Free She Walks in Beauty by Sarah Shankman

when they asked her, even two days in a row, it was hard to pass up the extra shift. Especially with the car payment due and Junior spending money like it grew on trees.
    So what was it now? Another drunk had punched his hand through a wall? That was nothing, but multiply it times 6,000 rooms in the casino hotels alone, if she had any sense, she’d be in the dry-wall business. Her daddy and her brothers had taught her how to do all that when she was growing up back in Bastrop.
    Of course, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried. People just didn’t want to give construction work to a woman, especially a black woman, even if she was as big as Gloria. So here she was, messing around with a bunch of white people’s bed sheets.
    All the way up in the service elevator Big Gloria was thinking about how much she loved getting her hands on a bunch of brand-new two-by-fours, the clean, piney smell of them reminding her of home, of building kitchens with her daddy. It wasn’t until the elevator stopped at 18 that Gloria remembered who was in 1803.
    “What you doing out here, girl?” she said to Clothilde, who was standing in the hall staring at her. “Come show me what you’re talking about. It couldn’t be that bad.”
    It was a mess, though.

6
    SHAME! re ad the placards, big red letters printed on white. SHAME!
    “Who they?” Harry asked Sam, who didn’t know.
    The 30 young women carrying the signs shuffled in a single line outside the main doors to the Convention Hall. They were dressed in long robes of brown burlap, and on their chests hung silver crucifixes that looked suspiciously like aluminum foil. The crowd had to pass through them to get inside. Security police were giving the women hard looks.
    “Disappointed also-rans?” Harry joked.
    Hardly, thought Sam. These pale, grim-faced girls didn’t look as if they’d ever practiced their smiles, much less paraded in swimsuits. And none of them were pretty, though, of course, that would be tough, wearing a long potato sack.
    Now they were shaking tambourines, shuffling in their single line, chanting: Shame, shame, shame.
    Chain, chain, chain, Harry sang, taking Sam’s hand and juking to the opening words of that oldie.
    One of the girls cast her ice-pale eyes on Harry and said, “God sees what you do.”
    He shivered in mock fright and hurried Sam into the auditorium. There they were sucked into a buzzing, glittering crowd where no one wore burlap.
    “Who’d of thunk?” Sam stared amazed at men in black tie, women in sequined gowns. Of course there were elderly day-trippers too, who hadn’t changed from their ice cream–colored polyester and sensible shoes. And gangs of New Jersey boys in T-shirts, jeans, and running shoes who’d come to punch one another and leer.
    The seating in the mammoth space spread across the floor, up tiers, risers, and then two levels before disappearing into the rafters.
    They found Harry’s seat near the ramp with the Louisiana delegation. His friend Lavert hadn’t yet arrived.
    Sam was in the press section nearby, directly rampside. The seat itself was of the orange padded plastic 1940s kitchen chair variety, but there was a ledge for her laptop computer and an electrical outlet. The Inquirer, on Sam’s right, was carrying her own phone.
    Sam hadn’t realized the girls would have cheering sections. Each state marked its territory with banners and flags. The fans wore huge badges with color photos of their favorite girl trailing red, white, and blue ribbons. Hawaiians boasted orchid leis, Texans were in 10-gallon hats and boots. Alaskans were in furs.
    “Some of the state delegations bring a hundred people. So you could easily have five thousand groupies here,” the Inquirer informed her.
    It was hard to believe.
    “Oh, they’re real enthusiasts. They do pageants instead of football, or gardening, or torturing small animals—whatever it is Americans out there do.”
    “Look at all the spangles!”
    “They’re bugle