Made Of Honor

скачать книгу бесплатно

I paced through the maze of cubicles hoping my boss would be too busy plotting her next scheme to be promoted to know about my phone call. As bad as the call went, I could have hung up and made it back to my desk on time. Bad enough I’d wasted my lunch on it. Another starving trip through the drive-thru tonight…and then straight to Rochelle’s. Maybe I’d do better then. The one thing I could have done to help Rochelle—pray—had totally eluded me on the phone. The shocking news of my brother’s mysterious reappearance and the shaky story behind his absence had blown my mind. Had he really been in another country all this time? And all alone?

Renee’s question about Rochelle and Jordan’s relationship bothered me as well. The two of them getting back together had never occurred to me. Surely she wouldn’t be that stupid. He was my flesh and blood, but he’d left her before. What would make Rochelle think he’d stick around now? Or was that really my heart talking…about Adrian? Both of them had given Rochelle and I something to hang our disappointment on, something to shield us, warn us about giving our hearts away again.

Shuffling back to my cubicle, I prayed for Jordan, wherever he was, asked God to give me grace when I saw him, to keep from exploding like I’d done on Rochelle this weekend. I’d have to drive around to the racetrack tonight and find Daddy and give him the news. That’d sober him up. Quick.

I pushed back my chair and sat down at my desk, grabbing the Cool Cucumber file from my inbox, where I’d shoved it this morning. And then that call…It’d be time for my meeting with Naomi soon. I’d probably have to skip lunch and just—

“So there you are.” Naomi’s voice grated like cat claws on a kitchen sink.

Smile. No matter what she says, smile.

I swallowed hard before turning to face Naomi Titan, a thirty-eight-year-old barracuda in heels, recently overlooked for a promotion she’d worked three years for. She’d been hunting heads ever since, and from her tone, it was my braids she wanted on her platter today.

“Hello, Naomi.” I used my best conflict-management voice.

She puckered her lips and yanked her blazer closed. “It’s nice of you to come back to work. Sorry to break up your little phone call—”

“I was—”

“I know exactly what you were doing. We had a phone monitoring system installed last month. Didn’t you get the memo?”

Monitoring? She had to be kidding. Was that even legal?

Her nostril—yes, nostril, very scary—flared. “Don’t even think about it. All legit. The whole team signed off on it at the quality assurance symposium.”

My eyes bulged. “That was over a year ago. How am I supposed to remember that? And I definitely don’t remember anything about monitoring being mentioned.”

“I believe it was called productivity banking, a consultant-based analysis of how we spend our time.” She grinned wickedly. “And I’ve been assigned as the consultant conducting the analysis.”

I blinked. It was a first, this smile of Naomi’s, and a much more hideous sight than I’d imagined. It looked as though her adult teeth had staged a sit-in and her baby teeth hung around to watch. There had to be fifty-two on the top alone. With shoes like that, you’d think she could afford an orthodontist. People were weird that way.

Naomi lingered on each word to let the implication soak in, twirling one of her frizzy curls. I stared at her hair, trying to figure out, once again, what nationality she was. She had Jennifer Lopez hips, Barbara Streisand hair, Angela Davis rage and a nose that curved like the photo of my Cherokee great-grandmother’s. Today I didn’t ponder the question long. Whatever she was, she wasn’t happy.

Neither was I.

“So I talked on the phone a minute over, Naomi—”

“Ms. Parker.”

Back to the maiden name, were we? This could get ugly. “All right…Ms. Parker, I’m sorry for my infraction. Now if you’ll let me get back to work so I can prepare for our meeting this afternoon—”

Another sinister smile zipped across Naomi’s lips. If her lipstick had been a few shades redder she’d have been a dead ringer for the Joker.

“You won’t be meeting with anyone today, Dana. Not here anyway.”

The stale Cheerios I’d eaten for breakfast knotted in my stomach. I suddenly wished I’d downed a few bear claws, too, so I could offer them up on Naomi’s precious shoes.

We wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers….

I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. God was right, of course. Naomi wasn’t my real problem…but she sure did a good acting job. Very convincing.

“What do you mean?”

Like a super villain in a very cute skirt, she snatched a sheet of paper from her clipboard. A Fingerhut receipt. Naomi turned the paper over to reveal a massive order from Renee, now gone to lunch, scrawled in blue eyeliner.

I grabbed my throat. My hand rose to the healing cut beneath my eye. It burned as though it’d been sliced afresh. “I told her I couldn’t take orders here—”

“And yet she did it anyway. Perhaps because of the allure of your products? Products which, interestingly enough, I’ve never seen or been offered any samples of.”

Huh? Now she sounded like the Abominable Snowman from one of the Rudolph Christmas specials, attacking the world just to get a little love. “I didn’t think you wanted any. I’d be glad to make you a basket—”

She snorted. “I’m kidding. I don’t want any of your kitchen sink cosmetics. It’d probably eat my sensitive skin right through.”

One could only hope.

Lord, forgive me.

Triumphant, Naomi dropped into the seat beside me—Tracey’s old desk. How I missed her right now. I never realized how much of a buffer she had been between me and, well, everyone.

“I’ve talked to Steve and we decided that this whole enterprise of yours is a conflict of interest. You’re probably using our connections with fragrance suppliers for your own personal gain and who knows what else.”

As if I’d want to use that wretched smelling stuff? It was bad enough to have to sample it.

“On top of that, our productivity inventory has shown the decrease in your work product over the past year. A direct result of your outside enterprise in our estimation. So…go home and talk to your little buddies all you want.” She leaned over and clapped her palms like a seal. “You’re fired.”

With that, she strode toward her office, never bothering to look back.

I sat frozen for a few seconds and then mashed three numbers on the phone before I remembered that the line was monitored for “productivity assurance” or whatever she’d called it. I shrugged and punched the remaining digits. What did it matter now?

“Shoes of Peace.” Rochelle still sounded like someone had shot her with a tranquilizer.

“You’ll never believe it.”

“What? Is it Tracey?” I could hear her scrambling around the register. “Don’t tell me. Jordan called you, too—?”

My stupid brother was the least of my worries. Visa was going to come and repossess my teeth if I didn’t figure a way out of this one. And just when I was considering that saving-up-for-a-rainy-day thing. “She fired me, Rochelle. What am I going to do now?”

“Fired you? Naomi?” A cheerleader’s voice replaced her melancholy tone. “Get over here as fast as you can!”

I stared at the receiver. My friend had sprung to life at the news of my financial demise. Was I missing something here?

“Come over there? Now? No, I’m going home. I’ve got a date with some ice cream.”

“No, little sis. You come by here. I’ve got something better than ice cream.”

Better than ice cream? Now we were talking. “Whaddya got? Baklava? I knew you weren’t serious about starting our food program today. Baklava is in the points book, but—”

“No, Dane, no baklava. What I’m going to feed you will keep you full for a long time. We’re going to cook up some dreams.”

The dream was almost done. A little raw in the center, overdone around the edges, but the details for my closet-hobby-turned-business were falling into place. The past few weeks had been a flurry of paperwork and planning—two things I’m not too good with. First, burning the midnight oil with a business plan had kept me busy. Then came the fun stuff—market research, product line development, price points and displays—all the stuff I’d dreamed about.

Only the reality turned out to be more like a nightmare. The insurance? Forget it. I came home from that meeting sweating like I’d been to spinning class. For extra fun, add in ordering bacteria challenge tests for my products, designing labels, obtaining UPC codes. All sorts of madness. But somehow, I felt more alive than ever. I’d thought Rochelle was nuts to push me into this, but I had to admit being excited. More excited than I’d been about anything in a long time, except maybe when Adrian showed up again. But now he’d disappeared just as quickly.

Mind your business. I’ve got him.

And you.

I smiled, easing my hand over the almost unrecognizable scar under my eye. My cocoa butter soap and lotion had done wonders. Renee, who’d volunteered to help me unload boxes, peeked around the corner of my Thanksgiving display, a burst of orange, gold, copper and green draped the shelves in layers. A cornucopia full of pumpkin pie bath bombs would soon grace the top for effect.

An emerald nail cradled Renee’s cheek. “I know this wasn’t easy, but I’m so glad it worked out. This is so…you. I can’t believe Rochelle gave you the rest of the money though. I knew she did well over there with those shoes, but this well?” She swept a hand around the upscale retail unit.

I snapped on my latex gloves and a pair of goggles before heaving a tub of sodium hydroxide, a necessary and lethal ingredient in all soap, toward the back. Why was it Renee always voiced my thoughts?

“I don’t know the details, Renee. I didn’t ask. I’m thinking she took out a loan. She said it’s a gift, but I’m going to pay her back. Somehow.”

The empty shelves stared back at me mockingly as I tried to imagine them full of jars and bottles sporting the funky fuchsia and tangerine labels Tracey had designed.

“Don’t worry. You’ll do it. Wonderfully Made is going to be a hit.”

“I hope so.” Besides Rochelle’s gift, I’d secured a small loan for women-owned businesses and cashed in my pitiful retirement fund. The cheery flowers on my foaming bath oil caught my attention, the product’s title hugged the curve of the bright petals in a swirling script on the label.

Hope floats.

I sighed. Hoping. Helping. That’s what this was about, helping women relax and rediscover their God-given beauty instead of cutting and peeling themselves into an early grave. It’d work out somehow.

Renee stood back as I passed by, as if the lye could escape the container and harm her somehow. Her posture humored me, but I was glad she took the safety concerns seriously. I’d been reluctant to let her come today, knowing the lye shipment needed to be stored properly. “I’ll be back in a sec.”

Tired of dragging the fifty-pound-double-garbage-bagged lump across the floor, I pushed it with my boot, hoping no stray lye crystals would jump onto my shoe somehow. Toe burns were no fun. Smelling a velvety bar of lavender oatmeal, six weeks old and smooth to the cut, made tasks like this bearable. Though I’d made hundreds of batches, there was still nothing quite like bathing with soap I’d made. It seemed the longer it cured the better it felt.

Getting to the point where I had supplies to shove around hadn’t been easy. To pull it off, my life had become an express business seminar. My days had been laced with acronyms from dawn to dusk—IRS, SBA and SCORE—all which basically illuminated the fact that I was BROKE. But God did it anyway.

In spite of the odds, Wonderfully Made, my soon-to-be-opened bath and body shop, was a reality. I scanned the back room of this freshly painted strip mall unit. With boxes everywhere, the place didn’t look much different than my dining room at first sight, but the stucco lining the walls and the chandelier in the main area hinted at the possibilities.

I hoped this place would live up to its name. Adrian had certainly lived up to the title of his business, heart kicker in the first degree.

Easy come, easy go.

He’d no doubt returned to Chicago by now. Though it hurt that he hadn’t said goodbye, I was thankful. With him around, my mind had played tricks on me. Dangerous tricks.

I looked down at my bare wedding finger. Maybe I needed to take my relationship with Jesus as seriously as Adrian had taken being with Sandy. And Jesus was still alive…

That’s deep.

Lugging the bag of chemicals into the hazardous materials cabinet, I strained to remember a thought that could be food for the devotionals I owed the Sistahood. Especially Tracey, whose new husband had not only declined to apologize for his physical and emotional absence on their honeymoon, but scheduled a series of out-of-town trips in the weeks following. And she was not invited to tag along.

A chime rang at the front as I emerged from the storage area. It’d taken Rochelle long enough to get the food. The deli was only a block away. She’d rejoined Weight Watchers with me enough times to know how cranky I could be on Week One, even if we were trying to do it on our own this time. I’d seen the I-can’t-believe-your-fat-self-is-here-again receptionist’s car on Saturday and peeled out like a wimp.