giving us the “be right there” signals.

Rochelle smiled.

I sulked. “Knowing Tracey, she probably thought it was more Christlike to leave the thorns on.” Mock disgust sounded in my voice. I was trying to be mad and couldn’t.

“Hush you,” Rochelle said, using our code phrase for when one started in on another of the three. It was the standard defense, but right now I felt like pushing past it.

Tracey joined us and slipped an arm around—well, almost around—my waist. “Got you, didn’t I? Sorry about your eye though.”

“You’d better be glad I love y’all,” I whispered as people packed in around us. Pain seared my scalp where Rochelle had raked a stem through my hair.

“Maybe if you’d helped with the wedding errands, you could have taken care of those thorns,” Rochelle said, reaching back in her purse for her dabbing cloth.

Ouch. That hurt way more than my eye. The truth always does. I pushed away Rochelle’s hand, preferring to blink my own way back to health. In a minute, there’d be no skin left on the right side of my face. That girl was dangerous with a Kleenex.

Tracey started to say something, but was called away…again. I took a deep breath, watching her walk to the punch table with her mother-in-law. Where was the groom? Why was I the one getting jealous instead of him? Shouldn’t her husband have been the one hunting her down?

Like I said, he’s a little weird. This whole deal was. But there was no use trying to explain that to Rochelle. She wasn’t trying to hear it. So I did what I always do—tried to explain it anyway. “Look, Rochelle, I already regret not helping out with the wedding. But I just wasn’t sure about this. When I dated Ryan—”

She tried the neck thing again. With success this time. “Dated? Is that what you call it? That mess was so boring he just stopped calling and came back to the singles group. So he wasn’t for you. No reason he can’t be the one for Tracey.” In a deft motion, she grabbed a napkin from the table next to us, wadded it quickly and removed several layers of my epidermis. “There’s just one last spot….”

She reached out again, but I shook my head, thinking I should have thrown in some cookies with the Ben and Jerry’s waiting for me at home. The line we’d joined without meaning to inched toward the punch and some gruesome-looking cake with what appeared to be bubble gum toothpaste for filling. I definitely should have helped with the wedding plans. At least the punch looked good. It would have to be.

The line crept on. So did the conversation, though I was reluctant to respond. “Just to be clear. I do not want Ryan. Never did. I don’t want anybody. And I don’t appreciate the insinuation.” My lips barely moved as we spoke through our smiles so no one would hear. Only a ventriloquist could do better.

Rochelle nodded. “Okay, so that was a bit much.”

“Quite a bit. I’m just not feeling Ryan, okay? I know you’ve got a chapter and verse for why I shouldn’t think that, but I’m just being real. Tracey is like a piece of me. How can Ryan be totally wrong for me and totally right for her? I’m having a hard time understanding that.” I glanced toward the punch bowl at Tracey. She looked happy. So why did I doubt she’d stay that way? “I’m surprised Ryan put down his cell phone long enough to get married, actually.”

“Me, too,” Rochelle whispered, in a moment of weakness. “But he married her,” she said, regaining strength. “Now we have to keep them lifted up in prayer.” She squeezed my hand.

I squeezed back, knowing she’d prayed for me just that quick. She was right. I needed to let this go. “I can’t believe you thought I was jealous though.”

I wasn’t, was I?

Rochelle smiled. A knowing smile. “The real problem is that with Tracey gone, you’ll be alone like the rest of us.”

My neck craned forward, as if to catch the truth of her words before they hit the ground. The punch bowl was almost close enough to touch now. I needed a cup. Bad. When my friends nail me, I get thirsty. And this time, Rochelle had me. Since my mother’s death, I’d only lived with Trevor years ago, the boyfriend I almost married, and Tracey. There were always Dad’s sporadic visits when he wasn’t drunk, but not frequent enough to count. Going it alone with God was frightening, but exciting, too.

An older man, the color of ripe peaches and scented with Old Spice, lingered over the cups. I slid my feet back into my shoes—I wanted to kick them off so bad—and tried to be patient. I couldn’t help thinking that a drive-thru would have been faster than this.

I rubbed my arms. Between the tight sleeves and the cold air, it was a wonder my blood was still circulating. “You got me about the living alone thing. In my defense though, I did suck it up—with the help of a Lane Bryant cheetah girdle no less—and put on this dress. There has to be some points for that. Do I look like Miss Piggy with cornrows or what?”

Rochelle’s eyes turned into brown, wet suns. She covered her face in anticipation of wild laughter.

I shook my head. Rochelle could be so silly. Tracey, too. And I was being serious here. When I actually went for funny they just looked confused. “For real, though, did you see anything when my dress flew up?”

She choked back a giggle. “Not a thing. It looked like a pink sailboat…covered with roses.”

I pinched her arm. Hard.

When I turned back, there was Tracey. And the punch bowl. Perhaps I should have taken more time with my cup selection. When would this awkwardness go away?

Lord, let me be wrong. Let them live happily ever after. Somebody around here needs to.

Hard to believe the svelte beauty was once chubby, innocent Tracey, whose first experience with men was the warm touch of our personal trainer. Well, her personal trainer. I fired him after the fourth session. Why pay somebody to call you a failure? That’s what friends are for.

I should know.

Tracey gave me a “be good” look as her mother-in-law filled my cup halfway. She never did like me and probably never would. No cause to be stingy with the punch though. It was a wedding, after all.

Ignoring the full serving plus a napkin that Rochelle received, and observing that the mother of the groom had somehow managed to pick a cute dress for herself while uglying up the rest of us, I headed for the nearest chair, tied back neatly in ivory linen. I had picked those chair covers, way back at the beginning, but nobody seemed to remember that. I sat down and brought the cup to my lips, and then froze, half sitting, half standing. Sure the liquid had been yellow instead of red, but I never thought…. The secret punch. She didn’t forget me.

Rochelle’s hand pressed into my shoulder. I eased down into the chair. Tears stung my eyes. “Tracey used my favorite punch for her wedding?”

We sat quickly, pretending strangers didn’t flank us on all sides. Rochelle took a long sip, almost longer than my first. “Another drink was planned, but when you never showed up to any of the wedding functions, she thought you were upset and fought with Ryan’s mother to serve your favorite, Pineapple Passion Fruit.”

I dried my already raw eye. “But how? Daddy doesn’t give anybody the recipe—”

“He made it himself. Ten gallons. And the ice sculpture, too.”

That dolphin. I knew it looked familiar. A sob stalled in my throat. That old man. Just when I want to give up on him, on myself, he does something like this. And Tracey, too.

“Yoo-hoo!” My assistant Renee called to me from where she sat squeezed in between my boss and one of Ryan’s big bosomed aunts, in a dress barely zipped up. They were two tables away, but still too close. Naomi nodded slightly, wearing her game face, permanently plastered on, no matter the occasion.

And so she should after the way we’d both been kicked out the conference room a few days ago. I’d recovered—with the help of a few bear claws—but Naomi was still sulking over the cancellation of the Java Lava scent project. Apparently, people liked to drink coffee, but weren’t too crazy about smelling like it. I’d have to absorb Naomi’s whirlwind anger on Monday at Scents and Savings, but there was no sense rushing into a tongue-lashing from her now. I stayed put, despite Rochelle’s elbows, also known as hospitality prompts, digging into my ribs—well, the fat covering my ribs.

“Good to see you two. Some wedding, huh?” Despite my attempt to sound casual, even businesslike, my desire to run screaming to my car was apparent.

The deejay’s bellowing voice swallowed Naomi’s terse reply, leaving me free to shrug and turn away, savoring the deliciousness of my last sip of punch. The tangy sweetness reminded me of Daddy’s Sunday afternoon dinners and lazy summers. Reminded me of a man who smelled like this punch tasted.

My first love.

It’s official. I’m losing it. Can’t even give me wedding punch now. I’m turning into Rochelle.

I pressed my wrist to my nose, as if trying to exorcise the memory of Adrian Norrell, the man never spoken of in the Sassy Sistahood. The original heartbreaker. Though my sister and ex-boyfriend did a pretty good job following up behind him. Still, that fiasco didn’t compare to me losing Adrian, who seemed always to be at the edge of me on days like this, even though he was long gone. Vanilla Smella, the bestselling scent in my line of homemade bath and beauty products and Tracey’s favorite, met my nose with notes of honey and crème brûlée, a warm blend that seemed to remove the chill starting to nip at my skin. At times like this, my I-don’t-have-a-man-but-I-can-make-stuff tendencies came in handy.

If only I could get Rochelle to stop trying to make me quit my job and open a shop when she wouldn’t even use my products. Maybe by the time I was making her honeymoon basket, she’d want to do more than decorate her bathroom with my stuff. As uptight as she could be sometimes, she’d still be married before me. Naomi would probably even beat me to the altar with her mean self.

I’d long since stopped trying to make sense of it. It’s just the nature of things. Some girls get married and some girls get…

Flowers in their hair.

The reception dragged on, though I never felt received. People from BASIC, our church singles group—it stands for Brothers and Sisters in Christ, but it I secretly call it Brothahs and Sistahs in Crisis—stopped to speak to Rochelle and me, dropping not-so-subtle hints about who might wed next. My name was never mentioned. In the present company, that was a relief. Alone again, Rochelle and I indulged in girl talk, something we hadn’t had time for in a while. Not face-to-face anyway, though we volleyed e-mails like Venus and Serena.

Rochelle saw me peeking at her punch and poured some into my cup. She wasn’t into the sharing of food or drink, even when we were growing up (“disgusting”) but she knew how badly I wanted more punch. And how much I didn’t want to face Ryan’s mother to get it. What happened to having a hostess pour the punch anyway? Some folks just have to control everything.

Rochelle tugged at one of my cap sleeves and, seeing how tight it was, went for another sore spot instead. “Have you used that half-off coupon for the body wrap yet?”

“Nope.” I stared into my cup but didn’t drink. Years of Rochelle’s germ speeches had worn off on me. I just couldn’t do it. Who knew I was actually listening? “Rochelle, the only thing that body wrap melted was my wallet.” Fifty percent of a hundred bucks was no sale in my book.

She pinched her eyes shut. “You are certifiable.”

No use disputing that one. We were all a little crazy. Isn’t anybody who’s worth knowing? “If you know of a cure for these red lines spidering up my sides, then we’ll talk. Because if I get in an accident on the way home, I’ll have to tell the paramedics I was clawed by tigers.”

Or thorns.

Rochelle let punch ribbon from her mouth back into her cup instead of spewing it everywhere like I might have done. Not one drop got onto her dress. Oh, well, at least my contacts were still in. Rochelle made a face that let me know not to say anything more if I wanted to avoid a scene. For all her ladylikeness, that woman laughed like a farm animal when I got her going. Tracey, who was walking towards us now, was no better.

Ryan, the mysteriously absent groom, intercepted Tracey inches short of my chair. “Give me the garter, babe. The men await.” His voice, the standard Fortune 500-speak, mixed with love talk, gave me the willies. It was like hearing Ralph Nader sing a Barry White song. Just wrong.

So wrong that when they started fumbling with the garter, I tossed back Rochelle’s possibly-riddled-with-E. coli punch and turned to Rochelle. “Why do men get to fight over satin while I have to defend myself against thorns? It just doesn’t seem fair.”

Rochelle didn’t respond, but her cheeks inflated like a blowfish’s. If I didn’t stop, she was going to have an all-out fit, but at this point, I didn’t care. I pressed on. “Throwing lingerie at a bunch of guys from BASIC, who have either never seen a woman’s thigh or at best haven’t seen one in a very long time, is just cruel, don’t you think? Why raise a guy’s hopes?”

I certainly didn’t raise mine at these things. Probably because it was at a wedding that I was crushed, swallowed whole, watching while the love of my life married someone else, someone I’d thought to be a friend. The upside is, when my sister betrayed me with Trevor—minus the marriage, you fill in the blanks—a few years later, I ran into the arms of Jesus once and for all. And Rochelle even got to say, “I told you so.” Or the quasi-Christian version of that—“Jesus told you so.”

While Rochelle scrambled to compose herself, I fingered the scratch below my eye. For such an intelligent person, Tracey had terrible aim. Her judgment, however, was much better than mine. In the last year, my friend had launched a new business, lost 100 pounds and snagged the biggest software developer in the Midwest. In a few days, Tracey would be settling into her gated housing community while I, don’t-need-a-date Dana, would sleep fitfully, in apartment 202, my lifelong residence.

Rochelle went for more punch. Tracey, abandoned again, took her seat. And my hand. “Sorry I didn’t send my devotionals to the list this past week.”

With all our members marrying off at the speed of light, there was only Rochelle, Tracey and I on the Sassy Sistahood e-mail list now, unless you counted my assistant, who read all but never posted so much as a semicolon. She saved her comments for my ears.

I patted Tracey’s hand. “It’s okay, Rochelle had something ready.” She always did. It was easy for Tracey and me to get lazy and just let Rochelle write every day. She liked to expound on the daily need for holiness and modesty instead of enduring my “flippant irreverence” or Tracey’s “greasy grace.” So we let her do her thing and talked about our real stuff at home. Only now, Tracey wouldn’t be home. The thought of my new phone bill made me shiver.

Tracey smiled now, knowing she’d be leaving soon for Hawaii. If she could find the groom again.

“Seriously, Tracey. I’ll take your turn. And mine. I’m sure you’ll be busy for a while.” What she’d be busy doing, I didn’t want to think about. Too bad I couldn’t be like Rochelle and act like I didn’t remember it—I did. Especially today. Why was that?

Pineapple passion fruit punch.

Thank goodness the hurt and anguish that followed such things was as vivid as the pleasure.

Tracey wouldn’t hear of skipping her turn. “I’ll do my spot. And after the, uh, honeymoon, I’ll probably need some extra time in the Word.”

I’ll bet.

I hugged her. “I’ll miss you. I do already. Especially at work. Naomi is all over me. I never realized how much you calmed her.” Or me.

“You guys can be pretty volatile.”

I laughed, loving, as always, the way Tracey can make a word like “volatile” sound so common. Once in an argument, she’d chided me about my vernacular and I couldn’t do anything but laugh. Today though, our laughter was bittersweet. Things had changed forever.

“You looked beautiful today. So skinny. I had to blink a few times to be sure that was you,” I blurted out. To a stranger they might have sounded mean, but Tracey understood. We were tight like that. Big changes are hard for me to get used to, even when I make them. And Tracey’s weight loss, and the butterfly effect that followed it, was a big change. Sometimes, she even looked a little sick compared to the full, sunny face I was used to. The old Tracey, who knew how to pick the best ice cream and crush potato chips to perfection for the tops of her tuna casseroles, seemed to have sunk into the collarbones of this new person. My friend was still in this new body, but her light seemed dimmer.

Tracey ran a hand down her washboard abs, discernible even under her dress. “It’s strange for me. I can imagine it’s hard for you, too.”

I managed a one-sided smile. Hard for me? I couldn’t have her worried about me on her day. Time to stop and act grown up. I could always have a fit later. “You did good, girl. Got slim and got married.” Not that I cared about either anymore. Aside from the somewhat formidable danger of cannoli cream bursting out of my arteries, I’d live. I didn’t care beyond that.

She tilted her head again. “Yes, you do,” her eyes seemed to say.

Maybe I did. A little. Not as much as Tracey, but maybe about two clothes sizes worth. “I’ll probably rejoin Weight Watchers for the umpteenth time, if that woman’s car isn’t in the parking lot.”

Tracey shook her head. “The receptionist? I told you, she still looks at me crazy even though I’m at goal. It’s just her personality. She’s like Naomi. Just overlook her.”

Yeah right. Overlook someone staring at you and saying, “You? Again?” Easy for Tracey. Difficult for me.

Rochelle sat down across from us and slid a full cup of punch toward me—complete with napkin—but her eyes were fastened on her son, talking with a too-old girl in a too-little dress.

Tracey focused the same look on Ryan, the tallest in a circle of tuxedos a few feet away. “Weight Watchers was definitely a big part of my success. But Ryan helped, too. He loved it off me, what can I say?”

Tracey was joking, of course, but it still rubbed me wrong. I gave her my funkiest look. “No loving was allowed until tonight, so you’d better rephrase.” Immediately, I regretted my tone and my “countenance,” as Tracey would say. Being overbearing was Rochelle’s job, wasn’t it? What was wrong with me today?

The bride laughed nervously. “That’s not what I meant, silly. You know, I lost that first bit with the trainer, and then more when we rejoined Weight Watchers. By the time I got to Ryan, well, we just talked and walked and walked and talked…. Somewhere in there, I wasn’t hungry anymore.”

How convenient. “Must be nice. He should open a woman-walking service. I’d sign up. At a discount, of course.”

She laid her hand on mine. “Hush, you.”

I did hush, wishing I’d been silent all along. Ryan was part of us now. An uninvited member of the hush-you club. He was a good guy and Tracey really loved him. Why couldn’t I accept him, too? Sometimes I could be such a bum.

Rochelle’s son, Jericho, sauntered to the table, bringing the eyes of every female from seven to seventy with him. I prayed he’d sit next to his mother today. I’d pay for it later if he didn’t. It was at weddings that Rochelle felt the loss of her own love most. Sometimes I wanted to remind her that at least she’d gotten a kid out of it, that at least she had somebody, but we’d had that conversation once before. It didn’t go well.

Not missing a beat, Jericho dropped wide-legged into the seat beside me, his seventeen-year-old knees and forever legs pressing against my shorter, softer ones. He picked up the remains of my bouquet and sniffed, then dropped it again.

“I don’t know why they always throwing them flowers at you, Aunt Dana. You ain’t never getting married. Mama, neither.”

“Jericho!” Rochelle straightened in her chair. Her eyelids peeled back like only a mother’s can.

I bit back a smile. I loved that kid, but he had a habit of saying just what came to his mind.

Wonder who taught him that?

“It’s okay.” I turned toward Jericho, not quite face on, but at an angle. If I turned more, I’d laugh and he would, too. Then we’d both be in trouble. “You’re right. Marriage probably isn’t in my future.”

Why did just saying that bring me a strange comfort? A relief even? Maybe that’s why I was eating myself silly, so I wouldn’t have to deal with it at all. I took one of Jericho’s ball-palming hands into mine.

He smiled at me, ignoring his mother’s look that said he should apologize, that his comment had surely hurt me more than Tracey’s thorns. Jericho knew better. He knew, as I did, following his eyes to the pink satin behind he’d left at the punch bowl, that it was his future that concerned me, not my own. I pressed his knee with mine until his legs knocked together. He smiled once more, then tossed back a cup of punch. “Oooh. The pineapple stuff.” He squinted. “Y’all mad at each other about something?”

I kissed his fingers. Even at this age, he made me want to cry. “Something.”

He nodded. “Is it over, or do I get baklava, too?”

“It’s over.” His poor wife, I thought. He’s going to read her like a worn paperback. She’ll never see it coming.

Holding his hand, I stared up at the sky—blue, lazy and slipping on a thin coat of afternoon. The unspoiled haze reminded me of the treasure I’d lost, the gift I could never regain.

The gift only God could restore.

I smiled at the thought that God was restoring me, verse-by-verse, piece-by-piece, but oh, how it hurt. Why did rebuilding seem so much harder than building? Perhaps because now I knew it could all be knocked down again. And so easily.

A throng of girls waved in our direction. Jericho’s leg pressed against my knee. The look in his eyes as he took in each one of them iced my veins. I swallowed the rest of my punch. And my speech. He had a mother for that. Prayer was my job.

And pray I would, for Jericho and for myself. I usually skipped out on weddings long before this point and always limited myself to two cups of punch, even the nasty red kind they were serving now that Daddy’s stash was depleted. I was currently working on cup number four and the sugar was making me dizzy.

Random thoughts and pictures did enter my mind, slipping back to when Rochelle and I—well, really her, but I watched—founded the Sassy Sistahood, boasting over 2000 members, the largest group of African-American women on the Internet back then. Then one of the members befriended us in real life, met my best friend Adrian at my house and somehow convinced him to marry her. I’d dropped offline and out of sight for a long time after that and when I came back, Rochelle was Bible-thumping so hard people dropped out of the group like crazy. When I returned for good after my mess with Trevor, our fun little social group had morphed into a tribe of prayer warriors sharing daily thoughts about the Lord. We considered changing the title, but never got around to it. Besides, with everyone else married off, it was just the three of us and we liked to think we had a little sass left in us. I was beginning to wonder.

Already assuming his role as absent husband, Ryan disappeared across the green with his business partner. Tracey looked longingly in his direction, and then hugged me. I knew from her grip that she’d had enough and was going after him.

It begins.

Tracey tugged at her gown, which for some reason, she hadn’t changed out of. “All right then,” she said with finality. “I’ve got to get back to my huzz-band, but I thank you for coming. For understanding.” Her gaze rested on me. “It all happened so fast.”

Too fast if you asked me, but nobody did. Though I was the junior oracle of singleness—at seventeen years and counting, Rochelle held the senior position—once my friends had more than a conversation with a man, I became persona non grata.

No kids? No man? Know nothing. I ought to make bumper stickers.

Rochelle, at least, had experienced being abandoned while giving birth to Jericho. This memory was somehow considered valuable. Too bad I didn’t get credit for being in that hospital room, too. Or finding my sister in that bed with Trevor. Or watching my Adrian marry someone else. My pain, having no offspring or alimony to show for itself, didn’t seem to count.

I’ve caught all your tears in a bottle, marked them all in My book.

God had done that, hadn’t He? Oh, well. I hadn’t meant to get all soppy like this today anyway. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t.

“Aunt Dane, you’re squeezing the blood out of my arm.”

Dana Dane. My nickname. Adrian had given me that, too. Gave so much and took away even more.

“Sorry,” I muttered, turning Jericho loose, remembering the last time I felt like this. Two months ago, the end of July. Sarah from human resources. A tangerine satin gown that actually fit. Overcooked chicken. Decent music. Escorted down the aisle by her eighty-year-old uncle.

Wedding party number nine.

Chapter Two

She got him. I don’t know how, but Tracey managed to get Ryan back to the table and keep him there. After a few minutes, we were all laughing and I wondered why I’d ever been worried. Things would be fine. Tracey was a big girl—well, not physically anymore—and could take care of herself.

And if not, there was always Rochelle. She’d try and take care of us all. A slip of humidity, orphaned by Fall, thickened the air. Afternoon, now fully clothed, burned away any memory of morning. I swiped my forehead as Rochelle held a piece of wedding cake up to her mouth, surveying the white icing, white cake and red filling. Strawberry or cherry, I couldn’t tell, but that stuff looked seriously nasty.

Tracey’s cake remained uneaten on her plate. “I’m full from that piece I shared with Ryan.”

Yeah, right. I shook my head. My mother would have perished at the sight of this cake, if she weren’t already dead. As it was, Mama had reminded me about how much sage to add to the Thanksgiving stuffing on her deathbed. She didn’t do things fancy, but she did them right.

Jericho arrived with two pieces on his plate. “It looks good to me.” With youthful abandon, the boy bit into a mammoth slice, pausing only to give a thumbs-up and shove more into his mouth.

Rochelle shrugged. “Remember that black fruitcake with the white icing a few years ago?”

Boy, did I. “How could I forget?” Wedding number four. Institutional green dress. Nice jazz. Horrible cake. Nightmare bad. I winced at the thought of it.

Tracey did, too. “Come on, ladies. Stop fronting on the cake. It’s good. Right, Jericho?”

He nodded, licking his fingers.

As if a teenager’s opinion about food could be trusted. I frowned. “That boy would eat the paint off my car.”

Jericho paused, considering the possibility. “Not your car. Maybe Adrian’s…”

Everyone except Ryan and Jericho froze.

Adrian. The taboo was broken. Someone had mentioned his name.

“Hush, Jericho.” Rochelle looked away. Tracey’s eyes avoided mine, too. I’d made it all day without saying it, though his name was ready on my lips. I didn’t dare speak it any more than I dared open the letters and e-mails he’d sent me over the past year. I hoped I was being selfish and silly, denying him because of what he’d denied me, but I couldn’t be sure. All I knew was that Adrian meant trouble. Good-looking, good-smelling trouble, but trouble all the same.

Jericho smiled, oblivious to my pain. “Adrian’s Benz-o. Now, that thing is pretty enough to eat.”

And so is he.

I pressed my eyes shut. “I’ll have some cake after all.” Rochelle’s mouth was already white with icing.

My fork picked between the layers.

Tracey elbowed me. “It’s good. His mother made it.”

His mother? All that money and his mother made the cake? How could Tracey be so bourgeoisie and so cheap at the same time? I was no wedding planner, but you didn’t drop twenty grand on a wedding just to let the mother of the groom whip up the cake in the church basement. I could see the telltale grooves from our fellowship hall baking pans now that I looked closer. “The swirls are pretty—”

“Eat it!” The cry was collective.

I jumped, banging my knees against the table legs. “All right, already.”

Please don’t let this taste as nasty as it looks, I prayed, then shut my eyes and slid the fork into my mouth. Strawberry filling, cherry icing and light-as-air white cake melted on my tongue. “Wow.” Both hands flew to my mouth, a crazy thing I do when something tastes extraordinary. The food swing, as Rochelle calls it.

I moved a little too fast, evidently, but not fast enough for anyone to miss the hum of satin ripping up my sides. My chest tightened. Further inspection revealed two inch-high slits, hardly identifiable if I kept my arms down, but humiliating nonetheless.

“Now that was funny,” Jericho said, choking down the rest of his second piece of cake.

Rochelle crossed her arms, trying to look serious. I sighed. Those quiet ones. They keep their emotions corked and when they blow, it’s a total explosion of stupidity.

“Don’t even start,” I said, smashing my arms against me like sausage casings.

Tracey sputtered on the other side of me, making the sound my car does on winter mornings. I rolled my eyes, knowing that once the bride let that laugh go, it’d be at least ten minutes of uncontrollable giggling. Considering the stress of the day, she might go longer. That was a real concern. Rochelle’s busting a gut was one thing, but Tracey rolling on the ground in her wedding dress was more humiliation than even I could bear. Not that I thought she’d go that far, but there was that time she’d giggled herself into the salsa at the junior prom.

“You people are sad, you know that?” I shook my head.

As if that had been the punch line for a sitcom, Rochelle reached across the table, yanked up one of my arms and then collapsed in her chair, her body contorting like James Brown. Her mouth opened and closed in the this-is-so-funny-no-sound-will-come-out laughter. Not one of her spritzed hairs dared leave its place.

“This is what happens when people don’t get out much. Too easily amused.” I secured my arms at my sides again.

My attempt to diffuse the humor had no effect. Rochelle turned from the table, holding her stomach. One look at Tracey, with both hands clasped over her mouth, told me this could get ugly. Ryan sat stunned for a second and then…escaped. No surprise there. Jericho reached for Tracey’s cake. He’d seen all this before. And more. That left me to save Tracey from baying like a wolf at the moon. I lifted my cup of punch and extended it to the cackling newlywed. “Drink this. Now.”

Tracey shook her head, waving me off with a pained expression.

Jericho smiled at a girl a few tables away, as if a trio of satin-clad crazy women was an everyday occurrence. It was, for us, of course, but he wasn’t supposed to act like it. He turned back to me and pointed at Tracey. “She’s gonna blow.”

I agreed. “No doubt.” A laughing fit was imminent and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it…but drink punch. With a shrug, I lifted the cup to my lips, and then frowned at the lukewarm taste. How hard would it be to break a fin off Daddy’s dolphin? No sense in me not having any fun.

“Dana?”

It was a man’s voice. The voice of a man I’d once loved.

A man I still loved.

Suddenly, shaving the ice sculptures looked very inviting.

Maybe it wasn’t him. “Adrian?” I turned, hoping I wasn’t purple due to the oxygen that had sudden left my body. It couldn’t be him, but it was. How could this be?

I was going to put Tracey out of her skinny misery.

The flower thing was negotiable, but Adrian’s absence from anywhere that I am is an unspoken, understood request. I’d have to put these things in writing in the future. “How are you?”

“Fine.” He took my hand and pulled me up from the chair.

A little too fine. He touched the corner of my eye. I drew back in pain.

“Bouquet?”

“You know it.” My head started to throb. How silly must I look with this scratch and my melted makeup and chewed off lipstick?

He didn’t seem to notice as he pulled me close. Too close. His signature scent, a pineapple coconut blend cut with orange essential oil, overtook me. I melted in his arms like a Hershey bar on a car hood.

Adrian pulled me back for another look at my face, by now negating all standards of beauty. “Man, it’s good to see you. I’d planned to slip in and out, but I saw Tracey jerking around over here and I knew she was about to go into her act—”

As if on cue, laughter howled behind us.

The plastic cup in my hand cracked, spurting red liquid down the seam between us. I jumped back. Adrian’s glasses hit the ground. I reached behind me, grabbed some napkins and wiped his chest, which was much more muscular than I remembered. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He rescued his tortoiseshell frames and shoved them on his face.

Clark Kent, move over.

He took off his suit jacket and shook it, smiling as rivers of red punch drained off it onto my feet. That same gorgeous smile, a little crooked from where I’d jumped over him at the skating rink in the fourth grade. Punch continued to rain from the edges of his suit jacket, a perfect fit over his broad body just moments before. I dabbed at my own front with what remained of my napkin pile, wondering if I’d end up with “Tracey and Ryan, The Real Thing” imprinted on the front of me. It would be an improvement.

Adrian tossed his jacket over a chair, knowing he’d be able to have what remained of the stain removed at the dry cleaners. He’d get rid of the shirt. That much I knew for sure and I hated that I knew it. He’d been so polite about my crazy appearance. Now I had him looking half as bad. I dropped my eyes to the ground.

Ugh. Ugly shoes.

He grabbed my chin in that mind-numbing way of his and lifted it. “Don’t worry about it. Seriously.” Then he kissed my forehead. Any remaining oxygen left my brain for good.

I rocked over onto one heel. “Well, I’ll let you talk to Tracey now. That was nice of you to come all the way from Chicago.”

He crossed his arms. “I came from across town. I’m back in Leverhill now. Didn’t Tracey tell you?”

I pressed my lips tighter so the scream wouldn’t escape. “Tell me what?”

Adrian squinted at me, despite his glasses, something he did when very nervous. More useless data I wish I didn’t know.

Surprise plus embarrassment blurred Adrian’s features. “So you didn’t know anything? Not even that I’d be here today?”

I looked over at my two friends, who’d long since stopped laughing. “They wouldn’t have told me about this wedding if they could’ve gotten away with it.” My voice trembled, trying to conceal the truth of the statement.

Adrian didn’t speak. Instead, he gave me what I needed. Another hug. “It’ll be okay. I prom…” He let the word drift away, along with the pain that must have rimmed my eyes at his mention of promises. “It’ll work out.”

I dared look up at him, dared feel his embrace around me, knowing all that had gone between us, all that had been broken. There was something still there, a shadow of a time when his face alone had been a promise. When his hugs had been a vow. How I’d missed those times.

Missed him.

I reached up to hug him back, only to hear that terrible sound of fabric going wrong again, this time not so softly.

As a swatch of animal print emerged from the pink satin, I suddenly questioned Lane Bryant’s decision to sell cheetah girdles. And my decision to buy one. Adrian pulled me into his pineapple-orange chest as Tracey and Rochelle’s laughter resumed behind us. He didn’t laugh. He knew me too well. “I am sorry,” he whispered into my hair.

“It’s not your fault.” I took a deep breath, knowing it wasn’t my dress he was apologizing for.

“Where’s your car?” he whispered.

I nodded to a gravel lot about a hundred feet away from the tent.

“Don’t worry. We can do this.” With that, Adrian swept me into his arms and calmly passed my table, where Rochelle sat on the edge of her seat, now devoid of mirth and ready to spring to my aid. I reached back for the bouquet and gave both Rochelle and Tracey a don’t-move-don’t-say-a-word look. I needn’t have bothered. They both knew better.

Jericho obviously did not.

“You riding in the Benz-o, Aunt Dane? Save me a seat!” He cupped his hands around his mouth for volume. No one missed the message or its implication.

To think that I diapered that child.

Adrian squeezed me closer and set off for my Mercury Cougar. Adrian somehow managed to get me into the passenger’s seat. He tossed his jacket across me before shutting me in. He rounded the car and got in.

I considered crying, but this was so far beyond that. “Now what?”

He reached in the ashtray for my keys. My mind reeled. He remembered. “Now, I take you home, Miss.” The salutation hung in the air. The ignition revved. Adrian looked over his shoulder and backed out slowly. “Or is it Mrs.?”

The sun glinted off his wedding band as he spun the steering wheel.

I turned to the window. A rose petal Rochelle had somehow missed slid into my lap. “I’m still Miss. Miss Dana Rose.”

He carried me upstairs. I tried to protest, but Adrian wouldn’t hear it. By the time we topped the first landing, sweat trickled of his bald head and onto my shoulder.

“I can walk,” I whispered, suddenly feeling worse than before.

Adrian kept climbing. “You don’t have to.”

I slipped through his grasp and stood. “I know. Thank you.” I gathered my skirts, careful not to scratch him with the thorny bouquet I’d snatched off the table as we went by. Why I’d kept it, I had no clue.

“Just like old times, huh?” I said, as we topped the landing of the stairs to my apartment. The apartment I’d stayed up nights in dreaming of this very moment. Only in my dreams, I wasn’t dressed as an animal trainer/ballerina in need of a Band-Aid and Adrian wasn’t wearing another woman’s wedding band.

She’s gone.

That was true. But where did that leave him and me?

Adrian nodded toward the door across the hall from mine, the place where he’d spent a few minutes of his childhood. The rest of the time, he’d been at my house. His grin faded into a pained expression. I knew he was thinking of his mother. I was, too.

“Your mother’s funeral was beautiful. I loved that song you sang. She would have loved that.” The service was a year ago, the last time we’d seen each other.

Adrian nodded. “I thought she would have liked it. Nothing else seemed appropriate. Thank you for coming, Dane.”

I leaned back against my door, happy for the thorns pricking my hand. Their pricks muted the tearing of my heart. “If I’d known about it, I would have come to Sandy’s funeral, too. Really.” How long had I waited to say that? Two, three years?

He stiffened at the mention of his late wife, then fingered his ring, probably out of habit. “Sorry for not inviting you.” He pulled off his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose. “I needed some time.”

Me, too. Still do.

I tried not to imagine what a mess we might have made of things if I’d responded to his phone call after his wife died. Without looking at the caller ID, I’d known it was him. Felt that it was.

Sandy had called me herself the night before and expressed regret for pursuing Adrian while she was supposed to be my friend. With labored breaths, she’d asked me to take care of him. I’d assured her, like I really had the power to do so, that she would recover and take care of him herself. When the phone rang again, it was Adrian, with all that pain in his voice.

“I called you once. When it happened.” He ran a palm over his sweaty head. “I’m glad you didn’t say anything.” He reached out and pressed against the door, as if trying to hold himself up.

Staring up at him, I remembered that anguished hello. My phone outlet was still chipped from where I’d yanked out the cord, not trusting myself. His tone had reeked of need: emotional and physical. I’d known I wasn’t the one to fill either category. Only Jesus could.

Both then and now, I feared one word might escape his lips.

Please.

So I kept running, not giving him, or me, a chance to say it. Though Adrian loved God, I didn’t fool myself about his humanity.

Or mine.

I smoothed my hairline, raking a broken nail between my braids. When did that happen? “I’d better let you get back to the reception. Again, I’m sorry.”

“No more apologies.” He paused. “Please.”

There it was, filling the hall like a fog. Time for me to exit, or in this case enter.

Adrian’s fingers brushed my hand as I fumbled with my keys. I pulled away. I’d already broken a nail because I wasn’t paying attention. If I wasn’t careful, my heart would be broken, too. Why had Daddy made that stupid punch filled with childhood memories? Why had God allowed Adrian to come here, waking love I thought long dead?

I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.

The Song of Solomon. I avoided that book of the Bible, but Rochelle had included this verse in yesterday’s devotional. I’d laughed at it, not knowing it would haunt me so soon. I hugged my middle and slipped out from under Adrian’s outstretched arm. “Well, thanks again. I’d invite you in but—”

“That wouldn’t be a good idea.” His shirt eased across the rapid rise and fall of his chest, releasing more of that intoxicating tropical scent. He turned and headed for the stairs.

I brought my hand to my throat and slid my key into the lock. “Exactly.”

I’d known Adrian would come back one day, and that it would hurt when he did, but I had no idea how badly. And Rochelle showing up at my door before I could lick my wounds didn’t help a thing.

“You’ve got to admit it was funny.”

What was funny? Rochelle racing over here like a maniac? “Not really.” I kicked off my torturous shoes and started off across my living room, shoving an industrial-size tub of cocoa butter out of my path. My next destination was my room, to take off this wretched dress.

Rochelle kicked her pumps off. Her bare feet echoed mine against the hardwood floor. She paused at the tub I’d pushed aside. “That’s a lot of cocoa butter. What are you making with it?”

Here we go with the interrogation. “Body balm, soap and lotion. For Renee’s cousin’s wedding. Spa party for the bridesmaids. More stuff that I can’t think of right now.”

“Wedding favors. Now that idea is a winner, Dane. You could build a business off weddings alone.”

And feel like this every day?

I rubbed my eyes and leaned against the sofa, eager to end the chitchat. “I don’t think so.” I ignored Rochelle’s attempt to cheer me up and hobbled to my bedroom, shutting the oak door before she could enter, but knowing she’d come in anyway.

My room, still darkened by my closed blinds, allowed a few strips of afternoon to leak through. Tracey had always jerked them up every morning. I missed her sunshine already. I yanked at my zipper for a few seconds, and then padded to the door. “Rochelle, can you come here a minute? Help me?”

She arrived all too quickly. “Sure.” The zipper gave way and the dress with it. I maneuvered over the skirt and buried myself beneath my comforter. I turned to the wall. “Thanks.”

Daytime flooded the room as Rochelle whisked my blinds up.

A pillow over my head solved that.

Pointy fingernails, Rochelle’s version of tickling, jabbed at my middle. “Oh, come on. Get over it. It wasn’t that bad. Probably broke the ice between you two.”

I snickered. “It broke the ice all right. More like unplugged the dam.”

My friend’s hands went still. “But he didn’t come in, right? I came right over—”

“No, Mother May I, he did not come in. Thanks for trying to block though. I see now what you really think of me.” I lifted my head a little and gave her a smile, just enough to clear the concern in her eyes.

Rochelle slapped at the pansy-covered blanket. “I trust you, girl. Him, too. It’s the enemy I don’t trust. Know what I’m saying?”

I eased upright, resting my back against the headboard. “I do know. And I’m thankful you’re looking out for me. You could have done one better though and warned me he would be there.”

She held up both hands. “I’m innocent on that one. I figured she’d throw the flowers, but Tracey and I both agreed not to tell you about Adrian’s move until after the wedding and not to invite him. Seems she couldn’t go through with the second part. Probably knew you wanted to see him. Thought she was doing you a favor.”

“Traitors.”

She shrugged. “Just because you can’t deal with him doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t love him. Adrian is like a brother to me.”

A frosty pause ensued, probably at the mention of the word brother, as mine was still missing in action.

“So what did happen?” She slid under the covers, too.

“He carried me up the stairs.”

Rochelle’s jaw went slack. “Is that straight out of a fairy tale or what?”

Straight out of my nightmares more like it. “I got down on the second flight.”

Rochelle nodded. “Brothah fell down, didn’t he? I told you to stop eating all that pizza.”

I punched her shoulder, for real this time. “He didn’t say a word. I thought that holding my breath was making me lighter, until he started sweating.”

She held her stomach. “Don’t make me scream.”

“Make you scream? You weren’t the one standing there in that thing.” I pointed to the rumpled dress on the floor.

Rochelle patted my arm, looking down at her own dress, a smaller, yet just as terrible version of the one I’d removed. “I tried to talk some sense into Ryan’s mother about these dresses, but you know everyone thinks I’m too conservative. If you had—”

“I know. I know. I dropped the ball. I don’t know why I let my feelings—or lack thereof—about Ryan get to me. I regret it already.”

Rochelle pushed back the covers and stood. “No regrets, missy. Get up out of that bed and get dressed. We’ve got BASIC tonight, a special meeting and elections for officers. You’re going.”

I groaned and flopped back onto the bed. BASIC. Our sham of a singles group. A certified freak show if I’d ever seen one.

There goes my pedicure. And I’ll never get to that ice cream with Rochelle here.

“Please. I just had to put a block on my phone because of Deacon Rivers calling me from the retirement home. And Tad-the-Harvard-Grad? If he starts in with why he can’t seem to find a woman who is at his spiritual and intellectual level, I think I’ll throw up. Watching him do the weather is punishment enough.”

Rochelle leaned over my bureau and started her assault on my top drawer, no doubt looking for something suitable for me to wear.

“Don’t start throwing stuff out of that closet, okay? Last time it took me half an hour to refold all those clothes. You know there isn’t anything in there you like. Not one thing.”

She waved her free hand. Her other five fingers remained buried in my drawer.

“Don’t pay Tad any mind. He’s already in love—with himself. And I’m encouraging Deacon Rivers to join the Seniors Bible Study, but he’s still not convinced he belongs there.”

“Neither am I. He chased me to my car so fast a few Sundays ago that I thought he was Jericho.”

Rochelle harrumphed at the mention of her son. “That boy wishes he could run that fast. Maybe if he was chasing a girl. His coach called me all last year about his sluggish playing. I hope the summer AAU league helped some.”

I considered telling her that summer league ball hadn’t helped and that Jericho ran slow because he hated basketball, but some secrets were best kept. If Rochelle knew how much her son confided in me, our friendship wouldn’t be the same. That Rochelle was head over heels for her kid was obvious, but sometimes she could only hear what she needed for him to say.

My amateur wardrobe professional slung a pair of jeans on the bed with a turquoise short-sleeved sweater. I narrowed my eyes. The shade was too close to teal, Adrian’s favorite color. “Did you invite him? To church tonight, I mean?”

Rochelle stopped and stared at the ceiling. “I may have mentioned it, but I doubt he’ll show. He’s going to another church. That Messianic fellowship we went to last year.”

Wow. “The place we went for the Feast of Tabernacles display? That was awesome.” I’d wanted to visit again, once this work project was over. So much for that. The Nehemiah Group, comprised of a mix of believers—those Jewish by blood and those made Jewish by His blood—had intrigued me, both with the breathtaking outdoor display and open, vibrant worship.

Some of the detailed historical teaching had flown right over my head, but Rochelle had broken it down for me afterward. Such a place of scholarship and praise would be right up Adrian’s alley, given his late father’s Jewish background and his love of learning. I smiled, remembering his joy when I gave him his first Hebrew lexicon on a long-forgotten Christmas. Even when it came to the Bible, he was a nerd at heart. “I doubt he’ll show after this morning anyway.”

Rochelle picked up the pair of jeans and held them up? “A Velcro zipper? Dana, you’ve got to stop. This is crazy.”

I pouted a little. “They’re comfortable. And just for holidays and church potlucks, thank you.”

She grabbed another pair off the hanger, clucking her tongue. “And look at these. Elastic in the waist.”

“But they have a zipper. Look.” I pointed to the front of the pants with satisfaction. Rochelle looked at me with pity, which made me laugh harder. I couldn’t live her lacquered life for anything. The hairspray alone would do me in.

“Okay. Put these on. And no sneakers, either. I really don’t think that Adrian will show, but now that he’s back, you need to—”

“I’m not going to change myself in hopes that some man is going to react to me in some way. This is it. Me. All you get. All he gets.” The he came out with a little venom. The growl of my voice even surprised me.

Rochelle leaned over and picked up a pair of moccasins with turquoise stones. A gift from one of my customers. I loved them, but never wore them out. She placed them between us on the bed.

“You’re both my friends and I’m sick of you two botching this up. You may not see him for another month, I don’t care, but tonight, we practice.” She crossed her arms with finality.

We’ll see about that.

I stood and started out of the room, both hurt and happy when Rochelle didn’t follow.

It had nothing to do with anything that had happened today. The anger in my tone had been simmering for years. Sure, Sandy was gone, but was I just supposed to forget how he’d cut me off after our time together, my first time no less?

The painful memory drove me to the kitchen, hoping there would be a spoonful of ginger spice chai caked in the container. The way Adrian had played me then, so true to the Biblical account of Tamar and Amnon…It seemed that after we were together he’d hated me more than he had loved me. Understandably so, as he was the Christian then and I, the pagan soul. How could I blame him for running when I’d wrecked his faith?

I fell for that until Sandy took the distance between Adrian and I as separation and went for him, full throttle. And he went along for the ride, all the way to the altar, dragging my mother, my friends and even me.

“The first thing he asked me was if you’d started your business yet. He so believes in you. That’s hard to find in a man.” Rochelle’s voice startled me.

I stopped short, my hand on the cabinet. “I doubt it’s support. He just wants me to do something so he can come and steal my ideas…again.” Adrian’s business credibility wasn’t the best with me, either.

Rochelle banged the chai container on the counter while I heated water. “Are we back on that? Adrian’s store? Dana, you know that he didn’t deliberately steal ideas from you. Whatever you told him a zillion years ago was just brainstorming. People do that. It’s part of business.” She blew out a breath. “It’s not like you were going to do anything with those ideas anyway.”

Was that the point? What I did with them? No. The point was the ideas were mine, something I could never seem to get Rochelle to understand. Let somebody come in there and “brainstorm” a pair of those shoes. It’d be all over. “We weren’t in business, Chelle. We were in love. Even more, we were friends. Two friends on the stoop with big dreams…and he stole mine.”

Even as I said it, Adrian’s store, Kick! Candles, flashed through my mind. It was a woman’s refuge, intimate and relaxing, swathed with tulle and fresh flowers: roses in summer, amaryllis and poinsettias in winter, anything from daffodils to handpicked wildflowers in spring, when like a garden, the place buzzed with color.

It was October now. In a few weeks, his store back in Chicago would be decked in velvet, from the tapestries dripping off the walls onto the small couches beneath them. Ladies’ boots would line the edge of the deep shag as tired shoppers soaked their toes into its depths and bored husbands sipped cocoa and watched cable sports in massaging chairs. Overhead lanterns and die-cut sconces lined the walls, filling the store with a new scent every hour. A few times a year, Rochelle and I snuck up there and bought all the stuff we could on Adrian’s days off. I always wanted to kick off my shoes and stay longer, but never dared.

It was a place girlfriends loved, boyfriends needed and husbands feared. A place I’d described to Adrian on a rainy Sunday while he rubbed my feet after one of Daddy’s Sunday dinners. Our place.

Only he’d built it with Sandy instead of me.

And now Chelle wanted me to brush that away and jump into his arms, the very act that drove him away in the first place. “You know, this is why Adrian is off-limits. Of all people, you should be able to appreciate that some things just don’t need to be discussed.”

Not with people anyway. God and I would have a long chat about this tonight.

Rochelle added a swirl of milk to the already weak chai and walked into my dining room, taking a zigzag pattern to get around the boxes of bath and body supplies strewn around the space, chosen for its disuse and out-of-the-way location. All the time Tracey had lived with me, I don’t remember her messing with my supplies, except to clean around them.

Leave it to Chelle.

“What’s all this?” Rochelle demanded, taking inventory with her eyes. I looked, too, a bit ashamed at my excess, but it had all seemed necessary at the time. Shea butter, rose petals, calendula, chamomile, lye for soap along with coconut and olive oil…and then there were those boxes under my bed.

“Just some supplies.” I shrugged. “My clicker-finger went a little mad.”

She rolled her eyes. “A lot mad, I’d say. I know you think you’re getting a deal from those online companies, but the shipping is killing you and there’s always something better locally if you talk to people face-to-face—”

“Don’t start.” One-track mind, that one. If she wasn’t trying to marry me off, she was trying to motivate me into the marketplace.

I took a closer look at the receipt dangling from Rochelle’s fingers. Four hundred and thirty-eight dollars. An order I’d obviously made while rapt in the buzz of my promised-but-never-delivered promotion at Scents and Savings. Rochelle did have a bit of a point. I was going to have to get a little more mileage out of that small business license or forget this stuff altogether.

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, though checkered with failure, than to take rank with those poor souls who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”

I grimaced. “Uh, Marcus Garvey?”

She shook her head.

“Winston Churchill?”

“Theodore Roosevelt. It’s at the bottom of all my e-mails. Just goes to show how much attention you pay me.”

She had me there. “Sorry. I sort of glaze over all that stuff.”

“Whatever. Look, you can say whatever you want about Adrian, but at least the guy stepped out and took a risk.”

My teeth set on edge. “Risk? What would you know about it? If you’re not at work or church, you’re home hiding behind that computer.”

Rochelle flinched, then pressed the receipt back onto one of the boxes. “At least I can afford to. You don’t hear me complaining about not being able to pay my bills. I’m not afraid to charge what I’m worth. If you come to Shoes of Peace, you won’t find any pumps hidden in my back room. They’re in the display window, where they belong.”

I hunched a little, like a crazed kitten driven into a corner. “Complaining? I haven’t asked you for a dime. You’re always the one pushing, trying to make me something I’m not. Don’t you know this isn’t about money to me? This is something I can predict, something I can control. I can throw it out and start over if it doesn’t work out.”

Clutching my chai, I tried to get a grip. Why couldn’t Rochelle understand? Tracey never bothered me about this stuff. I took a sip of the tea. Tepid. Ugh. I set it aside, ready to try once more to express my muddled feelings.

“Soap can’t lie to me or—or show up smelling like oranges and daydreams, waiting to break my heart—”

“Oh, honey.” Rochelle touched my shoulder.

“All these years you’ve waited, surely you know. Surely.” I shrugged off her touch, realizing I’d crossed her boundary by mentioning Jericho’s father. For once, I didn’t care. I had to get it out.

“This is my risk…and my safety.” My teeth nipped my bottom lip as if my subconscious were trying to shut me up. A staple gun would have been more appropriate. Why had I shared so much with Rochelle, shown her so much of my heart? She’d just use it against me in some subtle way, some devotional about the mouth showing the condition of the heart. Maybe if I actually talked to her about it instead of complaining to Tracey, she might realize what she’s doing and how it hurts me. If she only knew, I’m usually well aware of my heart’s condition before saying a word. “Now let’s just let it go.”

“Fine.” She sounded wounded.

I stormed into the living room, slowing with each step. Normally, I would have taken Rochelle’s dishing because I knew she had it hard being a single mom and sometimes needed to let go on somebody. But today, I just couldn’t take it. Was it because I’d used Tracey for the same purpose?

I didn’t want to think about it. As I dropped onto my leather sectional, a bulletin board framed with orders stared back at me. My bread store soap rack leaned against the wall like a gas tank at the middle of a long trip, half empty and half full. Just like my week. Just like my life.

“If you get your clothes on, we can grab some dinner before we go.”

The apple cobbler soap I’d made two weeks before filled the room with scent as I rotated the bars so air could hit every side. The tart sweetness settled down around my shoulders like an old sweater. Or an old friend.

I turned. “I’ll go, but I’m not voting and if Tad uses the words spiritual intimacy more than once, I’m out of there.”

“Deal.” Rochelle wiped her eyes and walked toward me, the skirt of her dress swaying with each step.

Knowing that she needed a hug, but wouldn’t offer one, I opened my arms to her. She accepted my affection, but more stiffly than usual. My gut wrenched. Letting off steam had seemed right at the time, but now it seemed foolish. I hugged her closer, bending her rigid fear into my soft shoulder. Fear of loving again, fear of what would happen to our friendship without Tracey to blur our sharp edges, to make us laugh in the right places.

I patted Rochelle’s back. “It’s okay. I’m scared, too.”

Chapter Three

Deal. I should have known better than to say that to Rochelle, to agree to drag myself to the singles group. Such things never work in my favor. When I heard Kirk Franklin playing and saw the disco ball, well, all hope of escaping unscathed went out of me.

“What on Earth is this, Chelle?” I tugged at her sleeve, my feet poking around in those moccasins I’d vowed to save for a special occasion. This definitely wasn’t it.

Waving to the DJ and other thirtysomethings trying desperately to look cool, she patted my hand. “Lighten up, Dane. It’s just a little fellowship to go with the elections.”

Fellowship? Maybe on an alien planet. Though a few hairs short of thirty myself, I knew I’d long since ceased to be cool. Somehow, these people hadn’t been given the you-are-out-of-date memo. I’d been duped again. “Whatever.”

I slumped into a chair for the first half hour, dreaming of my Chunky Monkey ice cream and my comfortable bed, and wondering whether the salon where I’d cancelled my pedicure took walk-ins. Today had been draining and tomorrow I’d have to be singing in the choir, serving dinner after church and probably back again in the evening. Coming along for the ride was one thing, but this added too much onto an already heavy day.

Rochelle’s elbow, pressed to her side like a broken wing, jabbed me once again. “Are you asleep? Come on, we’re counting the ballots.”

I formed a lengthy reply, but telling Rochelle that I’d thrown my ballot in the trash with my last plate of chips would hurt her, so why bother? “Okay.”

“Seriously. You should come on over. Talk. Some people are picking prayer partners and discussing ideas for next quarter’s activities.”

A look in the direction she pointed revealed all the reasons why I dare not leave my seat: Tad admired himself in the punch bowl, while next to him, Deacon Rivers checked for nose hairs. Near the door, the did-I-tell-you-about-my-divorce-yet group gathered in the corner. Normally, I’d suck it up and participate, but my tolerance for the ridiculous had run dry, expended on Tracey’s wedding.

“Chelle, I don’t think I can—”

“Wait! Hold that thought. They’re here!” She whirled around and paced to the front of the general-purpose room…its general purpose tonight was to torture me. She had the DJ stop the music.

I drank in the quiet, trying to remember which scary movie this scene was edited out of.

“Well, everybody, I wasn’t sure if they could make it, but I invited a few friends from the regional singles’ conference. They’re from Agape Worship Center, over by the mall.”

I watched in disbelief as a line of balding, bulging fellows trailed into the room. They slapped hands with Tad, who promptly marched off to sanitize himself in the bathroom. For once, I had to agree with him. These gentleman just looked…wrong. Like a bunch of football players who’d been squished into a time machine and had the plug pulled midway through the trip. Those jeans definitely didn’t make it to the new millennium. Not attractive. And to think that Rochelle tried to give me a makeover to come here.

Even if the room had been filled with male models, this church basement happy hour just didn’t work for me. Rochelle, Bible guru that she was, seemed to be having a wonderful time, flitting from person to person, and just like earlier, not spilling a single drop of punch.

I’d already stained my jeans. With Sprite.

Why didn’t I drive?

As I pondered the distance home, one of the once-upon-a-time tight ends from the other church reached for Rochelle’s hand and proceeded to a chair at the side of the room, where he opened a Bible and began speaking intensely, no doubt trying to cultivate “spiritual intimacy.” Too bad Tad was still in the bathroom. That subject was his specialty.

As the anger and the confusion of the day detonated within my mind, I knew I was going to lose it. I mean really lose it, like say something all of us might regret. I’m still not sure how I got that microphone…

“What are you people? Crazy?” I asked through the blaring sound system. “Hell-ooo, this is a church, not some pathetic nightclub. The singles group is not about getting with somebody, it’s about being single!”

I raised both my hands and quickly dropped them to my sides as cheetah memories flashed through my mind. No time to think of that nightmare. I was on a roll.

Rochelle looked up from her deep conversation as if she’d swallowed a fly.

“I’ve come here week after week and listened to you people tell your little pity party stories about your ex-spouses and your baby Mama drama and—”

“I don’t have any out of wedlock children, thank you—” Tad dried his hands.

Thank God there’s only one of you.

“Anyway. I came here for you to pray for me, to study the Bible with me, not have you all tell me I’ll be a real person when I get a man.”

My voice quivered. “This should be a place where it’s okay to be alone. Instead, you all act like it’s some sort of crime. The real issue is, if none of us ever gets a mate, is God enough…or isn’t He?”

A wall of silence crept up between me and the rest of the room. Rochelle stared at me, her eyes searching mine. The music stopped. Everyone took their seats. I remained standing, not knowing what else to do.

Tad brushed past me and took the mike. He started a slow, but mounting handclap. “Well, that was dramatic, now wasn’t it?” He paused with his eighty-percent-chance-of-rain smile and I remembered why I never watched the weather anymore. The thought of what a blizzard might do to his lips was too frightening to consider.

Don’t be mean.

As if they’d been taped for a laugh track, the whole room burst into guffaws.

Deacon Rivers tapped his cane against the floor. “Was that a skit, sugar? It was good. Shore ’nuff good.”

By the time everyone got through hemming and hawing, I was mad. Shore ’nuff mad. Not that it mattered. I managed to slip off into the sanctuary just as Tad suggested a verse-by-verse study on Song of Solomon.

“To prepare our hearts for intimacy,” he said as the door shut behind me. I took the steps two at time and collapsed on a back pew.

“Lord, what are You doing? You told me to be at peace in my singleness, and I am. Please, just let me be.” The words rushed from me, more desperation than anything. I gathered my flailing braids into a ponytail and laughed at myself. Maybe Tad was the sane one after all.

“You said a mouthful in there.” A deep, mellow voice spoke above my head, articulating each syllable.

At the sound of his voice, I sat upright, took one look at Adrian and began estimating the distance I’d have to walk home. Not too far probably, but considering my speed was about .5 miles per hour, it could get ugly.

He came close enough for me to smell him, but walked past me and took a seat in the next pew while I digested the fact that he’d heard my little tirade.

“The music started up when I was just outside the door. I saw some weird-looking guys when I was parking. Do you all have a football team?”

That cracked me up. I slung an arm over my eyes. “We do now.”

“Well, anyway, I was headed back to the car when I heard you in there. Good stuff.”

I peeked at him, with that big, crooked grin. My toes curled in my moccasins.

He leaned over and pinched one of my toes, my pinky. “Nice shoes. The real thing?”

I nodded. “Always.”

He pulled his hand up onto the back of the pew. “You’re the genuine article. I’ll give you that.”

No, you gave her that.

Where did that come from? Was I losing my mind? Probably. If not, I would soon if he kept staring at me like that. By the time I remembered I could look away, that this wasn’t one of the stare-down competitions from our playground days, I could almost hear the bionic music in my head.

He nodded. “Definitely a Six-Million-Dollar moment.”

My eyes fluttered shut, my brain flashed to us running down the avenue making our bionic noises, our way to break the mood after a long day at school. Later, it became the cover for tense moments, as well. Me falling down the stairs in the civic center with my name on my back or Adrian blowing up the chemistry lab were never, as our teachers termed them, “painful experiences” or “embarrassing times.” Just Six-Million-Dollar moments. Like now.

God, are you trying to kill me?

The tears ran sideways down my face. Into my ears. My hair. I didn’t bother to wipe them away. Resistance was futile.

He leaned over that pew somehow because I could see the blur of him above me, but he didn’t leave his row. For that I was thankful.

“Just cut it out, okay? Please. Go home,” I said.

His fingers, long and slender, and always smelling like something good, touched the corner of my good eye. He didn’t try to wipe the tear away. He just touched it. His touch felt like a poker searing through my brain. Jasmine, my favorite scent, escaped his fingertips to torture me further.

“I am so proud of you, Dane. I’m sorry I didn’t say that this morning. It’s true though. When I heard you in there tonight, I couldn’t help but think that. How proud I am of you.” He traced the path of my tears to the top of my ear and then leaned back on his knees, safely restricted to his pew.

I lifted my head, more to let the tears drain out of my ears than to face him, but there he was. “I wish you hadn’t come in on that. It’s just—”

“I think you explained it very well.” He stacked his fists on the edge of the pew and rested his chin on top. “I get it. Trust me.”

Trust him? Hadn’t I tried that program before? “I guess I’ll have to. Trust that you understand, that is. It’s been so long that my mind plays tricks. We’re grown up now. Changed. I don’t know you anymore, not the man you are.”

That should get rid of him.

Adrian sighed. He pulled off his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose.

Uh-oh.

“Don’t try that with me, okay? I’m not your Dad or Jordan. Or even Dahlia. I know I messed up. I should have called. I should have tried harder to connect with you, even when you wouldn’t respond. Still, it wouldn’t have been any easier than this.”

I stiffened at the mention of my brother and sister and at his quick deflection of the isolation tactics that worked so well with others. I sat up slowly, estimating the miles back to my apartment again. Couldn’t be more than six, maybe seven…

“She told me that she called you. Sandy, I mean.”

That struck me like a punch. Had she told him what she’d said, too? Had he come here for that? For me to “take care of him?” I hoped not. I could barely take care of myself. “She did call. I had hoped we’d talk again.” I paused to mop my eyes. “Tell me what happened with her exactly? I never could get the story straight from Rochelle. She said lupus, but I told her people don’t die from that.”

“Sandy did.” He stared off in front of us, to the cross suspended overhead. “Some women do. Black women mostly. They don’t always know why.” He whispered the last of it, as though he’d told me a secret, the way I’m sure I sounded when I talked about Mama’s stroke or other senseless things. My mother’s death had shattered me, and though God had healed so much of the hurt, made a mosaic out of my broken pieces, the jagged edges poked me still. Of course they cut Adrian, too, losing as he had: his father, his mother, his wife…

“You can stop rubbing your head,” I said as he started on his temples again. “The trouble won’t go back into your brain, no matter how big your mind is.”

He glanced up at me, then nodded with a chuckle. “I suppose it never did much good. Not then or now.” He reached for my hand. “Or maybe it does. Sometimes you think something’s a habit, but later you realize it was more.”

“Or less.” I pulled away, taking a second to focus on the cross myself. One day back and we were doing it already. Playing games.

“Right. Well, I’m going to get out of here. Need a ride?”

I considered it, but no Bible passages came to mind regarding rational interactions with sweet-smelling widowers. “I’ll pass,” I said, nodding toward the downstairs door. “They have to come up sometime. Thanks for asking though.”

Adrian shook his head. Laughter creaked through his lips. “You sound sincerely afraid of me.”

I didn’t crack a smile. “I am.”

“I’ll take two vanilla lotions, a shower tower of soap…lavender, a fruit cocktail mask and—”

I stared up at Renee, my assistant and default member of the Sassy Sistahood. Times like this I regretted indulging her request to join the loop. Too much information for coworkers. Well, then there was Tracey, who I’d worked with and lived with, but that didn’t count.

It was too Monday for this, especially after the weekend I’d had. Sure I was flattered that Renee wanted to order everything on my little product menu, but how many times had I told her to keep that stuff out of the office?

My desktop rebooted. “Renee, you’ll have to e-mail your order to me or leave it on my answering machine at home.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “I’m on company time now.”

Raking a long purple nail across her chin, Renee nodded. “Naomi is gone. I made sure of that before I came over. Don’t worry. I got your back.”

Had my back? This wasn’t sixth grade. I turned back to my computer. “I appreciate that, Renee, but it’s not just about Naomi. It’s me, too. I don’t want any confusion. While I’m here, my mind is on S&S products, not mine.”

In theory, anyway. I could harness my transactions, but truth be told, my mind did wander back to my dining room and all my new supplies every half hour or so. At least.

Renee pursed her blue-black lips and ran a hand through her brunette hair, laced with skunk stripes of blond. “Oh. Trying to be Miss Clean, are we? Well, I won’t bother to close all those files you leave open every night with all your notes and recipes then.”

I opened my mouth to say something and shut it again.

“Gotcha,” she said, extending her index finger.

What could I do but smile? I didn’t mean to do that, scribble in those digital notepads, but when an idea came to me, I needed to write it down…didn’t I?

Do not work unto man, but as unto the Lord.

My chest tightened. Wasn’t it enough that I’d stopped taking home all the pens and folders? This Christian thing. There was always something else to work on. So far, I’d only mastered pants up, man out and a few other basics.

“You’re right, Renee. I’ll have to try and hold those thoughts until my break or—” As I pulled up my e-mail and scanned the first one, my breath slipped away.

From: SassySistah3

To: thesassysistahood

Subject: Whose turn is it?/Devotional

I know you guys said I could skip because of the honeymoon, but I needed to do it. Here goes. This should tell you where my head is. I’ve been a wreck since we got here. He’s been on the phone or on the computer since the first night. I walked the beach today with a bunch of strangers. Did I marry the wrong guy? (Dana, don’t answer that.) Please pray for me.

Tracey,

The Loveless Laptopper

“And a voice came out of the heavens: “Thou art my beloved Son, in Thee I am well-pleased.” And immediately the Spirit impelled Him to go out into the wilderness.” (Mark 1:11, 12, NASB)

God confirmed Jesus’ identity as the Son of God. What has God promised you? What are you waiting for Him to shout to the world on your behalf? Who does God say you are? Think over these questions and post to the list. And if you’re really struggling, you know what to do, pick up the phone and call one of your sistahs!

(Rochelle and Dana, be ready for a call from me. Things are NOT going well.)

PS. Hi Renee. Thanks for coming to the wedding.

Renee popped a bubble. “Ooh, yeah. I read that one. Real messed up, huh? She should cut him some slack, though. Everybody’s got to work. It paid for that fancy wedding, didn’t it?”

“I suppose it did.” But was it worth it? Could a price tag be put on love, or as Tad put it, “spiritual intimacy?” I sighed, wishing my bad feelings about Ryan hadn’t proved true, at least not this soon. I stared at the clock, figuring the time until I’d be able to call Rochelle.

Renee fluffed her hair with her fingertips. “You could learn something from that Tracey and her husband. Start your own business. For real, like in the mall or somethin’. Your stuff smells way better than the sorry mess we sell here. Why do you think Naomi stays on you so tough?” She smoothed her hairspray-soaked fingertips down her sweater.

Yuck.

“Shoot girl, your stuff is better than Fingerhut. And Lord knows I loves me some Fingerhut—”

The phone rang and I smiled, praying it was for me. Renee was my girl and all, but I just wasn’t up for a two-hour discourse on the merits of Fingerhut. Contrary to popular opinion, being compared to the illustrious catalog company wasn’t my idea of a compliment.

I held my breath, hoping I’d say the right words to Tracey. “Hello?”

“Hey.” Wrong friend. Rochelle sounded tired, like her after-hours self. “Did you get that e-mail?”

“Just got it.” Tracey’s e-mail made me sad, too, but nothing usually taxed Rochelle’s pep during working hours. She was on until the door swung shut at six. Right now she sounded like roadkill. “Ryan will have a lot of making up to do, but I’m sure they can work it out.”

That or I’d be flying to Hawaii to get her somehow. Was cocoa butter returnable? Why didn’t these things ever happen on a weekend?

I turned to Renee. “I’m going to take this in the break room, okay? Mark me for thirty minutes. If anybody needs me, I’ll be in there.” The “break room” was actually just Tracey’s empty cubicle, but it sounded good.

Filing at her nails as if trying to free herself from a glittery purple prison, Renee nodded.

A few steps and a punch of buttons brought me back to Rochelle. “Hang that up for me, please?”

“Done,” she shouted over the partition, reminding of just how little privacy I had. I’d have to concentrate on being quiet, or not saying anything incriminating. My assistant played dumb, but she was far from it. She had the sense to turn down my job and forgo the pleasure of working closely with my boss, not to mention the ingenuity to hang around until now she knew so much about me I could never get rid of her. She probably had one ear glued to the other side of this partition. This time, I didn’t care.

I clutched the phone to my ear. “So what’s going on with you? You sound as bad as Tracey.” Worse.

“Jordan’s back.”

My head shook in disbelief. This shot the Tracey thing right out of the water. Off the planet, even. Jordan. Back. We’d prayed for it, but what would we do now? Jordan was a lot easier to pray for than deal with. “Since when? Are you sure?”

“He called. Talked to Jericho.” Her voice trembled. I shivered at the fear streaming through her words. Even when Rochelle went into labor and Jordan went to the water fountain and never returned, she hadn’t sounded like this. With every contraction, a tear had trailed her cheek. Nothing more.

“Out of the blue? Where’s he been? Does he think he can just waltz in here and—” I paced the minuscule break room, squeezing my forehead, hoping Adrian was right and the movement had some power after all. “Is he married? Does he want you back?”

Rochelle paused before answering. “He’s not married and…It’s so crazy you’d never believe it. He’s been in Mexico…in a coma.”

I gulped for breath. How convenient. “If he didn’t want to say what happened, he didn’t have to. But to make up a story like that? I mean, come on…”

More heavy breathing. “It’s true.”

The cord twisted around my elbow as I turned in circles. “True? You’ve got to be kidding. That’s straight out of The Guiding Light. Don’t go back to being stupid just because he’s—” I caught myself but too late.

“So that’s what I was, huh? Stupid? You’re right. I was stupid to help you through school, to help take care of your mother, to raise Jericho alone…I was stupid.” A sob blared through the line. “Still am.”

Man, I’d done it now. “No, you’re smart. And strong. That was a mean thing to say. I’m just…confused. I don’t know what to think. There’s so much going on.”

“Tell me about it.”

“So what does this mean? Everything is just hunky-dory? He still abandoned you. Didn’t call for how many years? I don’t know when this other stuff happened, but he was still playing ball on TV for a long time.”

“Right. There’s still no excuse. He didn’t try and make any.” She laughed a little hysterically. “He didn’t need to. Jericho was ready to jump through the phone into his lap.”

Whoa. This was bad. Really bad. Rochelle didn’t mean to be, but she was a little greedy about her son. I couldn’t blame her. Jericho was all she had.

She has God.

God had me there. I tried to put a positive spin on things. “Isn’t this what you wanted, for Jericho to know his father? For Jordan to want a place in his son’s life?”

Another sob exploded through the phone. “Not like this. Jericho wants to live with him. Can you believe it? After everything I’ve done for that boy? Jordan didn’t even sign his birth certificate. He’s never even met him….” The tears strangled her words.

“I know.” I fumbled for something else to say, but nothing seemed right. For once, I let silence suffice.

She paused to catch her breath. I took a breath, too, figuring I’d need it before we were done. “I should have known when I got that letter from the people taking care of him a month ago—”

“A month? What letter? And why didn’t you tell me?”

She sniffed. “Tracey was getting married. You had that project at work. Adrian was coming…it didn’t matter.”

“Didn’t matter? Rochelle, what are you talking about? It’s been years. Long years. I’ve been going through this, too.” I grimaced. No wonder she’d been acting so strange. Why hadn’t I picked up on the signs? I thought she’d just finally cracked and gone man crazy with the rest of the world. Now I wondered if that wouldn’t have been better. That I could fix.

Is my arm too short to save? I can fix this, too.

“Can you talk to Jordan? Get him to understand that this isn’t a good idea?” I said the words and regretted them as the passed my lips. It was like asking if she could take a ride on the sun.

“Talk to him? Dana, come on. You know him. Better than anybody.”

The truth of it hit me like a brick. I knew him all too well. And I wasn’t proud of it. I rubbed my forehead and cradled the phone with my shoulder.

“How is it that I ended up with Jordan as a brother and you as a friend? It doesn’t seem fair.”

A dance of unsteady breaths was Rochelle’s only response.

Chapter Four

Thirty-one minutes. I’d tried to be careful, to watch the clock, to count my time, but the thought of my brother, calling after all this time, taking Rochelle through the pain of losing him all over again…As always, I’d be left to clean up the mess.

Renee appeared in the doorway. “I can’t believe him. Coming back now? And that Mexico thing? That’s rich. Really rich.” She picked her teeth with a miniature plastic sword, no doubt salvaged from her weekend.

Had she actually clicked in on the line this time or what? I didn’t even have the strength to ask. Her ears were like fine-tuned receivers anyway. “I really don’t want to talk about this, okay?”

As usual, she ignored me, this time stabbing at her lip with those ridiculous nails. “Do you think they’ll get back together? Now that would be a wedding. We could call it in for one of those reunion shows on TV. Keep me posted.”

My hands smoothed across my denim skirt. “Uh, I’ll try. I hardly know what’s going on myself. I haven’t even talked to him.” Why suddenly did that seem important, that no one had called or written me when I was Jordan’s sister?

She lingered, her hands on the doorknob. “Yeah, that’s pretty messed up. That he’d call them and not call you. Especially him being your only brother and all.”

I took a deep breath. Renee wasn’t going to get me stirred up today. “He’ll call me when he’s ready. But since we’re discussing family, how is your brother?”

My assistant’s eyes flickered, a bleak hopelessness replacing her haughty gaze. “He’s okay, they’re moving him to federal next week. I can visit him there. It’s closer.”

Why did I say that? Sometimes I could be bone cold. “Right. Well, if you need time, just let me know.” I hadn’t meant to go there, to remind her of her own problems, but I needed to get back to my desk before Naomi emerged with a stun gun or something. She popped up at the most unlikely times.

I paced through the maze of cubicles hoping my boss would be too busy plotting her next scheme to be promoted to know about my phone call. As bad as the call went, I could have hung up and made it back to my desk on time. Bad enough I’d wasted my lunch on it. Another starving trip through the drive-thru tonight…and then straight to Rochelle’s. Maybe I’d do better then. The one thing I could have done to help Rochelle—pray—had totally eluded me on the phone. The shocking news of my brother’s mysterious reappearance and the shaky story behind his absence had blown my mind. Had he really been in another country all this time? And all alone?

Renee’s question about Rochelle and Jordan’s relationship bothered me as well. The two of them getting back together had never occurred to me. Surely she wouldn’t be that stupid. He was my flesh and blood, but he’d left her before. What would make Rochelle think he’d stick around now? Or was that really my heart talking…about Adrian? Both of them had given Rochelle and I something to hang our disappointment on, something to shield us, warn us about giving our hearts away again.

Shuffling back to my cubicle, I prayed for Jordan, wherever he was, asked God to give me grace when I saw him, to keep from exploding like I’d done on Rochelle this weekend. I’d have to drive around to the racetrack tonight and find Daddy and give him the news. That’d sober him up. Quick.

I pushed back my chair and sat down at my desk, grabbing the Cool Cucumber file from my inbox, where I’d shoved it this morning. And then that call…It’d be time for my meeting with Naomi soon. I’d probably have to skip lunch and just—

“So there you are.” Naomi’s voice grated like cat claws on a kitchen sink.

Smile. No matter what she says, smile.

I swallowed hard before turning to face Naomi Titan, a thirty-eight-year-old barracuda in heels, recently overlooked for a promotion she’d worked three years for. She’d been hunting heads ever since, and from her tone, it was my braids she wanted on her platter today.

“Hello, Naomi.” I used my best conflict-management voice.

She puckered her lips and yanked her blazer closed. “It’s nice of you to come back to work. Sorry to break up your little phone call—”

“I was—”

“I know exactly what you were doing. We had a phone monitoring system installed last month. Didn’t you get the memo?”

Monitoring? She had to be kidding. Was that even legal?

Her nostril—yes, nostril, very scary—flared. “Don’t even think about it. All legit. The whole team signed off on it at the quality assurance symposium.”

My eyes bulged. “That was over a year ago. How am I supposed to remember that? And I definitely don’t remember anything about monitoring being mentioned.”

“I believe it was called productivity banking, a consultant-based analysis of how we spend our time.” She grinned wickedly. “And I’ve been assigned as the consultant conducting the analysis.”

I blinked. It was a first, this smile of Naomi’s, and a much more hideous sight than I’d imagined. It looked as though her adult teeth had staged a sit-in and her baby teeth hung around to watch. There had to be fifty-two on the top alone. With shoes like that, you’d think she could afford an orthodontist. People were weird that way.

Naomi lingered on each word to let the implication soak in, twirling one of her frizzy curls. I stared at her hair, trying to figure out, once again, what nationality she was. She had Jennifer Lopez hips, Barbara Streisand hair, Angela Davis rage and a nose that curved like the photo of my Cherokee great-grandmother’s. Today I didn’t ponder the question long. Whatever she was, she wasn’t happy.

Neither was I.

“So I talked on the phone a minute over, Naomi—”

“Ms. Parker.”

Back to the maiden name, were we? This could get ugly. “All right…Ms. Parker, I’m sorry for my infraction. Now if you’ll let me get back to work so I can prepare for our meeting this afternoon—”

Another sinister smile zipped across Naomi’s lips. If her lipstick had been a few shades redder she’d have been a dead ringer for the Joker.

“You won’t be meeting with anyone today, Dana. Not here anyway.”

The stale Cheerios I’d eaten for breakfast knotted in my stomach. I suddenly wished I’d downed a few bear claws, too, so I could offer them up on Naomi’s precious shoes.

We wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers….

I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. God was right, of course. Naomi wasn’t my real problem…but she sure did a good acting job. Very convincing.

“What do you mean?”

Like a super villain in a very cute skirt, she snatched a sheet of paper from her clipboard. A Fingerhut receipt. Naomi turned the paper over to reveal a massive order from Renee, now gone to lunch, scrawled in blue eyeliner.

I grabbed my throat. My hand rose to the healing cut beneath my eye. It burned as though it’d been sliced afresh. “I told her I couldn’t take orders here—”

“And yet she did it anyway. Perhaps because of the allure of your products? Products which, interestingly enough, I’ve never seen or been offered any samples of.”

Huh? Now she sounded like the Abominable Snowman from one of the Rudolph Christmas specials, attacking the world just to get a little love. “I didn’t think you wanted any. I’d be glad to make you a basket—”

She snorted. “I’m kidding. I don’t want any of your kitchen sink cosmetics. It’d probably eat my sensitive skin right through.”

One could only hope.

Lord, forgive me.

Triumphant, Naomi dropped into the seat beside me—Tracey’s old desk. How I missed her right now. I never realized how much of a buffer she had been between me and, well, everyone.

“I’ve talked to Steve and we decided that this whole enterprise of yours is a conflict of interest. You’re probably using our connections with fragrance suppliers for your own personal gain and who knows what else.”

As if I’d want to use that wretched smelling stuff? It was bad enough to have to sample it.

“On top of that, our productivity inventory has shown the decrease in your work product over the past year. A direct result of your outside enterprise in our estimation. So…go home and talk to your little buddies all you want.” She leaned over and clapped her palms like a seal. “You’re fired.”

With that, she strode toward her office, never bothering to look back.

I sat frozen for a few seconds and then mashed three numbers on the phone before I remembered that the line was monitored for “productivity assurance” or whatever she’d called it. I shrugged and punched the remaining digits. What did it matter now?

“Shoes of Peace.” Rochelle still sounded like someone had shot her with a tranquilizer.

“You’ll never believe it.”

“What? Is it Tracey?” I could hear her scrambling around the register. “Don’t tell me. Jordan called you, too—?”

My stupid brother was the least of my worries. Visa was going to come and repossess my teeth if I didn’t figure a way out of this one. And just when I was considering that saving-up-for-a-rainy-day thing. “She fired me, Rochelle. What am I going to do now?”

“Fired you? Naomi?” A cheerleader’s voice replaced her melancholy tone. “Get over here as fast as you can!”

I stared at the receiver. My friend had sprung to life at the news of my financial demise. Was I missing something here?

“Come over there? Now? No, I’m going home. I’ve got a date with some ice cream.”

“No, little sis. You come by here. I’ve got something better than ice cream.”

Better than ice cream? Now we were talking. “Whaddya got? Baklava? I knew you weren’t serious about starting our food program today. Baklava is in the points book, but—”

“No, Dane, no baklava. What I’m going to feed you will keep you full for a long time. We’re going to cook up some dreams.”

The dream was almost done. A little raw in the center, overdone around the edges, but the details for my closet-hobby-turned-business were falling into place. The past few weeks had been a flurry of paperwork and planning—two things I’m not too good with. First, burning the midnight oil with a business plan had kept me busy. Then came the fun stuff—market research, product line development, price points and displays—all the stuff I’d dreamed about.

Only the reality turned out to be more like a nightmare. The insurance? Forget it. I came home from that meeting sweating like I’d been to spinning class. For extra fun, add in ordering bacteria challenge tests for my products, designing labels, obtaining UPC codes. All sorts of madness. But somehow, I felt more alive than ever. I’d thought Rochelle was nuts to push me into this, but I had to admit being excited. More excited than I’d been about anything in a long time, except maybe when Adrian showed up again. But now he’d disappeared just as quickly.

Mind your business. I’ve got him.

And you.

I smiled, easing my hand over the almost unrecognizable scar under my eye. My cocoa butter soap and lotion had done wonders. Renee, who’d volunteered to help me unload boxes, peeked around the corner of my Thanksgiving display, a burst of orange, gold, copper and green draped the shelves in layers. A cornucopia full of pumpkin pie bath bombs would soon grace the top for effect.

An emerald nail cradled Renee’s cheek. “I know this wasn’t easy, but I’m so glad it worked out. This is so…you. I can’t believe Rochelle gave you the rest of the money though. I knew she did well over there with those shoes, but this well?” She swept a hand around the upscale retail unit.

I snapped on my latex gloves and a pair of goggles before heaving a tub of sodium hydroxide, a necessary and lethal ingredient in all soap, toward the back. Why was it Renee always voiced my thoughts?

“I don’t know the details, Renee. I didn’t ask. I’m thinking she took out a loan. She said it’s a gift, but I’m going to pay her back. Somehow.”

The empty shelves stared back at me mockingly as I tried to imagine them full of jars and bottles sporting the funky fuchsia and tangerine labels Tracey had designed.

“Don’t worry. You’ll do it. Wonderfully Made is going to be a hit.”

“I hope so.” Besides Rochelle’s gift, I’d secured a small loan for women-owned businesses and cashed in my pitiful retirement fund. The cheery flowers on my foaming bath oil caught my attention, the product’s title hugged the curve of the bright petals in a swirling script on the label.

Hope floats.

I sighed. Hoping. Helping. That’s what this was about, helping women relax and rediscover their God-given beauty instead of cutting and peeling themselves into an early grave. It’d work out somehow.

Renee stood back as I passed by, as if the lye could escape the container and harm her somehow. Her posture humored me, but I was glad she took the safety concerns seriously. I’d been reluctant to let her come today, knowing the lye shipment needed to be stored properly. “I’ll be back in a sec.”

Tired of dragging the fifty-pound-double-garbage-bagged lump across the floor, I pushed it with my boot, hoping no stray lye crystals would jump onto my shoe somehow. Toe burns were no fun. Smelling a velvety bar of lavender oatmeal, six weeks old and smooth to the cut, made tasks like this bearable. Though I’d made hundreds of batches, there was still nothing quite like bathing with soap I’d made. It seemed the longer it cured the better it felt.

Getting to the point where I had supplies to shove around hadn’t been easy. To pull it off, my life had become an express business seminar. My days had been laced with acronyms from dawn to dusk—IRS, SBA and SCORE—all which basically illuminated the fact that I was BROKE. But God did it anyway.

In spite of the odds, Wonderfully Made, my soon-to-be-opened bath and body shop, was a reality. I scanned the back room of this freshly painted strip mall unit. With boxes everywhere, the place didn’t look much different than my dining room at first sight, but the stucco lining the walls and the chandelier in the main area hinted at the possibilities.

I hoped this place would live up to its name. Adrian had certainly lived up to the title of his business, heart kicker in the first degree.

Easy come, easy go.

He’d no doubt returned to Chicago by now. Though it hurt that he hadn’t said goodbye, I was thankful. With him around, my mind had played tricks on me. Dangerous tricks.

I looked down at my bare wedding finger. Maybe I needed to take my relationship with Jesus as seriously as Adrian had taken being with Sandy. And Jesus was still alive…

That’s deep.

Lugging the bag of chemicals into the hazardous materials cabinet, I strained to remember a thought that could be food for the devotionals I owed the Sistahood. Especially Tracey, whose new husband had not only declined to apologize for his physical and emotional absence on their honeymoon, but scheduled a series of out-of-town trips in the weeks following. And she was not invited to tag along.

A chime rang at the front as I emerged from the storage area. It’d taken Rochelle long enough to get the food. The deli was only a block away. She’d rejoined Weight Watchers with me enough times to know how cranky I could be on Week One, even if we were trying to do it on our own this time. I’d seen the I-can’t-believe-your-fat-self-is-here-again receptionist’s car on Saturday and peeled out like a wimp.

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