The Things We Do for Love
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Synopsis
Ten years ago, Jesse Law was a twenty-year-old with the world at his feet. After surviving a painful, often lonely childhood as the youngest child in a music dynasty, he forged a high-profile career, blazing a path on the charts later followed by the likes of Usher and Justin Timberlake. Those heady times are far in the past now, and Jesse's life is far richer thanks to his emerging values, the love of his wife, Dionne, and a lower-key but fulfilling career as lead singer of the gospel group. As far as he has come, though, Jesse's days are burdened by a shameful reality.
Release date: March 11, 2008
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Print pages: 306
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The Things We Do for Love
Xavier Knight
Raves for the Novels of
XAVIER KNIGHT/C. KELLY ROBINSON
The Strong Silent Type
“Compelling.”
—Booklist
“Remarkable . . . Four-and-a-half out of five stars . . . I absolutely loved the characters and the . . . mystery and suspense.”
—RAWSISTAZ Book Club
The Perfect Blend
“Fast-moving, true-to-life, and most entertaining . . . Robinson is a wonderfully talented writer who captured my attention on page one and kept it until the very end.”
—Kimberla Lawson Roby, New York Times bestselling author of Too Much of a Good Thing
“A winner! Terrific and entertaining, with a rhythm that draws you in . . . Robinson is truly one of the most gifted new writers in the industry today.”
—Victoria Christopher Murray, bestselling author of A Sin and a Shame
“A perfect blend of humor, drama, and emotion.”
—Gloria Mallette, bestselling author of Shades of Jade
and The Honey Well
“One read you will not want to miss . . . What a story! . . . Robinson flaunts his literary skills and spins a tale of love and family that is emotionally riveting and highly entertaining.”
—Tracy Price-Thompson, bestselling author of Chocolate Sangria and Black Coffee
No More Mr. Nice Guy
“Robinson handles his subject matter with plenty of attitude. As in his debut, brisk plotting, snappy vernacular, and resilient characters keep things entertaining . . . this spunky title will please fans of E. Lynn Harris and Omar Tyree.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Highly recommended.”
—Book-Remarks.com
Between Brothers
“Not since Spike Lee’s School Daze and the much-loved sitcom A Different World has the black experience on campus been this intriguing and, at times, funny . . . Between Brothers is a spirited tale.”
—Essence
“Robinson shows a willingness to take on complex social issues, and his storytelling skills could give Omar Tyree a run for the money.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Good, resourceful characters fight back in a vivid narrative . . . a refreshing variety of characters in a low-key redemptive tale.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Robinson has skillfully painted three-dimensional characters that reflect our rich, often misunderstood diversity. Rarely have I read such real, true-to-life portrayals of middle-class black men.”
—William July, author of Brothers, Lust and Love, and Understanding the Tin Man
“An exceptionally well-written and consummate novel of character studies . . . an engaging, compelling story set in the very real and contemporary world of the black community.”
—Midwest Book Review
Acknowledgments
An odd sensation hums inside as I write the acknowledgments page for my sixth published novel. Am I thanking everyone as “Xavier” or as “C. Kelly”? I guess at the end of the day, I am simply God’s creation, brought into the world through Chester and Sherry. So as I try to follow the KISS rule, here goes.
I give thanks to Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, for giving me the opportunity to now write books that openly portray characters struggling to reconcile their human frailties with their faith. My career in publishing has often reminded me to lean on my faith in you, but there is no greater privilege than to use my God-given gift for your glory.
Kyra, my partner through so many growing pains, a wonderful mother to Miss K, for constant support and love from day one. Kennedi, you are a walking, giggling, and beautiful answer to prayer, and Daddy now knows that no book can compare to the joys you bring! Alexis, for paving the way to parenthood for “Uncle C and Auntie Ky”—we are so proud to see you growing into such a talented little lady! To Mom, Dad, Russ, Barrett, and Shelli, what can I say that I haven’t said in past publications? I love y’all! Russ, thank you for sharing a journey that opened my eyes and helped inspire this story. My thanks for years of love and support, as always, go out to all members of the Robinson, Alford, and Grimes families.
Pastors Daryl and Vanessa Ward of the Omega Baptist Church, thank you for providing spiritual nourishment to our entire church family, even during a crisis that may have stopped other pastors in their tracks. Many thanks as well to the hundreds of Omega members and personal friends across the country who continue to support my work.
My career has continued in large part thanks to the ongoing support of book clubs, journalists, readers, and publishers. You know who you are, and you are not forgotten. To the dozens of authors who helped welcome me into the industry, you are always in my thoughts and prayers. Some of you are still riding the bestseller lists with what looks like ease (I know, it’s never as simple as it appears), while others like me have faced temporary or even permanent “sabbaticals.” May we never forget that as long as we write our best work and pursue our dream, we win regardless of what the “in crowd” or chattering classes say.
My specific thanks to those in the industry who specifically helped get this book into your hands. Elaine Koster, for loyal service and insightful advice. Karen Thomas, for believing in my talent. Latoya Smith and the Grand Central Publishing team, for having a little patience when the pace of life keeps me from answering your questions and reminders as quickly as I should. Victoria Christopher Murray, your enthusiastic validation of this book, when it was in proposal form, was clear proof that I was on the right track. Kimberla Lawson Roby and Jacquelin Thomas, thank you both for recent exchanges that helped me realize that I was “gone but not forgotten” during my vacation from the literary scene.
Finally, if you have purchased this book, thank you for spending precious dollars on the fruits of my labor. May you be entertained, enlightened, and most importantly, blessed!
Prologue
In the days after the truth about their son was revealed—the type of truth that takes lives and destroys marriages—Dionne and Jesse Law had plenty of time to dwell on memories. Happy, humorous, heartwarming memories, the ones that keep you moving forward when your heart asks if it could just stop beating and be done with it all, please. Though neither spoke a word to the other in those darkest, bleakest hours, they each drew on one shared moment in time.
Jesse Law and Dionne Favors met three times before either had a romantic thought about the other. Their second run-in occurred in the community bathroom of Truth Hall, one of the freshman women’s dorms on the campus of Dionne’s alma mater, Howard University. It was eight minutes after five on a dark fall Thursday morning. For her part, Dionne, who had been awake all of three minutes when she stepped into the shower room, wore a loose, rumpled housecoat painted with images of clouds and sunlight, a favorite she’d received from her father on her fifteenth birthday.
Jesse, on the other hand, was buck naked.
“Ohmigod! E-excuse me!” Stumbling backward, preparing to run from the shower room, Dionne squeezed her eyes tight and clawed desperately for the nearest towel rack. She knew it had been right there, just to her left when she first stepped onto the shower area’s greasy tile floor. She hoped it hadn’t gone anywhere.
“Whoa, sis!” The naked man’s shout told Dionne she’d missed the mark, a hint confirmed by the sudden sensation of flight as the grip of her flip-flops gave way and her feet went out from under her. Her eyes still shut—she wasn’t prepared for another flash of the brother’s forbidden if admirable birthday suit—Dionne instinctively held her hands out, hoping to slow her fall.
“I got you.” The mystery pervert’s voice had a hoarse, scratchy sound, and it was literally in her ear now. It helped, though, that his tone was so calm and soothing. Realizing she had never smashed into the tile, Dionne slowly released the pressure she’d exerted on her right eyelid. Once she had a limited view of her “savior’s” face—his eyes and nose were plenty—she stopped, keeping the other eye slammed shut.
When he had her fully right side up, the brother took a step back, his eyes full of laughter as he peered at Dionne through the humid, steamy air engulfing them. “You’re okay, right?”
“Um, yes, yes, um, yes.” Dionne scolded herself as she nodded her head like an obedient child, one eye still closed and her arms folded as if she were the one showing off her goods right now. She just wanted this . . . thug . . . to get to stepping and get off the dorm’s premises. As a senior resident assistant who had never once entertained a male in her room, Dionne took great pride enforcing the dorm’s rules about fraternization. All men had to be off the premises by midnight, and in recent years security cameras had been placed throughout the halls to ensure that violators and their hostesses were captured and appropriately penalized.
For most of the administration, the curfew was simply a quaint device to encourage respect between the freshman males and females, but Dionne liked to think that anything she did to dampen her peers’ sex lives was to their spiritual benefit. Many of these girls who currently had little use for God would someday fall to their knees, say the gospel prayer, and walk the aisle of a church. If she could minimize their fornication, at least they’d have a little less sin weighing them down on that special day.
All the more reason why she had every reason to be disgusted and indignant with this show-off who’d accosted her, treating himself to a shower in the girls’ bathroom just because he could. Dionne knew the type; not only had he probably spent the night banging headboards with some misguided coed, he was happy to further flaunt his “creeping” abilities by rinsing himself off in plain sight of everyone, including women like her who respected themselves.
Dionne decided she had no business cowering like some wallflower in front of this brother. He was in the wrong, not her, and it was time to act like it. “Do you have a towel?” she asked suddenly, snapping the words purposefully.
“Aww,” the trifling brother replied, his tone taking on a rebellious edge. “I’m not harming your virgin eyes, am I?”
His perceptive language caught Dionne off guard and she inhaled sharply, unable to breathe until she heard him turn and grab something off the very rack she’d swung for and missed. “I’m decent now, beautiful,” he said, pointing to the beach towel wrapped snugly around his hips.
“You have no business being in this facility at this hour, least of all in the bathroom,” Dionne said, an index finger aimed toward the man’s Adam’s apple. She had both eyes open now, and kept her tone steady and firm while fixing her gaze—for the most part—to his light brown eyes, high cheekbones, and thick, tapered eyebrows. “Whose room are you staying in?”
“Hey, baby,” the brother said, fanning the air with his hands. “Be cool, okay? You don’t need to worry about that. Look, I’m not even a student at Howard, all right? I wasn’t hip to this curfew business in the first place.”
“You’re not a student?” Dionne nearly took a step back in self-defense. There had been rapes in the dorms before, primarily by men from outside the HU community, vagrants who had broken, entered, and done unspeakable things. Dionne had gotten up early this morning to meet an evangelism team over in Southeast DC; she had no intention of becoming a statistic today.
Reading the anxiety on the sister’s face, Jesse had raised his hands over his head. “It’s not that kind of party,” he said, his voice lowered further. “Seriously, all you need to do is let me roll out of here ASAP. My tour bus hits the road in an hour. I miss it, my manager will kill me.”
Dionne first cracked a smile, both relieved by the brother’s assurances of innocence and amused by his claim of having a “tour bus,” but then the stranger’s familiar features finally hit her. “You’re kidding,” she said, her arms crossed and her insides frosting over again. “Are you Jesse Law?”
He grudgingly assured her he was, and Dionne found herself reliving the previous week, when every “worldly” girl she’d known chattered on about the young hottie the Homecoming Committee secured for the week’s biggest concert. At the time, Jesse Law was an undeniable star—as he and Dionne faced off in the shower, two of his recent singles were perched on Billboard’s R&B Top 10—but he wasn’t exactly keeping Usher up at night. His albums reliably went platinum, his videos got play on both BET and MTV, but odds were that wouldn’t be true five years from now. Whether Jesse Law realized it or not, his songs—and from what Dionne could see, the boy himself—just weren’t all that special. Like most church girls, she had fallen as a Howard freshman for one of his early singles (“I Got It All”), but had found his musical charms much easier to resist than true-but-twisted talents, such as Prince or R. Kelly.
Having mentally cut the brother down to size even as her eyes flitted over his hairy barrel chest, broad shoulders, and tight waistline, Dionne pulled her housecoat tighter around her. “I’ll make you a deal, Brother Law—”
He cleared his throat, twitched as if annoyed. “Brother?”
Dionne cracked a smile, glad to feel the balance of power finally shift. “Come on, Jesse, it hasn’t been that long since you stepped foot inside a church, has it?” Around the time she bought his first CD, she’d been into Jesse Law just enough to know that he was the baby brother of the Laws, one of the most talented families in gospel music. A trio of his older sisters—predictably named the Law Sisters—had recorded and toured the country regularly for the past fifteen years, and his older twin brothers, Larry and Harry, spent the Eighties giving the Winans a run for their money before Larry left to pastor a Nashville church. “I know you haven’t forgotten your church home training,” she said, her tone playful, although she was serious.
Jesse had lost patience with this sister. Before she’d signaled her knowledge of his family history, he’d viewed baby girl with a charitable eye. She looked a hot mess at the moment—her rumpled housecoat looked like it had been stored in a time capsule, and her misshapen pink shower cap was proof this girl had no boyfriend to impress—but she was tall, long-legged, robustly built without being overweight, and her piercing brown eyes had an intriguing power. Then, of course, there’d been the glimpse of breast and nipple she’d inadvertently flashed when she lost her step. Her spiritual taunting, however, drained such lovely sensations from Jesse’s memory bank. She didn’t know him like that; he was a hot second from pulling rank and telling her to get out of his way. “You letting me go or not, Miss—”
“Favors,” Dionne replied, extending a hand as she heard her parents’ northern Tennessee accents reflected in her own. “Sister Dionne Favors. The deal I’m offering, Jesse, is that I’ll let you go your merry way if you’ll let me pray with you. Promise I’ll make it quick.”
Jesse cursed under his breath, then ran both hands through his fine waves of jet-black hair, which were cut into a high, rounded fade. He didn’t have time for this silliness; not only would it be a pain to call for a cab from an undesirable part of DC, but he knew the girls he’d spent the night with were still in their room awaiting his professions of love, and that would require a few minutes of finessing itself. Eager as he was to bolt past Dionne, though, some force—either the God whose existence he now doubted, or his stepmother’s loving influence—took hold of him, told him to humor this square but cute girl. “Go for it,” he said, taking her hands.
As they drew closer, Dionne felt the tight brown curls atop her head dampen beneath her shower cap, but she ignored the sweat beading on her forehead, plowing into her prayer. “Lord,” she said, suddenly feeling self-conscious about the deepness of her rich alto voice, “we thank you for the very real talents you have blessed Brother Jesse with. We know that you gave him those talents, along with such a blessed and spiritual family, Lord, for a reason. Father, help Jesse to eventually see that you’ve called him to do more than shake his butt on stage and sing about the flesh. Show Jesse his way, Lord, so he can serve you in a way that makes you, as well as his family, proud. Amen.”
“That was cute,” Jesse said, unable to muzzle himself as Dionne opened her eyes. “May I go now?”
“Fine,” Dionne said, letting her arms hang at her sides. His patronizing remark angered her, but she needed to show this brother some Holy Spirit love instead of being openly defensive. “You kept up your side of the bargain. I never saw you in here, okay?”
“You’re first-class, sister,” Jesse said, leaning in and planting a kiss on her cheek. “For the record,” he whispered, keeping his lips poised inches from her ear, “you don’t really know me well enough to pray for me. We could always do something about that, though.”
“You know,” Dionne replied, a rush of warmth spreading throughout her chest, “I said you could go, Jesse. I don’t need to be disrespected.”
“Who said I was being disrespectful?” Someone coughed in the hallway, and Jesse paused long enough to make sure the girl wasn’t joining them. “Sounds like you think I’m some rebel without a cause, some loser who broke ranks with my ‘sanctified’ family for the hell of it.”
“I don’t—I don’t—look.” Dionne was starting to doubt her sanity. She couldn’t remember when she’d been this tongue-tied. Aside from a slight acne problem, she had to admit Jesse was as handsome as his fans imagined him to be, but he wasn’t her type. At least not in theory. “I don’t know you, obviously, but you may as well know, I’ve seen you in action before. I know you’ve always been into things that wouldn’t make your parents proud.” As a true fan of the Law Sisters especially, Dionne had read enough articles in Gospel Today to know that Jesse’s mother, Mama Frankie Law, still served as minister of music at Greater Light of the Cross Church in Hyattsville, Maryland. It was the same legendary church where his father, Phillip Sr., had held the same role before flipping his Cadillac in a fatal wreck on the Beltway, when little Jesse was still a child.
Jesse’s brow furrowed as he clamped his hands against the sides of his waistline. When his towel slipped just enough to reveal a patch of hair Dionne had no business viewing, he did nothing to cover himself. “So you’re an expert on my parents, huh?” If it was any of her business, he’d tell her that the woman she guessed was his mother, the saintly woman who had raised him from the age of seven on, was no blood relation. But then, if she didn’t know that much, she was more clueless than she’d ever know. And that was before even touching on the hellish hypocrisies Jesse had seen during a childhood immersed in the Black church and gospel industry. It amazed him that anyone his age could be naïve enough to take the “church” game seriously.
Dionne knew the conversation was starting to spiral, but she was helpless to slow the pace of their jousting now. “That other time we met,” she said. “It was a few months before your first CD came out, after my junior year of high school. Teen Night at the Ritz.” Although she had been a proud square from Silver Spring’s most privileged neighborhood, Dionne had practiced the apostle Paul’s exhortation to “be all things to all people,” even in her teens. It was the only reason she’d spent time in hostile environments, like those DC nightclubs. By accompanying some of her more emotionally vulnerable friends on their forays into such lust-driven, alcohol-fueled environments, Dionne had helped several of them pick up the pieces after disastrous one-night stands, abusive encounters, or verbal beat-downs from the same smooth talkers who’d swept them off the club floors.
Dionne crossed her arms as she stared Jesse down. “I don’t imagine you remember a girl named Paula Rogers? I was sitting to her left when you walked up on us and started macking it to her at the Ritz.”
Jesse smirked, although his insides snarled. “Did I take her home? Or just out to my car for a little ride?”
“You had your fun for a few weeks before throwing her away,” Dionne said, shaking her head. She still recalled how much she’d been in denial that night. She knew that preachers’ kids—and as the baby of a family of gospel legends, Jesse was close enough to being one—could be a trip, but she’d hoped that the Laws were such a special family that they hadn’t produced any rebels. The minute young Jesse had accosted them, though, the last dregs of her innocence were shredded. Jesse had entered the club and immediately been treated like ghetto royalty, receiving back pounds and hugs from a row of notorious drug dealers, professional carjackers, and petty thieves. Combine that with his intimidating swagger and the hungry leer he directed at every attractive female in the place, and Dionne had sensed Jesse was running as fast as he could from his family’s legacy.
Pawing at the damp mound of hair on his head, Jesse bit his lower lip, frustrated at himself for trying to remember a shred of information about Dionne’s friend, this Paula chick. All he’d need was a little tidbit to shut the self-righteous girl up, convince her he was a genuine human being. No matter how much he scanned his mental database, though, he came up empty; he was no saint now, but in those days there had just been too much weed, liquor, and women for him to have stored Paula away. It was time to go; he’d already wasted a good ten minutes with this cranky do-gooder.
“I’m out,” he said, flinging away the towel and grinning when Dionne gasped despite herself. He didn’t need his hostess’s towel, anyway; her room was two doors down from the bathroom. “By the way,” Jesse said, turning over his shoulder in the bathroom’s doorway and flexing his buttocks for Dionne’s horrified benefit, “you might try to get a little bit of this into your life. I’m sure any number of brothers would happily provide it.” He turned back toward her, facing her with himself fully exposed and smiling when she shut her eyes again in horror. “Don’t sleep, Dionne. It might cool you out some, help you mind your own business.” He strode away, laughing loud enough to wake the entire dorm, not knowing his flexing buttocks and dangling manhood would linger in Dionne’s fevered dreams for weeks to come.
Two years passed before Dionne experienced the pleasures Jesse paraded before her that day in the shower, pleasures they just barely postponed until their explosive wedding night in an Aruban honeymoon suite. When she flung her drenched, glowing body back against the bed’s slick, matted sheets, Dionne had thanked God in prayer for blessing her first time. Jesse had been even more nervous than her about how well they’d ultimately fit together, but he had been gentle, thoughtful, and attentive in a way that helped his new wife open up like a blooming flower eager for rain.
So many things changed during their journey from the girls’ shower to the honeymoon suite; far more happened before their marriage found itself peering over a cliff with a pack of raging lions on its heels.
First Jesse’s record label dropped him after one failed CD, spurring a wilderness period where he accepted a friend’s offer to make some cash “off the books.” That adventure ended with an early-morning shoot-out in the parking lot of Greenbrier Mall, an episode jarring enough to lead Jesse to the friendly embrace of Coleman Hill, a young DC-area gospel singer. As Coleman convinced Jesse to rekindle his interest in songwriting and the childhood faith he’d abandoned, he also dragged his struggling friend to an Atlanta conference for young Black Christians, a conference that Dionne, fresh out of Howard School of Divinity, had helped coordinate.
Their paths crossed the second night of the conference, and before they knew it, not only had their testy conversations led to numerous late-night phone calls, but Dionne had dumped David, her straightlaced, reliable boyfriend, and accepted Jesse’s tentative invitation to the movies.
Seven years into their marriage now, the memory of those days felt like ancient history. In that blink of an eye, Jesse had confronted his past with his wife’s help, separating the abuse he’d suffered in the church from the love Jesus held for him. Helping Jesse through the very real traumas in his past opened Dionne’s eyes, transforming her from a self-righteous Holy Roller into an empathetic, perceptive listener whose effectiveness in ministry had tripled. After using the last bits of his celebrity to earn a music degree from Howard in exchange for serving on the faculty, Jesse had put his talents to work for God, starting up the gospel group Men with a Message, with his old friend Coleman.
Even more impressive to Dionne’s family—her parents had been slow to forgive her for throwing the goody-goody David overboard for a rebel without a cause—Jesse had successfully leaned on God to stay sexually faithful to his wife, making the most of one lover after years of going through a dozen every six months. And while her commitment to her ministry—running a Christian school in Southeast DC—was already rock solid, the sight of Jesse’s spiritual growth had deepened Dionne’s faith. She was confident that with God’s help, she could save even the most hopeless child from h. . .
XAVIER KNIGHT/C. KELLY ROBINSON
The Strong Silent Type
“Compelling.”
—Booklist
“Remarkable . . . Four-and-a-half out of five stars . . . I absolutely loved the characters and the . . . mystery and suspense.”
—RAWSISTAZ Book Club
The Perfect Blend
“Fast-moving, true-to-life, and most entertaining . . . Robinson is a wonderfully talented writer who captured my attention on page one and kept it until the very end.”
—Kimberla Lawson Roby, New York Times bestselling author of Too Much of a Good Thing
“A winner! Terrific and entertaining, with a rhythm that draws you in . . . Robinson is truly one of the most gifted new writers in the industry today.”
—Victoria Christopher Murray, bestselling author of A Sin and a Shame
“A perfect blend of humor, drama, and emotion.”
—Gloria Mallette, bestselling author of Shades of Jade
and The Honey Well
“One read you will not want to miss . . . What a story! . . . Robinson flaunts his literary skills and spins a tale of love and family that is emotionally riveting and highly entertaining.”
—Tracy Price-Thompson, bestselling author of Chocolate Sangria and Black Coffee
No More Mr. Nice Guy
“Robinson handles his subject matter with plenty of attitude. As in his debut, brisk plotting, snappy vernacular, and resilient characters keep things entertaining . . . this spunky title will please fans of E. Lynn Harris and Omar Tyree.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Highly recommended.”
—Book-Remarks.com
Between Brothers
“Not since Spike Lee’s School Daze and the much-loved sitcom A Different World has the black experience on campus been this intriguing and, at times, funny . . . Between Brothers is a spirited tale.”
—Essence
“Robinson shows a willingness to take on complex social issues, and his storytelling skills could give Omar Tyree a run for the money.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Good, resourceful characters fight back in a vivid narrative . . . a refreshing variety of characters in a low-key redemptive tale.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Robinson has skillfully painted three-dimensional characters that reflect our rich, often misunderstood diversity. Rarely have I read such real, true-to-life portrayals of middle-class black men.”
—William July, author of Brothers, Lust and Love, and Understanding the Tin Man
“An exceptionally well-written and consummate novel of character studies . . . an engaging, compelling story set in the very real and contemporary world of the black community.”
—Midwest Book Review
Acknowledgments
An odd sensation hums inside as I write the acknowledgments page for my sixth published novel. Am I thanking everyone as “Xavier” or as “C. Kelly”? I guess at the end of the day, I am simply God’s creation, brought into the world through Chester and Sherry. So as I try to follow the KISS rule, here goes.
I give thanks to Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, for giving me the opportunity to now write books that openly portray characters struggling to reconcile their human frailties with their faith. My career in publishing has often reminded me to lean on my faith in you, but there is no greater privilege than to use my God-given gift for your glory.
Kyra, my partner through so many growing pains, a wonderful mother to Miss K, for constant support and love from day one. Kennedi, you are a walking, giggling, and beautiful answer to prayer, and Daddy now knows that no book can compare to the joys you bring! Alexis, for paving the way to parenthood for “Uncle C and Auntie Ky”—we are so proud to see you growing into such a talented little lady! To Mom, Dad, Russ, Barrett, and Shelli, what can I say that I haven’t said in past publications? I love y’all! Russ, thank you for sharing a journey that opened my eyes and helped inspire this story. My thanks for years of love and support, as always, go out to all members of the Robinson, Alford, and Grimes families.
Pastors Daryl and Vanessa Ward of the Omega Baptist Church, thank you for providing spiritual nourishment to our entire church family, even during a crisis that may have stopped other pastors in their tracks. Many thanks as well to the hundreds of Omega members and personal friends across the country who continue to support my work.
My career has continued in large part thanks to the ongoing support of book clubs, journalists, readers, and publishers. You know who you are, and you are not forgotten. To the dozens of authors who helped welcome me into the industry, you are always in my thoughts and prayers. Some of you are still riding the bestseller lists with what looks like ease (I know, it’s never as simple as it appears), while others like me have faced temporary or even permanent “sabbaticals.” May we never forget that as long as we write our best work and pursue our dream, we win regardless of what the “in crowd” or chattering classes say.
My specific thanks to those in the industry who specifically helped get this book into your hands. Elaine Koster, for loyal service and insightful advice. Karen Thomas, for believing in my talent. Latoya Smith and the Grand Central Publishing team, for having a little patience when the pace of life keeps me from answering your questions and reminders as quickly as I should. Victoria Christopher Murray, your enthusiastic validation of this book, when it was in proposal form, was clear proof that I was on the right track. Kimberla Lawson Roby and Jacquelin Thomas, thank you both for recent exchanges that helped me realize that I was “gone but not forgotten” during my vacation from the literary scene.
Finally, if you have purchased this book, thank you for spending precious dollars on the fruits of my labor. May you be entertained, enlightened, and most importantly, blessed!
Prologue
In the days after the truth about their son was revealed—the type of truth that takes lives and destroys marriages—Dionne and Jesse Law had plenty of time to dwell on memories. Happy, humorous, heartwarming memories, the ones that keep you moving forward when your heart asks if it could just stop beating and be done with it all, please. Though neither spoke a word to the other in those darkest, bleakest hours, they each drew on one shared moment in time.
Jesse Law and Dionne Favors met three times before either had a romantic thought about the other. Their second run-in occurred in the community bathroom of Truth Hall, one of the freshman women’s dorms on the campus of Dionne’s alma mater, Howard University. It was eight minutes after five on a dark fall Thursday morning. For her part, Dionne, who had been awake all of three minutes when she stepped into the shower room, wore a loose, rumpled housecoat painted with images of clouds and sunlight, a favorite she’d received from her father on her fifteenth birthday.
Jesse, on the other hand, was buck naked.
“Ohmigod! E-excuse me!” Stumbling backward, preparing to run from the shower room, Dionne squeezed her eyes tight and clawed desperately for the nearest towel rack. She knew it had been right there, just to her left when she first stepped onto the shower area’s greasy tile floor. She hoped it hadn’t gone anywhere.
“Whoa, sis!” The naked man’s shout told Dionne she’d missed the mark, a hint confirmed by the sudden sensation of flight as the grip of her flip-flops gave way and her feet went out from under her. Her eyes still shut—she wasn’t prepared for another flash of the brother’s forbidden if admirable birthday suit—Dionne instinctively held her hands out, hoping to slow her fall.
“I got you.” The mystery pervert’s voice had a hoarse, scratchy sound, and it was literally in her ear now. It helped, though, that his tone was so calm and soothing. Realizing she had never smashed into the tile, Dionne slowly released the pressure she’d exerted on her right eyelid. Once she had a limited view of her “savior’s” face—his eyes and nose were plenty—she stopped, keeping the other eye slammed shut.
When he had her fully right side up, the brother took a step back, his eyes full of laughter as he peered at Dionne through the humid, steamy air engulfing them. “You’re okay, right?”
“Um, yes, yes, um, yes.” Dionne scolded herself as she nodded her head like an obedient child, one eye still closed and her arms folded as if she were the one showing off her goods right now. She just wanted this . . . thug . . . to get to stepping and get off the dorm’s premises. As a senior resident assistant who had never once entertained a male in her room, Dionne took great pride enforcing the dorm’s rules about fraternization. All men had to be off the premises by midnight, and in recent years security cameras had been placed throughout the halls to ensure that violators and their hostesses were captured and appropriately penalized.
For most of the administration, the curfew was simply a quaint device to encourage respect between the freshman males and females, but Dionne liked to think that anything she did to dampen her peers’ sex lives was to their spiritual benefit. Many of these girls who currently had little use for God would someday fall to their knees, say the gospel prayer, and walk the aisle of a church. If she could minimize their fornication, at least they’d have a little less sin weighing them down on that special day.
All the more reason why she had every reason to be disgusted and indignant with this show-off who’d accosted her, treating himself to a shower in the girls’ bathroom just because he could. Dionne knew the type; not only had he probably spent the night banging headboards with some misguided coed, he was happy to further flaunt his “creeping” abilities by rinsing himself off in plain sight of everyone, including women like her who respected themselves.
Dionne decided she had no business cowering like some wallflower in front of this brother. He was in the wrong, not her, and it was time to act like it. “Do you have a towel?” she asked suddenly, snapping the words purposefully.
“Aww,” the trifling brother replied, his tone taking on a rebellious edge. “I’m not harming your virgin eyes, am I?”
His perceptive language caught Dionne off guard and she inhaled sharply, unable to breathe until she heard him turn and grab something off the very rack she’d swung for and missed. “I’m decent now, beautiful,” he said, pointing to the beach towel wrapped snugly around his hips.
“You have no business being in this facility at this hour, least of all in the bathroom,” Dionne said, an index finger aimed toward the man’s Adam’s apple. She had both eyes open now, and kept her tone steady and firm while fixing her gaze—for the most part—to his light brown eyes, high cheekbones, and thick, tapered eyebrows. “Whose room are you staying in?”
“Hey, baby,” the brother said, fanning the air with his hands. “Be cool, okay? You don’t need to worry about that. Look, I’m not even a student at Howard, all right? I wasn’t hip to this curfew business in the first place.”
“You’re not a student?” Dionne nearly took a step back in self-defense. There had been rapes in the dorms before, primarily by men from outside the HU community, vagrants who had broken, entered, and done unspeakable things. Dionne had gotten up early this morning to meet an evangelism team over in Southeast DC; she had no intention of becoming a statistic today.
Reading the anxiety on the sister’s face, Jesse had raised his hands over his head. “It’s not that kind of party,” he said, his voice lowered further. “Seriously, all you need to do is let me roll out of here ASAP. My tour bus hits the road in an hour. I miss it, my manager will kill me.”
Dionne first cracked a smile, both relieved by the brother’s assurances of innocence and amused by his claim of having a “tour bus,” but then the stranger’s familiar features finally hit her. “You’re kidding,” she said, her arms crossed and her insides frosting over again. “Are you Jesse Law?”
He grudgingly assured her he was, and Dionne found herself reliving the previous week, when every “worldly” girl she’d known chattered on about the young hottie the Homecoming Committee secured for the week’s biggest concert. At the time, Jesse Law was an undeniable star—as he and Dionne faced off in the shower, two of his recent singles were perched on Billboard’s R&B Top 10—but he wasn’t exactly keeping Usher up at night. His albums reliably went platinum, his videos got play on both BET and MTV, but odds were that wouldn’t be true five years from now. Whether Jesse Law realized it or not, his songs—and from what Dionne could see, the boy himself—just weren’t all that special. Like most church girls, she had fallen as a Howard freshman for one of his early singles (“I Got It All”), but had found his musical charms much easier to resist than true-but-twisted talents, such as Prince or R. Kelly.
Having mentally cut the brother down to size even as her eyes flitted over his hairy barrel chest, broad shoulders, and tight waistline, Dionne pulled her housecoat tighter around her. “I’ll make you a deal, Brother Law—”
He cleared his throat, twitched as if annoyed. “Brother?”
Dionne cracked a smile, glad to feel the balance of power finally shift. “Come on, Jesse, it hasn’t been that long since you stepped foot inside a church, has it?” Around the time she bought his first CD, she’d been into Jesse Law just enough to know that he was the baby brother of the Laws, one of the most talented families in gospel music. A trio of his older sisters—predictably named the Law Sisters—had recorded and toured the country regularly for the past fifteen years, and his older twin brothers, Larry and Harry, spent the Eighties giving the Winans a run for their money before Larry left to pastor a Nashville church. “I know you haven’t forgotten your church home training,” she said, her tone playful, although she was serious.
Jesse had lost patience with this sister. Before she’d signaled her knowledge of his family history, he’d viewed baby girl with a charitable eye. She looked a hot mess at the moment—her rumpled housecoat looked like it had been stored in a time capsule, and her misshapen pink shower cap was proof this girl had no boyfriend to impress—but she was tall, long-legged, robustly built without being overweight, and her piercing brown eyes had an intriguing power. Then, of course, there’d been the glimpse of breast and nipple she’d inadvertently flashed when she lost her step. Her spiritual taunting, however, drained such lovely sensations from Jesse’s memory bank. She didn’t know him like that; he was a hot second from pulling rank and telling her to get out of his way. “You letting me go or not, Miss—”
“Favors,” Dionne replied, extending a hand as she heard her parents’ northern Tennessee accents reflected in her own. “Sister Dionne Favors. The deal I’m offering, Jesse, is that I’ll let you go your merry way if you’ll let me pray with you. Promise I’ll make it quick.”
Jesse cursed under his breath, then ran both hands through his fine waves of jet-black hair, which were cut into a high, rounded fade. He didn’t have time for this silliness; not only would it be a pain to call for a cab from an undesirable part of DC, but he knew the girls he’d spent the night with were still in their room awaiting his professions of love, and that would require a few minutes of finessing itself. Eager as he was to bolt past Dionne, though, some force—either the God whose existence he now doubted, or his stepmother’s loving influence—took hold of him, told him to humor this square but cute girl. “Go for it,” he said, taking her hands.
As they drew closer, Dionne felt the tight brown curls atop her head dampen beneath her shower cap, but she ignored the sweat beading on her forehead, plowing into her prayer. “Lord,” she said, suddenly feeling self-conscious about the deepness of her rich alto voice, “we thank you for the very real talents you have blessed Brother Jesse with. We know that you gave him those talents, along with such a blessed and spiritual family, Lord, for a reason. Father, help Jesse to eventually see that you’ve called him to do more than shake his butt on stage and sing about the flesh. Show Jesse his way, Lord, so he can serve you in a way that makes you, as well as his family, proud. Amen.”
“That was cute,” Jesse said, unable to muzzle himself as Dionne opened her eyes. “May I go now?”
“Fine,” Dionne said, letting her arms hang at her sides. His patronizing remark angered her, but she needed to show this brother some Holy Spirit love instead of being openly defensive. “You kept up your side of the bargain. I never saw you in here, okay?”
“You’re first-class, sister,” Jesse said, leaning in and planting a kiss on her cheek. “For the record,” he whispered, keeping his lips poised inches from her ear, “you don’t really know me well enough to pray for me. We could always do something about that, though.”
“You know,” Dionne replied, a rush of warmth spreading throughout her chest, “I said you could go, Jesse. I don’t need to be disrespected.”
“Who said I was being disrespectful?” Someone coughed in the hallway, and Jesse paused long enough to make sure the girl wasn’t joining them. “Sounds like you think I’m some rebel without a cause, some loser who broke ranks with my ‘sanctified’ family for the hell of it.”
“I don’t—I don’t—look.” Dionne was starting to doubt her sanity. She couldn’t remember when she’d been this tongue-tied. Aside from a slight acne problem, she had to admit Jesse was as handsome as his fans imagined him to be, but he wasn’t her type. At least not in theory. “I don’t know you, obviously, but you may as well know, I’ve seen you in action before. I know you’ve always been into things that wouldn’t make your parents proud.” As a true fan of the Law Sisters especially, Dionne had read enough articles in Gospel Today to know that Jesse’s mother, Mama Frankie Law, still served as minister of music at Greater Light of the Cross Church in Hyattsville, Maryland. It was the same legendary church where his father, Phillip Sr., had held the same role before flipping his Cadillac in a fatal wreck on the Beltway, when little Jesse was still a child.
Jesse’s brow furrowed as he clamped his hands against the sides of his waistline. When his towel slipped just enough to reveal a patch of hair Dionne had no business viewing, he did nothing to cover himself. “So you’re an expert on my parents, huh?” If it was any of her business, he’d tell her that the woman she guessed was his mother, the saintly woman who had raised him from the age of seven on, was no blood relation. But then, if she didn’t know that much, she was more clueless than she’d ever know. And that was before even touching on the hellish hypocrisies Jesse had seen during a childhood immersed in the Black church and gospel industry. It amazed him that anyone his age could be naïve enough to take the “church” game seriously.
Dionne knew the conversation was starting to spiral, but she was helpless to slow the pace of their jousting now. “That other time we met,” she said. “It was a few months before your first CD came out, after my junior year of high school. Teen Night at the Ritz.” Although she had been a proud square from Silver Spring’s most privileged neighborhood, Dionne had practiced the apostle Paul’s exhortation to “be all things to all people,” even in her teens. It was the only reason she’d spent time in hostile environments, like those DC nightclubs. By accompanying some of her more emotionally vulnerable friends on their forays into such lust-driven, alcohol-fueled environments, Dionne had helped several of them pick up the pieces after disastrous one-night stands, abusive encounters, or verbal beat-downs from the same smooth talkers who’d swept them off the club floors.
Dionne crossed her arms as she stared Jesse down. “I don’t imagine you remember a girl named Paula Rogers? I was sitting to her left when you walked up on us and started macking it to her at the Ritz.”
Jesse smirked, although his insides snarled. “Did I take her home? Or just out to my car for a little ride?”
“You had your fun for a few weeks before throwing her away,” Dionne said, shaking her head. She still recalled how much she’d been in denial that night. She knew that preachers’ kids—and as the baby of a family of gospel legends, Jesse was close enough to being one—could be a trip, but she’d hoped that the Laws were such a special family that they hadn’t produced any rebels. The minute young Jesse had accosted them, though, the last dregs of her innocence were shredded. Jesse had entered the club and immediately been treated like ghetto royalty, receiving back pounds and hugs from a row of notorious drug dealers, professional carjackers, and petty thieves. Combine that with his intimidating swagger and the hungry leer he directed at every attractive female in the place, and Dionne had sensed Jesse was running as fast as he could from his family’s legacy.
Pawing at the damp mound of hair on his head, Jesse bit his lower lip, frustrated at himself for trying to remember a shred of information about Dionne’s friend, this Paula chick. All he’d need was a little tidbit to shut the self-righteous girl up, convince her he was a genuine human being. No matter how much he scanned his mental database, though, he came up empty; he was no saint now, but in those days there had just been too much weed, liquor, and women for him to have stored Paula away. It was time to go; he’d already wasted a good ten minutes with this cranky do-gooder.
“I’m out,” he said, flinging away the towel and grinning when Dionne gasped despite herself. He didn’t need his hostess’s towel, anyway; her room was two doors down from the bathroom. “By the way,” Jesse said, turning over his shoulder in the bathroom’s doorway and flexing his buttocks for Dionne’s horrified benefit, “you might try to get a little bit of this into your life. I’m sure any number of brothers would happily provide it.” He turned back toward her, facing her with himself fully exposed and smiling when she shut her eyes again in horror. “Don’t sleep, Dionne. It might cool you out some, help you mind your own business.” He strode away, laughing loud enough to wake the entire dorm, not knowing his flexing buttocks and dangling manhood would linger in Dionne’s fevered dreams for weeks to come.
Two years passed before Dionne experienced the pleasures Jesse paraded before her that day in the shower, pleasures they just barely postponed until their explosive wedding night in an Aruban honeymoon suite. When she flung her drenched, glowing body back against the bed’s slick, matted sheets, Dionne had thanked God in prayer for blessing her first time. Jesse had been even more nervous than her about how well they’d ultimately fit together, but he had been gentle, thoughtful, and attentive in a way that helped his new wife open up like a blooming flower eager for rain.
So many things changed during their journey from the girls’ shower to the honeymoon suite; far more happened before their marriage found itself peering over a cliff with a pack of raging lions on its heels.
First Jesse’s record label dropped him after one failed CD, spurring a wilderness period where he accepted a friend’s offer to make some cash “off the books.” That adventure ended with an early-morning shoot-out in the parking lot of Greenbrier Mall, an episode jarring enough to lead Jesse to the friendly embrace of Coleman Hill, a young DC-area gospel singer. As Coleman convinced Jesse to rekindle his interest in songwriting and the childhood faith he’d abandoned, he also dragged his struggling friend to an Atlanta conference for young Black Christians, a conference that Dionne, fresh out of Howard School of Divinity, had helped coordinate.
Their paths crossed the second night of the conference, and before they knew it, not only had their testy conversations led to numerous late-night phone calls, but Dionne had dumped David, her straightlaced, reliable boyfriend, and accepted Jesse’s tentative invitation to the movies.
Seven years into their marriage now, the memory of those days felt like ancient history. In that blink of an eye, Jesse had confronted his past with his wife’s help, separating the abuse he’d suffered in the church from the love Jesus held for him. Helping Jesse through the very real traumas in his past opened Dionne’s eyes, transforming her from a self-righteous Holy Roller into an empathetic, perceptive listener whose effectiveness in ministry had tripled. After using the last bits of his celebrity to earn a music degree from Howard in exchange for serving on the faculty, Jesse had put his talents to work for God, starting up the gospel group Men with a Message, with his old friend Coleman.
Even more impressive to Dionne’s family—her parents had been slow to forgive her for throwing the goody-goody David overboard for a rebel without a cause—Jesse had successfully leaned on God to stay sexually faithful to his wife, making the most of one lover after years of going through a dozen every six months. And while her commitment to her ministry—running a Christian school in Southeast DC—was already rock solid, the sight of Jesse’s spiritual growth had deepened Dionne’s faith. She was confident that with God’s help, she could save even the most hopeless child from h. . .
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The Things We Do for Love
Xavier Knight
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