A Taste of Reality

by Kimberla Lawson Roby

  “That’s too bad, because one day he’s going to wake up and realize he doesn’t fit in with black people or white.”

  “If you notice, you never hear me talking about my in-laws.”

  “No, actually, I don’t.”

  “I always call them on their birthdays and send them gifts, and I do the same on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. But David usually makes excuses about why he didn’t get around to it. And there have been so many times when I’ve told him I’m getting ready to call them, and he’ll tell me to wait until he leaves. Or I’ve even mentioned a few times that we should drive down to Peoria to visit them, and he always pretends it’s not a good time.”

  “What?” Monica said, and opened her eyes.

  “You hear me. He’s ashamed of them because his father is darker than I am. The only reason David is so light is because his mother is part white and part Native American.”

  “Wait a minute. I can’t believe you’ve never told me any of this.”

  “I was ashamed. I’ve always been ashamed of the way David treated his parents and how he criticizes certain black people. Normally I tell you everything, so you know I had to be really embarrassed about this,” I said, and thought about the fact that I was keeping something else from her. I hadn’t told her about my attraction to Frank. I couldn’t. Not today, anyway.

  “I can’t believe David has gone off the deep end like this. I mean, who is he to think he’s better than the rest of us? He may be high yellow, but in every white person’s eyes, he’s as black as the hair on my head. I don’t care if you only have one ounce of black in you, you’re black, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “But he doesn’t see it that way. About ninety-five percent of his friends and acquaintances are white. He doesn’t even want to go to our church anymore, because he says it has too many ignorant black people who migrated from Mississippi and Arkansas. Can you believe that?” I said, and uncrossed my legs. The sauna was becoming hotter and hotter, and I didn’t know how much longer I’d be able to sit in this wooden furnace.

  “What a jerk. My parents migrated from Mississippi, and they’re far from being ignorant.”

  “Mine did too, but of course when I mention that, he tries to play it off by saying he isn’t talking about my parents. But I know he is. Because the thing with David is that you’re nobody if you don’t have a college degree and you don’t speak properly with every word that comes out of your mouth.”

  “But isn’t it so ironic, though?”

  “What’s that?”

  “We go on and on about white people discriminating against us for no reason, but the truth is, there are a lot of black people who do the same thing to their own people. My girlfriend in Atlanta was telling me last year that working in Atlanta can be both good and bad, because even though there are lots of jobs for black people, it’s tough when you work for certain black women. She was saying how she’s had at least three supervisors who treated her like she was nothing, but couldn’t wait to smile in every white employee’s face all day long. It’s almost like those black people believe white people will see them as equals if they separate themselves from other blacks. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “No, it doesn’t, but that’s why David is the way he is. He’s extremely successful. Not just from the standpoint of being a black man, but he earns more money than most white people who work in his field.”

  “Well, let me ask you this. Did he act like he preferred dating white women when you first met him?”

  “I’ve thought about that very thing ever since he left, and unfortunately, I have to say no. He seemed like he was interested in just me, but maybe I was blind to how he really felt. Sometimes I think we see what we want to see, depending on what the situation is.”

  “I guess so.”

  The door to the sauna room opened and two beautiful white women entered.

  “Hello,” they both spoke at the same time.

  “Hello,” Monica said.

  “How are you ladies?” I asked.

  “Exhausted,” the shorter one said, “but this will make me feel much better.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said, standing up. This was our cue to leave. Not because we didn’t want to sit with them, but because I was really starting to swelter, and Monica and I certainly wouldn’t be able to continue the discussion we were having in their presence.

  Black people did this all the time and so did white people. We never said what we were thinking in front of each other, and our conversations were totally different when we were among our own people inside our own households. I knew that was how it was with my family and friends, and Lorna had told me it was no different with hers. It wasn’t about being racist. This was simply the way it was. The way it had always been. The way it was always going to be.

  The cool showers we stood in felt as good as we expected, and as soon as we finished drying off, we dressed and walked outside. The sun was just beginning to set, but the drenching rain that had fallen earlier had left the air uncomfortably muggy.

  “So what are you going to do about David?” Monica asked.

  “Nothing. If he wants a divorce, I will gladly give it to him.”

  “Man. I can’t believe all this is happening, but I do understand why you feel the way you do about him. At first I was thinking you should try to work things out with him, but David really does have a lot of issues. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling you to divorce him, but what I am saying is that I understand why you don’t love him the way you used to.”

  “It’s definitely over, but now we’ll have to deal with our property. The vehicles will be easy, but the house will have to be sold. I can’t afford to buy him out of it or live in it by myself, and I know for a fact that he’s going to make his permanent home in the Chicago area. You know he never wanted to come here anyway.”

  “It will be hard, but you’ll get through it, because I did,” Monica said, hugging me.

  “I know,” I said, and felt my eyes misting. I didn’t want to be married to David any longer, but the idea saddened me nonetheless.

  “I’m here for you, girl, any hour of the day. Okay?”

  I nodded and sniffled a couple of times.

  “But now I’d better get going, because Marc is planning to grill some burgers for us. I told him I’d be home by eight, and it’s almost that now.”

  “I’ll see ya later,” I said, hating to see her go.

  “I’ll give you a call in the morning when I get to work,” she said.

  Monica backed out of her parking stall, and I did the same. Then I made a left turn out of the lot, drove a few feet and stopped when I saw traffic at a standstill. There were three cars in front of me, and I could tell that the lead car was waiting to make a left turn. So I waited. But when I glanced in my rearview mirror, I saw a car zooming toward me at full speed. I panicked, because there was nowhere I could go. I pressed on my brake as hard as I could, squeezed the steering wheel tight with both hands and heard tires screeching against the pavement.

  The car behind crashed into me so hard that my SUV jerked forward. I looked around to make sure I hadn’t been forced into another car or object. Fortunately, I hadn’t. The woman who’d hit me drove to the right and beckoned for me to pull into the Mobil gas station. I drove behind her gray Honda Accord, placed my gear in park and tried to regain my composure. My hands shook the way they did whenever I drank too much caffeine. I took deep breaths and finally unbuckled my seat belt. Then I stepped out of the vehicle and walked around to the back to see how much damage was done. Thank God, there wasn’t much I could see, except thick scratches on the bumper and paint from the other vehicle.

  “I am so sorry,” the woman said. “Are you okay?”

  “I think so. What about you?” I asked.

  “I’m okay. Is there any major damage to your vehicle?” she asked, walking around to see for herself.

  “No, it doesn’t look like it, but my exhaust
system must have been jarred, because it sounded louder than usual when I pressed on the accelerator. It looks like your car slid under my bumper.”

  “Maybe so. I looked in my rearview mirror, and the next thing I knew, I saw a line of cars, but it was too late for me to stop. I am so sorry,” she apologized again.

  I didn’t say anything, because a woman who looked to be in her forties walked up.

  “Do you want me to call the police?” she asked, going up to the woman who hit me.

  “Yes, if you don’t mind,” she said.

  The forty-something woman never looked at me directly, but started dialing her cell phone.

  “Hello,” she said. “I’m at the corner of Rogers and Wilmington, and I’m calling to report an accident.” She paused for a few seconds, I assumed listening to what the police had to say.

  “I’m not sure,” she said, and then looked at the woman who hit me. “What’s your name?”

  “Margaret Wilinski.”

  “Her name is Margaret Wilinski.”

  She paused again.

  “Uh, no. I’m not sure what the other driver’s name is,” she said, looking toward the gas station.

  What? I couldn’t believe she was standing all of three feet away from me and wouldn’t ask me my name the same as she had Margaret. Hell, I was the one who was rear-ended, so it seemed logical that she’d be concerned about me as well, and that she’d want to give my name to the police.

  She said a few more words and dropped her cell phone in her purse. “They’re sending an officer out right now to take care of you,” she said to Margaret.

  “Thank you so much for calling,” Margaret said.

  “No problem,” she responded. “I was glad to do it for you—”

  By now, I’d had enough of this racist bullshit.

  “What I sincerely hope is that you were glad to do it for both of us,” I interrupted. “Because in case you don’t know the rules of the road, I’m the innocent party here.”

  She looked at me and then at Margaret.

  “Do you need me to stay until they get here?” she asked Margaret. “I heard the crash, but I really didn’t see anything. So I really can’t say whose fault it was.”

  I didn’t even give Margaret a chance to speak. I spoke instead.

  “I was sitting in traffic on my brakes. You were sitting in front of me doing the same thing, so how on earth can you pretend like you don’t know who’s at fault? Especially since I was rear-ended and wasn’t moving when it happened.”

  “Like I said, Margaret, do you need me to stay?” she repeated.

  “No, I’ll be fine.”

  “Bitch” was all I could think to say.

  The woman got into her vehicle and drove away.

  I was so humiliated. That woman knew she wouldn’t have dared leave the scene until the police arrived if I had been the one at fault. As a matter of fact, she would have admitted to seeing everything that happened and then some. Now, though, because I was black, she’d hightailed it out of here like there was no accident at all. These bigoted tendencies brought out the worst in me, and I was so tired of dealing with one incident after another.

  It didn’t take long for the officer to arrive. He asked both of us if we were okay and then requested our driver’s licenses and something to verify our insurance coverage. He was white also, and I feared almost immediately that he wasn’t going to treat me with any respect. My mom had been questioned in the late seventies by two officers about the brand-new Lincoln Continental she and my father had purchased, and she’d never felt the same about the Mitchell police department ever since. She’d dropped me off at high school one morning on her way to work and was pulled over for no apparent reason. They’d asked her whose vehicle she was driving, she’d told them it was hers, but one of them yanked her keys out of the ignition. They asked for her license and told her to wait until they ran a check on her and “her new Lincoln.”

  She’d waited for twenty minutes, and when they’d discovered she was telling the truth, they returned to her window and threw her keys inside the car, along with her driver’s license. Both items landed on the floor of the passenger side, and after she leaned over to pick them up, she saw them walking back to their vehicle. They never said one word, and sped off like they were on a high-speed chase. I could still remember Mom telling us that evening how she’d driven to work in tears, I will never forget how she cried like a child all over again when she verbally reenacted the story.

  That happened in 1979, and now here I was wondering if I was about to deal with the same situation twenty-two years later. I loved my Lexus 470 SUV, but today, it was probably part of the reason that woman at the scene hadn’t been so happy with me. I’d encountered a number of white people in the past who hated seeing a black person driving something more expensive than what they owned, and I’m sure that the beat-up Horizon the woman with the cell phone was driving—something Chrysler hadn’t made in years—hadn’t helped her attitude toward me.

  Margaret’s Accord was banged up pretty badly and the officer told her it would probably be a good idea to have it towed. She agreed and we waited for the officer to fill out the accident report and issue Margaret a citation. He smiled, asked me if I was okay again and handed back my information. Then he explained that I needed to complete the bottom portion of the report and send it to Springfield within ten days. I told him I would and drove away.

  I drove away feeling uneasy. Partly because I was still shaken from the accident, but mostly because that woman who’d called the police had managed to degrade me. She’d managed to do what Jim and David had done, but on a different level.

  What hurt was that there wasn’t anything I could do about it. But I had to admit I thanked God for sending a police officer who hadn’t cared what color I was. Or at least, from what I could tell, he didn’t act like it.

  CHAPTER 13

  JIM, AS MUCH as I really want that corporate recruiting manager position, I’m seriously thinking about applying for the one in manufacturing instead.” I’d just sat down in front of Jim in his office for a meeting I’d initiated.

  “Actually, Anise, I think it’s a good fit for you, and I’m glad you came to see me about it.”

  I thought I’d be elated to hear him say those exact words, but for some reason, I didn’t feel so great. Maybe it had to do with the fact that I knew I was allowing them to bamboozle me the way they’d planned from the beginning.

  “I guess I’m verbally applying for it, but only if you know for sure that you’re not going to fill the corporate position anytime soon.”

  “Well, not only am I not going to fill it soon, but I can’t even say when.”

  I didn’t believe him, but it wasn’t as if I could force him to be honest with me.

  “Then I guess I’d like to apply for it.”

  “Sounds good. This should all move along pretty quickly, because it’s not as though I have to interview you again. I know you’re qualified for the job and that you’d be perfect for it, but I do want you to interview with Mike, the plant manager. The person who gets this job will be working pretty closely with him, so Lyle and I think it’s a good idea to have his input regarding each candidate.”

  “That’s fine. So how soon do you think we can set something up with him?”

  “I’m thinking this afternoon, because I’d really like to get this process rolling.”

  Boy, wasn’t he the sweetest, most helpful man in America? I couldn’t believe his change in attitude toward me or how caring and cooperative he’d suddenly become. It was amazing what people were willing to do in order to make others do what they wanted.

  “I have a meeting with Elizabeth this afternoon right at one, but I’m free anytime after two,” I said.

  “I’ll have my secretary call him to see when he wants to get together with you.”

  “Just let me know,” I said, and stood.

  “And Anise?” he said as I turned to leave his office.

/>   “Yes?”

  “I’m really glad you’re interested in this newest management opening, and I hope you don’t have any animosity toward me because we had to put the other job on hold.”

  I smiled and said, “Things happen.”

  “Unfortunately they do. But I can almost guarantee that this is going to make everyone happy. Including Lyle. So I think you’ll be pleased with our selection,” he said, smiling.

  A naïve person would have believed he was actually fond of me.

  “I’ll wait to hear from your secretary about my interview with Mike,” I said, and walked out, hoping I’d made the right decision.

  I figured I’d better stop by Lorna’s office again. I’d dropped in on her just before going to meet with Jim, and she hadn’t been too thrilled about my decision to forget about the corporate position so I could concentrate on the one in manufacturing. I’d explained to her that I wasn’t giving up like she kept insisting, and that the bottom line was that I had to do what was best for me.

  I stuck my head inside her office, preparing to speak, but she beat me to it.

  “So you finally sold your soul to that bastard Jim.”

  “Lorna, don’t start this all over again. I did what I felt I had to do, and I don’t want to keep explaining it to you or anybody else.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I promise not to bring it up again.”

  “Good,” I said, and we both smiled. A truce was a good thing.

  I understood where Lorna was coming from, and right or wrong, I needed her to support me on this. I needed her to sit in my corner the way she always did when I dealt with anything work-related.

  “You’re not feeling any whiplash symptoms, are you?” Lorna asked, because I’d told her about my unfortunate fender bender last evening.

  “No. I feel just fine.”

  “Well, if it were me, I would have gone straight to the hospital and gotten checked out, because these car injuries don’t always show up until later.”

  “I’m telling you I’m fine. And I don’t have time to go sit in some emergency room for hours, go through physical therapy or deal with the other driver’s insurance company, trying to get my medical bills paid.”