Everyday I pass her cube multiple times and each time she is peering into a mirror as she talks on the phone, some implement in her hand applying makeup to her already over taxed eyes. She has perfected the art, but it is a temporal medium and requires constant vigilance. I am her quality monitor and I listen as she reads her script, stopping at the end of lines instead of at punctuation marks. Still, after long practice she is competent on the phones and her quality scores are acceptable. She needs the job as she is a single mom with a young son to rear.
We had a catered dinner for our holiday treat last week and I shared a table with her. In fact I was the only white girl at the table, and while no one ignores that fact, they all know me as a liberal and they slid from their phone english into the cadence and grammar that is most comfortable. I catch the middle of her conversation...
“...and his daddy ask me, what that boy doing up that time of night? That man is a fool. I told him he's watching history, history. We gonna go up there (Inaugration) cause I want him to see it. I want him to know that a black man don't have to be a basketball player or a musician. He can be president.”
The first thing that came to my mind was the Onion article that quipped, “Black Man Given Worst Job In Nation”, but I understood what she was saying. I try to imagine the colorful baby mama as the mother of a president but I can't bring it into focus. I do know that her son will grow up in a world of new possibilities, a world I dreamed about and worked for all my life. I know that my grandson will grow up in that world too and I can't help but wonder, what will they dream?
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