Up at the College (36 page)

“Let’s listen to the Quiet Storm on Foxy 107. It should be heating up quite nicely about now.”

Curtis gave Yvonne a sexy wink and turned on the radio. “In My Songs,” one of the last songs recorded by Gerald Levert, was
playing.

“I love that song,” Yvonne said. “Gerald Levert was one of my favorite singers.”

“You and Theresa Green,” Curtis said. “Lamont told me that Theresa cried all day when she found out that the Teddy Bear was
gone.”

“Me, too,” Yvonne said. “I cried like a baby.”

Curtis eased onto Highway 40. He reached over and grabbed Yvonne’s hand in his.

“So, Miss Distinguished Chair. How does it feel to know that your job is safe? I told you not to worry. No matter what those
folks at Eva T. tried to do, the good Lord was going to take care of you and those babies. The Lord doesn’t play with people’s
lives like that. And He sure doesn’t let others do it, either.” Curtis laughed softly. “You know something, Yvonne. What I
absolutely love about the Lord is that He doesn’t look at the bottom line, and He doesn’t get stopped in the ‘here and now.’
Because He has already determined the end right at the beginning of what is happening.

“That’s why we have to keep the faith and believe that God will protect us and work it all out for the good of those that
love the Lord, no matter how it may look ‘in the natural.’ We cannot let what folks who operate completely under the auspices
of ‘the flesh’ affect what we know our God is capable of doing and working out on our behalf. And God sure did show up and
show out on your behalf tonight, didn’t He?”

Yvonne nodded, tears trickling down her cheeks.

Curtis lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips.

“I know your back was against the wall after the meeting this morning. But even in the midst of all that was happening, God
kept speaking to my spirit. He let me know that you were not going anywhere and that you had a job.”

“Thank you, Curtis,” Yvonne whispered through her tears. She felt so bad. She’d been so scared this morning. And as much as
she knew to trust the Lord, she couldn’t help being afraid. It had been so hard to have her livelihood threatened like that,
and especially after all that she’d been through. In that moment, Yvonne had gotten tired—tired of always getting surprise
announcements of horrible news that threatened to rip her life to shreds.

“Baby,” Curtis whispered. “Don’t cry like that. God understands how you felt and He knows how scary it was. Just seek His
forgiveness and give thanks for His goodness.”

“Okay, Curtis,” she whispered as the tears continued to flow.

“Oh, baby,” Curtis said softly. “You’ve had a horrible time of it, haven’t you? And every time you thought it was over, one
more horrendous thing happened to make it feel like it would never end.”

“Yes. I can’t even begin to describe what this has felt like.” She sniffled and wiped the tears that were now streaming down
her cheeks. “Some folks don’t know how good they have it. They’ve never had to worry about where their next paycheck is coming
from, they get paid fairly and on time, and their livelihood is secure just because it’s never been threatened. They have
never known what it’s like to not know how you are going to pay your mortgage and keep a roof over your babies’ heads.”

“And guess what,” Curtis said, wondering what in the world was going on with him in this car. Every word that came out of
his mouth qualified as something he would have expected Gran Gran, Maurice, Trina, or better yet Obadiah and Lena to come
up with. He wouldn’t have thought he was capable of issuing a “thus sayeth the Lord,” and certainly not one of this magnitude.

“You are so blessed and highly favored, Yvonne. It’s true. Folks like that probably don’t know how good they have it. But
did you realize that what you have is even better?”

“How so?” She couldn’t figure out what was so much better about what she had been going through.

“Baby, you know. I mean
you really know
what the good Lord does when one of His saints’ back is against the wall. You know better than most people that everything
you have comes from God. You know that no matter how good you are, how successful, etcetera, you have to depend on the Lord
for everything.

“Yvonne, do you realize that without these trials and tribulations Jesus promised you in His Word that He had overcome, you
would not have been able to witness the scripture literally come to life on your behalf? You are living proof that ‘eyes have
not seen, nor hath ears heard’ what the Lord has in store for those who love Him is absolutely true.”

Curtis turned onto her street and pulled into the driveway. It was ablaze with lights. Yvonne hoped that nobody would be peeking
through the blinds as soon as they heard a car motor sound as if it was close by. But that hope was in vain. D’Relle, Tiffany,
and Danesha were all pulling at the blinds trying to get all up in “her grille.” They hopped away from the window when they
saw Yvonne watching them intently out of the car window.

Curtis turned off the car and lights and leaned toward Yvonne, and wiped the residue of tears off her cheeks.

“Can’t send you back home looking like I did something to make you cry.”

“Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to break down like that. But what you said hit home so hard, I couldn’t help it. You surprised
me, Curtis. Didn’t know you had it like that.”

“Neither did I,” he told her in all sincerity. “God has really been dealing with me lately. And I’ve been on my knees so much
I have blisters on these old knees. But I know what I’m talking ’bout, baby. Remember, my back was against the wall, too,
until you came into that meeting and fixed it so that my best players would play in the game with Bouclair College. I couldn’t
have done that on my own. That, and some very helpful information from Charles Robinson, came directly from the Lord.”

Yvonne smiled at the mention of Charles Robinson. That boy was a trip and needed to give his life over to Christ. It was like
he was running so hard from salvation he couldn’t even see that he was catching up with his own secret desire to make Jesus
Lord of his life.

“Baby, I have to tell you the truth. These last weeks have been just as rough and crazy. And I have not spent a minute during
that time when I didn’t think about you. Yvonne, I never thought I’d tell a woman this. But girl, I’ve got it bad for you.
You know that?”

Yvonne wanted to say that she didn’t know. But that would be a bold-faced lie. She had strongly suspected as much at Maurice
and Trina’s house. But if she hadn’t known it then, she’d known it as soon as they met up at the meeting this morning. It
seemed like an overnight thing but it wasn’t. God’s hand was all in this. And when the Lord made a move in your life, it could
feel as if it were happening suddenly. But in reality the Lord had been putting that thing into existence before you had an
inkling of the mere possibility.

“Yes, Curtis,” she whispered so sweetly, all he could do was lift her chin with the tip of his finger and touch his lips to
hers.

Another tear dropped down Yvonne’s cheek. She hadn’t been kissed at all in over two years. And she’d never been kissed like
that in her entire life.

Curtis kissed the tear and then kissed her mouth again, only this time with more insistence and heated passion. He slid his
hand to the nape of her neck and then slid his tongue into her mouth and moaned softly. He didn’t know a kiss could work its
way over his entire body, making him feel as if he were making love in this car.

“I’m falling in love with you, Yvonne.”

“I’m falling for you, too, Curtis.”

All of a sudden Yvonne felt as if she’d been hit with a splash of ice-cold water. She couldn’t go forth with this, not with
a man who had not made Jesus Lord of his life. She’d been there, done that, and it didn’t work. It didn’t work for her, it
hadn’t worked for Veronica Washington, and sadly, it wasn’t working for her friend Marquita Sneed, either. That biblical edict
about not being unequally yoked was no joke and shouldn’t be tampered with.

Curtis pulled away.

“Did I do something wrong?”

She shook her head. How was Yvonne going to tell this wonderful man, whom she had it bad for, that they couldn’t be together
if he didn’t want to turn his life completely over to the Lord? But she had to tell him. To do otherwise would be bold disobedience
to the Lord. And after all that she’d had happen to her today that was the last thing Yvonne was going to do. Even if it meant
she never had another man in her life, she was going to do what the Lord was leading her to do and let the chips fall where
they might.

Yvonne took Curtis’s hands in both of hers. She said, “I can’t be with you if you don’t want to make Jesus Lord of your life.
I don’t care how much we love each other, have in common, and want to be together, it won’t work without Jesus in the middle
of it all.”

“What do I have to do?” Curtis asked.

He had planned on going straight to the altar this Sunday. So much had happened over the past weeks. And if Curtis had not
been convinced then, he certainly was convinced now. He didn’t know how he’d gone this far living like he did. He remembered
reading Psalm 42 one night and understood what the Psalmist meant when he wrote that his thirst and longing for the Lord was
so great, he could only compare it to a deer panting desperately for a drink in a cool, sparkling stream.

“This. This is all you have to do,” Yvonne told him. “Curtis, do you believe that Jesus was crucified on the cross, and on
the third day rose from the dead and is now sitting on the right hand of God?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ? That Jesus is the Holy Son of God?”

“Yes.”

“Do you confess and repent of your sins here in the sight of God?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord?”

“Yes, I believe it with all my heart that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

“Do you want to receive the Holy Ghost?”

“Yes, baby, I want to have the Holy Ghost and the gift of speaking in tongues. And Lord, bless me with that gift in the name
of Jesus of Nazareth.”

“Curtis, do you want to totally rededicate your life to Christ and be quickened in your spirit as a new creature in Christ?”

“Yes,” Curtis whispered in a broken voice full to the brim with his tears as he felt the light of God’s love, forgiveness,
deliverance, and redemption sweep through his soul.

By now tears were streaming down Yvonne’s face. She dug into her purse for her anointing oil, poured some into her hands,
and laid hands on Curtis as she prayed this prayer.

“Father, in the name of Jesus, I ask that you bless Curtis Lee Parker with salvation, deliverance, the anointing of the Holy
Ghost, and the gift of speaking in tongues. Thank You for coming into his life and becoming the Lord of his life that he so
longs for You to be. Set him free of all strongholds of the enemy. Forgive him his sins, and bless him with the desire to
know Your Word, to seek You in prayer, and to be obedient to You.”

By now, both Yvonne and Curtis were crying together. They held hands a moment and Yvonne finished the prayer.

“Lord, we thank You for this incredible moment in eternity and claim the victory in Jesus’s name.”

She grabbed his face between her tiny hands and kissed him on the lips. “I love you, Curtis. Lord knows I do.”

He smiled, wiped his eyes, and said, “We need to get you inside. Plus, I don’t think you need to face the tribunal without
me at your side to help and explain how you left looking like a million dollars, came back with a million dollars, and now
look broke off.”

“Yeah, I guess you better do that, baby,” Yvonne told him, enjoying watching Curtis blush when she called him “baby.”

C
urtis stood in center court taking a mental count of all of the players who were on time and present for this practice. Everyone
but June Bug Washington and DeMarcus Brown was here and ready to do what had to be done to get ready for Tuesday’s game. It
was clear just by his looking at the young men standing before him that they were going to put a hurting on Bouclair College
and earn their rightful place in the play-offs at the SNAC Basketball Conference during March Madness. They had not forgotten
the brutal beatdown they’d suffered at the hands of Bouclair when they played them earlier in the season. And now, after weeks
of hard-core preparation, the Fighting Panthers of Evangeline T. Marshall University were ready to go out on that court and
turn Bouclair College every which way but loose.

Both Curtis and Maurice were confident that the Lord was going to bless them with victory and that they were going to win
this game. How it happened, how close or how wide the score would be, was something they couldn’t and didn’t care to know.
But what they did know was that victory was imminent. It couldn’t be any other way. As Trina had written in her e-mail to
both him and Maurice this morning—how could God get the glory if they were defeated by Bouclair College?

They were on the side of the Lord and Sonny Todd was of the world. How could it possibly be any other way? No matter what
it may have looked like to the natural eye and as a result of natural circumstances, it could not and would not be any other
way. This was supported by the Word of God. And it wasn’t any secret that God’s Word did not return void. God was not going
to let the enemy win and get up in Eva T. to run a reign of terror and ultimately destroy the basketball program Curtis and
Maurice were working so hard to rebuild.

Coach Sonny Todd Kilpatrick may have won every game he played. But he destroyed every program he ran. His players rarely received
their degrees. The incarceration rates for the teams he coached were way too high for college students. He did not put any
significant amounts of money back into the programs he worked for. And in all of the years that Sonny Todd had coached, he
had only two NBA draft picks under his belt—one of the two was dead as a result of a shootout in the player’s old neighborhood
with a rival gang member.