and heel. She slid into them effortlessly while eyeing the matching bag on the lower shelf. She glanced briefly at her watch, and amidst the dazzle of diamonds that caught the light from every direction, was the message that she’d better hurry.
Crossing to the dresser, Vivian splashed on a generous amount of Spikenard, a present from her best friend Tai’s most recent visit to the Holy Land. With one last glance in the full-length mirror, rather a stop-pivot-turn, stop-head-back-pivot-turn again, Vivian exited the spacious master bedroom and entered the hallway.
“Derrick! Elisia! Let’s go!” She never stopped walking as she knocked on each child’s door and headed for the stairway. She knew that Anastacia, the housekeeper and children’s nanny, would have them dressed and ready to go. “We’re down here, Mama!” yelled Elisia, all satin and lace. Derrick was sitting on the settee in the foyer, already looking like a deacon at the ripe old age of seven. Why did he insist on dressing like that? Because it made him look like his father, that was why, and his father was his hero.
His father, Dr. Derrick Anthony Montgomery, was many people’s hero. Senior pastor of Los Angeles’ latest soul-saving sensation, Kingdom Citizens’ Christian Center, he was a preacher’s son, preacher’s preacher, scholar, teacher, much-sought-after conference speaker and one of the finest brothers this side of glory. Vivian smiled as this last thought popped into her head. But how could she help it as she looked at her husband’s spitting image, albeit thirty years younger, in front of her?
You know how people say when you meet your husband you’ll know? Well, Vivian had that very experience when she laid eyes on D-2’s daddy fifteen years ago. Lord! Where had the time gone? And why did the moment seem like yesterday?
It was back in her home state of Kansas at the Kewana Valley District’s annual Baptist Convention. Vivian hadn’t wanted to go. The only reason she, a twenty-one-year-old communications graduate on her way to becoming the first Black Barbara Walters, had agreed to revisit her old religious stomping grounds was because her best friend’s husband was being installed as the new and youngest assistant moderator of the district, and her friend thought Vivian’s attending would add a bit of “celebrity” to the affair.
Her best friend was Twyla “Tai” Nicole Brook. Vivian and Tai (so named because her goddaughter and namesake couldn’t say Twyla. It always came out “tie-la,” so they eventually settled on Aunt Tai, and the name stuck) had been friends since the ninth grade. That’s when Vivian’s father, Victor L. Stanford, had made a sizeable contribution to Kewana Valley District’s Higher Learning Scholarship Fund, and in doing so had become even more important than his propensity for eloquent speech and impenetrable loyalty already afforded him. Her father had been invited to join the district’s board, and shortly thereafter invited to a board meeting, family included, in the Florida Keys. Vivian dreaded the trip because she thought she’d have to endure a week of “old fogies” and was delighted when she met fourteen-year-old, auburn-haired, freckle-faced Twyla in the lobby of the posh Hilton Keys Hotel. They had run off to their rooms, donned modest two-piece swimsuits, headed to the beach and shared lifetime secrets, dreams and aspirations that only thirteen-and fourteen-year-old girls could share. They were fast friends from that very day, and even a hundred-mile distance—for that was how far they lived from each other at the time—could not separate them. They wrote each other every week and talked on the phone almost every day from the ninth grade through Vivian’s first couple of years of college.
Just before her senior year in high school, Tai informed Vivian that she was getting married. Vivian was not surprised. Tai’s singular goal after graduating was to become a wife and mother, and she had talked nonstop about King Wesley Brook from the moment she met him. She surmised after their first kiss that he would be her husband, and after their first unofficial date a short time later, a surreptitious meeting in the church parking lot during a midnight revival, said he would be the father of her children. She was right on both counts and became Mrs. King Wesley Brook shortly after her nineteenth birthday and six months before their first child, Michael Wesley Brook, was introduced to the world.
Tai had asked Vivian to deliver a motivational speech at the Saturday Night Youth Extravaganza. Vivian went to the Friday night services to gauge the type of crowd attending the meeting. She wasn’t sure whether to be more spiritual, religious or political. It was a fine line during this time, the ’80s, and with her ever-increasing personal relationship with God and widening social and political views as a news correspondent, she was always walking that line.
She tried to sneak in after the devotional (which she found boring) and before the offering (where she wanted to be sure and give back to God). She excuse me’d down to the center of the pew three rows from the back and had just opened her program when the lady to the left tapped her and nodded toward an usher who was motioning, for her to follow him. She looked around and saw Tai’s widened eyes which said “come on girl,” so she dutifully excuse me’d back down the row, avoiding a few angry eyes but not missing the “umph”s and “tsk”s of a few sisters before bowing her head and following Mr. Black-Suit-White-Shirt-Pinstriped-Tie down to the second row.
She barely had a chance to squeeze Tai’s arm, giving her a little pinch, when she saw him. He came in with the pastors and others designated to participate in the evening’s program. She was staring without knowing it and, even after she knew it, couldn’t stop. She checked him out from the top of his s-curled, collar-length hair to the soles of his buffed and polished snakeskin boots. Snakeskin boots! Who was this brother?
“Who’s Mr. Snakeskin Boots?” she hissed at Tai. Tai just smiled and rolled her eyes while rocking to the choir’s fiery rendition of “Jesus Is A Rock.” Vivian tried to regain her composure, but snakeskin boots had cooked her collards. He was wearing a dark navy, double-breasted suit that emphasized his broad shoulders which narrowed down—can we say “vee”—into a highly huggable waist and then fanned out, oh-so-slightly, to reveal a perfectly shaped, hard butt…Jesus! What was she thinking? And in the middle of church service no less. Right in between “rock in a weary land” and “shelter in the time of storm.” Pull yourself together, girl!
She tried to divert her eyes as he sat down and even joined Tai in a rock, clap, rock, clap as the choir bumped it up an octave. She threw in an “amen,” raised her arms and closed her eyes, trying to capture the image of Jesus as a rock. But all she could see was curly hair and snakeskin boots, and it was making her hot! She opened her eyes just in time to see Snakeskin staring at her intently. She closed her eyes again and tried to start singing, but since she didn’t know the words it just looked as if she were singing in tongues, and they didn’t play that at the Baptist Convention in 1985! When she stole another peek Snakeskin was smiling broadly, as if he knew she’d been thinking of him.
Vivian was thankful when a lady two rows behind her got happy and started jumping up and screaming, “My Rock, my Rock!” That brought other members of the audience to their feet, and before she knew it Tai was on her feet, thankfully blocking Vivian’s view of Snakeskin. About this time Tai’s husband, King Wesley Brook, mounted the podium along with his father, the Reverend Doctor Pastor Bishop Overseer Mister Stanley Obadiah Meshach Brook, Jr., Vivian’s father and a group of other board members. The song had reached a feverish pitch, and the choir was rocking, literally. Just before delivering the song’s final lyric, they paused. The choir, director with hand in midair, pianist, organist, drummer, lead singer—everybody stopped. It seemed everyone in the audience was frozen, too, holding their breath, all except for the “happy” woman two rows back whose “My Rock!” had toned down to a quiet “Rock” between sobs as she was furiously fanned by two ushers in white. Oh, it was on now! The Holy Spirit was moving, people were remembering how Jesus had been their Rock and there was shouting and crying and dancing going on all around. All that time the choir remained frozen, as did Vivian, but she for a totally different reason. Slowly the lead singer, a Karen Clark-like soprano-alto, sang the final line. She hit every note on the musical scale as she brought the song to its dramatic conclusion. Adding several syllables to each word, she belted out, “Jesus is my Rock.”
The drummer started a roll on the snares, the guitarist held on to a string, the note reverberating in the air, the pianist and organist seemed