A Rose Witnesses a Thorn

It wasn’t long before Yvette noticed that Andrew was more focused on helping Ms Rose out whenever the weather got bad or the floors of the atrium were wet and she had to navigate it.

In fact, most of the women who had been waiting for an occasion to find fault in Ms Rose saw this change in Andrew’s behavior. He was extra nice to Ms Rose. He was more attentive to her well being. It was innocent enough that no one could say the boy had a crush on his sitter. However, no one thought it would not end up in a situation of young man has a crush on his sitter.

Before anyone had the chance to take anything away from Yvette, she made a bit of a transformation and gave the performance of a lifetime.

New Found Friends

Yvette seemed to have a change of heart and experienced a form of conversion. She was now doing what Mrs Edward had done to gain her own power in the church. Yvette started mentoring other women on the virtues of being a lady to their husband. A ministry of sorts. The women ate it up.

The success was chalked up to the advice actually working in renewing the spark of romance between husband and wife. Yvette even gave up gossiping entirely. People started to trust her. Especially as her teachings on sensuality, romance, and etiquette helped bring several marriages back from the brink.

The church grew. More families joined. The ministry of Yvette was working. Plus, any single lady and any female student who wanted to level up their game got instantly redirected towards Ms Rose. Yvette was boosting up the ministry of the very woman she had tried to take down with gossip many years before.

While Yvette had no illusions that Ms Rose and Mrs Edward would embrace her as a friend, she knew that Mrs Edward’s sensitivity to public opinion served as a checkmate of sorts. Mrs Edward had to be nice to Yvette. She even had to insist a few times that Ms Rose play nice and show respect towards Yvette.

The youth even stopped calling her Vette and started warming up to calling her Mrs Yvette. The plan was working marvelously as Andrew seemed to maintain his focus on learning chivalry at the side of Ms Rose and a few other close lady friends of the family… married lady friends at that.

All along, Mr Edward was experiencing a bit of loss in the marriage department. He was giving up. He was less interested in showing public signs of affection. He carried on his husbandly duties to the extent it was required. His eyes never left his wife’s aura. Mr Edward never wavered. No one could make his gaze move.

What was mysterious, the more Mrs Edward covered up, the more Mr Edward’s eyes probed to find any hint of curves his wife had. Most concluded that Mr Edward was a breast man. The one area Mrs Edward tried to conceal the most was her breast.

Yvette hoped that Andrew would give her a good chance to exact revenge sooner than later. The boy was starting to lose focus. He must have gotten whatever answer he was looking for. If a window didn’t open, all that patient waiting would be for nothing.

The Incident

Yvette was growing desperate. She had not gossiped about anyone in a while. Andrew had lost interest in Ms Rose. He was back to being the normal boy he was. Mr Edward had settled into a routine that explained why he was not always with his wife. No one found fault in that. Mrs Edward had settled into a very closed off person who only socialized with “safe” people.

Yvette knew what that “safe” meant. These were people who didn’t gossip, didn’t create drama, didn’t share their secrets for having awesome families. They were a tightly knit small group. Their power was rising. Their respect was becoming untouchable. Their children were becoming the rising stars of the church and the local community.

They had to be taken down a notch. However, as hard as Yvette worked, the narrow window of flaw Andrew had presented had vanished. Worse, Ms Rose had started to be more diplomatic about her ties to Mrs Edward. The gap between Mr and Mrs Edward was narrowly matched by the gap between Ms Rose and the family. Everything always cordial, wonderful, safe.

One lovely afternoon, between the main service and the community service activities, luck struck in Yvette’s favor. She pounced without thought. This was her last chance. Little did she know that this action would have dyer consequences that would haunt her and many others for life. Little did she know that her actions would harm many and nearly destroy the church.