The Morning After (16 page)

She used the sweatband on her wrist to wipe away perspiration that had begun pooling on her forehead. “See, this is why I feel so guilty when I exercise with you,” Angel told Elaine. “I know that if I weren't here slowing you down, you'd be on your way back by now.”

“Girl, please,” Elaine said, waving her hand at her for added effect. “You're not slowing me down. I kinda feel like power walking instead of running today anyway.”

Angel looked at her friend. Elaine was breathing harder than normal today, like the brisk walking was as much a challenge to her as it was for Angel. Angel wasn't fooled though. She knew it was all an act—albeit, a good act—for her benefit. Angel knew that Elaine wanted her to believe that she was getting the benefits of a full workout so Angel wouldn't keep harping on holding her back. She appreciated the empathy.

Elaine added, “And if you really look at it the way it is, you're the one who's doing me a favor. I called you and asked you to come walk with me today, anyway; remember?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Angel said. “But I still know this isn't the intensity of your regular routine.”

“Will you stop it? I'm fine,” Elaine panted. “I read in one of my many sports magazines that you don't burn a whole lot more calories running than you do when you power walk anyway. The main reason I took up running was because I was told that it was excellent exercise for people who wanted to lose their stomachs or flabby thighs.” Elaine gave her belly a few quick pats. “I still have a little pouch, but it's not as bad as it was. I'm hoping I'll lose it all soon. I'm working really hard.”

Angel laughed as much as her shortened breath would allow. “Girl, all you got left to lose is your mind, and I'm 'bout to think you've already gotten a jumpstart on that too. There's not a pouch anywhere in your midsection. Are you crazy or something? You're about to be
too
small now. What does your daily diet consist of?”

“I eat,” Elaine defended. “And I'm a long way from being too small. I was looking at my butt the other day and wanted to slap my grandmama. Of all the things to pass along to me, she had to give me the trunk of a Buick.”

“Elaine, what kind of mirror do you have in your house? If you think your butt is big, then it must be one of those fun-house mirrors that distorts your image and makes you look shorter and fatter than you actually are.”

“You haven't seen me naked, Angel. I promise you, there's still work to do.”

Angel shook her head as though she were talking to a hopeless case. “Mason has seen you naked. I don't think for a minute that you've heard him complaining.”

As soon as she said the words, Angel wished she could take them back. She, of all people, should have known better than to say something so stupid. Elaine had probably confided in her more than she had with anyone else, and Angel was well aware of their situation. She was just about to apologize for her thoughtlessness when Elaine spoke up, not sounding at all offended.

“Think again. When we were talking the other night, he walked up to me, looked me right in the face, and asked me what was going on with my weight. Said I needed to do something about it.”

Angel almost stumbled over her own feet. “Mason said that?” She couldn't believe he'd be so tacky, let alone cruel. And he had some nerve! What room did he have to complain? From the looks of things, every pound Elaine had lost over the past year, Mason had found. “Are you sure you heard him right, Elaine?”

“Oh, I'm
very
sure. And then yesterday, he was staring at me like he wanted to say something more, but I stared him down. I was daring him to say something I didn't like. I wasn't in no mood for him to say nothing about my weight, and if he had, it was gonna be on and poppin'. Whether we were at church or not.”

They rounded a crucial corner in the Windward subdivision that Angel had nicknamed Suicide Hill. It was the point at which the community came to a dead end, but the final house was on elevated ground. After reaching the mailbox that was situated at roadside of the hilltop, there was nothing to do but turn around and start the trek back. But it was a lot harder than it sounded. The hill climb started three houses back and getting to the peak of it was no easy task. Not for Angel anyway.

There had been days when Angel had seen Elaine run the length and height of it, then stand at the top, jogging in place while she waited for her slower counterpart to catch up. But today, all in the name of love and friendship, Elaine's face showed Oscar-worthy strain as she struggled to the top alongside Angel. When they got there, it was Elaine who stopped, propped her hands against her knees, and took a breather.

“Girl, you need to stop.” Angel giggled and wheezed at the same time. She couldn't deny that she was grateful for the chance to catch her breath, but Elaine was taking the performance too far. “You know good and well that you're not tired or out of breath.” She patted Elaine on the back as she spoke.

Standing to her full height, Elaine lifted her shirt to wipe sweat from her chin that was falling to the pavement in slow drops. She pulled her bottled water from her fanny pack and gulped down several swallows, leaving it almost empty. When she was done, she snapped the cap back into place and said, “I'm not the Bionic Woman, Angel. You act like this workout is a cakewalk for me. It's not.” She paused to catch another breath. “If it were easy, I would have lengthened it a long time ago to add more challenge.”

“It might not be easy, but it's not as hard as you're trying to make it seem. I've done this exercise with you plenty of times. I've seen you get through it barely needing to drink from your bottle of water. Today, we still have two miles to go before we're back at Braxton Park, and you have less water left than me. I know you're just trying to make me feel good.”

Elaine grinned and began the much easier walk downhill. “Is it working?”

Breaking into a laugh, Angel said, “Like a charm.”

The laugh felt good. The air felt good. The tension-free company felt good. In her house and within the confines of her marriage, not much had felt good to Angel lately. She tried not to think about it because thinking about it only depressed her. She couldn't believe the giant backward steps her and Colin's relationship had taken in the past few weeks.

“You said that Mason stared at you on the church grounds yesterday. What happened? Did he make you so mad that the two of you went back home without coming inside? You all weren't at church yesterday.” Angel was grateful for the sudden breeze that cooled her skin.

“Oh.” Elaine snapped her fingers, indicating a recollection.

“That's what I had in mind to talk to you about when I called you this morning and asked you to come walk with me.”

Angel looked at her friend for two reasons. One, they were walking far slower than they normally did during these exercise sessions, and two, she thought she saw a smile tugging at Elaine's lips. She hadn't seen any sign of joy on Elaine's face in a long time. Not when the subject matter was Mason. Could they have possibly finally done . . .
it
?

“We went to a different church yesterday. I thought you knew. I heard Mason talking to Colin on the phone, telling him where we'd be.”

Angel took a swig from her bottle before answering. She hoped her expression wouldn't give her away. She wasn't ready for the world to know that communication in her household had all but vanished. “No; I didn't know that. I guess Colin forgot to mention it. Where'd you go?”

“New Hope Church in Stone Mountain.”

Angel thought hard. “New Hope Church? You mean, T.K.'s church?”

“Yeah, that's the one. But if T.K. was there, we never got the chance to see him.”

“How did you all end up there? That's a good drive from Alpharetta.”

“Tell me about it. Mason told me that he ran into the pastor and was invited to come and worship. So he chose yesterday to take him up on it.”

“Reverend Tides?” Angel had seen the preacher on a few occasions. She and Colin had even gone to the church a couple of times when New Hope had special services that didn't conflict with the schedule at Temple of God's Word, but she'd never spoken to Reverend Tides directly. “Mason ran into Reverend Tides?”

“That's the same thing I asked,” Elaine said with a chuckle. “And to tell you the truth, I didn't believe him when he first told me. I just figured that he concluded that I'd be more likely to agree to go visit with him if he said he had a personal invitation directly from the pastor.”

“So, how was service?” Angel wondered if Elaine's experience there was as great as the ones she and Colin had.

Elaine's excitement rose. “Girl, it was something else! We should all get together and go there one day when Reverend Owens is preaching out of town or something. You'd love it.”

Smiling, Angel disclosed, “I've been there before. And you're right, the services at New Hope are outstanding. If Colin and I had known about New Hope before we joined Temple of God's Word, I'm sure things would have been different. But when we settled in and began searching for a church home, it just seemed natural to follow Ms. Essie.”

“And Temple of God's Word is a great church,” Elaine put in.

“Oh, yes. It is. Temple of God's Word is wonderful.”

“No doubt about it.”

“Right. It's great.” And it really was, but Angel suddenly felt as if she and Elaine were trying to convince each other. Both their tones sounded defensive, like they thought they'd betrayed Pastor Owens by praising another ministry.

“New Hope Church is just . . .” Elaine seemed to search for the right word.

“Different. It's different,” Angel said.

“Yeah, different. The praise and worship was like on a higher level. I'd never seen anything like it.”

Angel couldn't agree more. “From start to finish.”

“Definitely.” Elaine nodded. “And get this. Girl, I saw my husband dance for the first time in my life.”

“Dance? As in outward worship? As in shouting . . . like the holy dance? Mason?” Angel didn't want to sound as if she thought mountains would move before Mason would, but the most emotion she'd ever seen him show in church was to raise his hands. And most times when he did that, it was because Pastor Owens had instructed the congregation to do so, and Mason was complying along with everyone else.

“Can you believe it?” Elaine asked.

Angel stopped walking for a moment. “I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall to see that for myself. That's wonderful, Elaine. I know you shouted right along with him.”

They started walking again, a move initiated by Angel. Elaine seemed satisfied just standing there. She was strangely out of character today.

“Actually, I didn't,” Elaine replied. “I was so staggered that I didn't really know what to do.”

“Staggered?” Angel almost laughed at Elaine's choice of words, but she could understand why. She would have been pretty stunned too.

“Yeah. I mean, in the first place, when he suddenly started edging past everybody to get to the aisle, I thought he was going to the bathroom or something. Second of all, I'd never seen him at that level of praise before, and third, church had just started.”

She stressed the last part like that was the biggest shock of all.

“You mean, praise and worship was just getting underway?” Angel needed a deeper understanding.

“No, I'm saying church had
just started
. The praise and worship leaders hadn't even started singing their first song. Reverend Tides—the son, not the father—had just taken the mic, and he was sort of exhorting the congregation, you know.”

“Yeah.” Angel nodded like she was there and had seen the whole thing.

“Girl, he'd barely said ten words, and Mason was out in the floor dancing.”

“Was the music even playing yet?”

“Just kind of softly. Like I said, church was just getting started. But when Mason took to the aisles and people started noticing, the music cued up, and it was like a brush fire that jumped from one side of the church to the other. Before I knew it, people were dancing all over the church, and I eventually lost sight of Mason in the crowd.”

Angel laughed. “I just can't imagine Mason catching the Spirit and dancing like that.”

Elaine laughed too. “Angel, you should have seen him getting it out there on the church floor. I thought Mason had a little bit more rhythm than that. The music had one beat and his feet had another. He looked like he had drunk a can of Red Bull for the first time and just couldn't help himself.”

They'd stopped again, and Angel was doubled over with laughter as she imagined the Spirit moving through Mason and his inability to control his own reactions.

Elaine continued. “My husband looked like a tap dancer on an overdose of crack.”

When the laughter finally ceased, Angel looked at Elaine and asked the question that was burning her tongue. “So is everything okay now? I mean, are the two of you back to normal? Did you . . . you know . . . once you got back home?”

The prelude to Elaine's answer was a heavy sigh, and Angel knew the answer wouldn't be a good one.

“No, but let's back up a bit. I never even saw Mason after he scooted out of the row we were sitting together on. When all the praising finally stopped and service continued, I think he took a seat somewhere nearer the front and decided he'd just stay there. I didn't see him again until after the dismissal. It was only then that I knew he wasn't joking about Reverend Tides—the father, not the son—inviting him to church.”