A Taste of Reality

by Kimberla Lawson Roby

  “Isn’t that the truth?”

  I wrapped it back around the silver hook I’d taken it from, and we strolled over to the nondesigner section—the only section my mother was willing to purchase from.

  “What I need is a new work purse,” she said as soon as she saw a midsize shoulder bag. “Something that’s not too fancy, but nice.”

  “What about this one?” I asked, passing her a black leather bag that caught my attention.

  “That’s not bad, but it’s not really what I’m looking for.”

  We scanned a couple of other racks but didn’t see anything we were all that interested in.

  “So do you want to shop some more in here, or go out into the mall?” I asked her as we continued walking.

  “You still need to go to the M*A*C store don’t you?

  “Actually, I do, because I need some more of that Oh Baby! lacquer for my lips and some Chestnut lip liner for my Coconutty lipstick.”

  “You love that stuff, don’t you?”

  “Ever since Leslie and I went shopping downtown at Nordstrom two years ago, I’ve been hooked,” I said, referring to one of my college dorm mates. “I’m just sorry it took all these years for me to realize how wonderful their products are. No other line can compare, although I do buy some things from Lançome that are also good.”

  “For years, all black women had was Fashion Fair, but now there’s Iman, M*A*C and really just about every line I can think of carries makeup that we can use.”

  “Times have actually changed with some things, I guess,” I said, thinking about Reed Meyers.

  “So still no word about the job you’re trying to get?”

  “No. I applied for it, though. And while I’m hoping I get it, I know I have to be prepared either way.”

  “And you should be. We didn’t have some of the laws that exist now when I was coming up, and even with the ones we did have, they really weren’t being enforced. No one has the right to discriminate against you or anyone else, and if that’s what your bosses are up to, then you have to stand up for yourself. Even if it means hiring an attorney.”

  “My friend Lorna, at work, keeps telling me the same thing, so that’s exactly what I’m planning to do if things don’t turn out the way they should.”

  Mom had certainly changed over the years. She’d worked at a corrugated box manufacturer for three decades and never complained about much of anything, at least not to any of her supervisors. She went to work, operated her machine and then came home. She did this every Monday through Friday from seven to three-thirty and sometimes worked five to eight hours on Saturdays, depending on how their workload was running.

  She and my father had divorced when I was a junior in college, and since I was an only child, she didn’t have anyone else she could spend her time with. She visited her two older sisters fairly often, but for the most part she spent her free time alone. She’d wanted another child, a daughter if she’d had her choice, but the doctors had found cancer in her uterus about a year after I was born, and she’d had no alternative but to have a hysterectomy when she was only in her twenties.

  We walked into one of the women’s specialty shops and took a look at some of the summer clothing they were showcasing.

  Mom walked toward the back of the store, picking up a couple of things to try on as she went along, and I pulled two pairs of shorts from a rack at the front. Not long after, I added three shirts to my arm and a beautiful dark lime suit that I thought was perfect for work. I saw one of the salesgirls asking customer after customer if she could take the items they’d gathered and start a fitting room for them. I didn’t think much of it until I noticed that some of those customers had entered the store well after Mom and me. The second strike was when the clerk paraded past me so she could explain today’s sales promotion to a woman who’d just walked in. The third was when she marched right past me again and asked another customer if she was finding everything okay. I hadn’t been asked any questions, hadn’t had any promotional information explained to me and hadn’t been relieved of this load of merchandise I was holding.

  But I didn’t say anything, because before I went off, I wanted to see if Mom had been treated any differently.

  I stepped close to where Mom was standing and heard her asking Ms. Rude and Inconsiderate if she could try her selections on.

  That’s when I intervened.

  “Mom, you mean to tell me that you’ve been carrying those clothes around all this time and no one has asked you once if you needed a fitting room?”

  “No. Not one person.”

  I turned to Ms. Rude and asked, “So is there some special reason why you’ve been asking every customer in this store if you can help them in one way or another, but you haven’t bothered to offer any customer service to the two of us? The only two black women in the store?”

  “Oh. I’m sorry,” she lied unconvincingly.

  “No, you’re not. And I want to see a manager.”

  “Nancy, is Lisa in the back?” the clerk yelled to her coworker who was running the cash register. She yelled in an irate tone.

  “I think she is,” the other salesperson said with a shameful look on her face, and then returned her attention to the customer she was helping.

  Ms. Rude turned abruptly and walked into the back room. A minute later, a short, well-dressed woman with beautiful brunette hair approached us.

  “Hello, I’m Lisa, the store manager. Is there something I can help you with?” she asked, smiling.

  “As a matter of fact there is. My mom and I have been in this store longer than some of the people who have already had a dressing room started for them, and I want to know why.”

  “Rachel, can you answer this lady’s question?” she asked, turning toward Ms. Rude.

  At least we knew what her name was now.

  “I don’t know,” she answered with a frown that said, Why are you asking me this stupid question? “It wasn’t like I missed them on purpose. They looked like they were just browsing, anyway—”

  “How were we just browsing if we were picking up things from the rack so we could try them on or purchase them?” I interrupted.

  “Rachel, it’s our responsibility to help every customer who comes through that door,” Lisa said matter-of-factly. “We don’t assume anything, and we treat all of our customers with the highest respect.”

  Rachel stared at Lisa as if she hadn’t heard a word she’d spoken. She stared like she was still going to treat the next black person the very same way when the opportunity arose.

  “Well, I’ll tell you this,” I said. “You can take all of these and put them back where we got them.” I shoved both my stack and Mom’s into Rachel’s arms, and she had no choice but to take them.

  “Lisa, I appreciate you taking the time to come speak with us, but you can thank your little salesperson here for losing our business. And even if I walk by here in the future and see an outfit that I absolutely have to have, I won’t be coming in here to buy it. Neither will anyone else I know who shops in this mall if I have anything to do with it.”

  “I am really sorry that this happened, but I can guarantee you that this will be taken care of to your satisfaction. So I do hope you will reconsider.”

  I assumed she meant that Rachel was going to be fired, but I would still have to be in dire need before I dropped any of my hard-earned money in here again.

  “I’m sorry, too,” I told her. “Mom, are you ready?”

  Mom nodded, and we left the store in a fury.

  “It doesn’t look like those laws you were talking about are making that much of a difference, Mom. Some of these people are crazy, and it makes you wonder what type of households they were raised in.”

  “Well, some of these young people are only racist because of learned behavior. Their parents hated blacks and their parents’ parents felt the same way. If no one breaks the cycle, then the problem will never go away. But not every white person is like the girl back in that
store, because I have many white friends I would trust with my life and who would do anything for me. Which is why I raised you to like people for who they are and not because of their skin color.”

  “I feel the same way about Lorna and some of the women who live in our subdivision, but there are still so many people who hate that we shop in the same stores or eat at the same restaurants as them. It makes me so angry, but you just don’t know, Mom, sometimes it makes me feel like crying. Sometimes the thought of never having a chance to be treated equally tears my heart apart, because it’s so humiliating. It’s like we’re fighting a losing battle to be treated fairly.”

  “I know, but you can’t give up, because too many people lost their lives trying to fight for our rights.”

  We continued walking, and I realized that this latest incident of bias had us walking through a crowded mall talking about racism and equal opportunity. I didn’t even feel like shopping any longer. Not at any store I could think of.

  “Do you wanna just leave?” I asked.

  “I’m ready whenever you are. You know I’m not the biggest shopper in the world anyway, and I only came so we could spend some time together.”

  I was already depressed, still up in the air about my marriage and my job, and now this had dampened my spirits even further.

  We left the mall without stopping to eat as we’d planned on doing. When we made it to my SUV, we hopped in and drove away from the senseless episode we’d just experienced. Leaving wouldn’t erase what had happened, but at least we’d be able to move on to something else.

  We entered the tollway, and I decided that it was best to tell my mother straight out about David and me. I’d managed to feign a genuine smile for hours, but she hadn’t noticed once that anything was wrong. Usually she sensed when something wasn’t right, but I’d worked hard at disguising my problems because I didn’t have the courage and because I’d wanted us to enjoy our time together without worry. But so much for enjoyment, something we’d obviously been deprived of, anyway.

  “I found out last night that David is seeing someone else.”

  “You what?”

  “He’s seeing another woman, and he made it very clear that he’s not going to stop.”

  “When did all this come about?”

  “I don’t know, and he wouldn’t give me any details.”

  “You should have made him tell you.”

  “I guess I didn’t press the issue because it really doesn’t matter to me when it started.”

  “Who is this woman?” I could tell Mom was becoming upset.

  “He wouldn’t tell me that either.”

  “And you’re just going to leave it like that?”

  “Actually, I am, because there’s nothing I can do about it. I tried to reconcile with him two nights ago, and that never made a bit of difference to him. So, as painful as it is, I know I can make it without him if I have to. David and I have been moving further and further away from each other for a long time, so really, I should have seen this coming before now.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “I walked outside to get the mail right after I came home from Monica’s and heard him talking to someone on his cell phone. He was still sitting in the garage with his engine turned off, but hadn’t closed the garage door.”

  “Lord Jesus,” Mom said, sighing. “What are you going to do?”

  “Nothing. Because it’s pretty clear that he wants to be with someone else.”

  “I just don’t believe this is happening. The least he could have done was stand by you until your job situation was taken care of.”

  “He doesn’t care about any of that. And if you ask him, he’ll say that my career is part of the reason why he strayed in the first place. Which I have to agree with to a certain extent, because it has been my priority for a long time.”

  “That still doesn’t give anyone the right to mess around.”

  “Maybe not, but this is what the reality is, and I’m willing to live with it if this is what he wants.”

  “You’re taking this a lot better than I would be.”

  “I know, Mom, but David and I don’t love each other the way we used to. It’s almost like we love each other but we’re not in love any longer.”

  “I just hate to see anyone going through a breakup. Especially my own daughter. When your father and I separated, it was the hardest thing I ever had to deal with, and I don’t wish the way I felt on anybody I can think of. Not even that girl back at that store.”

  “I know it won’t be easy, but this is out of my control.”

  “So have you spoken with him today?”

  “No, I haven’t seen or heard from him since he packed his stuff and left.”

  “Packed his stuff and left? As in for good?”

  “Yeah. And I doubt he’ll be back except to get the rest of his things.”

  “I can’t believe he just up and left you like that.”

  “Actually, he didn’t have a choice, because I told him to get out or else.”

  “I’m so sorry that all this is happening” was all Mom could say.

  We rode in silence for almost twenty minutes as Chicago’s V103 played two of Luther’s new cuts back-to-back. She was hurting for me the way any mother would, but I vowed to overcome this the same as I had overcome every other obstacle in my life. She’d raised me to be strong, independent and self-confident, and while she worried about how I was going to make it on my own, she would soon learn that the reason I’d be able to was that she’d taught me how to survive, regardless of the situation.

  In time, I was going to be just fine.

  CHAPTER 7

  IT WAS MONDAY MORNING, and it had taken every ounce of willpower I had to tear myself out of bed, take a shower, get dressed and drive to work. David hadn’t made any attempts to call, so I’d had a load of time on my hands to do a whole lot of thinking. I’d weighed everything out and had come to the same two decisions I’d shared with Mom on Friday: I wasn’t moving out of our house, and I was filing a lawsuit against Reed Meyers if they forced me to. I was sure the reason David hadn’t called was that he still regretted being caught the way he had been, and that he wanted to make me feel so alone that maybe I’d get lonely enough to pack my bags and go live with my mother. But I wasn’t going to make things that easy for him. I would agree to a divorce if he filed, but the dissolution of our marriage was going to mean fifty-fifty from top to bottom. I’d worked just as hard as he had to obtain all that we owned, and he wasn’t going to simply push me aside, move on and allow God knows who to take my place.

  I’d convinced myself all weekend that I didn’t care who the next Mrs. David Miller might be, but deep down I was being destroyed by curiosity. I wanted to know if she was his secretary, one of his coworkers, a colleague or possibly a client, but I finally realized last night that what I wanted to know most of all was whether this mistress was a white woman. Successful black men did this all the time. They always started out with black women, who were good enough as long as the men were still struggling to build their careers. But once their bank balances escalated and their image needed to be upgraded, successful black men jumped ship. Sometimes they tried to keep the obvious on the down-low by marrying a biracial or even a Hispanic woman, but eventually they went all the way and found a beautiful white woman—the prize they’d been working so hard to secure. For years, I wondered why a huge majority of the black NBA, NFL and MLB players thought it was so important to marry outside of their race. If it was strictly for love, I totally understood and agreed with their decision. But what I finally figured out was that marrying a white woman announced loud and clear that they’d finally arrived in terms of status. It made them feel more important and like they could finally receive just a tad more respect than they’d ever had with a black woman.

  I saw nothing wrong with any two people of any race becoming man and wife so long as they were madly in love with each other. But when the marriage was based on statu
s, I didn’t agree. I’d formed this opinion the same day I asked my forty-year-old cousin why he’d suddenly made a change in preference. He’d always dated black girls in high school, black women in college and then married a black woman who paid all the bills the entire time he attended medical school. But five years ago, he divorced his first wife and married a white woman. He’d looked me straight in the face and told me that there was so much more his new wife could do to help his career. He was invited to all the VIP parties and dinners, his practice was better than ever, and if it hadn’t been for his new wife, there was no telling what his children would have ended up looking like. Not to mention the fact that their hair would have been much too nappy.

  He’d convinced himself that he was no longer black, and I remember telling him how pathetic he was and how at some point in his life he would be reminded of who he really was.

  It wasn’t six months later when someone mailed him an anonymous note saying: WE HATE NIGGERS AND EVEN WORSE, NIGGER LOVERS. SO WHY DON’T YOU DO THIS NICE NEIGHBORHOOD A FAVOR AND MOVE BACK TO WHEREVER THE HELL YOU CAME FROM.

  He hadn’t been emotionally stable ever since.

  The phone grabbed my attention when it rang, and I reached over to answer it. “Anise Miller.”

  “Anise, it’s me,” David said in a low tone.

  “And?”

  I wasn’t going to make this conversation simple.

  “I really don’t know where to begin,” he said, pausing.

  “Well, I can’t help you with that, David.”

  He blew a sigh of frustration.

  Then he spoke.

  “I didn’t mean for you to find out like this. I was going to tell you, but it seemed like the more I got involved with her, the harder it was to face you.”

  “Well, the damage is done, and while you were having, I’m sure, such a fun weekend, I sat at home alone, thinking about the fact that our marriage is over.”

  “All I can say is that I’m sorry. I wanted things to turn out differently, but they didn’t.”

  “So why are you calling now?”