Church Folk - Michele Andrea Bowen [78]
"I'm sure," Essie said. "Her perfume . . . I smelled it as soon as I got in my car."
Thay put her arm around Essie's shoulders and let her cry. She knew she was angry with her brother not for fooling around with that nasty heifer—he couldn't stand her she knew—but for having contact with that thang and not telling Essie why.
"Baby doll, does Baybro know you upset about this?"
"He doesn't even know I found the sunglasses," she confessed.
"Why didn't you ask him? You always speak your mind. Why hold on to some mess like this now?"
"I don't want Theophilus to think that I can't handle Glodean and her mess. You should see how some of the women in our church get all up in his face. They will come up to him and act like I'm not even standing there—grinning and asking for crazy mess like special, private prayer sessions with him at their house. One fool even had the nerve to request a private baptism at her house in her bathtub.
"But Glodean Benson is something else. It's like she got some big secret on Theophilus. Make me feel like she know things about him that I don't even know how to find out, let alone know."
"What kind of things?" Thay asked, getting madder at her brother about this mess. He knew better.
"You know, Thay . . . like she know his real love secrets or something. Like she did something to him in bed that nobody else figured out how to do and he liked it a whole lot."
Thayline moved away from Essie and put her hands on her hips. "Now you just hush your mouth and quit talking like that. You hear me, baby doll?"
Essie looked up at Thay, a bit surprised by the harshness in her voice.
"First off, don't you ever let a woman make you think she know more about your husband than you do. And I don't care if the woman was his first wife! You hear me, Essie Lee?"
Essie nodded.
"That thang don't have no direct line into what makes the earth move for Baybro. You better get to remembering that you the only woman who got that kind of power over my brother now. Girl, all you got to do is swing those doll-baby hips a certain way and Baybro get a little sweat on his top lip like he do when he really want something."
Essie laughed through her tears. She had seen that sweat on his lip many times when there was something Theophilus really wanted—be it loving, cake, a piece of fried chicken, or ice water when it was real hot outside.
"I see you know what I'm talking about—thought you did. And if you know that, you make Baybro stop those women from careening around him like that. You give him some hell about it and he'll put a stop to it. Sometimes a man needs a little push in the right direction—even a good one, with a good heart like my baby brother.
"And, baby doll, you get him straight before you move to St. Louis. From what Mother been telling me, that church is filled with some mess out of this world. The two of you gonna have to be on one accord when you get there. And you gone have to walk up in that congregation with an 'I'm the First Lady and don't you people forget it' look written all over your face the very first Sunday you get there."
Essie recognized the wisdom of what Thayline was telling her. She knew she would have to say something to Theophilus but didn't know how or when. She was telling him, though. She wasn't putting up with any mess from Glodean or any other crazy woman anymore.
"How many votes do you think you have coming to you next Friday, Rev. James?"
Murcheson shrugged his shoulders. He was tired. This campaign for bishop was taking its toll on him. He hadn't been all that eager to run for bishop anyway. He was happy at Mount Nebo and there was such nasty politics involved in the race for an episcopal seat, plus the money it took to run a successful campaign for bishop could cost tens of thousands of dollars. Rev. James had seen more than one church go heavily into debt, incurring large second and even third mortgages, just to sponsor the aspirations of one man. He had refused when first asked to run for bishop, and he still refused to put the financial well-being of his church