“I don’t think we have a choice,” his brother replied. “It’s okay. I know you tried your best.”
But it wasn’t good enough. It never was. Caleb had always excelled at school and sports, and he was more handsome, too. Even their parents had preferred their older child.
“Give me another chance. I can do this.” As if to prove it, he scrambled to straighten the papers.
Caleb raised an eyebrow. “Henry, we have to face reality.”
“One more chance.” He stood and stepped around the desk. “I won’t let you down. Please.”
“All right.” Caleb squeezed his shoulder. “One month. No longer.”
“Thanks,” Henry said as he sat down again.
“I’ve got to get back to Pearl Point.” Caleb eyed the messy desk. “I’m afraid I don’t have time to help you with this today.”
Henry laid his palms on the nearest jumble. “Straightening these papers is the next thing on my list.”
Caleb pointed to the leaning pile of business books on the corner of the desk. “Were these any help?”
The breath caught in Henry’s throat. “Well, I looked through them. I’ll study them more. Number two on my list.”
He couldn’t admit the words tangled into a bigger mess than his desk when he tried to read them. But he would try again and even take notes. He was not about to be a failure.
“Good luck.” Caleb donned his hat and strode out the door.
Henry stared out the window with more longing than ever. Part of him needed to run to the pier and hop onto the nearest boat. Anything to escape this prison…this hopeless situation. Why hadn’t he admitted defeat like a man? By insisting on another chance, he’d probably run Rockfield’s into a larger hole than it was already in.
He glared at the papers. He could straighten them, but forget making sense of them. And he sure as hell couldn’t make sense of those fancy books. The more he read them, the more confused he got. Only a miracle could save him.
After dragging himself to his feet, he stepped out of the office to survey the shuckers laboring below. Each stood inside a personal wooden stall to protect the feet and legs from piles of discarded oyster shells. They worked so hard every day, struggling to feed their families and keep roofs over their heads. If the plant shut down, it would cause a lot of hardship. They depended on him. All of them.
His attention drifted to Sadie Johnson, who worked beside her mother. Buck, her ex-husband, didn’t work here any longer. Thank goodness. The man had been a fool to let a vibrant woman like her go. Although her dark-gray skirt and lighter-gray blouse matched the concrete room, the other workers faded into the background as he studied her body. The way her flared hips tilted to one side, as if to ease a crick in her back. The way she wiped her eyes with the back of her arm.
Was she crying? He admired how openly she wore her emotions. If only he could be so honest and free—with his brother, the town, himself. Why couldn’t he pull his eyes away from her? At least his preference for women outside his race was something he had in common with Caleb.
His heartbeat quickened when she gazed up at the ceiling and shook her head as if looking for strength she didn’t find. She was clearly as miserable as he was.
His arms tingled, itching to draw her soft, curvy body within them. To shelter and hold her until her problems melted away. Then, maybe his own burdens would lighten. He’d never be able to touch her except in his mind. She was black. He was white. He also belonged to the Klan, one of the costs of doing business in Oyster Harbor.
Although she looked miserable now, living on the street would be even worse. He had to save this place. For her.
* * *
On Saturday, Sadie disembarked from the steamboat she’d taken to Baltimore. She’d carefully pinned every hair to her head and made sure the shawl collar of her tan Sunday dress lay neatly in place. Hopefully, she wouldn’t throw up on it from nerves and seasickness. With luck, the ride back wouldn’t be as windy, either.
Mama had begged her not to go, predicting a bunch of doors would slam in her face.
“Save yourself the humiliation and stay home,” she’d said.
She was probably right, but Sadie had to try to break out of oyster-shucking hell. And she didn’t want to be a maid, either. Gripping the list of business schools in her sweating hand, she walked to the nearest one.
With her heart thudding against her ribs, she climbed the brick steps to the front door of the brick building. After stepping inside, she marveled at the quiet cleanliness. How nice to sniff a nose full of nothing instead of stinky oysters. A chalkboard listed a schedule for stenography, typewriting, and accounting lessons.
She wanted to throw herself on a desk and nail herself to it so she never had to leave.
A thin white woman at the reception desk looked up from her papers. “May I help you?”
Sadie’s enthusiasm slipped a few notches at the woman’s closed expression and cold tone of voice.
“I-I’m here to—” She cleared her throat and spoke slowly, striving to sound like a cultured person. “Inquire about enrolling in this here…ahem…your school.”
“For whom?”
Sadie frowned. “For myself, ma’am. How much does it cost?”
Not much, she prayed. She and her mother kept their savings in an old soup can, and it barely filled half of it.
“We don’t accept your kind here.” The woman craned her scrawny neck. “This is a white school.”
Told you so,
Mama’s voice hissed in her mind.
Sadie squared her shoulders. “If I painted myself white, would that suit you?”
“Get out.”
“I have a good mind.” Sadie clenched her hands into fists as she stepped closer. “And just as much right to use it as any white gal.”
“Such impertinence!” The woman’s face wobbled above her stick of a neck and turned red. “Get out or I’ll call the police and have you thrown out.”
She froze. Getting arrested would make her miserable life even worse and leave her mother in the cold. Without another word, she left, but she couldn’t resist giving the front door a good slam on the way out.
“Well, that went well,” she muttered to herself.
She unwadded the list of schools she’d balled up in her hand. Before she could read the address of the next one, a tear fell on it. Her shoulders shook as the ink bloomed in the moisture until it was almost illegible.
As she trudged toward the next address, she wished she’d worn her comfortable work shoes instead of her Sunday heels. The second school wasn’t any more receptive than the first.
“Give me an entrance exam, so I can prove how smart I am,” she’d insisted.
But it was no use. Accepting someone with black skin wasn’t their
policy
. Well, she hoped they choked on their stupid policy. Didn’t they realize she still had to make a living even though she didn’t fit their perfect rules?
And what’s the use of being born with a headful of brains if I can’t use them anywhere?
She plopped onto a park bench to ease her aching feet. Mama was right. She should never have even considered business school. If she’d never come here, she could always hold the dream in the back of her mind—something she might try if she got desperate enough. Now she knew it would never work. Oyster shucking would now feel ten times worse.
All she had to look forward to were a nauseous ride home on the steamer, more slimy oysters, and the life of a complete failure. With any luck, the boat would sink before it reached Oyster Harbor.
* * *
The next Monday, Sadie ripped the oysters apart so hard, she tore a glove and had to get another. The floor supervisor didn’t look too happy about it. Tough ham hocks. If he gave her any lip, she’d tell him what he could do with his lousy glove.
Mama peered at her and frowned. “Sadie, stop taking your frustrations out on those poor oysters. You’re ruining them.”
“I don’t care,” she muttered. “I hate oysters.”
“Didn’t I warn you not to go traipsin’ to Baltimore? None of those fancy white schools would ever accept you.” She broke her oyster open. “I could have told you that.”
“Enough, Mama.” Sadie threw down her knife. “I know it was a mistake.”
Passing under the low ceiling, she carried her two buckets of shucked meat to the weigh window. Tears blurred her eyes as she glared at the slimy things, but it was better than looking at the endless floor and tables of gray concrete. Smelly boat fuel drifted in from the unloading dock, competing with the stench of raw seafood. And the constant racket of shoveling and shucking was enough to split her skull open.
How would she get through this day? This week? The rest of her rotten, miserable life?
When she reached the window, she plunked her buckets on the wooden sill harder than she intended. The stiff-looking man working the scales frowned at her. His eyes looked enormous through his spectacles as he dumped one bucket of her oysters into the basket.
“They’re all horribly mangled,” he exclaimed. “There’s hardly a fit one in the whole bunch.”
The man complained to everybody. He wouldn’t recognize the world’s most perfect oyster if it fell on his head. Instead of replying to his insult, she drummed her fingers on the ledge as she waited for him to write her tally in the book. It better be good because the count determined her pay. When he wrote a big zero, fiery heat shot through her blood.
“No! I worked hard to shuck those,” she insisted.
“Well, you’d better work harder to make sure they stay in one piece. We ought to charge you for ruining them.”
Her mouth opened and quivered as she scrambled for the right thing to say. Mama depended on her, she reminded herself. A line formed behind her as other workers waited to check in their oysters.
“Let’s see the next bucket,” Dan Short, the weighman said. “I hope they’re better than the first. Hurry, now.”
“I hope so, too,” she muttered before flinging the wet, slippery mess straight toward his face.
Everything that followed happened so fast she could hardly keep track of it. The people behind her gasped and made rueful sounds.
“Lord, she’s done it now,” a woman said.
But Sadie’s gaze was riveted to the weighman. Oysters covered his thin hair, and one was stuck to his spectacles while still another oozed down his hollow cheek. If the situation wasn’t so grim, she’d laugh because he sure looked ridiculous.
“This is an outrage,” he yelled. “I need some help here!”
Bill Murdock, the grumpy floor supervisor who’d given her a hard time about her glove, rushed over. His lip twitched as if he stifled a laugh or horror. Maybe both.
“Good heavens. What happened?”
When Short pointed a long, shaking finger at her, she forgot how to breathe. Her last breath lodged in her lungs, a big, painful lump that grew staler by the second.
“This calls for dismissal,” he yelled. “Or worse. Get the police.”
The supervisor blinked at him. “Well, you hardly look injured. I’m taking her to Mr. Rockfield. He’ll decide her fate.”
“Just—” She clapped a hand over her mouth. She’d been about to beg him to fire her, but she needed this job. Maybe if she begged hard enough, Henry Rockfield would take pity on her since her family had worked here so long.
A vise of anguish squeezed her chest. Because the thought of facing that handsome man after what she’d done was worse than anything she’d been through yet.
Chapter Two
When Murdock marched into Henry’s office, dragging a female employee by the back of her dress collar, he dropped the handful of papers he held.
Sadie.
He thrust his hands into his pockets before they could latch onto the supervisor’s throat. His role as manager must be played at all times. Even when his blood roared in his ears so hard he could barely hear.
“What’s going on?” he asked as calmly as he could.
The man’s lip curled as he tightened his grip on her. “This one assaulted the weighman.”
Please don’t let it be true.
The last thing he wanted to do was fire her and make her life even harder.
“How?” he asked.
“She threw a bucket of oysters at him, sir.”
Henry pressed his fingertips into his palms because the urge to laugh overtook his need to throttle the supervisor. When Caleb worked here, he’d fired him. Pressure from the Klan had forced Henry to give him his job back. Dan Short was even worse, always assuming the employees plotted to cheat the company.
And he’d rather walk on a bed of rusty fishhooks than check endless columns of numbers.
“Is he injured?”
“Only his pride,” Murdock replied. “Shucked oysters are soft, and she didn’t throw the bucket itself. His spectacles, however, will require a good cleaning.”
“Oh…boy.”
Henry masked his bark of laughter with a pretend cough. What he wouldn’t give to have witnessed it. The incident sure added a spark of interest to his dreary day and hopeless task of saving the company.
Sadie squirmed the entire time she stood there, like a worm on a hook. The man’s grip continued to tighten on her collar. She must be close to choking by now. The faded orange and brown flowers on the fabric pulled taut, exposing more lush, dark skin.
Stop fighting it, sweetheart. Don’t make it worse for yourself.
Why had she done such a thing? Didn’t she know the town had rules and the only way she could survive was to abide by them?
“How shall she be punished, sir?” the supervisor asked. “Should I call the police?”
Dread gripped Henry’s heart. Even though he didn’t care for the rules any more than she did, he’d have to enforce them. Especially if he wanted to save this company. Damn her! Why had she done such a foolish thing?
“Leave her with me,” he said after releasing a heavy sigh. “I’ll decide what’s to be done. In the meantime, please do the weighman’s work until he gets…er…cleaned up.”
“Very well.”
The man glared at Sadie with hard, disappointed eyes under his round, white hat. Clearly, he’d hungered for an arrest or dismissal. He released her with such a jerk, she lost her balance, inches away from sprawling across Henry’s desk. Although he could imagine some interesting things to do to her in that position, his muscles tensed, aching to punch Bill Murdock’s big nose for treating her so roughly.