Free Whatever It Takes by Gwynne Forster Page A

she added, “I mean, when you can appreciate a real woman.”
    His grin affirmed what she had guessed, that his teeth hadn’t had dental care for quite some time, and she stepped away from him, certain that the offense might not be due to laborious work but to his hygiene habits. “When I get to the place that I can’t take care of a real woman,” he snarled, “I’ll be in a pine box.” He stepped inside, closed the door and locked it. She realized the man had a temper, probably an unruly one, and told herself to be careful with him. The thing to do, she figured, was to get there when he was leaving or ready to leave. She’d have to find a reasonable excuse for her boss, but she would find one.
    She managed to get back to her desk and sit down a minute before her boss walked in and dropped several sheets of paper in her incoming box. “I need these press releases before you leave today, and before you start typing, read them over for errors and correct any you find.”
    â€œYes, ma’am,” she said, her teeth clenched and her gaze averted. The woman left, and she would have given a lot to be able to throw the papers back at her and walk off the job.
    â€œNow, don’t burst a blood vessel,” Mabel said in her unique way of sympathizing. “The woman has never heard of the word ‘please,’ and she wouldn’t say ‘thank you’ if you paid her for it. I’d like to shorten the distance between her ears, too, but I’ve got a kid to take care of.”
    Kellie knew that her ire stemmed as much from her guilt about her lunchtime activity as it did from her boss’ treatment of her as a person who didn’t deserve common civility. She needed a job, and since utopia hadn’t come to Frederick, Maryland, neither she nor any other African American could count on getting a white-collar job if somebody white was equally qualified for it. It happened, but you couldn’t count on it; if you had a black face, you’d better be exceptional. She kept her mouth shut, and it needled her to do it. Every time she had to suck up, she hated herself and the person who’d made her a victim of the region’s genteel inequality. She finished the press releases a few minutes before quitting time and took them to her boss’ office.
    â€œYou want to watch your lunch hour, miss,” her boss, Adrienne Hood, said, instead of thanks. “You’re entitled to forty-five minutes, and we give you an hour, but you returned twenty minutes late yesterday and half an hour late today. Your work is fine, but I won’t tolerate your long lunch hours. You understand me.”
    â€œYes, ma’am. I’m sorry, ma’am.
    â€œThat’s all.”
    By the time Kellie cleaned off her desk and was ready to leave, she had more than made up the thirty minutes, but that wouldn’t win her Brownie points with her boss. As she trudged home with the sound of wind rustling around her and her boots crushing the grainy ice that drifted down and obscured her vision, she wished for a warm, loving man. But she had long accepted that warm and loving men did not fall for women who did as they chose without regard to the circumstances or consequences. The kind of man she wanted preferred women like Lacette and her mother.
    At the corner that would lead her to Mama Carrie’s house, if she turned there, Kellie used every bit of her willpower to stay away from the house and from the repugnant man she met there at noon. Cleaned up and neatly dressed, the man would be an eye popper. And with that sexy swagger . . . She told herself not to think of the man; he wasn’t clean, and he probably didn’t know a necktie from a bolo tie if, indeed, he’d ever heard of either.
    â€œThe best I can do right now,” she said to herself, “is not make anybody suspicious. I’ll start wearing the ring every day so Daddy and Lacette will