Church Folk - Michele Andrea Bowen [95]
"Where's Baybro and Baby Doll, Thayline?"
"They back there asleep, Mother."
"Asleep?"
Thayline nodded her head yes.
"It's almost 8:30, folks will be here shortly. What time did they go to bed?"
"I don't know. They kind of slipped off sometime during the party."
Larnetta laughed. That boy reminded her so much of his father.
"Well, I'm going back there to get those two lovebirds up out of that bed," she said. She walked down the hall and knocked on the bedroom door. "Baybro, Essie! Get up before everybody gets here."
Essie peeked under the cover at Theophilus's naked body and pushed him, making him wake up fast.
"Get up. It's your mother."
Larnetta knocked on the door again.
Essie said, "We'll be right there."
Theophilus groaned. "Give us another hour, Mother."
"Baybro, you get your butt up and get dressed," Larnetta said. "Unless you plan on greeting your bishop naked like you are right now."
Essie was up and dressed in twenty minutes, but it was another half an hour before Theophilus made it into the kitchen, dressed in chocolate-colored pants and a white cotton short-sleeve shirt, looking happy and refreshed. He walked up behind Essie, who was helping Thayline set out the food, and pulled at her shirt, then gave her a fresh pat on her bottom.
She slapped his hand away and said, "Stop."
He turned her toward him, gave her a big smack on the lips, and mouthed the words, "Girl, what did you do to me last night?"
"You two keep going at it like that and you're gonna work up on a baby."
"Aw, come on, Thayline," Theophilus said, and winked at Essie.
Thayline moved her shoulders around a bit to shake off the shiver that was running up and down her back. She said, "Don't come on, Thay-line me, Baybro. You standing over there acting like you pumped up full with a baby."
He dismissed that assessment and squeezed Essie's bottom a few times "for good measure," as he always liked to tell her.
Thayline, who was putting the last bowl of food out on the table, told Essie, "You better listen to me, baby doll. Baybro got a baby in him just waiting to come out. And if you not careful, you gone slip up with one right at this conference."
Thayline walked to the kitchen door and called everyone to come back and bless the food.
As soon as she turned her back, Theophilus stood with his feet apart, rolling his hips around at Essie, and whispered, "Want some."
Essie whispered back, "You are so nasty."
He winked and murmured, "You like this old nasty boy."
Thayline thought to herself, "They just working up on this baby like nobody's business."
Rev. James leaned back in his folding chair and patted his stomach while twirling a bright yellow toothpick around in his mouth. With all the women back in the kitchen cleaning up, he thought it might be a good time to bring his concerns to the attention of Bishop Jennings. He didn't want to offend him. Percy Jennings was a completely different caliber of man from many who sat on the Board of Bishops, but he was still a bishop. And if there was one certainty about bishops, bishops were like cops—they always stuck together. It didn't matter how wrong another bishop was, the Board of Bishops was a tight fraternity that rarely if ever gave up one of its own.
"Bishop James," Percy Jennings said with a big smile stretching across his face, delighting in calling Murcheson "Bishop." "Bishop James, you're sitting there after this fine, fine breakfast, looking like you have the weight of the whole world on your shoulders. Relax, you're going to have plenty of time for such contemplation when you join the ranks on Friday evening."
Murcheson moved the toothpick around in his mouth and leveled his eyes on Percy Jennings. Despite his country ways, he was an unusually bright man and few things got past him. He usually figured things out long before most people. He had been seeing some things at this conference that troubled him—things that could not be ignored—and what