Love Like Hallelujah by Lutishia Lovely Page B

camaraderie was the main enjoyment, the golf was gravy.
    “So man, I know you’ve seen Tootie a few times. How’s she look?” Vivian had told Derrick about this thorn returning to Tai’s side.
    “Fine as ever.” King putted.
    Derrick eyed his friend a moment. King and Tootie had been quite the item back in the day. But that was a long time ago. “Tootie, Tootie, with the big—”
    “Booty, booty,” they both finished together.
    “You’re crazy, man.” King laughed even as a clear memory of Tootie’s young, tight, upturned rear end floated into his mind’s eye. “That’s the first thing I thought, too, when Von told me she was in town.”
    “How’s her mother doing?”
    “A little better, according to Mama. I went to see her right before she had the operation, and again just before I came here.” King watched Derrick choose an iron, practice swing, and then choose another. “You know Deacon Nash is a good friend of the family. He’s been there regularly on the church’s behalf.”
    Probably best, is what Derrick thought. “It’s good Miss Smith has someone to lean on,” is what he said, and then continued. “Where’s Tootie’s husband? Although I guess I should try and call her. What’s her new name, Janet? Wonder where she got that name, anyway.”
    “Home, in Germany. And it’s Janeé.”
    “Huh?”
    “Tootie is using her middle name now. Her name is Rita Janeé. You don’t remember?” King asked.
    “I don’t think I ever knew that.”
    “You knew her pretty well not to know that.”
    They picked up their clubs and walked to the next hole.
    “You know she’s got kids,” King said.
    Derrick paused in midstroke. “Kids? Tootie?”
    “Yeah, she’s got three.”
    Derrick shook his head. “I never imagined Tootie as a mother.” He swung his club and frowned at the less than stellar shot. As King was getting ready to swing, Derrick commented, “Big booty Tootie.”
    King laughed again. “Man, will you cut that out! It’s like you’re seventeen again.” He carefully lined up his club, shadowed the ball several times, and then hit it directly into a sand trap. “Ah, man!”
    Derrick laughed, commiserating with his friend. Golf definitely wasn’t as easy as it looked. They both reached for their water bottles.
    “Life is full of surprises,” Derrick said. “What’s it been, fifteen, twenty years since you’ve seen her? Guess she finally realized she couldn’t have you and moved on.”
    “Humph. Hear you tell it. Remember how she used to drive everybody crazy singing Whitney?”
    “And Donna, Natalie, Aretha, Chaka—anybody who can blow.”
    “That girl was wild though, wasn’t she?” King asked, capping his bottle and picking up his bag. He’d thought of their wild times more than once since he’d seen her. He and Tootie were careful not to bring up the past, but one look in her eyes, and he knew Tootie had been thinking about it, too.
    Derrick placed his ball on the tee and lined up his shot. He smiled slightly as he watched his ball land about six feet from the hole.
    “Another lucky shot, dog,” King said, playfully taking his iron and faking a swing to Derrick’s head.
    “That’s skill, my brothah. I got skills.” And then, “Tootie was something else, a sex addict before they invented the term.”
    “Sure was. Always classy though,” King responded. “Even though we all knew who was doing her, it wasn’t like she was a ho, you know?”
    “Yeah, Tootie had that way about her. And she was just like a man. She’d do the do and then beat you out of bed, shower, dress, and be ready to go home.”
    “True that. Messed with a brothah’s ego a little bit, almost made me feel like the ho sometimes!”
    Both of them knew that feeling. Derrick reflected on who he was then, and who he was now. “We were different men back then, young, foolish.” He thought the same of Tootie—Janeé—who’d obviously changed more than her name. “And she’s married?