The Daisy

By Angell Marcella Davis

The Daisy is a riveting story of self-awareness, temptations, forgiveness, and triumphs.

Anthony Wilkerson has it alllooks, a new career, and a new apartment. He just relocated to Orlando, Florida, and has been working on moving up in his company as quick as possible. He is a charming poet whose love for women wont allow him to commit to anyone, and he is the master of every game that a man can play. When he meets Raven Sinclair, hes drawn to her mysterious demeanor and is challenged to deal with his own personal issues when the tables are turned.

Raven Sinclair is a Christian married to an unequally yoked husband and struggling with her own personal challenges. She is striving to elevate herself in her marriage, spirituality, career, and personal life but is faced with a devastating situation that may change her life forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504933070

Angell Marcella Davis

Angell Marcella Davis was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. She now resides in Jacksonville, Florida, with her beautiful daughter. She has a degree in network administration/programming and has pursued her writing since her childhood years. She is the owner and editor of N-to-U Magazine (pronounced Into You), a Christian-based magazine based outside of Jacksonville, Florida, and surrounding cities. Her writings have won her several awards throughout her lifetime, but the most notable was being the recipient of the 2008 Gospel Announcers Guild Award for Excellence in a Magazine. Angell considers herself a very spiritual person and believes that nothing is possible without God, so each day she gives thanks for every breath she takes. She has always been a visionary and has a passion for going after her dreams. “Whether I win or lose, I am satisfied with the fact that I tried, and you never fail when you try.” This book, The Daisy, is her first fiction novel but not her first published book. Her first book, Removing the Painting, was published in 2010. It is a book of poetry and short stories that will move you and inspire you. Her goal is to become the humanitarian that God created her to be. Be on the lookout for more to come from Angell Marcella Davis.

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© 2015 Angell Marcella Davis. 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 08/24/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-3308-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-3307-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015913744

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

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.

KJV

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

MSG

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. Website.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Memorial Hospital May 8, 1991

Chapter One Tony: The Last Weekend

Chapter Two Raven: The Wait

Chapter Three Tony: The Move

Chapter Four Raven: The Gift

Chapter Five Tony: Not On the First Date

Chapter Six Raven: The Renewal

Chapter Seven Tony: The Tour of Orlando

Chapter Eight Raven: The Night Out

Chapter Nine Tony: Breaking the News

Chapter Ten Raven: Emotions

Chapter Eleven Tony: The Date

Chapter Twelve Raven: The Free World

Chapter Thirteen Tony: The Metamorphosis

Chapter Fourteen Raven: Rising Above the Odds

Chapter Fifteen Tony: The Daisy

Chapter Sixteen Raven: The Scent of a Flower

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Nothing is possible without God, so I would like to thank Him first and foremost. Lord, I am forever grateful for the work that you’re doing in me. I am not the same person I was in the past and I am excited to be used by you and I will continue on the path that you have for me. I would also like to thank my beautiful daughter, Angelique. Without you in my life, there would be no meaning or purpose. It has always been me and you against the world. I am very proud of the young woman that you have turned out to be. I love you dearly. To my mom, thank you for all that you do for me and for always praying for me. Thank you to my cousin, Delithia Moore-Turner, for being the first person to purchase my first book Removing the Painting and for always being supportive in every aspect of my life. Love you.

Sylvia Mauldin, my best friend since middle school, thank you for always being the one to make me smile and for always being supportive. Antoine Nichols, we’ve been friends since kindergarten and I can’t imagine life without you in it. Thank you for your continued support and love. Thanks to my close friends, Shana Harris and Walter Smith. The two of you have been supportive in every way and thank you for always providing faith-based conversations and genuine friendship to me throughout the years. Thank you for always telling me the truth, even when I didn’t want to hear it. Your presence in my life is God-sent and I am truly grateful for you both. Shana, thank you, also, for taking time out to be the first one to read this book before it was published and for sharing your valuable opinion with me. Barbara Taylor, thank you for being my second mother and for always providing the best advice and spiritual guidance. Thank you, Quincy Gibson, for taking time out to read my book before it was published and for assisting me with cutting down some of the messages. I appreciate your support.

Thank you, Bishop Vaughn McLaughlin (Potter’s House International Ministries), for allowing me to use parts of your message He is God of your Broken Places to use for the fictional character, Pastor Jilah Johnson. Your messages from God and your spiritual guidance have helped me get through some very tough times in my life and I am more than grateful to be a part of your ministry. Thank you, also, to your beautiful wife, Narlene McLaughlin, for her continued support as well.

Special thanks to Edie Jo Mitchell for taking time out of your busy schedule to be the co-editor for me. I really appreciate your second pair of eyes and for your support. Thank you to my good friend and graphic designer, Tyrone Johnson, for designing the cover for me. Your creativity and talent is priceless and I am grateful for all that you contribute to my visions and dreams. Thanks to fellow poet, Travis Rogers, for allowing me to use his poems My Rib, and My Favorite Instrument. You are a great poet and I’m happy to publish two of many of your great pieces. Thank you to Mary Osborne for allowing me to use the A Predetermined Lifespan part of her article Stages of a Decaying Flower. Your words fit perfectly with the description of my character’s life.

Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank YOU, my readers, for supporting me and believing in my visions. You inspire me to carry on….thank you all.

Prologue

The truth about relationships remains unseen-

Behind false images that could not have been foreseen.

For all the tears that were shed, for all pain that was bore-

Waking up one day with eyes red and sore.

Wondering what happened to the love once known-

Like a day gone past and the sun that never shown.

Maybe you feel with the mind and no longer with the heart-

Maybe it wasn’t really true love from the start.

How can one love someone one day and not the next?

Is it because the virtue of love is one that’s perplexed?

To feel a love, yet never feel the depth of that love is a curse-

To lose a love, yet never understand why is even worse.

Manifesting a self love is what should become-

And through it all – it’s back to love that we succumb.

If only but one lesson learned.

If only but one soul yearned.

Memorial Hospital May 8, 1991

How long have I been here? I asked the doctor standing beside my bed. Nothing had been clear to me. I turned my head searching for an answer, and noticed none of my friends or family standing by my side.

A couple weeks, Mr. Wilkerson, a couple weeks. How are you feeling?

I tried to discern whether or not the pain was coming from my heart or from the complete emptiness that surrounded me.

I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out, so I just turned my head and stared out the window. It was a beautiful day outside and I dreaded not being able to run through the trees and lay on the grass the way I used to do. My name is Anthony Trevon Wilkerson. I was born in Miami, Florida on June 7, 1963. I grew up in the heart of the ghetto, searching for a way out. My mother died when my brother and I were too young to remember, and we were abandoned by our father at the same time. We were being raised by our uncle Steve.

Steve Wilkerson was a big man with beady eyes and a bald head. You could always find Steve sipping on a beer in front of the TV. I’ve never known Steve to ever have a job and he always said he refused to slave for the white man for a small piece of America’s dream; a dream that he felt he’d never fully receive. Instead, he sat back and received a check from the government once a month. Uncle Steve felt the welfare checks were owed to him for all the years of suffering our people endured. Although Steve was fun to be around, we spent most of our time at our aunt’s house down the street.

My brother Rashawn was four years older than I was. Rashawn Wilkerson Jr., stood 6'3 and weighed 220 pounds and had never cut his hair. Uncle Steve’s girlfriend, Pat, would come over every week just to braid his hair. Rashawn and I were always very close because we’re all we have in this world. I wondered where he was. Did he not know I was here? Did he not really love me? I was his only brother, why wasn’t he here?

As I stared out the window, I noticed the daisies in the front of the hospital’s gift shop outside. I always had this fascination with flowers, particularly daisies. When I was a child I would stare at the daisies in my aunt’s backyard. Every day the daisies looked different with the change of the seasons until one day the beauty of the daisies just came to a complete halt. It reminded me of life and the way my life has been. I wiped the tears falling from my eyes as I laid there in amazement. Where did I go wrong???

Chapter One

Tony: The Last Weekend

Tony, wake up, it’s time to get up, yelled my Aunt Tina. Tina Watson was my mother’s sister. She had very short hair that she loved to comb back and slick down. She was no more than 5 feet tall and had very huge hips. She had the prettiest caramel complexion and a curved smile. Her teeth were all crooked but somehow she would light up the room with her beautiful grin. Tina had a really heavy voice when she spoke. It appeared that she had been a smoker all of her life but I knew otherwise; Tina would never pick up a cigarette. Tina always liked to tell my brother and I stories about how much our mother Elaine was in love with our father, Rashawn Wilkerson. She would tell us how happy they were when Rashawn Jr. was born and even happier three years later when I was conceived. I’ve always blamed myself for my mother’s death because she died while giving birth to me. The doctors warned her that there would be complications having me and thought it would be wise to abort me. My mother decided against that idea and told her family that Rashawn needed a brother; somehow she knew I’d be a boy. Elaine had decided against an abortion the very day I was conceived. There have been so many times in my life I wished she had made a different choice….

I jumped out of my aunt’s bed and looked at the time. I had to be at work by 8:00 A.M. and it was already 7:30 A.M. I worked at Whitters Insurance Companies of Miami. I had just gotten promoted to the main office located in Orlando. My position as a Quality Coach allowed me to befriend all of the Corporate Directors and Managers. I’ve always tried to network to get my name in front of them all so whenever there were special projects or new training opportunities, I was always considered. This past Friday they gave me a surprise going away party at my job. The biggest surprise was that Lechelle was there. Lechelle was a manager I slept with a few years ago. She was about 4'5 and had curves to die for. She was a dark skinned woman with a really big nose and her hair was usually nappy and uncombed. Often times you would hear several co-workers talking about how ghetto she looked when she came to work. I first met her at a manager’s meeting she was facilitating and she stared at me through-out the entire meeting. I pretended not to notice because I didn’t think she was much of a sight to look at. However, once she got up out of the chair I found myself drooling. Her body was unbelievable! She stopped me after the meeting, complimented my style of dress and slipped me her business card with her home phone number written on it. After talking to her for a few nights, I invited her to my place and we had sex all night long but the next day I purposely ignored her. I told her I didn’t want to see her anymore and she cried and cursed at me. She was angry with me from that point on because she felt used. This is the reason I was nothing but surprised to see her at my party with a goodbye gift. My curiosity ceased when I finally opened the gift; a pair of boxers with the words I’m an asshole written on them with a marker.

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I always hated Monday mornings because every Sunday night I went to poetry night at the Lighthouse Club. The night before I partied all night and drank a little more than usual because I was celebrating the new job I was offered a couple weeks ago at the main office in Orlando. I tried to get my brother Ray to go out with me but he was too busy spending time with his low-down girlfriend Shawna. God knew I hated that girl and I didn’t like the fact that she was taking up all of my brother’s time. He chose not to go party with me but he promised he would come have drinks with me a day or two before I left and come to Orlando to see me. We’ll see if Shawna will allow that or if she will insist on coming along with him. Lord knows I hoped that wouldn’t happen. He couldn’t even help me move because he had to take Shawna to see her sick grandmother that weekend.

The Lighthouse Club was a spoken word poetry club. They played jazz there on certain nights and had live poets on other nights. This club was a normal pick-up spot for me. I’d always serenade the women with a poem or two and then pick which one I wanted to take home. Sometimes I’d even make up a name for myself and create a whole new life for the woman I chose. I could always tell what kind of man a woman was looking for just by the first five minutes of our conversation. For that night I’d become her dream guy and be gone by the morning. I did this for the reason of not having to worry about the woman stalking me or trying to force a relationship on me. I am definitely too young to commit myself to one woman especially with all these women throwing themselves at me. I am irresistible!

The night before was a special night for me because it would be my last night at the club for a while and my last weekend in Miami as a resident. I walked into the club with the intention of serenading a beautiful woman and celebrating my promotion with a BANG! I went straight to the bar and ordered a vodka with cranberry juice and sat there while a man dressed in all white read a poem about leaving his past behind. Uh, sounds like something I wanted to do, leave my past behind. I wanted to forget about my life here in Miami and start a new one in Orlando. Twenty-eight was the perfect age to start my life all over again. Just as I was smiling at the thought of leaving the past behind, a group of women walked in. One was very beautiful in the face but she was flat as hell when it came to her body and the other two were at least 200lbs. I didn’t do the flat or the fat, unless times were hard and normally with me times were never hard. I searched the room to find that one and alas! There she was; a new and beautiful face. There was a guy sitting there with her and another woman but the guy appeared to be with the other woman. I walked over to her with great confidence.

You are as beautiful as the setting of the sun. I noticed how beautiful her smile was when I spoke.

Is that right? she gracefully asked. I put my finger to her lips and whispered, Shhh, don’t speak, just listen. I’m new in this town and I just came here last month to take care of my dying mother; she has cancer. I’ve been so lonely since I’ve been here and I would be so grateful to spend the night with you.

Oh please, girl I know you’re not gonna fall for that lame bull are you? her girlfriend stated in a snobby tone.

I’m sorry to hear about your mother, you must be extremely depressed, she replied, ignoring her girlfriend’s statement.

I am, I need to relieve all this stress. By the way, my name is Davante. No one here knew my true name because every time I read a poem I read it as a different character.

I’m LaQuana, are you a poet?

I surely am and I’ve written a poem especially for you and those beautiful eyes of yours. She smiled a bright smile as her girlfriend shook her head in disgust. The guy at the table excused himself and walked over to the bar which put me at ease since he was such a big dude. I walked over to the host to let him know I would be going on next and hurried back to her table.

Excuse me Davante, but are you looking for a girlfriend or a one night stand? See, my cousin’s not interested in meeting someone just to screw for the night, whether they have a sick mother or not. You understand me? Now you can read all the poems you want and smile all the smiles you want with those beautiful teeth of yours, but if you are thinking about taking LaQuana home tonight then you can forget it.

Trisha hush! I am a grown woman and I can make my own decisions. I am so sick of you trying to speak for me. LaQuana got up and moved to an empty table and asked me to join her there. I looked at Trisha with a smirk on my face and walked over to the table LaQuana chose to sit at.

I’m sorry Davante, please don’t mind my cousin. She’s a little possessive over me and I hate it. Anyways sexy, am I going to hear that poem or what?

I’ve met women like Trisha before, always trying to control what other women do in their lives but don’t have control over the things they do in their own life. As she soaked up every word up I spoke, I heard the host introduce Davante. The crowd went wild when they saw that I was performing as Davante tonight. I got up in front of the crowd and in my sexiest voice ever I uttered the words

This poem is called My Rib, and it’s especially for LaQuana. I cleared my throat, looked straight at her and began.

"You’re as beautiful inside as you are on the outside.

God broke the mold once he made you.

There’s no comparison, nor competition.

Everything about you screams brilliance.

You’re presence lingers well after you exit.

Full of gifts, God blessed me with the perfect present.

I cherish you and for that I’ll cater…

Your personal waiter I’ll be.

For that thing you do with your face when you’re happy-

Smile….

Ignites a fire within me.

My senses go crazy for you,

You have an exquisite taste.

And your scent is my favorite perfume.

Your voice sings to my soul.

I lose control and can’t resist touching you or staring at your flawless temple.

Your beauty exceeds the limitations of outward appearance

And our affection isn’t restricted to things that are just physical.

Wholesome and virtuous, she praises and worship so I know our union is nothing less than biblical.

There’s no doubt in my mind that this perfect gift was made for me.

For God took a rib from me and made you and now I am finally complete."

The crowd went wild as usual and LaQuana was in tears when I sat next to her side.

That was beautiful.

Not as beautiful as you are. You wanna get outta here so you can help keep a poor lonely soul like myself busy? She started reaching for her purse and I smiled in disbelief, it worked, I thought.

She stopped me in the parking lot.

Where are we going honey? My car is parked in the back over there. Am I riding with you or should I just follow you?

Please just follow me. I am on call in case my mother needs me so I may have to take off unexpectedly. I was thinking maybe we could go back to my uncle’s house and watch a movie. He has a collection of great movies that I just never had time to watch, I would love to watch one with you.

She stood there for a moment, looked around and then back at me. She seemed a little unsure as to what to do. I don’t know where else she expected me to take her but when I said my uncle’s house her expression changed.

Well, I guess that’s fine. I am not the kind of girl to get naked with someone I just met. I just want you to know that, so don’t try anything.

Yeah right. It was 1:00 A.M. in the morning and she was going back to my uncle’s house with me, she would definitely be getting naked. I could tell from how anxious she was to grab her purse that she wanted me. I just had to play my cards right, besides, I loved challenges. I walked her to her car, grabbed the keys from her hand and opened the car door for her. She was grinning from ear to