The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Caught Read online

  © 2006 by Neta Jackson.

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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  HELPING PEOPLE WORLDWIDE EXPERIENCE the MANIFEST PRESENCE of GOD.

  Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.

  Scripture quotations are taken from the following: The Holy Bible, New International Version. © 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers. The Holy Bible, New Living Translation®. © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. The New King James Version®. © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, businesses, organizations, and locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design: Brand Navigation, LLC | Mark Mickel | www.brandnavigation.com

  Cover Photo: Steve Gardner | Pixelworks Studio | www.shootpw.com

  Interior design: Inside Out Design & Typesetting

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Jackson, Neta.

  The yada yada prayer group gets caught / by Neta Jackson.

  p. cm.

  Summary: “The Yada Yada girls get caught in the lies we all tend to believe about ourselves, God, each other, and life” —Provided by publisher.

  ISBN-13: 9-781-59145-361-1

  ISBN-10: 1-59145-361-5 (tradepaper)

  1.Women—Illinois—Fiction. 2. Female friendship—Fiction. 3. Christian women—Fiction. 4.

  Chicago (Ill.)—Fiction. 5. Prayer groups—Fiction.

  I. Title.

  PS3560.A2415Y333 2006

  813'.54—dc22

  2006017104

  Printed in the United States of America

  06 07 08 09 10 VG 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To my own precious grandchildren,

  Havah Noelle and Liam Isaac,

  God’s gift of life and laughter

  Contents

  Prologue

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  Book Club Questions

  Find out how the Yada Yada Story begins

  Prologue

  WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 2003

  11 A.M.—DOWNTOWN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

  It might not be a champagne-colored Lexus, but Chanda George was having a hard time containing the bubbles of happiness threatening to uncork right there in the backseat of the North Suburban Yellow Taxi. Ooo, Lord, Lord.Thank You, Jesus. It felt good to climb into a car and say, “Take me to dis address, mon,” then sit back and let the cabbie drive her around, as if she were a pop star. She’d had it up to here with city buses and commuter trains—her only transportation since she’d arrived from Jamaica ten years ago with a green card and a toddler on her hip. Standing at bus stops and on el platforms in Chicago’s bitter winters with two, then three babies clinging to her skirts had defined her existence for the past decade. Single mom. Working poor. Tired.

  Never again. She was going to call a cab whenever she wanted. Maybe even a limo. Till she got that Lexus with the leather seats, anyway.Wouldn’t be long now.

  A giggle escaped. She’d won again. Not the lottery this time. But that nice man on the telephone told her she’d been “specially selected” to receive one of four major prizes. Mm-hm.Dis mama be one lucky woman, she thought. Can feel it in mi baby finger. She smoothed out the wrinkles in the silk print skirt hugging her thighs. Then she frowned and sucked her teeth. Nah, nah. Don’ you be takin’ all de credit, Chanda George. God’s favor be what it is. Smilin’ down on you like—

  “Mama!” A tug on the sleeve of her silk print blouse jerked her back to the stale interior of the yellow cab, the smell of ancient cigarettes clinging to the upholstery. “Mama! Which prize you gonna get? ” Her twelve-year-old chafed at the tie around his shirt collar, which was rapidly turning damp in the July heat. “Hope you get that red SUV. It’s got a TV in the back an’ a DVD player!”

  “You hush, Thomas.” She pronounced it To-mas, the way they called her daddy back in Kingston. “What we need dat big truck for! Mi take cash—or maybe dat free vacation to Hawaii. You like dat, now, eh? ” The taxi slowed and Chanda glanced out the window. “Oh. Must be we here now.Tuck your shirt back in, mister.”

  The taxi double-parked, making traffic pull around them. Chanda looked at the red digits on the meter: $16.05. She fished a twenty out of her bulky purse and handed it over the seat. “Keep de change.”

  Thomas was already out the door and onto the sidewalk. Chanda struggled out of the backseat, tugging at her slip and the silk print skirt, which threatened to hike up the back of her legs. She took in the building with shaded eyes. She’d expected one of the big downtown hotels—maybe even the press, taking pictures of “the lucky two-time winner” for the evening news. But the building was low-slung, plain, brick. Big green plants inside the doors. Downtown, but not the Loop.

  No TV news vans lurking about.

  But a cheerful printed sign taped to the double-glass doors said VACATION GETAWAYS—MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE. GLASS SLIPPER VACATIONS.WELCOME, PRIZE WINNERS! Chanda smiled and licked her lips. Shrugging her heavy bag over her shoulder, she grabbed Thomas with one hand and pulled open one of the doors with the other.

  Didn’t matter if Glass Slipper Vacations handed her the prize money in a posh hotel or in a born-again warehouse. She’d won, hadn’t she?

  This was her lucky day.

  2 P.M.—CORNERSTONE MUSIC FESTIVAL,

  BUSHNELL, ILLINOIS

  Garbage detail. Gross.

  Muttering under his breath, fourteen-year-old Chris Hickman pulled a full bag out of a can, tied it off, dragged it to the side of the service road, and shook out a clean plastic garbage bag. At least garbage pickup was one notch up from cleaning the showers yesterday. Now, that was nasty.

  Still, once he put in his four hours each day with the work crew of kids from Uptown Community Church, he was free to hang out listening to the music fest bands. He’d counted a dozen music stages on the Cornerstone grounds, some of them starting at noon and going until midnight. The bands on the main stage each night really r
ocked—Relient K, Rez Band, a bunch of others—even with their Jesus-this, Jesus-that lyrics. Sound jacked up to damage decibels. Hands waving, bodies swaying. People diving off the stage. And they weren’t even stoned!

  Chris grasped the neck of his green volunteer T-shirt and mopped the sweat off his face, glad that Cornerstone was a hundred miles from Chicago. It wouldn’t go down with his homies back on the bricks if they saw him wearing the wrong colors. He was still a “shorty,” a new recruit to the Disciples. Hadn’t proved himself yet.

  Ducking into the next tent, a booth selling all kinds of Jesus T-shirts, Chris looked around for the trash can. But his eyes snapped to a guy with a spiky Mohawk on one side of the tent airbrushing caricatures onto shirts. Chris sidled over to watch. A white girl with tiny rings in her nose and her lip and a stud in her tongue posed for her caricature. “Make it say, ‘I love Jesus.’” She grinned. “That’ll freak out my parents.”

  Chris watched the caricature take shape.Not bad. But he could do better. Had done better, though he usually had the wall of a building to work with. But the airbrush didn’t look that different from using a can of spray paint. “Can I try? ” he blurted.

  The guy with the Mohawk looked up and frowned. He tipped his head at Chris’s green Cornerstone T-shirt. “You a volunteer? They send you over to help? ”

  “Uh, yeah. I’m a volunteer.”

  “You got any experience? How old are you, anyway? ”

  Chris thought of all the el underpasses he’d decorated. “Yeah. Lots of experience. A bit different, but I can do this.” He ignored the question about his age.

  The Mohawk guy handed the girl her T-shirt and took her twenty-dollar bill. “I dunno. Can’t afford to mess up any shirts.” He glanced up as a young guy,maybe twenty or so, bypassed the ready-made T-shirts and headed their way. “Need help, buddy? ”

  “Hope so.” College kid. Clean-cut. “I’d like a T-shirt with a picture of Jesus walking on the water, you know, during the storm, and beckoning to Peter.With the words, ‘Come to Me.’ ”

  “Look, man, we don’t really do—”

  “I can do it.”

  Mohawk guy and college kid both stared at Chris.

  “I can do it. Let me try.” Chris licked his lips. Could he do it? He knew that story from Sunday school. Once he saw a picture in a Bible storybook. But the picture had been drawn from Peter’s point of view looking at Jesus. Something about it didn’t set right to Chris. He’d love to turn it around.

  The college kid grinned. “Why not? Let him try.”

  Mohawk guy shrugged. “It’s your money. If he messes up a shirt, somebody’s gotta pafor it.”

  A white T-shirt was stretched on an easel. Chris tried out the airbrushes for a minute or two on some butcher paper, getting the feel for the colors, then set to work. A quiver of excitement expanded in his gut until his insides felt giddy. All he could think about was the picture taking shape on the material in front of him. The back of Jesus in the foreground, gnarly hair whipping in the wind, waves splashing about His feet, one hand reaching out toward a floundering boat in the background . . .

  Chris glanced furtively at the college kid, who slouched easily in the chair the girl had vacated.The figure in the boat took shape, leaning out over the choppy water, hand outstretched, longing in his face.

  A shadow fell over Chris’s shoulder as he started in on the lettering: Come to Me. Mohawk guy sucked in his breath. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “What? ” The college kid got up. He came around and looked at the drawing on the shirt. “Why . . . that’s me stepping out of the boat.” He swallowed. “Wow.”

  “There you are!” Chris jumped when he heard the familiar voice. “We’ve been looking all over for you,Hickman.” Josh Baxter entered the tent, followed by José Enriques and Pete Spencer. All in Cornerstone green. The garbage crew from Uptown Community. “Come on, man.We’ve got work to do.”

  “Just a minute.” Mohawk guy held up a hand. “I could use this kid.”

  “On his own time, then.We’ve got a ton of garbage to pick up. Now, Hickman.”

  “Wait up. You draw this, amigo? ” José Enriques, fifteen, peered at the T-shirt on the easel. “That’s good, man—OK, OK, Baxter. We’re comin’.”

  Chris flushed at the praise as they climbed into the waiting service cart, piled high with plastic garbage bags. José was all right. Latinos were the enemy back on the bricks. But that was there.This was now. And he’d just tagged the best piece of his life.

  3 A.M.—CHICAGO’S SOUTH SIDE

  The toddler screamed on her hip, his nose running, but the young woman holding him with one arm didn’t even try to soothe him as she hit the speed dial on her cordless. Please, Mom, pick it up . . . please, please . . .

  “Rochelle!” A male voice yelled from the bedroom. “Can’t you make that kid shut up? I’m trying to get some sleep here.”

  “Shh, shh,” she whispered to the little boy. Sure, her husband was trying to get some sleep—after coming in at two. With no explanation. He was the one who woke up the baby, turning on the lights, yelling at her, telling her not to mess in his business when she asked where he’d been. Oh, please, Mama . . .

  But the answering machine on the other end kicked in. “Hello. We can’t take your call right now—”

  She clicked the Off button. She couldn’t leave a message on their answering machine. They might return the call, and Dexter might answer the phone. No, no. She’d just have to go up there. But what if her mom wasn’t home? She couldn’t just wait out on the street, not with the baby—not at night.Not in this heat.

  “Who you callin’ this time of night, woman? ” His voice was so close, so heavy with threat, that Rochelle jumped, dropping the phone. The toddler in her arms only screamed louder.

  “I . . . I, uh—”

  Her husband was wearing only his boxers, his body hard and lean from working out at the gym. They made a handsome couple, everybody said. And when he started putting on those muscles, her girlfriends really crowed. “Oh, girl, that man is so fine” . . . “You better watch out, some ho gonna steal him” . . . “You ever don’t want him, throw him to me!”

  Slowly, deliberately, Dexter picked up the phone and punched a button, peering at the LED readout. “Your mother.” Sarcasm dripped off the words. “Now, girl, what you gonna go call your mother for this time of night? ”

  He stepped closer. In her face. She felt his hand reach behind her and take hold of her hair—the long, thick fall of kinky curls every beauty shop in town envied—pulling her head back, back until her throat stretched upward and she was staring into his cold, narrow eyes. She could feel his strength. Pain shot up the back of her head from his tight grip on her hair. Fear dried out her mouth as one thought pulsed in her brain:With one snap, he could break my neck.

  The toddler stopped screaming, as if mesmerized by the tension between his parents. In the sudden silence, Rochelle, frozen in his grip, heard Dexter’s voice next to her ear. Low. Menacing. “Don’t you be thinking about leaving me, Rochelle. Or taking my baby. Or you gonna regret the day you step out of this house.”

  1

  I ’d been married to the guy for twenty years, and he still didn’t get it. Crowds. I hated big crowds. He knew that. So why was he asking me again?

  “You go,” I said, climbing up the short, wobbly stepladder and pouring birdseed into the feeder dangling from one corner of the garage roof. “Stuff yourself. Have a blast. Just” —I backed down the three steps on the miniladder— “take the cell phone and let me know when you’re on the way home.” I stuck the stepladder into the garage and headed for the back porch of our two-flat.

  “Aw, c’mon, Jodi.” Denny sounded like a teenager who’d just been told he couldn’t have the car keys. “The Taste is no fun going alone. And there’s only two more days. I’d take Amanda and Josh if they were here, but they’re blasting their eardrums out at Cornerstone,” he grumbled. “They were gone last summer too. I haven�
��t been to the Taste in two years!”

  I glanced at him sharply. Yeah, the kids had been gone this time last summer—on that mission trip to Mexico. But that wasn’t the reason Denny had missed the Taste of Chicago last year. I’d just gotten out of the hospital after getting banged up in a car accident and the Fourth of July slid right past us unnoticed, like the Energizer Bunny on Mute. But if Denny didn’t remember, I sure wasn’t going to bring it up.

  “You don’t have to go by yourself.” was doggedly cheerful.The prospect of a long, quiet summer evening at home alone was sounding more and more appealing by the second.No kids, no husband even, who, God love him, was still male and took up a large portion of the house and my psyche. A girl needed a break now and then. “Call one of your friends. Take Ben Garfield. He’s probably driving Ruth crazy anyway. She’ll kiss your feet for getting him out of the house.”

  I flopped down on the porch swing and reclaimed my plastic tumbler of iced tea, sweating in a puddle where I’d set it near Willie Wonka’s inert body. The rhythmic rise and fall of the chocolate haired rib cage assured me the old dog was still with us.

  I raised the iced tea to my lips, vaguely thinking it’d been fuller than this when I set it down—and over the rim saw Denny still standing in front of me, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans, shoulders hunched like one of Peter Pan’s lost boys. “What? ”

  “I don’t want to go with Ben. I want to go with you.”

  I rolled my eyes. Cheater! Villain! My visions of solitude, peace and quiet, that Ernest Gaines novel I was dying to read with only our dear deaf dog and a good fan for company evaporated as quickly as spit on a hot iron.

  Denny Baxter knew exactly how to shoot his arrow into my Achilles heel.

  “You really want me to go? ”

  “Yes.”

  I sighed. “All right. But, mister, you owe me one.”

  The dimples on either side of Denny’s mouth creased into irresistible parentheses. “Hey, it’s going to be fun! We need some time together while the kids are gone—not talking about serious stuff or anything, you know, just having a good time. Pick your poison! Jerk chicken . . . ribs slathered in barbecue sauce . . . Italian ice . . . that Totally Turtle Cheesecake at Eli’s . . .” My husband’s eyes closed in anticipatory bliss of sampling the city’s finest eateries, whose yearly ten-day culinary extravaganza on Chicago’s lake front always culminated on July Fourth weekend. “And we can watch the fireworks tonight from Buckingham Fountain,” he added.