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  “I’m sorry,” Theresa said. “Where are you right now?”

  “AT THE WASHINGTON DUKE INN, YOU IDIOT!” Parvell yelled. “Get out of that flea market you call a store and get over here—immediately.”

  “But, but—”

  The phone went dead in Theresa’s hand. Parvell had hung up.

  “I don’t know what you’re playing at, missy,” Queen Esther said, “going out with that low-down hound, Parvell Sykes.”

  “Well, he is a man of God,” Theresa protested weakly.

  “Humph. The only God that jackleg preacher worships is green, crisp, and folding. Don’t you know he’s mixed up in the plans to tear down the Cashmere and put up some of that rich folks’ luxury housing?”

  “Well, why not?” Theresa said. “Something has to be done with it. It’s an eyesore and it’s dangerous, with all those men breaking in there, drinking and setting fires. No one even likes to walk past it. It’s too scary.”

  “That’s our old home you talking about.”

  “Not for a long time now—not for me or you, either. Miss Queen Esther, I didn’t know that you felt like that about the Cashmere.”

  “There’s plenty you don’t know that God will reveal in His own good time. And besides, that no-good Parvell Sykes is a dog. He wouldn’t even be in the church if Bishop Eddie Tate didn’t want to keep him close. ”

  “Look,” Theresa said, defensively, “it’s been almost two years since I’ve dated a man. I know Parvell’s not ideal, but I’m trying to give it a chance. There aren’t a lot of eligible brothers in my age group, you know. There is a serious shortage of available black men.”

  “Pooh-pooh,” was all Queen Esther said, sighing in disgust.

  “Pooh-pooh?”

  “You heard me. Pooh, because I think you lying to yourself about wanting to give Parvell a chance. You know the cloth he’s cut from. And pooh! because I am sick and tired of hearing about that black-man-shortage mess. The truth, as the Lord put it in my heart, is this: Fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing. The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. That is Psalm Thirty-four, verses nine and ten.

  “Theresa, if you heed those words in the scripture, you’ll discover that what the world calls a shortage, the Lord considers a prime chance to show up and show out. In the world there’s always a visible-to-the-eye shortage of something, but there is not a shortage of anything in the Lord. So you need to start getting down on your knees more than you been doing, and let the Holy Ghost get into your heart and guide your life.”

  Theresa didn’t answer but her heart was sorely convicted. “I’m pretty late,” she told Queen Esther.

  Queen Esther lay a gentle hand on Theresa’s arm. “Remember this: God can’t put brand-new spiritual furniture in a cluttered-up house. You all distraught over the Lord sending you a husband, yet rather than clean your house, you messin’ it up. You have to make room for your blessings.”

  As much as she knew Miss Queen Esther was right, Theresa also knew she had better hurry over to the Washington Duke Inn before Parvell busted a gasket.

  “I’ve got to get going,” she told Queen Esther.

  “All right. But if you’ve heard anything I’ve said to you tonight, you’ll go on over there and get that blessing blocker out of your life.”

  Chapter Two

  THERESA ROLLED OVER A SPEED BUMP WAY TOO FAST, causing her brand-new, baby blue Lexus 470 to rise up high and hit the ground so hard she felt herself pop up a few inches. The thud of her dream car smacking the pavement knocked a little sense into her head. She needed to get a grip and calm down.

  Here she was, rushing and panting to get to a dinner with a man Theresa wasn’t so sure she needed to be bothered with. If God was truly her source for love and happiness, it shouldn’t matter what the so-called Rev. Parvell Sykes did or thought.

  When Parvell had completed his training in the Gospel United Church of America and went on to receive his preacher’s license, many pastors in the denomination’s North Carolina district, including their own, were up in arms about it. It was no secret that Parvell was a friend of Bishop Sonny Washington and had received full ordination from the bishop shortly after donating a tidy sum of $30,000 to one of Bishop Washington’s church-based programs in Fuquay-Varina. Maybe the donation wasn’t a bribe but it aroused suspicion, especially since, as Miss Queen Esther said, “About the only ‘call’ a reprobate like Parvell would get would be somebody trying to get ahold of him on his cell phone.”

  Still, he was attractive to lots of women in the congregation. Parvell had no children, which meant no baby mamas to contend with. He was high yellow, with “good hair” and possessed a degree from Duke, even if his expensive hand-tailored suits made him look like he was headed to the local “playas’” ball instead of to an office. He was known to be a real mover and shaker in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area, someone with a finger on every pulse—and in every pie.

  Theresa had been alone so long that she couldn’t help but be flattered by Parvell’s attention, even if he never seemed all that happy to be with her, despite his insistence that they have dinner together. He was so stiff and boring on so many of their dates, Theresa often wondered if he needed some kind of “personality enema.” Sometimes he acted like she got on his nerves when she talked about what was going on in the store, laughed too much or too loud, or acted in any way like the down-home girl from the ’hood that she really was. And he was always so busy talking on his cell phone at dinner, as well as making Theresa feel, in so many ways, that for all of her accomplishments, she was his inferior.

  Parvell could act so ugly when he was annoyed—mouth turned down, breathing heavily through his nose, eyes hard and grating, and speaking with that nasty tone in his voice. Theresa knew he wasn’t happy about waiting on her and didn’t want to deal with him and his mess this evening. She quickly parked her car and dashed, breathless, into the dining room of the Washington Duke Inn, hoping that Parvell wasn’t seated yet—a clear sign that he’d been waiting far too long for his taste. But there he was, sitting at his favorite table by the window overlooking the golf course, sipping iced tea with a sour expression on his face.

  “I ordered my food,” was all he said, not even rising to take Theresa’s coat or help her into her chair. She sat down in silence as the waiter hurried over to ask what he could bring her.

  “Just some hot ginger-peach tea for now,” Theresa said. She was starving on the drive over, but Parvell’s coldness had drained away her appetite.

  Parvell was an expert at keeping women off balance. He knew that ginger-peach tea was Theresa’s drink when she was upset and needed something to soothe her nerves. So he let the silence build a few more bars before reaching out, with a smile, to grab her hand. His uncle, Big Gold Sykes, who had been a pimp in Durham back in the day, when they all lived in the Cashmere, had taught Parvell how to work a woman’s nerves, telling him, “Boy, you got to keep control of the situation. If you think a woman might go off on you or even leave, you got to turn the tables until you tired of her and ready to do the leaving. That’s what Sykes men do. We keep women in their place.”

  “Take off your coat, girl,” Parvell said smoothly, “so I can see how fine you looking this evening.”

  Caught off guard by his change in mood, Theresa mellowed a bit. It was nice to have a man admire the way she looked. She relaxed her hand and put her purse on the table, allowing herself to forget that Parvell looked a whole lot like a younger, taller, and thinner Ron Isley when he was portrayed as the Mr. Big character in some of the R. Kelly music videos.

  Across the room, Lamont Green had made sure that his date, Chablis Jackson, was seated and comfortable before going to find his younger brother, James, who moonlighted as a waiter at the Washington Duke Inn. At thirty-six, Chablis was a little too young and self-absorbed for him, a mature man of forty-nine. But whenever he thought about cutting her loose after six mont
hs of dating, the girl would give him one of those late night phone calls that would leave his head spinning. He didn’t know where that little young thang had learned all of that, but it sure was fun to try to figure it out.

  He felt a tap on his shoulder.

  “I see you are still kicking it with Table Wine,” James said.

  “Why do you always have to call her that? The girl’s name is Chablis.”

  “Isn’t that a table wine?” James asked.

  “You know you wrong, li’l brother.”

  “Maybe. But what would I—a man happily married to a woman my age—know about being out there in the world tapping tail like it’s going out of style?”

  Lamont felt a brief sting in his conscience and tried to soothe it with what their mother and Auntee Queen Esther would call “bull ointment.”

  “Well, James, that’s awfully easy for you to say. What do you think a single brother like me is supposed to do with all of my energy?”

  “Get married?” James told him.

  Lamont rolled his eyes and sighed. He said, “Negro, pleaz. Don’t forget that I’ve been there, done that, and ain’t gone do it no more.”

  “You the one complaining about what to do with your ‘energy.’ Last time I checked, marriage offered a pretty good solution to that problem.”

  “Look, James, I don’t need advice. What I need is to find out if you’ve talked to Rev. Quincey about supporting my plans for the Cashmere. It would help a lot when Green Pastures goes before the Durham Urban Development Committee to have the backing of the church.”

  “You know Rev. got your back on this project, Big Bro,” James said. “But I must tell you that he wanted to know why you, who got saved and married at the church, won’t come to him yourself, let alone take some time out to come to service on Sunday mornings.”

  Lamont opened his mouth, wondering why a plausible and ready response wasn’t resting on his lips. He lifted his hands slightly, acquiescing to his younger brother’s well-founded rebuke.

  “Thought so,” James stated. “You and Gwen divorced nine years ago, and you haven’t come to church with any decent regularity for six. Nobody works that hard—not even you, Lamont.”

  “Why do you have to make this so tough?” Lamont asked his brother.

  “That’s not what I want to do,” James told him. “But you need to know that you’re not the only one who wants to bend Rev. Quincey’s ear his way. Our newest assistant pastor has his own development plans. He’s determined to beat you at your own game. And he is sitting up in church next to the pastor each and every Sunday morning, while you, Big Brother, are recovering from a Saturday hangover from too much Table Wine.”

  “Who?” Lamont tracked James’s gaze across the room to Parvell Sykes. “Him?”

  “Yeah. Rev. Quincey told me that Parvell is working with Jethro Winters, and so is Charmayne Robinson.”

  “I get it,” Lamont said. “Big, rich, white development tycoon hires himself two black flunkies to try to win the support of our community—or make it look like he has it.”

  “That’s right. And since—unlike you—Parvell Sykes sits up in our church every Sunday, right up in the pulpit, he believes he has, or can get, the inside track.”

  “And if he can’t get backing from Rev. Quincey, at least he can divide the community. Divide and conquer—that’s the Jethro Winters way. I wonder if Parvell knows that I’m in the game. Maybe I better drop over and say hey to the good Rev. Sykes.”

  Chablis, who sat waiting at the table, couldn’t hear what the brothers were saying, and she sure didn’t appreciate being left high and dry by her date. Worse yet, Lamont wasn’t heading back, full of apologies for abandoning her for so long. Instead, he was making his way across the room.

  She almost started cussing when a waiter got in the way and blocked her view of Lamont approaching her girl Charmayne’s man, sitting at a table with another woman. Chablis’s jaw almost dropped right off the bottom half of her face when the woman turned her head slightly, allowing her to catch a glimpse of her profile.

  Whipping out her cell phone, Chablis shot Charmayne a text message.

  “Girl,” she punched in, while trying to keep her eyes fixed on that table, “your man is all up in Theresa Hopson’s face, here at the Washington Duke Inn for all of Durham, North Carolina, to see.”

  Seconds later, her phone rang. “Girl,” Charmayne barked, “are you sure that it’s my man there with Theresa Hopson?”

  “Sure as can be. And to make it worse, my man is in her face grinning and cheesing so hard, Parvell over there looking like he ready to start cussing. But he can’t ’cause he ’sposed to be a preacher-man.”

  “Hang up,” Charmayne commanded, “so I can call Parvell’s lying, cheating tail.”

  Lamont was shocked to find that the woman sitting with Parvell was Theresa Hopson. He was struck by how lovely she was and wondered why he’d never noticed those beautiful sepia-colored eyes and that gorgeous hair lying softly on her shoulders.

  “Lamont Green!” Theresa exclaimed. “Why of all people! I see James and Rhonda at church all the time. But it’s been ages since I’ve laid eyes on you.”

  “My Auntee Queen Esther tells me she’s been working in your store and that you’ve made quite a name for yourself throughout the Triangle.”

  Parvell started clearing his throat loudly, then declared, “You are intruding on a private conversation.”

  Towering over Parvell, Lamont took his time looking him over. “That outfit must have cost twenty grand,” he thought, as he took in Parvell’s gold and black silk pinstripe suit, gold silk shirt, tie, and pocket handkerchief, the black mink draped over his shoulders, the mink fedora on his head, the diamonds on each pinkie, and the custom-made cane propped against the table.

  “And it’s an especially unwelcome intrusion, Green, since I’ve heard that you’re bidding for the contract to develop the old Cashmere Estates.”

  “So, he does know,” Lamont thought. But all he said was, “I don’t get your point, Sykes.”

  “I’ll take that as confirmation,” Parvell said evenly, sniffed and tilted his head from side to side like a boxer warming up in the ring. “Do you really believe Green Pastures can beat out the Winters Development Corporation for that contract?”

  “And why not, Parvell? What does Jethro have, other than an overdressed Negro like yourself, sitting here sweatin’ in a mink coat in a hot restaurant? Seems to me that I really ain’t got a thing to worry about.”

  “What you got, is chump change,” Parvell said, grabbing the shaft of his cane and smacking the head into his free palm, like he was resisting the urge to use it on Lamont. “You ain’t got Jethro’s deep pockets. The Cashmere is a wreck sitting on prime land that can be developed to bring in real money—folding money, my bro-tha. Not those nickels and dimes you like to jingle around in your pocket like some old church deacon looking for somethin’ to drop in the missionary basket.”

  Lamont stuck his hands in both pockets, his right hand wrapping around an inch-wide wad of hundred-dollar bills held together by a platinum money clip.

  “You keep smacking that cane, and I’m gone snatch it right out of your hand and slap it down on you and those dead minks riding on your back,” Lamont said.

  Parvell poked at him with the cane, and Lamont reached out to grab it. But just then a few bars of Jay-Z’s song “Big Pimpin’” blared out, and Parvell saw Charmayne’s number pop up on the caller ID. He answered the phone, oblivious to both Lamont’s and Theresa’s surprised expressions over the song, and said in a cold, very businesslike voice, “I am unable to talk right now. But I will definitely call you in the morning,” then hung up.

  But almost immediately, the phone beeped to signal a text message waiting. With the phone on his knees, out of sight, Parvell read, “I know you are with Theresa Hopson. And you better cut this dinner short, or the dessert you are planning on getting will be gone.”

  Parvell had to work ha
rd not to frown. Spotting Chablis, he realized that there was no point in denial.

  “Excuse me,” he said haughtily to Theresa, completely ignoring Lamont, “I need to make an important call.”

  Parvell hurried off to the restaurant lobby to dial Charmayne, who didn’t answer. Finally, she picked up on his fourth try.

  “Baby,” he whispered, “I do want to see you tonight, and I’ll get to you as soon as possible.”

  “You better,” Charmayne said. “Because I don’t know what you’re doing out in public with that woman . . .”

  “You know you’re my boo, baby,” Parvell said and clicked off. Hurrying back to the table, he found Lamont all up in Theresa’s face. This was not turning out to be a good evening.

  “I hope to see you at church soon,” Theresa was saying.

  “Yeah, I was just talking to James about getting more involved, you know, easing back in . . .”

  Lamont looked up into Parvell’s hard, angry eyes as he approached the table. Lightly brushing Theresa’s shoulder, he said, “Well, it sure was good to see you again.” Then Lamont walked off without a parting word to Parvell.

  Theresa turned to watch him head back to his table, still feeling the tingle of his fingers on her shoulder. Then, with stabbing disappointment, she locked into Chablis’s dagger stare. Why did she think Lamont Green was about anything other than young, flashy women who could “drop-it-like-it’s-hot” in a heartbeat? As kind and polite as Lamont had been, Theresa would bet her store that he was about as interested in a woman like herself as he was in getting an e-mail chain letter.

  “That’s about all the men my age want—an easy, drama-deficient booty call,” she thought. “Trophy dates that make them look like they have absolutely no need for the 1-800-number for Cialis. With all of this kind of mess going on, who can blame me for going out with Parvell?”

  Theresa turned back around, determined to finish this dinner on a good note, and smiled at Parvell. The look on his face was so punishing, she quickly turned down the corners of her mouth into a more somber position.