Till You Hear From Me: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

and since I was from there, they thought I might be able to assist them.”
    “And can you assist them, Mr. Harper?” she said, raising her glass.
    “I can do better than that,” he said, clinking his glass against hers lightly. “I can introduce them to my pastor.”
    She took a sip of her wine. “Are they also in need of spiritual counseling?”
    “My pastor happens to be Reverend Doctor Horace A. Dunbar, the man of the hour.”
    Her eyes widened. “He’s your pastor?”
    Wes nodded and took a bite of his Mongolian Beef. “I grew up in his church.”
    Toni put down her glass and shook her head.
    “What?”
    “Why can’t I picture you as a little kid sitting in Sunday school?”
    “Because you have a woefully limited imagination,” he said. “I was a member of the junior choir and treasurer of the Youth Fellowship for three years running.”
    She laughed again. “What happened the fourth year?”
    He grinned at her again. “I discovered the pursuit of pussy and my church attendance fell off a little, but you didn’t let me finish.”
    She took another small sip of her wine. Toni wasn’t a big eater. “By all means, finish.”
    “The Rev. Dunbar is also my dad’s best friend.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    Wes shook his head. “I kid you not. They have coffee together three or four mornings a week. All I have to do is ask my dad if I can stay with him for a couple of days and all the information I need will come walking up the front steps.”
    “Well, that wraps it up with a bow,” she said. “You can sell out the race and betray your father’s trust all in one fell swoop.”
    “It’s a gift.”
    That was another thing he liked about Toni. She shared his ability to dismiss any claims of racial solidarity that conflicted with the interests of their clients. He thought of the two of them as part of the vanguard of post-racial African American professionals who were free at last to pimp the race without pretending they were trying to save it.
    “Did you tell the RNC guy all this?”
    “Hell, no,” Wes said, refilling their glasses. “Too much information all at one time isn’t good for white folks. Anything of particular interest in the video clips?”
    “Not much,” Toni said, nibbling a piece of broccoli delicately.“There is one with the good reverend and some of his contemporaries really roasting Obama and then one from two days ago where he suggests in an interview with
The Atlanta Constitution
that unchecked diversity may result in black churches being forced to serve tacos and sangria on Communion Sunday.”
    Wes choked on a spring roll. “He said
what?
”
    “Tacos and sangria,” Toni said when Wes stopped coughing. “The whole thing is kind of bizarre actually. He’s apparently still really mad at the president.”
    “All those old guys are still mad.”
    “Because of Jeremiah Wright?”
    “That’s part of it,” Wes said, helping himself to the last spring roll. “But I think it’s just hard for them to admit that whether they were ready or not, the torch has been passed.”
    “But that’s what they were all working for, wasn’t it? A chance for black folks to rise and be first-class American citizens?” she said. “Well, they did it. They won. They should be celebrating their victory.”
    “They don’t know how to celebrate,” Wes said. “They’re warriors. What they know how to do is fight, struggle, organize. Stepping aside to make room for new blood isn’t part of their makeup.”
    She looked at him and grinned. “So I guess Etta James spoke for them all when she offered to whip Beyoncé’s young ass for singing her song at the inauguration.”
    “Exactly,” he said. “That wasn’t about the song. That was about being
iconed
to death when all she really wanted to do was sing.”
    “What does the Reverend Dunbar want?”
    “I won’t know that until I get down there and have a chance to talk to him. These guys are ripe to flip their party affiliations,