Diary of a Mad First Lady (20 page)

“You know, Michelle, I haven’t said this in a while, but I’m so proud of you. You are an incredible woman, and I don’t know what I would do if you were not in my life. You have been through so much,” he said, taking a bite of his shrimp and grits appetizer. “I really would like to see you just enjoy the rest of this pregnancy. No stress. No worries. Just pleasure and relaxation. You deserve that and more.”

I felt as if I was about to cry at his tender words. Over the course of the last few years, we’d lost our connection. Our romance. A part of our friendship.

“Thank you, baby. You will never know how much that means to me.” I leaned over and gave him a kiss.

“I’m serious. I want you to enjoy the next couple of months, because once you become my baby’s mama, it’s going to be all about the little man from then on in,” he said jokingly.

“There you go with that wishful thinking again.” I took a sip of the Acqua Panna that I’d ordered. “It’s all right, though. As long as I’m your baby’s mama, I will give you as many babies as you want—until you get that boy.”

Before he could respond, the maitre d’ appeared with our entrees. I’d ordered the fish and chips with grouper and a buerre-blanc sauce, and Darvin had selected the crab cakes. After the food was placed on the table, we blessed it and immediately started eating. The way we dove into it, you would have thought that we hadn’t eaten in days.

The food was delicious. The conversation was engaging. The atmosphere was perfect. Yep. Things in my life were taking a turn for the better. In the words of one of my favorite childhood poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, all was well with the world.

Chapter Nineteen

Daphne

All my life I had to fight. I had to go above and beyond the ordinary to get the things that I wanted. I saw Darvin no differently.

It had been four weeks since my run-in with Michelle. But not one to be defeated, I got very active in the church as I said I would, and had been layering the icing on very thick ever since then. Each Sunday Darvin preached, I fell out in the spirit. I spoke in tongues. I shouted amen louder than anyone in the church. I sent emails to his personal email address almost every day, encouraging him to keep preaching, telling him that his sermons were changing my very life. Oh, yes, I was the perfect member—soon to be the first lady. And I was hoping that it was getting harder for him to see the monster I’m sure Michelle had made me out to be.

This past Sunday, I’d walked up to him and placed in his hands an envelope containing a love gift of twenty-five hundred dollars in cash. I knew there were some heavy hitters in the church, but none of them were dropping that kind of money in the love offering. I told him his sermon blessed me so much that God had spoken to me and instructed me to sow a seed into his life. After all, you reap what you sow, right?

His eyes had gotten large, and you couldn’t have missed the smile on his face if all the lights were turned out. I knew from being on the inside as Michelle’s armor bearer that pastors loved their love gifts. I couldn’t have asked for a better plan than to have the opportunity to be as close to Michelle as “Daphne” in order to find out what Darvin liked and didn’t like. Therefore, I was able to trump all of the other women who had taken a liking to him. They had no clue as to who he really was. He was a man who liked his ego stroked as much as any other man; however, not in the usual way. He loved it when people spoke words of affirmation and expressed their love through gifts. Those were just his love languages, and I knew how to speak them. However, as “Daphne,” my financial luxuries had failed to compare to what they were now.

It seemed that since my first investment had yielded my unbelievable dividends, I was on a streak of luck. In addition to my already lucrative portfolio, God had afforded me to be even more successful in my newest ventures—trading and selling stock market shares, as well as buying and flipping houses in the real estate business. I wasn’t hurting for money in no sense of the term, and giving money and gifts to my future husband wasn’t a loss; it was an investment.

Michelle had turned all kinds of shades of blue when I put the money into his hands. She was probably aware of the fact that it was another part of an ultimate plan, but I didn’t care one single iota. Any time I had the chance to make her squirm, I would. And any time I had the opportunity to let my little light shine, then shine it would.

However, I must admit that Michelle’s persistence was beginning to wear me out. The goal was to claim Darvin, but it would be a lot easier if I could just get her to snap and walk away on her own. The stress on her face that I was accustomed to seeing had been replaced with a look of peace. That could only mean one thing: It was time to shift the plan in another gear.

I knew that Darvin secretly desired a gray, two-door Bentley Continental GT. I happened to be at the church one night for women’s meeting, and when I got up to go to the bathroom, I walked by the choir room and overheard him talking about it with the minister of music. Darvin told him that whenever he was ordained bishop, he would get one. I also heard him mention that some church in Baltimore had lost their pastor, and that it was a possibility that he might have to go there and fill in.

A smiled had crossed my face. I didn’t know how to go about getting him ordained as bishop, nor did I know much about the church in Maryland, but his dream of owning a Bentley would soon be a reality. Church members did it all the time—bought their pastors and bishops expensive cars. To the man of God it was a gift; to the purchaser, it was nothing more than a tax write-off.

I’d done some investing for the owner of the Bentley dealership in Roswell that proved to be insanely lucrative, and even after getting my share, he still owed me a favor. He was involved in some dealings that I happened to find out, and let’s just say that the price was high enough for me to keep my mouth shut. I would simply have to go down there, cash in my favor, give him about fifty-thousand dollars, and arrange to have it delivered on Sunday as a surprise for Darvin on his pastor’s anniversary. I’d already planned to have the name plate read BISHOP.

I made the necessary call to have the owner meet me for lunch to discuss the particulars. This Sunday was going to separate the women from the little girls. While most of the single women—some married—were going to be bringing all sorts of gifts and alms, I was assured that nobody was having a Bentley delivered. Once I completed the purchase for the car, I would call the coordinator of the pastor’s anniversary and make arrangements to have a place to speak on the program. I would have to be dressed to kill—only Michelle, of course—and my walk to the front of the church would have to be even more tantalizing. This would be one Sunday when I would not argue with the usher about being seated in the back.

I was becoming so excited about the upcoming Sunday that I picked up my Bible. I didn’t know where the scripture was found, but I did know that somewhere in there was a scripture that said, “Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good.” And good He was.

Chapter Twenty

Daphne

Getting dressed for the pastor’s anniversary program was almost torture. I couldn’t seem to get anything right. I didn’t know why I was so nervous. Maybe it was because I knew that today would put me several steps closer to having my man. I couldn’t believe that my plan was working this well, even with the minor distractions I’d experienced along the way.

The first thing that showed the condition of my mind was when I stepped into the shower and had forgotten to turn on the hot water. The cold water, along with the cool atmosphere, froze every particle of water into its place on my body.

After I recovered from shock and got dressed, I tried to figure out why my legs didn’t fit into my pantyhose. After failing to succeed more than three times, I fell back on the bed in frustration. While it was my plan to make a late appearance, I didn’t want to be too late.

I sat up, tucked my frustration back in, and tried once more to put on the pantyhose. This time I tried with more deliberate moves. I realized that I had been trying to put two legs into one hole. As petite as my body was, it wasn’t petite enough to put two legs into a space that was only meant for one.

Laughing at myself, I put on my shoes and went to the body- length mirror to take one last look.

Dressed in a black-and-gold Donna Vinci suit that had rhinestones that ran along the edges of a deep-cut collar and along the hem of the skirt, I looked like a million bucks. I had barely eaten anything all week so that the suit would cling to my body in all the right places. The black-and-gold Michael Antonio shoes that I’d bought a few years back were the perfect ending to a perfect story. My hair stylist had blended some tracks into my short hair, and the soft curls that she’d made fell gracefully down my back. My makeup had been applied with the skill of a professional, and if there were such a thing as being flawless, I was the epitome of it.

The drive to church took longer than any other day I’d driven those same fifteen miles. Beads of sweat had totally consumed the palms of my hands, and even with it being the middle of the fall season, I had the air conditioning blowing generously in my face.

I pulled into the overflow parking lot because the main lot was already full. I concluded that it was too far to walk, and decided to drive to the main lot to find a parking attendant who would be kind enough to park for me.

When I’d first come into town as Dawn, the members of Mount Zion were hesitant to accept me. It had taken some time, but my recent involvement with them and the different ministries for which I volunteered had garnered me some respect among many of them. I worked tirelessly on my teams—always attempting to go the extra mile. After all, I had to do whatever was necessary so that when it was my time to become first lady, no one would have a problem with it.

The parking attendant took my keys and drove away in my car. I walked inside of the church and could hear the guest psalmist, who had been brought in for the special day, bellowing out harmonious notes. I pushed on the sanctuary’s door a little so the usher would know that I was waiting to get in.

He opened the door. It was just my luck that I got the same rude usher every single time.

“Ms. Carlton, there are no more seats in the front. You will have to sit in the back,” he said sternly.

I smiled and simply said, “No problem, Brother Charlie.”

He led me to a seat in the next to the last row. I gracefully sat down and waited for the presentations to begin. I had not planned on listening to the sermon, but was focused on my well prepared speech. It was sure to rock the house.

However, the guest pastor, Pastor Stanley Promise, was intriguing enough. He was so fine that if Darvin had not been the love of my life, I would have tried to see what I could find out about him. His wedding ring glistened under the stage lights, but that had never meant anything to me—at least not after my first encounter with one in college. I was low on money, and unlike my friends who had parents with money, I had nothing. I was a broke accounting major on the verge of being kicked out of my dorm when my friend, who was trying to help me get a job, introduced me to the manager of T.G.I. Friday’s.

Dawson Phillips was one of the finest men I’d ever seen. He was nothing like those college boys I saw every day. He was a man. A real man with biceps and triceps that would cause any woman to fall weak. He was the man that held the answers to all of my problems.

After a brief conversation with him that day, he hired me on the spot. I knew he was attracted to me, as I was to him, so a couple of weeks later, I found myself in his bed, and was there every opportunity I got. That didn’t give me a good reputation among the girls on campus (including my friend). Matter of fact, they labeled me a home wrecker. But I couldn’t care less. He took care of me, made sure I didn’t want for anything—until his job transferred him to another area.

From there, it was one married man after another. Married men were much more fun than single men. Married men always gave the very best of themselves, and took the worst of themselves back home to the wife to deal with. But I wanted my own man now. And while some people say you reap what you sow, it would be different for me, because I planned to be the best wife I could be—leaving no reason for my husband to seek out another woman.

I glanced toward the stage to the section where Darvin sat along with Michelle, the assistants, and other guests. There was a woman sitting next to Michelle who was no doubt this pastor’s wife, and she was almost as sharp as me. I wanted to meet her . . . one first lady to another. I could learn a thing or two from her. I wondered if Michelle personally knew this woman. She seemed too exquisite to associate herself with a simple woman such as Michelle.

Pastor Promise’s message was on point for me. His topic was, “Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around.” He went on to preach about how you must be determined to go after what God has set aside for you, in spite of people who may try to get in your way. And he was more than right. That’s why Twylah had to die. Michelle was the last person hindering me—and had been—since God had first told me that Darvin was supposed to be my husband.

The pastor said that sometimes you had to be persistent so you could let the devil know that you meant business.

“Amen,” I hollered, because the devil sure was standing in my way. In a big, eight-month pregnant way.