Church Folk - Michele Andrea Bowen [57]
Essie was too mad and too fixed on her target to hear Theophilus. She tried to pry her arm out of his firm grip to stick Glodean again.
"I said," he stated loudly, with authority in his voice, "the First Lady of Greater Hope cannot go stabbing her members with pins, no matter how they behave!"
As soon as Theophilus stopped talking, his words hit him, and he felt like he was going to faint. He couldn't believe he had just proposed marriage—not once, but twice—to a woman while she was attacking his former girlfriend with a hat pin in front of the entire congregation at his church's anniversary celebration.
Glodean just lay there a few seconds, too distraught to move, her behind and her heart both aching, after hearing Theophilus propose marriage to Essie. At last she managed to pull herself up off the table and strode out of the dining room as fast as she could, shamed by the laughter that wafted after her like her own perfume.
All Essie could do was stare at Theophilus with bewilderment and joy. Had he really just asked her to marry him?
"Hallelujah," Coral Thomas declared to D.S. as the entire room burst into loud applause. "That's the Lord at work. Talk about some mysterious ways. Yes, Lord! Yes, Lord!"
As soon as they could decently get up from their chairs, church members started flocking to the bathrooms, dying to compare notes on the scene they had just witnessed. The most charitable among them made a beeline for the pay phones, out of compassion for the sick and shut-in, to break the news to their sisters and brothers in the Lord who had been unable to see this little shindig with their own eyes.
This was an anniversary celebration no one would ever forget—or be able to top.
Part 3
1963
Chapter Twelve
THEOPHILUS TOOK A LONG SIP OUT OF THE GLASS sitting on the table next to the pastor's chair. He had wondered what would happen if he insisted that the deaconesses put Pepsi in that pitcher instead of the predictable ice water. They would probably fall on their knees, rebuking him and praying for his "backsliding soul" right in front of his face. He had once asked Coral Thomas her opinion, and she had looked at him like he was crazy, saying, "Pastor, did I hear you right? Pepsi in the pulpit pitcher? Who ever heard of such a thing?"
So here he was on a warm Memphis Sunday morning in April with only plain old ice water to get him through the service. He looked at his bride sitting in her new spot, the first-row pew, just below his pulpit, raising his temperature a few more degrees in a delectable-looking navy blue dress. Essie had made that dress and bought the white silk hat she was wearing, just for today, her very first Sunday as the official First Lady of Greater Hope Gospel United Church. It was such a simple and proper little outfit—a soft, cotton voile shirtwaist with no adornment other than the string of pearls she was wearing around her neck. But it looked so good on her that he secretly found it very sexy. He got hot just looking at his first lady. He wiped his face again and started back into the sermon, his rich baritone voice becoming softer and more seductive every time he glanced at his new wife.
Essie couldn't trust those looks her new husband kept stealing at her, looks that had no business coming from his pulpit, especially on her first day as the church's first lady. Before she met Theophilus, she used to wonder why some women got so excited over the sound of the preacher's voice. But she understood now. During their courtship, whenever Theophilus's preaching was packed with fire and passion on a Sunday morning, the hot desire that lingered in his voice on Sunday night used to put Essie on her knees. She had to pray and pray, and keep on praying to hold tight to what she knew was right and resist that man until they said "I do."
This was a fast sermon, moving quickly from what Essie had figured out was Theophilus's everyday teaching-for-living-the-Christian-life phase, to the shouting-all-over-church phase. Today, though, she was