You Get What You Pray For (4 page)

Lorain sat with the other dance moms behind the glass partition that separated them from the interior of dance studio three. It was three-tiered bench seating, which allowed all the parents to observe their children. The only time parents were allowed in the actual dance studio while the children were performing was when the instructor requested their presence. That was usually to show them up close what their child was doing wrong technically. Lorain preferred this seating arrangement versus being inside the dance studio, inhaling all that sweat and malodor. Did all dance classrooms smell like basketball practice had been going on all week and feel like a massive heat wave on top of that? The ends of Lorain's hair frizzed up after she was in the dance classroom for only five minutes. She hated to think about what she'd look and smell like if she had to endure being in there for the entire dance session.

Lorain watched as the dance teacher took a moment during the group dance to make sure Heaven and Victoria were on point with their choreography, as they were both playing lead roles in this weekend's group competition number. When Lorain got the girls involved in dance, she had no idea how much of her time it would involve.

Her other tasks as a mom took up a great deal of her time as well. It was a blessing that she'd been able to quit her nine-to-five job once she married Nicholas. He was old school and didn't believe in doing that fifty-fifty thing, where the man paid half of the mortgage and the bills and the woman paid the other half. In his family the men were providers, period. His mother had once told him that if the man wasn't going to do half the laundry, cook half the food, clean half the house, dress and feed half the kids, then why should the woman have to pay half the bills? “The man is the head of the family, but the woman is the head of the home. We run it like a business,” his mother had said many times.

If Lorain wanted to work, Nicholas had no qualms about that. He wasn't a caveman to the point where he felt a woman shouldn't work and instead should stay in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. But his wife's money was no good with him, meaning it was useless for her to try to even give him any toward bills.

Since Lorain had had a job that she could take or leave—and not a career that she loved—at the time that she and Nicholas got married, she had had no problem putting in her two weeks' notice. Nicholas didn't have her on an allowance, or any craziness like that, either. They had a joint account for savings, a joint account for living expenses, a college fund for the twins, and a joint mad money account for discretionary spending. A certain amount of money was placed into the mad money account monthly for both their use, though Lorain always spent the majority of. Once it was gone, it was gone. Lorain wasn't too crazy with money, so after she ran through the mad money, she never tried to dip into any of the other accounts when, for instance, a handbag she had been eyeballing was on sale. But whenever that mad money account ran dry, she was not happy. Sometimes it felt as if she'd run out of food stamps in the middle of the month.

But Nicholas always made sure that she had whatever she wanted, and the girls definitely always had what they wanted as well. And thank God, because this whole dance thing was not cheap. Some of these mothers had gone bankrupt and had lost husbands because they were so vested in dance. It seemed to be their entire life. A prime example was Ivy, who, if you let her tell it, knew she was going to give birth to a dance star from the moment she conceived.

“Your girls are so lucky,” Ivy said, slinging her long blond hair over her shoulder. “It's Black History Month, so your girls were a shoo-in for the leading roles in this one. I mean, what would my blue-eyed, blond, pale-skinned Gabrielle look like dancing the role of Rosa Parks?” She let out a chuckle and gave Lorain's knee a playful slap.

If Lorain hadn't been texting when she entered the viewing room and sat down, she would have realized she had sat down next to her worst nightmare—a certified grade A dance mom. Tolerating Ivy was no easy feat for Lorain . . . or for any of the other moms, for that matter.

Lorain had mastered fitting in with the elite Malvonia socialites just fine since becoming a doctor's wife. She'd mastered smiling when she really wanted to snatch somebody's weave off, and she'd mastered taking the time to think before she spoke or reacted when somebody had pissed her off real good.
I'm a doctor's wife,
she would tell herself.
This isn't just about me. It's about my husband and his reputation.
And Ivy should pray to the gods that Lorain always took those five seconds to remind herself of that. This time around, during Lorain's five-second pause, Jacquelyn, another one of the dance moms, stepped in to throw water on the flames before they turned into a wildfire.

“And we all know your dear Gabby is the most talented dancer on the competition dance team,” Jacquelyn told Ivy.

“Thanks, Jacks. I'm glad someone recognizes that.” Ivy put her nose up in the air, too stuck on herself to realize that Jacquelyn was being sarcastic. “Some of these other moms don't get that my Gabby is special . . . all by herself.” Ivy turned her attention back to the girls, who were still practicing.

Jacquelyn, who was sitting on the other side of Ivy, on the burnt orange–colored bench, which matched the burnt orange walls, simply looked at Lorain and rolled her eyes.

“But, Lorain, I hate to admit that your girls have great potential.” Ivy added, starting up again. “Outside of the whole twin thing, which can take away from a real dancer's true talent, your girls have wonderful posture and those long legs. . . .” Ivy looked Lorain up and down. “Funny, neither you nor your husband are above average in height. They must get it from somewhere else in the family tree.” She shrugged, almost knowingly. Or maybe it just appeared that way to Lorain.

Lorain tensed up. This Ivy chick was really trying her holy nerves, sitting over there with that snooty look on her face, acting like she knew things about Lorain's family.
But what can she possibly know?
Lorain asked herself.
Nothing. How can she?
Lorain was friendly with the dance moms, but she wasn't close enough to any of them to hang out and tell them her business. Upon coming to that conclusion, Lorain relaxed her shoulders a bit. Ivy might try to get under Lorain's skin, but Lorain was going to fight tooth and nail not to let her. Lately, she'd been doing so well at keeping her cool and staying in control of her emotions. Now along came a spider . . . named Ivy.

It was as if God had seen how well Lorain had been doing in dealing with folks and their wicked ways, and now He wanted to test her by siccing Ivy on her. God had to be behind this. How else would Ivy know that the very buttons she did not want to push were the ones that had something to do with her daughters?

Heaven and Victoria were Lorain's pride and joy. They were her life. Her second chance at motherhood. And only a handful of people knew that biologically, they were her granddaughters and not her daughters.

When Unique first shared with Lorain the fact that she was pregnant with the twins, who were her fourth and fifth children as an unwed mother, she was set on giving the babies up for adoption. At the time she'd already had three sons by three different men, and on top of that, she was living in her sister's basement with the boys. Unique wasn't even making ends meet in her current living situation, so adding two more mouths to feed could possibly land her on the streets. Besides, she was a babe in Christ and was teetering the fence, backsliding, or whatever church folks wanted to call it, every now and then. The last thing she needed was for them church hens to be pecking at her and challenging her Christianity. A single mother of three with all them baby daddies, she'd already given them enough to talk about.

At least when she was pregnant with the twins, she didn't have to deal with a fourth baby daddy, as Unique's pregnancy was the result of a drunken one-night stand she'd had with her oldest son's father. But he hadn't even been half taking care of the son she already had with him. He'd been too busy trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents by selling dope. To this day, Unique had never even bothered to tell him that he was the father of the twins. He'd never asked.

Lorain expressed her disappointment that Unique was hell-bent on adoption. Knowing that Unique was her biological daughter, she couldn't imagine sitting by while Unique handed her grandbabies, her flesh and blood, over to some strangers. But then a light bulb went off in Lorain's head. Not only did she decide to support Unique's decision to choose the route of adoption, but she also had the perfect suggestion when it came to the person to whom Unique should give the babies. Namely, herself.

Initially, Lorain and Unique decided they would tell everyone that Unique was acting as a surrogate for Lorain. At that point no one but the two of them knew that Unique was actually Lorain's biological daughter. Sharing this fact involved too much explaining, and Lorain wasn't quite prepared to share her story.

All would have gone well had Eleanor not begun to put two and two together. Eleanor was clueless about the fact that her thirteen-year-old daughter had been pregnant and had given birth. So when she figured out the whole situation regarding Lorain and Unique, she about lost her mind, putting the situation on blast in the church sanctuary. It was a mess. It was something Lorain had not wanted the members of New Day Temple of Faith to be privy to. Thanks to Eleanor, though, that wasn't how it turned out. But by then Lorain was living a whole new life, in a whole new world. She rarely ever had to see the folks up at New Day.

She attended Nicholas's family church at least one Sunday out of the month so that when someone asked her what church she went to, she could avoid the embarrassment of not having a home church to rattle off. But the last thing she needed was to have church folk all up in her business. She didn't mind all church folk, but all it took was one busybody to set things off. Besides, she didn't need to be up in church all the time to prove that she was a Christian and loved the Lord. God knew her heart. On top of that, a socialite such as herself didn't have a lot of time for church, for participating in this committee and that committee. And being a mommy to her adopted girls also took up a lot of time.

Originally, Lorain wasn't going to adopt the girls legally; she intended to serve as their guardian. This was because she figured that once Unique was in a better position financially and emotionally, she might want to take the girls back and raise them herself. So instead of pursuing a full adoption, Lorain basically took temporary custody of the twins. She was their legal guardian, and she was responsible for them financially. She didn't want that burden to be placed on Unique, otherwise it would defeat the very purpose of Lorain raising the twins. This left the door open for Lorain and Unique to do a multitude of things when it came to raising the girls and shifting custody.

After the death of the boys, and during her battle to be found innocent of the drug trafficking charge and the charges related to her sons' deaths, Unique felt she didn't have it in her to be a mommy. She didn't feel that it was part of her calling, her destiny. Although her church family tried to tell her it wasn't so, after the boys died, she felt as though she was no longer a mother. She felt stripped of that title in every way and didn't even want to get back into the ring to try to earn her title back.

Although she had never voiced it, Lorain begged to differ. She'd seen how Unique was with her boys. Lorain was engrossed by the relationship Unique had with her sons. She'd watched them interact, in awe, wondering whether she would have had the same type of bond with Unique when she was a child if things had turned out differently. Unique's bond with her children, their connection with each other and their love for each other, showed in each of their eyes. Without question, Unique had been a great mother to those boys. Some women were born with that motherly instinct, and it did not falter, no matter the circumstance they themselves had been born into. Unique was one of those women. She definitely had it in her to be a great mother to the twins.

By the time Unique made it known that she had no intention of taking the twins back, Lorain had formed a bond of her own with Heaven and Victoria, one that paralleled the bond Unique had had with the boys. She didn't want to risk losing them. So when Unique came to her house not too long after she was released from jail, and asked Lorain to consider assuming full custody of the girls, Lorain acted selfishly instead of selflessly. She didn't tell Unique what was really on her heart, which was that mothering the girls would be the best form of healing for Unique. She simply agreed with Unique's decision and buried her thoughts and feelings on the matter.

By then Nicholas and Lorain were no longer just dating. They were husband and wife. His arm did not have to be twisted when it came to the girls. Within a few months Nicholas and Lorain had legally adopted Heaven and Victoria. Even before the legal adoption, many members at New Day Temple of Faith still thought Lorain was the twins' biological mother, in spite of rumors that were circulating.

So Lorain wasn't upset when she had to leave the church in order to worship at Nicholas's family church. She'd married him. They were now one. He was the head of their family, so where he worshipped, she worshipped. Under different circumstances Lorain might have put up a fight about having to leave her home church, but she was more relieved than anything. She could now go to a church where no one knew anything about her or any of her business. And just like that, the mess was swept under the church rug, and Lorain moved on. It was safe to say that Ivy had kicked up a little dust, though.