One Prayer Away (33 page)

“Hi, Mitchell, it's Lisa. I know you're angry at me right now, and you have every right to be. Believe it or not, I feel very bad about what happened between you and Chris. I knew telling him that you had tried to force yourself on me would upset him, but I honestly didn't know that it would turn into a fight or make you lose your job. I guess I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry about this whole mess, but when you threw me out of the office that day, I knew that you were going to tell him what happened, so I had to get to him first. I couldn't let you talk first, because then he would be angry and probably would have ended our relationship. I didn't want that.

“I really do love Christopher, but there's just something about you and your mixture of sexy and saved that turns me on. Christopher has been a church boy all of his life, and sometimes a girl likes a man who is a little bit rough around the edges. You know what I mean? I want to spend the rest of my life with Chris, but I wanted to have just one time with you.

“You're my fantasy, and I thought that just maybe I could be yours too. I know your relationship with Christopher has been ruined forever, and knowing that most of that is due to me and what I told him makes me feel bad. But I think that it's better this way. Knowing the way I feel about you, it's probably not a good idea that the two of you be friends anyway. Since we're getting married, that would make for a very awkward situation, especially if you and I are ever left alone. I just wanted to call you and let you know that I'm sorry, and I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. If you're too angry at me to accept my apology, I understand. But if you want to keep in touch . . . or whatever . . . I'm game for that too. Bye.”

Yesterday, Chris had been so torn and so angry that he chose to say and do nothing. He had already spoken with Lisa that morning, so it wasn't unusual for him not to contact her again later in the day. He'd come straight home from work and listened to the message at least three more times before going to bed. For most of the night, he lay awake, wanting to cry, but he couldn't. His first plan was to let the holiday pass and then confront Lisa, but that would mean that he would have to pretend that nothing had happened while he took Lisa to California with him to spend the day with his mother. Not only had he decided not to take her with him, but Chris decided that he wouldn't go either. His mother wasn't happy to hear of his sudden change of plans, but when he filled her in on the details of what had taken place over the last few days, her emotion changed from sadness to disappointment.

Chris lost count of how many times she said, “I am ashamed of you, Christopher!” and he understood why. He was ashamed of himself. His mother tossed aside the issue with Lisa, saying that she was never fond of her anyway. Her only regret that the marriage was going to be called off was that she knew that Christopher loved Lisa and that his heart would suffer because of her deceptions. Her main concern, though, was the manner in which he had carried on with Mitchell. Christopher's mom loved Mitchell. He had become like a part of their family, and her disappointment was about the way Christopher had chosen to handle the matter. For Chris, few things were more disheartening to him than having his mother tell him that she was ashamed of him.

As soon as he ended the call to his mother, Chris got dressed and headed to Lisa's apartment. The grin she displayed when she opened the door disappeared when he pressed the speakerphone button on Mitchell's cell and allowed her to hear the message. Even after hearing it, she swore that it wasn't her.

“Mitch must have had some girl call his phone and say all that stuff so that he could bring it to you and make you think it's me.”

When he heard her absurd defense, Chris just shook his head and looked at her in disgust. That's when things turned messy. Accusations were tossed between the two of them. Their voices rose to a level that caused Lisa's nosy neighbors to come to their doors to see what the commotion was about. Chris couldn't believe it when Lisa gathered the nerve to accuse him of being unfaithful. She said that his desire to be with another woman was the driving force behind him believing Mitchell over her. She screamed at him, saying he was no better a man than Felander, and proceeded to call all men “cheaters.”

Chris didn't take her verbal abuse lying down, though. His mother would have been ashamed of him for the way he carried on, but he refused to let Lisa's neighbors think that he was the reason for the breakup. He'd loved her too much and been too trusting of her to allow her to make him look like the unfaithful one. He loudly announced her infidelity, and for emphasis, he replayed the message on Mitchell's phone for those closest to them to hear. It was like a never-ending scene from Jerry Springer.

“Hey . . . hey!”

Chris turned around to see a man approaching with a bouquet of flowers in his hand. It was apparent from the look on Lisa's face that the man's visit wasn't a scheduled one. But what was more apparent to Chris was that this man's visit was not a
first
one.

“Fool, what you doin' all up in my girl's face?” the man asked as he stood toe-to-toe with Chris with an expression on his face that made it clear that he had no problem with coming to blows.

Realizing that he'd been played even more than he'd been aware, Chris took several steps away from the man and looked at Lisa with repulsion. A part of him was so
angry that he could have spit in her face, and another part of him was hurting so deeply that he wanted to curl into the fetal position and cry like an infant. But Chris chose not to do either one. Lisa seemed too shocked by her surprise visitor to say anything more in her defense. Chris took several more steps away from the man who still stood in a threatening pose.

“That's right, baby, she ain't worth it,” one of the older neighbors called to Chris as she stood in her doorway, two doors down. “You deserve better anyway.”

Chris determined that as painful as it was, the old lady was right.

“Christopher . . .,” Lisa said.

“God help you, Lisa,” Chris responded as he began backing away. “If I never see you again, that'll be just fine by me. But God help you.”

Chris hadn't asked her for the ring back, but when she tearfully snatched it from her finger and threw it at him, saying that she deserved someone better than he, Chris agreed. She immediately had second thoughts about the jewelry and demanded the ring back, calling it a gift that he could not repossess. If he didn't give it back, she threatened to sue him. Chris thought of the price tag that had come with the ring and the number of monthly payments he still had to make before it would be paid off and decided that he'd take his chances. He made his exit from the apartment hallway before Lisa's
other
boyfriend could get any ideas on ways to get the expensive jewelry from him.

Now, snapping the box shut, Chris tossed it onto his bed, fell back onto the mattress, and stared up at the ceiling. He began recalling things that he'd purposely ignored over the past two years. There were times when he'd caught glimpses of Lisa's “friendly” exchanges with Mitchell when she thought he wasn't around. He even remembered a time when he'd almost brought it to her attention. But then he thought about the first heart-to-heart talk that he and Lisa
had had when their relationship began to get serious. She'd told Chris about Felander and his jealousies. Chris didn't want her to see him as a man with the same insecurities that her first husband had, so he never said anything, believing in his heart that all of her flirtations were harmless. Chris felt like a certified fool.

He was embarrassed just thinking about the lengths he'd gone to in his fight to defend Lisa's honor. He had mistreated people who cared about him and ousted the man who had been nothing but a friend to him since Chris had hired him on as a business partner. Mitchell had helped him salvage his father's business when the work that had accumulated during those months when he'd tried to do it alone threatened to swallow him. Chris still remembered the all-nighters that they'd pulled to catch the business up to date. Through it all, Mitchell never complained. He worked as if it were his own father who had laid the foundation for Jackson, Jackson & Andrews.

This afternoon, after rehearsing his apology in front of the same mirror he'd used to practice his wedding vows, Chris had taken the drive to Living Word Cathedral to talk to Rev. Inman. Chris was certain that he would find Rev. Inman at the church, and although he knew going in that his pastor would forgive him, the knowledge of it didn't make admitting his awful mistake any less embarrassing. Now, as he lay still staring at the ceiling, Chris knew that talking to Rev. Inman had been the easy part.

For three years he and Mitchell had been inseparable. Their bond was so solid that they'd been able to work together day in and day out and still be friends both on and off the clock. They knew how to separate business dealings from personal matters. Chris couldn't have been prouder of the man that he'd chosen to help him fulfill his father's dreams. Mitchell had never been anything other than honest and dependable. His biggest fault was running on a clock that was fifteen minutes slower than everyone else's,
but that was minor. Chris knew he could trust Mitchell with his life. He was his ace, his sidekick, and his right-hand man. He had known Mitchell longer than he'd known Lisa, but when the cards were laid on the table, he'd chosen the queen of hearts over the ace of spades, and it had been the worst gamble of his life.

Disrespecting a man was one thing, but demeaning him was another. Although Chris's disrespect for his pastor and his friend had been on different levels, what he had done to Mitchell was far worse. He had accused him of being immoral, openly referring to him as a rapist and a chronic abuser of women. He had brought up Mitchell's past, things that had been told to him in confidence; and he threw them back in his face in front of someone who had no prior knowledge of it. His rage against Mitchell for what he thought he'd done had him using his powers as two-thirds of the partnership to strip Mitchell of his livelihood and to drive him from the office literally battered and bruised.

“How do you apologize to a man after all of that?” Chris spoke aloud.

When he thought of how he'd even put Mitchell's manhood in question, it made the possibility of being forgiven drop even lower on the percentage chart. Rev. Inman told him that whether Mitchell accepted his apology or not, it was Chris's God-ordered duty to seek forgiveness. Right off the top of his head, Rev. Inman quoted at least a half-dozen Scriptures to back his findings. There was no getting around it.

Twice today he'd called and left messages on Mitchell's voice mail. To no surprise, he'd not yet received a return call. As a last ditch effort and with the hopes that he'd at least come out of it alive, he'd driven to Mitchell's place. Chris had just yelled at Mitchell a few days ago, accusing him of being a coward, and Mitch had been trying to apologize to him over the phone. Now here he was, doing the
same thing. But the attempt to visit came up empty too. Chris had knocked on the door and rang the doorbell, but got no answer. He'd looked through the window on the garage door and saw Mitchell's car parked in its usual place. Chris knew then that Mitchell wanted nothing further to do with him. He'd been left with no choice but to return home with his tail between his legs. Perhaps the worst part of it all was that Chris couldn't blame him. If the tables had been turned, he was sure he'd react the same way that Mitchell was reacting.

Shortly after his father passed, Chris remembered hearing his mother say, “You don't really know how much you love somebody until they're gone.”

She was right.

Twenty-Eight

M
itchell had been in bed for three hours, but sleep had totally escaped him. The hotel's emergency power source saved him from being in the dark like most of the city. The digital clock beside his bed reminded him that it was already Christmas morning, and he only had a few hours to try to get some rest before he'd have to get up and be ready to meet Beverly downstairs. Mitchell was still grateful for her invitation to join her for the holiday, but he had to admit that a big part of why he'd agreed to the four-hour drive and to paying the high cost of the one-way airline ticket back to Dallas on the twenty-sixth was because he hoped it would give him some time to spend with Virtue. So far, nothing could be further from the truth. He hated to think that he'd have to go back home with only the memory of touching her hand to help her down the steps of the stage.