Page 33 of All Out of Love

“But yet your driver just came in with my luggage and put them in that room over there. How would he know which room to put them in?”

“That’s his job to bring my luggage in after I return to town from a trip. Since you had luggage, it was his job to bring it in. He’s not spending the night. He’s doing his job and then he’ll go on home.”

“But how would he have known which room to put my luggage in?”

“It’s the only bedroom down here. It’s my room. There are other rooms upstairs. Many others.”

She expected him to say that he’d take her luggage on upstairs to one of those other rooms later, but he didn’t say any such thing. He simply prepared two drinks and made his way back into the living room. He handed her one of them.

“Thanks.” It looked like wine.

He sat in the chair that flanked the sofa. Although he sat upright with his arms on the arms of the chair and his legs crossed, she could tell how exhausted he was.

“Where did you go?” she asked him.

He looked at her. “Pardon me?”

“Your clothes. Looks like you just stepped out of Carnegie Hall or somewhere like that.”

“Ah. Yes. It was opera night.”

Opera. That was so foreign to Toya that it wasn’t even funny. “You like operas, Toya?” he asked her.

“Soap operas, yeah,” she said.

He laughed.

“Just kidding. I take it you love operas,” she said.

But Grayson had to think about it. “Not particularly, no.”

“Then why did you go to one?”

“It’s my father’s patronage. We’ve gone once per month since my childhood.”

She waited for an explanation that was more nuanced than that, but nothing else came.

Then he looked at her. “Tell me about yourself, Jameesha Latoya Morgan. Were you born and raised here in Maryland?”

“In Baltimore, yes sir. But I left as soon as I turned eighteen. I wanted out so bad I could taste it.”

He could relate to that. “Where did you end up?”

“Florida. Ocala. Well, actually Orlando at first but I couldn’t find any good job there. They had plenty of maid work because they had plenty tourists hotels there, but I promised myself I’d never be anybody’s maid.”

Grayson studied her. “Why would you make that promise?”

“I had high hopes for myself. I was afraid I’d turn out like my mama did. She started doing maid work when she was really young, and she never did any other kind of work. I was scared I’d get stuck too. So I figured the only way not to get stuck in all those low-level type jobs is to refuse to accept any. But also, and I know this is gonna sound very superficial, but I wanted to dress up to go to work. Not dress down.”

Grayson laughed. “And you dress up very well.”

She grinned. “But it sounds really superficial doesn’t it?”

“Very much so,” he said. Then his look turned serious. “But if you don’t create boundaries for yourself, there won’t be any. And then you’ll settle for whatever you can get.”

She nodded. “Right. So while I was still in Orlando I refused those maid jobs and applied to be a desk clerk. But they gave the job to somebody else and offered me maid work. Which I turned down. But then I saw this ad about a brand-new accounting firm looking to hire a bunch of people for office work. It was in Ocala, which is like an hour-and-a-half from Orlando, but I applied anyway. I was called for an interview, and I got the job.”

“As?”