Church Folk - Michele Andrea Bowen [54]
"Did y'all have a nice time?"
"Yes. Dinner was real good, Miss Coral."
"I told you Mabel's Kitchen was a real nice dinner place." She pushed open the screen door. "Theophilus, you want to come in for some coffee or iced tea?"
"No, ma'am. I'm going to say good night to Essie and go on home. This has been a long day and I'm beat."
Coral Thomas bid him good night and went back into the house. When they were alone, Theophilus took Essie's hand and kissed the center of her palm. She tried to pull away, but Theophilus held it firmly, enjoying her physical response to his kiss. "Such passion," he thought. With his tongue, he swirled tiny, delicate circles onto her open palm, then drew his lips up the side of her wrist, where he could taste her perfume and feel her pulse pounding. "Ummm, baby," he whispered. "One day we're gonna have to finish this. And when I'm through with you, girl, you'll wonder why it took you so long to get 'busy' with me."
Essie pulled her hand from his and reached up to touch his cheek with her still-moist palm. "Theophilus, I've always given as good as I get in every single thing I do," she said. "And I believe"—her voice lowering and deepening—"that it'll be you, not me, in wonder if there ever comes a time when we get all busy with each other."
Her boldness caught Theophilus by surprise. Flustered, he tried to think of something to say that was as thrillingly seductive and loving as her words. But all he could do was stand there in the softness of the yellow porch light, held captive by those golden brown eyes.
Chapter Eleven
THEOPHILUS SAT IN HIS OVERSIZED, NAVY VELVET pastor's chair, trying hard not to squirm while he listened to Sister Willie Clayton talk at length about the church's anniversary. Her job was to read the Sunday announcements and welcome visitors, both of which she had yet to do. Instead she had taken the liberty of testifying about Cleotis's, her sorry son's, return to church, before she even got around to mentioning that today's service would be a special celebration for Greater Hope.
For months, Sister Clayton had been using the welcome and announcement time to deliver her own little sermons and testimonies—which was his own fault, Theophilus knew. He should have fired Sister Clayton when he first arrived and was reassigning church jobs to better-qualified folks. But he hesitated to fire Sister Clayton partly because she was a financial pillar of the church, owner of a chain of prominent funeral homes, and partly because she was Glodean Benson's aunt. He knew Willie Clayton would be furious with him and then openly blame her dismissal as a petty reprisal on his part concerning Glodean's threats. But this morning he didn't care what anyone thought—he wasn't sitting through another Sunday of this.
To make matters worse, Glodean had chosen today to put in a Sunday morning appearance at Greater Hope for the first time since Theophilus had become pastor. She kept shouting "Amen" whenever Sister Clayton paused for breath, egging her on. Theophilus had heard that Sonny Washington had been censured by the Board of Bishops for poor financial management and transferred back to his home state of North Carolina. He wondered whether that had something to do with Glodean's resurfacing today. Rumor had it that Sonny Washington's conference fling with Glodean was still on, and that she wanted Sonny to "put that uppity Rev. Theophilus Simmons in his place."
He drew strength from looking out at Essie, sitting next to Coral and D.S. Thomas. Though three months had passed since the Annual Conference, this was the first visit they had been able to schedule that didn't include Essie's entire family. It wasn't that Theophilus didn't like her family—he did, a lot—but he longed for the chance to see her alone. She had arrived