Divas of Damascus Road Read online

  Regina found a site for calculating calories and entered the contents of her planned dinner. She could swing it, no problem. Come to think of it, it didn’t really matter when she ate the cinnamon roll. She could eat it now, if she wanted to. It had the same number of calories now as it would have at six in the evening. Maybe it was better to eat it in the morning— she’d read somewhere that you should eat most of your carbs in the morning. Yeah, I’d better eat it now.

  Quickly, she made her way to the kitchen with intentions to eat the cinnamon roll—get it over with so this thing wouldn’t be teasing her all day. She uncoiled the white wire twisty and pulled the paper tray from its plastic bag. They were as beautiful as she remembered them. She took a knife from the drawer and cut one. It was small, so she pulled a bit more icing from the side of the tray—but only the icing from that one cinnamon roll.

  Her heart started beating faster as she waited for the cinnamon roll to warm in the microwave—just enough to get the icing to run down the side of the moist breading by the time she sank her teeth into it. Mmm.

  Regina was having second thoughts now about her life. She loved her job, but how could she be a great mom and a great attorney at the same time? Would her colleagues hold her in the same esteem as before? All that could wait. What she needed now was another cinnamon roll.

  She ate the whole tray before noon.

  Chapter 10

  It took exactly thirty-four seconds for Kelan to walk from his truck to her doorstep and ring the doorbell. Yolanda knew because she’d started counting at 6:31 on the dot, which was one minute past the time he said he’d be there to pick her up. One minute and thirty-four seconds late now. Not a problem today, but what if he had been thirty-four seconds late for a job interview? The April 15 tax deadline? The birth of his child?

  When the doorbell rang, she grabbed her purse, slung it over her shoulder, and all but pushed him out the doorway as she breezed past his hello.

  “We’re gonna be late,” she said over her shoulder on the way to the passenger’s side of his truck.

  He stood in her doorway for a second, wondering what had occurred between himself and the beautiful woman who had just wrapped a tantalizing scarf of perfume around him. Her backside swayed—no, “shimmied” was a better word—in that blue skirt as she pranced double-time in the strapless heels. Perhaps it was supposed to be her professional power walk, but that was not quite what Kelan gathered. “Sexy” was more like it.

  He walked to her side of the truck and opened the door.

  Without a word, she stepped onto the running board, positioned herself in the seat, and clicked the seat belt. “And how are you this evening, Yolanda?” he asked as he placed both hands against the frame of her door.

  She looked over at his figure. His chest peeked at her between two of his buttons. She hadn’t considered him physically beyond those dreads until this moment. Strong jawline, rugged manly skin, eyebrows that just grew where they grew. Nothing she recognized from her woman’s world of waxing and shaving.

  Finally, she answered curtly, “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, do you want to do this another time?” he double-checked.

  She could very easily have challenged him—“What do you mean, ‘do I want to do this another time?”—then they could have had words and she could have gone back into her nice, safe house with its aligned rows of canned goods. Nothing ventured. But that would be downright mean, like Regina. And what would that say of her hospitality ministry—that she could be nice at church but mean outside the Lord’s house?

  “No, tonight is fine.”

  He got into the car and sprayed some jazz through the speakers to clear the air.

  Yolanda listened as Miles Davis played tunes she’d heard more than once at Aunt Toe’s house. What would Aunt Toe think of her now? She’d probably smile, say that things were looking up for Yolanda.

  She could accept that. But when it came to a man, her expectations were...well, she couldn’t quite say what they were. He’d have to be outstanding, that was for sure. No half- stepping. Say what you mean; mean what you say. Be straightforward because if there was one thing Yolanda didn’t have time for, it was games. Worse, she didn’t know how to play them and was sure to lose. Like an inexperienced spades player, she knew the objective and the basic rules, but she didn’t know exactly how to bid, watch the board, or read her partner, always confusing the high joker with the low one. She was sorely inept at male/female relationships.

  “So, do you enjoy jazz?” Kelan broke ice that he hadn’t expected to have to chisel tonight.

  “I don’t listen to much music,” she said.

  “Well, your foot is sure tapping like you know all about Miles Davis,” he remarked.

  Yolanda seized control of her disloyal foot and crossed her arms over her chest. “My aunt likes this music.”

  “You don’t have to stop feeling it on account of me. That’s what art is all about.” He tried his best first-day-of-class spiel. “Art is universal, transcends boundaries.”

  “Math is universal.” She rolled her eyes and looked out the window. How dare he call art universal.

  “Math might be universal, but you must have prior knowledge to fully process and understand it—unlike art. You can listen to a song, look at a picture, or see a dance and be able to appreciate it in your own way without a formula.” He argued his profession. A smirk spread across his face as he realized this was the first time in a long time he’d been so intrigued by a woman.

  “Art is subjective. Everyone has their own interpretation. At least in the exact science of math, we can prove that the answer is five,” she said. These artsy types got on her nerves. But this was a good nerve-getting-on. Kelan was quick and smart. Just as he’d done in Bible study, he matched her wits with his own and challenged her to think. Maybe that was one of his artsy tricks.

  “Are you always this temperamental?” he tested her.

  “Are you always this rude?”

  “I could ask you the same question,” He threw it back at Yolanda.

  “Look, Kelan. I don’t have time for games, okay?” She laid down the law Gloria May Rucker style.

  “What makes you think I have time for games any more than you do?” He shook his head. “From what I can see, you’re the one with all the games, not me.”

  “How did you come to the conclusion that I’m playing games?” Yolanda pressed one hand against her thumping chest.

  “You meet me at church with a smile on your face, then turn me down. Later that night, you work your way into my small group—”

  “You think I tried to get in your group?” She looked at him with a grin, her chin tucked into her neck now.

  “Well, actually, I worked my way into your group,” he confessed.

  Yolanda laughed with amusement. Showed ambition. “Go on.” She unfolded her arms now.

  “When I called you and asked you out, it was all good. But when I get to your door, you’ve got an attitude—but you say you’re fine and you want to continue with our plans for the evening. It’s like you want me to read your mind, or something. Now, if that ain’t playing games, I don’t know what is.”

  Kelan had called her out, and she wasn’t quite sure how to respond. If ever she wanted someone who didn’t mince words, she’d found him. Actually, it was more like she’d met her match. They could be good friends, she figured. He could give her an honest opinion about things, not watered down with flattery, flowery language. She could give him a female ear, a woman’s perspective. It might work.

  Shame it had come down to this: resorting to male companionship. But with her mother’s recent nuptials and altered priorities, what other choice did she have? Regina was a newlywed with a newborn. Brookelynn was on another wavelength. Miss Marva was from another generation. Dianne was a couple of hundred miles away. It just might work with Kelan.

  “Okay,” Yolanda surrendered finally. “If you really want to know, I was a bit upset
because you were late.”

  “Oh, this will be interesting. How late was I?”

  “A minute and several seconds.”

  He looked her upside the head. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes.” She gave him the look of “duh.”

  “You have to get out more, Yolanda. You need a life.” He wagged his index finger toward her.

  “And I suppose you’re gonna show me how to get that life, huh?” she quizzed him, trying her best to keep that pesky smile from wrapping around her face. He was flirting, and the interior of the truck had suddenly been charged with unmistakable boy-meets-girl electricity—her perfume, his cologne, their conversation.

  “It takes two,” he proposed.

  “Well,” she hesitated, “let’s just see how this evening goes.”

  Yolanda tried her best to keep the guard up all night. She talked to him indirectly, never looking into his solid black eyes—afraid of what might happen if she did. Would he know that she liked him and hoped like crazy that he’d call her again? Worse, would he take advantage of her feelings? Better to be safe and keep that brick wall in place.

  At the mall, they caught a movie and ate dinner. Kelan was polite, kept his distance. Yolanda asked him if he’d mind going with her to Folman’s to look for a white blouse. “I’m not that crazy about wearing white, but I need another one for the hospitality committee.”

  As Kelan waited for Yolanda outside the dressing room, he noticed that he was the only man in the ladies’ wear department. At least she hadn’t asked him to hold her purse.

  Yolanda already knew which blouse she wanted, but she’d picked two others just to feel out Kelan’s fashion sense and truthfulness. The other blouses were ridiculous, and he had to tell her so.

  When she came out wearing a blouse that made her look like a snowwoman and asked, “What do you think of this one?”

  Kelan couldn’t find the words in all his artistic vocabulary to describe that blouse. “It’s...I think...” He got the benefit of reading Yolanda’s face and realized that it was a test. “What did they feed that thing?” They both laughed at the hideous blouse with its bulging sides and gathered waistband.

  After Yolanda purchased her best blouse they took a scenic route through the mall. Kelan coaxed her into a quaint art gallery, where he gave her little-known tidbits about artists and their works. He taught English at Dentonville County Community College and knew a great deal about the visual arts. He was on top of his game, and Yolanda soaked up his expertise as fast as it flowed from him.

  They stopped at a few more shops that Yolanda had only casually noticed before: the music store, a ceramic store, and a store with Texas memorabilia. Venues that she had never given a second thought to suddenly gained appeal with Kelan’s knowledge.

  One of their last stops was a store full of figurines and other collectibles. “This is cute. What’s it used for?” she asked about an inexpensive, oddly shaped ceramic boot.

  “It’s for decoration,” he said as he examined it.

  “It has no function?”

  “None other than to make the setting more appealing. Some things don’t have functions—they just are. They make the space you’re in feel better,” he explained. “That’s the function.”

  “Mmm,” Yolanda groaned, and placed the useless boot back on the shelf.

  Kelan picked up the discarded piece and asked her, “Do you like it?”

  “Yeah.” Yolanda shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess.”

  “Then you should have it,” he said as he quickly approached the counter and pulled out his wallet.

  “Kelan, I don’t need that thing,” Yolanda protested as she followed him to the counter, but he wouldn’t respond until the transaction was complete.

  “I know you don’t need it. But you liked it; you admired it; it caught your eye; it spoke to you,” he concluded.

  “I wouldn’t say all that.”

  “Well, maybe not now. Take it home, find a place for it, and just let it sit there. You’ll get it,” he said as he transferred ownership of the boot.

  She didn’t have the heart to tell him that the boot was just one more thing she’d have to dust.

  On their way out of the mall, Yolanda heard her nickname as loud as if she’d been paged on a PA system. “Yolanda! Hey! Yo-Yo!” She was mortified. There was Joyce Ann, running through the mall like a madwoman, head bent down low, cardigan swishing behind with her speed. Why is she still in Dentonville? “Yo-yo!”

  Twenty feet behind her was Gloria, trying her best to speed-walk and catch up with Joyce Ann before security was summoned.

  Kelan took his cue from Yolanda and stopped to wait. “Who’s Yo-yo?” he tsked.

  “I’m Yo-yo.”

  “Yo-yo…” Joyce Ann finally reached them, panting. “I thought that was you.”

  Kelan stood in awe of this woman’s speed.

  “Hello, Aunt Joyce Ann. What are you doing here?”

  “Just out here with Gloria,” she said, and turned as though she expected to see Gloria right behind her. “Come on, Gloria!” she called clear across four stores.

  Gloria finally made it to the resting spot, and Yolanda introduced them both to Kelan. Kelan shook their hands in bewilderment, pulling his dreads back in thought.

  “Well, we were just leaving.” Yolanda kept the encounter as brief as possible, but she did want answers from her mother. She looked Gloria in the eyes and said, “I’ll call you later tonight.” Yolanda wanted to know why Joyce Ann was still in Dentonville, where she was staying, why she was running through the mall like a madwoman probably high on something or other. Most of all, she wanted to know why her mother was acting as if there was nothing wrong with the picture.

  But now wasn’t the time to press for the answers, not with Kelan around.

  Graciously Kelan refrained from asking Yolanda about Joyce Ann. He only clarified, “You’re Yo-yo?”

  To which she could only reply with a nod. The “best foot forward” attempt was over. He knew she had some crazy peoples now.

  Chapter 11

  Yolanda found herself searching for Kelan, though she knew she probably couldn’t spot him in such a dense crowd. Still, she looked for him when she should have been listening to the announcements so that she could govern herself accordingly.

  Even after the service she held up hopes of bumping into him in the corridor or maybe the parking lot. Since their date, they hadn’t done anything more than talk on the phone, but Yolanda longed for those moments. She didn’t really like like Kelan, she told herself, but she enjoyed his company and conversation, not to mention the way that ceramic boot seemed to wink at her every time she passed the kitchen counter.

  As she exited from the church foyer she gave up all hopes of locating Kelan and reluctantly joined the small crowd gathering near the west doors, awaiting shuttles to the parking lots. She spotted Regina and Orlando in the huddle and inched her way toward them.

  “Hey.” Regina hugged her.

  Yolanda took in her sister’s scent, well aware that it had to be one of the latest fragrances at Nordstrom’s or Neiman’s. Then she took Orlando Jr. from his proud father and kissed the butterball baby on his chubby brown forehead, smelling the tender scent of baby lotion. “I’m sorry, Orlando, but my nephew is looking more and more like Regina every day. Look at these fat little cheeks!”

  Yolanda didn’t mean to insinuate that Regina had a fat face, but Regina took the observation as proof the world recognized she was fat again. Despite her efforts to lose weight the past couple of weeks, the red line betrayed her daily. She’d even purchased a new scale, thinking that her old judge was too old to render a just verdict. The new scale was worse— she couldn’t get a lower reading by standing on one foot or leaning slightly forward, as she had done in the past.

  No, this scale was acutely torturous, causing great gnashing of the teeth every morning.

  After her mother’s wedding reception Regina had given up on fasting an
d decided the best thing to do was get some good old Plathene. But her Internet search showed that it had been banned from the U.S. market. In desperation, she turned to her own version of over-the-counter weight loss: fat-blockers and metabolic enhancers combined, taken half an hour before eating. Her stomach cramped as though someone were wringing it like a wet towel, but it appeared that she’d endured all that pain for nothing. Regina was convinced now that Yolanda saw the pudge, too.

  The shuttle pulled under the canopy and was filled before they had the chance to get on. The sea of heads and shoulders in front of them seemed to have moved only a few inches. “How far are you parked?” Regina asked.

  “Row G.”

  “I think we’re on I.”

  “Okay. We’ll reach your car first.” Regina started walking before anyone could object. She walked quickly, intending to burn a calorie a step.

  Yolanda admired her sister’s perfectly formed legs and wished for the millionth time that she’d been blessed with such muscular definition. Never in a thousand lifetimes could she hope to do justice to a skirt and heels the way Regina did.

  “I don’t know how you stay so little,” Regina commented/fussed at Yolanda as they approached Yolanda’s car. “You don’t exercise.”

  “I’m younger than you,” Yolanda teased her.

  “You keep on thinking that.” Regina ground her teeth, staying one step ahead of Yolanda. “You just wait until you have a baby, Yo-yo. Then you’ll see how hard it is.”

  Yolanda heard the edge in Regina’s voice and wondered what had brought about this change in attitude. She looked to Orlando for a hint, but he just shrugged his shoulders and shook his head as if to say, “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Yolanda caught up at her car and gave the baby back to her sister. “Well, I don’t know why you’re so touchy, but I think you look great. I think you’re a role model for new mothers.”