Playing Hard To Get

“That doesn’t make any sense. It’s a church, Troy. We don’t ban anyone from anything and she’s the president, isn’t she? Wait.” He looked at her. “What happened? Did something happen at the church, with Sister Glover?”

“No. Nothing happened. I just, I just kind of kicked her out of the group. That’s all.” Troy smiled composedly, plucked a bowl of rice from the counter, and sat it on the table as if they were going to eat the meal.

“You kind of did what? Troy, what happened? What did you do to her?”

“What do you mean ‘what did I do to her?’ I’m your wife. Don’t you mean, what did she do to me?” Troy looked at Kyle hard.

“Just tell me what happened.” He sat down beside the burnt meat and tried to relax his shoulders.

“She’s crazy. She’s just crazy,” Troy blurted out. “And I told her it was time for me to take over the group and she said I couldn’t, so I kicked her out of the meeting and told her she’s banned. Now I just need you to agree. We’re supposed to stick together. Right? ’Til death us do part. That’s what you said. Right?”

Kyle looked at the dark cherry cabinet he’d drilled crooked into the wall.

“I can’t believe this. Troy, I was just trying not to have any drama at the church. I can’t have all this crazy stuff going on. You know folks are already acting funny about me marrying you because you didn’t belong to the church…or any church…and you’re not saved. This is just going to give them more wood to stoke the fire.”

“Are you kidding me? I’m helping them stoke the fire?” Troy sat down angrily in the chair beside Kyle and the two were silent for a while.

“Look, I’m doing the best I can,” Troy started again. “For two years I’ve been running around here playing Little Miss Perfect Christian First Lady Bride Saint for you and for them and for us. And you know what? It’s hard. It’s fucking hard to be perfect. It’s so fucking hard. They make it hard on fucking purpose.” Troy hadn’t cursed in so long, the f-bombs were dropping all around the table like pelts of rain. It felt good and she wasn’t even thinking about pulling out her new prayer pad.

“I never asked you to be perfect,” Kyle said.

“No, but you and everyone else makes it clear that I should be. I mean, that’s what this is all about. Being saved? Sanctified? Right? Just say it.”

“Say what?”

“That you want me to be saved. That you want me to be like her.”

“I didn’t marry her. I married you, just the way you are. And of course I want you to be saved. Of course. Why wouldn’t I want that for you?”

“It’s impossible. It’s just impossible. I can’t do it. Just can’t.”

“Can’t do what?”

“Because I’ve been doing good and acting right for so long.” Troy kept talking as if she hadn’t heard Kyle’s question. “I walked away from my entire life to do this and nothing is happening.”

“What is supposed to be happening?”

“I’m all this on the outside, but inside I’m just…I’m still me. I’m still me but I’m drowning and waiting for this fucking light to shine down from heaven to say, ‘Hey, Troy Helene Hall, you’re saved.’ Is that how it happens?”

“I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I don’t know if anyone knows,” Kyle said carefully. “And the ones that claim they do are lying. God is just a voice and salvation is a whisper. And it doesn’t come to people just because they act good or right. Salvation can come to a killer, to anyone.”

“So it’s me.” Troy wiped a tear from her cheek. “It’s me. I can’t get saved.”

“You, Troy,” Kyle said, reaching to cup Troy’s face in his hands, “are one of the most genuine, funny, loving, and just real people I know. You have a good heart and whenever I see you, I hear God whisper in my ear that you’re the woman that was assigned to me. And I don’t want anyone else.”

Troy looked at her husband, into his serious, honest eyes, and felt the whole, true weight of his love. A love she never requested, a love she never truly felt she deserved, and began, very softly, to weep.

?

“Sorry I’m late, Ms. Lovestrong,” Tamia said, tapping Tasha on the shoulder after sneaking up on her at the party.

“Damn, I thought you weren’t coming.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t leave you alone to endure looking at all of these beautiful men…not after what happened last year,” Tamia said, referring to last year’s body issue party, where a perfectly chiseled twenty-three-year-old football player decided to share his perfectly chiseled ass with the entire