The Yada Yada Prayer Group

  © 2005 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.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  The Yada Yada Prayer Group is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc. Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc. titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

  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 New King James Version, © 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.,

  Publishers.

  The King James Version of the Bible.

  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: The Office of Bill Chiaravalle | www.officeofbc.com

  Interior design: Inside Out Design & Typesetting

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Jackson, Neta.

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

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-59145-152-5 (trade paper)

  ISBN 978-1-59554-424-7 (mass market)

  1.Women—Illinois—Fiction. 2. Female friendship—Fiction. 3. Christian women—Fiction. 4. Chicago (Ill.)—Fiction. 5. Prayer groups—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3560.A2415Y335 2004

  813'.54-dc22

  2004005456

  Printed in the United States of America

  08 09 10 11 12 QW 5 4 3 2 1

  Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

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  21

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  31

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  45

  Reading Group Guide

  To all the

  “Yada Yada Prayer Groups”

  and praying sisters

  springing up around the country—

  Remember:

  Pray like Jesus

  Serve like Jesus

  Love like Jesus

  Prologue

  CHRISTMAS DAY 2002

  The lean, wiry woman let the door of the central dining room bang behind her, taking in big gulps of clean, cold air. Not a moment too soon. If she had to listen to the kitchen “super” gripe about one more thing, she might do something that would land her in solitary. Nag, nag, nag—that’s all she ever does. I cain’t do nothin’ right. It’d be easy to take down that cow, big as she was—but she couldn’t go there. Had to stay cool.

  Four months down . . . 116 to go.

  The woman hunched her shoulders against the sharp bite of the wind, wishing she’d put on a couple more layers—but it was sweltering working the big steam dishwasher in the CDR kitchen. Digging in a pocket of her jean jacket for a cigarette, she turned her back until she got the thing lit, then she leaned against the building, blowing smoke into the wind, watching it get snatched away.

  Beyond the squat, two-story “cottages” sprawled in an awkward line from the CDR to the visitors’ center, she could see the ten-foot wire fence rimming the perimeter of the prison yard, topped by rolls of razor wire like a great, wicked Slinky toy. Humph. That fence might keep them in, but it sure didn’t keep the bone-chilling prairie wind out.

  She switched the cigarette to her left hand so she could warm up her right one under her armpit inside the jean jacket. Christmas Day . . . so what? Not enough to do. Any other Wednesday she’d be in the prison school. She was going to get her GED if it killed her—not that it would. Maybe college too. If she could survive an addiction to the lethal Big Four—heroin, methadone, vodka, and Valium—surely algebra and Illinois history weren’t going to waste her.

  And “Christmas dinner”—what a joke. Yeah, they’d been served slices of pressed turkey, blobs of mashed potatoes covered in greasy gravy, sweet potatoes smothered with melted marshmallows in big metal pans on the steam table, along with “the trimmings”—jellied cranberry sauce, Jell-O salad, rolls, butter pats, and canned cherry cobbler. Okay, it was one step up from the usual “mystery mess” and seasick-gray canned vegetables. Still, the long tables of sad women hunched over their trays, spearing food with plastic forks, served as a painful reminder that they weren’t home for Christmas.

  Only two food fights had broken out, though—chalk that up to the holiday spirit.

  “Wallace!” A sharp bark from inside the CDR caught her like a watchdog on the prowl. “What makes ya think we done with these dishes? Get yo’ butt in here, or I’m gonna cut yo’ pay hours.”

  The woman named Wallace deliberately took a slow drag on her cigarette before dropping it on the ground and grinding it out with her Nike. Cut my pay hours—big deal. At fifty cents an hour, it wasn’t a big loss. Still, the job added to her credit in the commissary and helped fill the hours. But she was going to quit this lousy kitchen gig—tomorrow, if possible. Already her hands looked like pale pink prunes. Even piecework in the factory would be better than this. Maybe they needed somebody to shelve books in the library . . . or do garden-and-grounds. Yeah, that was it! Garden-and-grounds. Physical work. Outdoors—

  “Wallace!”

  Well, come spring, anyway.

  FINALLY RID OF HER SOAKED APRON and the sour-hot breath of the kitchen supervisor, Becky Wallace made her way back to C-5, one of the minimum-security cottages at Lincoln Correctional Center, a cement-and-wire fortress sitting on the Illinois prairie. The rec room on the lower level of the CDR was open seven to nine tonight, like most evenings. But maybe the pileup at the pay phone in the cottage had dwindled. She fingered the scrap of paper in the pocket of her jean jacket, making sure it was still there. A phone number . . . some woman up in Chicago had sent her a number last week. She’d been afraid to call, afraid to hear the voice on the other end. Afraid not to.

  Today, though, she was going to suck up the courage. Surely her baby’s foster parents wouldn’t refuse to accept her collect call on Christmas Day.

  A Department of Corrections truck sat in front of the door of C-5, piled with parts of the standard-issue metal bunk beds and a stack of narrow mattresses. She peppered the truck with a string of cuss words. Were they sticking more new arrivals in her cottage? The dorm on the first floor was already packed to the max. Maybe they were going to doub
le-up the single rooms upstairs. Her name had moved up on the list for the second floor. Man! She’d give anything for a single. Yet if she had to have a roommate, that’d still be better than sleeping like cordwood in a woodpile.

  Even walking to the bathroom was like playing Russian roulette, never knowing who was going to hit you up for your last cigarette or bust you one for “dissin’ ” her in the food line. And just when she got everybody figured out—who to watch out for, who to stand up to, who to give a wide berth—they stuck in some newbie who upset the whole social order.

  The TV was babbling in the day room, and a game of Bid Whist was going on at one of the card tables. But the phone in the hallway was free, screwed to the wall facing the front door of the cottage like a one-eyed mole planted there to spy on their comings and goings. Behind that wall—squeezed between the day room on the left and the dorm on the right—was a small kitchen with a hot plate and a fridge, and an even smaller room with a washer, dryer, and ironing board.

  Becky stood looking at the scratched-up black phone a moment. Finally she picked up the receiver and punched zero, then the numbers on her scrap of paper. One ring . . . two . . .

  “Operator. How may I assist you?”

  “Wanna make a call. Uh—collect.”

  “State your name, please.”

  “Becky Wallace.” Andy’s mommy, she wanted to say. But didn’t.

  The line seemed to go dead. A long stretch of silence. Had she been cut off? Two men in service uniforms came clattering down the stairs, followed by a female guard, arguing about the double bunk that had just been delivered as they went out the door, leaving it standing open. Becky slammed it shut with a well-aimed kick, then she turned back to the phone as a tinny voice spoke in her ear. “I’m sorry. That number does not answer. Please try again later.”

  Becky swore, fighting the urge to rip the phone right out of the wall. Not home?Where were they? Didn’t they know how much she needed to talk to her baby? On Christmas, for—

  “Hey,Wallace!” A tall girl the color of light caramel came in the door. “You got a package.” She held out a brown box, neatly taped.

  Becky stared at it. “Ain’t no mail call today. It’s a holiday.”

  The girl shrugged. “Musta got lost in the mailroom. Somebody asked me to drop it off.” She grinned. “Maybe it’s food.”

  Not likely. “Thanks.” The tall girl was all right—kept her nose clean. Athletic. Maybe they could form a volley-ball team when the weather loosened up. But the girl was too nice. She’d have to make sure she covered the girl’s back if anybody ever messed with her.

  Becky took the package and headed for her bunk in the dorm room. A quick glance told her that five women were already sitting or lying on their bunks, ready to be done with Christmas Day. Kneeling beside her lockbox, she twirled the combination lock and dropped the pack-age inside. Later.

  THE LIGHTS-OUT ORDER had been given; the front and back doors to the cottage locked. Muffled snores slowly coursed through various parts of the room like belly rumbles after a meal of chili beans. Still Becky Wallace waited. Finally, she slid a hand under her pillow and drew out the package. She sat up, slowly, quietly, so as not to wake her bunkmate above.

  Light filtered in through the barred windows of the dorm room from the floodlights in the prison yard, and she peered at the sending company: Estée Lauder.What kinda business was that?

  The tough packing tape had been slit open for inspection and retaped with ordinary office tape, which easily gave way under her sharp thumbnail. A whiff of some-thing fruity—melon?—spilled out of the box as she lifted the lid. In the dim light, she felt inside the box.Nestled in a bed of shredded, crinkled paper lay long plastic tubes of various sizes . . . a small round jar . . . a spritzer with liquid inside. Carefully she lifted out one of the plastic tubes, unscrewed the lid, and squeezed. A delicious squirt of creamy silk fell cool and soft into her hand.

  Hand cream. Rich, velvety hand cream. Slowly she spread it over her hard, cracked knuckles and worked it into the chapped skin on the backs of her hands. Then she silently began to weep.

  1

  CHICAGO—NEW YEAR’S DAY 2003

  The call of nature—Willie Wonka’s, not mine—got me out of bed at the bleary hour of seven thirty, even though the New Year’s Eve party upstairs had kept me awake till after three. Three a.m.! But Willie Wonka’s bladder was on dog-time—old dog-time at that—making sleeping in on holidays a moot point. Stuffing my feet into my scuffs and pulling Denny’s big terry robe around me, I stumbled out of our bedroom, mumbling thinly disguised threats at our chocolate Lab as he led me to the back door.

  Coming into the kitchen, I caught a glimpse of pale blue sky and the rising sun bouncing off a row of windows at the top of a nearby apartment building like golden dragon eyes . . . and for a nanosecond I entertained the illusion of a blissful day in Key West. But when I opened the back door to let Willie Wonka out, a wall of icy air killed that pipe dream. I slammed the door after Willie’s tail and peered at the little red needle on the back porch thermometer.

  Brrr. Ten degrees.

  Then I smiled. Add the windchill factor, which was sure to kick up by noon, and surely the Uptown Community Church youth group would cancel the so-called Polar Bear Plunge they had scheduled for today.

  But by the time Denny and the kids wandered out of their bedrooms around eleven o’clock, the thermo-meter had inched up to almost twenty degrees, and every-one looked at me stupidly when I asked if they were going to cancel. “Mom,” said Josh patiently, pouring himself a heaping bowl of oat flakes and raisins, “it’s a Chicago tradition.” As if that explained anything.

  “Happy New Year, babe,” Denny murmured, wrap-ping his arms around me from behind—and the next thing I knew he had untied the belt, snatched his robe off me, and disappeared with it into the bathroom.

  “I was just warming it up for you!” I yelled after him, scurrying back into our bedroom in my pajamas. Time to get dressed anyway.

  “Mo-om!” whined Amanda, wandering into the kitchen ten minutes later while I was making another pot of coffee. “I really need a new bathing suit. This one is so . . . so babyish.”

  I turned and eyed my fifteen-year-old. Apart from the fact that it was absurd to be talking about bathing suits in the middle of a Chicago winter, there was nothing “babyish” about this busty teenager, who was indeed filling out her one-piece bathing suit in all the right—or wrong—places. I declined to comment. “Go get some clothes on before you catch cold,” I ordered. But I grinned at her back. I’d make some hot cocoa and take it along—that’d be a big hit after “the plunge.”

  The phone rang at 11:25. “Jodi!” said a familiar voice. “Are these niñitos still going to do this craziness?”

  I allowed myself a small grin as I cradled the phone on my shoulder and stirred the pot of hot chocolate. “I’m afraid so, Delores. And not just ‘bambinos,’ either. Denny’s got his bathing suit on under his sweats, in case he gets brave. Is José coming?” Like I couldn’t guess. Delores Enriquez’s fifteen-year-old son had been showing up rather frequently, trailing Amanda like Peter Pan’s shadow. Or was it the other way around?

  “Sí. Emerald, too, but just to watch. Edesa and I are coming up on the el with them. This I’ve got to see for myself.”

  Two more phone calls followed in quick succession from Yada Yada Prayer Group members. Florida Hickman wanted to know what elevated train stop was closest to the beach where the Polar Bear Plunge would take place; Ruth Garfield grumbled that only love for Yo-Yo Spencer and her brothers would get her and Ben out on New Year’s Day for such craziness. “But what can we do? A car they don’t have.We’ll be there at twelve. Then straight to the doctor so they don’t die of pneumonia. Oy vey.” A click told me the conversation was over, and all I’d said was, “Hello?”

  THE SMALL CROWD GATHERED at Loyola Beach along the bleak lakeshore of Chicago’s north side, wearing ski jackets, knit hats, and fat mittens, looked
oddly out of place tromping over the sand. Even more so because a mild December had delayed the usual buildup of ice and frozen spray sculptures that usually marked Lake Michigan’s winter shoreline. The lapping water looked deceptively harmless.

  “Going in, Jodi?”

  I squinted up into the face of Uptown’s lanky pas-tor, who could easily have played Ichabod Crane in community theater. Widowed and childless, Pastor Clark was Uptown Community—a mission church that stubbornly hung out its shingle in Rogers Park, Chicago’s most diverse neighborhood. Today he was bundled in an outdated navy parka with a snorkel hood, a long hand-knit scarf wound around his neck, hands shoved in his jacket pockets.

  “Me? Not for love or money!” I held up the armload of beach towels and blankets I was carrying. “I’m here on life support.”

  He chuckled and trudged on to greet others gathering to witness the Polar Bear Plunge. The crowd was growing, and I saw Leslie Stuart’s silver Celica pull into the beach parking lot. “Stu” had been attending Uptown Community for several months, ever since we’d met at the Chicago Women’s Conference last May, even though she lived in Oak Park, on the west side of the city.

  “Hey, Jodi. You going to take the plunge?” Stu’s long blonde hair and multiple earrings were hidden by a felt cap with earflaps. She was grinning, flap to flap.

  “Don’t think so. Calendar says January.”

  “Ah, c’mon. You know what Oliver Wendell Holmes said: ‘You don’t quit playing because you get old; you get old because you quit playing.’ Hey—there’s Delores and Edesa!” She waved both arms in their direction.

  I bit my tongue. Stu was probably in her midthirties—not that much younger than I was. But she didn’t have to make me feel like an “old fogy” just because I was smart enough not to jump in the lake.

  “Ack! I left something in the car.” Stu ran for the parking lot, passing Delores Enriquez and Edesa Reyes as they headed my way, bundled against the stiff wind adding whitecaps to the choppy gray water. I dumped my load of blankets and towels so I could give them each a hug.

  Delores and Edesa were members of a Spanish-speaking Pentecostal church and had attended the same conference that had brought women together from various churches around the city. None of us imagined that the prayer group we’d been assigned to for the weekend would take on a life of its own. But when Delores got an emergency phone call that weekend saying her son José had been caught in gang crossfire in a local park—well, no way we could stop praying after that, just because the conference was over.