The First Lady by Carl Weber Read Free Book Online

to your head.”
    “I’m still the same man inside that I’ve always been, Marlene. I just let the Lord guide my heart,” I said sincerely. “Look, why don’t you meet me at the church on Wednesday just in case I’m running late? I really can’t wait to see you.”
    “Wednesday night after Bible study. It’s a date.”
    We said our good-byes, then I hung up the phone. For a second there, I had to admit I got a little nervous when I heard the word
date.
James had me paranoid, I guess. Then I realized it was my good friend Marlene, and there was no way she would be caught up in this church nonsense about finding a new first lady.

5
S AVANNAH
    I was standing in the kitchen thumbing down the dough of the crust that would hold the best peach cobbler I’d ever made. Before pouring in the filling, I scooped up a little with the tip of my index finger, just to confirm what I already knew.
    “Delicious,” I said as I licked every drop off my fingertip. I had used just the right amount of each ingredient, although in doing so I went against the way my mama had taught me to prepare the family’s favorite recipe. I used measuring cups for this one. No way was I chancing too much of a pinch of this and too little of a hint of that. After all, this cobbler was for the head of the church himself.
    I still could hardly believe that my daddy had set it up for me to have dinner with Bishop T.K. Wilson. It wasn’t that I didn’t think Bishop Wilson was a fine man. It was just that I had no interest in him in the way Daddy wanted me to—at least not yet anyway.
    “Umm, umm, umm,” my daddy said as he entered the kitchen, nostrils flared, inhaling the aroma of the splendid meal I had prepared. “If you ain’t good for nothing else to a man, you going to be good for taking care of his appetite. The bishop is going to be back every Sunday after he gets some of your cooking, little girl.”
    “If there’s any left by the time he gets here,” I said, stepping away from the cobbler and smacking the back of Daddy’s hand, which held the ladle that had just fed him a mouthful of my homemade chicken and dumplings. “Mama never liked it when you ate out of the pots while she was cooking, so what makes you think I wouldn’t mind?”
    “Oh, you can hardly compare your cooking to your mama’s,” Daddy said as he stared off, thinking back to when my mother was alive and how she’d start preparing Sunday dinner at six in the morning. “Now, you might have her on that cobbler of yours, but as far as everything else? Humph. Not even close. You got some years of practice before you’ll even be fit to lick the bowls she cooked in. That’s why you need to work on getting you a husband. What better practice than cooking for your husband every day? Your mama loved cooking for me. That woman gave me everything I needed.”
    “Everything,” I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes as I put the top dough across the filling and placed the cobbler in the oven.
    I must admit, it was good to see a smile on Daddy’s face as he reminisced about him and Mama. I just wish he didn’t always have to put me down in the process. But that was Daddy for you. I think the only time he ever spared me a compliment was when it came to my peach cobbler.
    “Girl, you put your foot in this one,” Daddy said as he licked the bowl that had held the filling for the cobbler. He headed toward the kitchen door, but not before stopping to steal one more bite from the pot of chicken and dumplings.
    “Daddy, what did I just say about eating out of the pot?” I playfully scolded.
    “Is that the real reason, or you just don’t want nobody else besides the bishop getting any of your cooking?” Daddy asked.
    “Cut it out and give me that,” I said, smiling at him and taking the ladle from his hand. As I stirred the chicken and dumplings, I couldn’t help but start having doubts about the bishop’s reasons for wanting to share a meal with me. “Daddy, you