THERESA ELAINE HOPSON WAS FEELING LOW, though it was one of those perfect mid-November Durham afternoons—a sunny, fifty-degree, Carolina-blue-sky day. It was a pine-tree-smelling day, a shopping day—the kind of afternoon when no sister could resist dropping by Theresa’s store, Miss Thang’s Holy Ghost Corner and Church Woman’s Boutique. To Theresa’s ever-growing numbers of satisfied customers, Miss Thang’s, as it was affectionately called, was the most perfect today’s-black-woman-friendly store in the Triangle cities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Sisters would wander by to spend a few minutes window-shopping, only to find themselves in the store hours later, captivated by all of that good-ole-black-girl stuff they hoped their designer and seriously ghetto-fabulous-faux-designer pocketbooks could handle.

The store’s cash register rested on an antique glass display case, which held an assortment of crosses with exquisite jeweled settings, complemented by an array of matching cross earrings and bracelets. A corner table was dedicated to Bibles: classy leather-bound ones in black, pewter, and ruby along with chic Bible covers in rich suede, metallic leathers, velvet, and raw silk. Another lace-covered table held blessed and sanctified bottles of anointing oil—large, medium, small, and purse size. Right next to it, nestled in a nook, was a glass-doored corner hutch full of fine paper goods—sermons by the area’s best preachers, Prayer and Praise Report Journals, pastel note cards, and legal pads with Bible verses printed on them, which were such a big hit with the local university students that Theresa couldn’t keep them in stock.

The purses and hats were also a big draw. Miss Thang’s purses were black-church-lady pocketbooks, pure and simple. Once, when asked by a friend, “Girl, what they look like?” a loyal customer held up her new black satin bag, with her church’s name embroidered in sequins, and replied, “Now, do you want one of these, or should Miss Thang order you and your sorority sisters some royal blue silk clutch bags with ‘Zeta Phi Beta’ printed on the front with pearly white bugle beads?”

Cutting their lunch date short, that friend went straight to Miss Thang’s to order twenty-five Zeta clutches for the Sorors and also treated herself to a ruby silk church bag with Jesus embroidered on it with silver silk thread.

And the hats—they were a visual feast, in every color and fabric. But everybody’s favorite section of the store was devoted to what Theresa jokingly called her “Saved Hoochie Mama” merchandise. Tucked away in an antique mahogany armoire were pajamas and lingerie in silk, satin, and sheer chiffon, embroidered with expressions like “Saved,” “Church Gurl,” “Miss First Lady,” and even “Bishop’s Boo.”

More than once, Theresa had been scolded and prayed over, with laying on of hands and anointing oil, when a conservative, super-saved customer went into the armoire looking for roomy, waist-high cotton drawers, support hose, and big longline bras, only to find filmy slips and camisoles, lace teddies, thongs, push-up demi-brassieres, and satin tap pants to match. In an effort to keep the “saved patrol” off her, Theresa tried to appease them by ordering their kind of underwear with “churchly” inscriptions. Now the big seller among the “saved patrol,” which had first been special-ordered by a Holiness Church evangelist, Mother Clydetta Overton, was big panties with embroidery across the front reading “Nobody But Jesus Can See.”

But the truth was that after a sister got lost in the sheer pleasure of looking at and touching the lingerie, she often came to her senses feeling embarrassed, especially when her eyes fell on the “Holy Ghost Corner” sign beside the armoire. Plenty of women got saved after rummaging through all that fancy, sexy, delicate bedroom wear and found themselves shamefaced, purchasing a new Bible, study guide, sermon, or Prayer and Praise Journal to strengthen their walk with the Lord.

The alarm system beep-beep-beeped, followed by a three-second blast of shouting music as the door swung open. Theresa’s younger brother, Calvin, or “Bug,” as he was called, insisted that the Holy Ghost had led him to wire that sound into the security system. Bug believed that if somebody came into the store who wasn’t right, the shouting music would drive him or her out.

Theresa’s assistant, Miss Queen Esther Green, was pushing through the door with her elbows, arms full of uniforms for area churches’ Sunday morning service nurses in new colors—pale blue, pale purple, and off-white. She had a box of gloves gripped under one arm and in her free hand, a carton of Krispy Kreme doughnuts that smelled so good it would have made Peter forget his fear when he hopped out of that boat to walk on the water with Jesus.

“Uhhh, baby? You gone keep standing in the middle of the floor, or you think you’ll come and help an old lady out before Jesus cracks across the sky?”

Theresa rushed over to take the doughnuts out of Miss Queen Esther’s hand.

“Baby, the doughnuts ain’t heavy but these uniforms are.”

Sniffing at the doughnut box, Theresa gathered the uniforms from Queen Esther’s arms.

“These hats just came in—met the UPS man just as I was pulling up.” Miss Queen Esther started dragging in two boxes from outside the door. “You know something, baby, that UPS man kind of cute. What church he attend?”

“He doesn’t like organized religion. Said that on Sunday mornings, he grabs a cup of coffee and sits quietly, and then thinks about nature and science and agriculture and stuff like that.”

Queen Esther frowned. “Well, then, we can forget about trying to get the two of you fixed up.”

“Miss Queen Esther, the UPS guy isn’t my type.”

“You right about that. A man who get up on Sunday morning dranking coffee and thinking about tomatoes, instead of studying his mind on the Lord, show ain’t your type. Baby, I should have known that something was up with him as soon as I saw them long dreadses hanging way back off of that big, half-bald head.

“Baby, the Lord has often led me to discover that when people hiding stuff about themselves, they give off telltale signs with their clothes, their hair, the way they keep their house and such. So, that hair is a blessing in disguise. ’Cause it’s like the Lord saying, ‘He may be cute and available, but look at his head—just look at the brother’s head.’”

Theresa helped herself to a doughnut and bit into it with a laugh. “Miss Queen Esther, you know yourself is crazy.”

“I ain’t all that crazy, baby. I just depend on Jesus to help me see it and say it like it is.”

Theresa shook her head, relieved that she’d escaped a lecture on being too persnickety about men. Single, forty-seven, and with no serious boyfriend, she felt awkward when Queen Esther kept pushing her toward the available men she came across. Though Theresa wanted badly to get married, she still hoped to find the right man: God-fearing, loving, as intelligent and hardworking as she was, and ideally, at least fairly attractive. But so far he hadn’t come along.

Suddenly it struck her why she’d been so blue all day. The holiday season was rolling up on Theresa and she wasn’t ready to face it this year.

She had a hard time with the holidays, and dreaded the thought of coming to dinner or a party alone and watching couples grinning and skinning all over each other and having fun. Sometimes her family, as loving as they were, didn’t seem to understand how that made her feel left out. Worse yet, they even acted like it was normal for Theresa to be on her own, with no man, when that was the absolute last thing she wanted in her life.

Her eyes teared up as Queen Esther started to reconsider her opinion of Yoda the UPS man.

“Of course, baby, you just might be the Lord’s way of reaching out to that Yoda. Technically, he really is a decent-looking man. All he need to do to look good is shave his head bald . . .”

Luckily, Queen Esther didn’t notice her tears, distracted by the box she was cutting open. Pulling aside the gold tissue paper, she gently lifted out the hat inside and set it on the counter, next to the register. It was a fluffy confection made of the palest creamy yellow netting, twinkling with rhinestones. “Baby, you ought to keep this one for yourself. It is simply breathtaking.”

She handed the hat over to Theresa so she could try it on.

Theresa settled the hat on her head and walked over to the full-length mirror near the Mary Kay cosmetics. The hat was so dreamy and romantic that she fell in love with it on sight.

“Baby, that hat is you,” Queen Esther said. “Who made it?”

“Miss Bettie Lee Walker, the new designer with Essie Lee Industries in St. Louis.”

“She young or old?” Queen Esther asked.

“Miss Walker is seventy-two.”

“Young woman, huh?” Queen Esther said. She was seventy-six herself.

Theresa gave her a crooked grin in the mirror.

But Queen Esther missed it. She was shuffling through the rack of dresses and suits. “Here,” she said. “This will knock that hat right out.”

She was lifting the plastic off a pale, creamy yellow silk chiffon chemise and matching sheer tulle coat with ruffled sleeves designed to drape gracefully over the wrists. It was the kind of ensemble that delicately hugged the body and swayed with the wearer’s every move—an outfit that would make a church man say, “Lawd, ha’ mercy and thank you, Jesus.”

“Oh yes, you gone need this.” Queen Esther lifted the hat off Theresa’s head and then proceeded to take it, along with the ensemble, to Theresa’s office in the back.

“Miss Queen Esther . . .” Theresa began when she returned.

“Maybe it can be your Thanksgiving outfit.”

“I think it’s more for the springtime.”

“Well then, Easter. That woman in the Bible days poured out some high-priced perfume and washed Jesus’ feet with her hair and tears. So, I really don’t think it’s asking too much for you to look your best on Easter Sunday. And besides, you need a good man-catching suit, one to show off those long legs.”

“We’ve got a customer,” Theresa said to change the subject.

A Pepto-Bismol-pink Cadillac Escalade had whipped into the parking space in front of the store. The driver, who stepped down carefully, was dressed in pink from head to toe, wearing a pale pink silk pantsuit with a mint green silk tulip on the right lapel, a mint green and pink silk scarf draped over her shoulders, and pink alligator pumps with a matching shoulder bag. That outfit made Glodean Benson-Washington’s exquisite chocolate skin look like the finest velvet. Though she was sixty-nine years old, not one wrinkle marred her beautiful complexion, enhanced only with a soft stroke of rose blush and shimmering rose lip gloss.

Glodean was notorious both in her own right and because she was married to Sonny Washington, one of the Gospel United Church of America’s most controversial bishops. Back in the 1970s, after creating yet another major scandal at a church convention, Bishop Washington was exiled to a modest congregation in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina. During his first year as pastor, Glodean urged her husband to persuade the members, who needed money for major repairs on the church building, to sell him and the first lady the twenty acres of land it stood on. After graciously deeding a few acres back to the church, Glodean proceeded to develop the rest into a strip mall with stores catering to the black community.

The thriving mall had made Mother Washington a millionaire several times over. And according to Gospel United Church gossip, that was how Glodean managed to get her husband, Sonny—an old-school, mean-as-a-snake street fighter if there ever was one—to stop beating her tail. Mother had pimp-slapped the bishop with so much money that if it even crossed his mind to look at her wrong, he had to stop and remember which side of the bread the butter was spread on—Glodean’s side.

Emerging from the passenger door of the SUV was Charmayne Robinson, a real estate attorney, who did consulting work for high-roller developers and black business owners throughout the state. Theresa had known Charmayne since childhood, when they both lived in the Cashmere Estates, a now abandoned and blighted low-rise housing project in Durham. But while Charmayne could hardly bear to acknowledge the connection, her ruthlessness in business led many to observe that, beneath all that platinum-and-diamond jewelry and fancy clothes, she was still a “’hood rat,” who had yet to shake the “ghetto dust” off her $400 stiletto-heel pumps.

The two women paused before the store’s black-edged-with-pewter welcome mat, and Theresa could see Glodean taking in the facade. She was proud of the sign, with calligraphy script spelling out “Miss Thang’s Holy Ghost Corner and Church Woman’s Boutique” in velvety orchid neon light. She was glad that she’d decorated the windows for the holidays with silver and lavender silk ivy, glinting with tiny Christmas bulbs in starry white. And she felt a guilty satisfaction when Glodean demanded of Charmayne, in a shrill voice that carried from outside, “Why haven’t you recommended some of these ‘boutique touches’ for my stores?”

Charmayne bit her lip to stifle a snippety retort. What kind of “boutique touches” could you add to a 7-Eleven? But Charmayne wasn’t about to alienate a major client. Instead, she waved Mother Washington ahead while pushing the door open. Glodean put a foot in the store but jumped back when the shouting music came on.

“What a racket!” she said. “You ought to cut that out!”

Charmayne wrinkled up her nose as soon as she laid eyes on Miss Queen Esther Green. “What you doing here, Queen Esther?” she said. “Cleaning the toilets? Emptying trash cans?”

Queen Esther cut her eyes at Charmayne, but with a “Sorry, Father” opted to let the scripture be her answer. “Do not speak to a fool,” she said, “for he will scorn the wisdom of your words. Proverbs 23:9.”

With that, Miss Queen Esther picked up a folder of invoices and bills to be paid, and headed back to Theresa’s office.

“Mother Washington,” Theresa began, fighting to keep laughter out of her voice. “I’m glad you’re here. Your new hat has just arrived.”

Whatever she thought of Glodean, any customer who ordered three hats worth $1,500 apiece—all designed to her exacting specifications—had to be coddled. “Let me open the box and you can try it on.”

Theresa pulled at the second, sealed-up box on the floor, which seemed awfully heavy. Using her pearl-handled box cutter, she slit it open and peeled back the tissue paper. All three women peered down at the hat inside, which was covered in outrageous flamingo-pink feathers. It had a crown that would have swallowed an average woman’s head and a hard, upturned brim sure to stand out a good eighteen inches from the wearer’s face.

With a mighty heave, Theresa managed to get the big box onto the counter, then slit the sides so she could slide the hat out.

“Oh my, my, my!” Glodean exclaimed, reaching out for her new hat.

“I need to help you put it on,” Theresa said evenly, estimating that the hat had to weigh at least twelve pounds.

It took some doing to maneuver the hat, which was like a three-foot sail, onto Mother Washington’s head. Two months before, when Glodean had special-ordered the hat, describing it down to the last detail, Theresa was still hard-pressed to visualize it. The hat was so extreme—so bizarre and extravagant, and so pink—that she simply could not fathom how it would look on somebody’s head. And now Theresa found it downright unsettling to see how very well Mother Washington wore it.

“I love it!” Glodean said, spinning around to see the back of the hat so quickly that she lost her balance, as Theresa reached out to steady her.

“Oh yes, that’s some hat,” Charmayne offered.

“Umph,” Glodean continued, with a smug, tight smile on her face. “No other woman will have a hat like this—or even anywhere close to it—at our district’s next Annual Conference.”

“I believe that,” Theresa said.

Glodean started out taking small, careful steps, trying to figure out how to walk in the huge hat. Growing bolder, she eased into her signature stride—a slow, barely perceptible booty-swinging sway that never failed to turn some preacher’s head and make the man resort to mopping his face with a handkerchief. She was in such a deep zone studying the hat that when the door beeped and the shouting music came on, she jerked and toppled onto a rack in the Holy Ghost Corner, sending an entire display of stockings inscribed with “Jesus,” “Saved,” and “Praise the Lord” tumbling all over the floor.

With arms stretched out wide to hold on to her hat, Glodean managed to right herself and back up onto a precarious perch at the edge of a table full of lap cloths. The cloths were wildly popular among the ultra-modest ladies at the Holiness Church, who liked to keep their knees covered during services.

“Here, Mother, let me help you,” Theresa said, rushing to straighten out the hat on Glodean’s head. Hearing all the commotion, Miss Queen Esther came running out of the back of the store, tightly clutching one of her bottles of anointing oil. She glared at Charmayne, who made no move to help her pick up the fallen rack or the packets of hose.

Struggling to keep her dignity, Glodean gave Charmayne an imperious wave to signal that it was time to leave. Charmayne carried both their purses to the cash register, where Glodean handed her the mammoth hatbox as if she were her personal maid. Then a hush of anticipation fell over the store as Theresa, Queen Esther, and the new customers all waited to see just how Glodean was going to navigate out the door.

“I hope you can drive with whatever it is you got on your head,” said the man who had just arrived, tilting the crooked dark shades on his face toward the hat. Tapping his white, red-tipped cane on the floor, he sniffed the air, adding, “Lawd ha mercy, you a fine thang, ain’t you, girl. And you don’t even look as old as you is, do you, baby?”

Glodean sucked in air through clenched teeth and bore her eyes right through his shades. “I,” she said, “I am Mother Glodean Benson-Washington, wife of the Right Rev. Sonny Washington. And you, and this, this . . .”

Glodean couldn’t even find words to describe the man’s companion. The woman’s hair, despite her obvious maturity, was combed in three thick, coarse, steel-colored braids; and she was passing off a blue-flowered housecoat as a dress, accessorized with navy blue knee socks and yellow jelly sandals. Strangest of all was her mouth, which was filled with the most peculiar and conspicuous false teeth Glodean had ever seen.

“Looka here, Miss High-Siddity-Preacher-Wife-Woman,” the woman slurped out through those teeth. “You just needs to get and gone on ’way from here, ’fore I have to forget I’m a lady and whip yo’ butt. ’Cause don’t no-body talk to my man, Lacy here, like that.”

“Let it go, Baby Doll,” the man said soothingly. “We here to get you a treat. I ain’t in no mood to peel you off nobody today.”

Baby Doll calmed down and slurped out, “Yes, Big Daddy.”

Charmayne couldn’t believe that woman had called Mr. Lacy, who was a little, skinny red man with a face full of freckles, “Big Daddy.”

“Charmayne,” Mr. Lacy called out with authority. “Take this woman on away from here. She has almost ruined what started out as a beautiful day.”

Charmayne had kept silent ever since Mr. Lacy and his girlfriend had entered the store. She knew he was blind, and he hadn’t heard her, so how in the world . . .

“Baby girl, when you gone figure out that I have other ways of knowing who is around. Remember, I been knowing you since your mama, Ida Belle, went into labor at the Soul Family Picnic, and had you ’fore any of us could get her in the car to go to the hospital.”

Charmayne wanted to snatch that cane from Mr. Lacy and beat him with it. Why did he have to tell that old tired story in front of the Bishop’s wife? She had spent the last twenty years of her life trying to rid herself of those project roots and, even worse, project people. And here he was dredging up that mess.

“Charmayne, let’s go,” Glodean snapped. “You drive us back to Fuquay-Varina.”

Under her breath she muttered, “Talking about ghe-tto . . .”

“Yes, Lawd. We’s talkin’ ’bout ghetto,” Mr. Lacy’s girlfriend said, as he tugged at her arm to forestall any trouble.

“Come on, Baby Doll,” he urged.

Only by tipping her head to one side could Glodean fit her hat through the door. Queen Esther and Theresa watched from the window, amazed as she managed to twist herself gracefully into the car. Despite her initial difficulty at maneuvering in the hat, Glodean managed to climb up in her car like that overblown pink thing was a natural part of her head.

“Get out of that window looking country like that,” Mr. Lacy admonished them.

“Lacy, we looking country, ’cause we country. Plus, she started it,” Queen Esther said. “Didn’t nam-nobody tell that heifer to come up in here, dragging that jacked-up Charmayne Robinson with her, like she did. Why, that—”

“Theresa,” Mr. Lacy interrupted, “I want you to meet someone special. This here is my boo, Baby Doll Henderson. Baby Doll, this is the baby girl I’ve been telling you all about—the one with the store.”

Baby Doll grinned, dabbing at some loose saliva, and said, “Girl, it show is good to meet yo’ self. You know Big Da . . . I mean Lacy, here, got nothing but love for you. And that’s sayin’ somethin’. ’Cause I know you know, Lacy here don’t take to everybody easy-like. Whole lotta people in Durham he’d just as soon cut with a straight razor if they so much as blink at him.”

“Nice to meet you, Miss Baby Doll,” Theresa said politely. She had seen a few of Mr. Lacy’s women over the years, and every one was memorable, to say the least. But this one, without a doubt, took first prize.

“That your real name, honey?” Queen Esther asked, about to bust with that and the second question running through everybody’s mind.

“Yes, it’s the name on my birth certificate, signed at the old Lincoln Hospital right here in Durham. My mama named me that ’cause when she first saw me, she thought I was a big, pretty, brown baby doll.”

“I see,” Queen Esther said carefully, searching Baby Doll’s face for evidence to support her name and coming up empty. “So,” she continued. “Tell us how you met up with Lacy.”

“Oh, that’s a good story,” Baby Doll answered beaming. She sucked back saliva to clear her mouth a bit. “See, I was waiting on the bus in a rainstorm, trying to get back to the homeless shelter before nightfall. And Lacy here, with his sweet self, pulled up and said he would drive me home.”

“Excuse me,” Theresa said incredulously. “Did you just say that Mr. Lacy offered to drive you home? In a car?”

Mr. Lacy, who had been “watching” them, tapped his cane on the floor and said, “I offered her a ride. That’s all you bad-tailed busybodies need to know. Now get out of my business.”

“Then, when we get to the shelter,” Baby Doll went on, “Big Daddy said he didn’t think somebody as sweet as me should be there, so he took me to his home and I’ve been there every since. Got me a job cleaning offices, and I am just so happy. I got a job, a home, and a man. ”

“And now that Baby Doll has got me,” Mr. Lacy said with such love and tenderness that it clutched at Theresa’s heart, “I’m gone get my baby something pretty to put her teeth in. See, they ain’t normal false teeth and sometimes they hurt her mouf, and she need to take ’em out. But she need somethin’ to put ’em in—especially when we out in public.”

“Yeah, Lacy right,” Baby Doll added. “See, my nephew’s girlfriend’s baby daddy work at that hippity-hoppin’ store for the young’uns, where they makes all the gold teefs and stuff, and them fronts or teeth grilles these chirrens stickin’ up in they moufs. And when they makes the fronts, they makes molds of the teefs with this real light yellow, clay-lookin’ stuff. The molds, they look like false teefs, but not all the way like false teefs.”

Baby Doll gave them a big grin to fully display her “false” teeth, which were a putty yellow, or the exact color used to make the molds of teeth. “That boy who make ’em, did ’em for me for free.”

Queen Esther tried not to say, “I see what you mean.” But it came out before she could stop it.

Mr. Lacy cut his eyes at her because he knew Queen Esther knew better.

“I have the perfect box for Miss Baby Doll’s teeth, Mr. Lacy,” Theresa said softly. She reached under the table and found the cutest plastic box—perfectly sized. It was bright red with tiny metallic flowers stamped on it in blue, yellow, and green.

“Here, Miss Baby Doll,” Theresa said, as she put the box in her hand. “This is a gift from me.”

“Thank you, baby,” Baby Doll slurped with a big grin on her face. Then she slipped her teeth into the box, snapping it open and shut a few times, and shaking it to be sure that they were secure. “Perfect,” she mumbled through her gums, before putting the teeth back into her mouth. “I can get the teefs in and out of the box right quick. That’ll do me some good when I have to take a meal.”

Watching Baby Doll perform her ritual with the teeth, Theresa could practically hear Queen Esther trying to form her mouth to ask about the connection between the speed of getting teeth into and out of a box and eating food.

Feeling their eyes on her, Baby Doll got uncomfortable for the first time since she’d entered the store. “I can’t eat good with my teefs in my mouf,” she started to explain. “They real stiff and just for decoration, so my mouf won’t look all sunk down in and bad.”

Then she stopped, remembering that while these folks were nice, they might be a little bit uppity—and that not a one of them, including her Lacy, had ever gone hungry or not had a decent place to sleep in their entire lives. She was being stared at by some folk whose needs were so well supplied that they couldn’t even imagine not being able to get some real false teeth.

“You folks is blessed and you don’t even know how much you is blessed,” she told them. “I know I am—I even used to be crazy until this evangelist lady over at the shelter prayed with me until I got healed of being out of my mind.”

“Hmmm . . .” said Queen Esther. “So why haven’t you come to church, Baby Doll? To be healed of that kind of craziness is a miracle, and you need to finish what was started and get saved. You and Lacy here need to come on back to church. You need to let the Lord know how much you appreciate your new life.”

“Queen Esther,” Mr. Lacy snapped. “Does everything with you always have to start and stop with Jesus?”

Queen Esther looked Mr. Lacy dead in the eye and knew that he could “see” her. “Yes, Lacy. Everything in this world starts and stops with Jesus.”

Mr. Lacy squirmed just a bit under her glare, then sighed and reached out for his girlfriend. He knew Queen Esther was right but he wasn’t ready to give up making home-brewed spirits for his brother’s illegal liquor house. And he was making a killing selling Virginia’s state lotto tickets out of there, too. All that would have to stop when he took that long walk down to the church altar.

“You ready?” Mr. Lacy asked Baby Doll.

Baby Doll took his arm and made to leave, but then stopped mid-stride and turned to face Theresa. “I’m a good cleaning lady. You think I could work for you and keep your store all nice?”

Theresa was still processing what Baby Doll had been telling them about being blessed and prayed out of being crazy. Her first inclination was to say no, but something in Baby Doll’s eyes made her think of the verse in Matthew about the sheep and the goats, when Jesus said that doing for the least of them was doing for the Lord.

“Look, I ain’t no criminal and I show ain’t no thief,” Baby Doll was saying.

“You come to church on Sunday and to Bible study on Wednesdays, Miss Baby Doll, and I’ll hire you to clean up on the weekends. That sound fair to you?” Theresa asked.

Baby Doll was hesitant at first, then stuck out her hand and said, “Deal.”

“Come on, baby,” Mr. Lacy said. “I think we need to hop on the bus and get on over to Kmart. You gone need some church clothes and a few extra things for work. You have to look nice when you working at a fine establishment like Miss Thang’s.”

“Ooooo, Lacy,” Baby Doll slurped out, cooing. “You show is a good man. Handsome, too.”

“Heh, heh, heh,” was all Mr. Lacy said, as he hurried the two of them out the door, excited about having some extra money to take his woman on a shopping spree at her favorite store.

Watching them head out together in the dusk, Theresa was hit by a wave of loneliness. It was disheartening to watch Mr. Lacy carry on over Baby Doll like she was Gladys Knight, when the woman wore her hair in three braids, had on some yellow jelly sandals over dark socks, and didn’t even have real false teeth. Yet Theresa—a prosperous businesswoman, with a retailing degree from Eva T. Marshall University, whom everybody agreed was nice-looking and goodhearted, if a little prickly sometimes—couldn’t find a man who truly wanted her, never mind treat her like she was God’s best creation since sweet potato pie.

For all her success at work, Theresa felt like a failure at life. Before she could help it, a tear slipped down one cheek.

This time, Queen Esther caught it. “Who are you to question God’s ways in your life, Theresa?” she admonished. “Baby Doll has the same God-given right that you do to be loved and treated with kindness and respect by a man. And you are wrong—just plain wrong—to measure yourself against her like that.”

“I know,” Theresa began. “It’s just that—”

“It’s just nothing,” Queen Esther interrupted. “Why—”

Before Queen Esther could launch into a full-blown lecture, the phone rang, four, five, then six times. When the machine picked up, the caller audibly clicked off, and then a minute later, the phone started ringing again.

“Who’s that calling over and over?” Queen Esther demanded, punching the speakerphone button.

“Theresa, where are you?” asked an angry male voice.

Queen Esther definitely recognized that voice. Cutting her eyes at Theresa, she snatched up the receiver and thrust it at her.

“Hello,” Theresa said, avoiding Queen Esther’s glare.

“Why are you still holed up in that store?”

“Uhhh . . . did I forget something?” Theresa murmured.

“You certainly did,” said Parvell Sykes, the owner of the voice. “You know that I’m waiting for you.”

“Oh . . . where am I supposed to be?” Theresa asked gingerly, a little shocked that she’d forgotten her dinner date. She’d been seeing Parvell on and off for a couple of months but had found herself making excuses when he pressured her to see him. He was what most people would consider a “catch”—a wealthy and successful real estate agent, fifty-two years old, single, and an assistant pastor at Fayetteville Street Gospel United Church. But Theresa found that she just didn’t like the man.

“You were to meet me at the Washington Duke Inn,” Parvell was saying. “We set this up ten days ago because this was the first night you weren’t ‘busy’ with some stupid little goings-on.”

“I’m sorry,” Theresa said. “Where are you right now?”

“AT THE WASHINGTON DUKE INN, YOU IDIOT!” Parvell yelled. “Get out of that flea market you call a store and get over here—immediately.”

“But, but—”

The phone went dead in Theresa’s hand. Parvell had hung up.

“I don’t know what you’re playing at, missy,” Queen Esther said, “going out with that low-down hound, Parvell Sykes.”

“Well, he is a man of God,” Theresa protested weakly.

“Humph. The only God that jackleg preacher worships is green, crisp, and folding. Don’t you know he’s mixed up in the plans to tear down the Cashmere and put up some of that rich folks’ luxury housing?”

“Well, why not?” Theresa said. “Something has to be done with it. It’s an eyesore and it’s dangerous, with all those men breaking in there, drinking and setting fires. No one even likes to walk past it. It’s too scary.”

“That’s our old home you talking about.”

“Not for a long time now—not for me or you, either. Miss Queen Esther, I didn’t know that you felt like that about the Cashmere.”

“There’s plenty you don’t know that God will reveal in His own good time. And besides, that no-good Parvell Sykes is a dog. He wouldn’t even be in the church if Bishop Eddie Tate didn’t want to keep him close. ”

“Look,” Theresa said, defensively, “it’s been almost two years since I’ve dated a man. I know Parvell’s not ideal, but I’m trying to give it a chance. There aren’t a lot of eligible brothers in my age group, you know. There is a serious shortage of available black men.”

“Pooh-pooh,” was all Queen Esther said, sighing in disgust.

“Pooh-pooh?”

“You heard me. Pooh, because I think you lying to yourself about wanting to give Parvell a chance. You know the cloth he’s cut from. And pooh! because I am sick and tired of hearing about that black-man-shortage mess. The truth, as the Lord put it in my heart, is this: Fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing. The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. That is Psalm Thirty-four, verses nine and ten.

“Theresa, if you heed those words in the scripture, you’ll discover that what the world calls a shortage, the Lord considers a prime chance to show up and show out. In the world there’s always a visible-to-the-eye shortage of something, but there is not a shortage of anything in the Lord. So you need to start getting down on your knees more than you been doing, and let the Holy Ghost get into your heart and guide your life.”

Theresa didn’t answer but her heart was sorely convicted. “I’m pretty late,” she told Queen Esther.

Queen Esther lay a gentle hand on Theresa’s arm. “Remember this: God can’t put brand-new spiritual furniture in a cluttered-up house. You all distraught over the Lord sending you a husband, yet rather than clean your house, you messin’ it up. You have to make room for your blessings.”

As much as she knew Miss Queen Esther was right, Theresa also knew she had better hurry over to the Washington Duke Inn before Parvell busted a gasket.

“I’ve got to get going,” she told Queen Esther.

“All right. But if you’ve heard anything I’ve said to you tonight, you’ll go on over there and get that blessing blocker out of your life.”

Copyright © 2006 by Michele Andrea Bowen
© 2008 Hachette Book Group USA