Page 9 of All Out of Love

But again, she looked dead serious. “Fix yourself up,” she admonished him. “It’s been a lot of long days for me. I’ve been pounding the pavement looking for work ever since I got back in town a month ago, which is never easy to do. And especially not when you’re in your thirties. They always ask where are you working now. When I say I’m between jobs, they look at you like something’s wrong with you. But I still try to be presentable wherever I go. You should too. But anyway,” she said as she threw her makeup into her bag and began hurrying for the exit. “I gots to go. I’m early, but I’m not that early.”

She glanced back at him as she opened the door. “Do better,” she said as she hurried on out.

Grayson stood there in disbelief. Nobody ever spoke to him in such an admonishing, but caring tone the way she spoke to him. She was a firecracker, he thought. Then he wondered what on earth did pounding the pavement mean exactly?

But then he took what she said to heart and looked at himself in the mirror. She was right: He was a mess. But nobody had ever bothered to tell him so.

Not that they had to, he thought as he pushed away from the sink and made his way toward the exit too. He already knew.

CHAPTER SEVEN

When Toya left Grayson, she wasn’t thinking about him or their encounter in that bathroom at all. She was thinking about what that butler had said. That she was to go into the room where the other ladies were waiting. What other ladies? She thought she was the only one assigned to the job. Or was this a job interview after all, and not an actual placement? But that wouldn’t make sense for a placement agency. They placed.

When she finally made it to the room, which looked like a parlor to her, she saw what he was talking about. There were eight other people in that room: Three were white, three were black, and two were Hispanic. All of the ladies looked younger than Toya.

And Toya was confused. Were all of them vying for the same assignment? Was there a mix-up between different placement agencies in the Baltimore area and every agency sent a representative? From what she’d heard, it wouldn’t be the first time.

But given the way those white girls gave her that up-and-down assessing look, and then looked away from her as if her age alone rendered her no threat to them, and the way the black and Hispanic ladies ignored her altogether, she decided not to ask any of them any questions. None of them looked as if they would know the answers anyway.

She waited like they waited. And she tried, with all she had, not to show her desperation. Because she was truly desperate. This might have been just another gig to everybody else, but it was everything to Toya.

And then finally, after nearly twenty minutes of more waiting, a tall, thin, fiftyish-looking white woman walked into the parlor room. All of the girls immediately stood up, as if they knew the woman. So Toya stood up too.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” the woman said.

Everybody responded cheerfully. Toya, however, remained silent. She was too anxious to know if she still had the job.

“My name is Lois Javits. I am the house manager of the Carrington estate and have been thus for the past decade. You all were asked to come here because this will be your place of employment. Five of you were selected during an extensive interview process for the seven vacancies in Housekeeping. Congratulations. One of you was selected to work in the file room. One of you was sent over by a temp agency that we contacted this morning to answer the phones.”

Toya sighed relief. She was the only one there for the receptionist position.

“When I call your names, please state which position you are here for.”

She called the three black ladies and the two Hispanic ladies names first. They all said they had been hired for maid work in housekeeping. Then she called the three white girls. Two of them said they were hired for maid work as well, and the other one said she’d been hired to work in the file room. Then she got to Toya.

“Ja-tee-sha Morgan?”

“That’s Jameesha Morgan,” Latoya corrected her, “and I’m here for the receptionist position.”

“There is no receptionist position. You’re here to answer the phones.”

“Yes ma’am,” Toya said, although receptionist was the title the agency told her. “I’m here to answer the phones.”

The old woman smiled after everybody else said what they were there for, but she gave Toya that look of blanket disapproval. As if Toya was some party crasher who dropped out of the sky and showed up uninvited.

But that was nothing new to Toya. She’d dealt with disapproving looks her entire life. Although she had hoped that this time would be different.

But looking at Miss Javits, she realized right away she had been hoping for too much.

Javits pointed to Toya, the other black and Hispanic ladies, and one of the three white girls. “You seven will report to Housekeeping. You will report to the file office,” she said to one of the two remaining white girls, “and you,” she said to the remaining white girl, “will answer the phones.”

The white girl Miss Javits selected to do the job Toya was supposed to be doing beamed. But Toya was shocked.

“When the young lady who normally answers the phones returns from maternity leave,” Javits said to the beaming girl, “then you will report to Housekeeping on a permanent basis. And you,” she said to Toya, “will go back to your temp agency. Understood?” she asked all of them.

Although the other girls nodded their understanding, Toya raised her hand. “Excuse me, but there’s been a terrible mix-up. I was told to come here to answer the phones. Not to work in Housekeeping.” She had already pulled out her assignment paper. “See?” She offered it to Miss Javits. “I’m here to be the receptionist.”

But Javits didn’t bother to so much as glance at her assignment paper. “You are here to do whatever job we allow you to do.”