Excerpt: Keep Me From Falling

It was First Sunday morning. I sat on the edge of the bed, ready for an hour now, and watched Cadence put on a white blouse that tied at the neck. She wore the navy skirt that nearly touched the floor, and a pair of stockings certain to have a run by the end of the day. She grabbed a pair of white gloves from the drawer and stuffed them into her purse. I didn’t know what to say to her. This was flat out rebellion. If we lived in the days of Acts, God would have slammed her self-righteous butt against a wall. For finishing touches, she pinned the shiny gold usher tag to her heart and pulled her limited hair into a strained ponytail, and added a bun that made it seem like she had hair for miles.
We made it into church on time to see the usher team filing from their preparation room. I didn’t think they looked terrible, actually quite the opposite, but when Cadence saw the processional, she started in on them.
“Look at this mess,” she said, as we were seated at the very last row. It was the row for ushers and straggling visitors. “Can you believe this atrocity? Downright tacky.”
I turned to her. “Be nice.” For once.
“No, why don’t you be a man and stand by me finally?”
“I am standing by you. I’m out of uniform today per your request.”
She grimaced, scoffed, and slid away from me. “What is your problem, Amadi? Why are you being so negative? For the record, I asked you to come in the traditional uniform and you didn’t do that, so don’t get smart with me.”
“My pants are in the cleaners.”
“Don’t you make excuses. If you’d come home in time, you could have made it to the dry cleaners. If you’re going to start this relived bachelorhood behavior…” She bucked her eyes, and held up a finger to me. Scolded like a student.
I waved to Sister Seater who was walking to her regular spot at the Pastor’s entrance of the curved sanctuary. When she saw Cadence, she did a double take, halted in her tracks, and nudged a fellow usher.
“Bachelorhood. I’m home every day with you. I took some time for myself. That’s not wrong, Cadence.”
Ladies had an unspoken way of communicating an oh-no-she-didn’t with the perpetrator still in the room. This time it was executed with the perpetrator left unaware. Seater had passed the news down the grapevine without so much as a peep escaping her lips and all purple-sequined and satin wearing usher’s eyes were on my wife and me.
Pastor Stanley was briefing us on what would be happening during the tapings. Lights and two of the craned cameras would be moving around, scanning the congregation. Two of the cameras were for him and the pulpit. He told us to act natural. That was an oxymoron. The people operating the equipment were all introduced, including the directors and producers.
“Okay, so where did you go?” Cadence dug in her purse. I hoped she wasn’t about to do what I was thinking. Not with the cameras prepared to record.
“To a bar.”
“To a bah,” she mocked my accent, still clawing around in her bag. “You’ve been a married man for the past 13 years, buddy. What the—" She stopped herself from cursing, took a breath, and went in again. "What…were you…doing in a bah?” Cadence pulled out the ball of white gloves with button accents at the wrist, held them, and seared me with her gaze. She was going to do it. She was going to usher today, in the wrong uniform, in the wrong spirit for all of the ChristLife Network and the cable accessed world to see.
This was going to be difficult. This would be humiliating.
“I had a drink and watched a singer.”
The older couple sitting in front of us turned around when I said drink.
“Who went with you?”
My mind stole a full minute to reliving the moment I tipped the performer. The passion in the song. The way she glided above the ground. The way she owned us in an instant. The way the generated wind caressed her hair, or wig, or weave. Her number in my phone, under the ID “Principal S.” Her majesty.
“Hello?” Cadence snapped twice at my nose.
“I went alone.” My eyes hit my lap to avoid smiling. The warmth was all over me again.
“Well, the next time you want to go alone,” she started, zipping her purse and slapping my abdomen with it, “call home first. You aren’t a child. I shouldn’t have to tell you this.”
Cadence stood, forced white gloves onto her hands, and positioned herself behind the last row where I sat.
Get thee behind me.