Page 30 of A Lifetime in 30 Days
They’d just marched around for the offering, and in a few minutes would be singing the sermonic selection, but Jamaica had to finish telling them about her night with Davon.
Vanna smacked Ronni’s arm. “Girl, you too loud,” she whispered.
“Yes, you are,” Linda, who thought she was the best singer on the choir, said and rolled her eyes.
Jamaica, sitting on Vanna’s left side, leaned forward to give Linda, who was on the other side of Ronni, a stank look. With her lips twisted and another roll of her eyes, Linda set her gaze forward.
“Yeah, that’s what you betta do,” Jamaica whispered.
Vanna sighed and wished she were anywhere besides trapped between them as they faced the entire church.
“Anyway,” Jamaica started, but Vanna shook her head.
“No, let’s not finish that story,” she said.
“Fine,” Jamaica said. “Y’all know how me and Davon get down, anyway. Let’s talk about you and Aden. ’Cause I know you gave him some last night.”
“You don’t know anything,” Vanna argued, but her thighs were pleasantly sore, and if she hadn’t worn the high-neck sleeveless white blouse with her black skirt today, everyone would’ve easily seen the passion marks he’d left on her chest. There were more on her breasts and thighs, but they wouldn’t be seeing those either.
“I know you were smiling when you came in this morning, and you’ve been checking your messages and smiling at that phone every second we haven’t been singing,” Jamaica said.
Ronni leaned over and said, “Yup, she sure has.” She gave Jamaica a low five, since not only were they not supposed to be talking about sex while sitting with the choir in Sunday worship service, they certainly weren’t supposed to be having such a good time doing so.
“Y’all act like we’re in high school,” Vanna said with a shake of her head.
“Nah, we’re much better at it now than we were in high school,” Ronni said.
Jamaica chuckled. “You certainly are, with the baby factory you’ve got at your house.”
Vanna was grateful when the choir director had them stand and they began singing. She let herself fall into the lyrics of the song, tolet those lyrics minister to her in a way that only good gospel could. Tomorrow would be here soon enough, and no matter how good last night—and three times this morning before Aden had finally, reluctantly, left her house—was, she couldn’t shake the trepidation.
Was the lawyer going to tell her there was no chance and she was definitely going to prison for something she didn’t do? Or was there a way out of this mess? A mess she still wasn’t clear on how she’d become involved in. But, honestly, she’d much rather Jamaica and Ronni continue their banter about her sex life and their sex lives, instead of either of them worrying about her and this new situation. She would handle whatever it turned out to be, the same way she handled everything else—with strength and faith.
Chapter 10
August 12
Vanna kept her hands tightly folded as she sat in the guest chair across from Jovani’s black lacquer desk. As an annoying coincidence to already feeling like she was going to be in the hot seat, the weather was suffocatingly humid on this bright and sunny Monday morning. Thankfully, the air conditioner in Jovani’s office suite was fully operational. Otherwise, she might’ve been a puddle of sweat. As it was, anxiety had her heart thumping, and she was about to rub the skin right off her own hands.
“Your husband—”
“Ex-husband.” She quickly corrected Jovani as he began to speak.
After he’d let her into his office since it was too early for any of his staff to be in, he’d ushered her to this seat, and they’d exchanged the initial pleasantries. Jamaica hadn’t lied: he was fine, with a honey complexion just a shade darker than hers, a full and healthy black beard, and close-cut hair. He wore navy-blue dress pants, a baby-blue dress shirt, and a white tie with faint navy-blue stripes. The jacket that completed the expertly tailored business suit was neatly draped over the back of his chair.
Jovani looked up from the files he had spread open on his otherwise sparsely decorated desk with one brow raised. “I didn’t see a divorce decree in my file. Naomi is usually very thorough in her background research, but we were operating within a short time span.”
Vanna shook her head. “We weren’t officially divorced, just separated for five years.”
“Okay,” he said, and reached into a black mug with the wordHisin a thin font across the front to pull out a pen.
She gnawed at the inside of her lip as he scribbled that information onto the bright-white legal pad.
“At the time of his death, Caleb had been working at the Lennox Casino,” he said. “Did you know that?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“How did you know? Were the two of you still close even though you were separated?”
