Thanksgiving Day, accompanied by a rough-looking man wearing a do-rag asking again if I would watch her kids while she went to one of the nearby bars, I still said no. As bad as I wanted and needed friends, I promised myself I would avoid anybody I thought was out to take advantage of me. I lied to her about having a date, but as soon as she left, I crawled into bed and ate my dinner with a relish.
I dozed off, but around ten the phone rang. Muh’Dear told me all about the wonderful Thanksgiving dinner she had enjoyed with Mr. King and a holiday service they’d attended at church. Before she asked I told her that I was certain I’d be working any day now. “I’ve been on several interviews,” I revealed. “That’s why I was not here all those times you called.”
“Well turn it over to God. If you done interviewed all you can interview, it’s up to Him now.” Muh’Dear babbled on for a few minutes more about Judge Lawson’s failing health and what some of the people from the neighborhood were up to. She told me in great detail about Caleb’s recent hip surgery, Florence calling to get my address, and Pee Wee’s picture in the newspaper because of some medal he had earned. She finally hung up after telling me about how she took flowers over to the cemetery to put on Mr. Boatwright’s grave.
I dreamed about Mr. Boatwright that night. He had come into my room wearing a white robe and carrying his Bible. “Don’t you be scared of nothin’, girl. I’m here to comfort you,” he told me. The dream was so real. I woke up around 5 A.M. in a daze the day after Thanksgiving and could not get back to sleep. I was just lying in bed staring at the ceiling when around 9:30 A.M. the phone rang. It was the personnel representative at the Erie Manufacturing Company, one of the two factories where I had applied. They had a job for me.
“When do I start,” I yelled. The woman on the other end was silent.
“Are you available to start work a week from Monday?”
“Oh yes. I’m available to start TODAY if you want me to,” I said eagerly.
The woman laughed. “That won’t be necessary. You’ll need to take a physical first, then, of course, there is some paperwork you will need to complete.”
After I got off the phone I actually started dancing around the room. I had to share my news with somebody. Rhoda and Muh’Dear were both out. I put on a blouse and skirt and walked across the hall to tell Levi. Before I could knock, his door opened and he walked out with an attractive woman in her mid-twenties. “I’m sorry. Um…I just wanted to let you know I got a the job I applied for at Erie Manufacturing.”
“Praise the Lord!” he yelled. I didn’t bat an eye when he hugged me. His lady friend rolled her eyes at me and advised him that they had a cab waiting.
Too excited to sit in my room, I went to the hotel’s restaurant and wrestled my way through another one of their fried chicken plates.
CHAPTER 47
I hated my new job at first. Along with seven other women I sat on an assembly line screwing washers, nuts, and bolts onto various parts of garage-door openers. After only a week, it was a chore I could do in my sleep. Because of the oil and dust, we all dressed very casually, so I’d wasted all the money I’d spent on business suits.
The seven dollars an hour and the medical benefits were the incentive I needed to keep me going. Muh’Dear, Rhoda, and everybody else I’d told were happy for me. Florence even sent me a congratulatory card.
“What are your coworkers like?” Rhoda asked. She had just come home from the hospital with a seven-pound baby boy she had named Julian. I could hear him crying in the background.
“Well, I don’t know yet. They mind their own business and so do I. I am the youngest one and there are only two other Black women. There is another department in another section where they test and paint the garage-door openers, but I haven’t met any of those people.”
“You’ve been sharin’ an assembly line for two weeks now with seven women and you don’t know what any of them are like yet?”
“Well, the white women hang together and keep to themselves on