Diary of a Mad First Lady by Dishan Washington Page A

their usual; they each tried to measure my stomach to see if I had gotten any bigger since the week before.
    “Ladies,” I said, “hello to you too.” Since announcing to them my impending arrival, they no longer cared how I was doing; their only concern was the baby and if I was taking care of myself. For the sake of the baby, of course.
    “Michelle, girl, you know you looking good,” Marjorie, the next to the youngest first lady and my best friend, said. Her husband was the pastor at Renewed Faith Christian Fellowship out in Stone Mountain. They had only been married for a year. Her ride to the “front row seat,” as we called it, was packed full of drama. Before she and her husband Stephen met, his church was filled to capacity every week, with women hopeful of being the first lady seated in the front row. Marjorie told us hilarious stories about the weekly shenanigans the women underwent to get Stephen’s attention, even after he’d announced their engagement to the congregation. She told of one woman who had a crying fit one Sunday during altar call, exasperatedly proclaiming that she was supposed to be First Lady Thompson and not Marjorie. She proclaimed that Stephen was going to cause the church to suffer because he was disobeying God.
    During this time, Marjorie informed us that her only tactic was to stay controlled and poised—two attributes that landed her the marriage proposal in the first place—until she became Mrs. Stephen Thompson. Then, and only then, would she deal with those man-stealing, low-down, dirty women whose motives were to destroy relationships.
    I continued to beam as the ladies complimented me on how well I was carrying the pregnancy and how gorgeous I looked in my green apple sundress with an embroidered green-and-gold jacket to match. Darvin had bought it for me while away on one of his preaching engagements in Virginia. It was customary for him to bring me expensive gifts from his out-of-town trips.
    The rumble in my stomach immediately brought to my attention that we’d done enough greeting one another, and it was time to eat. I was starved, or at least I felt that I was.
    We walked to our table, which was situated in its own little corner in the back—just as we preferred. We never wanted to take a chance on having one of the members of our congregations listening in on our conversation.
    We sat down, and before long, had ordered our drinks, appetizers, and entrees. None of us needed to look at a menu, seeing that each of us had tried everything on the menu at least once.
    “So, Michelle, I hear that it was you who had the most interesting week of us all,” Pamela House said. She was the oldest among us, and had been married to Bishop William House for more than twenty-three years. Together they served as pastors and founders of New Light International Fellowship Church, in Decatur.
    “Yes. To say that it was interesting is definitely an understatement.” I told them the entire story that I was sure Marjorie must have already told, but my version was much more dramatic. If I had not lived it, I wouldn’t have believed it myself. I had been asking myself all week the likelihood that the sister of my former terrorist had not only appeared at my church, but had appeared with the desire to become a permanent part of my life. It was ridiculous. The more I tried to understand it, the less I understood.
    “So, what I want to know is, did you knock her into her eternity, or at least her teeth down her throat?” That was spoken by the youngest member of our group, Shaunie Anderson, a first lady for a good three months. She was also the rebel of the group. She couldn’t understand that our position required us all to try to remain dignified, regardless of how many irate members we encountered.
    After we silently bored holes into her, she shrug-ged her shoulders and said, “What? I’m just being real; something that all of you chicks need to try at least one time in your life.”