I have an older friend whose name is Mrs. Ima Mae Wonderin, but those who know and love her just call her Miz I. M. Now Miz I.M. is full of vim and vigor, a straight talker whose bark is worse than her bite, but you have to know her to know that. Miz I. M.’s best friend is Mrs. Maisie James. They have been friends since they were little girls growing up in Chriscal, Texas. I have never met Mrs. James, but Miz. I.M. often shares their episodes (as she calls them) with me. In fact, the last time I spoke with Miz I.M. she had just finished talking with Mrs. James:

I wish Maisie liver closer, like when we were girls in Chriscal, Texas. We lived right across the road from each other, always in each other’s house or playing in each other’s front yards. I called her mother, “Mama Susie,” and she called my mother “Mama Too.” Now I live in Oakland and she lives in Berkeley; that’s not even running distance. If we want to see each other, we have to have our husbands drive us. We just live too far apart.

I called Maise the other day, just to see how she was doing and she tells me she’s packing her suitcase. “Maisie,” I asked, “Where you going now?” Well, she’s heading to another one of those women’s conferences she loves so much. You know the kind, “If It Walks and Quacks Like A Duck, Get Out Of There,” or “If She Hollers, Let Her Go,” or “You Need to Cut Loose and Dance,” or “I’m Okay, You Get Outta My Way,” that kind of thing. So I tell her, “Maisie, you’re always running off to these conferences. Now, I don’t have anything against them. If that’s your thing, that’s your thing. I just feel like when you come back some things ought to change and the change ought to be permanent. Seems to me the dance ought to last longer than a week.”

Well, Maisie got huffy with me, so I had to remind her that she was my oldest friend, and I did not mean to hurt her feelings. I just felt like she should think about whether or not these conferences are doing her any good. I mean, she’s okay for a while, new attitude and stuff, but then the conference high wears off. She breaks a fingernail or something, and crawls into that oversized bed in her bedroom which she has the nerve to call a boudoir, closes the drapes and hides under that overstuffed comforter of hers. She won’t even talk to me on the phone.

“Maisie,” I says, “Maisie, I was listening to that Kirk Franklin boy the other day. Yes, the Kirk Franklin boy. I know who he is. My grandson stays with me every now and then and he doesn’t like my stereo. Said something about it not having any bottom. I don’t know what he meant “no bottom;” its been sitting in the living room on its bottom since I bought it twenty years ago. So he goes out and buys this thing he says is fat, but it looks pretty skinny to me. Anyway, he left the Kirk Franklin Boy’s CD in it and after I figured out which button to push, I listened to the tape. There’s one song on it I really liked, one called ‘Revolution.’” Then I asked her, “Maisie are you ready for the revolution?”

Maisie didn’t know what I meant, so I said, “The revolution we need to stage in our own lives. It is time for us to rebel against old habits, old attitudes, old mean and messy ways. We need to become revolutionaries and stage an uprising in our lives against anything that don’t look like Jesus!”

I reminded Maisie of that time we went to Las Vegas just to see what it was like and they were blowing up a hotel, but instead of explosion they called it an implosion. Masie thought I was showing off, but I know what the word means. Well, that hotel just sank down to the ground. Instead of throwing pieces out everywhere, it just disintegrated. “That’s what we need in our lives, Maisie, we need to implode all that old stuff, just let it disintegrate and then let God build us up into a brand new person, just like they built up a brand new hotel where the old hotel used to be. Maisie, it’s time for a revolution!”

Well, of course Maisie ignored me, but I know what I’m talking about; it’s time for the revolution!”

I thought about Miz I. M.’s words to her friend. Then I took a long look at myself and my bookshelf. I counted all the “how to” books in my library, all the different translations of the Bible I have. I thought about all the conferences, “Get Well”/“Get Right”/“Get Up,” I have attended. Right then and there I realized that in spite of all the information I have taken in, I am still wrestling with the same demons, over and over again. Maybe it’s time for me to stage a revolution in my life.

Are you ready for the revolution? I’m just wondering.

 

I called Miz I.M. the other day but she couldn’t talk for long. “Maisie’s visiting, dear, and it’s time for her to get out of my guest bedroom.” The next day, Miz I.M. recounted her friend’s visit to me:

Maisie and I decided last year that we would visit each other for a weekend every three months. Well, though it was my turn to go over to her house this Friday, Thursday she shows up on my front doorstep on Thursday.

Maisie and Archie, that’s her husband, have done well for themselves. Well, actually, Archie has done well for them both. Miss Maisie ain’t had to hit a lick at a snake since they’ve been married. They live in a nice three bedroom house. She has a closet full of star spangled suits with all the matching accessories even down to her underwear. She wears big hats with the feathers chasing each other around her head, except when she’s wearing those big old flower gardens.

Maisie never had any children but she made up for it by trying to spoil my two kids. I finally had to tell her, “Now listen Maisie, I’m trying to raise these children to realize that in the real world nothing comes easy, that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Life is not about silver platter service, or to paraphrase Mr. Hughes, ‘Life ain’t gone be no crystal stair’ for them.” Then I had to remind her that she was my best friend and I was not trying to hurt her feelings

Maisie’s a good soul, but she does have one big issue. She gets the blues too easy and too often. It doesn’t take much for her to crawl into that overstuffed bed in her Master bedroom though I don’t know why it should even be called a Master bedroom. I don’t see anything of Archie in it, nothing but flowers and frills and fluff. She should call it the Mistress bedroom. Anyway, I told Maisie a long time ago maybe she needed to see a doctor about her mood swings; maybe something was really wrong with her. She took my advice, grudgingly, and went to a doctor. They didn’t find anything wrong. Then I told her maybe she needed to see a counselor, a therapist or something. Well, that girl didn’t speak to me for two whole months, but when Archie threatened to have committed the next time she had one of her moods (he was just joking, I think), she went to see a counselor. Nothing wrong there, either. Oh sure, she has some issues, but don’t everybody? And nothing that wasn’t part of life and her age. Anyway, they didn’t find any physiological reasons for her blues, and yes I know what the word means, and her issues weren’t that complex. That’s when I decided that Maisie’s blues must be by choice. She just wanted the attention. Still, I didn’t say anything. I don’t live with her and when she gets the blues, Archie just goes fishing, so I guess he’s learned how to cope with Miss Maisie’s blues.

So Maisie comes over to my house this Thursday evening and she brings the blues with her. She goes into my guest bedroom and closes the door. She puts on one of those fancy gowns of hers and crawls into the bed. I served her dinner that night. I served her breakfast, lunch and dinner on Friday. She stayed in that bed the entire time. I had to talk to her through the door because she said my being in the room made her migraine worse. That’s when I decided enough was enough. She didn’t come to visit me; she came to visit my bedroom. So I shouted through the keyhole, “I believe you have a migraine, Maisie, but it’s spelled m-y-g-r-a-i-n-e, not m-i-g-r-a-i-n-e.” Then I had to apologize because I did not mean to hurt her feelings.

Saturday morning I knocked on my guest bedroom door and announced that if Maisie wanted to eat she was going to have to fix it herself because Saturday at my house is catch as catch can. Besides, Saturday is my cleaning day, and she needed to come out and help me. I was playing one of Babbie Mason’t tapes when it occurred to me just what Maisie needed. “Maisie,” I said, “What you need to do, when your blues show up, is carry on.”

Naturally, she did not understand, so I read Psalm 100 to her: “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. That’s carrying on Maisie.” I read Psalm 34 to her: “I will bless the Lord at all times. That’s carrying on, Maisie. You need to carry on in your blues so you can carry on through your blues!”

Now I hadn’t forgotten that Maisie doesn’t believe in this noise business. She once informed me that she quietly praises God in the peaceful meditation of the quiet revelation of the spirit. I understand what she’s saying. Sometimes I enjoy a peaceful meditation in the quiet revelation of the spirit, but most of the time I am, as Miss Maisie says, boisterous. The first time I visited her church I was so loud I woke up half of the preachers in the pulpit and all of the folks on my pew. When she told me how I had embarrassed her, I told her that my God is a big God and I’m just crazy enough to give Him big praise, especially in the assembly of the saints.

Maisie is still not convinced about this carrying on business, but I know it works because every time I get the blues, I carry on. It always works for me.

Once again Miz I.M. has served me food for thought. If attitude is ninety-nine percent of all we do, then I was defeating myself emotionally and spiritually when my attitude was black and blue all over because of the stuff that happens. I realize, now, that my attitude often foreshadows defeat before the event has even taken place. Just like Miz. I.M.’s good friend Maisie, I need to learn how to carry on in my blues so I can carry on through my blues.

Are you ready to carry on? I’m just wondering.

 

Miz I. M. invited me to the baptism of her granddaughter. I felt privileged that she would include me in such a family moment. She invited me to dinner afterwards at her house, and of course I went because Miss I. M. can really cook. Later that same evening she began to reminisce about Chriscal, Texas and some of the things she and Maisie used to get into:

I remember it like it was yesterday. There we were all of us kids, just looking at each other. It was Sunday morning and Rev. Williams was giving out the invitation, opening the doors of the church, as they used to say. All of us, Herbert Jr. and Ray Ann and Dorothy Jean and Willis and Robert Lee and Sallie Mae and Maisie and myself had been lectured by our parents for almost a month. You see, we were all twelve years old and in those days you were supposed to be baptized at twelve. But no one wanted to be the first to take the step because we thought the others might not follow, so we just sat there looking at each other until Herbert Jr.’s mother slid into the pew behind us kids and pinched him right on the butt. “You get up and you go down that aisle, you hear me?” Miz Foster had that look on her face that said she meant business, so Herbert Jr. got up and went forward. Then none of us wanted to be left behind, so we all went forward, except for Maisie. But I guess she felt weird sitting there all by herself, especially with all the eyes of the church fastened on her so she got up and joined the rest of us. Lord, there was shouting in that church that morning. The people though we had been touched by the Spirit. We, on the other hand, had been moved by the pre-teen need not to be different from the others.

The very next Sunday they dressed us kids in the baptizing robes and took us down to the riverside. We did not have fancy baptismal pools like the churches today. We lined up on the river bank with the good sisters encouraging us to praise God and not to be afraid. We were not afraid; we were thinking what great fun it would be to go into the river and splash in the water for as minute since it was so hot that day, all of us, that is, except Maisie. We didn’t notice it in all the anticipation, but Maisie was real quiet. You see, in all the exhilaration of the moment, we forgot that Maisie was afraid of going into deep water. She would wade in the water a little, but that would be it. That’s why she had been the last one in the group to go forward for baptism, and she was the last one in the line down to the river that day.

One by one, we all went into the water; we were dunked and each one of us came out to the great exultation and clapping of the church folks. Then came Maisie’s turn. She didn’t resist Deacon Joe and Deacon Willie at first, but when she got to that place where the water was around her chest, she just lost it. When Deacon Joe pronounced, “I baptize you my young sister. . .” and started to lean her backwards into the water, Maisie went nuts. She started kicking and screaming, trying to get out of that water. Then she accidentally kicked Deacon Willie you know where and then he started yelling and Deacon Joe slipped trying to catch her so she wouldn’t drown and the congregation thought that Maisie had gotten a good dose of the Spirit so they all started shouting and we kids were so tickled that we fell down on the ground laughing so hard we cried. I tell you, our riverside experience was a real spectacle that day.

None of us young people understood the importance of the riverside experience then, but today I see it as being about accepting and welcoming change in your life. It’s about trusting God and moving forward with an attitude of victory. I am so excited that my granddaughter not only understands salvation, but also the affirmation she made when she was baptized in front of the church. You know, baptism is like a spiritual debutante ball where a man or a woman, a boy or a girl announces to everyone, “I now belong to God; I am His child, and I am ready to live a new life for Him.” No, none of us kids really understood the riverside experience that day, but thank God, I finally got it right.

Miz. I. M.’s words started me to thinking my riverside experience, the day I stepped into the water for my coming out announcement. Oh, I understand Romans 6:4 and its declaration of a “new way of life,” but I still wrestle with change. I love the status quo too much. I wonder, do I really have forward momentum or am I being dragged along by life?

Say, anyone else ready for a genuine riverside experience? I’m just wondering.

 

I attended a special Women’s Day program at Miz I. M.’s church. I asked if her good friend Maisie would be there. “Oh no, dear,” she responded. “Miss Maisie is too sophisticated for my church. She says we are much too much emotional, all that shouting and loud amen-ing is the way she puts it.”

Before I could decide how to respond, Miz I.M. related the story of Maisie’s very first visit to her church:

Maisie is always inviting me to some special something at her church and because she is my best friend, I always try to attend to support her. Maisie is involved with anything that has to do with the women of her church or church women anywhere. She just loves that week long conference, two day seminar, afternoon tea party, evening fashion show, fifty-five ladies in polka dots on a Sunday kind of thing. Sometimes it’s a little much for me, but like I said, she’s my best friend and I do not want to hurt her feelings by saying no.

Well, I did this for years even though Maisie never visited my church, not one time! Not that I felt she owed me. I don’t believe in folks leaving their churches to visit other churches on Sunday morning just to reciprocate. Yes, there will be those special events like baby dedications or baptisms when you will have to go to another church, but I think that each member has a particular place in their own church and when they are missing they leave a void, maybe even a need goes unmet because his or her place is empty. So, I never bothered Maisie about coming to my church until, that is, when she invited me to some program of hers and I told her I could not make it because I had other plans. Well, she got so angry with me I thought she was going to spit nails through the telephone and that’s when my blood pressure went up. “Maisie,” I says, “You have never been to my church, and I am always sitting by myself at one of your programs because you are too busy to sit with me. I’m not coming to another one those programs of yours until you visit my church some Sunday morning or evening.” Now I knew Maisie wasn’t coming to any night service, so after she cooled down two weeks later, she called me and said she would come to church with me the very next Sunday.

Archie brought Maisie over that Saturday night and the next morning I woke her up at seven o’clock. When she inquired, rather irritably I might say, why I was waking her so early for eleven o’clock service, I informed her that I always attended Sunday Church School and wouldn’t she like to attend with me. Maisie politely declined and told me that I would have to pick her up for eleven o’clock. If Maisie wasn’t my best friend, I would have lost my religion that morning, but I had John leave Church School early to pick her up. She is so spoiled!

My church is made up of all kinds of people. Some of them dress up in their finest Sunday go to meeting clothes while others, mostly young people, come kind of casual. Maisie, of course, is a notch above everybody. That Sunday she looked like she had just stepped out of the bandwagon. Next to her, I looked like the bandwagon had run over me. She had on one of those star spangled suits of her in her favorite color, what she always calls “royal purple.” She was standing tall in her fancy high, high heels she still wears in the same color sprinkled with rhinestones across the front of the shoe. She once corrected me when I called them high heels, informing me that they were called “stilettos.” I told her I was surprised that they still let her toes in ‘em and whatever the fancy name, if she ever fell off of them, she would be laid up for a year. Then I had to apologize, because I was not trying to hurt her feelings. Maisie also had on this huge, wide brimmed hat covered with cream feathers the tips of which were purple. I declare it looked like those feathers were chasing each other around her head. The center of the hat was cut out with just the top of Maisie’s head poking through. She looked like a tall bald purple eagle, but I didn’t tell her that because, of course, I did not want to hurt her feelings.

I met Maisie outside the church when John dropped her off and before we cold get into the foyer Brother Morris, who was the hospitality leader that morning rushed over and grabbed Maisie’s arm. “Welcome to our family home,” he said as he steered her toward the guest book. “I’m . . . ahh, we are so glad to have you as our guest this morning. You are a visitor, aren’t you?” “She’s my guest,” I said, but Brother Morris didn’t even look at me, he was so busy showing Maisie to a seat.

I had to move quickly to get in front of them as they pranced down the aisle. I like to sit close to the front. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a special seat, but I do prefer a certain section. I sat down and beckoned for Maisie to sit on my left. Instead she sat down on my right near the end of the pew.

I whispered to her, “Maisie, you need to sit on the other side of me.” She just looked at me and gave me her polite smile and before I could explain why she needed to move, the reason came walking down the aisle, leaning on a cane. Mother Haymes always sits on the third pew from the front, center section, on the end of that pew. Right where Miss Maisie decided to sit. Mother Haymes is a little woman, so she just came and squeezed herself between the end of the pew and Maisie. I tried to move over, but the row had filled in pretty good by then. Well, there we were, shoulder to shoulder, me, Maisie and Mother Haymes. Part of Maisie’s big old hat brim was over Mother Haymes’ head like some kind of feathered umbrella. It occurred to me that this might not be a good thing, but then service started and I forgot all about my concern.

Our congregation is pretty lively and Maisie is too quiet as far as I’m concerned. I knew I would hear about all the noise after the service. She sat through the beginning of the service all prim and proper, sometimes properly nodding her head at a scripture she recognized.

That’s when it all happened. I remember it like it just happened. Pastor Wallace’s mother and father were visiting from out of town that Sunday and his mother asked that the First Lady sing the mother’s favorite hymn, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” I think it is just wonderful how they seem to get along; they’re more like mother and daughter than mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. It was right when Sister Wallace hit her first note that I remembered why I was concerned about Mother Haymes sitting next to Maisie. Mother Haymes may be only four foot something, but she sho nuff is a six foot shouter. By the time Sister Wallace made it to the chorus of the hymn, practically everyone was on their feet, shouting and praising God. Sister Wallace can truly sing and when she does, to put it the way one church mother used to say back in my church in Chriscal, Texas, she puts her weight on it! Well, she put her weight on one of those high notes and that’s when I heard Mother Haymes’ praise whoop. I looked at Maisie and she was holding onto her hat with one hand and trying to catch Mother Haymes’ swinging arms with the other. I could have told her that with even two hands she was not going to be able to contain Mother Haymes. By then Mother Haymes had started bouncing up and down on the pew and every time she went up, her head hit the underside of Maisie’s hat. By now Maisie was really getting frantic, trying hard to hold on to her prim and proper self, so she let go of the hat and grabbed Mother Haymes’ left arm. Mother Haymes was still swinging that right arm, however, and by this time the very hospitable Brother Morris apparently decided he would come to Maisie’s rescue. He began to lean over the back of the pew just about the time Mother Haymes swung her right arm towards Maisie’s hat. Maisie lifted her right arm to protect her feathered pride and . . . it all happened like in slow motion. . . well, Maisie’s swinging arm hit Brother Morris right under the chin and it appeared to me that he kind of flew straight up into the air. So he flew up, and I guess he didn’t use good glue that morning, because, well, his toupee flew right off and spiraled upwards for a few seconds only to come down and land, plop, right in the top of Maisie’s head, a hairy centerpiece for her fancy feather hat.

By this time, the ushers had moved Mother Haymes to the aisle where she proceeded to shout and dance and Maisie took the opportunity to collect herself as best she could, once again assuming her prim and proper pose of quiet dignity. Brother Morris, meanwhile, was lying prostrate in the aisle, knocked out by Maisie’s punch. Maisie pretended not to notice any of this. She had no idea that Brother Morris’ toupee was on the top of her head. Brother Morris didn’t know his toupee was on the top of her head either. The men had to carry him right out of the sanctuary. Maisie cold-cocked him right in church. If I had had my wits about me, I would have reached over and removed that toupee from my friend’s head, but the spirit, and my wits, had been tickled right out of me. I just put my head in my hands and laughed. Maisie thought I was crying, but I was laughing so hard my sides hurt. All the preachers in the pulpit, even Pastor Wallace, were looking down at the floor, their shoulders just shaking. Sister Wallace stopped singing, like she was too happy to continue, but she later told me she was too tickled to continue after all that commotion. Why is it that stuff that happens in church seems to be so funny?

Well, anyway, when it looked like all heck was going to break out in that center section, Pastor Wallace composed himself enough to begin to sing “Woke Up This Morning with My Mind Stayed on Jesus,” and order was eventually restored. Meanwhile, Maisie slowly realized that something foreign was on the top of her head so she gingerly reached up and removed Brother Morris’ toupee. Holding that thing between her thumb and forefinger, she turned and dropped it into my lap. She gave me such a look! I had to promise, later, to attend the next three special events at her church, “for the indignity she suffered.” I didn’t mind at all because that was the best laugh I’d had in years! And that, my dear, is why Maisie does not visit my church anymore.

I do admire Miz I. M.’s loyalty to Mrs. James. Most people would take a friend’s refusal to attend their church as a personal offense. Instead, Miz I. M. extends grace to her friend and allows room in the friendship for their differences. I am going to try to dispense that same kind of grace to my friends.

Is anyone else ready to be a grace dispenser? I was just wondering.

 

I called Miz I. M. the other day and she informed me that she and her husband John were going out to dinner to celebrate their wedding anniversary.

“Child, I have been married forty-three years, and I’ve only regretted the first three.” Then she laughed.

I wondered aloud if she had ever thought about leaving her husband.

“No, but I have thought about cutting off a few of his toes. I’m just kidding, child, but the first three years were really tough because the babies came too quickly, but we made it. It was Maisie, who has no kids at all, who tried to leave her husband not once, but twice. Lord, that second time was quite an episode!”

It was one Thursday evening, about seven o’clock. John was asleep in the recliner and I was sitting on the sofa reading a magazine. When the doorbell rang, I wondered who it was ringing my bell at that hour. No one had called and said they were coming over and my children were away at school. I let the doorbell ring for three times hoping that the ringer would go away, but they just kept on ringing that bell. I went to the door and peeked through the peep-hole and there stood Miss Maisie. I opened the door, just as some strange car drove away and asked, “Maisie, what are you doing here? And where is Archie? Who is that in that car?”

Well, Maisie just ignored me and my questions and asked, “Where’s John?” I got indignant then because I know she didn’t come over to my house to ask me about my husband. By this time, John had waked up and wandered into the living room. “John, please come and get my luggage for me.” That is when I noticed that Maisie had brought in enough luggage to live with us for a year, but before I could say anything else, she marched into my guest room and my husband was struggling behind her with all that luggage.

I waited patiently for John to get all her stuff into the room and when he came out, I walked over to the door to go in, but she closed it in my face and locked it. She had locked the door to my guest room, in my face. When I knocked on the door, she informed me that she had a migraine and she would see me in the morning.

I was up bright and early the next morning. I knocked on the door to my guest room and informed Miss Maisie that this was not the Holiday Inn and unless she wanted me to have John pick the lock, she had better let me in. She opened the door and I marched right in. There she was, still in bed with a black eye mask on and the comforter pulled up to her chin. “Maisie,” I asked, “What is your problem?” She sat up, took off that eye mask and looked me right in the eye. Then she said, “I’ve left Archie.”

“Well, where did you leave him, and when is he coming to get you.”

“I. M., I mean I have left Archie, like in separation, adieu and good-bye.” Well, I wasn’t too surprised. Maisie tried to leave Archie once before when they had only been married about four years. Back then, she knocked on the door of our small apartment filled with me, John and the babies. She didn’t have the fancy luggage then, but she brought in a suitcase and a cardboard box right into my living room and claimed the sofa bed as her very own. She would not talk to Archie. She would not talk to me. She lay on that sofa bed for two days before I decided “enough is enough!” Since she wouldn’t talk to Archie, I called the one someone I knew she would not only talk to; she would also listen to them, too. I called Mama Susie, Maisie’s mother. I handed the phone to Maisie and walked out of the room, but I did eavesdrop. All I heard Maisie say was, “Uh huh; uh huh; uh huh,” and finally “Yes, ma’am.” An hour later Maisie was up and dressed when Archie showed up at the front door. Then, sixteen years later, she shows up at my front door, with luggage, even if it was fancy luggage, again.

You see, in my opinion, sometimes Maisie is too uppity for Archie. She was always wishing he was more polished, comparing him to some other man she thought was the ideal. I was always having to remind her of how blessed she was that she had a hard working man who apparently loved her, though I cannot, for the life of me, imagine why he put up then, and now, with her shenanigans.

“Maisie, who have you been talking to?” Well, she stiffened up at that question and told me that this was her decision. Archie was just not her style. He was still just too country. Now, I admit that Archie loves his white socks a little too much and sometimes his black everyday pants are a little too short, but the man has worked hard for everything they have. He retired early so he could manage the property they purchased down through the years and he does like to go fishing, but when Maisie dresses him, he does clean up real good. So, I asked again, “Who have you been talking to?”

Maisie pulled the mask back down over her eyes, laid back and muttered,” “Justine Jimpson was telling me about how her life has improved since she separated from her last husband.” I could not believe that Maisie had listened to Justine Jimpson. Child, Justine Jimpson has been married three times, every time to a younger man. I think she’s just looking for another child to raise and once the current one grows up she goes out and finds another young thing.

I tried to be calm when I asked Maisie, ‘HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND? WHAT POSSESSED YOU TO LISTEN TO C. R. JIMPSON?” C.R.is my private nickname for Justin, C.R. as in Cradle Robber. Then I had to apologize because Maisie is my best friend and I was not trying to hurt her feelings. “Maisie, what is the real problem?” She sat up again, yanked off the mask and screamed back at me, “ARCHIE IS A LEMON!”

I closed my eyes for a minute and thought about all the times John and I had more month than money, the times the children were sick and we had to stay up all night, the time that John decided to buy a new car without talking with me and without the wherewithal to make those monthly payments, the time he believed the soft whispers of our friendly, single neighbor and moved out for six months. All those challenges to our marriage flashed before me as I looked at Maisie wrapped in her silk robe smelling to high heaven of Chanel No. 5 at eight o’clock in the morning. I gave Maisie a good look. She looked miserable.

“Maisie, marriage is a challenge, I will agree with that. But I believe that marriage really is God’s grand plan for a woman and a man. I cannot go against His plan. It does not matter whether you think you made a mistake. Once you are in it, you have to be in it to win it. I will not agree that Archie is a lemon. Yes, he does smell like fish too often and his white socks are worrisome sometimes, and he could do with some new everyday pants that go past his ankles, but I do not believe he is a lemon.”

“Still, I am not married to him, so I say to you, if Archie is a lemon then you should learn how to add sugar and make lemonade.”

Well, Maisie looked at me like I had lost mind. Then she said, “I don’t like lemonade.” You know, that girl gets on my nerves sometimes.

I stood up and shook my finger at my best friend in the whole wide world. “Develop a taste for it, then, Sister Girlfriend. You need to get over yourself and start being interested in Archie, cause Honey Chile there are some women out there who do like lemonade and they know how to make it real good. Besides, for all you know, Archie might think you are a kumquat or something!”

I guess Maisie never thought of other women making and liking Archie lemonade because her eyes got as big as saucers. About that time, the doorbell rang, and in a few minutes, Archie came to the door of my guest room, hat in hand. I left them alone . . . for a long time, so after a while I had to go knock on that door and tell them to remember that this was my house and they needed to take that notion back to their house! Hmph!”

The upshot of it all is that I did not hear from Maisie for almost three weeks and when I finally did call, the answering machine came on: “Hi, this is Maisie (her voice), and Archie (his voice). We can’t come to the phone right now. We are making lemonade (both voices).”

Someday, when I am married and those lemon moments show up, I will call Miz I. M. to remind me how to make lemonade.

I wonder how many of my married friends have forgotten to make lemonade. I’m just wondering.

 

 

Email Donna Williams at - WilliamsNewDay@aol.com