Church Folk - Michele Andrea Bowen [47]
Coral pursed her lips like she had something nasty-tasting in her mouth. "For yo' information, Miss Gal, them swamps is down in Louisiana and Florida. And that heifer, as you call her, is like my baby girl. I know all about you and the Pastor. I been watchin' out, thinkin' you had the dignity and sense enough to stay away from where you ain't wanted. But you ain't worth the Tennessee dirt he sho' wallowed in when he hooked up with your nasty swiggling, trifling self."
Glodean put her hand on her hip. "Coral Thomas, you have some nerve talking to me like that. And if we wasn't at church, I'd smack your old behind for gettin' all up in my face like you doing."
Coral took a step toward Glodean and pushed her face closer to hers. "Glodean Benson, I wish we wasn't outside of this church at the Annual Conference, so that right after you'd smacked me, I could tear up yo' behind for even thinkin' about layin' a finger on me."
Glodean moved away from Coral, a little scared by her force. But Coral moved right back up on her and said, "Don't you know, if that man really want you, honey, ain't nothin' or nobody gone stand 'tween him and you. But you and I both know he don't want you. And from the way I hear it, he made that point mighty clear to you some time ago."
Glodean was hurt by Coral saying that the Pastor didn't want her, but she wasn't about to let some old woman get the best of her, either. She put her tongue behind her front teeth and sucked the air through them, then said nastily, "I'll leave that pitiful thing alone, whoever, naw, whatever she is. 'Cause I know if she need your help holding on to a man, she need all the help she can get. Now I knows the Pastor in the biblical way. And I can tell you that I knows him well— what he like, when he like it, and how he like it. And I also knows that if your baby girl is capable of making him want to know her, if he ever cry out when he get with her, the only thing she'll hear comin' from his mouth is my name. 'Cause you see, Coral Thomas, I doubt very seriously if she can tackle with what I laid on my pastor."
Glodean flicked Coral a wave with her lace-gloved hand, meant to signify that she had just been told off. "So," she said, as she daintily adjusted her hat, "I think this ends our little conversation. And I'd appreciate it if you would move your old, rolled-at-the-knee-stocking-wearing-self out of my way."
Glodean started sashaying away. But Coral wasn't finished with Glodean Benson. She grabbed her arm and pulled her back, forcing Glodean to turn around and face her.
"Gal, you can act all high and mighty with me if you wants to. But yo' butt is, and will continue to be, pitiful. You hear me? Pitiful. And when the day does come for that man to want to cry out anything, he'll be real careful about what he let pass through his lips, 'cause she'll be his wife. Now, I ain't seen the Pastor all up in your face, tryin' to marry you with yo' crazy self."
Coral dropped Glodean's arm. But she was still so mad that practically all the saints in heaven had to hold her back, to stop her from snatching that expensive hat off Glodean and stomping it into the ground. She said, "I need to bless you out some more just because you, with yo' crazy low-down ways, done made me lose my religion right here at church and service ain't even over with yet."
Glodean was so furious at Coral Thomas that she snatched the church door open and stormed back inside just as altar prayer was starting. Pushing people out of her way, she desperately moved toward the altar, hoping against all rational thinking that God would make Theophilus Simmons forget about that Mississippi woman and come to her.
Essie immediately picked up on Theophilus's uneasiness about Glodean and said, "Did I say something wrong?"
He became fidgety and looked away.
"You know her, don't you?"
"Yes," he answered in a tight voice.
"And?" Essie asked.
"And . . . I'll tell you about it during dinner."