Carl Weber - the First Lady

THE FIRST LADY

CARL WEBER

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Copyright 2007 by Carl Weber

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Library of Congress Card Catalogue Nunber: 2006933346
eISBN 978-0-7582-6300-1
eISBN 0-7582-6300-1

First Printing: January 2007

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to the Reverend Joseph Simmons, Minister Tyrone Thompson, Pastor Jerry Cannon, and Reverend Stanley Wright. Each of you has taught me a respect for the ministry in a different way. Ill always appreciate it. God bless.

CONTENTS

Id like to thank my editor, Karen Thomas, for all the things shes done for me and my career. Not only have you been a great editor and colleague, but youve been a terrific friend.

Hey, Charlene, you ready to get started?

My good friend and confidante, Alison Williams, smiled as she walked into my hospital room. I tried to smile back when she kissed my forehead, but the abdominal pains I was experiencing wouldnt allow it. So, I lay there in my bed, grappling through the pain as I watched her sit in the chair next to my bed and pull out some of my personal stationery and a pen. I pressed the button that controlled the morphine drip in my arm, and Alison waited patiently for my pain reliever to kick in. Six months ago, I refused to use any type of pain medication, but now I understood why the Lord invented addictive drugs like morphine and Demerol. Without them, I probably would have died from the pain of my pancreatic cancer weeks ago. As it was now, I was pushing the darn drip button every fifteen minutes. I was on the highest dose there was, which meant I didnt have long to live, probably a few weeks at best.

I wasnt afraid of dying, though. Id lived a good life, married a wonderful man in Bishop T.K. Wilson, raised two fantastic children, and had the honor of being the first lady of absolutely the best church in New YorkFirst Jamaica Ministries. So, if the Lord was ready to call me home, although I considered myself young at forty-four, I was ready to go. The only thing I was afraid of was what would happen to my familymore importantly, my husbandafter I was gone. I was now making preparations to be sure my man was taken care of after my death.

You see, as good and honorable a man of God as T.K. was, he was still just a man with desires and needs; and men, no matter how bright they may appear to be, are very naive when it comes to women, especially slick-ass churchwomen. I could see it now. Fifteen minutes after they put me in the ground, those church heifers would be in my house trying to figure out the best way to redecorate and move my shit out. Say what you might about my choice of words, but Id seen these so-called churchwomen in action too many times in the past.

Last year when Sister Betty Jean White passed away, within six months, her worst enemy, Jeannette Wilcox, had weaseled her way into Sister Bettys house and was sleeping with her husband. A few months after that, they were married. If you walk in that house today, theres not one sign that Sister Betty even lived there. So, I could envision T.K., in his moment of grief and loneliness, letting some church heifer manipulate him into doing just about anything she wanted, and I was not about to allow that.

Dont get me wrong. I wasnt trying to stop my husband from moving on with his life after I was gone. On the contrary, I wanted him to find someone to spend the rest of his days with and be happy. I just wanted to make sure that that someone had his best interests at heart and wasnt just some ambitious, Biblecarrying gold digger with her own agenda. Thats why, with the help of Alison, I was planning on helping my husband pick my successor from the grave.

I felt some relief when the pain medication finally kicked in, and Alison helped me as I struggled to sit up. She placed a pillow behind my head, then sat back in her seat to take notes as I began to dictate the fourth of several letters to be given out after my death. One would be for T.K., to let him know how much I loved him and that I wanted him to move on with his life. The next letters would be to the four women I thought were the top candidates to vie for my husbands heart and become the next first lady of First Jamaica Ministries. In my opinion, not every one of these women was a suitable candidate, which was even more reason for me to be writing these letters. I had to steer the course of events so that T.K. would not end up with the wrong woman.

I started this days dictation with a letter for T.K.'s first love, Marlene, the mother of his illegitimate daughter, Tanisha. I never really told anyone this, but I liked Marlene, even if she was extremely rough around the edges. She had spunk, and from what I was told, a loyalty to T.K. that almost rivaled my own. I know it might sound strange for a woman, any woman, to have kind words about her husbands ex-lover, but their relationship happened long before I met T.K. and before he found the Lord.

I will admit, though, that at one time I had been glad that Marlene had moved to D.C. But that was before I was diagnosed with cancer, when I made it a point to keep any woman who might tempt T.K. as far away as possible. Now I was happy to hear that she had recently moved back to Queens and had even shown up at a few church services. She, unlike any of the other candidates, had a connection to my family, which made her a very favorable competitor in the race for T.K.'s heart. Her only flaw in my eyes was that she was a recovering drug abuser but then again, so was my husband.

The next letter was to be written to Savannah Dickens. Savannah was the churchs new choir soloist. She was a quiet, attractive woman in her mid-thirties who kept to herself. Shed grown up in our church but had been living in California for the past fifteen years. I didnt know much about her except that she had a phenomenal voice and had just recently returned to the church and the community. I will admit Im not much for quiet folks because theyre usually trying to hide something. She was, however, the daughter of Deacon Joe Dickens, so there was no denying that she would be at least considered for the position of first lady after my death. Her father was one of the more prominent older members of our church, and he was looking to become the chairman of the Deacons Board, so I was sure that after my death he would be trying his best to push T.K. and Savannah together in an effort to consolidate power. It was a move I wasnt against, because it would probably benefit T.K. in the long run. The more people he had watching his back the better. What I didnt like was the fact that Savannah was only thirty-five years old. I wasnt objecting to her age so much; she was only ten years younger than T.K. I was worried that she was thirty-five and didnt have any children. A woman under forty who hadnt had a child probably wanted kids of her own, and that was out. The last thing T.K. needed after raising my son, Dante, and my daughter, Donna, and then putting them through college was another baby to support. Besides, he was now a grandfather. How would he look having a child that was younger than his grandchildren?