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Authors: Nikita Lynnette Nichols

BOOK: Lady Elect
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Because Arykah knew Darlita's story, she immediately pulled her into her arms and began praying for Darlita's strength and sanity. Arykah was the first to pull away when she had finished praying, but Darlita didn't let go. She held on to Arykah as if she was in a safety zone. It was as if Darlita felt that if she let go, her world would collapse.
“Come on, sweetie, let's go to my office,” Arykah said.
Monique saw Arykah guide Darlita from the sanctuary and knew that was her cue to grab Arykah's things and follow them. Mother Pansie also saw Arykah leaving the sanctuary with Darlita. As soon as Monique stood to leave, so did she.
Upstairs in Arykah's office, that was adjacent to Lance's and just as large, Monique placed Arykah's Bible and purse on top of the desk and stated that she was going back down to the sanctuary to pay her tithes and offerings.
Soon after Monique had left Arykah's office, Mother Pansie burst into the room. She was out of breath from rushing up two flights of stairs. “First Lady, the bishop asked me to sit in on this meeting you're having.”
Arykah wanted to curse, but remembered her surroundings and the promise she had made to God. “That's fine, Mother Pansie, come on in.” Arykah placed two chairs on the opposite side of her desk for Darlita and Mother Pansie, but Mother Pansie had positioned herself comfortably in Arykah's chair behind the cherry oak wood desk.
“That's
my
seat, Mother.” Arykah made the statement as calmly as she possibly could, but Mother Pansie was already working on her last nerve. When Mother Pansie had taken her rightful seat, Arykah told Darlita that Pastor Howell had requested that Mother Pansie, the president of the Mothers Board, sit in on the counseling session.
Before Arykah started the meeting, she silently prayed that the Lord would help her control her emotions, but came to the conclusion that if anything popped off between her and Mother Pansie, it would be her husband's fault.
She opened her right desk drawer to briefly glance at a poem she had written for herself shortly after some of the women at Freedom Temple revealed their true feelings about her position as the pastor's wife. The poem was for her own self-encouragement whenever the enemy came upon her to eat of her flesh.
Ain't Goin' Nowhere
Me in my high heels and short skirts
Decorated in things that sparkle and shine
That's right, ladies
Pastor Howell is all mines
 
He chose me because I am the cream of the crop
Looking at y'all, humph, do you even shop?
Take a long, wide glimpse of your today
Give it up, haters, because I'm here to stay
 
Don't need to explain nothing to you
Only to the one I'm married to
I see you looking, can't help yourselves
Compared to me, you're like bookends on a shelf
 
Trying to be a nice woman to you in church
Having to bite my tongue is hurting me so much
My girl, Monique, got my back with her raw words
To make all you wannabes run like a charging herd
 
So, keep on whispering, talking, pointing, and looking
I promise you, I don't care
Whether you accept me or not
I ain't goin' nowhere
Arykah shut the drawer and kicked off her stilettos under her desk. “Mother Pansie, Sister Darlita is here seeking counsel. Her husband has committed adultery a third time. He isn't a member of this church, and according to Darlita, he doesn't want to give marital counseling a chance.”
The first thing that came out of Mother Pansie's mouth to Darlita was, “It's
your
own fault that your husband is unfaithful.”
“How in the heck is it
her
fault?” The words flew out of Arykah's mouth at the speed of lightning before she had a chance to catch them, not that she really wanted to.
Mother Pansie looked at Arykah with raised eyebrows.
“Excuse me?”
Arykah swiveled her high-back leather chair in Mother Pansie's direction. “What do you mean it's Darlita's fault that her husband is unfaithful? What is
his
responsibility to the marriage? Surely you're not suggesting that Darlita forced her husband to put his shaboinka inside of another woman.”
Mother Pansie's eyes bucked out of her head. She placed her hand over her heart as if she was going to pass out. She wished Bishop Howell could have been there to witness his wife's outspokenness. “With all due respect, First Lady of
only
four months, if a woman keeps her house and takes care of her husband's needs, he wouldn't stray. And it would be wise for
you
to take heed to this advice I'm giving.”
It hadn't bothered Arykah when Mother Pansie reminded her of how long she'd been the pastor's wife. Whether she'd been married for four months or forty years, she would not sit there and allow Mother Pansie to make Darlita think that her husband's infidelity was her fault.
The enemy got the best of Arykah. She forgot that she was there to counsel Darlita.
She set her gaze on Mother Pansie. “First of all, my marriage is on point. And you will not sit in my office, in my presence, and convince this sister to accept the blame for her cheating husband. The devil
is
a liar.”
Mother Pansie was vested; she had put in her time. She had been the church mother for over thirty-five years. More than half of the women in the church, she helped raise from infants. She refused to let some fat heifer from the street walk into the church and take over her position and teach the women to be disrespectful and rude. She scooted forward in the chair and pointed her finger at Arykah. “Now see, I don' told the bishop that you weren't first-lady material. You need to show some respect. You only been married a short while. What do you know about being a wife? Sometimes a woman's gotta go through—”
Arykah stood up from her desk and raised her voice. She wouldn't let Mother Pansie complete her sentence. “I don't give a rat's behind how long I've been married! And as far as respect goes, old woman, you've got to give it to get it.”
Darlita sat still. She didn't know what to do.
Mother Pansie stood up. She breathed in hot coals and exhaled fire. She raised her pitch to match Arykah's. “Just who in the heck do you think you're talking to, li'l girl? You ain't nothing but a two-bit tramp that latched on to the bishop. Ever since you been here, you ain't done nothing but walk around here like you're better than everybody else.
“I don't care how bright your bracelets and earrings shine or what you're driving. You're still trailer trash, and you need to crawl back under the rock you came from.”
Arykah instantly felt herself being drawn into a zone. She was so mad that she literally felt her head spin three hundred sixty degrees around on her shoulders. The little girl from the movie
The Exorcist
had nothing on Arykah. Arykah was possessed and fully under the devil's command. She stepped out of herself to watch herself perform a scene from
The Matrix
movie. Arykah had never performed a back bend in her entire life, but at that moment, she was as flexible as a rubber band. In a circular slow motion, she bent backward and was getting ready to leap forward over the desk.
“That's enough, Mother!” Lance stood in the doorway to Arykah's office with an expression on his face that she had never seen before. Someone was in trouble. Arykah didn't know whether it was her, Mother Pansie, or the both of them.
“You see, Bishop? Do you see what happened now that you've brought this floozy into this church?” Mother Pansie asked Lance.
Arykah was fit to be tied. “Floozy? Who are you calling a floozy?”
Mother Pansie stood her ground. “I didn't stutter. I called
you
a floozy with your fishnet stockings and fake hair. You ain't got no business—”
Lance slammed the door behind him, which cut Mother Pansie's words off. “I said that's enough! I can hear the two of you way down the hall.”
Mother Pansie looked at Lance. “That's because your wife doesn't know her place.”
Arykah was getting ready to comment, but Lance held up his palm to silence her.
“Have you finished your session?” he asked Arykah.
“No, I haven't.”
Lance spoke to his wife but focused on Mother Pansie's eyes. “Take Sister Darlita to my office and finish your session.”
Arykah hastily grabbed her Bible from her desk and escorted Darlita across the hall to Lance's office.
Lance mentally calmed himself before he spoke to Mother Pansie. “Never again are you to speak to my wife in that manner.”
“But, Bishop, she—”
“Never again, Mother. Is that understood? Arykah is my wife and whatever she does, she does it under my authority. I won't stand for you, or anyone else, to disrespect her.
“And effective immediately,
she
will be overseeing the women in marital counseling—alone.”
Lance may as well have slapped Mother Pansie across her face. She snapped her head back in disgust.
“What?”
“It's time, Mother. You've held the ball long enough. I have a wife now, and I trust that she can do the job.”
Without saying another word, Mother Pansie opened the door and stormed out. Lance would soon realize that he had just declared war.
Chapter 2
Later
Sunday afternoon, Lance sat next to Arykah, and Adonis sat next to Monique.
The two couples shared a booth as they dined at Leona's Italian Restaurant on West Ninety-fifth Street in Chicago Ridge, Illinois.
“The choir sounded great today, Adonis. I see a major improvement since you came on board,” Lance complimented before inserting a hefty forkful of lasagna in his mouth.
It wasn't often that the friends dined out after morning service. Sunday afternoons were usually dedicated to Lance and Arykah's formal dining room. Lance was gifted in the pulpit, but his passion was standing in front of his stove where he mastered his culinary skills.
Adonis savored a bite of warm, seasoned Italian bread. “Well, Bishop, I thank you for the opportunity. Truth be told, I didn't know what we were gonna do after the honeymoon. Since Monique and I are now married, I knew that going back to Morning Glory wouldn't have been good for either of us. I love the church and the choir, but with Boris being there, it would've created an uncomfortable situation for us all.”
On the airplane ride back to Chicago, after their double wedding in Jamaica, Adonis shared his concern with Lance that he and Monique couldn't return to Morning Glory Missionary Baptist Church in good faith. It had been his cousin Boris's church home, where he was the head musician, for many years before Adonis had joined and became a member of the musician staff.
Monique and Boris had been engaged when Adonis moved into their basement. He was a witness to Boris's infidelities and total disrespect toward Monique. One morning, after hearing a spat between Boris and Monique, Adonis confronted his cousin.
“Cuz, why you gotta talk to her like that?” he asked Boris.
“Look, man, Monique ain't perfect. She needs to know her place,” Boris replied.
It wasn't long after when Adonis began sending Monique flowers to cheer her up after she and Boris had gotten into heated arguments. Having suffered from neglect, rejection, and plenty of verbal abuse at Boris's hands for two years, it wasn't difficult for Monique to fall into Adonis's arms. And because Adonis had married Monique, Boris refused to speak to either of them.
After swallowing from her glass of raspberry lemonade, Arykah wiped the corners of her mouth with a white linen napkin. It was no secret that she didn't care for Boris. She knew he was a cheater and hated every moment when her best friend was living with him.
“Ain't nobody thinkin' about Boris. It was his own dumb fault that he couldn't hold on to a good woman. But hey, when you snooze, you lose.”
“Well, don't hold anything back, First Lady. Tell us how you
really
feel,” Lance chuckled.
“I'm just saying that there was no love lost between Boris and me. Humph, after the hell he put Monique through, I wouldn't spit on that fool if he was on fire. She's much better off without his trifling behind.”
Monique noticed the conversation at the table carried on as if she weren't present.
“Uh, hello? I
am
sitting here.” She was eager to change the subject. Her ex-fiancé was nowhere on her radar, and Monique wanted to keep it that way. “So, uh, what happened in the counseling session?” she asked Arykah.
Arykah leaned forward, set her elbow on the table, placed her palm over her forehead, and exhaled loudly. “Oh my God. Mother Pansie has some serious issues. That old biddie is gonna make me catch a case for real. I thought she was gonna pull out a gun and shoot me.”
Adonis chuckled. “For real?”
Lance looked at Arykah. “Oh, come on. It wasn't that bad.”
Arykah looked at her husband with raised eyebrows. “Lance, please. Don't even
try
to act like she wasn't out of control. You know what you walked in on, and you heard what she said to me.”
Monique forgot about her grilled chicken Caesar salad. “Girl, what did Mother Pansie say?”
“She said it didn't matter how much my jewelry cost, I'm
still
trailer trash.”
“
What
?” Adonis and Monique exclaimed at the same time.
“I'm telling y'all that if Lance hadn't walked in when he did, something would have popped off.”
“Something like what?” Monique instigated.
“Don't answer that,” Lance said to Arykah. He knew Monique was trying to get her riled up. Arykah's tongue was still in church training, and she was failing the course miserably.
Arykah looked at her husband. “What happened in my office was
your
fault. You know that, don't you?”
“Why is it
my
fault?” Lance asked her.
“Because at home this morning, I told you that Mother Pansie didn't like me and I didn't want her in the counseling session with me and Darlita. I knew it would get out of control. My views and Mother Pansie's views on marriage are totally different.”
Lance couldn't argue with that. “What can I say? When you're right, you're right.”
“Spoken like a man who wants to keep his marriage a happy one,” Adonis teased.
Lance looked at Adonis. He nodded his head and winked his eye to let Adonis know that he was correct. Arykah was his first priority. The church came in second. If Lance kept his wife happy, then their home was happy.
“I informed Mother Pansie that you alone would be conducting marital counseling with the women from now on,” Lance said to Arykah.
“Humph,” was the only comment Arykah made as she sampled her dessert. Tiramisu was her favorite.
“Wow, I can only imagine how Mother Pansie absorbed that,” Monique said.
Lance exhaled. “I would think that by the way she stormed out of the office, she didn't take it well.”
“Uh-oh. You better watch your back, First Lady,” Adonis joked.
“That's
my
job,” Monique said protectively. She looked at her best friend. “We may just have to go to jail.”
Lance and Adonis connected eyeballs and raised their eyebrows. They knew Monique and Arykah were tight like Krazy Glue, and if anyone in the church came up against one, they'd have to come up against the other as well. And with both of them weighing over two hundred pounds each and carrying attitudes that were just as heavy, it wouldn't be long before the folks at Freedom Temple Church Of God In Christ realized that Lady Elect Arykah and her sidekick were the new sheriffs in town.
Later that night after Arykah had put her husband to sleep in his favorite way, she went into her walk-in closet and lay on her dressing divan. She closed her eyes and exhaled. “Lord, I want to apologize for my behavior today. I'm trying with all of my might to be the wife and first lady you want me to be. I'm aware that the enemy is constantly pulling at me, taunting me, and practically begging me to act a fool.”
Arykah recalled how she let Mother Pansie get under her skin and regretted it. She sat up on the edge of the divan and covered her face with her hands and started rocking back and forth. “Father, please help me. I want to be pleasing in Your sight. I want to stop cussin', and I want my husband to be proud of me. I don't want him to hesitate to use me in ministry. Please, God, please strengthen me to walk among my enemies and not give in to the temptation of saying things that'll have me in here repenting every night.”

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