Chapter 7
J
ust as she said she would, Sister Betty cared for Freddie in her home. When Sharvon wasn't working a twelve-hour day at her new law firm, she played nursemaid while Sister Betty napped or needed a ride to the church's food bank. The food bank was started by Sister Betty and Ma Cile years ago, when they'd first come into some extra money. Next to God and Freddie, making sure that others had as much to eat as she had was a priority.
It happened that Leotis had some out-of-town business previously scheduled. He had dropped in only twice since Freddie began staying at Sister Betty's. Yet he called quite often and ended the calls praying with Sister Betty while Freddie listened in on her speakerphone.
All during that first week of Freddie's release from Anderson General, church members flooded Sister Betty's home. Some called ahead, but a lot didn't.
“Praise be to God,” most would say as they slowly entered. It didn't go unnoticed to Sister Betty that those who'd been there before went immediately toward her bedroom. “He's not in my bedroom,” she'd say while redirecting them to one of the spare guest rooms, where Freddie lay, pretending he was asleep. It usually worked because Sister Betty would whisper, “He's really not up to much company. Y'all know how it is.”
Even Bea and Sasha stopped by to say hello but wouldn't stay long. “All's forgiven,” they told her. The only concern they truly had was whether or not Freddie looked well enough to go through with the wedding. They needed to see for themselves since they had no intention of not throwing the reception that'd launch their ill-conceived event-planning business. Of course, like the others, they also wanted to see if he was in the same bedroom as Sister Betty, or just how close her bedroom was to his room. They didn't want to plan a reception that wouldn't happen, especially because two old, inexperienced fools did something carnally to cause heart attacks.
On two occasions Ima, dressed in the least amount of clothing legally allowed, came with them. She didn't stay too long once she learned Leotis wasn't there. On one of those occasions Sharvon went out of her way by naming a piece of trash she'd tossed into the garbage Ima.
Oddly enough, the only visitors Freddie seemed happy to receive were the other members of the trustees' board. Although he was a guest in her home, he'd go so far as to have them shut the door so Sister Betty couldn't overhear what they discussed. “Just some old boring trustees' board nonsense,” he'd explain. “It's nothing for you to worry about. You do too much already.”
“Oh, you're too much, Freddie,” she replied on one occasion, before saying, “That's the same excuse you give me when you won't let me go to those doctor visits with you. You've gone twice, and I only have your say-so about what the doctor says.”
“Oh, stop worrying, Honey Bee. I've told you that everything is fine. I just need to stop acting like I'm twenty,” he told her. “Trust me. God's got my full attention.”
Caring for the longtime bachelor didn't come with any particular rewards, as Sister Betty soon learned. He sometimes resented her fussing over him.
“Honey Bee, please stop. I'm not helpless,” he'd ranted when, on occasion, she'd try to spoon-feed him. One of those times, she'd made a big pot of chicken noodle soup with bits of vegetables and chicken, thick enough to choke any man three times his size.
Often, during the hottest part of the day, she'd tiptoe into the room and quickly tuck the sheets about him as he slept. He would awaken and look like a mummy, with nothing but his head and a remnant of what was once his sprig showing. “Sorry, Freddie,” she'd whisper if she woke him. “I've got to make sure you get well.”
He'd somehow quickly free himself from the sheet jail and command, “Then stop trying to kill me with kindness!”
Their usual prayerful atmosphere and playful moods, with such endearing words as “honey” and “Freddie dear,” took a downward turn. The couple who'd planned in a few short months to say “I do” and spend their remaining days together couldn't spend one or two weeks under the same roof where either gave an inch.
It all came to a head at the end of the second week of Freddie's stay. He wasn't supposed to drive unless he got the okay from the doctor, and today's visit would, hopefully, give him back his freedom.
However, things went wrong: the Access-a-Ride bus broke down, and another wasn't available until much later. It meant he'd be too late for his doctor's appointment. Leotis wasn't available to take Sister Betty to the food bank or Freddie to his scheduled doctor's visit. Sharvon had called, saying she was stuck at work and wouldn't be taking a lunch hour. She couldn't do it, either.
“We can always take a taxi,” Sister Betty suggested, reaching for the pad by the telephone, where she kept frequently dialed numbers. “It could drop me off at the church and take you on to the doctors.”
“Nah,” Freddie said quickly. “You call a cab for yourself. I'm thinking about calling Elder Batty instead. He don't do nothing anyhow but sit around all day, begging Bea for a slice of her red velvet cake or whatever she's done lately to make him act crazy. He's probably available.”
An hour or so before Elder Batty was to arrive, Sister Betty needed to go around the corner to Freddie's house. She wanted to retrieve some things he'd been asking for. Things such as his shaving cream, razor, and solid stick deodorant were high on his list, along with clean underwear, which he'd run out of the day before. She could've washed his underwear, but he wasn't having it.
When she'd earlier suggested he let her buy those things, he wasn't having that, either. “Honey Bee,” he'd told her, “how would it look with you buying my drawers and we ain't even married yet? Besides, I'm feeling pretty good, but imagine how much better I'd look and smell if I had those things that I personally bought?”
Sister Betty threw up her hands in surrender. “Just rest a bit in my room until I get back,” she'd told him. “I haven't put the clean sheets on your bed yet.”
“Okay, Honey Bee,” he'd replied, smiling. “I guess it don't make sense to climb atop no clean sheets until I bathe and change from everything I've been wearing for the past day and a half. Don't you rush none, either. You walk slowly. I don't want you passing out in this heat.” He chuckled at his attempt at poking fun at his passing out at church.
Sister Betty left Freddie sitting in her room, watching television, and she did what he'd asked. She walked slowly around the corner to his house.
As it happened, Elder Batty arrived early, after she had gone to Freddie's house. He was available but wasn't alone. When he showed up, he brought Bea along.
Sister Betty, in her hurry to get to Freddie's home and back, left her side door slightly ajar. Seeing that the door was not completely closed, Elder Batty reached for the doorbell. Bea was quicker than he was, and acted as though she lived there, too, and with the full rights of any tenant, Bea reached for the door handle and pushed the door completely in.
“Sister Betty,” Elder Batty called out as he followed Bea inside and stopped in the foyer. “I'm a bit early. Where are you?”
Instead of Bea waiting for an answer, she walked quickly through the foyer. She ducked her head inside the kitchen, and when she didn't find Sister Betty there, she headed toward the back of the house, where she knew Sister Betty's bedroom, along with the spare guest rooms, were. Bea waddled just past Sister Betty's bedroom; then she quickly backtracked. Her fat jaw almost dropped to her chest, and the hunch in her back went from looking like the letter
C
to an
I.
Bea came face-to-face with Freddie. He had just stepped out of the shower in preparation for Sister Betty's return and was dressed in nothing but the skin the good Lord gave him.
By the time Sister Betty was two houses away from reaching her own, she heard the yelling. One quick glance at the church van in her driveway told her that Elder Batty had arrived.
What in the world is all that yelling about?
She began picking up speed and rushed inside her house. Inside her living room she found Bea all up in Freddie's face, with her finger pointed at him. Elder Batty was standing with his arms stretched out, trying to separate the two, and Freddie, for whatever reason, was wearing one of her housecoats.
“Bea Blister, what in the world is you doing in my house, acting crazier than usual?” Sister Betty flung the bag she'd carried onto a nearby chair. She immediately went at Bea. “I said, what's going on?”
Bea swallowed hard. She took a few steps back from Freddie but kept her finger waving at him while turning to face Sister Betty. “I believe the real question is, why do you have a naked man in your bedroom? You supposedly so saved. I knew you wasn't nothing but a hypocrite!”
“Calm down, Bea,” Elder Batty warned. “This ain't none of your business!”
“Check this old demon before I knock her out!” Freddie yelled but couldn't finish. He had become winded and could barely manage to find his way onto the sofa without falling.
“Bea Blister,” Sister Betty shouted as she raced to Freddie's side. “I don't know what you're talking about, and frankly, I don't care. But if you don't take your . . . ” For the first time in her adult life and since she'd given her life to Jesus, Sister Betty wanted to cuss. Instead she snapped, “Big behind out of my house . . . ”
Freddie quickly began perspiring, and Sister Betty raced to the kitchen, returning with a cold, wet cloth to wipe his brow.
Freddie swept Sister Betty's hand away. “I'm okay. I don't need that or no babying.”
In the meantime the argument that'd started between Bea and Freddie spilled over, and now it was Elder Batty's turn for scolding.
Bea balled up one fat fist. She rammed her fingers through the mauve-colored beehive wig she wore, as though looking for a hidden weapon, before she shot a nasty look at Elder Batty. “That's why you always out of that male-enhancing pill, ain't it?” Bea accused and pointed back at Freddie. “You've been sharing it with this alleged man virgin!”
As soon as the words left Bea's mouth, the temperature in the room chilled to zero degrees. Bea's angry admission of her and Elder Batty's use of Viagra quieted the room.
Sister Betty rose, with her wig now tilted a little to the side and looking like a flower behind her ear. “Say what?”
Freddie reached down from where he sat, and closed the snaps on the housecoat he wore. They'd popped open as he'd prepared to take a swing at Bea, so he couldn't follow through with it.
And Elder Batty's face turned a shade of red that did not make him look good at all.
With nothing left unsaid, and Freddie still needing to get to the doctor's, Freddie grabbed the bag Sister Betty had tossed onto the chair, and left the room to dress.
Elder Batty pulled out his cellular phone. “I'm putting an end to this craziness right now.” He turned and gave Bea a nasty side look, while at the same time shaking his head in amazement. “Hello,” he said quickly into the phone. “I need a cab in a hurry. . . .”
Bea began railing almost as soon as Elder Batty began dialing for a cab to take her home. “You ain't just gonna call me no cab and think that's the end of this!” Bea turned around to face Sister Betty, and her face turned a darker shade of black as she began rocking from side to side, warming up for what she thought would be a knockout punch. Her wig du jour, which now resembled a possum on her head, slid two inches off her scalp and onto her right ear.
“And you better believe that as much as you may want me to do it”âBea leaned forward and pointed her finger in Sister Betty's faceâ“there ain't no way in hell I'm going to give you no wedding reception!”
Sister Betty didn't back away an inch. Vile words rolled from Sister Betty's brain down into her mouth to escape into the open, but her tongue got in the way. Instead of saying something that she'd certainly need to repent for, she allowed her partials the freedom to roam from one side of her mouth to the other while giving off a clicking sound each time. “I never asked you for no wedding reception, and I didn't ask you to come to my house!”
“Well, who else was gonna give your high-and-mighty self a reception? Just name one person who has known you for as long as I have, and can still want to do something nice for ya.” Bea tried to straighten her back slowly, so as not to show how much pain she was in, and just as she finished, the sound of the cab honking caused her to lean over again.
Bea went on. “It ain't over. I'm going straight to the church when I leave here. I'm heading for your beloved food bank to shout it out. And I know some of them rehearsing on the senior choir would be very interested in the unholy goings-on in your so-called sanctified house!”
Sister Betty crossed her arms over her breasts and leaned back as she threatened Bea. “You go running that mouth about something you know nothing about, and I've got one word for you in front of the entire congregation that'll make you wish you hadn't.”
“Oh, really?” Bea replied. “Just what you got to say that's gonna shut my mouth and stop me from telling the whole world about you being a high-minded hypocrite?”
Sister Betty straightened her wig, and looking Bea square in the eye, she yelled, “Viagra!”