Lorraine woke Bill from a solid sleep on her sofa at quarter-to-six in the morning. Bill popped a black beauty, peed, washed his face and headed out the door after kissing Lorraine bye. She stood at the door barefoot in her men’s pajamas until she’d watched him pull away in his car. As far as Bill knew, her girls were asleep when they’d gotten there and were still asleep when he’d left. In the scope of things, that was important and the best case scenario too. That it should have been his fiancé he was kissing good-bye, well that was another matter completely.
Mary’s boy Eddie knew about Bill and his mother. He was a couple of years older than Lorraine’s oldest girl and he was more emotionally invested in the situation than Lorraine’s kids were. Even if Lorraine’s kids knew anything, or surmised anything, neither Lorraine nor Bill had given them reason to think much of whatever it was being beyond a work thing. Lorraine had explained that Bill lived far away and had to be back early in the morning so sometimes when they were stuck with late customers or the weather was really bad, well, then Bill sometimes slept on the couch to make it easy for him.
With Eddie there was the racial thing. Eddie had no hesitation letting it be known that not only did he not like white people, but he especially did not like white men, and he most especially did not like his mother being with a white man. So he did not like Bill. He did not like Bill and he could never like Bill. If he could have managed it, he would have cut Bill like Henry Lee had been cut by that white guy who, as it worked out, got off with no penalty while Henry Lee lost his leg and went to jail. And that was after the white guy started it all too.
Mary was quite dismayed by Eddie’s blanket hatred. Really, personally, blacks had done her worse than any whites had. No white man had raped her, or even tried to. No white man had abused her, or even tried to. No white man had spilled his seed in her there beside the high school bleachers and left her to wonder if she were going to get pregnant. No white man had smacked her upside her head or blackened her eyes or spit in her face after beating her into submission.
There were several white guys who had wanted to go out with her at one point in her life but she’d never entertained those invitations. It was too complicated, too hard. More than anything else, there was no payoff. No white man was gonna marry her, not with three kids, not even if she had no kids. It was only a few years after MLK Jr. had been assassinated and the world was crazy.
Mr. Bowman was good to her. For some reason, Mr. Bowman did not see color. The only reason all his cooks were black was because of Robert, because Robert ran the kitchen staff, although no one would have known it if they hadn’t known it. It was kind of like Henry Lee’s false leg. You wouldn’t have known it unless you knew.
But Robert didn’t see color either and so that was how Bill had come on board. Color was a funny thing. Bill hadn’t thought not to offer Robert a cigarette because he was black. Robert didn’t say he wouldn’t hire the white guy. It was a human thing, the way things were supposed to be if we were all following what we’d been taught in Sunday school.
