Taste of Reality (17 page)

“If you guys offer it to me, I suppose I will.”

“Glad to hear it. And if you don’t have anything else you want to ask me, I need to get back out to the plant for a meeting with two of my foremen.”

“I don’t, and thanks so much for meeting with me.”

“No.
Thank you
. Because I know this isn’t the job you really wanted, but on the other hand, I’ll be able to sleep better knowing that you’re going to be taking over this part of human resources.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I know you will,” he said, smiling as he left the room.

Maybe this really was the right thing for me to do, because Mike genuinely wanted me in the position. Jim did too, but for different reasons. Maybe the corporate job wasn’t meant to be. Maybe it was time for me to move on and try to find contentment. If nothing else, I could work in this position for a while and apply for a different job at another company, because now my résumé would show managerial experience.

Walking back to my office, I heard the phone ringing, so I rushed to answer it.

“Anise Miller.”

“Hi, beautiful.”

It was Frank.

“What do you want?” I said in a cheerful tone.

“Don’t you sound like a happy camper this afternoon!”

“I am. At least I guess I am anyway.”

“Why? What happened?”

“I decided to apply for the manufacturing position.”

“Oh? And you didn’t tell me?”

“No. I didn’t tell anyone except Lorna and Elizabeth.”

“Well, at least I know where I stand, in terms of how important I am to you.”

“Don’t take it personally.”

“But I am.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Will you stop it?” I said, laughing because we sounded like two small children trying to outwit each other. Or worse, like two people who were beginning to fall in love.

The latter is what worried me the most.

“Will I stop what?” he asked.

“Being so argumentative.”

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

“That’s better.”

“So when will you know whether you got the job or not?”

“It sounds like pretty soon. I met with Jim this morning to tell him that I was interested, and I just finished meeting with Mike.”

“Mike is a good guy.”

“Yeah, I know, and I like him even more now that I’ve had a chance to speak with him.”

“Better than me?”

“Better than you, what?” I asked.

“Do you like him better than me?”

“What kind of silly comment is that?”

“It’s silly to you maybe, but I want to know.”

“There’s something wrong with you.”

He laughed. “I’m only joking with you because whenever I try to be serious, you shy away from me. So if this is the only way I can get you to talk to me, then so be it.”

“Frank, you know full well that I can’t be serious with you because I’m married.”

“I know. But just tell me this. If you weren’t married, would you go out with me then?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know because I’m white.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

I kept quiet.

“What difference should it make if a black woman and a white man want to go out together?”

“I guess it shouldn’t make any difference at all, but society has decided that it does.”

“And that’s ridiculous, too.”

“Maybe it is, but it’s still reality.”

“Well, I don’t agree, and all I’m asking is that you give me a chance to show you that I’m no different from any other man who’s attracted to you.”

“You still keep forgetting the fact that I’m married.”

“But you’re not
happily
married, and I know you’re attracted to me.”

“Some attractions can get you into a lot of trouble,” I admitted.

“Not the one we have for each other.”

“Look, Frank. You’re a nice guy. I like you a lot. But the timing isn’t right for you and me. Maybe if this was a different time in my life and I was single, things would be different.”

“There’s never a right time for anything. You have to make time conform to your own wants and needs.”

“You’re just not hearing me at all, are you?”

“No, actually I’m not. And it’s like I told you earlier, I’m not giving up unless you tell me to. I’ve dated black women and white women over the years, but I’ve never been so attracted to any woman the way I am to you. And regardless of what you say, I think that means something.”

I was speechless again, something that was becoming quite common whenever I had conversations with Frank. If he only knew, I wanted to be with him almost as badly as he wanted to be with me. But I could never let on that this was true.

“Hey,” he said. “I’ve got a dentist appointment I need to get to. But, Anise, please think about what I’m saying, okay? Promise me you won’t throw our relationship away before we even have one.”

“Maybe we’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry. If I have anything to do with it, we will.”

“I’ll see you later.”

“I hope so,” he said.

“Good-bye, Frank.”

Happiness wasn’t something I’d felt for quite some time, but I really was feeling rather optimistic about my meeting with Mike and the fact that I would finally get the promotion I deserved. Maybe not the one I wanted, but a promotion nonetheless.

I decided that if they offered it to me I would take it and try to feel satisfied afterward.

S
HE TOOK
the bait a lot quicker than I expected,” Jim said. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing, I never thought she’d go for it at all,” Lyle said, puffing his pipe. “But you know this only happened by luck, though, because if Elizabeth hadn’t given us her two-week notice, we never would’ve been able to move Bob into her position so quickly. Which means we would have had to go forward with my plan of forcing someone else out of another management position to make it available.”

“I know. It was a very close call.”

“And if we hadn’t been able to convince Bob to make the move, we’d still be up shit creek.”

“But ten more thousand dollars a year is pretty convincing.”

“That it is,” Jim said. “That it is.”

“Actually, Anise seems like she’s been pretty happy ever since you told her the job was hers.”

“She has, and that’s why I wanted to tell her last week before I
went out of town, even though we couldn’t make it official until today.”

“You did good, Jim, and I appreciate you putting in so much time with this. Now all we have to do is bide our time, and then we can fill that corporate position with Kelli. Although, just to be safe, I think we need to find some way to pacify Anise, just in case she starts screaming discrimination. I know Kelli has more seniority than Anise, but her lack of comparable education could shake things up a bit. I’m really hoping it doesn’t come to that, but we need to be prepared just the same.”

“I agree. And what about Frank? Is Tom still talking about making him an officer?”

“No, not after I told him what you’d heard,” Lyle said. “He was mortified at the thought of Frank dating black women.”

“Did he want proof of it?”

“No. Said a rumor like that was just as bad as having it happen, and that having someone like him in such a high position could mean trouble. So I’m afraid good old Frank is going to be the director of training until he decides to leave the company.”

“Too bad,” Jim added.

“Where is it that they’re having Elizabeth’s good-bye party?”

“Ricardo’s. You know. Downtown.”

“Oh yeah,” Lyle remembered. “That new place.”

“I’m planning on leaving here in about a hour. What about you?”

“I’ll do the same and ride with you, if you don’t mind. I can pick my car up when we come back by here.”

“Not a problem.”

“Finally, everything is settling down around here the way it should, so maybe now we can start back concentrating on something more important.”

“That’s for sure. We never used to have to work this hard in the past to keep things the way we want them, but it was worth every man-hour we dedicated to it.”

“I told you it’s those damn laws,” Lyle reiterated.

“But what these lawmakers don’t know is that they haven’t stopped a thing here at Reed Meyers. And if I have anything to do with it, they never will,” Jim said.

Lyle agreed with him and they moved on to another order of business.

I couldn’t believe the salary grade for the manufacturing HR manager’s position was one grade lower than the one for corporate recruiting manager. Jim had given me an official offer letter this morning, but I hadn’t paid much attention to the grade level. They’d given me a twenty-six percent raise, and I’d signed the bottom of the letter almost immediately. I hadn’t expected them to throw me for a loop at the last minute, so I was completely caught off guard. I’d expressed my concerns about it to Jim, but he insisted it didn’t mean anything. I told him I was under the impression that the manufacturing position was equal to the corporate one, but he claimed they’d always been different. He didn’t seem to understand what difference it made, because I would have gotten the same pay increase either way. But what I tried to make him realize was that the corporate position topped out five thousand dollars more than the one in manufacturing, and that meant I
would have had more room to grow with the corporate one. He told me that I shouldn’t worry, because by the time I topped out, I’d be promoted to something else. I knew that was a fat chance, but once again, I decided to grin and bear the situation.

I scanned the room at Ricardo’s where we were having Elizabeth’s going-away party. Everyone from each division of human resources was here to celebrate, along with quite a few other employees she was close to. The music was a bit louder than I preferred, and since I didn’t drink, I had to find other ways to entertain myself. If it hadn’t been for my relationship with Elizabeth, I probably wouldn’t have been here. But sometimes we do things we don’t want to because it’s right.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” Connie from public relations yelled over Mariah Carey’s voice, and then sat down at my table for two.

“Thank you,” I yelled just as loudly.

“I still haven’t heard anything about the corporate recruiting position, so I assume they’re not going to fill it. I heard through the grapevine, though, that a management position is going to open up in purchasing pretty soon, and if it does, I’m going to apply for it,” she said.

I almost cracked up in her face. What did Connie possibly know about purchasing? First, it was recruiting, then it was benefits and now she was dying to get into purchasing? I didn’t know how she thought she could simply leave public relations and go manage a department she knew nothing about. It just didn’t make any sense. She seemed so excited and confident about it, too. But she would soon find out that Jim and Lyle were never going to promote her into any of those positions.

“Go for it, girl,” I said, feeling guilty because I knew I wasn’t being honest about the way I felt.

“I am. I’m going to get out of public relations yet.”

“I hear you.”

“Well, I’d better get over there and have another daiquiri before Lyle and Jim stop buying.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“Hey, girl,” Lorna said, taking a seat.

Kelli Jacobson walked up at the same time as Lorna.

“Congratulations on the promotion, Anise,” Kelli said, smiling.

I couldn’t tell whether her well-wishes were genuine or synthetic.

“Thank you,” I acknowledged.

“Maybe I should have applied for that position, too, because it looks like the recruiting one is on hold indefinitely.”

“Maybe you should have,” I said, wondering why she’d come over here.

“It wouldn’t have mattered, though, because everyone knew you were the best person for the job. Jim is always talking about how well you fit in with the factory employees, and really, I wouldn’t know where to begin when it comes to those people.”

“What do you mean, ‘those people’?” I asked defensively.

“You know. The people who work out in the shop.”

“Well, first of all, Kelli, I believe I’m qualified to work with
all
people at Reed Meyers. Factory, clerical, corporate—”

“She’s even qualified to work with poor white trash like you,” Lorna interrupted.

Lorna and I turned and looked at each other, laughing hysterically. It wasn’t funny, but we knew our amusement would annoy our uninvited visitor.

“This is a conversation between Anise and me, Lorna, so I think you’d better mind your own business,” Kelli said.

“Anise
is
my business, and if you don’t step away from this table, you’re going to get your little ass kicked.”

“How unprofessional,” Kelli said, pursing her lips, and walked away.

“What a stupid, ignorant, whorish bitch,” Lorna said.

“I can’t believe she even had the audacity to bring her butt over here.”

“She’s an idiot!” Lorna exclaimed. “And this is the type of thing I would expect from someone like her.”

“Well, I don’t care what she is, but I know she had better make that her last time approaching me with those crazy comments.”

“They’re giving her that job. I could tell by the smug look on her face, and even though I didn’t think Jim would stoop low enough to screw trash like her, I’m starting to think I was wrong. Just look,” she said, gazing in the direction Kelli had gone in. “Just look how giggly and close up on him she is. And look at the way Jim keeps smiling at her. It’s almost like they’ve forgotten who and where they are. Liquor will bring out the darkest of secrets if you listen and watch
close enough. I know about this type of thing all too well, because I spill my own guts to anyone who will listen every time I get drunk myself.”

“If they give her that job, she’ll be at a higher level than me, because I found out today that the corporate management position is one level higher than the manufacturing one.”

“I thought you knew that.”

“I didn’t, because they conveniently left it off the job posting. Usually they always list the grade of pay, and I didn’t even think to ask because I assumed both jobs were the same in terms of grade.”