Free Folly by Maureen Brady

and begun to recognize the friendliness that had grown up between them, almost too slowly to be noticeable, not too sure yet.
    She had come to the diner, always, regularly, because it was a home to her. When her mother had been fired and Sabrina had replaced her, the first Black waitress they had ever hired at that counter, Lenore had continued to go daily to sit on her stool and have her coke, sometimes her pie and sometimes not. She’d been disappointed that the waitress was Black because she needed her to be someone she could talk to, and she knew she wasn’t supposed to talk to Black people, really, other than to ask for what she wanted. But she’d continued to go in the mornings, too, for her coffee and donut. She thought of the counter as belonging to herself as one of the regulars, although she remembered her mother raging at that attitude. “Where the fuck do these folks get off thinkin’ they own the place?” First she tried to absorb Sabrina as if she were just a piece of the familiar environment, only this had required constant blotting out of Sabrina’s Blackness, both the fact of it and the implications which flew around, colliding in her mind’s eye. Lenore woredown rapidly. For one thing, Sabrina’s Blackness was striking; for another, Lenore found her own eyes over and over seeking to explore just who this woman was. She had no knowledge in herself of any Black person, one to one, but she knew there was a spark to Sabrina that she liked.
    A few times Lenore had come in when there were no other customers and Sabrina had been standing by her stool, the same place her mother used to stand around waiting for business. They’d talked more then, still casual, joked about the weather and how slow things were in Victory. Once Sabrina asked her about her job. “Seems like a right good job,” she’d said. “It is,” Lenore had agreed. “I’m not complaining. I could be a whole lot worse off.” She didn’t say anything about how bored she got with it sometimes, so that she felt like she could fall asleep on her feet. “Do your feet hurt after a day here?” she’d asked instead.
    â€œThey sure do.”
    â€œMy ma used to complain about that. I get it sometimes at the store, too.”
    â€œI don’t know how these older womens takes it,” Sabrina said. She took one foot out of her loafer style nurse’s shoe, placed it on the floor and exercised the toes. Both of them watched her toes stretching and curling. Lenore noticed that Sabrina’s toenails were nearly the same color as her own.
    Peters, Lenore’s boss at the A & P, had come in then and sat midway down the counter. Lenore had felt momentarily conspicuous about him catching her talking to Sabrina when she prided herself on her reputation of unfriendliness to him. She nodded a greeting, then looked down. “Too bad, other foot,” Sabrina muttered and went off to wait on him.
    Peters was slow on decisions, and Lenore noticed that while he pondered what to have, he stared at Sabrina as if he were looking right through her. There were times when a person needed something to fix the eyes on to think clearly. Lord knew how many hours of Lenore’s life had been spent staring at the stainless steel plungers for the fountain flavors. But for Peters to stare at Sabrina that way, as if she were a fixture . . . . She hoped she’d never done that, but she had an uneasy feeling which probably meant she had.
    She couldn’t stop watching Peters. She kept herself on Sabrina’s side of the counter though she knew she was breaking some unspoken requirement that she be looking from Peters’ side, the white side. She noticed Sabrina’s foot tapping quietly to no music, calling up a reserve of patience, Sabrina’s mouth opening and closing as she gathered in long,deep breaths. Finally Peters ordered a hot fudge sundae and Sabrina, released,