Don't Cry for Me

By Taffi Stevens

In order to escape the poverty of the south, Alonas family moved to Chicago. The Crawford family has made a name for themselves as one of the leading Publishing Company in Chicago. Alona has now become a successful stock broker, for an investment company. She also is an up and coming writer. She has it all, loving husband, two wonderful children. She lives in a mansion, and drives a Mercedes Benz. Her world is turned upside down when she recognizes her childhood sweetheart at a dinner party, Drew Patton. A single Pastor, self-made millionaire, who owns a multi-media empire in New Orleans. They reconnect again and share an unforgettable rendezvous weekend while attending a writers conference.

Alona and Drew, two devoted Christians will have their faith tested in this steamy love triangle. Was it love that brought them together? The Church will say it was Lust. The world will call it Love. What will Alona decide? Will she risk her 10- year marriage to follow what she believes is her heart?

Your writer
Taffi Stevens

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 15, 2009
• ISBN: 9781477278765

Book preview

Don’t Cry for Me

Taffi Stevens

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AuthorHouse™

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© 2012 Taffi Stevens. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/19/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4389-5205-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-7876-5 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1-The Call

Chapter 2-Alona’s Trip to Chicago

Chapter 3-Growing up in Chicago

Chapter 4-Drew’s Beginning

Chapter 5-The Meeting

Chapter 6-The Banquet

Chapter 7-The Last Dance

Chapter 8-Drew Goes Home

Chapter 9-The Conference

Chapter 10-The Weekend

Chapter 11-Going Back to Mississippi

Chapter 12-The Funeral

Forward by Alma Walton.

I dedicate this book to my Grandfather Lewis who taught me the way of the Lord, my Mother Bertha who taught me to never give up. To my four beautiful children, Hephzibah strong hand and support, Joshua confident in me, Angelica vocal challenge, Isaiah hugs and kisses, my husband Bill without his love and understanding this book would have not been completed and to the person who taught me I can have success, success beyond my Dream.

Chapter 1

The Call

Ring! Ring! Ring! The phone is ringing. She jumps up off the bed drowsily. She reaches for the phone. She hits herself on the head to make sure it is not a dream. Alona talks to herself, saying, Man, I just had a bad dream. I dreamed about Grandfather Lewis. He was in a white casket with gold trim. Finally, she answers the phone. Hello? Hello, who is this? she asks.

Alona, it ‘s your mother, can you hear me? she yells.

Yes, Mother, I can hear you.

What took you so long to answer the phone? she inquires in an anxious tone.

I’m sorry, Mother, I was asleep when you called, and I had a very bad dream.

Really, her mother said. What was it about?

It was about Grandfather Lewis; I saw him in a white casket with gold trim around the side.

Oh, really? Her mother pauses and takes a deep breath. I have some bad news, Alona. I guess your dream wasn’t a dream after all.

What has happened, Mother? Alona asks in an urgent tone.

Your Grandfather Lewis passed away last night.

Oh no! Alona yells Oh no! Mother, he was doing so well; when I talked to him last night he sounded like his old self. He was going to take the dog out tomorrow and go hunting. Alona starts to cry.

Try to be strong, Alona. You know he was up in age, going on eighty years old. That ‘s a long time to be on this earth. You know he worked hard all his life, working in that cotton field year after year, sweating in that hot sun for little or nothing.

I know, Momma; he taught me how to work hard and make every penny count."

Now he is in a better place where he can finally meet that man he used to sing about every Sunday at St. Jacob Baptist Church. Some glad morning when this life is over, I’ll fly away to a place where joy will never end; I’ll fly away. Alona and her mother begin to cry profusely. Oh, girl, we have got to get ourselves together. Her mother stops for moment and wipes her nose.

Alona stops and dries her eyes with some Kleenex. Alona begins to murmur. I remember when he used to place me on his lap and bounce me up and down; then he would push his whiskers up against my cheeks. It use to stick me like pins and needles, but I didn’t mind, Mother, because I knew that was his way of saying ‘I love you, Jeanie Boot.’

Oh, yes! her mother screams. That was his second name he used to call you. There is silence for a moment. Alona asks her mother, What am I going to do? How can I live without him? It seems lately that everything I love seems to be leaving me (she is referring to her love for Drew Patton, whom she had not seen since she left Ba-ton Rouge six months ago).

Alona, you have to pray; that is how he got through life, and that is how we will get through also. They both take a deep breath. Alona tells her mother that she will call her later for further funeral detail. Okay, Alona, her mother agrees, I will call you tomorrow. They both say I love you to each other and hang up. .

Alona gets back into bed. She places the cover over her slim body and pulls her knees up to her chest. She begins to remember the day her grandfather told her how she was born.

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The day was July 14, 1957. You could say things were changing quite a bit in 1957. The Rome Treaty was signed. The treaty established the European economy between ten communities. While all of this changing was taking place, black people in the South were separated by laws that prevented two communities from coming together by means of segregation. That community was the black and white. The Soviet Union was launching the first satellite into space; this marked the beginning of the space age. While they were launching satellites into space, black men were being lynched by the hundreds because they refused to bow down to the Jim Crow laws of the South. I do remember my grandfather telling me about those brave children in Little Rock, Arkansas, where the first high schools desegregated in 1957. They would follow with junior high schools the following year. I guest you could say Arkansans had more Southern grits in their teeth than those in any other state. I was born on a hot summer day, according to Dad Lewis’s account. I was a young child born in Tunica, Mississippi. I was born to Bertha Candle. She was a teenager; the little girl that was born that day was to be called Alona. I was given that name by my grandmother, Haggar Candle. On the farm in Mississippi, Grandfather Lewis was out on the porch, cutting a piece of wood. Grandmother Haggar was in the house, assisting my mother with delivering me. It was a hot day in July, and there was no air conditioning, only the one fan that was blowing on my mother as she screamed out in labor pain. Grandmother Haggar yelled intensely, Girl, you had better push that baby out.

I can’t; I can’t, screamed Bertha.

Yes you can, she insisted. At last Bertha started to push, I see the head, cried Grandmother Haggar. It’s a… it’s a… it’s a girl! she yelled. I knew she was a girl. I could tell the way you were carrying that child in your stomach. In those days the old folks would say that if your stomach was high, then you were going to have a boy, and if you were carrying it low, then you would have a girl. Once I was out, they cleaned me up, and then Grandmother Haggar took me out on the porch to let Grandfather Lewis bless me to the only true God of Heaven and Earth. This was a family tradition in the Candle family. Grandfather Lewis took the child, blessed it, and said, She is going to be something great; I can tell by the way she looks.

Old folks also had a way of looking at children and could predict their future if they were going to become some great freedom fighter or some great disappointment to their race. Four years passed since my birth. One hot summer day, the family was headed to go to work in the cotton fields. There were thirteen brothers and sisters in the Candle family—seven boys and six girls. The white boss loved large families because they became his total work force without his having to hire outside help. I don’t remember a whole lot about working in the field, because I wasn’t allowed to go until I was about four or five years old. One thing I do remember is that it was very hot, and my Uncles and Aunts were very resentful of working in the cotton fields. One reason was that it was so hot; it could get one hundred degrees in the middle of the day. Also, the wages were very low; you could work for as little as $1.00 per day with thirteen children and two adults, which came to $15.00 per day and $75.00 per week. In two weeks you could have $150.00. That was not bad money in 1961. It may seem like a lot of money, but many times in the winter we didn’t have food to eat, because the money in the summer had been spent on food and bills. Many times my grandfather would have to go out and hunt for rabbits and squirrels so we could have something to eat for dinner. I remember my Aunt Vera would say, We aren’t nothing but slaves for the white boss. He’s working us like slaves and paying us slave wages while he is riding around in his air-conditioned truck. She was always a very outspoken person, as my Grandfather Lewis would always say. I didn’t mind working in the field, because it gave me the opportunity to be with the entire family and I could go from row to row, putting cotton in everyone’s sack. I also didn’t mind because I knew one day I wouldn’t have to work in those fields for any white man. I would be in a place where I would work only for myself. That is the dream that I have reached, and that is the goal that has helped me to succeed even to this day.

Chapter 2

Alona’s Trip to Chicago

In 1966, my mother and father had had their share of sharecropping and starvation and decided to move to Chicago. The only way that you got out of Mississippi in those days was when someone in your family knew someone that had escaped the poverty of the South and found a refuge in Chi-town (a nickname that we used to use for Chicago) and that person came back down south to invite you to come back up to Chicago. This was the case with my Aunt Hazel; she had fallen in love with an ex–Southern boy named Robert Talker, and was he a talker and liar. He could lie so well that I think he had started believing his own lies. He married my Aunt Hazel and took her back to Chicago with him. One summer they came to visit my Grandfather Lewis; by then my Grandmother Haggar had gone to meet the Lord in heaven; everyone said this was because of her religious beliefs. My mother really didn’t want to leave her father and younger brothers and sisters, but as she put it, there is nothing down here for me, and I’ve got to make life a little better for my kids; the life I never had, they maybe could. There was also another reason we had to leave Mississippi; word had gotten around town about something my grandfather told me but my mother never told me. The word was that my dad, John Crawford, had been fooling around with a young girl name Essie May Johnson and that he had gotten her pregnant and she was carrying his child. The day we were about to leave Mississippi, my mother called all the family together and said she had bad news. The news was that we were leaving. When she announced this news, everyone in the house started to cry, including her brothers; Lord, Junior, Rovet, Hank, Jerry, Ro, and Ben; and her five sisters; Chris, Vera, Dore, Earnest, and May; and most of all, my Grandfather Lewis.

All of the family started to talk at the same time. Bertha, John, you can’t leave town, cried my Grandfather Lewis. We need you all to help pick cotton in the field.

I’m sorry, Daddy, my mother replied. This is no life for me and my children, and John can’t be the man he is destined to be living down here with so much racial discrimination. The year was 1966, so off to Chicago we went. It was during this time that you could hear about the rumors of the Vietnam War. Everyone was upset about the war because many young men, black and white, were coming home in body bags. The blacks were upset because they said we were over there fighting for another country’s freedom while we didn’t have freedom in our own country. I didn’t know too much about the war because I was too young to understand about wars. I used to hear my mother and dad talk, and they said that President Johnson passed a law call the Economic Opportunity Act in 1965. This law was one of the many economic changes that Dr. King had pushed for before he was killed. Also, a voters’ rights act had been implemented, and this gave all citizens of the United States the right to vote without any intimidation from white men like the KKK.

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Alona jumps up off the bed. She starts to walk toward the shower. She is wearing a short nightgown through which her breasts can be clearly seen. The black gown curves along the very long lines of her figure. The slender curves emphasize the lines of her figure, her raven black hair coming down her back. Her midnight brown eyes match her smooth, brown skin. Before she gets into the shower she asks herself, I wonder, will he be there? She is referring to her long-lost love, Drew Patton. She had lost him when she was a little girl. This was one of the times when her grandfather took her to Louisiana to visit his army buddy, John Bell. He would often ask Alona if she wanted to come along with him, since she was his favorite of the grandchildren. One time when Alona went with him, she didn’t know she would meet the one who would change her life forever. Alona was reintroduced to Drew while he was teaching a poetry class at the University of Chicago when she was taking a writing class. When she saw him, she did not realize that he was the same skinny little boy she used to play marbles with in Tunica, Louisiana. He was so handsome to her then; he had such a beautiful smile, and she was very intrigued by his shy mannerisms. She had a crush on him then, and she was only nine, and he was twelve years old. They used to swing together and roll tires down the dirt road. Alona would go to visit Drew every summer. Alona would say to him, Drew, we will never be separated. No matter what happens, we will be together always. One day we will get married, have lots of children. Drew would just look at her and smile. He was a little afraid of girls, but he loved Alona very much; she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. One day as they were sitting by the lake, throwing rocks in the water, Alona stared at Drew in a dreamy, romantic manner and said, Drew, if I was to kiss you, would you kiss me back?

Drew looked at her and smiled, and he then said in a soft, shy voice, Yes, I guess, Alona. I guess it would be okay.

They began to come close together—closer, closer—they then kissed softly and gently on the mouth for a moment. That was wonderful! cried Alona.

Yes, that was scary, replied Drew. He then jumped up quickly and ran home. He was very afraid. Alona jumped up and yelled, Drew, come back! Don’t leave! I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to frighten you. Please come back, Drew! Please! Drew ran away because his mother had told him that if he kissed a girl he might get her pregnant. He did not know that she meant that if he was to go further than kissing a girl, she could get pregnant. Little did she know that this would be the last time she would see him.

Chapter 3

Growing up in Chicago

All I can remember about arriving in Chicago is the tall buildings and cement sidewalks. When we arrived we had to stay with my Aunt Hazel and Robert Talker. They stayed in a one-bedroom apartment on the south side of Chicago. We had to sleep in the kitchen, my sister Mary and I,