Made Of Honor Part 3

I'd known Adrian would come back one day, and that it would hurt when he did, but I had no idea how badly. And Roch.e.l.le showing up at my door before I could lick my wounds didn't help a thing.

"You've got to admit it was funny."

What was funny? Roch.e.l.le racing over here like a maniac? "Not really." I kicked off my torturous shoes and started off across my living room, shoving an industrial-size tub of cocoa b.u.t.ter out of my path. My next destination was my room, to take off this wretched dress.

Roch.e.l.le kicked her pumps off. Her bare feet echoed mine against the hardwood floor. She paused at the tub I'd pushed aside. "That's a lot of cocoa b.u.t.ter. What are you making with it?"

Here we go with the interrogation. "Body balm, soap and lotion. For Renee's cousin's wedding. Spa party for the bridesmaids. More stuff that I can't think of right now."

"Wedding favors. Now that idea is a winner, Dane. You could build a business off weddings alone."

And feel like this every day?

I rubbed my eyes and leaned against the sofa, eager to end the chitchat. "I don't think so." I ignored Roch.e.l.le's attempt to cheer me up and hobbled to my bedroom, shutting the oak door before she could enter, but knowing she'd come in anyway.

My room, still darkened by my closed blinds, allowed a few strips of afternoon to leak through. Tracey had always jerked them up every morning. I missed her sunshine already. I yanked at my zipper for a few seconds, and then padded to the door. "Roch.e.l.le, can you come here a minute? Help me?"

She arrived all too quickly. "Sure." The zipper gave way and the dress with it. I maneuvered over the skirt and buried myself beneath my comforter. I turned to the wall. "Thanks."

Daytime flooded the room as Roch.e.l.le whisked my blinds up.

A pillow over my head solved that.

Pointy fingernails, Roch.e.l.le's version of tickling, jabbed at my middle. "Oh, come on. Get over it. It wasn't that bad. Probably broke the ice between you two."

I snickered. "It broke the ice all right. More like unplugged the dam."

My friend's hands went still. "But he didn't come in, right? I came right over-"

"No, Mother May I, he did not come in. Thanks for trying to block though. I see now what you really think of me." I lifted my head a little and gave her a smile, just enough to clear the concern in her eyes.

Roch.e.l.le slapped at the pansy-covered blanket. "I trust you, girl. Him, too. It's the enemy I don't trust. Know what I'm saying?"

I eased upright, resting my back against the headboard. "I do know. And I'm thankful you're looking out for me. You could have done one better though and warned me he would be there."

She held up both hands. "I'm innocent on that one. I figured she'd throw the flowers, but Tracey and I both agreed not to tell you about Adrian's move until after the wedding and not to invite him. Seems she couldn't go through with the second part. Probably knew you wanted to see him. Thought she was doing you a favor."

"Traitors."

She shrugged. "Just because you can't deal with him doesn't mean the rest of us can't love him. Adrian is like a brother to me."

A frosty pause ensued, probably at the mention of the word brother, brother, as mine was still missing in action. as mine was still missing in action.

"So what did happen?" She slid under the covers, too.

"He carried me up the stairs."

Roch.e.l.le's jaw went slack. "Is that straight out of a fairy tale or what?"

Straight out of my nightmares more like it. "I got down on the second flight."

Roch.e.l.le nodded. "Brothah fell down, didn't he? I told you to stop eating all that pizza."

I punched her shoulder, for real this time. "He didn't say a word. I thought that holding my breath was making me lighter, until he started sweating."

She held her stomach. "Don't make me scream."

"Make you scream? You weren't the one standing there in that that thing." I pointed to the rumpled dress on the floor. thing." I pointed to the rumpled dress on the floor.

Roch.e.l.le patted my arm, looking down at her own dress, a smaller, yet just as terrible version of the one I'd removed. "I tried to talk some sense into Ryan's mother about these dresses, but you know everyone thinks I'm too conservative. If you had-"

"I know. I know. I dropped the ball. I don't know why I let my feelings-or lack thereof-about Ryan get to me. I regret it already."

Roch.e.l.le pushed back the covers and stood. "No regrets, missy. Get up out of that bed and get dressed. We've got BASIC tonight, a special meeting and elections for officers. You're going."

I groaned and flopped back onto the bed. BASIC. Our sham of a singles group. A certified freak show if I'd ever seen one.

There goes my pedicure. And I'll never get to that ice cream with Roch.e.l.le here.

"Please. I just had to put a block on my phone because of Deacon Rivers calling me from the retirement home. And Tad-the-Harvard-Grad? If he starts in with why he can't seem to find a woman who is at his spiritual and intellectual level, I think I'll throw up. Watching him do the weather is punishment enough."

Roch.e.l.le leaned over my bureau and started her a.s.sault on my top drawer, no doubt looking for something suitable for me to wear.

"Don't start throwing stuff out of that closet, okay? Last time it took me half an hour to refold all those clothes. You know there isn't anything in there you like. Not one thing."

She waved her free hand. Her other five fingers remained buried in my drawer.

"Don't pay Tad any mind. He's already in love-with himself. And I'm encouraging Deacon Rivers to join the Seniors Bible Study, but he's still not convinced he belongs there."

"Neither am I. He chased me to my car so fast a few Sundays ago that I thought he was Jericho."

Roch.e.l.le harrumphed at the mention of her son. "That boy wishes he could run that fast. Maybe if he was chasing a girl. His coach called me all last year about his sluggish playing. I hope the summer AAU league helped some."

I considered telling her that summer league ball hadn't helped and that Jericho ran slow because he hated basketball, but some secrets were best kept. If Roch.e.l.le knew how much her son confided in me, our friendship wouldn't be the same. That Roch.e.l.le was head over heels for her kid was obvious, but sometimes she could only hear what she needed for him to say.

My amateur wardrobe professional slung a pair of jeans on the bed with a turquoise short-sleeved sweater. I narrowed my eyes. The shade was too close to teal, Adrian's favorite color. "Did you invite him? To church tonight, I mean?"

Roch.e.l.le stopped and stared at the ceiling. "I may have mentioned it, but I doubt he'll show. He's going to another church. That Messianic fellowship we went to last year."

Wow. "The place we went for the Feast of Tabernacles display? That was awesome." I'd wanted to visit again, once this work project was over. So much for that. The Nehemiah Group, comprised of a mix of believers-those Jewish by blood and those made Jewish by His blood-had intrigued me, both with the breathtaking outdoor display and open, vibrant worship.

Some of the detailed historical teaching had flown right over my head, but Roch.e.l.le had broken it down for me afterward. Such a place of scholarship and praise would be right up Adrian's alley, given his late father's Jewish background and his love of learning. I smiled, remembering his joy when I gave him his first Hebrew lexicon on a long-forgotten Christmas. Even when it came to the Bible, he was a nerd at heart. "I doubt he'll show after this morning anyway."

Roch.e.l.le picked up the pair of jeans and held them up? "A Velcro zipper? Dana, you've got to stop. This is crazy."

I pouted a little. "They're comfortable. And just for holidays and church potlucks, thank you."

She grabbed another pair off the hanger, clucking her tongue. "And look at these. Elastic in the waist."

"But they have a zipper. Look." I pointed to the front of the pants with satisfaction. Roch.e.l.le looked at me with pity, which made me laugh harder. I couldn't live her lacquered life for anything. The hairspray alone would do me in.

"Okay. Put these on. And no sneakers, either. I really don't think that Adrian will show, but now that he's back, you need to-"

"I'm not going to change myself in hopes that some man is going to react to me in some way. This is it. Me. All you get. All he gets." The he he came out with a little venom. The growl of my voice even surprised me. came out with a little venom. The growl of my voice even surprised me.

Roch.e.l.le leaned over and picked up a pair of moccasins with turquoise stones. A gift from one of my customers. I loved them, but never wore them out. She placed them between us on the bed.

"You're both my friends and I'm sick of you two botching this up. You may not see him for another month, I don't care, but tonight, we practice." She crossed her arms with finality.

We'll see about that.

I stood and started out of the room, both hurt and happy when Roch.e.l.le didn't follow.

It had nothing to do with anything that had happened today. The anger in my tone had been simmering for years. Sure, Sandy was gone, but was I just supposed to forget how he'd cut me off after our time together, my first time no less?

The painful memory drove me to the kitchen, hoping there would be a spoonful of ginger spice chai caked in the container. The way Adrian had played me then, so true to the Biblical account of Tamar and Amnon...It seemed that after we were together he'd hated me more than he had loved me. Understandably so, as he was the Christian then and I, the pagan soul. How could I blame him for running when I'd wrecked his faith?

I fell for that until Sandy took the distance between Adrian and I as separation and went for him, full throttle. And he went along for the ride, all the way to the altar, dragging my mother, my friends and even me.

"The first thing he asked me was if you'd started your business yet. He so believes in you. That's hard to find in a man." Roch.e.l.le's voice startled me.

I stopped short, my hand on the cabinet. "I doubt it's support. He just wants me to do something so he can come and steal my ideas...again." Adrian's business credibility wasn't the best with me, either.

Roch.e.l.le banged the chai container on the counter while I heated water. "Are we back on that? Adrian's store? Dana, you know that he didn't deliberately steal ideas from you. Whatever you told him a zillion years ago was just brainstorming. People do that. It's part of business." She blew out a breath. "It's not like you were going to do anything with those ideas anyway."

Was that the point? What I did with them? No. The point was the ideas were mine, something I could never seem to get Roch.e.l.le to understand. Let somebody come in there and "brainstorm" a pair of those shoes. It'd be all over. "We weren't in business, Ch.e.l.le. We were in love. Even more, we were friends. Two friends on the stoop with big dreams...and he stole mine."

Even as I said it, Adrian's store, Kick! Candles, flashed through my mind. It was a woman's refuge, intimate and relaxing, swathed with tulle and fresh flowers: roses in summer, amaryllis and poinsettias in winter, anything from daffodils to handpicked wildflowers in spring, when like a garden, the place buzzed with color.

It was October now. In a few weeks, his store back in Chicago would be decked in velvet, from the tapestries dripping off the walls onto the small couches beneath them. Ladies' boots would line the edge of the deep s.h.a.g as tired shoppers soaked their toes into its depths and bored husbands sipped cocoa and watched cable sports in ma.s.saging chairs. Overhead lanterns and die-cut sconces lined the walls, filling the store with a new scent every hour. A few times a year, Roch.e.l.le and I snuck up there and bought all the stuff we could on Adrian's days off. I always wanted to kick off my shoes and stay longer, but never dared.

It was a place girlfriends loved, boyfriends needed and husbands feared. A place I'd described to Adrian on a rainy Sunday while he rubbed my feet after one of Daddy's Sunday dinners. Our place.

Only he'd built it with Sandy instead of me.

And now Ch.e.l.le wanted me to brush that away and jump into his arms, the very act that drove him away in the first place. "You know, this is why Adrian is off-limits. Of all people, you should be able to appreciate that some things just don't need to be discussed."

Not with people anyway. G.o.d and I would have a long chat about this tonight.

Roch.e.l.le added a swirl of milk to the already weak chai and walked into my dining room, taking a zigzag pattern to get around the boxes of bath and body supplies strewn around the s.p.a.ce, chosen for its disuse and out-of-the-way location. All the time Tracey had lived with me, I don't remember her messing with my supplies, except to clean around them.

Leave it to Ch.e.l.le.

"What's all this?" Roch.e.l.le demanded, taking inventory with her eyes. I looked, too, a bit ashamed at my excess, but it had all seemed necessary at the time. Shea b.u.t.ter, rose petals, calendula, chamomile, lye for soap along with coconut and olive oil...and then there were those boxes under my bed.

"Just some supplies." I shrugged. "My clicker-finger went a little mad."

She rolled her eyes. "A lot mad, I'd say. I know you think you're getting a deal from those online companies, but the shipping is killing you and there's always something better locally if you talk to people face-to-face-"

"Don't start." One-track mind, that one. If she wasn't trying to marry me off, she was trying to motivate me into the marketplace.

I took a closer look at the receipt dangling from Roch.e.l.le's fingers. Four hundred and thirty-eight dollars. An order I'd obviously made while rapt in the buzz of my promised-but-never-delivered promotion at Scents and Savings. Roch.e.l.le did have a bit of a point. I was going to have to get a little more mileage out of that small business license or forget this stuff altogether.

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, though checkered with failure, than to take rank with those poor souls who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."

I grimaced. "Uh, Marcus Garvey?"

She shook her head.

"Winston Churchill?"

"Theodore Roosevelt. It's at the bottom of all my e-mails. Just goes to show how much attention you pay me."

She had me there. "Sorry. I sort of glaze over all that stuff."

"Whatever. Look, you can say whatever you want about Adrian, but at least the guy stepped out and took a risk."

My teeth set on edge. "Risk? What would you know about it? If you're not at work or church, you're home hiding behind that computer."

Roch.e.l.le flinched, then pressed the receipt back onto one of the boxes. "At least I can afford to. You don't hear me complaining about not being able to pay my bills. I'm not afraid to charge what I'm worth. If you come to Shoes of Peace, you won't find any pumps hidden in my back room. They're in the display window, where they belong."

I hunched a little, like a crazed kitten driven into a corner. "Complaining? I haven't asked you for a dime. You're always the one pushing, trying to make me something I'm not. Don't you know this isn't about money to me? This is something I can predict, something I can control. I can throw it out and start over if it doesn't work out."

Clutching my chai, I tried to get a grip. Why couldn't Roch.e.l.le understand? Tracey never bothered me about this stuff. I took a sip of the tea. Tepid. Ugh. I set it aside, ready to try once more to express my muddled feelings.

"Soap can't lie to me or-or show up smelling like oranges and daydreams, waiting to break my heart-"

"Oh, honey." Roch.e.l.le touched my shoulder.

"All these years you've waited, surely you know. Surely." I shrugged off her touch, realizing I'd crossed her boundary by mentioning Jericho's father. For once, I didn't care. I had to get it out.

"This is my risk...and my safety." My teeth nipped my bottom lip as if my subconscious were trying to shut me up. A staple gun would have been more appropriate. Why had I shared so much with Roch.e.l.le, shown her so much of my heart? She'd just use it against me in some subtle way, some devotional about the mouth showing the condition of the heart. Maybe if I actually talked to her about it instead of complaining to Tracey, she might realize what she's doing and how it hurts me. If she only knew, I'm usually well aware of my heart's condition before saying a word. "Now let's just let it go."

"Fine." She sounded wounded.

I stormed into the living room, slowing with each step. Normally, I would have taken Roch.e.l.le's dishing because I knew she had it hard being a single mom and sometimes needed to let go on somebody. But today, I just couldn't take it. Was it because I'd used Tracey for the same purpose?

I didn't want to think about it. As I dropped onto my leather sectional, a bulletin board framed with orders stared back at me. My bread store soap rack leaned against the wall like a gas tank at the middle of a long trip, half empty and half full. Just like my week. Just like my life.

"If you get your clothes on, we can grab some dinner before we go."

The apple cobbler soap I'd made two weeks before filled the room with scent as I rotated the bars so air could hit every side. The tart sweetness settled down around my shoulders like an old sweater. Or an old friend.

I turned. "I'll go, but I'm not voting and if Tad uses the words spiritual intimacy spiritual intimacy more than once, I'm out of there." more than once, I'm out of there."

"Deal." Roch.e.l.le wiped her eyes and walked toward me, the skirt of her dress swaying with each step.