Flaw Less

Book 0: Flaws

by Shana Burton

Genres: African American; African American Christian

Synopsis

For friends Lawson Kerry Banks, Sullivan Webb, Reginell Kerry, Kina Battle, and Angel King, life never offers a dull moment. Sisterly love morphs into an intense sibling rivalry between Lawson and her younger sister, Reginell. Reginell has always admired and looked up to her older sister, but she is met with disapproval because of her job as an exotic dancer. First Lady Sullivan Webb has struggled to get her life and her marriage back on track after her extramarital affair is exposed on the Internet. Sullivan believes that the solution to her marital problems may lie in giving Charles the one thing he doesn't have. Everything backfires when Sullivan takes matters out of the Lord's hands and into her own. Kina Battle thought her troubles were over once her abusive husband was dead and buried. What she didn't anticipate was a crushing bout of loneliness that her new job, her church, or her devotion to her son, Kenny, can't cure. She soon finds herself drawn to the last person she ever thought she'd be attracted to. Angel King has met the man of her dreams. Unfortunately, it's a little too late, because she is already engaged to someone else. The ladies have all overcome their share of obstacles, but nothing like the challenges they're currently facing. Friendship, love, and laughs won't be enough this time. Only God can save them now.

Release date: September 18, 2012

Publisher: Urban Christian

Print pages: 337

Sample

Lawson Kerry Banks looked around at the four women sprawled across her living-room floor. The idea of starting a new women’s outreach ministry had brought them together that cool afternoon in February, but as they pondered the new group’s mission and purpose, one question loomed over all five of them. Lawson was the only one bold enough to ask it. She took a deep breath and wondered aloud, “How did we get here?”

The question was met with immediate tension and an uncomfortable silence as the women squirmed nervously where they were sitting. Lawson’s best friend, the beautiful and sophisticated first lady of Mount Zion Ministries, Sullivan Webb, simply shrugged her shoulders and passed her hand over the growing belly bump peeking out from underneath her tunic. She had no answer. After all, Sullivan was four months pregnant and didn’t know if she was carrying the only begotten child of her esteemed husband, Pastor Charles Webb, or the lovechild of her twenty-five-year-old lover, Vaughn Lovett. If she couldn’t even vouch for her child’s paternity, how could she account for anything else?

Angel King drew her knees close to her chest and fiddled with her engagement ring. The group’s dedicated and kind-hearted nurse didn’t have a response either, although she would’ve loved if someone could explain to her how her pending remarriage to ex-husband Du’Corey King led her to the brink of an Internet affair and a pornography addiction.

Kina Battle tossed her head back and stared at the ceiling. She fared no better than the other ladies. After losing her abusive husband to a bullet fired by her twelve-year-old son and ending a relationship with her lesbian lover, “How did we get here?” was a question Kina simply couldn’t answer.

Lawson’s younger sister, Reginell Kerry, or “Juicy” as she was known on stage, found it best to stop seeking answers. Working as an exotic dancer had stripped the twenty-three-year-old of not only her clothes, but also her self-worth, faith in God, and the man she loved. At this point, the “how” and “why” of it all didn’t matter much anymore. After leaving a music video shoot gone wrong, Reginell decided that making sure other young women didn’t fall prey to the lure of the sex industry was more important than trying to figure out why she did.

Not even newlywed Lawson, who posed the question and who usually had all the answers, could properly address the question. She was certainly in no position to advise anyone. She was still reeling from her groom’s confession of an extramarital affair less than a year after they’d exchanged vows. She didn’t really know how she’d ended up there. Understanding how her husband ended up in another woman’s bed was hard enough.

Such were the lives of lifelong friends and Mount Zion Ministries members Lawson, Sullivan, Angel, Kina, and Reginell. Their bond of friendship had expanded over a number of years, transcended socioeconomic status, and forever linked them together in sisterhood.

“Well,” continued Lawson, “somebody say something!”

After thinking over Lawson’s question, Reginell cleared her throat and revealed her answer in a small voice. “No man has ever told me I was beautiful before. I think that’s how I got here.”

All eyes darted toward Reginell. “Are you kidding me?” asked Lawson. “You’ve got men spending their rent and child support money for a few minutes with you. Of course, men think you’re beautiful!”

Reginell looked down at the floor. “Yeah, I get told that I’m sexy or fine, but I want to know what it feels like to be beautiful, you know? I don’t want it to have anything to do with sex or my body. I want someone to look inside and see the real me and match the beauty of what they see on the inside with what they see on the outside. I just want a man to think, despite everything I’ve done, that I can still be beautiful.”

Sullivan touched her hand. “You are beautiful, Reggie, whether some guy tells you that or not. You are beautiful, and you are worthy. That’s why I give you such a hard time about stripping and some of the questionable men you’ve dated. I want you to know you’re worth so much more than that.”

“That’s easy for you to say, Sullivan,” Kina told her. “You’ve always been beautiful, you’ve always had the best of everything, and men have always been naturally drawn to you. Ever since we were kids, you could get any guy you wanted. It’s not that easy for the rest of us.”

Sullivan huffed. “You think just because I’m pretty or because I’ve always had a boyfriend that I don’t know what it’s like to want to be loved? I’ve craved real authentic love my whole life, but I was never shown how to give or receive it. I was only taught how to use and manipulate people. My mother convinced me that my worth was tied into designer labels, who I was sleeping with, and how much money he had. You talk about when we were kids, and I can’t even remember what it felt like to be a child. My innocence was taken before I even knew how to value it. I’ve told you all a lot of what I’ve been through, but if I told you all of it, it would blow your mind. Frankly, I’d probably go somewhere and blow out my brains if God allowed me to remember all that mess.” Sullivan let out a sigh. “Do you want to know how I got here? By having a selfish, sadistic mother who taught me how to search for love in all the wrong places and the right wallets.”

Angel shook her head. “You know you can’t blame Vera for everything, Sullivan.” She pointed at Sullivan’s stomach. “You got into that jam all on your own.”

“I’m not blaming Vera for this whole Charles-Vaughn-Baby Daddy disaster, but I do think I’m the way I am because of the way she is. Do you know what scares me more than anything?”

“What?” asked Reginell.

“Every day when I look in the mirror, I see my mother looking back at me, taunting me, telling me that I’m just like her. She’s in my blood.”

“The blood of Jesus is stronger than Vera’s,” Angel assured her.

Sullivan lowered her eyes. “I know, and I remind myself of that when I start hearing those voices. But whenever I do something stupid or have a wrong thought, I feel like I’m becoming her.”

Lawson looked around at all of them. “You know what breaks my heart? I look around this room and all of us, with the exception of Angel, have some deep-rooted issues with our parents. I think that’s why we have so many issues with the men in our lives.”

Angel stopped her. “Even though both of my parents were great, my relationships have been just as screwed up as everyone else’s, so I don’t know how big of a role mothers and fathers play in it.”

“In my case, not having my father played a huge role,” admitted Lawson. “Reggie’s and my dad was hardly ever around, and I hated him for that. I resented him for all the times he never walked me to school or tucked me in at night. Lord only knows where he was when it was time to take me on my first date.

“I think that’s why I am the way I am sometimes. I know I’m too hard on people, and I expect too much. I try way too hard to be perfect. It’s all because I want to be far removed from being lazy, undisciplined, and irresponsible as I can. I’m trying to be everything my father wasn’t, and I don’t want anyone around me who has those same qualities that remind me of him. As a result, I end up driving people away, especially the ones I love. I guess you can say that’s how I ended up here.”

Reginell squeezed her sister’s hand, understanding.

“Looking back on my life, I’ve always been a victim,” admitted Kina. “I think that’s how I ended up here. In my house growing up, you didn’t talk too loud or make too much noise because you didn’t want to set Daddy off. He was such a cold man. He provided for us, sure enough, but nothing beyond the basics. In fact, he would tell us, ‘I’m doing what the law requires.’ He was cruel to my mom too. He’d hit her; he’d hit us. My brother Kenneth couldn’t take it anymore. I think that’s why we ended up losing him to the streets. The worst part of it all is that I married someone just like my father and continued that same cycle of abuse.

“When E’Bell died, I finally felt free and in control of my life for the first time. As a result, I made a lot of mistakes and hurt people in the process.” She glanced over at Sullivan. “I went from being the victim to victimizing other people. I don’t want to be that person anymore.”

“You’re not,” Reginell assured her.

Lawson turned to Angel. “What about you? How’d you end up here?”

Angel exhaled. “I think I ended up here because I’ve spent my whole life trying to be what everyone else wanted me to be. I don’t even think I know who the real Angel King is. My parents were great, but they set an impossible standard for me to live up to. I was expected to always get good grades and get into the right schools and be this perfect daughter. I think I carried that mentality over into my relationships. Even with Duke, I bite my tongue when I don’t want to, I put up with a lot of things I probably shouldn’t—anything to maintain this image I’ve worked my whole life to create. But now, the cracks are starting to show, and it feels like my life is falling apart.”

The ladies huddled around Angel, holding her and holding each other. With their marriages, relationships, and families all hanging in the balance, they were all bonded by the knowledge that God and each other were all they had left.

Four months earlier ...

“Don’t nobody know but the one who’s in it,” thirty-one-year-old Lawson solemnly declared upon hearing that one of Mount Zion Ministries’ seemingly most stable couples was headed for divorce. “Freddie and Jasmine always seemed like the perfect couple. Then again, we all thought E’Bell and Kina were happy too, but we didn’t know the hell she was going through in her own home.” Lawson shook her head and shuddered, recalling the years of physical and emotional abuse her cousin and best friend, Kina Battle, endured during the ten-year marriage to her late husband, E’Bell.

Angel agreed. “When I think of what she went through at the hands of the man who was supposed to love her, it breaks my heart. Just knowing the toll it took on Kina’s self-esteem and the effect shooting his dad has had on Kenny is enough to make even the most devout Christian speak ill of the dead. Thank God between our prayers and counseling, they seem to be coping.”

Reginell began scraping blackend flakes off a burnt-to-a-crisp chicken leg, which was a product of her first attempt at cooking for her sister, Lawson, and their three closest friends. “It just goes to show that you never know what’s going on behind closed doors. Remember when the whole church thought Sullivan and Pastor Webb were Savannah’s answer to Ruth and Boaz?” She raised her eyes toward Sullivan. “Nothing like a little Internet sex tape to shatter that illusion, ain’t that right, Sully?”

Mount Zion Ministries’ first lady Sullivan Webb smiled and flung her newly purchased weave over her shoulder with one French-manicured hand to show that Reginell’s snide comments about the year-old scandal no longer fazed her. “While my slight indiscretion was a dark cloud over my husband’s ministry and my marriage, I can’t think of anything as bad as this disaster that you’re trying to pass off as dinner. Honestly, I don’t know what’s worse—the storm brewing outside or your cooking!”

Angel glanced out of Reginell’s dining-room window at the ominous clouds gathering across the dense November sky. “It’s supposed to get pretty bad out there.” She turned and frowned at the foamy lump heaped onto the plate. “But Mother Nature has her work cut out for her if she wants to beat these mashed potatoes. At least, I think these are mashed potatoes.”

Reginell sprang from her seat and snatched up the bowl of remaining potatoes in a huff, causing her braids to swing wildly across her shoulders as she turned away. “This is the last time I try to do anything nice for you heifers!” she spat.

Sullivan raised an eyebrow. “This is your idea of doing something nice for us?”

“Hey, lay off my baby sister! She’s doing her best,” cried Lawson, coming to Reginell’s defense as usual. “Besides, we haven’t even gotten to the dessert. Reggie, I just peeked in the oven and saw that beautiful chocolate pie you have cooling off in there. I can’t wait to dig into it!”

Reginell looked confused. “Chocolate pie? I don’t know how to make no chocolate pie. The only pie I made was a sweet potato pie.”

Lawson winced and eased away from her sister. “You might wanna go check on it, boo. It’s looking more like burnt potato pie at the moment.”

Reginell cussed and dashed into the kitchen.

It was a typical Sunday afternoon for lifelong friends Sullivan, Lawson, Angel, and Reginell, who gathered together as often as possible to share the latest gossip, obsess over their most recent man crisis, and thank the Lord for His presence and each other.

Sullivan laughed and raked her fork across the plate. “You’d think with all the money she makes sliding up and down the pole at the club that she would’ve had the meal catered and spared us this catastrophe. I’m actually embarrassed for her.”

“Reggie is trying to show us how mature and domestic she’s gotten, Sully,” Lawson reminded her.

Sullivan threw down her fork. “Either Reggie wants to be Martha Stewart or Amber Rose. She’s got to make a choice.”

Lawson inspected her plate, hoping to find something that looked edible. “She says dancing down at that strip club is just temporary. She’s still hoping that it’ll lead to her meeting some music mogul who’ll sign her to a record deal.”

“That’s the same thing she said a year ago when we found out she was working there,” piped in Angel.

“I know,” admitted Lawson. “But she’s almost twenty-three years old. She’s a grown woman. Reggie is going to do exactly what Reggie wants to do.”

Sullivan stabbed a foreign congealed substance on her plate. “Judging by this dinner, what she wants to do right now is poison us!”

“Not everybody, Sullivan,” snarled Reginell, barging into the room. “Just you.”

“Oh, no!” barked Angel. “We are not about to start this again. I swear you two are worse than the girls with all this back-and-forth bickering.”

“How are those precious little angels?” asked Lawson in reference to Angel’s soon-to-be stepchildren, offsprings from her ex-husband’s marriage to his deceased wife.

Angel rolled her eyes. “They may be ‘precious’ and ‘little,’ but the jury is still out on the ‘angels’ part.”

Lawson looked up from her plate. “What’s happened?”

“Same ol’, same ol’. Miley and Morgan miss their mom. They’re still adjusting to the idea of Duke and me getting married and having a new stepmother, which is why . . .” Angel’s voice trailed off.

“Which is why what?” prodded Sullivan.

Angel lowered her voice, already anticipating her friends’ disapproval. “Duke asked me to move in with them, and I said yes.”

Lawson frowned and shook her head. “Shacking up—really, Angel?”

“It makes the most sense,” she rationalized. “Duke needs help with the girls, and I’m over there all the time. I’m practically living there anyway. It’s just more convenient this way.”

Lawson raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, but you know what the Word says about it: ‘Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.’”

Sullivan sucked her teeth. “Don’t be a hypocrite, Lawson. You and Garrett lived together for five years before you got married.”

“Yeah, but once we got saved, I kicked his butt out,” pointed out Lawson.

“The wedding is in a few months. I don’t see the harm in getting started on our family life a little early,” Angel reasoned.

“I’m sure you don’t. Unfortunately, God does,” replied Lawson. “Besides, Angel, you and Duke haven’t even been back together that long.”

Sullivan leaned in closer to Angel. “Wouldn’t you feel weird living there with all of Theresa’s stuff still all over the place? It’s like she’s still living there.”

Angel pretended not to be bothered by it. “Duke just keeps it for the kids’ sake. He doesn’t want them to feel like they have to forget their mother, and neither do I. As for me moving in, it’s not like we aren’t planning to get married or like we’re not already—”

“Sleeping together?” filled in Sullivan.

Angel let out a sigh. “We were married for three years before getting a divorce so—”

“There’s no harm in being his wife between the sheets, right?” finished Lawson.

Angel rolled her eyes and forced Reginell’s oversea-soned green beans down her palate. “Considering all of the commandments broken between everybody at this table, I don’t think anyone here is in a position to pass judgment.”

“Amen to that,” muttered Sullivan.

“Are you sure you and Duke aren’t rushing things?” Lawson posed. “I mean, within six months after Theresa’s death, you and Duke were already boo’ed up again. Three or four months after that, you were engaged. Now, you’re moving in. His wife hasn’t even been dead a whole year. It just seems like things are moving kind of fast.”

“Lawson, I’ve been waiting to be Duke’s wife again since our divorce was finalized ten years ago, and you know I’ve always wanted to be a mother. None of this feels rushed to me. If anything, I’ve had my life on hold too long. Now, I’m ready to live it.” Angel wiped her hands on a napkin. “Enough about that. It’s time for a new subject. How is Operation Baby coming, Sully?”

Sullivan’s mood spiraled downward. “It’s coming along, I guess.”

Lawson raised her eyes. “Well, you and Charles, um, making an effort, right? You know you have to do more than just wish for a baby. It requires a bit of work.”

“I’m making an effort, but getting Charles to the bedroom has been like pulling teeth these days. I’ve had to all but strap him to the bed and make him take it!”

Angel snickered. “That’s a far cry from last year when you were sending him to bed alone with a bottle of lotion and a deflated ego.”

Sullivan sighed. “Yeah, I know, but I’m already thirty-one and at forty-eight, Charles is no spring chicken! At this rate, we’ll be older than Abraham and Sarah before we have a baby. That’s why I may need to take matters out of Charles’s hands—literally—and into my own.”

“Uh-oh,” groaned Lawson. “It never ends well when you decide to do that. Why can’t you wait on the Lord sometimes, Sully? I believe He’s been at this life thing a lot longer than you have.”

The doorbell rang. Reginell answered and let Kina in. “You’re soaking wet! Can you shake yourself off before coming in? I don’t want you messing up this carpet, costing me my deposit.”

“Relax, Reggie. No harm done.” Kina let down her umbrella and breezed into the dining area. “So what have I missed?”

“It’s about time you got here!” Sullivan huffed. “You know we don’t like to be kept waiting.”

“Says the Princess of CP Time,” grunted Angel.

Sullivan sucked her teeth. “Just because I’m usually late doesn’t mean I tolerate it in others.”

Kina joined them at the table. “The interview ran longer than I thought it would,” explained Kina. “On top of that, traffic was slow because of all the rain.”

“Well, how did it go?” pressed Angel King, passing Kina a plate. “Did you get the job? Are you going to be the pastor’s new administrative assistant or what?”

Kina placed a napkin in her lap. “He said he was going to call me in tomorrow to give me his decision.” Angel nodded. Kina reached over and touched Angel’s hand. “And I hope you know my quitting isn’t about you, Angel. I’m very happy working for you, but now that I’m a single parent, you know I need the money.”

“No, you deserve this, girl. There’s no way I could pay you what the church is offering.”

“Sullivan, you could help the girl out with a little pillow talk with your husband tonight,” playfully suggested Reginell. “You know you don’t do anything else in bed to get the man excited.”

Angel laughed. “You know, Pastor Charles is the only one I’m willing to lose you to! I’m going to miss having you around. You’re the best assistant I’ve ever had at Guardian Angel.”

“You’ll find someone in no time,” Kina assured her. “And you know it’s nothing personal. Working at the church just fits into my schedule better now that I’m in school full time. Maybe you should think about hiring Reggie to fill my spot.”

Reginell cleared her throat and sat down. “Reginell has a job.”

“Don’t get me started on the kind of job it is,” fired Sullivan.

Reginell rolled her eyes. “I know that you all can’t see how this is helping my career, but it is. You’ll never guess who I met last night. Tron and all of the other guys from that group Intermission. I was this close to signing with Down South Records.”

“So what stopped you?” posed Lawson.

Reginell shook her head. “It just wasn’t the right deal for me, that’s all. But I know I can sing. One day very soon, there’s going to be a record deal on the table with my name on it, you’ll see,” she vowed.

“But in the meantime, I assume you’ll still be entertaining perverts down there at Paramours,” surmised Sullivan.

Reginell stiffened at the snarky remark. “Honestly, I don’t know why you all still act like stripping is the worst thing in the world! Personally, I see nothing wrong with celebrating the human body.”

“Celebrating the body is one thing. Selling the body is another matter altogether,” replied Lawson. Reginell flashed a cold glare in her sister’s direction.

Kina tried to break the tension. “So what’s for dinner?” she asked, looking around at the still-full plates.

“Don’t worry, there’s plenty left over.” Sullivan slid her plate across the table. “You can have mine.”

Kina’s eyes widened. “Wow, this looks . . .” She gulped and scrambled for something kind to say. “It looks like you put a lot of time and effort into this dinner, Reggie.” She passed the plate back to Sullivan. “But I ate a banana on the way over so I’m good.” She patted her stomach. “I’m still on my diet, you know. I got to watch what I eat if I want to be able to fit into all these size sixteens I just bought.”

“Down to a sixteen from size twenty, huh?” Angel smiled. “Congratulations!”

“Well, a lot of the credit goes to you and all those salads you make me order whenever we go to lunch.”

“I’m a nurse, Kina. What else would you expect?”

Lawson poured a glass of tea. “How are your counseling sessions coming, Kina?”

“Everything is fine,” she answered quickly and turned her attention to Reginell. “You must’ve spent all day in the kitchen whipping this up for everyone, Reggie. That was very sweet of you to do.”

Reginell began clearing dishes off of the table. “Thanks. You want me to wrap up a plate for Kenny, Kina?”

“God, no!” shrieked Sullivan. “He’s only twelve. His stomach can’t digest that!”

“Forget you, Sully,” grumbled Reginell and plunked down in her seat with a pout.

Angel chuckled at the two of them. “Is everything still going well for you with school, Kina?”

Kina nodded. “It’s great. The professors are so kind and helpful. Everybody is really sweet. They all go out of their way to make you feel at home.”

Lawson stood up to close the blinds to block out the lightning. “I’m glad you’re enjoying it. I know you were a little apprehensive about returning to school to earn your degree after being out of the loop for so long.”

“Yeah, well, E’Bell’s gone now, and Kenny spends most of his time at school with his friends, or at Lawson’s with Garrett and Namon. I needed something to keep me busy. I’m just thankful that Sullivan convinced Charles to give me a shot at this new job.”

Sullivan declined taking the credit for it. “It didn’t . . .