Man Enough For Me (6 page)

“Here you go, ma’am,” Derek said, once he had put her package together.

“Thank you.”

Moments later, she was gone, in the same brisk manner in which she had come.

Derek seemed to breathe a small sigh of relief as the sound of her clicking heels faded away.

“Who’s that?” Jules asked, a bit bewildered at the strange exchange that had taken place.

“That’s the efficiency expert,” Derek said soberly. “And, girl, she scares the daylights out of me.”

Jules nodded. Efficient seemed to be the right word to describe the woman who had just left.

“What’s she doing here?”

Derek opened up his eyes at Jules in surprise. “Girl, you don’t know? She’s part of the hospital restructuring team.”

Jules shook her head. “No way. I know the restructuring team, and I know I’ve never seen her before.”

“She’s new,” Derek said in a stage whisper, as he leaned forward on the counter separating them. “They just brought her in early this week.”

Jules was confused. Yes, she knew that Toronto Grace had been going through some tough times. After the changes to the province’s health budget and an inspection into regional hospitals a few months before, almost every hospital in the region had faced hefty restructuring. Everything from hospital budgets to staff hours and emergency wait times had gotten addressed. Jules still cringed at the memory of the hours she, Penny, and Michelle had spent crafting key messages and communicating the changes to staff and patients. Up until now she had thought the worst of it was over.

“Why would they bring in someone new now?” Jules asked, puzzled. “I thought the whole thing was almost over?”

“Tell that to all those HR people who got fired yesterday,” Derek said dryly. Jules’s eyes widened.

“What!”

“Yes, girl, they pretty much cleaned out HR yesterday afternoon—from the top too. Gave them girls pink slips and everything. About eight of them got let go. And I hear that’s just the beginning,” Derek said quietly, eyes darting around suspiciously to see if he had been overheard.

Jules felt a cold chill run through her. During the initial restructuring, the hospital had been forced to let some nurses and administrative staff go in order to get back on budget. That had been a tense time for everyone, especially Jules. She knew from the experiences of her older colleagues in the field that whenever an organization faced budget cuts, the public relations department was usually the one that got scaled down first. She had thought she had dodged a bullet, but apparently she had spoken too soon.

“I have to go,” Jules said, standing and taking her stack of newsletters from Derek.

“You okay, girl?” Derek asked with concern. “You don’t look too good.”

Jules waved him away, but even as she walked back down the hallway toward her office, a sick feeling began to rise in the pit of her stomach.

Was her job in danger?

T
he news of the changes at the hospital stayed on Jules’s mind for the rest of the week and woke her up early on the weekend. It was only 8:30 a.m. when she stepped into Scarborough Memorial Church. Service wasn’t set to start for another hour, but sometimes Jules liked to get there early so she could sit in the quiet, vacant church. In those moments she felt so close to God that she could feel His physical presence in the pew beside her. It filled her with a sense of peace and assurance she could hardly explain.

That morning the church was deathly quiet as she walked up the center aisle. In a few hours, every empty row would be filled with men, women, and children dressed to boot in their Saturday best. The wooden rafters would shake from the vibrations of the band, with young George Raymond banging out chords on the old piano like he was the next Ray Charles. Every corner of the room would buzz with the sound of hands clapping, feet tapping, and members singing good old gospel hymns at the top of their lungs.

Yes, in a few hours you wouldn’t be able to hear a tree fall outside the front door.

But right at that moment, there was no one but Jules, and
God, and the beautiful rays of sunlight stealing through the stained glass window high up on the wall behind the pulpit.

Jules slipped into a row near the center of the church and sat quietly for a moment. As she closed her eyes, slowly but surely she felt that deep familiar peace fill her being.

It was a while since she had been here this early. Over the past couple weeks she had been waking up late most Sabbaths, not getting to church until well after 10 a.m. As a result she had missed this peaceful quiet time that used to center her for the week ahead.

As she sat there in the quiet church, she thought of all the things that had been weighing her down lately. First there was her job. She had always thought if she worked hard enough that she would be fine. It was one of the myths you learned living with a black mother—you grew up thinking that you could achieve anything solely by hard work. Too bad life wasn’t like that. The gossip Derek had shared with her, plus the rumors going around about more staff cuts, had made her seriously wonder how secure her future at the hospital really was. She had thought about mentioning all this to Germaine or the girls, but somehow that would make it a bit too real. It would mean that she was admitting there was a possibility she could lose her job.

She loved her job and couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

But sometimes she wondered if she loved it too much. If the Lord asked her to give it up, could she do it? What if he took it away from her?

And then there was her mom. The more Jules thought about her, the more frustrated she became. If she was honest with herself, she knew part of the reason she had moved away from home was to put enough distance between herself and her mother to keep her sane. It felt like the more she tried to please Momma Jackson, the less Momma Jackson was satisfied.

“What does she want from me?” Jules asked, her frustration echoing softly across the empty church.

She sighed. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. A daughter wasn’t supposed to dread talking to her mother, or feel anxious
at the thought of having to see her. Even though it made her feel guilty, she sometimes wished she had a mother like Maxine’s, who acted like her best friend, or a mother like Tanya’s, who seemed to adore her.

But what kind of daughter says bad things about a mother who has taken care of her all her life? Who supported her when her father jumped ship? No one would understand. Maybe she was being selfish. But either way, the more she thought about it the more confused she felt.

Jules was so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn’t see Pastor Thomas walk up the side aisle into her pew.

“Well, good morning, Jules. I haven’t seen you here this early in a long time.”

“I haven’t been here this early in a long time. Good morning to you too, Pastor Thomas.”

Jules loved Pastor Thomas. In fact he was part of the reason she loved Scarborough Memorial and why she found it so hard to part with the church after her mother had moved them away. There was something about this tall, stocky man, with thick, graying hair, deep chocolate skin, and a warm smile, that made her feel right at home. As far back as she could remember he had been her pastor. And when her real dad left, when she was fourteen, he became like a surrogate father to her, and his wife, Sister Thomas, like a second mother.

Though he and his wife never had children, they always treated the youth at Scarborough Memorial as if each one was their own. Every young person in church knew that if he or she had a problem, he or she could talk to Pastor or Sister Thomas and be sure to receive help without judgment. This made them both very approachable. In Jules’s case they were often more approachable than her own parents.

“What are you doing here this early?” she asked, as he sat down in the pew beside her.

“Well, sometimes I like to come in early before the service and sit in my office a bit. Gives me time to think about my message and hear something special God might want me to say.”

Jules nodded.

“What about you?”

She shrugged. “Sort of the same thing I guess. Sometimes this feels like the only place I can really talk to God and feel Him listening.”

Pastor Thomas nodded in silent understanding.

“A lot of things on your mind?”

Like you wouldn’t believe.
“Yeah,” Jules said.

“Hmm.”

Jules knew he wouldn’t press her to say any more than she felt comfortable sharing, and that was fine with her. Some things needed to stay just between her and God. But there were some things she did want to ask about.

“Pastor, how do you know God’s will for your life?”

“Well, a lot of that is in His word,” Pastor Thomas began. “And the more you walk with Him, the more He speaks to your heart and shows you the direction to go.”

Jules wasn’t quite satisfied.

“But how do you know?” she persisted. “What if it doesn’t feel right?”

Pastor Thomas chuckled. “Well, Jules, I think that’s the case for most of us at first.”

Jules looked up at Pastor Thomas in confusion.

“Just look at some of the people in the Bible. Jonah, Moses, even some of the disciples. They all were hesitant about following God’s direction in their lives. Some of them didn’t even like what God was asking them to do and tried to escape it.

“But going outside of God’s will never works for anyone. We only end up with heartache and pain. But when we follow Him we are assured of a successful ending.”

“I don’t know,” Jules said, thinking about her situation with her mother. “Sometimes you try to do everything you know to be right but things still seem to be going wrong.”

“No one said it would be easy,” Pastor Thomas continued, placing a reassuring hand on Jules’s shoulder. “But that’s where faith comes in, Jules. We have to trust Him though we can’t see. Trust that He knows what’s best for us.

“And when you have doubts, you take them all to Him,” Pastor Thomas said.

Taking her hand into his, Pastor Thomas looked at Jules with kind eyes that reminded her of what she thought a true father’s eyes should look like.

“If you really want to follow God’s will, Jules, He will lead you right to where He wants you to be,” Pastor Thomas said earnestly. “And you can guarantee that, wherever He leads you, something beautiful will be waiting.”

Something beautiful.

Jules liked the sound of that. She could use something beautiful in her life. She thought of Germaine.

Maybe she was closer to it than she thought.

Now if only God would do something about her mother.

“Okay, girl, spill it. I want all the details.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jules said, trying to ignore the inquiring looks Maxine and Tanya were shooting her.

She knew she would have to explain exactly what was going on with her and Germaine eventually, but she was trying to delay the inevitable for as long as possible. In fact she had spent all morning dodging them at church. But as soon as the service was over, they had accosted her.

At least they had the decency to wait until Germaine left before they started the interrogation. Jules was still a bit surprised that he had even shown up. When she had invited him over the phone the night before, he had mentioned he might be busy. She knew he was pretty involved at his own church, and so she hadn’t expected to see him. But when he slipped into the pew beside her at eleven o’clock, she hadn’t been able to stop the smile that hijacked her face.

“We’re talking about you and Mr. Hotness getting all chummy. Did you think we didn’t see the two of you sitting together during the service?” Maxine asked.

“And I know you don’t think we don’t know about all the
dates you guys have been on—even though you didn’t tell us about it,” Tanya said in a voice that hinted at feelings of betrayal.

“Geez, you guys wanna talk a little louder? I don’t think everyone out here heard you,” Jules hissed, looking around the emptying churchyard to see if indeed someone might have been eavesdropping.

“Girl, please, ain’t nobody listening to you. All these people thinking ‘bout now is their bellies,” Maxine said.

“And stop trying to change the subject,” Tanya added, as both she and Maxine followed Jules to the far side of the parking lot where Jules’s car was parked.

Heavy gusts of wind coming up from nearby Lake Ontario whipped at their legs and made walking challenging, but they were so caught up in Jules’s drama they barely noticed.

“All right,” Jules said, placing her hands on her hips as she stood in front of her car door. “I know you heifers ain’t gonna ease up. But can we at least wait until we get to my place?”

Jules’s place was a one-bedroom unit on the sixth floor of a Scarborough apartment building. It looked a bit rough on the outside, but inside it was all cream walls and earth-toned furniture. On the walls were several Herbie Rose prints depicting scenes from Caribbean life. They were a tribute to Jules’s own West Indian heritage, and they made her apartment feel a bit more like her grandmother’s house in Jamaica, where she used to spend summers as a little girl.

As soon as Maxine stepped inside, she sank into Jules’s cream-and-beige-patterned sofa and wrapped her arms around one of the chocolate-colored throw cushions. Instead of following suit, Tanya headed into the kitchen and began helping Jules take out the dishes that held their lunch.

“Okay. Let’s have it,” Maxine ordered.

“What do you want me to say?”

“How about starting with the first date,” Tanya suggested.

“Wait, is that the lunch date or the night date?” Maxine asked, confused.

“No, that’s the night date. Lunch wasn’t really a date,” Tanya clarified.

“You guys don’t need me,” Jules said with a half laugh. “You seem to already have all the details.”

“Nah, we just have the facts. You have the details,” Tanya said.

Jules looked back and forth between her two friends who were staring at her expectantly.

“Okay,” Jules said, sighing as she wiped her wet hands on a dishcloth and leaned back against the kitchen counter. “It was … nice.”